School Board Meeting- 3-25-25

001Okay, I'll call the uh school board meeting to order and we will start with uh the pledge of allegiance led by Miss Wagner and the invocation by Miss Gillyard. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Amen. Let us pray. Father, in the name of your son, Jesus, we have assembled here today. Before we ask for anything, we want to thank you for what you've already done. Thank you, God, for blessing our children today and keeping them safe. for yet another school day and our employees. God, all of those that help to make this district what it is. God, we thank you. We thank you for traveling mercies as our vehicles go

002up and down the road, our maintenance men, our buses. God, for keeping them from hurt, harm, or danger. God, we say thank you. Thank you for blessing our parents for many may transport their children and for keeping them safe. And now God, we come to ask that you will guide us in this meeting. Help us to make sound decisions. Those God that are in the best interest of this district that we will continue to grow and glow. Father, we ask in the name of Jesus, a special blessing upon these that will be rewarded here today for their efforts, God, in the classroom, realizing that they do sacrifice and work hard to achieve the things that they do. And we thank you for the parents that push them and encourage them to give it their very

003best. We just thank you for all that are involved in this educational system. Now bless us and continue to keep us moving forward. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Miss Wagner and our chaplain, Miss Gillyard. Um all right, we will move to our first presentation. take stock in children and who's here to do the presentation. Please state your name and your address for the record and you are recognized. Hi, good afternoon everyone. I'm Serenia Martinez with Takesock and Children of Putnham County. Um we're here today to present Mia Paul, a student from Crescent City Junior Senior High School as a recipient of a very um generous uh scholarship opportunity and um just some really great things that she's been doing. Um but first um Take and Children, we are a nonprofit uh

004funded by our lead agency, Goodwill Industries in North Florida. and we serve all of our high schools in Putham County, specifically our underserved youth. And we provide college resources and scholarships to help them get access to higher education. So every year, Ticktock and Children is given the opportunity of a fellowship called Leaders for Life. So this is a $40,000 scholarship. Only seven are selected in the entire state of Florida. And this is specifically for take stock and children recipients. And to be even more specific, they're only looking for students that show and demonstrate strong leadership skills, people that give their time to the community, have excelled academically. Um, Mia Paul went up for this scholarship and we are happy to announce that March 3rd she was presented with her award of $40,000 as one of

005the seven Take Stock and Children recipients for the Leaders for Life Fellowship. [Applause] Sheesh. So Mia has put in a lot of time, work, dedication from the start of this application to the very end in her studies. Um she is a daughter of immigrant parents and she cherishes that and um she has always excelled in her studies. She is a Cambridge student. She finished her Cambridge studies by 11th grade and has completed half of her associates of arts diploma that she will be graduating with with her high school diploma as well. Um, so we are very proud of her and I'm just going to let her say a few words. Hello everyone. Thank you so much for coming today and um it was really honor honorable to have this recognition and to see how much

006this community has been a part of my successes and um how much we all take the time to recognize students that um have been able to make a good academic effort. So we applaud that very much and we thank all of you too for um taking the time out of your day to to come. Um I didn't prepare many words but you've done well but thank you. Thank you so much. It's really an honor. Yeah. [Applause] Awesome. Can we get Mr. Come in. 39,000. [Laughter] Wow. What an honor. Very nice. What an honor. Yes. [Applause] me and the board is all and as everyone is so proud of you and and I thank whoever on the administration uh got that coordinated for us because uh we we certainly wanted to recognize you. Um Miss France,

007you're already ready. I am. I am. We have a lot of people here today. Today we're going to honor the students from Putnham County who have received perfect scores on last year's administration of our state testing. Seems like it was a long, long time ago and it was, but we have to wait on the state to send us these certificates. So, we are honoring them today, although these were perfect scores from last year. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to call you up by schools and um if you'll come and Miss Lamro will hand you the certificate and then if you'll just kind of scoot on down and we'll get several of you together and take a picture of you with your administrator. Okay. All right. My glasses on. Okay. Our first

008group of students is going to come from the children's reading center. First, we're gonna honor Annabelle Annabella Benson in grade three for her perfect score in her ELA fast assessment. Salias Edwards, grade five ELA, perfect score on his fast assessment. And Joshua Gandha from ELA, grade five, perfect score on his fast assessment. Miss England, would you like to come stand with them? You may just be doing just go straight. You got it. And then we'll do all of them at one time at the end, too. Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. Just have them, Jackie, have them stand over there so we'll get them all at one time in a second. Okay. All right. From Melrose Elementary School, we have Jeremiah Hall with a perfect score on science. Okay. And Miss Tammy. It's okay. I don't

009know where she went. There we go. He's got She's coming. I think I think her camera stopped. The middle though, Tammy. Scoot to the middle. Yeah, like I said, I never remember Phil making a perfect score on anything. I know. There you go. All right. and um from our virtual school, Thaddius West Morland for a perfect score on this fifth grade ELA fast assessment. Good job, buddy. All right. So, in this next group from Qi Roberts Junior Senior High School, we have Levian Maul who has a perfect score on his ELA and math fast assessment. So, two certificates. That's okay. Ellen Nettle with a perfect score on her seventh grade mathematics test. There's a lot of smart seventh graders. Oh, I'm sorry. There you go. And then Bruce Pvat from QI with a perfect score

010on his ELA and math assessment. Those are some Wow. So, congratulations. You want to There we go. Thank you. All right. And from Browning Pierce Elementary School, Carmela Erinsson, third grade ELA, fast assessment, perfect score. Here you go. Herado from Crescent City Junior Senior High School. Leo Herertado with a perfect score on the civics exam. [Applause] from Palaco Junior Senior High School. Tenley Massie from seventh grade mathematics perfect score. I believe she's at a softball game this afternoon. Branson Moore with a perfect score from Civics. [Applause] and Tegan Smith, 10th grade perfect score [Applause] ELA. I have just a few more to call. So, if we can just kind of slide down just a little bit. Okay. Um, from Aquilla, a two-timer, a fifth grade math and science perfect score, Jackson Carson. I don't think

011he's from Mosley third grade mathematics. Scott Bridges. [Applause] It was easy. Was it easy? I am glad. Let's Let's hope it's easy in just a couple months, too, buddy. [Applause] Well, there we go. All right. And we have Interlockan Junior Senior High School. Last, we have Mariah Devo from biology, 11th grade, and Alexis Leong from biology also. [Applause] Get a picture with the chairman and the superintendent up there. We all just stand up. We can all stand up. I've got one more from Qi. I'm sorry. Yep. Thank you. I am so sorry. I got excited by all those great smart seventh graders and I missed Brady Pinkerton uh for a perfect score in mathematics. [Applause] All right. Thank you. Sorry babe. Yes. Can you Okay. If you are in elementary school, step forward. We're just

012going to stand the board. Stand up. Sandy bite. You deserve it. Yes, I'm sure I do. Much brief much grief as I I do like resist our pinch pinch. What a great We are really proud of these students. Very good. All right, excuse themselves. All right, board. While we're waiting for them to clear the room, we I just would like to say what what a great group of kids. Just a testament to the types of students we have in our system and and so so very thankful for our teachers and administrators. Great job, everybody. Very good. Excuse me. A minute ago. That was perfect timing. Yeah, I see her. Didn't make it, ma'am. I told her we'd be We should be through this. Okay. From the board. That sort of thinned things out. Yeah, it

013did. Uhoh. She missed another one. She missed another one. That young man. Of course. Oh no, you missed another one. I missed another. Get a special picture. Oh, we gonna get a good picture of this. I am so sorry. get a special picture. He gets a special picture and he was so kind and generous about me and my sunglasses and my and my bad glasses. All right, this is Braden Brown from QI and he has a perfect score in 10th grade ELA. [Applause] Get a picture of him with a superintendent and board chair. Y'all make this special for me. Go down. Special picture. Very good. Standing. Yeah, I guess. [Applause] Mrs. You are recognized. Very good. Good afternoon, board. And congratulations to all those wonderful and amazing students. When I hear 10th grade ELA perfect

014score, I don't know about you all, but I got a little tingly. That's amazing. Um, so I am here this afternoon to talk to you all about our favorite subject other than the wonderful kids and what they're doing. Um, but we're here to talk about the instructional materials plan for 2425. And you may recall that last time I was here, I very briefly shared with you the calendar of events. So today, I'm not here for the vote. Today I am just here to present the committee's final recommendations for three different subjects. And those subjects are actually listed right there on the screen. So we're going to talk about K through 2 grade reading intervention. We're going to talk about K through fourth mathematics intervention. And then finally, we're going to talk about the brand new

015course coming to us new next year, the half credit for personal financial literacy and the materials for that particular course. So to help my eyes keep track and to help all of us keep track, I use some arrows this time. Um, so today at our meeting, again, I'm here just to share with you the plan and the recommendations. At the conclusion of today's meeting, we will open up a 20-day feedback window. And I will at the very end of today's presentation walk you through briefly how to get to the survey so that anyone who is a resident of Putnham County, a parent of a Putham County student or a staff member who was not part of the review committee who would still like to provide some feedback. I'm going to show you exactly where you

016can go to be able to leave that feedback and to access all of the materials that we're going to talk about today. The next time I come before you, which will be April 15th, at that meeting you will vote on the plan. So that will be the time for you to either vote to approve the plan as is or um to make another decision. I want to before we get too far, I always like to start with thank yous. I state start all professional learning in our district the same way. And a great big thank you to all of our instructional materials committee members. This is a huge task. I think I've shared with you all multiple times, but I would feel terrible if I did not say this again. It is quite a lift

017for any educator, parent, um, member of the committee, etc. to take on this lift and really dig into these materials and our folks never disappoint. This year was no different. So, on the next two slides, you have a list of all of the folks who served on um, this review committee with us. These folks are the people who did the initial reviewing of all the products, meaning they spent some real time with these programs. They sat through many, many, many, many presentations from publishers and they really did give us incredible feedback, the good, the bad, and the ugly, which is wonderful. These folks, it's important to know, represented um all of the different regions throughout the districts and they also represent many different roles. We had classroom teachers, we had family represented, family representatives, we

018have interventionists, a former principal sat on this committee. Um we had district coaches, school-based coaches, etc. Again, representing all geographical areas of our district. in thinking about where we landed. I've provided for you on this slide. And actually, look, I I forgot my head. Here are your copies so that you can follow along with me. I apologize for that. I was too busy thinking about 10th grade ELA perfect scores. Got super excited. So in your packet and on this slide, you can see where we landed in terms of the committee's primary and alternate selections for each of these three courses. Remember that when we adopt, we are only looking at adopting what they call the major tool. This would not include any ancillary, no extra bells and whistles that cost a little extra, but they

019like to tell you about. These truly are just the major tools that we looked at for this adoption cycle. On this page, you're going to see that we've included for each one both the primary and the alternate choice the public review links and any required username or password if that particular publisher required it for you to be able to get in the system. The reason why this is important is because because of the timeline that the state was on for this adoption, many of our publishers did not provide massive quantities of sample physical materials this time. We do have some and they're available in my office. So, anybody who would like to see the physical can reach out and Suzanne Linberger or myself in teaching and learning can help get them access to the physical.

020But in addition to those physical, we also have the digital links. Now these links will not provide you access. That's an important delineation. They will not provide access to the teacher materials and that is by design. We don't want to be providing answer keys and everything else to everyone, right? We want you to get a sense of what will the student side of this look like. So anybody can have access to the student side of these programs through these links. The review committee however were able to see the whole thing everything all assessments all teacher materials and resources etc. So that's important for you all to keep in mind. The idea be behind primary and alternate selections are because the state timeline that is provided to us to work within does not provide for the

021final state approved list to be released until the very end of our adoption process. which you may remember can be problematic in some regards. So for that reason we have now the last few years we've tried to have a primary selected which is the one we intend to purchase and implement but we also have the committee select an alternate just in case. So, in case the the original curriculum that you wanted does not end up on that board approved list or in case perhaps that company because we've had this happen in the past, a smaller company went out of business before the adoption cycle was even done, right? You have to plan for those kinds of things and we didn't want to have to come all the way back to the drawing board should something

022like that happen. So please know that primary is the one we intend to purchase and implement and alternate is only there in case of emergency so to speak. I'm going to take a few minutes to go through each one of our primary recommendations with you. If after this session you have any questions about primary or alternate resources once you've taken a look, please reach out and let our office know and we're happy to answer those questions for you. But again, you do have the links to the alternate materials, but today we will we will focus on the primary. So, the first one we're going to look at is mathematics intervention for K through 4th grade. It is important to know that our primary choice from the review committee um was ready Florida Best Mathematics. that

023particular program you can see up in the top corner there has an ESSA tier 2 rating meaning that they have um provided evidence to show that this particular program has some moderate evidence of success which is a really good thing right in in the state world when we look at interventions we're really looking for things that meet tier one tier 2 or at least promising for us to consider them. So, it's good to know that this one met that tier 2 um qualification. The other thing that is important to know, if you look at this box kind of here um middle of the page, but also sort of to the right, those numbers that you see there represent and the bottom row, those were the total number of survey points available. on that top row,

024you're going to be able to see exactly what the review committee ended up rating that particular area of the rubric. So for each of the programs, you're going to be able to go back and see how many out of how many points did the re reviewers here in Putham County say that this program earned. And then you're also going to be able to see down here at the very bottom I have provided for you the top four scoring curriculums out of the whole process for that particular subject area. So you can see that curriculum and associates in this regard really stood out from even the second in line. That is not always the case and that's an important thing to keep in mind. But with this particular one, because curriculum and associates provided a wonderfully

025balanced approach to intervention, not just computerized, not just teacher table and teacherdriven, it's a nice balance of both. Our folks preferred that style over Dreambox, which was predominantly techbased. Okay. So, as you look through those um four, just know that each one had um all of the programs had many strengths, but curriculum and associates, the ready best curriculum was the one that they felt like had the most strengths for the need for focusing on tier three intervention. The other thing I really want to highlight about Ready Florida Best Mathematics is that one of the huge factors that really focused into our teachers decision here was they loved that this particular program was not just correlated or aligned to Florida standards. This program was actually built with the Florida best standards in mind. Meaning it was

026built for our state and then ended up going out to other states in another version. but it was built for Florida standards and that seemed pretty important to our reviewers. The other thing that they really liked about this program is that this one came with a lot of pieces. Meaning, while we're looking to adopt this for really our tier three students who need that um intensive intervention support in mathematics, the great thing about this program is there's so much that comes with it that our teachers sitting on that committee and our interventionists felt like with the purchase of this, they would also have some pieces that could help them not only with tier three, but to also support some of the needs of tier 2 as well as in some instances tier one students. students

027who needed just a little bit of remediation on a specific standard. And the reason they felt that way is because of all of the things that this program and its major tool comes with. You're going to get two student workbooks with this program. One is the student instruction workbook, which is just as it sounds. It includes many models and a few practices for each one of the standards or topics that it covers. But in addition to that, you're going to find a resource that is very heavily steeped in the things that cause a lot of our students hiccups. Things like world word word problems, right? Realw world relevant problems where students are having to pick out those keywords and really think about the math that is required to solve that. So this resource actually provides

028a tool to do both things. Focusing on the standard algorithm type math and fluency and things like that, but also that more advanced cognitive lift math where students are being asked to read, analyze, think about, break apart, and then put back together with the math. In addition to those two print resources, this also comes with a student digital experience. So those two tier three students who would be enrolled in this particular program would also have the benefit of again that digital aspect in addition to that face-to-face teacher aspect which was a piece that our reviewers really loved. And then finally, I also want to highlight um down here on the bottom row. While there were many, many things here, and I could go on for days, the thing that they really loved was this teacher

029toolbox feature with the adoption and purchasing for tier 3. You were able to get a site license for the entire school for the toolbox. And when our teachers started digging into the toolbox and saw what all was there, again, not only for the tier three students who may be most in need and receiving the whole program, you also had lots of things in that toolbox that met the needs of just remediating a skill that you may have just taught in your core math block. And they really saw lots of advantages um to that particular piece. In addition, I said already that this program had a nice balance um for our reviewers of both onscreen computer time and offscreen non-computer time. That was a big piece for them. They also really loved that this program had

030precise and very scaffolded instruction. This one, unlike many of the others, contained lots of specificity around if I'm giving my student this problem to work out and they're an ELELLL student who maybe needs a little bit of language support, this is exactly the step I need to take here with this particular problem to meet the students need. It's not the for those of you who've been in this a while like me, it's not the generic advice that textbooks used to give, right? You used to be able to flip to the back of any textbook and you'd get here's some general things you can do if you have students with disabilities in your room. Here's some general generic things you can do if you have an ELELLL student. This program takes that to a whole another

031level. And in every single lesson, it's giving you ideas based on the concept or the vocabulary the kids are required to learn for that particular little slice of the pie. And again, that was super appealing um to our reviewers. Two other pieces I want to highlight again because I want to make sure I'm doing our wonderful staff justice, but they also loved in a day and age where there's never enough time. They supremely loved the fact that this one came with on this very first block here, you can see lesson slides that are prepared for you, but also that you can edit to make what you need them to be. And our folks really appreciated that piece and felt like it would not only be helpful for the teacher or the interventionist leading. But in

032the instance, which does happen sometimes in math interventions specifically, if you had a parah who was leading, there is also enough guidance in this program to provide for someone who needs a little bit of additional support themselves with what are the next steps I need to take. Um, it's right here for them. And then finally, I want to highlight this family letter piece because that was another piece um that our review team really commented on. They liked the idea that with this program, you have a lot of family correspondence pieces again there for you, but that are editable. So, if I want to add additional information for the children in my particular intervention group, I can add that there as well. But they really liked again the time-saving component of that because that's an easy

033thing that can be sent home to again provide parents with just one more layer of what are we working on with your student and why and what are some things you could be doing at home to also help reinforce those particular skills that we're working on. Can I ask a question? Sure. Of course. Would it also be in Spanish there? Yes, it does. And it's really I'm glad you asked that question because with all of the programs that are our primary selections, not only do all of them provide resources in both, but they all heavily spoke about the ability of their program to be completely translated through Google, right? And so they while they provide many resources in both, they showed us where resources were not how easy it was with just a touch of

034a button to get it to do that piece for you. So, I was very thankful for that as well. Um, in addition, when thinking about how to meet students needs quickly, right, when we're talking about tier three students, students who are in the most need of the most intensive supports to be successful, it was very important to our review team that this program aligned beautifully with what we were already using again in our core math instruction. And the beauty of this particular program is they've done that work for us. They have taken the time to align all of this Florida Ready Best back to our core math which is McGraill reveal so that teachers very seamlessly and quickly which was very important to our folks could go look what am I working on in core

035what may I need to pull to support these students in tier three that's going to preview them or get them ready for what's coming in core and it provides that beautiful alignment there for you and again in a time when you're trying to help fill gaps quickly so that students don't fall farther and farther behind. Um, that is a really key factor when looking at these intervention materials. That's math intervention. Do you have any questions about that particular piece? Just going back to the um when you were talking about the ranking that the first one had the moderate ranking. Yes. What is there? How many categories of there? There are three and many of the programs. It's important to note to get onto the state list, you did not have to have all you didn't

036have to meet the certain level of ESSA evidence. But it's important to know and you may remember that in our K12 reading plan. We by law already have to ensure that the reading intervention program meets that ESSA evidence, one of the three um qualifying bases. And if it doesn't, we shouldn't be including that in our in our SER. And so we tried to mimic that same thing in math, even though it's not a state requirement yet. And I'm going to highlight yet because I firmly believe there's a possibility it might be coming if it goes by way of lots of other things um from the state, but we're not there yet. But there's no reason why we shouldn't be also looking for that same level of this has been used somewhere already with a population

037similar to ours and there are studies that say that it was effective. Right? That's basically what those those three ESSA evidence categories are saying. Thank you. Yes. Um just to clarify because that was the same thing I was similar to what I was going to ask but under where it says as a tier 2 it says at least one finding shows modif mo moderate evidence of effectiveness. Yes. Do you know a little bit more? I mean moderate shows moderate you know at least one. It just doesn't sound like the the best quality we could give a super lot of of evidence there. So what you'll find with a lot of the programs and this is true of many many curriculums reading is really the exception and I am a believer that that's because in the

038world of reading we started pushing towards evidence many years ago right that has not caught up in all of the all of the different curriculum areas. In fact when we get to personal financial literacy you're going to see there is no EV essa evidence anywhere for those materials right because it wouldn't be appropriate. it's brand new course, brand new materials, new to Florida, all of the things. So, there are not always ESSA qualifying evidence bases there. When there are not, I typically will go to the website and reach out to the publishers and say, "Hey, I know you may not have submitted something to what works or maybe you have and it just hasn't made it through their protocol yet, but do you have studies you're intending to submit?" And I ready is a great

039one because they for years have said here's what we have that's already been submitted but let us give you everything else right here's everything else we have through this state and thankfully now they're in many states so they have lots of evidence out there but in terms of approved qualifying ev ESSA evidence studies they have to be listed in uh or don't have to be listed but it's helpful when they go through the process of being listed in what works clearing house or for reading in the Florida Center for Research repository. One of those sites helps us know, yeah, you had enough. But that is more of a luxury right now than it is really uh across the board thing that's happening. I look forward to every time I go check, I will say there

040are more and more materials there and that's very good to see. I'm happy to see it. Please know that while yes, they were moderate level two in terms of the what works clearing house and ESSA evidence, they had ample other studies including from Florida, which was nice for our review team to get to see um from several districts. We looked at Collier. I'm trying to think of all of them. There were five or six that we looked at just from Florida to see what have what what are other districts seeing with the results of these materials. Now, keep in mind this is the first year we've adopted for a math intervention ever. So, while it has been used lots of other places and there's some evidence being developed, it also hasn't had a lot of

041time behind it yet like some of the reading programs have. Many of the reading program states have been requiring this. In fact, Florida was a little later than some of the states, right? Some even started ahead of us and we started pretty early on, which is nice. Um, but they're they're playing catch-up now. a lot more people. This is becoming just a common way of work and vendors are getting good about knowing if they call my office trying to sell something. I'm gonna ask you what's your essay evidence, right? I don't even want to talk if you can't really provide me something about where you've been used, how you've been used, and what was the effectiveness of that particular tool. Thank you. You are very welcome. All right, we're going to hop forward then to

042K2 reading intervention. And you may recall that when I presented to you the first time, I told you that this adoption was actually K through three. The review team has come back and they feel very firmly that with all of the other things that we have in place in our reading plan currently for third grade, they did not feel like the the materials that landed on this particular adoption list were going to be suited for all of the needs of our tier three third grade students. And you'll see why as we talk. I think here. So, one of the things um let me let me hop forward. Here are the um here's the tool that we ended up listing as our primary recommendation. That's magnetic reading. It's from the same company. Again, Curriculum and Associates.

043Again, ESSA tier 2. They had at least one finding that showed moderate evidence. And you can see this one did score even among our reviewers much higher than even the math side um program actually scored. And I also want to highlight that there are four the top four listed down there. And I do want to take a moment and address those top four because I have teachers and other staff members every day just about who reach out about other core foundational skills programs in reading. Jen, have you heard about UFly? Jen, have you heard about Wilson's? Jen, have you heard about this? Yes, I have. And I and I get it and I love the excitement. But please know that while you fly and Wilson's had some wonderful strengths in the use as a core

044reading program, this intervent this adoption is actually for tier three intervention. And when we had their teams come and do the presentations for their materials, the thing that stood out the most about those two, not in a positive way, were that neither one of those programs had enough to it to place a student in the intervention. And when our review team asked, their folks were amazing and answered very openly and said, "We were not created to be an intervention. When we were initially created, we were created to be a core reading program. If you're looking for a core reading program, we can probably answer your questions a little bit better. But because we were really looking at something where you could place a student relatively quickly and easily, again, to identify gaps quickly and then

045fill those gaps quickly, when we looked at those two that are there on the bottom, and we asked them about placements, they were very hesitant to give any guidance at all. And one of those places actually gave us guidance in terms of half a book. Um, which just did not sit well with our review committee. Again, not about core at all, but only in terms of using it as a true tier three reading intervention. They didn't feel like there was enough there to be able to pinpoint this is what Jen needs. This is exactly where I'm going to go in the resource to help fill Jen's gaps. This is how long, how much of it she's going to need, etc. because they weren't built initially for those particular um purposes. So great products just not

046for this particular um need. So you can see again the scores where they ranked. We talked about tier 2 evidence. Um I'm going to go ahead and jump forward and this is the piece that I thought may help you in thinking through K2 adoption versus K3 adoption. I like coding and decoding and the Yes. phmic awareness. I mean, you're hitting what really matches our population and what we need to really be I mean, we've got one we've got enough I see that are going to hit the higher level students, but it's those others that need it so bad. I I like that it's incorporated in all. I'm so glad that you said that. That's exactly where I was going. Mr. buckles. When you think about Scarboro's reading rope, this program is really built to fill

047the gaps of those most foundational needs, not comprehension, not necessarily vocab, and not writing. Right? This program is geared thinking about what do our youngest learners typically have the most challenges with, and Mr. Buckles hit it right. It's that decoding. It's blending. It's all of those initial skills in phmic awareness, funological awareness, phonics. When students lack the automaticity there, you see that rear its head in the upper grades because now I can't focus on the cognitive lift of understanding what I read. I'm too busy using all of my cognitive power to try to decode what the words are on the page. So, our goal in looking through these materials was thinking through what's a program that's really going to help students be able to lift those words and sounds um right off the page. What

048are the things that are going to help them build the basics so that then we can come along and help strengthen those other pieces. So, the more we dug into this one, we loved that it does exactly that. It meets that first portion of Scarboro Burough's rope to help kids have a much stronger start. But when it came to some of the needs that we see showing up in third grade, even among some of our tier three students with comprehension and some of those other areas, this particular program didn't quite do that. But the good news is, you may recall that this year we've taken on multiple new programs with the um comprehensive evidence-based reading plan. We took on things like a mira learning where it's the virtual reading assistant to help with some of

049that. Again, in third grade, we took on steps to advanced literacy. We move we took it on fourth through six before, but because our folks had such success and loved it, they got their third grade friends to reach out and say, "We want it, too." And we we did it. We got it for them. Right? So now that we have that in place in third grade as well as many, many other tools for those kids and those needs, we really felt like we needed to do something to strongly address these gaps before they get to third grade because once they get to third, we know how challenging that can be. We have got to start meeting them where they are in K one and two, meeting those needs, getting them at grade level and getting

050them out of intervention so that they can be successful in the grade level reading. And so the more we looked at this, the more our folks felt like this feels like a perfect fit for what we're seeing in our kids and what our data shows in our K1 and two students, but not as much in our third. Um, but the good news is they felt really good about what we had in place this year that was new this year for that third grade um, need. So, I'm going to jump forward again here. Another piece um with this one that our folks really loved, again going back to that placement guidance, is they really liked the fact that this particular set of materials allowed teachers or interventionists to pinpoint down to a single isolated skill if

051needed, where is the issue and what do I need to do to remediate that issue? They really spoke so highly of that particular piece. Um, and I will add that a lot of the pieces that are here in this program already align with so many other things that we do in our district. You're going to see some of the very same language um arise in the routines here. Things that we're already promoting with our trend walk like explicit instruction, scaffolding, um having students partner talk and team during parts of the class to really develop that oral language. Those same concepts are built in the routines here. Another piece I also want to highlight is that this year you may recall we brought on the characteristics of dyslexia screener. It is now required by the state

052and we had a screener that we gave this year. It was the ready dyslexia characteristics of dyslexia screener. And when our folks who also administered that assessment began looking at the assessments that were here, they felt like there were so many connections back to what they were already doing. And when they spoke about this and when they left comments in the survey about this, a lot of them talked about again the manpower hours to train people in something new. and they talked about what a gift it was to have something that already aligned to so much else that we already do where multiple people regardless of role could pick this piece up and help support it. Now with reading, keep in mind it's not necessarily going to be a pair because remember with reading for

053tier three, it must be a reading endorsed or reading microcredentialed person. A little different than in the math um adoption world. So I want to I did want to hit that caveat. Um, let's hop forward one more time. One thing, this is a very busy slide I'm seeing as I'm looking. But one thing I really want to call your attention to down here in the bottom left hand corner of this slide is that this particular program, Magnetic Reading Foundations, one thing that I found super interesting about it is if you know anything about Ed Reports, Ed Reports is a national curriculum scoring company that relies on lots of expert reviewers to give additional information about their um products. A couple of years ago, when so many states at the national level and nationally started focusing

054on the science of reading, Ed Reports built a science of reading um review rubric right into their platform. And when we went to pull for all of the reading programs that we looked at, it's important to note that Magnetic Reading Foundations for Florida was the only one with a perfect score. It had a perfect score for the science of reading. So while yes, there was some moderate evidence and there was some additional evidence presented that was good and we still had some wonderings as well, it did make the review team feel even more affirmed in their choice when we found that and were able to highlight that look in every single category this program has gotten all reports and that's from no one here. That's from a panel of you know different national reviewers who

055um work for ED reports. So, we thought again that was another great testament to the power that could be in this program. And we know I want to say while I say all that, no program does everything, right? It's both program and incredible people. No program can do anything in this district without our incredible people. They are the ones who are making it happen. So even with all of that, the evidence, the perfect sore score, we know that it really does take a a lift of our incredible folks to make all of this happen and make sure that students are growing as a result of it. It's never just a program. And so the professional development will be during the summer. So we're going to look at both depending on timelines. Um, we've just only

056preliminarily had some draft, I'll call them draft conversations because we can't do much until we know how the board vote goes coming up in the next month. Um, but we have started to talk about no matter the product, what might this look like? And so we've talked about trying to shoot for July to do the first round of trainings and then do another round of trainings for those who can't come in the summer during pre-planning of course which I know is not always ideal for folks but we also have started having some conversations among our team about what would it look like to not only train teachers and interventionists but also some of our friends who work in places like MTSS or in the ESSE department so that Now, not only are these people fully

057understanding what the program is, what all the data is that comes out of it, etc., but how do we also help these people who help keep our system moving in lots of other ways? How do we also help them understand what this program is all about and how it can help serve students? So, we've talked about doing some learning communities next year that focus on the folks who really in one way, shape, or form help turn these gears, right? so that more people are more familiar including the leaders this one as well and the only thing I'll say here is just another reminder it's another great one that is fully aligned to the Florida standards and our folks did like that there were some on the um list that while they provided a correlation chart

058when our folks really started digging into clarifications and sepalms they realized that just because it was tagged did not mean that it was fully aligned. And so, um, it was really important to us that we had that alignment and this one definitely did that. I also want to highlight one other portion. I have a teacher, an incredible kindergarten teacher, um, from out on the West End in my mind as I say this. She sat down with me at the beginning of the year and talked about the desire to have more um more supportive pieces in place during foundational skills instruction that do things like help students with the mouth articulation that you would make for that. Especially thinking about what may have happened in the years coming out of the pandemic, right? for kids who

059were just learning speech and and and talking and developing oral language while we were all in masks and things like that. She really spoke passionately about the desire to have articulation cards or something to better help promote that side of things in the reading classroom and in the intervention classroom. So I with her in mind was very excited to see that magnetic reading has added those very pieces into this program. So you can see while it may not seem like a big deal to you because it's kind of hard to show the power of it just in one picture but you can see there we have a mouth forming those sign those sounds. This program provides many, many resources to help not only kids understand how to take words apart and blend them back together

060without doing what we um sometimes from the south can do. Like um let's say the letter is D and I'm trying to tell you the s sound. I may be inclined to say duh. That sound is duh, right? Well, that's cute. But it does not help me if I'm now trying to blend the word dip. Right? because now I'm going duh, yep. And I can't put that back together. It just doesn't sound right. And so when you have tools like this with a program that really do help serve as wonderful reminders for the adults, but also for the students, it can be very helpful. And especially when you think about kids who have the dual challenge of not only having some reading struggles but possibly also some speech struggles, how important these cards are for

061that phmic awareness development and some of the other pieces. So, I just wanted to highlight that because again, it really just spoke to me and it spoke to our review team um with some of our uh especially our youngest learning uh teachers in mind because they felt very passionately about that particular piece. And I could go on and on about all of the other ways that this program supports, but you can see a few examples of them there. It even includes um some of the instructional routines if you are so inclined um to take a look. Uh you have elone in boxes. Again, the program tries to help um teachers be more multiensory in nature. So you're not only going to see pieces where uh students are being asked to read words, but you're also

062going to see pieces where students are asked to manipulate what are the sounds in this word and where do these fit, right? And so this program really does a nice job of building in that new state requirement of multi-ensory instruction for reading and reading intervention as well. All right, that is our K to2 reading intervention program. We have one more, but before we go to that last one, I want to ask, do you have any questions about the reading intervention piece? I'm good. You have any questions? Got them. All right. All right, last but certainly not least because we're excited about this one. All right, this one is a personal financial literacy. Again, this is the new half credit that we will be offering in PCSD next year, really targeting our 11th grade students so

063that they have this course under their belt for graduation the following year. Uh, this course really does a nice job of highlighting those things that I don't know about you all, but I hear from parents all the time. I myself say it about my own children like who taught them these budgeting skills? I'm sure it was probably me, but but nonetheless, we hear families all the time say kids really need um this piece. So, we were excited to look at these brand new materials for this brand new uh course. So, our primary uh recommendation for this one was McGraill Personal Financial Literacy. And you can see looking down the top four choices again, while McGra Hill really stood out, when you look at the second, third, and fourth choices, boy, they were close. They were

064much closer uh than in some of the other ones. You can also see again up here in the top right, you can see how that scored on the survey according to our uh PCSD and Putinham reviewers. This one again, they have not been around long enough to have any kind of additional information from ED reports or any of that. So, I was unable to provide that for you all or for the reviewers. Um, but what I can tell you is some of what really made our folks excited. So, here's the McGra McGraill book. You can see the cover of it there. There is also a digital component which our folks again even at the secondary level there was some concern about finding a balance, right? giving enough print, but also giving students that digital component

065to prepare them for what's coming if they're going to college or out into the workforce with using those tech um pieces as well. Here are some of the things that they loved and they really kind of categorized this by which I I loved and thought was interesting among secondary versus elementary reviewers. They kind of looked at it through the lens of what's great that kids will love. And then you'll see they there's another slide where they gave me the what's great that we love which I can appreciate. So in terms of the kids they really loved that there was a h they felt like there was a 100% alignment with this one to the Florida standards. Now I will say even with saying that keep in mind this is a brand new course. So for

066this round of reviews they were going based on what is on sepalms. I always say in our world when you know better you do better. And I am not naive enough to think we won't also learn as we take on this course for the first time. But in this initial review, they felt like it was the tight tightest aligned. They loved and felt like kids would love that there were so many hands-on and realworld um activities, experiences, scenarios for kids to kind of work through together. They loved it and they felt like their kids would be excited and motivated by that piece. Um, they also really appreciated that it connected to real life and that kids when talking about uh life choices might be a little more excited about that than the typical algebra problem,

067you know. Um, they also really liked that it helped it helps build skills through active practice and assessment and that there was a lot of project-based learning options. Not that you had to, but there were multiple options for project-based learning in this particular curriculum. And if you know anything about McGraill, it's not surprising. These large curriculum houses have gotten pretty good at not only providing with their tool the tool, but they often give you a whole toolbox of other things you can pick from as well. And this is no different. And our folks uh loved that piece. Now for the teachers, what did they love? They loved that alignment, too, and said that would make their lives so much easier. They liked that they felt like there was a a clear and consistent structure to

068facilitate active learning. They felt like a lot of the things that the book was encouraging them to do were the very same things that their leaders were already encouraging them to do. Again, going back to things like making sure that you not only give time for kids to be talking to each other, but also that you give them that independent time as well, so that you know that you know what Jyn knows versus what Jen and her whole team knows. Um, so this one felt like it did all of those pieces and they really liked that. They liked that the teachers manual was engaging and was filled with hands-on activities. They liked the applicationbased activities themselves from the teachers perspective. It was really fun to hear them say, "I think this will make my job

069fun, too." Which was just exciting. Um, and then again, they also liked that it infused that project-based learning. And then they really kind of talked about students who had um varying needs in their classrooms. And so we heard them say things like, "Boy, my students who might struggle with reading or on the math side, they're going to benefit from all the relatable examples because even if they haven't experienced it, they may have heard another adult adult in their life talk about this so they can connect a little easier." They liked that it offered a variety of discussion and formats to teach. So that if you had a kid who um maybe doesn't do the best with just a PowerPoint and me auditorially sharing, there was enough with this program where you could really change that

070up if you needed to. You could put a kid on an online component. You could show a small clip of a video. Um there were lots of kid I say kid, that's not a good word, young adult. There were a lot of young adult interviews contained within this program and they felt like kids would connect with that as well because the the students that they saw in these videos or the young adults out in the workforce that they saw, they looked just like them, right? It was all different types of kids, all from all different places talking to them about what they were experiencing in the real world. And they felt like for a kid who might struggle with the content, what a great added benefit. Um they really liked again that for kids who

071struggle there were lots of tangible real world things. They loved the visual aids in this program. Everything from um charts and graphs and organizers to guided notes. This program actually contained guided notes and many of them spoke about well now I don't have to go recreate that. It's here for a kid who might need that as a scaffold. And then finally, they really liked the consistent practice and the multiple ways to assess a student to know if they got it. There were the typical um paper pencil or digitized test, but there were also lots of other things like here's an essay question. I want you to write me through what you would do in this scenario. And there were things like um watch this video clip scenario and we want you to timestamp where these

072different pieces of the process are showing up. There were just so many ways that kids could show you what they learned from the course without it always having to be the traditional ABCD pick your you know pick your answer read multiple choice and that was again um a a definite love of our folks. So that is our personal financial literacy uh recommendation. Any questions about that one? And that was uh in legislation adopted by last year that to include that. Yes. Two years ago. Okay. Yes. Good. Good. Glad they got that. Well, you can tell McGraw Hill has got it together for the toolboxes they put with it. They do. And I might add, they have a rep right now. And I don't I don't take time to shout people out a lot, but I

073have to say their rep has made a point to drive herself all the way to our district multiple times this year for other curriculum needs that we've had because a teacher reached out to her or because a coach reached out to her. And I just have never experienced and we've had McGraw Hill for years in our district and I've never quite experienced a rep like the one that we currently have. So, I feel like it's important to give her a shout out, too, because she has she has made some travel time back and forth to Putinham County for the benefit of our folks and I that just that speaks so so much. Um, okay. So, after today's meeting, we are opening up this 20-day feedback window. Keep in mind that feedback is just that we

074are looking for your input, your thought, your reaction to the curriculum. It is not a vote. It's not another vote, right? the recommend that the selection and elimination committee when they met at their publicly um uh notorized meeting when we when we did the public meeting they presented they are the ones who are submitting the recommendations to you and I on their behalf. The next vote will be your vote, but we do not want to miss an important bit of feedback that maybe we missed as we were looking through materials that someone else may have or an important caveat. And even if that feedback is not to um about yes, this is the best program or no, it's not. The last time we asked uh folks for feedback, we had a couple of staff members

075who didn't they did not they love the programs, but they really didn't offer feedback on the programs. They offered feedback on the PD that we were going to plan associated with the programs and they gave me some feedback about that which I love. So I invite the feedback, right? But it is important to note that when you give feedback that does not mean that that is a vote. You're giving our team additional feedback for what's to come so that we can better plan for implementation and or purchase if we get to that point. Have any questions? Oh, go ahead. I was just going to say and our parents will get the opportunity like you said to go on. So uh a point of reference for later when we when we mention alphabets PD let them

076know that the teachers will be trained on how to help your child to better understand. That's exactly right. You know just for them because I'm I mean we're Yeah. Yes. Thank you so much too for reminding me of that. I sometimes forget I have more acronyms than anybody else. Thank you. Alphabet super just on the on the input. Um is that something that is anonymous or can they go on there and log into this or so I I ask them it it won't automatically collect an email. It's going to ask them to include their name and email. We don't typically share that with others, but I have access to that so that if there's something I need to go reach out to somebody about, I can do that. And the other reason why that's important

077is because remember for this adoption process, residents have the opportunity to give feedback and input parents. But it should not be that somebody outside of the community can now come give feedback and input to this adoption process if they don't have a stake in this, right? Like they don't have a student here or, you know, aren't a staff member. It's not directly going to impact them. We try to help ensure that everybody giving feedback is somebody who should be giving feedback, who we really should be thoughtful and considerate of their feedback. Well, I enjoyed you saying duh because Miss France says that to me all the time. So anyway, you did a good job, Jennifer. Thank you. Thank you so much. So, the LA Can I show you one real quick last piece just because

078I don't want anybody confused about how to get to the feedback survey? I want to be sure everybody knows where it is. So, the 20-day feedback window is March 26th through April 14th. That's important to note. and you're going to get there by going to the Putnham Schools homepage. Um, so when you go to the Putnham Schools homepage, you're going to see that wonderful little menu dropdown. You're going to make sure you drop it down. Now, you're going to see so much more than just these choices here. I've just given you the part of the menu that highlights us. So, you're going to scroll all the way down to teaching and learning. You're going to select teaching and learning. Once you select that, you're going to see this page that's floating here in the background

079um pop up. And then you can see down here on the left hand side, you have the instructional materials plan right here where it says click here. This is going to be hyperl so that they can select that. Once you have selected it, you're going to see a new page that looks like this. There's a lot more to it as well, but this is the top of the page. At the bottom of the page, you're going to see a survey with a link that you can select. If you're not comfortable with QR codes, we've given you just a hyperlink that you can select also. But we've also given you the same QR code that takes you straight to the survey. Now, the thing that's important to note is in order to give feedback, we're encouraging

080you to please go look at the materials, right? Go to the public review links. Don't give the feedback without taking a look. Take a look. Sit a spell with them. See what they're all about. To get to those public links, I've done two things. One, they're going to be listed right here on this same web page that you see screenshotted here. So, at the bottom of the page, I have provided all the links, hyperlinks, username, passwords, all of that right there for anybody who would like to provide that feedback. Beneath that, I have the survey links. And embedded in the survey, I also for each one of the curriculums that they may want to give feedback on, I also included a picture of all of the links, usernames, and passwords there so that if somebody

081wasn't necessarily as comfortable with toggling between two screens, we don't necessarily have to. you've got it right there in the survey as well, which I hope uh will make it a little easier for everybody regardless of um tech comfort to be able to give that feedback. The feedback is just a Google form. Um I currently am the only person who have the viewable access to it. Uh we could change that if needed, but right now it comes directly to me and there's a I have a thing set to my inbox to let me know if somebody submits. And um the only reason we would come back to you with additional feedback is if we receive feedback that we think will absolutely impact the remainder of the adoption process. Right? Last year we didn't bring all

082the feedback back to you because the only feedback we really received was on the PD side. Please make sure when you're planning for this, you think about both those of us who were on vacation and those of us who were only here for pre-planning, which I loved that. And a few people gave us feedback about making it more hands-on when they come in for PD. It was stuff like that. Nothing really directly about um the ease of use of the materials or anything like that. It was really more around um our staff really thinking through what is the professional learning you can do for me that is going to help me feel successful with this program, which again I appreciated, but it wasn't enough to impact this process. It didn't have anything to do with

083the materials necessarily. Very good. Any questions or comments by the board? Excellent. Wonderful. Good. Good presentation as always. Thank you, Mrs. Zula. And board, we will prepare to move to the public comment. We didn't have any speaker cards, did we? Okay. um board. As a prerogative of the chair, I have asked um county commission chairwoman Leo Wilkinson to come and give us some update on what we were all doing in Tallahassee uh last week, but specifically uh on the task force and and Highway 100 and road safety in general. So, uh you're recognized, Madam Chairman. Well, thank you. Um, it's a little bit different than where I'm at, where I sit. So, it's a little bit Sorry for that. Um, thank you for having me. I just wanted to give you an update. We had

084our board of county commission meeting this morning as well. And so, there's a few things that we want to talk about regarding public safety and the decision that we made today at the board meeting. Um, first of all, thank you, uh, Mr. Larry for attending our border county commission meeting a few weeks ago and bringing to our attention uh the discussion that needed to take place regarding Highway 100. Um after those two fatalities in uh late February as a result of that that meeting um we discussed having creating a task force. Um we did not go into the specifics of that at the time but we did talk about doing that. Um we also um after that we knew we were going to go to Tallahassee. So we uh wrote a letter, a collaborative letter

085in which you uh this board also sent a letter and so did the sheriff's office. And so I just want to read to you the three points that of of that letter. I think it's great that we were able to come together um say state highway 100 expansion to accommodate four lanes of travel. Understanding the complexity of this project, we would like to entertain short-term solutions, including creation of passing lanes and center lane barriers. Florida Highway Patrol increasing enforcement activities on State Road 100 with particular attention to peak hours corresponding with school zones and times and coordinating a joint public meeting to allow FDOT and local authorities to collaborate with citizens and partners on how we best meet the current and future needs related to transportation in our community. So, our three um our three

086agencies worked collaboratively together. Um then we went up to Tallahassee and we were able to meet one-on-one um as your legislative body. Uh four of your county commissioners met with uh secretary of FDOT for the state um Secretary Purdue and then the district secretary is uh Greg Evans. So, he was also in the meeting. We presented this letter and told him the things that we that we were looking to do in the future. they were very um open to having some public meetings. Um they immediately responded with some more presence on Highway 100. Um I've got reports that I guess over the two-day period they had stopped about 90 people out on Highway 100. Um but you know, in this in this process, we've learned some things as we've gone along. Um, Deputy Administrator Grimes

087explained that one of the accidents that he went to, he couldn't get to they couldn't EMS and fire couldn't get to the um get to the patient. They had to park and walk about a quarter of a mile to get to the patient. And so one of the things that happens on this road, and this is what we brought to DOT, is it's narrow on the edges. It has a little bit of a of of some concrete um asphalt, I mean, and some of the edges then are very steep. you can't really pull over. And in having discussions with both the sheriff's office and FHP, they even noted that there are certain areas of that road that it's really difficult to pull somebody over, even to do a U-turn and come back. And the other

088thing we found when we looked at numbers was it's an 18.8 mile stretch from um I call it GP road, but State Road 216 to the county line. And the most dangerous section of that road by far, it's four times more dangerous than the rest of that section of road is between Bonan Road, 309D, and Carowway. And that is by far, it's four times more dangerous, more four times more fatalities and than the entire road. And so all of that we brought to the attention of DOT and discussion about how we could work on that section of road because you know obviously planning a road four-lane road it's not in their five-year map it's not in their 10ear map and um you know one of them you know some of the discussion back and forth

089was you know it could be 15 years before we get it and I said well you know the research we did shows that there's enough rightway the state has enough rightway right now to go ahead and fourlane it you And we did discuss, you know, that there's money in other line items in their budget for Putnham County. Could they move that? Of course, they said told us they couldn't. That they were statutoily driven to keep it in certain line items. Um, so we had good discussion. Um, and they have agreed that they will come and do a public meeting with us in the future. Um, so that was one part of that. Um, but yeah, just learning a lot about the whole the whole road specific to Highway 100. They do have some plans there.

090Um, but I also wanted to bring your attention to a recent report that was done um on Florida politics and I think uh Chair Larry if you supplied this copies. Yeah. So um Florida's Putinham County is the fifth most dangerous county for drivers in the United States and that's um according to um Repeat that again and read it into the microphone really good. We are the Daily News will pick up on Listen, I know uh Putinham County is the fifth most dangerous county for drivers in the United States. And this is according to a study um where acts for accidents in from 2018 to 2021. And that came from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. So that's that's true numbers. That's true data. And uh Putnham County had 21.14 fatalities caused by car crashes for

091every 10,000 people, placing us fifth among the most dangerous in in dangerous counties in the in the United States. And then since I was sitting in the audience, I pulled up something else because I was doing some more research. Um Pensacola News reported that Putnham County is the fourth in the state. Now, this was based off of some 2023 data, so they haven't updated their data. And I would I would probably bite every one of y'all steak dinner and say that I would bet that and say that I bet that the numbers are even higher now because we continue to see uh fatalities and wrecks. but said put us at number four in the state and this was based on the Florida Highway Patrol uh Florida Highway Safety um data and it said with 2.58%

092of fat fatal crashes involving a fatality, Putnham County has the fourth highest rate of fatal crashes in Florida. Data shows 170 out of 6600 crashes on Putnham County roads involve a fatality. 219.1% above the state average for fatal crashes. And uh that can be found on Pensacola News Journal. Like I said, I just pulled that up while while we were um while I was waiting for a few minutes. So, you know, um we we have to this is one of those discussions that we have to discuss because if we if there's a problem and we don't discuss it, we can't resolve the problem. And one of the, you know, um, I'm the most, one of the most optimistic people I am, I think of, I always think of the glass full over, you know, cups

093over overrunth, right? But the reality is, uh, this is reality and people are dying on our roads and we have got to come together as a community and I appreciate the efforts that we've done so far. Um, but we're not going to let this go. We're going to continue to move forward. Today um what we did was we actually created the the details of what we are calling the state road safety task force with 11 members. Um of course they would be have public meetings and notices. One county administrator Suggs um myself as chair of the board of county commissioners. We are asking that this board consider um Chair Liry and um also a sheriff. We will also have a sheriff or the sheriff or designignate um fire rescue chief back and Marlene Ryan would

094be the six members and then five appointed citizens by each county commissioners which we will we will give at the next meeting. they don't necessarily have to live in the district. And uh basically this is going to be to determine public needs throughout the county, not just on Highway 100, but all of our public needs on state roads within Putham County. And then have a public meeting in the future and then just see what we can do with FDOT and and whatever we need to do, we want to continue to keep talking about this and keep bringing it forward. Thank you. I and I appreciate everything that you and the rest of the commissioners and the and the county staff have done up there because we can't do it alone and and Phil, you know,

095he's got the background in Tallahassee and we've all been up there and dealt with Tallahassee, but uh as a chairman, he gives you guys that much more leverage to work out these situations because I mean, they've all we've all had kids roll over in a in a car and get killed on the way to school and and burn up and the other classmates thrown out of the car and have to watch it. I hate to bring up horrible stuff, but it's horrible. Me, too. It's terrible. And like the emergency rescue can't get down the side of the road because they didn't feather off the side of the highways. There's just not enough room. There's not enough room. We had a It just goes on and on. You know, you could tell story after story, but

096Leotaa, it's going to take all of us together. Yes, sir. And you'll let the chairman and superintendent will advise us on what we need to do as a board to help you. Yeah. And we'll also um we will have staff um support staff there in the meetings as well. And any it's going to be open to the public. So anybody could could come. It doesn't you know all of you all could come but these would this would be the voting members and basically trying to figure out the particulars of what we need to to ask DOT for in the future. and and I and we would use Travis Weaver, our school safety officer. You know, the the two um the article from the National Highway Safety Administration and then the article in Pensacola Journal um

097gave me a lot of concern because think how many parents and buses and kids are transported every day to and from school. And uh it's something that um we the task force, you know, specifically will be looking at Highway 100, but we're going to also look at other state roads uh as we have Crescent City High School. We've got Yeah. Kelly Smith and the new Palaca Primary School and all those are going to be impacted. Um and so the opportunity to meet with DOT and and try to work some of these things moving forward, I think is is very positive. Um, I had the chance to talk to legislators about this and about other educational things. Um, we all kind of split up. We're going our our separate ways. You can imagine with 160 legislators

098and then staff who really has a lot of influence with the 8-year term limits. Um, I got to talk to a number of staff members, too. So, I think um I think we're headed definitely in the right direction. And um I was pleased as I was driving home Friday afternoon from Tallahassee to see three state troopers between Palak and Floor Home. One of them was giving somebody a ticket and the sheriff's office also out there patrolling. Um and as I was telling uh Skiillyard and Mr. buckles before the the meeting. Um when we lost our highway patrol station here in Pal in Putnham County, um we lost service and we did. You know, we usually only have one state trooper covering the entire county. Covers three counties. Three counties. Yeah, we have one state trooper

099for three counties. Also learned that um the troopers get a $5,000 stipen if they if they will work or be based in Jacksonville or St. John's County because of the interstate. So, you know, I mean, it's it's just a it's just some some very critical uh things that we need to to look at and get resolved and hopefully with the le with the uh the legislature. And I know um Senator Leak, which you met with and I also met with uh about the budget, the DOT budget, and the fact that 3% of every construction project a DOT does, not just in this county, but statewide, 3% of that total budget, and it could be millions, goes into landscaping. Well, in a rural county, you really don't need landscaping. I we we have landscaping driving down

100the road. So what um I believe and correct me if I'm wrong, Madam Chairman, um the the the commission recommended that we you know amend that statute to to either take out rural counties or Putin County specifically and that 3% rather than going for for you know vegetation and all the other things with landscaping could go into highway safety. Yeah, that was the conversation we had with Senator a priority for next year. you know, in the legislative process, they start 6 months before, right? And you you got to be in that line, and if you're not in that line, you're not going to be, you know, at the ta at the table coming the end of the session. So, I I really appreciate um you know, they had 10 all the commissioners and administrators and

101and a couple other people from the county, the rule days. uh we got to the the reception they had uh got to talk to a lot of a lot of people and a lot of legislators there. So um all in all I think it was an excellent um chance to for all of us to go up and and do that work. I definitely think that we uh shined even more than we have in the past coming together collectively and as we move forward um with this task force and anything that we're working on. We want to we want to as the chairperson of the of our board, we want y'all to know that we we want to work with you. We want to work collaboratively across all agencies because together we can do more and

102together we can do better. Well, as Rick Rick and I have talked and you know, it's obvious that none of us are as strong as all of us. That's right. And if we work together, we can do a lot more. and and you know that vision plan that went to the county in 2002 identified 10315 as death traps connecting our communities. So, it's been 23 years. Yeah. And the count and the state still hasn't been able to to come up with a viable solution. And I think the sheriff made a comment that or or a law enforcement officer that really, like Phil said, the presence of a law enforcement officer out there pulling people and being visible each and every day. That's what is great about your committee. It may come up with some way

103that we can work together to find somebody to do that. And we have had conversation with Sheriff Delo and um under Sheriff Blunt and they are committed to increasing what resources they do have um for not only on 100 but across the county to do more traffic violations. So y'all need to quit speeding and y'all need to behave yard. She she got a heavy foot there. No, I appreciate your time. Does anybody have any questions? Madam Chairman, any questions staff? I would just like to say thank you Dr. collaborative work keep and keeping him ab breast of what's going on and he obviously is in big support. I don't speak for him but he supported this wholeheartedly and and signed the letter which you know is very important. So yes sir we all are because

104we've all dealt with this so many time I had nauseium you know it's just for sure horrible. Thank you madam chairman. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you Leot. See you at the fair. I didn't tell any stories about you as a student so I let it go. Okay board, let's let's move to our consent agenda. And um Miss Wagner, we'll start with you. Any items to pull? I would like for H10. H10. Is that it? Uh that's all for me. Yes. Okay. Miss Gillyard. Uh mine was taken care with Mr. Mr. Buckles. I've been in and dealt with the superintendent and had a interesting meeting with some other staff members as well. So, it's been a good day. I'm good. Okay, Miss Pickkins. Uh, I have nothing. Okay. Um, and the only thing and

105I talked to Jonathan quickly before the meeting. Um, is the construction person here that can just give us a quick update on the when we get to that? Yes. Yes. on the um on the the change orders or amendments. Marini James Marini is here. Okay. All right. All right, James. Good. Oh, yeah. I saw you earlier. I'm sorry. And that's related to one of that's what that also relates to H2. All right. Well, okay. Well, first in order, let let's uh I'll have I'll um entertain a motion. Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion we approve the consent agenda minus H10 until we hear the report. I'll second. Okay, we have a motion to second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I opposed like sign. Motion carries unanimously. We will now move to H10.

106And James, do you want to come on up? Yes, sir. Thomas, you want Actually, I was going to say I did speak to the meeting. Okay. And best resolution we come up with was to actually have Mr. Marin come up and address the particular chain door. Um, so absolutely. I'll stand by just in case you're recognized, sir. Thank you guys for having me again. Good to see you. All right. Um, so I don't know if you want to ask me or I want you want me to explain. Well, I I would like I mean there's this is a $398,000 um change. Yes, ma'am. And so and and having having spoken to um Mr. Bowling, um it's my I would like just a full Sure. Let me let me let me how we got to this

107change because concern me. Yes ma'am. All right. So we have as you guys know we have contingency built into the GMP. So contingency is used for a a wide array of things. Can be used for scope gaps um acceleration when it's necessary those types of things. the way that the way those dollars are typically u allocated to let's say let's just give a quick easy example let's say um Thomas tells me paint that wall that you already painted blue paint it green and so I have to pay the painter more money so take the money from contingency put it into the painters dollar value and off he goes and he paints it green so that's a very simplistic u uh example so the way we do that is we say okay um we send a

108conting contingency change request to uh the team. We all look it over. The architect CRA looks it over. Um Mr. Bowling's team looks it over. This is something we've approved, looked at carefully. So, this particular one that you're that you're referencing is about uh walkway canopies that were issued in what in an architectural addendum during the bidding. So what happened um was there were these the the canopies along the let's see north side of the of the site were not picked up by the bidder. Now this is a pretty rare event. Usually that kind of thing is you know caught. It's not something that a bidder typically misses. However they did miss it. So when they did miss it um I reached out to uh the bidder the now subcontractor. We've contracted with them. They

109are a very reputable and good subcontractor that we've worked with for quite a a long time and essentially they had missed a very large portion of it. The only reason this was discovered is during the submittal process that particular run of canopies wasn't submitted and we were like where's the rest right? So we we basically told them we will talk to the team that they need to proceed with the entire scope that they were contracted for and they did so. Um they didn't stop and say you know the concern we had was and the reason we made the recommendation we did there were many reasons for it. one um they could potentially say we're contracted for 140 or whatever it is for the first bit that they bid on. This is, you know, double or

110more than double the rest. So, you know, contract be darned. I'm I'm walking away, right? So, then we'd be left holding the bag and we'd have to hire another subcontractor to do the scope anyway, you know. Um so what we did uh another reason that we that we uh felt that it was good to continue with them getting their quality they did win the initial bid. We checked it against other bids that were the same scope. We also did an internal estimate to make sure that their uh estimate of the additional work was was in line. We also told them that they needed to cut their overhead and profit due to their mistake which they did. So we came to the team, we said, "Hey, this is what we think is the right thing to

111do. This is a first cost." I'm guessing everybody understands that term. So it's not it's not something that, you know, got messed up and then had to be redone. It is a true first cost that really would be something that that it takes to build the school. So it's a first cost. So, we think that it was it's in the best interest of the project and also future projects because subcontractor communities sometimes get the idea that owners and CMS aren't being fair with them and they have trouble bidding later. So, with all those things taken into account plus our healthy contingency wherein we've given back credits of nearly $600,000, we felt that was the best path forward. So, we presented that to the team and they agreed and so that's what we did. So that's

112the that's the detailed explanation of the of the whole thing. So I I do have a couple of questions. So you said the canopies were not not picked up by the bidder. Correct. Tell me more specifically what do you mean by not picked up? Okay. So when we get the the the designs come in various phases, right? So we have the schematic design phase, then we'll have a design development phase, and then we'll have the 100% set that goes out to the to the subcontractors. So along the way we were doing estimates for the entire project and so that's you know when you compare those first estimates to the GMP they were dead on good to go right so in other words the estimates that we were giving you all along the way they added

113up and it seemed perfect between that final estimate and the GMP the canopies were added to the the contract documents. So when we checked against our estimate in the previous phase, it appeared that it was in line because when the biders submitted, they submitted based on the previous drawings. Does is that am I making that clear? I think so. So when when y'all put this out to bid? You're saying that you put it out to bid u before was it before you had the updated stuff or was it after you had the updated? We we we I we did go back and check and the correct information was sent to the bidder. So this was a I mean error technically on the bidder side and again we we can shove it down their throat. So

114the bidder the bidder being the the subcontractor that's doing the work. So you're So how did they make a mistake and and under bid something if they were given all the information they needed? They probably look so when you're doing bidding you're giving them a set of documents. You say, "Here's the set of documents." If the design team then comes out with an addendum during that 20-day bid period, the addendum then goes up. If a bidder misses the addendum or, you know, doesn't look at the entire addendum, they can pot right. It's it's absolutely their fault. And again, again, we can shove this down their throat. And that was the whole discussion. Contractually, we can shove this down their throat. problem is they have about $100,000 worth of work contracted whereas they really needed to

115have that other three or 400,000 in there for the rest. So, right. So, so they're going to they're going to say, "Well, we can't absorb $400,000. So, we're going to wind up, you know, they're going to they're going to probably walk away. So, we're going to wind up paying for it anyway. You with me? Maybe even more because we would have to go get somebody else." Correct. With these guys, we had a little bit of a of a negotiation. So, we told them, "All right, sharpen your pencils, take off the overhead profit, and we'll go to the owner and ask if they'll have lenience on you." on you. I And if this was like even 40 or 50,000, that's a little I mean, $400,000. Yep. Because that we end the district has to pay because

116they made a mistake. What? So, what is the and and this would be my other question because obviously if they walked there and they breach and I'm not a civil attorney. Um but if if if they have a contract with you Yes. at this point. Yes, ma'am. And they walk away, that's breaching the contract, I would presume. Correct. And so what what are the what is the recourse legally there? There is recourse. Um and I I understand that y'all discussed all of this. I'm just I want to understand before I vote on that because of course um I would assume in contract law there is something that says if this then that. Correct. So we have the processes that we have and I I actually it's boring to most people. I would love to sit

117down and show you but the processes that we have to go through the bidding phase. We have a very extensive hundreds of page bid package that's very clear. We require a bid security. So before I came and sat with you guys and said this is how much this project's going to cost. And by the way, just to be super clear, this isn't a change order. This is a contingency change request. This does not increase the value of the of the job. Just just I just want to make sure every it's coming out of the it's coming out of contingency that would otherwise come back to that would ultimately go back to you. That is cost out of our correct. I just want everybody to understand it's not it's not an ad to the GMP. Just

118just making the clarification. So when we do that, we we make we we we are so covered in those in those bid packages. And then when we do a go to contract, yes, we have their proposal, we have the pre-awward meeting minutes, we have all these things. How that was missed at that point, we haven't been able to forensically exactly pinpoint. The only thing that I can figure is that they did not download that addendum when they should have and even though they recognized it. So they definitively made an error. Now, if this were a small thing, they probably would just say, "I'm going to eat it." In this case, they missed so much. They came with hat in hand and said, "I missed this. Please help." Um, is this something, however, I mean, I

119I I don't know why, and I don't know what's in the contracts there. Sure. if it's just all or nothing or they I mean if they breach I don't see if if they were to walk away and they breached I would think we they would we would be entitled to something from them without even litigation. I would think our contracts would be good enough for that. But the other thing is um I had another one. Hold please. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you. We get too many ideas going through. Um, oh, is has it uh has anyone tried negotiating or I mean is I understand they don't want to pay this whole amount because it was human error and I get that. Sure. But I don't want to have to pay it either.

120Okay. So, can we not negotiate? I mean, split it down the middle or something. But, I mean, it wasn't our mistake. Correct. That's a very expensive hit. And I understand, if I'm understanding correctly, if they walk, we may or may not get anything depending on the contract with them. But but it seems like we could also, you know, to put it all on us, even though yes, we would have to then go get somebody else and this would probably be the cost. I understand that, too. But it just seems like we could make everybody a little bit more happy. I'd be a lot more happy if that was a little less. Absolutely. So that that's not a problem. And I think Thomas would would say we, you know, we we discussed this a little bit.

121We talked about it. Again, this was our recommendation based on just having done this a lot and just kind of knowing, you know, looking more big picture, you know, if again the subcontractor community thing that is a real thing. It's like, you know, subcontractors at UF, for example, they'll tell you right off the bat, I'm charging 10% more because I'm working here. You know, they get this feeling. So, you know, our initial inclination was we have a very healthy contingency. We've, you know, we beat them over the head about their overhead and profit because they gave us one proposal. We said, "Nah, nah." And so, but if it is the board's desire that we go back and say, "Hey, you know, you're going to need to split this, you're going to need to drop this

12220%, you're going to need to do whatever and you need to make it happen, then we will do that." James, you mentioned a minute I'm sorry. You mentioned a minute ago that um there's insurance to cover Did I hear you say there's insurance to cover some some type of loss like this? No, this is this is this is I I don't want to I don't want to belittle anybody's concern because I get it completely. There's not really the the insurance is contingency. This is this is the kind of thing even though this is large. this is the kind of thing that contingency is intended to pick up. I think I think the discussion here more is not so much that argument, but hey, let's try to beat him a little harder and not, you know,

123let's let's not just roll over and say, hey, they get the whole thing. And that's fine. We're glad to do that. Mr. Holmes, Mr. Chair, um not to uh not to belabor the point too much, but people are going to ask questions and ask questions of you. Sure. I represent the board. Um, my question is, is the contract that we're talking about with the school district or with Ajax? Do you mean the contract with the subcontractor? With Ajax. Yeah. So, it's your contract with Ajax that we're talking about. I mean, your contract with the subcontractor we're talking about, correct? School has a contract with you. Correct. So, my next question is, so the so the contract discussions, negotiations, dispute is actually between you and the sub. Correct. Okay. Secondly, um, did you guys bid out

124this work? I mean, yes. Did So, you had other biders for this work, correct? They all make the same mistake. Yes, they did. Not sure how. Yeah. I was going to say, I mean, I get one bidder making a mistake and missing $400,000 of work. Sure. And saying it's their fault, the bidder's fault. Absolutely. No offense, but it's harder for me to understand how all the biders miss that. and it be all the bidder's fault. Agree. Okay, we're all in agreement then. Now, the question is where do you go from there? Right. So, can I can I address one one thing real quick though? Okay. Go ahead. Please. Well, one question. Were you in discussions with the staff on this in any time? Not not this element. I was not not that I'm aware of.

125I don't remember this ever being discussed in construction management. That's why you hire a firm. You normally wouldn't have the board attorney sitting in those meetings like that, but but so yeah, let me uh jump up here. Sorry. Yes, sir. All right. So, when we first learned about this, and when I say we, I mean Travis and I, and of course, I had a conversation with the superintendent. Uh the first thing we wanted to know was what happened. Okay. So, I'm thinking you didn't have complete possibly renderings. uh the sub subcontractors of exactly the scope of the job. So we were ready to pounce all over the architects. Architects said, "Nope, wait a minute. You know, this is where we submitted everything. Here's the, you know, 50 60 70 100% documents." Um so all of

126that checked out and then to your plan, I mean to your point, Don, um we wanted to know basically that everybody make the same mistake. So that kind of points to everybody was bidding on some drawings that they had in a previous phase, not the finished drawings. Um, so the next thing we want to come to is or arrive at is who's going to pay for this? Well, as far as who's going to pay for it kind of the way we're landing right now, but I, you know, asked Miss I, well, first of all, I told Ajax, you better show up and address the board because they're going to have pointed questions. um and they may want to do open up some type of negotiation on this, you know, as a board um themselves. Um

127but I also considered the fact that it's not an add-on in the sense of we're paying for something someone screwed up. Now we have to pay more. It's like we're being charged $20 for a $100 job and then now we're actually paying 80 because we have negotiated it down a little bit for a $100 job. And then I look at all of the other value engineering projects we've done um to engineer money back into um the GMP itself. So our contingency is much healthier. We started with over a $2 million contingency and it's still almost at $2 million. We've spent less than $100,000 in contingency and I'm not sure how far we've gone with procurement probably 80% procured. Um we've used about 3.9% of the contingency. Um that's that is darn good, right? 25% complete

128with the project. So considering, you know, agree that we're doing great on there and I the some people I talked to at the beginning was say were saying your contingencies are high and and um you you can guarantee you're not going to get any of that back and so that's not the case. So that's well and it's it's looking very good and I'm I'm happy to see that. I just I don't want to get too complacent since we're dealing with, you know, millions and millions of dollars here that it's only 400,000. I don't want to you know, that $400,000 could go a long ways elsewhere if we were to get the money back. But I do take your point. Um the the $100 and the paying 20 for it. I get it. It's it's more

129of a a surprise that we didn't realize it was going to be this much, but in reality, it should have been the entire time, right? I should have been standing up here with the GMP with that extra 400 grand in the GMP is what it boils down to. And if you haven't dealt it would have been a little more then because you know now we negotiate. I'm not taking up for the the bid but if you haven't dealt with construction management firms and how they operate the contingencies are there for this kind of thing. Correct. I don't have a problem if y'all want to have the board attorney to check it out and get with the superintendent and you know if it if it all looks good to him at some point. I mean, I

130don't know that we need an emergency meeting or anything, but if it looks as it as it stands now, they are still working. Am I correct? Yes, ma'am. They they they proceeded. We actually I think I I don't remember where we are with the paperwork, but again, we we want to be 100% transparent. We want to we want to work with you guys forever. So, we'll we'll we'll do what you would like us to do. Again, this was our recommendation based on just how you know typically it's done. You know, there's scope gap scope gaps, contingency is there, the the overall health of the the the finances of the project. That was the the the recommendation. But if there is desire for us to go back, either beat him over the head one or whatever

131we need to do, um we're glad to do it because we work for y'all. Um Mr. The so basically they're now doing it for just about cost. Yes. Well, so what we told them to do was, you know, they said, "Hey, you know, this is what we missed." And we were like, "That's a lot. You need to sharpen and you need to uh get rid of your overhead and profit line." Now, if they had any overhead and profit built built into any of their other line items, I am not sure. Now, I did double check with an internal estimate and against another subcontractor. that m gave me a confidence level that they weren't giving me a junky number. It was a good number. So, we did do their due diligence there. So, we feel com

132comfortable that yes, you're getting if if you agreed to it, you'd be getting the work less their overhead and profit. So, I mean, again, it's a better deal than it would have been at GMP, but I understand the surprise and the concern. I totally do. That's what I was absolutely a little more in depth and I'm sorry to No, that's fine. Um yeah, I think that um you know, having worked construction projects and and overseeing a lot of them with USDA, um you know, basically we're getting a better deal than what we would have gotten in GMP, it's got to be built. It was always intended to be part of the school. And so, um you know, unless our attorney can and that's kind of the way we we we kind of landed on it,

133we still have a lot of school left to be built, right? Um we we've enjoyed a really good working relationship with them otherwise so far. Um and they have value engineered a lot of dollars back into this project that we didn't expect would be there to begin with and and a couple examples are right here in that set of change orders. So um for those reasons we decided to you know it's still the price we should have been paying or a little bit less. U we've got a a long way to go here. Let's not rock the boat this early in the game for, you know, and again, it's a lot of money. I get that the optics aren't good, but well, it's just more more of a surprise than anything. I mean, you know,

134when you look at from the financial standpoint, it's um it's pretty plain and you know uh obviously if those other uh subcontractors missed it too, there there's, you know, something. I mean, I would have been like y'all going back to the architect say, "Wait a what happened?" you know, um but um and un unless the board and it's the board's prerogative, you know, what what would y'all like to do? I I don't have any problem voting on this today. Mike Mike, that helped the entire conversation right there helped. Um because in a way, you already have negotiated it down. Yes, ma'am. To to potentially less than what we would be paying otherwise. So, um I would move that we Okay. accept it. Have a motion on the floor. Do I have a second? I'll second

135it. All right. I have a motion and a second on the floor. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. I just want to say thank you one more time. Thank you guys one more time. And just it's it continues to be an honor to work for you guys. I mean for real. My daughter was here a little while ago. She was a graduate of Melrose. So uh she wanted to come see daddy uh be under the hot seat watch and then go to the fair. James, I want to thank you for being here, but also um the pace y'all are moving, I think, is you know, ahead might be a little bit ahead of what you plan. I don't want to take the words out of your mouth.

136Yes, sir. It's going very well. Um it's been it's been quite a joy. Um we're able to hire a local gentleman about 8 minutes down the road as a carpenter. Um it's really been a a fantastic environment. The project's going well. The subs are great. Um it's just going so well and uh and we're very happy. Um but we we have some media as well. I think Tommy has been sharing with you. We have a local guy that works on the team that's real good with video. So it's it's pretty cool stuff that shows the progress. So if you guys get a chance actually rode rode the property a couple weeks ago with um you know one of your one of your folks out there. So it is it is really going well and I

137can't wait for u y'all to come out there and visit sometime. Well, I had to drive down the highway and see you got a ride. Okay. We honestly I drive by every afternoon. I went by Friday. I wanted to check it out. It looks great. Well, we would love to have you. We'd also love to work with y'all on, you know, we've done different things with different districts. We have the the record uh the world Guinness Book of World Records for the Keys, the Sugarland Sharks, the most number of people singing the baby shark song. Um so we love to do that kind of stuff. Wall signings with kids. So anything you guys think of that that might be important or special, let us know. We're glad to help organize those kinds of things. But

138we might we might schedule a meeting, but we will notice that meeting. Phil Phil Larry can sing that baby shark song. Really good. We should have had him. We' had more. I sing it to my kids all the time. Memorize. It's always a pleasure. Thank you guys. Thank you. All right, board. We move to uh I will close the meeting and open up the the um emergency session to Mr. Chairman. I make item L1. I make a motion that we approve L1 overnight trip for Palaka Junior Senior High School boys weightlifting state meet. Second. I have a motion second. All in favor signify by saying I. I post like sign carries unanimously. All right. We'll go back into our regular session and we will move to um new business on our consistence to advertise the

139amended policies. So I'll accept a motion on that. Go ahead. I make a motion that we um advertise the amended policies 1430 period 01 and 30.01 and 4430.01. I have a motion. I'll second it. I have a motion and a second. Uh you want to call the role on this, Mr. Attorney? Certainly. It's advertised. Absolutely. All those in favor signify by saying I. District one. I District two I District three I District four I and District five I Okay, the motion carries unanimously. And so we'll now move into board reports. And since we've had a lot of discussion during uh the county commission chairman meeting, I'll just in say let's we some of us got to get the fair for the show, the six o'clock show. But um yeah, Miss Pig, we'll start with you.

140Um I don't have um much. I just hope everyone had a really restful spring break and um ready to tackle the last nine weeks of school. Um also I filled out I completed the survey, the title one survey and I just wanted to um really uh ask parents to fill that out so we can have accurate information. Um I'm sure that in the parent pickup line they'll be uh talking to parents about that. So um but try to fill that out. It helps us a lot. Um, over spring break, I went to a baseball game at Crescent City Junior Senior High School and I got to see the new A barn and um, it's going to be a great addition for those kids. A really great addition. It's It's not completed yet. They didn't have

141any animals, but they have big plans and it's it's exciting to see that new part of our CTE program already. Um, they're moving along fast on the elementary school, but really on the the CTE. I was at a softball game. I think I sent y'all a picture. One part of it was poured foundation. I went to a baseball game four days later and they were building walls. So, they're moving along fast. Um, and just congratulations to all the students and the parents of those students that had the perfect scores. That's that's amazing and probably a feat that I don't know maybe Mr. Holmes uh had a perfect score on a test. I'm not sure. Um and that's all I have. I just refuse to take Mr. Buckles. I just can't thank you and the superintendent

142enough for going to Tallahassee and representing our wishes and thoughts uh with the county commission and the state officials that were there. I have a great deal of confidence in your ability uh to work and keep us informed and to represent us in that capacity. If you need us at some point to make a call, let us know. But I think we're we're headed in the right direction. We've had too many people uh lose their lives on our highways as it's obvious. And uh I'll be headed to the fair and going to the showing of the livestock. And uh beyond that, Phil, I I did have a meeting with Mark Modal earlier today before the meeting and uh he made a presentation uh with the superintendent and some of staff and and the other gentlemen

143there with you and uh on things that we we do but we need to pull together on families and how to make things more nurturing and educationally sound and healthy for our kids. And beyond that, you'll hear at some point in the future from Mark on that. Great. Thank you, Miss Gillard. Yes. Real quick, uh just want to uh congratulate Superintendent Cerny on being a the master of ceremony and a moderator at the uh conference that's going to be in St. Louis, Missouri. Again, that's again that that speaks volume for what we're doing here as a district. want to congratulate and commend the junior ROC at Interlock and Junior Senior High for going to Dallas being uh going to go to Dallas, Texas and be a part of the National World Competition of Robotics and

144and the preciseness of and planning that the uh sergeant I think is his is his rank. I don't want to uh Mhm. Yeah. cut him back. But anyway, just a great job. You don't want to demote him. Demote him. Yes. Uh on on the job. I mean, the kids even know the luggage size, everything. Clothing. He took care of everything. Had a great time today at the lunchon at the fairground. And a great time at the girls can conference that was held at CEO. It was superb. I mean, first time, but it's not my last. Miss White. Um I I too was very very happy to see the the work uh done for the road safety. That's been a a big issue of mine as well. Um I I did want to also say I'm

145I was really happy to hear about the financial literacy course. That is something for years and years I thought u schools across the country were really failing our our kids in in not teaching them some I mean I still have people um either clients or people that work in my office previously that uh they don't know how to sign a check. Now I know that's not as common to do anymore but they don't understand the concepts of balancing a bank account. they don't understand the concepts of budgeting and how you know how can these young people function in life if they cannot do or understand some of the basic concepts of finance and I just think and it can open up all kinds of worlds when I was finally opened up to it myself um

146I ended up being a bookkeeper for for over six years um and and it can open up additional potential career choices as well but but getting those concepts can affect every part of your life. And I'm just so glad we are moving forward with with the curriculum. Um, and that all of Florida is doing the same. So, I'm I'm really excited to see what what that's going to entail. I agree. Thank you. All right. And I just have one quick two quick comments. one uh in addition to the road safety uh both the superintendent and I were at the cap you know all three days and uh we bumped into each other at receptions and got to see a lot of people and I I thought that um honestly I got good feedback on on

147all of our legislation or the legislation that's important to us especially the rural renaissance bill and on our budget request. I think that we we'll we'll I think we'll be in the money this year on the that we didn't ask for a lot and um so I'm hearing good things on that and if as things move through the process, we're ending the third week now. Uh we'll we'll get a little better idea the end of next week about, you know, budget conferencing and where things are. So, and the last thing I want to say is please go out and support these 4 and FFA kids with these animal projects. They've done a fantastic job. I was there all day Saturday helping. Um, and if you can find it in your heart or find a partner

148or uh like Mr. Holmes and his his partners could buy a steer you and and then share it, it'd be such a wonderful thing because there's a lot of them. Anyway, all right. Thank you on that counselor. You you have anything? I'm speechless. Okay. Text me now. Okay. if you'll get your calendars out. Um, our next board meeting is April 15th, and on that same day, it's a 3:30 board meeting, but prior to that, we're going to have executive session at 1:30, and that's going to be regarding our safety audit. And then we have a workshop planned at 2 2:00 p.m. and that's going to be regarding impact fees. So, that's that'll be our next I just got to add 130 to mine. We will have the guest by video the um okay the consulting

149for the impact fees. Okay. Very good. So that's a 130 executive session 2:00 impact fees. Workshop. I got to put the 1:30. Yeah. Workshop at 2. Okay. The top scholar make sure u you love for everybody to be there is next Thursday, April the 3rd at 7 p.m. And that'll be in the auditorium, Jim Pignado Auditorium. Is that the right date? I thought I saw the 18th. April 3rd. Oh, April 3rd. I wonder what was what 18th is. You have that. The 18th. I'm gonna have to step out. I'menior call from ceremony. Okay. We're um Okay, go ahead, superintendent. Anyway, um we did have our superintendent student advisory meeting in this very room. It was filled up with a bunch of great students and uh they gave us a lot of uh valuable input, especially

150about absenteeism. or our kids being absent. So, we actually did some activities really trying to get that input from them so we can address that. Um, a week or two ago, we celebrated the three championship teams of the 1960s and invited all them out. Of course, um, not as many as we like, but you know, I'm just We had one gentleman drive from Houston to be there. Wow. Wow. To be there. And that that was pretty neat. last night like and that was Palaka senior high by the way back in the day. Billy Bennett was the coach and so forth. I went and um went by and visited the drone races at CEO in the gym and um had two schools there. I'm trying to remember Qi Roberts and I forget the other school might

151have been in but they were they were dr they were came down to the last two and very exciting. You mentioned the rule days last week. I tell you, I am extremely excited about the rural renaissance bill and that's going to be a gamecher for our district as well as many of the other rural districts. So, uh it's moving fairly well. Don't want to counter chicks before they hatch, but um you know, I know that the Senate passed it unanimously and the House just yesterday house committee passed it unanimously and I think it has another committee or two to go through. Two committees in the House. Yeah. But um again, I'm I'm feeling very good about it. I'll give you more information once that clears all that. Um and finally, two other things. Space Florida,

152I went to another Space Florida meeting way out in Swani County yesterday and and again, uh things are looking up and again, we're trying to gear up on and really trying to connect with Space Florida and trying to look at how we can be part of the space industry. So, I'll keep you updated on that. Very last thing, product to put them nominations I believe uh end uh April 1st. So again, if you know of anybody you want to nominate and we especially need some more people in advanced manufacturing, but if you could uh nominate some people, the more the merrier and then we will be narrowing those names down and and making announcement probably by the end of April. So Mr. Chair, that's all I have. Okay. Any other things to come before the

153board? All right. We'll stand a journ. Thank you.