001[Music] good afternoon ladies and gentlemen i would like to call the june 11th 2021 regular school board meeting to order before we begin our meeting today i would like to introduce our special guest superintendent frederick hyde would you please stand [Applause] he is currently in transition with mrs byrd through the end of june and will take office officially on july the first please join me in welcoming mr hyde to polk county public schools yay right superintendent hyde we would like to present you with a few welcoming gifts to get you started in your new role at this time i would like to introduce mr steve cochran senior director and mr hunter gambrell budget coordinator with our workforce and multiple pathways education who will be making our presentation today mr hyde we got you a few
002gifts i'm sorry my boss is coming up right now here we go [Music] there we go well you you could have done that but um uh we we brought you a uh po welcome to polk county schools starter pack yes uh which includes a shirt which i've heard you might need so there's a umbrella in there for when we have hurricane duty and a backpack to keep all your stuff in we um we welcome you to polk county schools and and thank you for coming yay awesome thank you [Applause] yes first of all first and foremost thank you very much but to explain to the audience and those watching from home i arrived very early this morning because my flights were delayed my bags have yet to arrive so hence the fact i had to
003make an early morning run to kohl's to get outfitted for today's meeting so thank you for the polo i will definitely utilize it tomorrow because my bag will not be delivered until 10 pm tomorrow so thank you see we we we didn't even realize that you were gonna need it but those emotions were already in place so see worked out great so welcome superintendent hi we're very excited and blessed to have you on board so now i would like to ask miss sarah beth reynolds if you would give our invocation and i'd like to ask everyone to please stand and remain standing for our pledge of allegiance ms reynolds lord thank you for gathering us all here today watch over our actions and our words help us to speak with grace and kindness and to
004do what's best for our students and those of polk county in your name we pray amen amen thank you so much and now i would like to ask mr wilson if you'd be so kind and lead us in the pledge to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all you may be seated the first item today is to accept the agenda mr hill are there any revisions to the agenda as printed madam chair we do have some revisions this evening yes sir new administrators add items consent item g31 recommendations for administrative instructional and instructional personnel actions revised attachment action item h3 half cent sales tax oversight committee ad attachment action item h4 ide idea grant allocation
005revised attachment that concludes our revisions for this evening thank you mr hill the chair will entertain a motion to accept the agenda for june 8th 2021 with the noted revisions do i have a motion in a second second is there any further discussion seeing none i'd like to call for a vote all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye all those opposed like sign motion carries unanimously our next item is our special recognitions mr hill would you please lead us through our special recognitions today yes madam chair first i would like to ask school board member k fields to step down for special recognitions at this time i would like to ask dr steve warner community liaison director please come forward for the mobile food pantry recognition okay so thank you um very
006much uh for allowing us to be here tonight for this special recognition um i'm waiting to see if that comes up so i know that um throughout the district we have a lot of our community partners that do wonderful things for our schools and our students and our family but tonight i wanted to take a few moments to do a special recognition for a gentleman and an organization that has really gone above and beyond what a business partner could and should do for our district so you know this this person going and doing what he's doing has has really been a blessing to our organization um through his unselfish acts as he graciously supports um all of the things we do throughout polk county public schools so i think you all remember back in march
007when the pandemic hit us and we had to go on hiatus and we had to shut down and our students couldn't get um to school so you know through through the the wise approach that the board took and that other staff members did we created our grab and go meals our sites at our local schools but what we found out quickly was that some of our students in some areas in the district couldn't make it to schools because they didn't have transportation to go pick up food and one of those areas was in the florence villa area and fortunately with our partner the public education partnership of winterhaven we actually had a site there that we could quickly mobilize and distribute food to those students that live in that area and with the help of
008jenna kesmarski and rob davis we were able to quickly mobilize those areas and start distributing food to our students so tonight we're going to recognize mr bobby williams with freedom tour but first we really want to talk to you about some of the things that we've done and how bobby has really stepped up to take care of our students as we began to distribute the food to our students remember our students could come and get a bag that had two or three days worth of food in it but what we found especially in the florence villa area was that our families and our grandmas and the grandpas and parents were asking for food also well through the grant that we had through the district we could not supply that food to families so quickly between
009pep and some other folks in in the community we quickly said how can we distribute food as we're doing the grab-and-go bags to our families at the same time so that is when we first met mr williams and his group the freedom tour over in lake wales we began to supplement the grab-and-go bags that we were giving to our students and this happened all the way through spring and then all the way through summer at the pet building there in florence villa but we knew that as we went through this that just because the the summer ended and we started our kids went back to school our family still needed help so we decided to how could we bring the food to students again and their families so we decided there had to be a
010way that we could get this food into the hands of our students at school while they were in classes so we decided to create what's called a mobile food pantry where we actually bring the food to the students rather than the students having to go pick up the food and bobby was instrumental in one getting us the food but through all of our other business partners we were able to write a grant to a national organization called no kid hungry with help from the public education partnership at winter haven growing positivity midwest food banks and then bobby to get this food out to our students and their families so we looked at as setting this up as a pilot program and looked at five of the title one schools in the winterhaven area and as
011you can see on the screen those schools were inwood elementary garner elementary snively juanita and lake ship elementary and the idea behind this was that all the food would be loaded into cooled box trucks that were donated and provided by bobby and his group the food was provided by bobby and his group through his partnerships with midwest food banks and then we would take it to the school and deliver it as school went out to car riders to walkers to bus riders to parents to anyone that wanted to show up and have a box of food so here's where where really the rubber hits the road so you can really understand the impact that this man made on the district we started at our five schools and over this the spring semester we were able
012to rotate through each school at least twice and as you can see we started at snively in march and we distributed 420 boxes which has about fourteen thousand seven hundred pounds of food and you can continuously see down the the slide there the amount of boxes and the amount of pounds of food that we distributed at those schools for students their families and our teachers and all of our staff at those schools and i have to tell you that the principals were on board the teachers and staff really stepped up to help us unload this food put it in cars get it on buses help walkers and bike riders take this food home and this is really what is going to i think impress most people over the course of our 10 mobile food pantries
013at those sites we distributed 4 500 boxes of food which is about 159 000 pounds of food to our students which equates if you take the um the the um anyway it equals 132 000 meals that we distributed and if you take that and put it into what the national food pantry say multiplying that by a dollar seventy you come out to about two hundred and seventy thousand dollars worth of retail food that was distributed into our winter haven schools and folks that's really really amazing oops i lost it because this this there it is so when we look at these these are tangible measurements things that you can measure in a dollar amount pounds of food and all that but what you cannot measure is you cannot measure the intangibles and the way we
014affected students in our school so i need to introduce you to some very special young folks this is yarley and her sister ruby they're on the left in the in the middle and then their friend and neighbor isabella from snively elementary school when we did our first recognition i mean our first pantry at snively elementary these three young girls came up and they wanted to know what was going on they wanted to know what this box of food was so we showed them we said inside that box of food which weighs about 30 pounds and it's very clumsy and cumbersome there's a gallon of milk there's fruits and vegetables there's a pack of hot dogs there's a bag of chicken meat is in there cheeses there's cottage cheese or sour cream all of this is
015to feed that family for days these are third and fifth graders as you can imagine they're going to try to carry this box down snively avenue which if you don't know where that is on the sidewalk they get back to the sidewalk and i say girls do you want me to help you with this no sir we only live two streets down now you know they didn't tell the truth so i continued to watch these girls fumble with the box try to carry it i showed them how to carry it side by side finally about a mile down so we are at knight street they turned in at 2nd avenue on snively avenue almost back to highway 17. they finally turned into their road and i'm like well thank goodness that they made it we
016continue to feed at that site 45 minutes later these three young ladies show back up with a dolly ah and this is where it gets you you had to see the look on their faces of sir is there any way that we can have a few more boxes to take care of the people that live on our street what do you do at that point you say yeah and we get it down there and we say no let's put it in the truck and this is what makes bobby happy when he hears stories about this and this is what fulfills him with his mission through freedom tour and we said no let's put in a truck we'll take it down there for you no sir we want to do this on our own the pride
017that those three girls had to be able to carry this food back to those families so that they could then provide for the families is why we are in education and we do what we do so with that said we would not have been able to do this without mr williams and his whole staff over at freedom tour over at lake wales we're looking very much forward to doing some of this stuff in the summer and as we progress on into next year so without further ado i'd like to have bobby come up and present him with a special award tonight i want to thank each and every one of your office them stories like that touched my life i'm from folk county i went to school at ellie's i'm sorry it's okay was one
018of them kids growing up and um i just want to thank y'all because i went to snivel elementary kindergarten through second going through six i went through all the old education system actually i went to school miss lisa and we were the rough the roughest some of the worst of the worst and um obviously for me it's about the gospel god changed my life at 32 and it's a great opportunity to to give back to the community i don't want to keep you all wrong but i started ministry five years ago feeding 10 homeless people in downtown winter haven moved to eles four years ago feeding about 60 homeless people to me i know a lot of people look at covet as a bad thing for me it was a blessing because it got a
019lot of people out of their houses out of areas out of out into the sea and there are people there in need to really reach people in love with people and his story is i've got probably thousands of them same stories um just to let y'all know we started no this is just i know what i never went to college but just what the great of just polk county education is you know i created my own business been very wealthy very good at it and we give back to community last year alone like i said we started with feeding 10 homeless people last year we brought 20 million dollars of food into polk county and said countless of thousands of people in our ministry really we're still in eloise but we took over the sears
020building in eager ridge mall which is 115 000 square foot right now at this moment we have two million pounds of food sitting on the floor we distribute to boys and girls club we do schools we do backpack programs we feed three to five thousand families a week so i thank y'all for this i don't do it for rewards he knows this i'm a i'm a back seat man i'd assume not i don't want awards it ain't about awards it's about them little girls and other families touching and changing their lives and mainly bringing the gospel to them but thank you all for this thank you thank you sir thank you yes dr warner please step forward for a picture there we go yeah forget the mask hold on miss miller would like to say
021a few words i just want to recognize bobby yes we went to high school together we won't tell each other stories i'm sure but i want i want people to know this is an example of someone who is living their faith not sitting at home or you know giving us advice but really taking care of his community and i just think we you know i know for a fact i've been at food bank deliveries at rcma in mulberry helping the migrant farm worker population this is a desperate need in polk county people do not realize the level of poverty generational poverty and it's our job as a school district to provide opportunities to get kids out of that but while we're doing that it takes people like bobby and his organization to get them through
022this so i just want to say thank you for what you're doing and i hope you inspire others to do the same amen thank you mr williams we we appreciate your heart your compassion your leadership thank you for being inspirational in what you do for our kids and uh you are and the way you're living is what defines what it means to live and be and move in polk county and so thank you thank you again so can we give him another nice round of applause [Applause] at this time i would like for barto high's assistant principal angie austin and barto ib assistant principal mandy craven uh please come forward for the perfect attendance recognition this is a this is a very exciting recognition because this is just an incredible accomplishment uh to earn perfect
023attendance and to be recognized for this so and and this occurred during coven so yes thank you we are so excited to be here tonight to honor our student from berto high school from ivy bartow with the perfect attendance award we are so proud of this student i'll go ahead and call up cameron cribbs come on up cameron congratulations we are so proud of you and cameron we know that it took a lot of hard work for you to come to school every day and attain this accomplishment can you please tell us how did you maintain that accomplishment um well i just feel like it was my responsibility to go to school so when i woke up in the morning i was like well it's time for school i need to go and i mean
024and when i was about in third grade i looked at my mom and i came home from school i looked at my mom i said hey mom i'm never missing a day at school like ever and she was like okay i'm gonna take you to school every day and she did and then i mean i got older and older and then i got into high school and i was like well i have a car now i'm not missing school there's no way and i mean i graduated i thought attendance was important and yeah i guess i just went every day [Music] [Applause] cameron we're so proud of you that's absolutely a tremendous accomplishment very inspirational good evening board members thank you for having us here tonight deputy superintendent hill and welcome superintendent hyde i am
025mandy craven head of school for ib bartow and i am honored to be able to recognize logan duncan so logan if you'll join me logan [Applause] logan also accomplished perfect attendance from kindergarten through 12th grade and he did it while he attended international baccalaureate at bartow high school and pursued the ib curriculum so you know just really diving into that rigorous curriculum but also participated in varsity sports and he can tell you a little bit about that but just really proud of you for your perseverance and your grit to not sleep in after a varsity football game or take a day off to study for an ib exam i'm extremely extremely proud of your dedication so congratulations so i'd like to start off today by thanking the school board for honoring me today and uh
026thanking you for letting me speak in front of you and more importantly i'd like to thank my my parents my mom and dad and my stepmom and stepdad and my grandparents because for many years they are my transportation to and from school you know they're my my motivation and my drive to go from a young age my grandpa always told me that how hard i work now influences how hard i have to work when i get older so for me it was never really a goal to to do this but in elementary school it just kind of happened and middle school just kind of happened and by the time i got to high school i realized i was too close to quit i had to i had to keep it going and so i'd like
027to thank you all again thank you congratulations okay logan i think miss forney would like to say something yes y'all are in my district district three i'm wearing my barto ib summerlin mask uh you make me proud bartow high ib all the time i love visiting that school because of students like you all and going to the different events and this this just shows uh how much i miss teaching and i did used to teach there so unfortunately i don't anymore but uh you all have such a bright future ahead of you and i just praise your commitment because showing up is half the battle and uh once you show up we can we can help you out uh so that message to all the other little children yeah all right thank you logan we're
028proud of you congratulations that's outstanding and um you know cameron and logan we we may have to get in touch with y'all because i think you've got uh something very special we could uh utilize y'all as motivational speakers uh i'll have to kind of submit a little something to pr to get a hold of you somebody said no cameron are you saying no thank you all again we're very proud of you both of you madam chair that concludes our special recognition thank you so much mr hill okay uh the next item is public comments on agenda items and i do have a list of individuals who have signed up to speak today so i'm going to go ahead and start calling off the names and if you'd be so kind and maybe line up over
029towards the left side of the room there my left your right and we'll go ahead and proceed you will have each of you will have up to three minutes to speak to address the board if you'd be so kind and state your name and address for the record and here we go first of all jonathan riches jonathan riches if you'd like to come forward please to address the board jonathan riches okay next i have carolyn holton carolyn you think some people are holton not these okay jonathan rich's was the first name i'll go through them again jonathan rich's carolyn holton [Music] that's what he's going to do now yes sir of course calvin holton is calvin holton here i'm trying to find somebody inside molly cutrell is molly cutrell here jeremy tinley jeremy tinley tamisha
030vitiello beverly hartley melissa currier charlie warren pam hanson pam hansen come on up thank you for being patient go ahead you've got three minutes to speak yes ma'am my son is currently enrolled in polk county school the key word is currently i've watched board meetings and seen people come up and compliment you plead with you and then thank you for hearing them i will do none of those things i do not respect you in the positions that you hold i'm here tonight to tell you that you have poked the hive and we are swarming i will not repeat to you the science that is readily available for you to research i will not talk about the blatant hypocrisies or the recently released emails from dr fakie that right there should be common sense enough to
031drop this charade you chose to collude with teachers unions and sign a contract committing to keeping the students and staff in masks for the school year how dare you how dare you secretly agree to continue to physically and mentally abuse the children you claim to care about how dare you secretly agree to silence the voices of children and their parents how dare you secretly agree to punish our children academically and physically with this policy how dare you as adults and educators you should know better what you have chosen to agree to in secret must come with some kind of benefit maybe we should look into that now to the teachers and staff i hear and have read comments that you fear losing your job for speaking out against this policy yet in january of 2020
032you had no problem leaving your job and students to protest the state government for more money when you should protest why the top salary earners have the least interaction with our kids we stood with you then you should stand with us now or you may lose your job due to lack of enrollment in the district we have options are for our children's education homeschool co-ops are are forming finding lower costs than institutionalized schooling using a curriculum that is basic hands-on not teaching common core critical race theories social dust justice indoctrinations or how to take and pass a test this is more than just about a mask policy this is we the parents letting you know we're watching everything now you will not be able to circumvent us again i am demanding the verbiage regarding masks
033be removed from the code of conduct policy never to be placed again you are not doctors and the science you followed was a lie perpetuated by an agenda that involved the teachers union and the cdc pushed by a lying doctor if you choose to leave the verbiage in the policy to use at a later date i will remove my son from the district and homeschool him with a co-op that does not want to be dictators but educators it is clear that your secret dealings hypocrisy and lack of due diligence in educating yourself shows character shows your character you lack respect for the students teachers and parents it shows that you are not leaders but cowards you are not people i want deciding my child's education and lastly it makes me question what else has been
034agreed to secretly i have no trust or confidence in this board you have tarnished yourselves and it will show when you campaign for your jobs i leave you with this there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed or hidden that will not be made known thank you next we'll have jessie's suits is jessie's suits here jesse suits austin brower brewer austin come on up hey guys hi my name is austin brewer i live in auburndale and i'm pretty much up here today just to kind of bring some things to light i graduated from southeastern university twice first with my bachelor's degree in science and also my mba after that so i'm big on education i'm also really big on science i absolutely love science and the thing that's troubled me the most what i've
035seen from the entire school district is that there's no living in reality kids that wear these masks five six seven-year-old kids they don't wear them properly they're not health care workers they're dropping them on the ground they're getting dirty they're getting yelled at and basically reprimanded if they don't put it back on their face so here's a couple articles to question the entire narrative here's one from 2020 airborne coronavirus particle will pass directly through n95 face mask novel coronavirus from patients with pneumonia in china another article randomized trial of cloth masks compared to medical mask and healthcare workers penetration of cloth masks by influenza particles is almost 97 that's april 2015. another study respiratory performance performance offered by n95 respirators and surgical mask april 2008 the study determined that the protection factor provided by n95
036was minimal at best another article june 2020 can the elastic of surgical face mask stimulate ear protrusion in children the answer was yes the article another article january 2021 the current article digs into face mask and covet area health hypothesis the base of the abstract although scientific evidence supporting face mask efficacy is lacking adverse psychological physiological and health effects are established it has been hypothesized now that face masks have compromised safety and efficacy profile and should be avoided from all use another article face mask surface may become a contamination source exactly what i brought up earlier i could sit here and do this all day obviously you guys don't want to listen to me ramble on about all the science that backs not wearing masks so my question is if the science isn't backing mask
037any longer why are they still being told to wear masks the only answer that i can come up with is obedience training this appears that it's turning into nothing more than obedience training to teach these kids to follow exact orders cover your face shut your mouth don't talk unless you're spoken to that is egregious that is not something we can expect to live in like this in florida these children need to be free they need to have fresh air they need to live like kids so i really really hope you guys take this time and listen to everybody and make a very educated vote tonight because a lot of these positions up here are elected i just want to remind you guys of that have a good one thank you next we'll have brewer sorry
038your cards were back to back i'm used to following my son uh i'm ted brewer i've attended florida state university i've got degrees in biological science and chemistry psychology and exercise physiology an mba from florida state i've been a scientist my entire life i'm also an international best-selling author and this face mask policy is just absolutely stupid i can give you article after article wearing an n95 master four hours reduces significantly co2 significantly oxygen levels the use of n95 respirators compared with surgical mass is not associated with lower risk of laboratory influenza this list goes on and on happy to give and guys all of these clinical double-blind research studies many of them if you'd like to look at them but here's the problem i've got albert einstein probably one of the greatest men of
039the last century said the world will not be destroyed by those who do evil but by those who watch them without doing anything guys it's enough we now know that falci is a complete and total fraud we've seen it in all the media this whole thing is a complete and total fraud we know what happens with the mass we know they don't work we know it reduces o2 levels and you have these kids that are passing out while running all over the country in pe wearing masks it's enough in addition to that you know i taught college for two years in tallahassee because i'm an educator i loved teaching loved it and here's what i didn't understand when i taught college i was never taught of what the frankfurt school was most of you probably
040don't know what the frankfurt school was it came out of leipzig university it came out of girth university in germany and it was basically started in the soviet union in the 1920s after the soviet union could not promote communism russia could not promote communism to europe and to the united states they want to find out why the united states would not fall to communism so they set up a group think tank called the frankfurt school i didn't even know about this when i was teaching but i found out about it and what they did they ever run out of germany in 1933 went to switzerland in 1934 they decided to go to columbia university and they started teaching cultural marxism to our children how to be good little peasants how to destroy the nuclear family
041how to destroy christianity my lord and savior is jesus christ i love him with all of my heart and for you guys to push this common core nonsense and cultural marxism in the polk county schools when we are a conservative county nauseates everybody in this room we've had it and you know we've had enough of it and then we got to remember something these kids when they're the ages from two to five to seven to eight are in a theta brainwave state that's for my degree in psychology from florida state university that means they have no buffer you tell them that cultural marxism is real they believe you because they can't say no to it and you program these children from a young age to be cultural marxists and to turn this country into a
042doggone socialist nightmare and that's where we have the school board in polk county i've got two grandchildren i will not stand for this and i will stand against everything that you guys do for common core and critical race there you kidding me white people are bad thank you next we'll have evelyn large is evelyn here come on forward come on up so i'm going to tell you a little bit about my story and then i'm going to read my thing because i'm a little nervous because i don't do this okay don't be nervous so my little boy is zoned for griffin which is a failing school can you bring that yes thank you my little boy is zoned for griffin which is a failing school so i got him in blake academy a magnet school
043and at the end of the year of kindergarten when he came home he couldn't read so i was able to get a voucher program and i got him into a private school thank god and i drive an hour and a half every single day to take him to and from now my little boy made the principles list this year all semester all year the whole thing five in his school he's the best in science he's the best in reading he's the best in math but that's no thanks to the polk county school system so this is what i have to say i want to start by accepting responsibility for not being more involved with our school board and i only want to start paying attention when i don't agree with something i want to start
044paying attention even when i do with that being said everyone has to start somewhere so here i am i believe in redemption and i am here today to make amends for my part in this whole situation i was complacent uninformed and i blindly trusted my elected officials i was even to go as far as to say i was lazy i erroneously believed that our elected school board members had our best our children's best interest at heart and perhaps at one time you may have i have come to realize that collectively we gave you our power and you gave it away to corporations and special interest groups and teachers unions to dictate our curriculum you have violated your values by signing memorandums of understanding and then hiding it you've held our kids hostages for a year
045with your authoritarian policies and unwillingness to admit that you were wrong i want to be clear when i tell you that if you if you make masks a part of the dress code that you're violating you have no right it is a medical device you do not have the right to authorize that you do not have the authorized or the right to authorize any injections or anything my kid puts on their face so with that being said i didn't elect the cdc i didn't elect the who or the teachers unions or any other i elected you guys and we've asked and we've asked and nothing so let me just put it clear don't even run again because we're done and the group i'm in has 10 000 people that's one group [Music] thank you linda
046hayes is linda hayes in the room looks like h-a-y-e-s no i don't have that one i have from eagle lake yes okay i would like to ask you can you tell me how a level 4 or how a virus can escape a level 4 bio lab in wuhan china can escape but your mask is going to stop it these masks that you're wearing from the drugstore have graphene in them graphene long periods of time that they're worn will cause respiratory issues similar to having been breathed in asbestos so you need to choose more wisely when this first started cdc claimed there was less than a 10 chance of this virus being spread outdoors now they're saying one percent one healthy children and healthy people don't spread illness wearing a mask limits our o2 if you
047put a little oxygenator on your finger put your mask on it check it in a minute you'll see your met your oxygen level your o2 levels dropped about 40 points maybe 30. you're putting yourself at risk for hypoxia and hypoxamenia which affects your organs and your brain coronaviruses are i want to make sure i get my numbers right 0.1 microns in size masks that you have on and the respirators only stop particles that are 0.3 3 10 to 8 tenths of a micron so these masks are totally ineffective airborne coronavirus particles will pass right through your mask so you're really hurting yourself and harming yourself dr simone gold says last week that fauchi admitted the typical mask you by the drugstore is not really affected at keeping out a virus which is small enough to
048pass through the material our politicians can lie to us and it's called politics but if we lie then it's considered a felony in case you haven't read the 3200 or 2300 pages plus from fouchy covid was made in a lab his gain of function funded it hydroxychloroquine is an effective cure a symptomatic spread of the virus isn't possible and masks are useless with viruses all admitted by apollo fouchy who's a politician there are no randomized control studies i'll get that later uh there was a study in hong kong at these onset of the outback break about last mask wearing 94 wore masks 83.7 more disposable surgical mask 13 wore them incorrectly some were worn inside out upside down just like our children especially in primary grades do and every time you touch it you know
049it's contaminated osha says mascara to be fitted on an individual basis and long-term use of mass cause fatigue and brain fog these one size masks don't fit all and in our schools that's what is expected for our children and our students to [Music] desantis on wear 13 stated meridian should not be penalized for rejecting the overreach of local authorities to unnecessary mass mandates thank you for your time thank you next if we could have ray ryan ray ryan hello just yeah if you would state that that would be great okay so um my name is ray ryan and i live at 1548 cardinal street in auburndale um mr hyde welcome polk canadians are kind of crazy um i'm not going to waste everybody's time regurgitating everything everybody's already said i watched the meeting today and
050i know you guys are going to vote and from my understanding the majority is that you're going to make mask optional my next question is is you need to remove the policy it's not fair it's not right i don't think it needs to be in there i don't think that you guys should have that right and have it in the code of conduct to put it in place anytime and i know in the meeting today you guys said that it would be up to the board for the students and it would be up to mr hyde for the teachers i don't think that's right i think it needs to go period i i don't foresee another pandemic do you guys i mean i don't really think it needs to stay forni she implied that you
051know it needed to stay in the school policy so in case something else came up that you guys could just implement it and she said it might not even be covid i don't really understand that so it needs to be removed i also know that four of you are up for re-election and i'm here to tell you that if you guys do not listen to us and remove this policy you will not be here next election period sarah beth you're awesome mr allen i know you just came in so you two but the the other four that are up for re-election i don't know you guys you really need to think long and hard about it if you want to keep your seat because it's not looking good that's all i got to say thank
052you next let's have patricia ingles patricia here come on up so i'm patricia inglis at 160 bonnie shores drive in lakeland and i just i have a picture here of a child with mercer on his face from the masks this is the kind of illnesses coming from masks whereas we've already shown that the masks aren't protecting them from from illnesses the the virus can go right through the mask and even if they get it children don't get deathly ill they are not likely at all to to spread it to to adults we've seen that that's been shown in multiple studies now that children do not spread it to adults there is no reason for them to be protected with the mask and they get hurt by having the mask not only physically it's been shown
053that they're becoming developmentally that's a bad word but by by wearing the mask because they can't interact they don't learn the the body language small children are getting hurt in their learning to speak by having a mask on because they're not watching the lips of the people they're talking to older children are having interaction with with learning body language they're having trouble learning body language because of the mass this mask only bring harm they do not bring good so thank you thank you uh next is christine pease christine are you in the audience come one up i'm begging you if you'd state your name and address for the right christine peace at 1064 walt williams road thank you okay um i'm begging you all i'm pleading with you all to unmuzzle my grandchildren my grandchildren
054are not animals they are human beings created in the image of god that's all i have to say thank you miss pease barbara hunter if you'd state your name and address please my name is barbara hunter this is my first time here so i'm welcoming all of you my address please your address please 1147 north lake it's destroy southeast winterhaven thank you i just want to say as a prior teacher an ese specialist teacher of the year and other credentials that i have i am concerned because i have grandchildren in the system too as well as friends and family that are in the system as well as teachers that are in the system i even have adults that are in this system and what my concern is is what they're breathing when they have these
055masks on when you have the mask on you take it off you do an oxygen and you'll see it's usually at 650. when you take and put the mask back on and you take the oxygenator and you put it back up under and you do the same normal breathing it goes to nine thousand nine hundred and thirty seven so you're losing oxygen my concern is the bacteria on the face as you saw in the picture of rosacea the bacteria that's rubbing against them what they're breathing in what's going into the respiratory system but not only there is what's going into the lungs and they're finding more and more children are having respiratory pro you know problems in their lung than breathing because of not being able to breathe that's why the children need to be
056unmatched immediately right now you don't need to waste one more meeting or anything else my other concern is i see the depression on the children's faces when they cannot see the smiles on their teachers faces they cannot see their children the other children running with masks on it pe is absolutely insane having them in the lunchroom is insane how are you supposed to eat think about when you go out to eat and you go to other places where you can go eat the children need to have the same considerations even though they're in school these children need to be protected and they need to be protected now before all of this other stuff comes out we know dr fosse is wrong we know the masks that you are wearing are not doing you any good
057at all all it's doing is causing you brain fog how can children learn when they have brain fog when they have lack of oxygen in their body do you understand what i'm saying so to me it's like you're killing our children without allowing them to have oxygen every one of them are getting sick and sicker and sicker each day as this goes on please stop this immediately those of you who are here who are up for reelection i guarantee you you will not be here next time we are done with this we want our children unmasked this is nothing but propaganda and when the truth comes out you'll understand you're breathing the same mayor with the mask on is without the mask on thank you thank you [Music] next we'll have carolyn holton carolyn holton
058once again please state your name and address for the record i'm carolyn holton i'm from lakeland i'm here as a mom a friend and family member to people in the school system and as a data scientist whose job includes studying covenant in polk county science is a key part of our curriculum cova 19 may be the most impactful science lesson our kids live through during their school years we can model that science matters or we can teach them that the lessons they learn in school aren't relevant to the real world i'm in favor of acknowledging that our personal preferences don't determine what's safe for our children if the science deep public health experts at the cdc tell us it's safe for our student population to be in school without masses fall i'm going to be
059so happy and if they don't i'll be happy if you make the safe decision for them about mass based on the science known at that time let's not tie our hands now here's some of what we know early studies that concluded kids don't spread kova were incorrect as we learned more about the spread we were also able to determine that the range of covet virus shed by infected kids matches the range of coveted shed by hospitalized adults even when most kids are asymptomatic we know that kids are being hospitalized with this disease and then a quarter of those hospitalized are in intensive care and one in 20 of the hospitalized kids have to go on a ventilator we know that kids we know that misc the multi-system disease that can arise months after even an
060asymptomatic case of covid is much more prevalent than we used to think many kids who get misc are still suffering six months after contracting it they may be at home on oxygen they may have physical therapy to get their function back they may have other enduring impacts most kids come through coveted fine some don't as parents we don't know if we're going to have that kid who has a very bad outcome covet 19 follows the properties of inertia most of us remember from science class that an object at rest tends to stay at rest an object in motion tends to stay at motion when cova cases rise they tend to continue to rise because they're more people to transmit the virus when they fall they're likely to continue to fall because we come in contact
061with fewer people able to transmit the virus but something can happen to exert force on the object and change its motion or disrupt its rest new variants are one of those forces for covid the delta variant that devastated india has cases on the rise again in the uk and that was starting to spread in the u.s too if we don't vaccinate enough to prevent it cases are likely to be on the rise again in the fall science also tells us that variants develop mostly among unvaccinated groups since kids under 12 aren't yet eligible for vaccination come this fall our elementary and middle schools will have a higher concentration of unvaccinated people than most any other place in our communities new variants make both vaccinated and vaccinated people less safe there's more i could say about
062the science but the main point i want to make is that the cdc are the science driven experts for determining what's safe based on current conditions i urge you to follow their guidance and not make a decision tonight that will make it harder to do what science says is safe with regard to mass when the school year rolls around thank you welcome dr hyde almost dr hyde and i want to say that jesus christ is my lord and savior too god made science i'm in awe of his creation and i hope that we can disagree and not be angry with each other thank you [Music] next we'll have calvin holton my name is calvin i also live in lakeland um i'm a bartow ib student from lakeland and i was glad that i was able
063to do e-school and still most of the teachers were able to get vaccinated because i knew that was safer but when i went to school after spring break wearing a mask was it just felt like less than doing online this small sacrifice of wearing mask text people that they don't have the vaccine or doesn't work well for and all of us since it means new variants i could send our cases up again are less likely to develop i'd like for us to listen to the cdc scientists and keep each other safer with mask wearing until they tell us that's not what's needed anymore that works a lot better if we all do it i hope you as a school board will make the decision that is the right one making mask optional is just not
064worth the risk of our lives please keep them required until the cdc says we don't need them in schools thank you thank you next if we could have molly cutrelle hi there my name is molly catrell from mulberry florida and i'm here first of all i hear us talking about the science with the emails and things that have come out fauci has proved himself to be a fraud to be a liar to fear mongrel to scare people i'm sick of it in our school i should be home with my family i should be cooking dinner i should be tending to what they have going on but instead i'm here and i'm fighting for the rights of my kids i'm fighting for their freedoms somebody wants to get vaccinated and that's the thing if you want
065to go get vaccinated go get vaccinated then you should be safe then you don't have anything to worry about if you want to wear a five mask on top of your vaccination wear your five mask on top of your vaccination but we're not cattle you're not shoving us all together we're i'm not vaccinating my kids they're not wearing masks and they will not go to school again in polk county if we can do something here you guys have went sheisty as far as putting this into the the code of conduct it's all backwoods bullcrap it's simple as this let them breathe let them speak let them see each other smile let them see each other's expressions give our kids their freedom back you are in the reddest county and the reddest state and if you
066think that the people are going to keep sitting back and letting you do this to our kids you are sadly mistaken four seats are open i know four people who can fill them that's not a problem people who are okay with our children having freedom you sit there and look like you're asleep and i appreciate that because we're here we're trying to fight for our children it's not a big deal to you it's a big deal to us i'm over it i shouldn't even be here i should be home with my family so should these people and it's a shame that here in a red state and a red county we are having to fight for our freedom as far as science read the emails that have been leaked my daughter sat next to me
067with one of those masks on she sneezed and it came right through do you think that's really helping no it's not i don't know why you guys feel like you need to be in control of our kids it's not up to y'all it's up to us there are children i carry those stretch marks not none of you it's our freedom to choose what's best for our kid if you're scared be scared at the dang lab go get your shot go get your kids shots go get everybody's shots the rest of us just want to be free americans we live in america this is not china this is not a third world country it's america and we're here fighting for our freedom why it's simple let our kids be kids let them go to school let
068them see each other smile i got four thousand dollars worth of braces on each one of my kids faces and they want to show them off let them show them off they're teenagers thank you jonathan riches [Applause] jonathan rich's polk county taxpayer born to ride 45 community patriots you know what the real danger to our children are y'all the polk county school board y'all the most dangerous people out there shame on all of you what you've done to these children for years you guys are disgusting all of you are disgusting of what you did to these children i sunshine well request this polk county and anyone out there if you want to get records sunshine will request pound these people with sunshine well request you'll get answers i've heard the emails from parents complaining about
069ill effects of their children i have no sympathy for you people you people are disgusting children were suffering for the last year and what is your address i don't think what's your address matter of fact i have your address i didn't verify you i just like i did fine research why won't you give your address because of the people fifa and blm they're they're marxist i'm not giving my address i don't have to give my address i'm showing you're from tampa though you said i'm cares why are you asking well county rhetorical because i think you should let people know we're going to vote you out in a matter of fact all of you already recalled all of you people are going to get recalled we're going to recall you this is a charter county
070they can get recalled they don't have to get voted out we can recall them now we're tired of it the parents and the people are tired of this there's people out there that want to come in they can't even hear the meetings because you got the door locked look at this room spaced out there's more people that could feel it says you're going to talk about the mass could you get to i'm unlock mandatory mask or unconstitutional okay we are going to challenge your curriculum we are going to challenge your budget we know about all your conflicts of interest all your businesses we know about all your speeding tickets and your vehicle infractions we're coming and you think it's funny we're coming dr fauci's a fraud and i'm going to come in front of every
071one of your people's houses with a bullhorn on a public street because it's my right go in front of their houses get a bullhorn just like i went in front of dr fauci's house in washington dc he's a scam artist you said all these years trust me you said for the last year trust the science trust the sign well guess what the science says no more masks yet your virtual signaling saying oh masks count and whatnot masks don't work you're listening to a little weasel named dr fauci he's a fraud he's a scam artist where do you get your medical advice from where do you people get your medical advice from dr uh kovorkian jack of working because you're trying to kill the kids people showing you pictures of kids that are suffering you disregard
072you know what i also did you are the only school board in the country right now under investigation for child abuse because i reported you to florida department of children and families and i encourage everybody if you see these people report them report them report them for child abuse because that's what you all are child abusers your legacy will be child abusers long-term effects and you're being sued who has to pay for the lawsuits the taxpayers you're all being sued you're gonna who pays for it and you don't care because it's in your official capacity i hope you all get student you're individual capacities remember this face and come on my facebook page i got two million followers jonathan bridges come on you very much uh jamie tinley is jamie tinley here um tanisha vitello
073tanisha hello tamisha vitello 2828 old tampa highway lakeland um i'm talking about mass today what's the motto in the school district students first right ma'am why is it that we've yet to see students put first this entire year they've had everything fun taken away from them from something that has a 99.97 survival rate they could not take field trips they cannot enjoy parties in their classroom they cannot be within six feet of their peers a lot of activities they used to enjoy have been taken away and for what because teachers put fear before their students and the teachers union think that they know better than parents no educators need to educate and let parents parent you are supposed to teach my kids math english science social studies and social skills not about viruses and fear
074mongering my kids live in a house where we have open discussions about things going on in the world and we as their mom and dad teach as much as they need to know for their ages i'm still mad about the coronavirus lesson taught at the beginning of the year my child was told that if she didn't wear masks she could kill people that's lovely for your teachers to tell my seven-year-old luckily she's smarter than that and knows that it's not true and she knows that washing her hands covering her mouth and nose are what keep people from getting sick not a mask we the parents are tired of being told how to raise our children so you the school board have two options in their mass mandate remove it from your code of conduct and
075start listening to your parents and students or we'll take our children out of polk county and you'll lose your funding thank you next is beverly hartley hello my name is beverly hartley my address is 1235 sunset avenue bartu florida many of you know me i've worked for the school board for 34 years 18 of those years for mr bridges and for the school board as well i'm here tonight to speak to you about the face covering policy that was adopted into the code of conduct by the board on august 25 2020. policy states that students must wear face covering a mask at all times required by the district there's no explanation as to exactly what that means and is solely at the discretion of the board and the interpretation of school administration and staff with
076no parental input on the health and safety of their own children this school year students in polk county were made to wear mass for seven to eight hours straight they had no breaks from the time they got on the bus until the time they stepped on the school board property until the time they got off the bus and stepped off that property they were wearing masks i know that my grandchildren were forced to wear these masks even at pe outside while playing and even while running laps after this was brought to the board's attention at a recent board meeting it was determined that children were not supposed to have been wearing those masks during pe apparently staff was not made aware of this fact during the school year and many children my grandchildren suffered needlessly
077in addition students including my grandchildren were threatened with punishment and or were punished for occasionally having the mask below their nose just so that they could catch a breath my granddaughter was suspended my granddaughter has had bronchitis since april my granddaughter has had a a rash on her face you know her big red great kid smart great grades fantastic kid and we're punishing them for a stupid mask that doesn't work i believe the board was trying to do the right thing in a difficult situation you guys aren't evil people i know that i know many of you you're trying to make all the parties feel safe and comfortable while finding a way to educate children i know that however putting a face mask into the policy in the code of conduct where children will face
078punishment if they don't wear them or they don't wear them properly especially now that we know that cloth face mask and the blue non-surgical mask they don't filter viruses you can read it on the box pick up a box at walmart and it says it [Music] but the one thing i did want to say was thank you to ms reynolds for voting against it for miss fortney for answering emails thank you because you're the only one that did including the superintendent's staff they didn't answer them either to any of these people dr allen thank you for your comments today thank you now i'd like to call up melissa courier melissa currier charlie warren go ahead charlie warren two two one six edmonton street winner in florida three three eight eight zero dana students frostproof middle
079senior high school a lot of things that i could talk about today one thing i'd like to encourage you all to do is there's a clay clark who's a great business leader has already done a health and freedom conference in tulsa and enlightened many people in the oklahoma area he's doing a conference on june 17th through 19th it might be a great opportunity to just define a lot of things where your front line doctors different people on different truths on coven 19 different therapeutics that frontline doctors were trying to use and have been using preventions the front-line doctors use facts about our vaccines i think it'd be a great opportunity for somebody to go to that i think there's still an opening so anyway health and freedom conference so anyway when we got the mainstream
080media putting out all kinds of narratives we have six six billionaires controlling what's being said across the airwaves so why do most why do our mass not really you know that should be off for everyone especially children with the lack of time there's great people have been going around our nation speaking about there's experts experts in osha they're experts in environmental health safety professionals that when everything hits the fans in a hospital they call these people in they call them in to save the day because everything is going wrong in their hospital and people are and people are dying and they come in this is their steps that they recommend every place they go into first of all they check for ventilation they do what's called the hvac ventilation it does cost 400 per room
081that lets them know what's going on with in each room and get any kind of reading and what's happening and try to assess what's happening uv sanitation lights that's the second thing that they'll do they'll check that out and see if any kind of lighting can come in and save the day purifiers is the third step that they will do the next step is enhanced cleaning training routines like for example cleaning this room they just do a quick wipe down if you do it correctly it's a 10 minute spray and then you wipe that way you're just not spreading stuff you're actually killing it the last step is doing a mask the mask should have been fitted on all of our students and staff we should have a professional come and actually fit us for
082that mass professionally because everybody's face is different that way it doesn't cause trouble running out of time each staff and student must go through tests to see if they can function i can tell you for a fact i did not function with my mask and had to go to doctor get an exemption my levels of oxygen went down too far i can only imagine what happened to these poor kids if you touch your mask it's no longer any good i don't know about you but all the kids at my school touched their mouths numerous times the immunity i mean it's just there's nowhere else to say there's much more to say but you know we have a lot to learn to find out about what's really true thank you sir and next i have jessie
083suits jessie suits hi there there you go come in the box and if you'll talk go a little closer to the mic so we can make sure we hear you thank you so much hi i'm jesse james and this is a poem i wrote it's called the fight for freedom this past year it's inspired by henry wadsworth long fellows the midnight writer paul revere listen polk county and you shall hear of the fight for freedom this past year in the month of march the year 2020 fear and panic were earned plenty we knew the fight for freedom was near i say to my friends how long will we mask to the end of the year the entire class they would all say is that something to ask not many liked it but had to comply
084it seemed so depressing to live this lie one year if we're lucky and two if we're not but will all of this even and there i thought will we all be quarantined vaccinated and masked if another virus comes again to attack then i said let's fight and with troubled minds many others decided it's not the time and just as i thought you would think logically you put masks on kids in the heat of pe some teachers along with the school board too thought that this was the right thing to do but kids like me struggled to try and breathe through all of our voices were muted ignored and we asked will our chains ever be torn then we tried to warn you you were doing wrong by telling you we're suffering these masks we jed
085we wear them all day some wear them to bed enough is enough we put up with this too long unmask the kids and break the chains of tyrannical rules that began to reign it seems as if our lives won't be the same if we wear these shackles again and again i've had it with being told to be quiet i tell you this i won't go sign we're done with all of this compliance so through the night we'll all stand here and take back our freedoms that men died for so i ask you kindly polk county school board here are cries of protest and not of fear our voice in the darkness are knocked at the door and these words that shall echo forevermore please lift these mass mandates for all the students teachers janitors principals
086and volunteers consider the facts and effects with prudence then this meeting will be filled with cheers i hope my words that you all here will inspire the fight for freedom next year wow what an awesome poem wow wow what can you tell us how old you are and where you go to school you're amazing um i go to a classical cool schools called geneva and i'm 11. wow you're an amazing young man and to get up here in front of everyone after creating your beautiful poem and saying it in front of all of us i'm so impressed and i'm so proud of you son you did a great job tonight let's give him another round of applause [Applause] okay board members that concludes all of the individuals who've signed up to speak regarding items on
087our agenda we will have other parts coming okay okay so the next part of our meeting board members is now to approve 10 sets of minutes the first set of minutes is for the may 11 2021 school board meeting chair will entertain a motion to accept the may 11th 2021 school board meeting minutes as printed do i have a motion and a 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 like sign motion carries unanimously the second set of minutes is for the may 11 2021 work session the chair will entertain a motion to accept the may 11 2021 work session minutes as printed do i have a motion and a second so moved second is there
088any discussion seeing none i'd like to call for a vote all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye all those opposed like sign motion carries unanimously the third set of minutes is for the september 3rd 2020 superintendent search meeting the chair will entertain a motion to accept the september 3 2020 superintendent search meeting minutes as printed 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 i all those opposed like sign motion carries unanimously the fourth set of minutes is for the september 29th 2020 superintendent search meeting the chair will entertain a motion to accept the september 29th 2020 superintendent search meeting minutes as printed do i have a
089motion 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 aye aye all those opposed like sign motion carries unanimously the fifth set of minutes is for the october 13 2020 superintendent search meeting the chair will entertain a motion to accept the october 13th 2020 superintendent search meeting minutes as printed do i have a motion and a second so moved 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 like sign motion carries unanimously the sixth set of minutes is for the november 30th 2020 superintendent search meeting the chair will entertain a motion to accept the november 30th 2020 superintendent search meeting
090minutes as printed 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 like sign motion carries unanimously the seventh set of minutes is for the january 12 2021 superintendent search meeting the chair will entertain a motion to accept january 12 2021 superintendent search meeting minutes as printed 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 like sign motion carries unanimously the eighth set of minutes is for the march 9 2021 superintendent search meeting the chair will entertain a motion to accept
091the march 9 2021 superintendent search meeting minutes is printed do i have a motion and a second second is there any further discussion seeing none i'd like to call for a vote all those in favor please signify by saying i all those opposed like sign motion carries unanimously the ninth set of minutes is for the april 21st superintendent search meeting the chair will entertain a motion to accept the april 21st 2021 superintendent search meeting minutes is printed do i have a motion and a second so move 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 like sign motion carries unanimously the tenth set of minutes is for the april 22nd 2021 superintendent search meeting the chair will
092entertain a motion to accept the april 22nd 2021 superintendent search meeting 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 vote all those in favor please signify by saying i i all those opposed like sign motion carries unanimously the next item is our approval of today's consent agenda the chair will entertain a motion to accept the june 8th 2021 consent agenda as printed do i have a motion and a second so moved second okay we have a motion and a second and um we discussed in work session today that we were going to have a discussion on several items that were pointed out by board members so at this point i'd like to turn it over to superintendent hyde to
093discuss the four items or to call on staff appropriately for the items that were flagged today during our work session madam president madam chair and members of the board members and community staff thank you um so we will bring angela up front who will address the first two items that were discussed this was as the board discussed during the workshop and interest that you have moving forward that certain line items on the consent agenda that may exceed a certain dollar amount that are not traditionally reoccurring issues for the sake of transparency we want to make sure that we're providing a brief narrative to explain those expenditures the first two items that were identified today earlier today was item number two and item number eleven item number two is the southwest middle school and item number
09411 was the 21c elementary school so this is the contract for the architect to design southwest middle school in january the board approved the item we went to the selection process and on may you all approved the contract with straw and trout so this is their fee of a million four five five the second item is the creation of the pro sorry sorry okay do i continue yes yes please okay the second item is the creation of the project for a new elementary school um just south of china lakes this is the first time you'll take action on this project it was in last year's capital plan at the workshop in october i brought it back so this is to create the project on the same agenda you also have to to award the project
095to the zizkovic architect to build the same prototype that we're building at willow oak and bella sita awesome okay thank you any further questions on those two items sorry mr hill i kind of took over there for a second i apologize i'm a guest tonight go ahead you're entitled to sir next item was item number 24 invo healthcare dr lutz will join us um invo healthcare as you know is a program an outsourced program that uses bcbas and other behavioral therapy approaches to minimize the frequency in this district in particular your programmatic approach to this was to reduce baker acts and students who are exhibiting violent behaviors but dr letz if you'll please explain your data was very impressive we've had a significant reduction in those risk factors including baker acts restraints and seclusions and
096so we know that the program is working currently this school year the program is in 10 schools and we are working with invo to increase that to 12 sites we've had a lot of elementary success and we'd like to repeat that success in middle school so we're looking at a middle middle school site as well as another elementary we are working with invo also to establish some very consistent exit criteria for those programs when the students have mastered their behavioral or emotional goals our initial step is to reintegrate them into the regular school environment at the school where the ibu classroom is located and as they're successful with that they will then begin their transition back to their zone school so the increase from last year this year is simply representative of adding two more
097units and invo provides 100 of the staff as of next year we did have one polk county school board teacher teaching one of those classes this year at floral avenue elementary however she is retiring so invo will fully staff those programs i just have a quick question can we get a list of the 12 locations of the 12 units absolutely thank you and i'd like to bring this item back in july or august to have further discussion because it is worth the conversation and i think the data again that i've seen reflected in the district is quite impressive but the growth is due to demand the need is there for us to continue to improve our social emotional wraparound supports for students especially those who are exhibiting these behaviors of self-harming behaviors and others and
098so it has been incredibly successful i think to bring that conversation back to the board in the future and and quite honestly to benefit our stakeholders they need to understand and hear what this program does and how it emphasizes student support so dr let's thank you and i'll be happy to bring the updated data for this current school year as we're analyzing that and collecting it now on restraints restraints inclusions and baker acts and we'll have that for you in july thank you the last two items were items number 40 and items number 37 so item number 40 was the udt ist contract that is our filtering software in order for us to be compliant with federal and state requirements for us to protect student information and student data for example every time a student
099goes online we have filtering software that ensures that their information is being sustained privately in addition to which this is part of coppa the children's online protection act and sipa children's internet protection acts as i shared earlier today this software again is for a three-year commitment so you're seeing the bulk that's why it exceeded or almost close to a million dollars but that is our filtering software i was really impressed as our district and i got i'm starting to get more and more of the history and narrative as you transitioned during covid to a remote environment the district did not have this level of sophistication and support to ensure that we were protecting our students in an online environment so very pleased and proud of the fact that the staff had taken in the board
100took aggressive action last year to implement this in a timely manner the partner quite honestly did a great deal of work it's my understanding from the team they did a great deal of work for us actually for free to help support and sustain our implementation throughout the year so kudos to the district staff and to the board and to superintendent byrd for her hard work in making that happen the last item was item number 37 this was one that dr allen requested earlier today we had a discussion and that's for safari montage so safari montage if you think back to your elementary school days and middle school days i was one of those kids that got sent down to the media center to check out the film strip projector or to get the old reel-to-reel
101film projectors maybe i'm showing my age well i am showing my age and it wasn't just to get me out of class because i was a troublemaker and to give my teacher a little bit of peace but at the end of the day you have to we realize that over time storing all that content becomes incredibly difficult and unwieldy and so even for school districts who try to centralize all of their av material and content it's an unmanageable task also what safari montage does for our instructional staff our teachers is it allows them to search vetted appropriate content by benchmark by standard and in many instances there are actually lesson plans that have been submitted by their colleagues across the nation so they can use that as a repository and everything is available virtually it
102eliminates the need for students have to watch the entire two-hour movie just to grasp one small concept so it's a very powerful tool it eliminates again the need for us to continue to purchase items so if a vhs tape or a seat or dvd or cd breaks and i challenge you to try and find a laptop anymore that has a cd player on the side of it but we've really gone to a web-based multimedia digital platform that's what we have with safari montage and as was pointed out earlier today it also is a repository for all district developed media so any content that we develop all everything that gets posted to the web training utilities information spotlights all of that also gets stored in there so that we can maintain it in perpetu perpetuity moving
103forward excuse me so those are the five items that were identified earlier today yes mr wilson thank you madam chair and thank you mr hyde4 for those explanations i just for the public's information i initiated this request because we had some items that were rather high in dollar value well over a million dollars and i just felt like it was important in the um in the interest of transparency to have a little bit of background related to those items so again thank you for for that and i uh i appreciate the explanations okay so we have a motion and a second now to accept the june 8th 2021 consent agenda as printed is there any further discussion seeing none i'd like to call for a vote all those in favor please signify by saying aye
104aye all those opposed like sign motion carries unanimously the next item is our new administrator announcements mr hill do we have any announcements today madam chair we do we have quite a few we're excited to announce these new new administrators and excited about their leadership and their level of excellence we have joseph mcnaughton iii has been appointed associate superintendent chief academic officer he has been serving as our senior director of k-12 mathematics curriculum and instruction dan talbot has been appointed as director of athletics dan has been serving as senior coordinator of athletics jennifer detling has been appointed as principal of jesse keene elementary she was serving as acting principal at jesse king elementary roderick gray has been appointed as principal of laurel elementary he was serving as acting principal at laurel elementary charlie huntley has
105been appointed as principal of phillip o'brien elementary he was serving as acting principal of phillip o'brien elementary elizabeth munoz has been appointed as principal of east side elementary she was serving as acting principal of east side elementary deborah wright hudson has been appointed as principal of mclaughlin middle she was serving as acting principal at mclaughlin middle laura nedring house has been appointed as principal of garden grove elementary she was serving as assistant principal at inwood elementary keri brown has been appointed as assistant principal bartow high school she was serving as assistant principal 2 at bartow high school christopher ford has been appointed as assistant principal of mclaughlin middle he was serving as acting assistant principal at mclaughlin middle please join me in giving a nice round of applause to these outstanding school-based leaders and district
106leaders [Applause] if if there is anyone present today if you're present please stand up i know there's one out there for sure please come up mr john mcnaughton you can say a few words we'd like that you don't get off without a speech that's right the pressure's on you're representing everybody now madam chair respected board superintendent hyde i'm honored to serve as the next chief academic officer of polk county schools it's this you guys have given me such a an opportunity for leadership across the district i am just looking forward to continue the successes that we've built on and the areas that we need to improve collaborate with with the whole community uh to find solutions so thank you so much for this opportunity i know my wife and kids couldn't be here but i
107have part of my work family here on the math team stant everybody stand to be recognized so thank you so much thank you congratulations thank you mr mcnaughton madam chair that concludes our new administrator announcement system thank you mr hill awesome next we come to our action agenda our first item is demolition of portables the chair will entertain a motion to approve the demolition of 48 portables that are over 20 years of age and are in pretty poor condition do i have a motion in 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 like sign motion carries unanimously our second item is the educational five-year plant survey the chair will entertain a motion
108to approve the florida department of education's required educational five-year plant survey 5.1 do i have a motion and a 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 like sign the motion carries unanimously our next item is our half cent sales tax oversight committee and the chair will entertain a motion to approve karen tyner to the half cent sales tax oversight committee and i would add that miss tyner was my appointee to this committee she will replace derrick fiehr who is a city manager in haines city who recently accepted a position as city manager in daytona beach so we wish him well and we're excited to welcome miss tyner to the committee do i have a
109motion and a second so moved 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 like sign the motion carries unanimously our next item is the idea grant allocation the chair will entertain a motion to approve the grant allocation for the federal idea part b entitlement grant for the 2021-2022 school year 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 aye aye all those opposed like sign motion carries unanimously our next item is mask face coverings as part of school board policy 8450.01 the chair will entertain a motion to lift the requirement that students in kindergarten
110and higher grades wear a face mask effective tomorrow june 9 2021 thus the wearing of a face mask shall be at the option of the student or parent do i have a motion and a second so moved second is there any discussion mr wilson um i will be voting to support this motion because for a number of reasons first of all i think it's clear that that the cdc believes now that um vaccines work and we we've heard from our surgeon general for the state of florida indicating that vaccinations work and by the end of this term all of the students coming back from years from ages 12 and up will have an opportunity to have been vaccinated it seems to me that most of the research now is pretty clear that younger students uh
111have less severe symptoms when they do uh you know when they do are when they are affected by by covet so i think this is the right thing to do at this time um we had a discussion earlier today about whether or not to leave this in uh as a policy in the code of conduct i you know the what i heard was that it's important to do so because there will be some students who will choose to wear masks understandably so and they will have a right to do so and it's important to have this in the code of conduct so that those students aren't wearing masks that have symbols and verbage on them that are inappropriate in the school district i'm not sure that i understand that i you know we had a
112little bit of conversation about whether that could be covered in another part of the policy so the reason i am voting for this this evening is because it it i think is the right thing to do in terms of um in terms of making masks optional immediately we're going to have another conversation about it as it relates to policy and at this point in time i i am predisposed to say that it shouldn't should not be in our policy but i think we should have that we need to have that conversation i need to have a better understanding of why it should be in our policy maintained in our policy as opposed to those issues being covered by other other parts of our code of contact duct and dress code and things of that nature
113so we'll have that conversation for the general public later but immediately then we have the opportunity to make the mask mandate optional and that concludes my comments thank you madam chair thank you any further discussion ms reynolds thank you madam chair um just adding a little bit to mr wilson's comments i too will be voting obviously to lift the mass mandate and make it optional but i did want just to note on in policy it has to sit for at least 30 days so for us to discuss it we have to let it sit before we can actually vote on it and that's specifically designed so that the public will be able to have an input once before it gets solidified and put into policy it's the same process that was used last summer so
114our plan is to bring it to the work session on july 27th to iron out what if it were to stay in policy what it would look like i think there is some interest in removing it from policy but so that will that conversation will happen on the 27th and then it will have to sit for 30 days um so that we can get public input on it so i just wanted to make sure that that was um clear to the public that that is the process that we have to follow thank you thank you anyone else miss fields thank you uh we've had a lot of discussion over the last several months about the mass and the face covering and at our last board meeting i think that the majority of us was in
115support of the motion that's coming before us tonight but we wanted to hear from our incoming superintendent mr hyde we had already heard from our current superintendent superintendent byrd and we were able to hear from him today and he is in support of the motion that will be coming before us in a few minutes so i want to thank him for his input today and the information he was able to provide the due diligence that he's done as far as speaking with the health department and other stakeholders and so i am comfortable supporting the motion i guess my only question would be is that if by some chance we end up having um more cases to surface will we go back and revisit it or do you have any thoughts on that mr hyde mrs
116fields members of the board um so thank you for the question ultimately the decision to implement or mandate mask wearing doesn't necessarily always just reside with us as we shared as we discussed earlier there are state county and or federal agencies that may interject themselves in the narrative within the school board policy you always maintain that authority to implement them but it is a data-driven decision it is not it does not have to be uniformly administered as we discussed earlier there may be situational issues or instances within a certain school within the classroom within certain settings that we may find as an alternative to quarantine or having to close a school due to an outbreak this might be the recommendation so no i mean it will be it's not something that we anticipate but it
117is something that we would work collectively with with our schools with our communities with our health agencies to make an informed decision i think that's what we heard parents saying mostly tonight is let's make an educated informed decision as to our policy recommendations moving forward um but again the discussion earlier today the recommendation to allow it to remain in policy in particular in the student code of conduct stems solely from the fact that some families will opt to have their child wear a mask as a direct result we then need to have safeguards in place to prevent it from violating our student code of conduct more importantly the dress code aspects to ensure that we don't have masks with graphic images or profanity or or other symbols of hatred and other things like that so
118that's where that stems from but it again it remains a choice it's only applicable to those who choose to wear a mask at school but as far as the future is concerned we will let the data and let the situations dictate where we go again in collaboration with local and federal and state county agencies thank you very much thank you miss fields anyone else any other comments seeing none um i will restate the motion the motion is to i have a motion and a second to lift the requirement that students in kindergarten and higher grades wear a face mask effective tomorrow june 9th 2021 thus the wearing of a face mask shall be at the option of the student or parent seeing no more discussion i'd like to call for a vote all those in
119favor please signify by saying aye aye all those opposed like sign motion carries unanimously yeah come on [Applause] okay now it is time for our public hearing i would like to recess the school board meeting and open up our public hearing at this time i would like to call the public hearing for june 8 2021 to order our item tonight is cypress junction montessori charter renewal contract is there anyone in the audience that would like to come forward to address this item on our public hearing agenda tonight if so please come forward at this time seeing no one we shall proceed board members the chair will entertain a motion to approve the cypress junction montessori charter school renewal contract for five years do i have a motion and a second second is there any discussion
120seeing none i'd like to call for a vote all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye all those opposed like sign motion carries unanimously at this time i would like to close the public hearing and reconvene the school board meeting the next item is our superintendent's report mr hill do you have an update for us today madam chair we have an update before i give the update it was brought to my attention ms miller that perhaps you wanted to say something during the new administrators i did some of our new principles um that are venus that are being put in their positions whether they were acting or not they were advised not to come this evening or they haven't been in the past due to the covered restrictions in the limited space but
121i want to encourage and i think the suggestion's been made that we start in july and add these people back so they can bring their families i worked with some of them who've worked in this district for decades and i think it's an opportunity for them to thank the people that helped get them to their new position so i just want to confirm that we'll be doing that in july confirmed i think that's a that's a that's a yes um and thank you for for mentioning that because that is so important i know i appreciated that opportunity when i was coming up through the ranks and it's a big deal so thank you for that there will be a special board meeting for the tentative budget held on july 20th 2021 at 9 00 a.m
122the next work session and board meeting will be held on july 27 2021 the work session will begin at 12 30 p.m and the board meeting will begin at 5 00 p.m these 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 this evening madam chair thank you mr hill next we have our attorney's report which will be given by mr bridges thank you madam chair single item a request authority to advertise a public hearing to be held on july 27th to 2021 during the regularly scheduled board meeting for the code of conduct changes that were presented to the school board at the last work session thank you mr bridges the chair will entertain a motion to approve the request
123to advertise the public hearing to be held on july 27 2021 during the regularly scheduled board meeting for the code of conduct changes do i have a motion in a 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 like sign motion carries unanimously thank you madam chair thank you mr bridges the next item on our agenda is our auditor's report but i don't believe we're having a report today is that correct okay thank you miss matthews now we come to our board member reports and we'll start with mr al dr alan i'm going to eventually get that correct thank you madam chair first of all if you get cold on this summer hot evening you can
124run down the mitchells coffee shop and have a nice cup of coffee and enjoy an incredible art installation basically showcasing our senior high art instructors i was there this morning we had an event on friday night saw several board members there i think no i saw a few people around downtown lakeland on friday night miss fortney indeed in jacqueline bird or superintendent bird i'd recommend the i dream of jeannie i had a cup of that this morning there at mitchell's as well definitely an opportunity to see some some great art uh from our instructors as they're the ones that are influencing our students with some beautiful craft uh secondly you know what is your story we all have a story we all have a unique story i just wanted to say thanks to the polk
125education foundation for an amazing hall of fame event that was my first one and experiencing that it was pretty humbling to hear the stories and the impact of individuals that came through and completed and graduated at polk county schools and then that continuation of giving back and serving our community and in great ways and then finally speaking of uh graduates we all had the opportunity to to celebrate our students and i had a chance to attend the harrison and lakeland senior high graduation ceremonies and i have a little grad shout out here i just wanted to read this and that will conclude my comments malaia williams is a visual arts student at harrison school for the arts she comes from a single parent household and worked very hard to become valedictorian and be accepted to
126columbia university malaya civic minded and has produced a five-track extended play on all major streaming platforms and created merchandise like t-shirts and stickers that read message to the youth keep on hoping all proceeds from the merchandise sales are donated to the loveland foundation if you don't know about that one check it out i researched it a little bit recently today but it's a therapy fund for black women and she wants to do what she can to help her community she's also global goals ambassador for the una usa her development goal is no poverty and her tasks include creating blog posts about u.n activity for the una usa malaya lists her experience at harrison and the art department as having a great impact on her and helping her to explore her own interest personality and improving
127her communication through art malia uh she has become more self-reflective and compassionate during her years at harrison she plans to major in sociology and visual arts and would like to attend law school after earning her bachelor's degree degree malaya hopes to use her skill and knowledge working in the nonprofit sector helping marginalized communities so i think it's really cool to get the hall of fame at that higher level and um and then to to actually see our students succeed at the rp funding center and then to hear their story of what they're planning to do moving forward so a pretty amazing experience this week so congrats to our grads thank you madam chair thank you so much dr alan miss fortney oh okay uh well yes i had some uh wonderful graduations uh mulberry high
128school bartow high school summerlin uh ib fort meade george jenkins i made up for what i missed the year before but the ones that really stand out and everybody was wonderful was roosevelt academy and how proud those kids were to uh accept those diplomas and our grad academy some of the stories there of the the miracles that we do every day with kids and of course i have to give a shout out to our fresh start it allows so many kids the opportunity you just the joy on their face when they walked across that stage and you know some of the hateful things that we hear in the world today if you would go to one of those graduations it might soften your approach to what our goals are which is students first i want
129to reach out to all of our retirees i know most of them and bless their hearts that they have earned it i'm i'm pretty sure this year should have been counted in dog years toward retirement as far as time i do want to do a shout out to all the staff for making it uh the 20 20 20 21 especially our bus drivers and our food service who continue to work even when you think they're not um i i have some i'm going to take some time here because gauze academy is also one of my high schools that graduated and i asked them since miss miller was for sure that she had the most high schools she is inaccurate i do but gauze academy uh is doing wonderful things uh i i really did get
130a chance to spend a lot of time with this bird that i've never gotten to spend and uh i really enjoyed that and when gauze was our last one so i have an actual picture of her last graduation if anybody's interested i'll sell it to you [Music] but gauze academy they are putting their final touches on stuff i can't even pronounce it is some sort of conference in uh and it's a grant that they are gathering um they're basically creating maps uh of their data and they're gonna present in st louis uh the story map for the gis user group and they're partnering with a group in winter haven usf i'm still at gauze all business students have worked on projects in conjunction with the stavros center at usf all kinds of awesome things they
131are doing business achievement awards they had five students actually earn those honors at the business level um at the fbla leadership conference they placed fifth for a small school that is awesome they had the signs of the tiger if you're not familiar 61 signs of the tiger which basically they do traffic signs engraved signage etc they're awesome and the seniors they had 20 seniors graduate this year and they were so proud and and they graduated with their class they also have middle middle school programs if you're interested let's move on to another one this is from fort meade lord i could read for days on fort meade but because they are junior senior but i really want to just share this amy hardy sent this oh the places that you will go this was all
132fort meade where they are going where's the camera thank you there it is uh and their career paths or four-year university paths george jenkins mr patton has done a wonderful job out there their academy has earned 356 industrial certifications with approximately 120 students still planning to test that's an amazing accomplishment i be at bartow you talking about heads above the rest i'm just going to give you some stats 1920 diploma rate ib diploma not polk county schools diploma 88 percents florida ib diploma rate is only 81 percent u.s public schools diploma rate is only 71 percent that and they are in a rigorous program uh they had 46 ap scholars 13 ap scholars with honor 47 ap scholars with distinction and a national ap scholar they had four they had five of the seven ib
133from their ib school national merit finalists from polk county they had over 2 million scholarships earned offered to date that was a month ago logan duncan was here earlier from ib getting his perfect attendance and last but not least nobody else sent me anything but mulberry high school the best kept secret in polk county they're kind of like auburndale everybody supports that school and uh we had 17 graduates supported by the title one migrant program facilitator danny higgins i too have given out the food at rcma i'm actually going to go on a tour in a different district to go look at what they're doing over there to help with that generational poverty and try to figure out some solutions they had kids graduate to go to michigan state western michigan usf polk state travis
134technical they received one and a half million dollars in institution and scholarship awards all but one of the 17 students are the first in their family to graduate from high school and all will be first-generation college students you can't put a number on that and that and that concludes thank you for that and if i'd missed the high school or the uh whatever you can send me something already at the next time not to be left out i think that's it thank you miss fortney next we have miss sarah beth reynolds thank you madam chair um first i just want to quickly highlight graduations and hall of fame may is one of those months that just fills your cup because you get to see all that we do in in the great outcomes you get
135to see the graduations you get to see our hall of famers so many different awards banquets for all of our students from kindergarten our pre-k students all the way through high school and it's just one of the coolest months i think because i thoroughly enjoy going to all of those but a couple other things i wanted to highlight is this week is youth leadership polk so we have 14 students that are traveling the county with polk vision i got to spend some time with them yesterday and they are incredible i met them at haven coffee roasters in winterhaven and john who they opened their business on march 22nd so they've been opened now for just a couple months and man they threw some curveball questions at him that i think he was you know expecting
136okay what you know how hard can it really be they're high schoolers but um they had great questions about entrepreneurship starting their own businesses some of his challenges and obstacles things that he wished he had done differently um they got to sample some of his coffees i know you were talking about some of the mitchell's coffees they got to taste a unicorn latte which i still am not 100 sure what all is in it and their new cookies and cream cold brew and just talk a little bit about how that's one of the exciting things about having your own business is that you can do cool things i taught their lesson afterwards through junior achievement and it just kept coming back they would say oh but but john at haven told us this and like
137this is why they should do that in this situation for their ja lesson so i was very impressed with them and i'm thrilled for all they're going to get to explore in polk county this week and then finally i just want to highlight our payroll department as most of you know in the month of may we had a lot going on in payroll um we on may 11th when we met authorized uh new mouse bonuses for teachers the blending learning stipends were finalized um and so payroll had about 10 days to process all of this and so i asked miss torres for some numbers that was 5698 bonuses 6845 teacher raises 1 690 blended learning stipends and they did it all in less than two weeks so i just want to give a huge shout
138out and thank you to the payroll team and that includes the programming team mike jones and diane rivera and then the rest of the payroll team for the late nights early mornings and weekends paula dole michelle dill sharitha arrington mariah flores joan brooks tara mcdowell james fout and of course miss dana torres so thank you for all of your hard work i know that our staff truly appreciates all that you did to make sure that money appeared in their may paychecks so thank you and that concludes my report all right thank you miss reynolds um next we have miss fields i just have a couple of things uh because it's been a long day and i'm sure that everyone's tired but i wanted to uh to name the four gentlemen that was inducted into the
139hall of fame i don't think anyone did that that would be mr robert trone ozama wooded dick mullinex many of us worked with him when he was on our school board and howard wigs and i want to commend the staff for doing a great job with the program everything was very nice and very i think very upbeat and when you check your email you can see the link to the photos that are very nice of the other evening's event and also you can also go to the hall of fame page on our website and see the pictures as well and i wanted to just say to miss tammy kress she's one of our administrators and to our family that we send our prayers and our condolences during the loss of her husband coach greg crest
140i'm sure that many of you all know him he was an educator he was a coach at kathleen high school in the aviation academy a gentle giant a great man and he really loved what he did which was taking care of our kids as well as in the sports area so we want to continue to pray for that family we've lost a couple of people for the last few months at kaplan high school so we need to be lifting up kathleen high school as well and i wanted to take this this moment to again thank superintendent byrd she was at our last board meeting and that was actually her last meeting i don't think some of us knew that and i want to make sure that i let superintendent byrd know how much of an
141impact she has had on our school district and the amazing job that she's done for our students and our employees and i think it's very telling that i think she went to all of the graduations mr hill i believe every one of them i don't know how she did that yeah i don't know how she did that that's a heavy lift but she wanted to do that as she exits the arena but she's going to be around we look forward to seeing her in the very near future but well done superintendent byrd you'll be missed and we hope and pray that you will enjoy your retirement and that ends my report thank you miss fields mr wilson thank you madam chair unicorn latte it's very delicious i'm pretty sure there's enough i'm pretty sure there's
142enough sugar in that to turn you into a unicorn but i just want to say um welcome and thank you to superintendent hyde for being here when is your first official day july 1st first and yet you are here thank you i think that's uh indicative of mr hyde's commitment and dedication to polk county to our school district so again just want to say welcome and thank you for being here today thank you and that concludes my report thank you madam chair thank you mr wilson um miss miller thank you i'll try to make this brief yes graduations if you can attend those you can see why any of us are dedicated to this so there's something about being amongst the community and sending kids out into the world to do really anything they want
143so i those are my favorite things to do in the year and i want to mention one school that doesn't get a lot but of attention because of who they educate but we also we educate everyone in polk county we educate children in um juvenile justice system we educate children who have to be on stretchers and feeding tubes we educate everyone we also educate adults and one of my favorite graduations is the east area adult school and the speaker for the last graduation was a graduate his name was steve gardner steve graduated he i'm sorry he dropped out of high school in 1973 and one day he was driving through auburndale and he saw the sign for the adult school and he decided to return he returned to get his high school diploma and he
144told us every morning he has coffee and talks to his wife who passed away in 2016 and the next day he was going to wake up and pour the cup of coffee to tell her he was the class of 2021 and i think those stories are what's motivating and and really encouraging for what we do here and what we fight for funding for and for every student the elder student or the pre-k student the east area adult school is ran by someone who i think is an amazing leader and dr castillo danielle was just appointed to the district 10 board member for the adult and community educators of florida so that's a great honor for her to have and the fact that we have her here in polk county representing adult education so i thought
145that was an exciting time and there's two students that i want to mention i'm a kiwanis member and we um we gave away some scholarships and two that came from the central florida aerospace academy i wanted to to point out just for their stories there's a young man named aaron i'm going to mess up his last name it's ichi i think his family was from new jersey and he was interested in aviation and they didn't have anything available for them in new jersey his whole family his parents picked up and moved to lakeland so their child could go to the central florida aerospace academy and be educated in polk county he is doing amazing things his dad died in december of coven 19. so he moved here to get his son the most opportunities he
146could get and his son and aaron and his family lost his father but aaron is moving on to go into college i mean to listen to him speak he and he's years beyond as far as um impressive and in his skill set i can't wait to see where he where he goes and ends up and another one is jenny my name jenny has only been in this country for seven years she's from thailand she spoke no english she is graduating at the top of her class and going into the study of human psychology to understand how to make aviation safer for the public this is what polk county produces and i'm so proud to be a part of it these kids are amazing they impressed me every day so thank you madam chair i think
147we've all been inspired here at the end with our graduations to um to keep going so thanks thank you so much miss miller and i have a few items as well once again superintendent hyde we welcome you to polk county public schools we're so excited for your leadership your vision and the experience that you bring to our district and i for one look forward to working with you as we chart the course for moving our district to the next level so welcome aboard graduations i was able to attend haint city high school harrison school for the arts and ridge community high school and as everyone have said i mean it's amazing to be able to see these kids kids that we've known since they were little culminate with the graduation across the stage and i
148felt so blessed that we could do it in a normal setting this year um and and give these kids the the right that they deserve to walk across that stage get their diploma and get their pictures taken and celebrate with their friends and family so kudos to all the graduates of the class of 2021. something that i'm passionate about is reading and so i always encourage parents to encourage your children to read a variety of books over the summer both fiction and non-fiction it's the single most important thing that a family can do to keep learning alive over the summer months and also to prevent what i call learning loss so remember readers are leaders and it has been quite a challenging school year for everyone i would like to express my heartfelt thank you
149to all of our absolutely incredible employees our terminal operators our secretaries teachers para educators bus drivers media center specialists coaches cafeteria staff psychologists mental health professionals nurses custodians school counselors school deans testing administrators maintenance staff groundskeepers school resource officers and school administrators additionally our district staff have worked incredibly hard to support student learning my sincere thanks goes out to our dedicated staff in the following divisions and departments academic competitions architectural services assessment accountability and evaluation athletics business process support business services division career technical adult and multiple pathways charter schools computer networking construction services custodial services discipline driver's education electronic equipment repair and support labor and employee relations energy management english for speakers of other languages environmental and safety services equity and diversity management exceptional student education facilities and operations division facilities planning federal programs and
150grants management finance fine arts fiddlers hearth project human resource services division information services information systems and technology division information tech software development juvenile justice programs k-12 curriculum learning support division legislative affairs maintenance services library media services office of acceleration and innovation office of the deputy superintendent office of the superintendent payroll personnel physical education polk education foundation preschool programs procurement professional development public relations and strategic partnerships i think they're happy pupil accounting purchasing recruitment and educator quality regional superintendents risk management safe schools school counseling services school nutrition school technology services student services support services system networking and operations teaching and learning services tech support center transportation operations vehicle services and safety warehouses and last but not least wellness through it all you have remained diligent flexible resilient kind compassionate and focused to provide the best education
151to our students and support for our families to that end i'm so grateful to each and every one of you for all you have done this crazy school year i hope you are able to rest relax and recharge during the summer months ahead thank you so much and that concludes my report the next item on our agenda is public comments addressing items not on the agenda i have a list of folks that have signed up to speak so please come forward as i call your name you will have three minutes to address the board i will start with tim williams thank you for giving me an opportunity to speak my name is tim williams and i live at 247 santa rosa drive here in winter haven um i moved here to polk county when i
152was 12 years old i graduated from haines city high school i was a hornet i have also been a business owner here in polk county for the last 31 years my wife she graduated from winter haven high school and she is an ese school teacher here in the polk county school system and now works at hank city high she's been here 32 years and this and she's got three more years to go and i keep telling her don't stop till you drop two years ago i began a research to do a research on the smartphone and the capabilities of it and i've seen where mr hyde had mentioned some of the safety programs that we've got in our system which is awesome but my research is showing me a little bit more of a concern
153and that is the the current phones that are being purchased um have a capability to allow them to go anywhere they want to in the world and allow them to see pornography in his most graphic form and these phones do not come with the parental control in the on position they don't come with the honor it's it's it's boggles my mind but it does not come in the in the on position so i've agreed to donate my time to the polk county sheriff's office as the project coordinator for a program called parental our parents take control campaign you may have seen some of the billboards you may have seen some of the television commercials you may have seen some of the newspaper articles we've raised over a hundred and sixty thousand dollars with community money
154to bring education to the importance and the significance of setting the parental control in place i work directly under polk county sheriff's office director of communication scott wilder and the efforts of this campaign are to educate and equip parents with the necessary tools they need to keep their kids safe from harmful materials found on the internet through my research i've discovered that sixty percent of boys and twenty four twenty five percent of girls ages ten to seventeen view internet pornography which includes violent pornography rape and even child molestation this is available to us with on three to four clicks of the internet browser our kids can view thousands of pornographic videos from around the world dr cooper a forensic pediatric psychologist states viewers of such material are 24 times more likely to commit a sexual
155violent sexual act experience depression feel isolated act aggressively towards women and even commit suicide and i know that the polk county school board or school school districts have a filter can i just say this i've waited a long time to just share this with you i know that you guys have a filter on on and that filter works really good however the new cell phones are allowed to they they can do it without internet they have all the unlimited data so they can go up and down the hallways viewing this graphic elizabeth pornography and i'm asking that you would partner with us in the polk county sheriff's office in an effort to educate our parents so that they can fight for their kids because right now i don't really truly think that they understand the
156significance of what they're fighting i really don't um statistics show and this is i'm going to put this pediatric college of america tells us that they did a study on fat 1 parents they asked 1 000 parents do you know where the parental control is on your phone they didn't 84 of them didn't know where the parental control was didn't know how to set it and 90 of them said i trust my kid the problem with it is is most parents haven't seen the graphic nature of this explicit material and therefore the school board has the ability to put in front of the parents eyes the significance of this that the coke county sheriff grady judd is backing so i'm asking for your help and maybe maybe there's a scrambler or an algorithm a way
157to filter beyond wi-fi that would allow us to scramble the the internet waves that would be harmful to our kids but i'm telling you it's happening right here in our county and thank you so much for listening to me i work two to three hours a day seven days a week on this that's all i do is study and learn i have put together packets thank you and if you would like one i would be more than happy to give it to you it's a lot of information but it's so well worth your time if you can just leave the packets with uh miss linda there if you'll raise your hand thank you sir thank you sir [Applause] lisa burke come on down good evening good evening how are you guys tonight so far so
158good so far so good so far so good my name is lisa burke i'm the president of ask me local 2227. i live at 3100 fast trail lake wells florida um i wanted to talk to you tonight some comments were made about talking to aspie employees i want to make sure that moving forward that we have we have lots of employees behind the scenes as you know make sure you talk to them because they have ideas choices and everything and especially our decisions that are made our work conditions are completely different than the majority of polk county school board employees we're not in rooms our environments are different as mentioned earlier i would like for you guys go through the list and look to see on the non-instructional see how many we're losing we shouldn't
159be losing that many um we need to invest in the current employees that we have because the situation is coming up as i mentioned before in september but because those employees are mainly a couple of them retired they would still be here but because of money and everything else they don't want to deal with the hassle with covet and all those other things that happened all this year because they're getting older but mainly when a when a 10-year employee a 10-year bus driver is earning what a brand new employee makes and that is going on right now that's not right so invest in the employees that we have because i guarantee you we could get a lot of people in here to do that and i wanted to talk to you because what would happen
160if everybody did leave i mean as i've stated custodians it is the busiest time of the year for custodians painters and reefers they work the hardest they're working five days a week this summer we've all gotten spoiled we all enjoyed those four days but due to covid things happen and they have to work because that's their contract but let's try to do something for them make sure they get recognized thank them and go out and talk to those people pay them some money because raises we've not had a raise in three years honestly the last offer we had was a bonus but we said no why a 300 bonus because you wanted to raise the insurance we know we have insurance committee coming up we know that's on the discussions so we need to think
161about those things because all those employees i'm sorry i don't have a whole lot today but um they work so hard stripping the floors moving furniture moving the books for the teachers that they need to get rid of at the end of the year all the teachers furnitures you know a lot of them hurt their shoulders they have problems working because they do the hardest work you have your painters your roofers everything your plumbers fixing the things that need to be fixed so thank you guys for your time tonight thank you so much for speaking up [Applause] okay the next order of business is adjournment board members there being no further business this meeting of the polk county school board is now adjourned you