School Board Meeting | November 9, 2021

001[Music] there we go good afternoon ladies and gentlemen i would like to call the november 9th regular school board meeting to order if i could have it quieted down in the audience i would be most appreciative thank you now i would like to ask sarah beth wyatt to please give our invocation and i would ask the audience to please stand and remain standing for the pledge of allegiance ms wyatt thank you lord thank you for this day thank you for an opportunity for us to all come here together under one roof to celebrate the wonderful things happening in our schools and work through some of our opportunities and thank you for calling us all here giving us the opportunity to serve and appointing us for a time such as this and thank you for every

002one of our students and staff members and give us the ability to lead using your guidance in your name we pray amen amen and now i would like to ask please remain standing i would like to ask our very special guests our twins jaden and angelina coletti third graders from elbert elementary school to come forward and lead us in the pledge of allegiance are you all ready it's okay it's going to catch you if you'll put your hand over your heart are you ready let's face the flag i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay the audience please be seated but if you would stay right where you are all right

003[Applause] well that was a great job i think they could hear you in the neighboring city of bartow yeah yeah yeah you guys did a great job okay angelina would you please be the one to introduce who you all brought with you today you can stay right there so they can see it in the microphone go ahead and tell us the people we brought today is mom and auntie could mom and auntie please stand to be recognized [Applause] who else who else came with you angelina will you want to tell us jaden who else came with you came with us who did that's right mr dawson please stand and be recognized okay tell me jaden what is your favorite subject in school my favorite subject is science okay and what do you want to be

004when you grow up a veterinarian wow that is awesome and angelina can you tell us what you like best about school i love music oh do you do you sing do you dance do you we get to play the instruments which one do you like maybe the piano awesome wow i'd love to hear you play sometime that's wonderful now you all may not realize but these two young people are incredible spellers spellers so angelina can you spell the word school wow right and jayden can you spell the word building b [Music] wow you guys are awesome we are so blessed to have you here today you are wonderful young people you are going to do great things in life we thank you we thank your your family for bringing you today and your principal and

005i hope you have an awesome time over thanksgiving and we'll hope to see you back here again sometime soon thank you all right thanks so much you guys may be seated board members the first item today is to accept our agenda superintendent hyde are there any revisions to the agenda as printed yes ma'am madam chair members of the board there are several revisions item p1 which is out of state travel will now include winter haven basketball team who will be traveling to seattle on december 17th through december 21st item r1 the rate lock agreement with pnc bank had an additional attachment provided item r2 naming of cleveland court elementary media center had an attachment included item u1 authority to advertise policy changes had an item added and item u2 waiver of conflict of interest had

006an item added those two as you recall came on the request of the board attorney those are all the changes madam thank you sir so the chair will entertain a motion to accept the agenda for november 9th 2021 with the noted revisions do i have a motion and a second so moved second is there any discussion seeing none i'd like to call for a vote all those in favor please signify by saying i i all those opposed nay carries unanimously the next item today is our special recognitions mr hyde would you lead us through our special recognitions today madam chair under special recognitions i will ask board member dr william allen to please say a few words within the last year we have measured and logged quite a bit of time lewis mumford says with

007the invention of the clock eternity cease to serve as the measure and focus of human events each meeting we begin with the approval of minutes i estimated that within the last year we approved over approximately 4 400 minutes of board business under your leadership within that measurement of time we just want to say thanks for serving the last two years as a board member and as our board chair you have led us through probably one of the most complicated times as we've had to navigate through the covet scenario secondly you've worked with staff attorneys the superintendent to address school board personnel issues along with hiring our new executive assistant to the board thirdly you served as the chairman of the superintendent search from june 2020 through june which from my perspective is probably one of

008the most important things that we do as a school board madam chair you have led us well and all of this honoring all of our staff i think remembering back to last december what really stuck out to me as the youngest board member is you went through and you read off every individual department within the largest organization within our county and that stuck out to me lastly you you demonstrate the sincere care for every student just right over here as you were interacting with our two guests today i mean that is so impressionable and that demonstrates to me your sincere care not only for our staff but our students so although the clock may have moved the focus away from nature being the measurement of time under your leadership mrs cunningham you've kept our focus

009on the main goal and the main goal which is students first so with that i just want to present to you this beautiful wow plaque four-year service thank you thank you [Applause] thank you so much wow thank you so much i'm not going to cry okay you'd like to continue with the special recognitions yes ma'am madam chair that concludes special recognition and thank you for your service thank you sir appreciate it the next item is public comments on agenda items and i don't have any cards there are none on this time okay y'all are making it easy for me tonight this is wonderful all righty well there's different times to speak so you'll be called up when the time is appropriate there's three times within the board meeting that folks can speak so each of

010your cards is being duly noted next board members we need to approve two sets of minutes the first set of minutes is for the october 26 2021 school board meeting the chair will entertain a motion to accept the october 26 2021 school board meeting minutes as printed do i have a motion and a second so moved second second is there any discussion seeing none i'd like to call for a vote all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye all those opposed nay motion carries unanimously the second set of minutes is for the october 26th work session the chair will entertain a motion to accept october 26 2021 work session minutes as printed do i have a motion and a second second is there any discussion seeing none i'd like to call for a

011vote all those in favor please signify by saying i i all those opposed nay motion carries unanimously the next item is going to be the reorganization of the board and before we do that i would like for mr bridges to go through and publicly explain what we did at our pre-retreat a week or so ago regarding board members interests in serving as chair or vice chair as we go through reorganization tonight because that was a meeting that we had and i want to make sure that it's publicly acknowledged so mr bridges would you be so kind and read your email please thank you madam chair this is just a quick recap of the conversation from the board's retreat last week at that time current chair lori cunningham of district two having served two consecutive terms

012as chair indicated she would decline nomination for further services chair or vice chair at this time sarah fortney district 3 expressed interest in serving as vice chair sarah beth reynolds wyatt district 4 expressed interest in serving as chair or vice chair k fields district 5 expressed interest in serving as chair lynn wilson district 6 expressed interest in serving as chair and lisa miller district 7 expressed interest in serving as chair as vice chair i'm sorry um that that does not uh preclude anyone here from from expressing interest at any time uh prior to the reorganization but that was the conversation that was had by the board on last monday thank you mr bridges i appreciate that at this time i would like to turn the school board meeting over to superintendent hyde who will conduct

013the reorganization of our school board superintendent hyde thank you good evening it's a pleasure to welcome you to the november 9th 2021 meeting of the school board of polk county florida the board chair has called this meeting in order to order and pursuant to florida statute 1001.371 and i as superintendent will now act as chair until the organization of the board has been completed at this time we do request all cell phones and and or other devices be turned off or put into the silent mode our next order of business is to elect a board chair i will use the following procedure in a moment i will open the floor to nominations after board members have had ample time to make all nominations they wish i will ask for a motion to close the nominations

014after which afterwards i will conduct a roll call vote by district beginning with the first candidate nominated if there is a majority for the first nominee the election of the board chair will be complete and we will move for the election of the vice chair if there is not a majority in favor of the first nominee there will be a roll call vote for the second nominee this process will continue until a board chair is elected by majority vote i will use the same method in the election of the vice chair are there any questions at this time seeing none i will now accept nominations for chairman please note that nominations do not require a second dr allen sure i'll nominate lynn wilson ms miller i'll nominate sarah beth wyatt miss fortney i will nominate

015miss k fields seeing no further i will now entertain a motion that nominations be closed i'll need a motion so moved second thank you all in favor please indicate with an eye all opposed we now have our nominees i will now conduct a roll call vote in the order of nomination the first nominee was lynn wilson district six i will call each member by district please indicate whether or not you support the first nominee by saying aye dr alan hi miss cunningham i miss fortney ms wyatt miss fields mr wilson aye ms miller we do not have a majority so i will conduct a roll call vote in order of nomination again the second nominee was sarah beth wyatt sarah beth reynolds wyatt i'll begin with district one dr alan hi miss cunningham aye ms

016fortney i miss wyatt i miss fields mr wilson hi miss miller aye at this time we have a majority with six eyes one abstention and so at this time mr bridges we now move on to vice chair correct yes so our chairman-elect is now miss sarah beth reynolds wyatt congratulations i will now accept nominations for the role of vice chair i nominate lisa miller miss reynolds wyatt i nominate miss fortney any other nominations seeing none i will now entertain a motion that nominations be closed i will need a motion need a second second all in favor please say aye aye all opposed please indicate with an a vote i will now conduct a roll call vote in the order of nomination the first nominee was miss lisa miller i will call each member by district

017please indicate whether or not you support the first nominee by saying i or an a dr allen miss cunningham aye ms fortney aye ms wyatt aye miss fields mr wilson miss miller aye that is a majority with four eyes so miss lisa miller will serve as vice chair the next item of the design is the designation of time date and place of school board meetings i recommend that the board hold meetings on the fourth tuesday of each month at 5 pm with these meetings to be held in the school board auditorium or head to jim miles center and if it's the school board auditorium at the administrative offices in bartow florida i will now entertain a motion to that effect superintendent hyde i make a motion to approve the recommendation of the superintendent for time

018date and place of school board meetings thank you need a second second any discussion all in favor please vote aye aye all opposed same vote the next item is approval of resolution 2021-2022-06 authorizing the banks of polk county florida as depositories of school funds to honoring cash warrants drawn against said funds when signed by the board chair and secretary of the board i will now entertain a motion superintendent hyde i make a motion to approve resolution 2021-2022-6 authorizing banks to honor and cash warrants signed by the board chair and secretary to the school board thank you is there a second second all is there any discussion all in favor please indicate when i vote any opposed seeing none the next item on today's reorganization agenda is my recommendation that the proceedings of school board meetings

019be held in accordance with robert's rules of order revised and the rules of administrative procedures act i will now entertain a motion so moved second is there any discussion all in favor please say aye aye any opposed that completes the reorganization of the board i will now turn the meeting over to the new chair miss sarah beth reynolds wyatt thank you mr hyde [Applause] in the next order of business is the approval of our november 9th 2021 consent agenda can i get a motion in a second removed second all those in favor please signify by saying aye the like sign for all those against and the motion carries mr hyde would you like to introduce our new administrators i would i believe he's here so this time i'd like to ask mr harry fix mr

020fix was previously the senior planner in osceola county county excuse me and we have now recruited him and hired him on as senior director for facilities and operations so mr fix please come up to mike if you wish if you have family with you please feel free to bring them with you as well congratulations thank you sir i didn't bring my grandchildren but they would have been almost as entertaining but they're four and one and they're at home and probably getting ready for bed thank you so much superintendent for this opportunity to serve the community here of polk county i look forward to doing so of course being the right-hand person of mrs usher and trying to help her as much as i can with a daunting task that we have of responding to the

021development that is upon us here in polk county today thank you thank you thank you so mr fit so much mr fix and welcome to polk county we're thrilled to have you back the next order of business is number r1 the rate lock agreement with pnc bank national association and the recommended action is a motion to approve a rate lock agreement with pnc bank national association motion to authorize the execution and delivery with advice from pfm financial advisors llc at a rate lock letter agreement with pnc bank national association in connection with the refunding of the refunding certificates of participation school board of polk county master lease program series 2017a evidencing fractional undivided interest of the owners thereof and the basic rent payments to be made under a master lease purchase agreement by the school

022board of polk county florida in connection with the proposed issuance of the refunding sort of certificates of participation series 2021a under the master lease purchase agreement by the school board of polk county florida provided that the net present value savings of the refunding based on the lock interest rate under the rate lock letter agreement shall be at least two hundred thousand dollars and the members of the board the secretary special counsel counsel to the board and officers and the officers attorneys and other agents or employees of the district and the board are hereby authorized to do all acts and things required of them by this motion or desirable or consistent with the requirements of this motion can i get a motion in a second so move second all this in favor please signify by saying

023aye aye aye aye aye aye chair could could we have some discussion please absolutely um we were told earlier in the work session that we would have an updated an update on the interest rate and we got one and it's absolutely remarkable so i'd like to ask that we get that make that public please ms jenkins if you please approach sorry mr wilson i'm looking for my email i sent earlier um when we spoke earlier in the workshop i mentioned a two point i believe it was 2.68 percent interest rate that was actually our estimated rate of return at the time um it's looking like it's going to be about 0.48 so our rate of return should be between 1 and 2.68 hence the reason you all are approving the rate lock so that we

024can lock in a good rate now and prevent it from dropping any further and to your question mr allen it's with regions bank most of our certificates of participation are held with u.s bank but that one is with regions okay great thank you and you know i know that ms cunningham and miss fields will remember it wasn't so long ago that we struggled as a school district with our financial statements and our financial audits and um we we were sided with numerous internal control issues that was a number of years ago and we fixed that and now we're we're blessed with clean audits we're blessed with exemplary audits and uh we were able to um dispose of some derivatives that were creating some challenges for us as it relates to our credit rating and our

025interest rates and folks used to ask me why is it so important that we have clean audits and good financial statements one of the reasons is it helps your credit rating it helps lower your interest rates and here we are today all these years later i shouldn't say all these years later uh some years later and we have exemplary we're getting exemplary rates and and that's a product of of the work that we've done over the years to to you know again clean up the internal control deficiencies that we had as well as um dispose of those derivatives and replace them with more with less volatile um financial instruments so i i this is this is the culmination of that and and i think we should be very proud of that so thank you for

026for that opportunity to share that with our public absolutely thank you mr wilson any other discussion seeing none all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye all those opposed and the motion carries next item on the agenda is item r2 naming of cleveland court elementary media center can i get a motion second and any discussion mr allen madam chair dr allen thank you so much you know thanks to dr henry for moving this initiative forward we discussed this briefly earlier today principal rutenbar at cleveland court as well for her leadership to recognize outstanding service within our schools i'm not sure what your age range is out in the audience we discussed this briefly this this morning as well we all admitted our age not really but as most individuals are ramping up to

027move towards retirement at the age of 62 mrs fowler started as a paraprofessional in kindergarten at cleveland court and the media center until her retirement at the age of 88. even after retiring she continued to volunteer and serve until our schools were closed due to covid mrs fowler passed away on december 19 2020 at the age of 93. clearly clearly she is a positive role model for all of us and exhibited a commitment to excellence in serving our school district so it's with that in mind that we're bringing this initiative forward to actually name the media center after mrs fowler thank you dr alan reading the letter it's just one of those things that makes you smile as you you read it so i appreciate your comments any further discussion seeing none all those in

028favor please signify by saying aye aye all those opposed and the motion carries we'll now move on to our public hearing the recommended action for our public hearing is motion to approve the following updated policies 8450.01 protective facial coverings during pandemic academic event epidemic events it can be it can be done this way thank you mr bridges yes the next um policy will be 2260.01 section 504 ada prohibition against discrimination based on disability policy three will be policy five three five zero student suicide prevention awareness and screening and policy 7540.04 staff technology acceptable use and safety we'll now have an opportunity for public comment on these items and i'll start with the list that we have from those who signed in so first will be danny kruger and next on deck will be bobby d's

029danny krueger mr bridges as he's coming up would you mind going over our policies for public comments ladies and gentlemen as a reminder to all speakers addressing the board this evening this evening there were three opportunities to address the school board first at the beginning of the meeting before any official action was taken there were no no speakers signed up for that this evening again at the end of the meeting for any speakers wishing to address matters that are not on the agenda for action today as there are public hearings scheduled comments addressing the subjects of the public hearing may be delivered at this time uh persons wishing to speak who have filled out a speaker card which was available at the entrance will be a lot of three minutes to speak when you're recognized

030by the chair please step forward stand in the green square so your voice will be picked up by the microphone do not cross the red line please give your name and address if you're affiliated with a group you may announce that as well please direct all comments to the chair and refrain from making personal attacks or using profanity also please do not stand or otherwise block the vision of those behind you ladies and gentlemen those are the rules thank you my name is danny krieger i live at 4077 dunmore drive in lake wales esteemed members of the board chair superintendent hi last time we had this little chat i left some information with you that was a link to 47 different studies confirming that masks have zero effect on the prevention or spread of covid

031and 32 more studies confirming that mask actually may have a detrimental effect on the psychological and physiological effect on children so and all i was ever looking for was one study that proved that masks were effective just one clinical study and i never found one until recently it seems like somebody else was looking for the same thing and did a foyer request to the cdc uh her name was cara bell and basically what she asked for was any study that would prove the effectiveness of masks the response from the cdc is as follows i pray i apologize for the fuzziness i had to copy it and then blow it up off of a twitter post the cdc is not aware of any randomized control any randomized controlled trials that show that masks or double masks

032or cloth face coverings are effective against kova 19. they go on to say there is experimental data describing uh how mass block particles well particles are dust particles and they're at least 20 to 40 times larger than the covet virus the other thing i copied onto that same page was a a preprint from stanford's dr john ianitis and what he lists there is the infection survival rate the top line is children from the ages of zero to nineteen the survival rate for those kids is 99.9973 percent the virtually no kids die from covet so why the masks and even if the masks were effective which they obviously are not they do cause harm so what are the risk rewards of those things happening so given the really mountain of evidence against the effectiveness of masks

033i would have to say that anybody who votes for a mask mandate is either willfully ignorant or just plain ignorant neither of which is a good choice so i would ask you please don't even consider it thank you thank you mr cougar next up is bobby b's bobby d's and glinda white is on deck nancy pelosi once said people are meant to be ruled which is exactly what the democratic socialist party wants to do rule our country complete government control of our lives and livelihood even in our schools school board members and some teachers think they know what's best for our kids and grandkids telling us parents and grandparents we have no say-so meanwhile beating our kids this socialist stew is called in a crud and indoctrinating them to the leftist socialist agenda mandating masks

034in vaccines recognizing lgbtq and what it means and normalizing it and graphic sex sex education and let's not forget crt or crt by any other name parents and grandparents have come together over these issues it's our kids our right our decisions education not indoctrination you work for us and you can disagree if you want but if you do we'll just have to replace you it's that simple thank you mr linda geese glinda white and on deck we'll have william young and miss white if you could give us your name and address for the record hi my name is glenda white i live at 3851 gaines drive winter haven i am an advisory board member for the florida citizens alliance and also the event director for the winterhaven 912. first i want to say that i

035support deletion of the forced masking policy that i saw on the website the other day i'm hoping that you will vote to delete it i believe force masking was political from the beginning critical race theory is outlined by the left is a myth blm antifa naacp the southern poverty law center and others backed by socialist politicians and individuals promote systemic racism to keep voters of color on the leftist political plantation these groups are bigoted against anyone who doesn't follow their political point of view any person of color who doesn't hold leftist views is attacked by the media labeled uncle tom and other vile names by socialist politicians and media examples of this disgusting behavior abound the socialist left refuses to allow the nation to heal they use the education system in particular critical race theory

036to keep false notions of racism festering secure their voting base stay in power and continue getting rich while our kids graduate without being able to read a contract or run a household budget they need their voter base to remain ignorant without life skills and true knowledge of their nation florida is beyond ready and capable of withdrawing from funding the nea and creating our own education system keep florida money in florida and give parents full school choice since florida school boards continue to push crt and common core concepts on innocent children rather than properly educating them it's time for full school choice where the public education system cannot touch a dime unless the parent directs it to them uh cultural responsive teaching is being promoted to being taught in polk schools it's obvious that is obvious

037that polk crt is crt with a different name it has been rejected by the parents of polk county schools because it's full of hate biased irresponsible and harmful to kids the polk school system continues to hold on to horrific pornographic materials and will not commit to removing these items from recommended reading lists the online survey portrait of a graduate is an insult it's nothing more than common core based nonsense that doesn't address real life skills it should be removed immediately i've provided you with a copy of a proposed crc crt directive to review and i expect you to pass it we are now working with the governor and the state department of education to give parents full school choice we are educating the state office about polk schools version of crt and educating parents about

038the hope scholarship clean up polk's public school system thank you [Music] [Applause] thank you miss white william young and then next on deck will be jim taggett you could say your name and address for the record please certainly my name is bill young i'm at 1007 joyce road in lake wales florida uh and a full-time resident not part-time um i'm also a father of four children that i helped raise first thing i'd like to say is good evening asian american african-american native american etc what unites all these groups of peoples is american our country is not perfect it never has been but i believe what unites us is much greater than that which divides us no child should be taught to despise anything about themselves nor should they be muzzled you cannot build unity in

039understanding upon division and hate i am speaking out against crt and masks we can craftily word things to deceive their intent i believe we must put an end to listening to those whose intent is to divide us and throw out our unity and our progress i am reminded of an incident between my younger brother and our mother at a lake in western new york as a kid my mother's cat was drenched and my mother questioned my brother if he had thrown her cat in the lake he said no i was walking on the dock with queenie that was the cat's name and just gave her no room to walk i submit with crt and cloth mask mandates etc we are giving our children no room to walk together thank you for your time and consideration

040good evening thank you mr young next we have jim taggett and then on deck will be lola smith hi good evening yeah my name is jim taggett i live in 5253 in limburlos lane in lake wales and i'm going to speak about masks or against the mass a mandatory mass for children in schools and i've got way too much information here for three minutes so i'm just going to fly right through it this first is from frontiers in medicine every regard to a flemish study and they took mass brand new mass some were cloth some were surgical mass and they wore them people wear them for four hours and they did they counted the bacteria it's called a colony-forming unit that's what they measure bacteria with a number of bacteria now on the uh plain

041cotton mass they went from fourteen hundred colony forming units prior to the test to 143 thousand after the four hours so that's bacteria that little kids are holding right up here in their mouth like that okay and then with the surgical mass they started out with about 8 600 uh excuse me 886 excuse me uh colony forming units at the end of the four hours it went to 181 or 18 000 colony forming units and again all these bacteria that the little kids are holding up in their mouth and there was a group of parents in gainesville that did a similar study on their own and what they found was 11 different bacteria and these tests were capable of finding viruses but they didn't find any viruses but they found 11 bacteria including staph myobacterium

042that causes tuberculosis bacteria that cause meningitis uh lyme disease diphtheria legionnaires disease and a host of others okay keep in mind that these tests could have found viruses but there were no viruses defined and i got it okay well anyway i have too much information only a minute a minute left but what we're doing is we're forcing these kids to protect people from diseases that they don't have the kids don't get it the kids don't get this disease they're not they don't it doesn't it doesn't affect it doesn't affect them there's a study here from from england the first year of the virus 12 months 25 kids in england got you know died of covid 15 of them had serious neuromuscular diseases prior to that they were they were already sick okay it does not

043you know we're harming these kids you know they they're look they're not able to learn non-verbal communication we're covering up their faces a lot of communication is done with the mouth and expressions they're missing out on that these are you know these are little six eight-year-old kids when they're supposed to be learning this stuff and you know we're depriving them of of that you know the uh making them wear this mask it's it's it's useless it's unnecessary maybe it's protecting the kid the features from the disease that the kids don't have but you're harming the kids you know at best [Music] thank you mr taggett lola smith and then on deck will be kathy buckley and lola if you could say your name and address for the record hello my name is lola smith and

044i'm from balboa elementary school and i'm 10 years old every morning as i get ready for school i put on a mask i wear it to protect my teachers and my classmates i'm aware that not all of my classmates and teachers will be in math i'm aware that they will not choose to protect me the way they do i do them i'm very aware that going to class means risking my health each morning as i get ready for school i remind myself why i put myself in that danger i risk my health to go to school so that i can receive an education i need an education so that i can someday be the president i will become president so that i can ensure this never happens again you see i care more about the

045children who don't even exist yet than i do about the one standing in front of you pleading for help right now i want all of you to take a minute to remember why you're sitting on this board why you chose the school board you see working for children is a privilege many teachers understand this that's why they continue to work despite being underpaid despite their classrooms being full despite you putting their life in danger with your refusal to man like mandate masks those teachers are dying meanwhile you sit in your chairs and talk about how this is not your job not your job to protect teachers not your job to protect students screw your job your position is a privilege act like it i'm your child all the students of pope county are your children

046our our teachers your co-workers they are your neighbors you have the power to protect us use your privilege to do something good thank you for your time thank you lula next will be kathy buckley and on deck will be sarah knappenberger and i'm really sorry if i mispronounced that hi i'm kathy buckloo and i live in south lakeland you have my address on your little blue form um i am here to advocate for the removal of board policy 8450.01 i watched last month as speakers shared the names of friends and family members and co-workers that passed away and honestly i'm sure touched you it really touched me a lot i mean we all have this universal grief just like our young speaker before me expressed we have this universal grief over the loss of people

047who died it's just that though that's a starting point for us that we have this shared grief we have a difference of opinion on what the efficacy of masking really is there's no doubt where the science and the data analysis are when it comes to efficacy of masking i provided a nine page list of professional studies data analyses and scientific evidence if you want to go through them and they demonstrate that masking does not save lives from coveted death but in fact in the unsterile environment of daily life especially among children it contributes to diminished immunity health risks due to excessive exposure to carbon dioxide and a host of other health issues including emotional distress i understand the need for something to believe in something in the face of this grief that we all share

048but to believe that masks protect you against covet 19 is simply that it's just a belief a belief that is not based on fact so i'm not angry with anyone i just want people to know the truth there are many effective ways to save lives such as the monoclonal antibodies the use of medications therapeutics and supplements that all diminish the effects of the virus let's join together to get behind these proven life-saving mechanisms and drop the battle for an ineffective innovative and invasive and yes even sickness-inducing mask it is out of loving concern for the health and well-being of our children that i'm speaking out tonight school board policy should not be based on belief where a plethora of scientific evidence proves it to be empirically false i do not want to take away anyone's

049right to believe so please wear a mask if you are willing to take the inherent risks of wearing one but school board members do not force yours or others beliefs on me my children and my grandchildren that is cruel and unfair treatment of others by those in authority oh by the way that's the definition of tyranny thank you thank you next we have sarah nathan berger and on deck is jennifer technip sarah napkinberg knappenberger sarah i'm jennifer jennifer am i supposed to be up here now i have sarah and then jennifer but if you want to switch that's fine too okay all right speaking at the end um my name is jennifer teknip and i am a teacher i've had three decades worth of experience in the public education arena i am a i have

050been a coach i have been a certified teacher i have been the lead teacher a professional development facilitator for all of the districts that i've served and right now i know that there's nothing there's nothing that we can say to you about changing your minds about these masks because i've sat in the positions that you're in right now and you've already made them up and the sad thing is is right now history is repeating itself these masks that you're wearing these are our yellow stars and as there's proof there's so much proof out there as a teacher that is wanting to teach all of my students to think critically to research if you research using google okay a browser google you're going to find a completely different set of standards than if you research using

051duckduckgo and that's what i would be teaching my students right now if i could go back into a classroom i love teaching love it but i refuse to go back into a classroom and indoctrinate people to be sheep to just obey and follow i was really good at making people my my students i loved it to getting them to classroom management which is now right now what everybody in here is doing i see that you're perfectly socially distanced you're following the rules and as long as we follow the rules right now and we continue to comply we're going to follow everybody right to the slaughter we're in we are history again is repeating itself and we have to stand up and say no more so i know that in the positions that y'all are in

052the teachers your teachers you've got teachers that are scared they don't want to lose their jobs it just so happens that i happen to be blessed to live with a family that understands and that they are awake to the truth that if you were to research really research you would see that these masks are what are killing people these vaccines are what are killing people these mandates are unconstitutional and they are going to bring lawsuits to every school district it's coming you want to be on the right side of history you need to research before i i'm praying i'm praying god we need god we need love of god love of country and love a family that's what we need to bring back and i can promise you this the school system is not going

053to be able to guarantee you that the only way for you to guarantee that your children get what they need is for you to take them out the funding is what will hurt them as well as lawsuits funding take the funding out take your kids out of the school respectfully [Music] thank you mr sarah mafenberger sarah nappenberger and then on deck will be emmett purvis i'm so sorry if i'm butchering your name but if you could say your name and address for the record sarah nappenberger and you'll have my address on the form thank you okay so i'm gonna call attention to another hot topic i'm sorry y'all i know it's probably been a heated debate at all of these recently the reason i want to bring this to everyone's attention is because things are

054uncertain as it is and i just want to make sure that as parents i have two kids that attend the public school systems here um that we are aware of anything coming down the pipeline so i got an email the other day and it was regards to the new telehealth program offering immediate access to students for mental and physical health services so in the email and i'm not sure y'all are aware of this program that i'm talking about it says that students can get access for medical professional mental health clinician right from school order to participate in this parents need to opt in to the service and i realized that in most instances this is probably a very innocent service that you're offering for kids to be able to get health services at school my

055worry as a parent is that if we are allowing things to happen medically at school that that could open the door for vaccines to be administered without parental consent that is my concern that's one of why i wanted to bring this up because according to the world health organization they're now saying that your child's presence in school counts as informed consent so you need to be aware that when your kids are in school some places are considering that informed consent so i just wanted to bring that up and as a parent i would like clarification that this service that's being provided isn't a doorway for force injections down the road madam chair while it's not customary for the board to provide a response in public participation i will address this parents were not only provided

056with an a phone call they were also provided with an email correspondence that contained links to all of the information as to what is permissible and what is not there are no injections the only services if a family opts in and again you don't have to participate in school families have the option to still engage with remote telehealth or teletherapy outside of the school day so again a very comprehensive message was sent home to families clarifying this these are simply over-the-counter prescription not prescriptions excuse me over-the-counter medications that can with again with a parent's full consent if their child comes to school has a low grade fever we could administer tylenol in the absence of the parent having to come pick up their child so no there is no gateway to vaccination or injections it

057is not permissible it is not part of the contract and again i would ask you and others to do their due diligence and read through the information there's plenty of videos in there as well and i think it's important that our community become educated on this topic because we addressed it earlier today in the workshop so there are videos there's all kinds of information out there as to what it is and what it's not and a family can also rescind their consent at any given time as well so we document and collect that as of as of last evening since we rolled it out yesterday i believe we're going to get confirmation today of nearly a thousand families who have already provided consent the whole goal of the program is to eliminate a barrier to

058health care for some of our families because of the timeliness in which it can be attained also the costs associated with it so what this tries to do and it is being utilized successfully in multiple counties in the state of florida we're the third that will be launching it and so i'm proud of the fact that the board agreed to do this and it may not it's not for everyone and we're very clear in that this is completely voluntary and even in the case where parents provide consent we still initiate contact with a family to ensure that they're aware of what's going on families also receive a written summary upon completion of the visit and if there is a recommendation for a follow-up visit with a physician then there's also that communication goes directly to

059the families because they provided that consent with all their contact information as well as if the physician the online treating physician makes a recommendation for an actual prescription then they send the prescription to the family or we can print it out at school set at home so the parent can have it so they can gain access to it after hours so no there is no covert related involvement at all right and i understand that this is the origins are very innocent i'm just bringing it to everyone's attention because as we've seen in the past something can start out as just this positive thing and then end up being something that we don't want yeah it's not it's not within the scope of what the board's approved it's not within the scope of our contract it's

060not even permitted at this time that's good to hear thank you thank you thank you and thank you mr hyde emmett purvis and if you could give us your name and address for the record i'm emmett purvis i live at 655 east stuart street in bartow and i'm not here to to bash anybody i'm a veteran i'm standing on ground that i used to work on the highland city cannon plant used to be right here i attended highland city school i have four kids who attended highland city school graduated from bartow they're all degreed and all employed that's because we're free americans i'm a veteran i was interested with the secret clearance and i'm here to say i served in korea and i want each one of you to go home tonight and pull up

061the peninsula google the peninsula korea and look at south korea and look at north korea you want socialism look at socialism and that's where we're headed i do not like i do not trust the government of this united states and i'm a special forces soldier what's coming out of washington and the left has got to be stopped i'm 80 years old but i'm going to live in my dying breath fighting for this country and the way it was not the way it's going to be and i want everybody here to wake up thank you and that concludes the public comment [Applause] and that concludes the public comment for our public hearing i will now hear a motion and what is your name and that we have you down for speaking at the end this is

062just for mass mandates on the public hearing just for that's what we're doing right now for the public hearing and then we'll no problem all right so for our policy updates i'll look for i'll hear a motion to approve the following updated policies 8450.01 2260.01 and 7540.04 madam chair could we break these out and do them one at a time please yes we certainly can so i'll first hear a motion to approve 8450.01 which is protective facial coverings during pandemic academic epidemic events i'll now entertain a motion so second all those in favor please do anything we need some comments any discussion yes yeah so this is actually not approving face coverings this is the deletion of the policy related to face coverings i think that's important for the public to know that is correct

063so madam chair yes okay so just to be clear to everybody in the audience we are voting right now to delete policy 8450.01 from school board policy is that correct board members that's right okay i just want to make sure everybody understands what we're doing because it's in our stuff it's all crossed off in red which means it will be deleted correct from school board policy going forward yes ma'am thank you any other discussion miss fields so superintendent my question to you is that this policy basically says that in the case of a pandemic that you would have the authority to mandate face mass face coverings that's what this is currently saying and what we're saying is that we're removing that and so my question to you is that if there is another variant and

064we're removing this what do we have in place to have a discussion on what our next step would be so it i'll defer to mr bridges in a moment it's my understanding that this policy was adopted due to the initial time when masks were mandated there was a concern that there was from our community stakeholders that there was a lack of transparency an opportunity for family members and stakeholders to provide feedback the board also wanted to bring it back within their scope and their realm and control and authority so that one individual could not supersede the authority of the elected officials and quite honestly while i may agree or disagree with that policy it's what the board chose to do at this time if the board deletes this it does not delete my authority it

065does not change statutorily my authority to make decisions in emergencies as it relates specifically to a pandemic i'll have to defer to mr bridges but there is statutory language in school code that authorizes me to do school closures and what not for emergencies but as it relates to masking there is nothing specific in that piece of legislation that i'm aware of that speaks to that but mr bridges if you could clarify further i'd appreciate it yes i'd be delighted the school board adopted adopted this policy in response to the initial wave different districts did a different ways some adopted emergency policies with abbreviated due process the school board of polk county adopted it through the regular rulemaking process since that time there has been a great deal of water under the bridge and as you're

066aware there have been a series of executive orders issued by the governor of the state of florida followed by rulemaking by both the department of education state department of health in which the current status of that is that the the governor has forbidden school districts by executive order from adopting mass mandates it has been challenged legally and thus far the courts have upheld the governor's right to do that so any district right now policy or no policy any district that chooses to mandate masks is in violation of the governor's executive order and the in the rules that have been promulgated and those districts some of those districts have received financial sanctions from the state of florida and we most recently the court an administrative law judge ruled last friday dismissing the renewed challenge from the

067districts several the districts that had defied the governor's order so some time ago the school board of polk county lifted the requirement that students wear masks your policy does not require students to wear masks it simply it allowed the superintendent the authority to require the grown-ups to wear masks but the school board would have the authority to require students to wear masks in time and pandemic and the school board has lifted that requirement so there is no mask requirement in polk county uh this uh the the policy uh there there's been a great deal of outpouring of public sentiment uh regarding the policy and the board entertained the um the suggestion of removing that language at its work session two months ago so what is before you is the removal of this language now we

068don't have a crystal ball that allows us to to look into the future so we don't know what it may hold if there is uh if if there are further further waves further episodes that may change the environment in tallahassee it may change the environment in the state it may change the environment elsewhere but at this point that is all speculative so what is what is before you right now is the is the deletion of that language from the policy the board's statutory and constitutional authority remains whether there's a policy or not and if you deem it necessary in the future to adopt either a an emergency rule or another policy you're free to do that and thank you for that answer and i think that superintendent hyde answered it originally so i just wanted

069to make sure that we did have have that statutory that's right thank you thank you all right so i'm looking for a motion for policy 8450.01 madam chairman i'd like to make a motion to delete school board policy 8450.01 from school board policy second second in any further discussion sorry miss cunningham thank you yes i am agree with most of the folks that spoke tonight think i've been on record speaking out a few months ago on august the 24th about how i feel we live in a beautiful united states of america land of the free and the brave and i will never vote to mask a student a teacher a child a grandparent anyone that works for us however i respect a family that may be immunocompromised and if a family chooses to wear a

070mask or a child that comes to school is asked or mask i think that is totally acceptable and i respect your choice to do so i just don't want anyone to tell me or my family how i should live my life and whether or not i should wear masks [Applause] so i i am in support of deleting this we've talked about it for a long time now and i do feel that um it is important to move forward and we continue to do the best that we can with the information that we have there's probably as many um informational websites that say this helps or that helps it's a world that we live in and as someone said tonight it's unfortunate that we are being divisive instead of standing together as this beautiful united states

071of america that we're so blessed to live in so at least for us for me personally i'm going to support this tonight as i made the motion and i thank you madam chair for the opportunity to speak any further discussion mr wilson i think that there's a better option in handling under the surge or a variant and i've talked about this and i'm going to continue to talk about this i think we need a virtual option at some point in time should we have another surge and um even if the state isn't willing to support us in that matter i'm i'm hoping that as a board we can agree to implement that and and find uh money locally to to pursue that option should we have another surge so i don't think that facial coverings

072are going to um it's going to be something that is going to be is going to help with those surges moving forward so thank you madam chair any further discussion seeing none all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye all those opposed and the motion carries [Music] next item on our public hearing is a motion to approve [Applause] the next item on our public hearing is a motion to approve the following updated policy 2260.01 section 504 ada prohibition against discrimination based on disability can i get a motion so moved second any discussion all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye all those opposed and the motion carries the next policy is policy 5350 student suicide prevention awareness and screening i'll now hear a motion second any discussion all those in favor

073please signify by saying aye all those opposed and the motion carries and our last policy is 7540.04 staff technology acceptable use and safety i'll now hear a motion so moved second any discussion all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed the motion carries and that concludes our public hearing we'll now move on to the superintendence report superintendent hyde madam chair members of the board uh the next work session and board meeting will be held on december 14 2021 the work session will begin at 12 30 pm and the board meeting will start at 5 pm both meetings will be held at the jim miles professional development center located at 5204 u.s highway 98 south in lakeland that concludes the superintendent's report thank you we'll now move on to our attorneys report

074mr bridges thank you madam chair the first item i have is a request for authority to advertise policy changes to school board policy 1420 benefits for administrative staff four four two zero benefits for support staff 0.03 sick leave for administrative staff and 4430.03 sick leave for support staff i'll now entertain a motion to approve the authority to advertise for these public notices for december 14th second any discussion all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed and the motion carries thank you madam chair the second item i have were two requests for the board to waive potential conflicts of interest that were submitted by council that represents a school board in your certificates of participation bond issues those are holland and knight and neighbors giblin neighbors giblin serves as disclosure council for

075the for the board and holland knight serves as bond counsel for the board um both of these attorneys these law firms have represented the board historically and uh their their firms are large and they represent a multitude of clients uh including the pnc bank which is involved in this refinance both firms have requested waiver of any potential conflict they have asserted that they can diligently and competently represent the board they've fully disclosed any not of available clients in this transaction this i consider this to be a routine transaction the board has done this in previous cops transaction transactions and i recommend that you authorize the execution of waivers as requested by honda knight and neighbors giblin thank you mr bridges i will now entertain a motion to approve the waiver of conflict of interest requested

076by the attorneys from holland and night and neighbors who routinely represent the district and bond issues because of other representation of pnc bank by those firms any discussion all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed thank you madam chair the the while the the waiver is an action required of the school board because the privilege belongs to the school board we've set those up in such a way that superintendent should be able to execute them on behalf of the board now that the board has voted and thank you madam chair that's all i have welcome to the chair thank you so much and we do not have an auditor's report tonight so we'll move on to board members reports and we'll start with dr alan thank you madam chair just a

077couple comments i wanted to say thanks to reba coyle for inviting me to hang out with our rock stars steve cochran and brian warren and just this whole group i was thinking they were the dream team as they were conceptualizing and just building that beautiful communication strategy around our open enrollment i was just visiting with some friends that came from all over the united states to come together college friends and just sharing all about our magnet choice programs the academies and you know that's not present in other school districts around the united states so it's it's a great thing to talk about but i'm very appreciative of what we're doing as a district to extend that open enrollment period all the way until the beginning of the start of school year secondly thanks to principal

078uh for the invite uh to the harrison school of the arts uh musical hunchback of notre dame and i mean i remember when kovid struck i was sitting in the melvin art gallery at florida southern college and when we communicated to our art students uh that they were not gonna be able to exhibit their artwork due to uh the clampdown of covid and just the shutdown and just what was happening and transpiring and i remember just the air being sucked out of that space so to be able to go to our performance and see full-on the arts being honored and recognized was very rewarding to our students our staff and the audience was alive so i'm thankful that we are moving ahead and finding some sense of normalcy to continue to continue honoring the arts

079um within our schools and then congratulations to our madam chair for a job well done tonight just moving right into the sea and leading us through this meeting thank you that's all i have thank you dr alan and next i'll go to mrs cunningham thank you and uh let me be the first to congratulate mrs sarah beth wyatt in being elected tonight as our new chairman of the board we're so excited to have you lead us you're a very young very smart very talented young lady and i know you're going to do great things on our school board as our leader so congratulations and i look forward to working under your leadership i too want to take a moment and congratulate lisa miller who was elected as our vice chairman this evening we're excited to

080see your leadership start to grow as time continues and look forward to working with you as you step into that new role so congratulations ladies yesterday i had the honor and privilege to accompany superintendent hyde and his team for the prize patrol for district two congratulations to mrs robin hamrick kindergarten teacher at davenport elementary school for being awarded the teacher of the year finalist for district 2. mrs hamrick is a role model teacher and as a team leader she assists other teachers with lesson planning for grades k through 5. mrs hamrick communicates in an extraordinary way with her students creating an exciting and energetic classroom mrs hamrick is truly an amazing educator once again congratulations and best wishes to mrs hamrick additionally we awarded the school-related employee of the year finalist for district 2 to

081mrs sandy alls who is the school nurse at davenport elementary school she was in the nursing profession for over 30 years and decided she wanted to positively impact the young lives of children so she decided to come to polk county public schools she has created a warm and inviting atmosphere inside her clinic where students feel that they are genuinely being cared for in such a way that visiting the nurse is sometimes how those students get through the day think about covid and you can see where she's made a tremendous impact mrs alls is a loving caregiver and truly makes a difference in the lives of her students throughout the school day so congratulations and best wishes to mrs alls as the district 2 finalist for our school-related employee of the year and i would be

082remiss if i didn't do a shout out to principal shannon brown for having both winners for district 2 in her school that was pretty amazing to experience yesterday i want to thank you dr allen for the chairman's plaque and your most kind words as my tenure as chairman of the board comes to a close i have been reflecting on the past two years serving in this position i can honestly say that i am so very appreciative to those that offered me a helping hand during the two most difficult years in the history of the polk county school board i have been blessed by the wisdom institutional knowledge kindness encouragement and faithfulness of so many of our staff and you all know who you are and many community leaders across our school district who reached out

083to me when i needed it most i am forever grateful to each of you for believing in me and always being there when asked i will continue to pray for wisdom and discernment for our school board as we we move forward with our new superintendent and staff finally as we approach the season of thanksgiving i would like to wish all of my colleagues and staff a safe and restful thanksgiving it is my sincere hope that you are able to take the time to reflect on your blessings as we all have special ones that we need to be grateful for thank you and that concludes my report thank you miss cunningham and miss fortney thank you uh congratulations uh miss wyatt and miss miller uh i have full confidence uh november 8th through the 12th is

084national school psychologists appreciation week and i wanted to recognize all of our outstanding staff that work in that position uh it's a definitely part of the team that that makes us row uh and help kids uh november 18th is the uh national parent involvement and great american teaching day i want to thank you all for the invites to be in your schools but i will be uh with polk pokevision that day so but invite me anytime november 19th is actually substitute educator day uh i want to thank you for our needed subs and uh for for taking uh taking on that huge responsibility i want to do a personal appreciation for our veterans and their families for protecting our freedom my family is full of veterans and um i know there are so many ways

085that we can honor and get involved in recognizing those veterans district 3 prize patrol which i'm very proud of what a success the whole thing at bartow high school oh my goodness they had the band they had the cheerleaders because you know bartow just does it better all right our our teacher of the year was miss uh hanger and then we went to uh floral avenue and uh tink i i'm sorry i don't know tink's real name i just call her tink she is our school-related employee of the year and i'm looking forward to seeing them in january be honored and i was also able to uh recognize uh tammy rule our assistant principal for the entire district of the year uh there so yeah barto does great things um i i also uh ran

086into dr allen and his wife at the harrison musical i was i was in the parking lot parking cars but uh yeah that's the first time i ever went i was able to attend i want to thank them for extending that invitation what a talented cast and crew just amazing um i want to do a huge shout out to hearst chapel my hearst chapel family in winterhaven they hosted a luncheon and basically a home shopping experience for many of our international teachers there are too many people helping on that list to even thank but uh they know who they are and uh many of our school staff and families in the community have helped our our global teachers adapt and adjust everything from rides to church to you name it and uh hurst chapel put

087on they had a luncheon they had it was like a shopping mall they had so many things for them because you know you don't think about stuff like that when you uh relocate and then finally to our awesome awesome awesome band directors band parents and band students i know they are the hardest working group in any school i've ever been in they are 24 7 committed i want to congratulate them all on their mpa performances and you all are the reason that pre-k through 12 public schools just do it better thank you madam chair wyatt as in derek's wife that is correct thank you so much ms courtney and next will be miss fields thank you i want to congratulate chair wyatt and also vice chair miller i just wanted to do a special shout

088out to the teacher of the year finalists for district five i think we've all experienced the prize patrol i want to thank the staff for their hard work and making sure that everything went smoothly the teacher of the year finalist for district 5 is a physical education teacher at churchwell elementary and the school-related employee finalist is also a pe instructor peril at rochelle school of the arts and have never known us to have in my school district both having the same uh interest and skill set and both of them have been very giving they're very well respected uh by their peers and by the students of remember vividly at rochelle school of the arts the band played and the cafeteria was full of students and when coach berrien came down they just it was like

089we were at a football game and they were just cheering and so proud of her and the same at churchwell a lot of respect for the hard work that they do each and every day and we want to congratulate them and we will be expecting great things as we venture into the month of january i also wanted to piggyback on miss fortney as it relates to the mpa event i wasn't able to attend but i heard it was just very refreshing and a lot of great talent i wanted to specifically do a shout out to kaplan high school i heard that they were on top of their game and their rating i think was excellent in all areas so we're very proud of them as well and then thursday is veterans day and there was

090an event at the veterans memorial park in lakeland it was unveiling and the dedication of the world war ii african-american monument and it was a big event and there were three men that were recognized for their service in the combat and come back support units both overseas and in the united states and one of those would be mr j.j corvett mr j.j corbett served on the school board here years ago and also mr lemuel gathers who is a former mayor in winter haven and he was recognized he's no longer with us and also a gentleman by the name of mr herman jenkins in lakeland and my understanding if my memory serves me correctly i think mr corbett is in his late 90s and mr uh jenkins as well so that's a great accomplishment for all

091three of them and this monument was made possible through the support of the city of lakeland polk county veterans council the naacp lakeland branch the corvette and gethers families lakeland rotary clubs tmj construction services central florida business diversity council florida state representative sam killebrew and american legion post four karen l and joe ruthen gary clark family rita and don salvage and marion and thomas evans we want to thank them for their vision and for their insight as it relates to recognizing these three outstanding men and i think that might be the end of my report thank you thank you miss fields and just to keep everyone on their toes i'm gonna skip around a little bit and go to miss miller next thank you madam chair wyatt we'll get used to that first i want

092to say i appreciate the veterans on this board and and the fact running for chair that you gave the opportunity to the to younger too i hope ms wyatt and i serve you well and we'll be leaning on you all for i'm sure great advice in the sunshine right mr bridges i'll i'll be quick i visited southeastern university and met all the deans there i appreciate the interns that we get out of that school we use them from all different grade levels and we get interns from other schools as well but they really want to be involved you knew her mother who had a donkey it got a little emotional there because a little girl walked up and asked her at the same time the donkey was there where's your mom and what's her name

093and so it's amazing to see the work of the right still in our school system and what she's doing at mclaughlin is great so if you have they have chickens they sell the eggs they have all kinds of animals if you haven't been to mclaughlin i would encourage you to visit and support that program the typical ed students as well as the esc students take care of the all of the animals the rabbits the chickens the goats and it's part of that life skill training along with academics that's so very important um i was excited to talk to see the celebrity lip sync but i'm going to leave that to mrs wyatt to talk about um that was the first year that i ever visited and i cannot even describe what our superintendent was wearing

094um i've never worn heels that high myself but it was an amazing um performance disco shoes it was amazing um performance of an elton john classic but anyways i'm sure miss white will catch us up congressman franklin i visited his office and i encouraged other people as well to visit your legislators our congressmen would be helpful all of them in funding the law from the 70s that allows children with disabilities to attend school it's called idea idea when it was created the federal government was supposed to send 40 percent of the funding to the states so that children with all disabilities could attend school they've never funded over about 16 percent it currently sits at 14 and a half percent while we still have the mandates and make sure to make sure every child gets

095a free and appropriate public education it takes funding to do that so i was very grateful that the congressman's office staff sat with me to review what that looks like and what we could do to make improvements um ridge community now that we've opened the other high school in davenport i got to visit out there and see that they are not as crowded they're still a very large campus and they were doing amazing things i visited the students in the transition program as well as the students in the television production and i was in that as a child and i'm sure mr allen has referenced what these kids are provided in a public setting with the green screens and the cameras and the lighting equipment at usf i didn't even have that kind of equipment

096as a college student so it's exciting to see those opportunities given um to our to our high school students i was grateful for mr lewis and the l4 shop he greeted me with everyone that works there into the galley and we had a great long discussion about what it's like to work in maintenance and to work our electricians and our plumbers and the talented people we have that you don't have to go to a catalog and pay 10 times what a table or a bureau would cost when they can make it right there in their shop so we appreciate all of their work and i hope we can make their lives easier and and bring more people on in those shops as as we keep going the great american teaching i was at jesse keene

097which is one of my favorite schools um great to see the students there amazingly well behaved and eager to listen to my stories i was telling i don't think i'm that interesting but they sure thought i was for 30 minutes so that was fun um i want to mention mr burdick and the theater program at lake gibson if you've never been to a theater a show at lake gibson high school it has a beautiful theater that i'd even know was there and i live in north lakeland and they put on a wonderful production of juvie i had to balance between that and the playoff game i was i was i was exiting the the show the buses were pulling up because the playoff game was rained out so my district was playing each other so

098that was helpful for me that i didn't have to run from lake gibson to auburndale um but those those students came back they were excited they weren't down that they got rained out they still had a lot of energy and that's lake gibson that's our community so i really enjoyed seeing that one other quick quick mention of our volunteer programs americorps we need volunteers in our schools we need people reading to our children if you're interested in helping students or getting to know students their faith-based organizations are already in our schools there's americorps that has reading readings opportunities available and we're always willing to take more volunteers in so as we open back up and allow volunteers in i hope that our community takes part in that thank you miss miller and mr wilson thank

099you madam chair and first let me say congratulations on being elected chair of the board and i want to also congratulate ms miller on her election as vice chair um you know we i think that we have seen a little uptick in our funding for the school district i'm not sure yet if that's if that's a product of our growth or maybe the use of esser funds but we have seen as a small increase in our fund balance i think that's a positive thing and so i think we're um i think we're going to have a good year when um when we when this board appointed superintendent hyde you all might recall that he was not my first choice and after he was appointed i called him and congratulated him and we had a very

100cordial conversation at the end of the conversation he said are we good i said we are good we're good because there are seven of us for a reason and you know we all make mistakes and um clearly you know i'm not saying i made a mistake but i am saying we hired the right person we brought the right person here for to lead our school district we've seen some i think some very wise promotions both internally from the internal to our organization as well as external i think we have a very strong financial team in place with the promotion of mr pitts and mrs jenkins i feel very confident in their ability to manage the finances of this district so i think we're going to have a good year i'm very optimistic about the coming

101year and looking forward to serving so thank you madam chair thank you mr wilson and i just would like to make some brief remarks um i'll save lip sync for last don't worry mr hyde um but first i just want to thank my colleagues for entrusting me to be your chair for the next year um i'm honored and it's a privilege to serve you so thank you for for your confidence in me um next i want to talk a little bit about prize patrol because dr alan i think district 4 is gonna give you a run for your money this year in january so we got to spend the morning at karen siegel with miss ashley brannon who is their resource teacher and just watching her walk in the room and the very first thing

102she did was go in love on her kids and she was just more excited to see them i think than any of us or the banner or the check she just was truly so excited to get some some extra time with her kids she had one of her students it's a special needs school one of her students has some communication barriers but his using eye contact with a computer screen is able to communicate and just watching her repeatedly as other people were speaking say i love you and you're the best teacher ever it it will melt your heart i don't know that there was a dry eye in the the room as she was speaking in the background it just was a really cool experience and ashley brandon is just a wonderful teacher and we're

103so lucky to have her in polk county but specifically in district 4. then we got to go to brigham academy to celebrate our school guardian who is our school-related employee of the year and i just want to remind everyone that district 4 has now two years in a row had a school guardian which is exciting for our new positions to be recognized but if you have ever tried to sneak 20 people onto campus without the school guardian knowing it is quite the feat we've had there's a fire outside we need you to go check the fence has been breached i believe was this last one and then getting him to come back inside because he had not yet found the fen the breach in the fence and you know i i can't i've gotta i've

104gotta do my job um it just is so exciting to see um john wingheart um honored and then the the highlight for me was when he walked out the door he did not know that the entire school would be lining the main hallway cheering we are proud of you over and over again um and i think we we got him to shed a couple tears too which is is always fun so congratulations to all of our prize patrol winners and i can't wait to see our event in january because you all represent our districts and our schools so well finally the announcement you've all been waiting for and i'm going to invite my special friends to make it with me this is one of our this is actually miss miller's so she she is the

105one who donated to have a big fred hyde head that gets to uh live at her house now which is a little creepy um but so mr hyde participated in lip sync last week and rocked it he did a phenomenal job both it was all recorded they're still editing the videos but i promise those will be made public um but in the name of public education he stepped up to the plate for those of you who have not heard the story in his final interview i asked him one of his questions was what would your two lip sync songs be and he thought it was this very deep this is like a make or break it deal question and i genuinely just wanted to know what his two lip-sync songs were going to be if

106he came as superintendent but he did an awesome job i'm proud to say that we raised thirty seven thousand nine hundred and three dollars for public education in winterhaven you can applause that that's pretty exciting um but it was such a fun night and thank you to mr hyde and your team who did a phenomenal job um for those of you as your backup dancers if they're interested in being a lead performer next year feel free to send them my way we do accept nominations um but thank you so much for participating he also had the opportunity to borrow clothes from theater winter haven for his costume and chose to purchase his own flashy jacket and shoes so i don't know what that means but your superintendent ladies and gentlemen but in all seriousness thank

107you so much for participating we appreciate you and all that you do for our district and that will conclude my report and next will be our public comment um which first up will be royal brown and on deck will be jj london well good evening school board members my name is royal brown iii i live at 3851 gaines drive winter haven i'm president of the 555 person winterhaven 912 group i taught at winterhaven high school for 14 years i was teacher of the year and i was a finalist for the polk county teacher of the year 2005. on july 22nd superintendent hyde participated in a race theory forum with two usf professors and naacp members regarding marxist critical race theory as you know governor desantis has banned florida public schools from teaching crt when i

108inquired to each of you by email as to why superintendent hyde was involved in this forum i only received one response the response included a school board policy called culturally responsive teaching having studied this policy my analysis is that it opens the door for the teaching of critical race theory by those who might believe our country is systemically racist that there are absolute there are no absolute truths only competing narratives that we are all either oppressors or victims having worked for 42 years 25 of them in the military 15 as a teacher and two in the corporate world my empirical view is that systemic racism was eliminated in the united states by the civil rights acts of 1964-1965 crt is a marxist concept fostered by the violent wing of black lives matter who advocate the

109killing of law enforcement officers defunding police and replacing them with social workers and turning our children against our country and against each other based on race we don't need anything that resembles critical race theory in our schools and i ask you to re-examine your culturally responsive teaching policy because it's unrealistic and open to too much interpretation for example as a lifelong trainer and teacher i see great difficulty for a teacher with a classroom full of 30 plus students of various races ethnic groups and cultures to teach both their subject curriculum while and i quote this is from your policy ensuring that we integrate examples of various races and cultures seamlessly throughout our curriculum pacing guide teachers who care about their children engage them daily are already struggling to meet all your school district requirements this

110additional burden of culturally responsive teaching is laden with racial critical race theory overtones and i asked you to review it to remove it or change it thank you mr brown next up is jj london jj london pass thank you and finally bishop mincy all right all right all right all [Music] new right and the going out chairwoman superintendent hyde and all of these board members tonight i know y'all are not happy with me y'all dismiss me from being the prayer man but that's fine that's fine i want to say it to you because it's in my heart i'm going to tell you what's in my heart i was getting calls from the from the office of the board to be here to pray on numerous occasions you all have tried to fix it you can't

111fix it you will never fix what god have not given you to charge i want y'all to listen to me tonight america is on the downward spiral we don't get no better the world is on the downward spiral the end is closer than you have an idea there's an exit just like it was an entrance there's an exit all of the stuff that we fight about and we argue about and we cut up about is so sad that we come here week out the week and go through the same stuff over and over and over again and we get nowhere what we need to come to understand is that the bible said when you knew me as god you glorified me not as god but you became vain in your imagination and you took and

112worshiped the creature more than the creator we put god out of our our lives america put god out they become a pagan nation they believe in anything and everything and we're trying to solve it you can't solve it we will never solve the problem that we have until we come back to him and repent and ask him for forgiveness the sad situation that y'all talk about critical race theory we know it's the truth but we need to face the truth the truth is the only thing will set you and i we fight about our children and all this stuff it's the truth that we have done so many evil diabolical things and our children are destroyed we're trying to educate them but we need to come to understand people better get in get it in

113your psychic and in your mind and in your heart too that this country america will never unless it come back to god it will never because god don't lie he will never let you prosper you're gonna do some things but the stuff that has happened got to get straight so all i'm saying to us we come here we come in we come y'all y'all push me out y'all put it back thank god i know how to get on my knees and i talk to him every day for every one of you men and women that sit on this board i call your name to him and i said god remember so and so remember someone said remember remember their families remember remember our schools remember remember all of the people that are involved in our

114children i tell them every day i get on my knees every day i tell him the same thing and you know what he gonna answer me i'm confident mr hyde amen he gonna hear me i remember going to promise kingdoms years ago most of all all white people they met in atlanta georgia a pastor supported me to go we went are willing to say i'm sorry thank you bishop mincy and with that [Applause] and with that we'll adjourn the beaning of the school board [Music] you