001good evening everyone and welcome to the Orange County school board's annual Rec reorganization meeting for Tuesday November 14th 2023 thank you all for being with us tonight board members are attending all of us in person I believe we have a full house yes we do I want to remind the public that the board members will not be engaging in outside electronic or digital communication during the meeting so we can f focus on the meeting itself to my fellow board members and District staff when speaking please speak directly into your microphone and make sure it is turned on so that our YouTube and orange TV viewers can hear you clearly we're going to begin our meeting with a moment of silence followed by the Pledge of Allegiance and now for the pledge I pledge to the
002flag 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 all right our first AUM order of business is to elect a vice chair for the Orange County school board for the upcoming school year and I will open the floor to nominations there a nomination for Vice chair member bird sorry and then member Salam monka it's a competition member bird you wait in first yes I was just going to commend our most excellent current Vice chair member Angie Gallow I think she's done a phenomenal job and if if she wanted to continue her role for another year I would be in support of that member Salam monka you have another nominee no remember just you know sto away from under
003me I feel like I raised my hand before her but it's fine you might have but then I looked at the button you did raise your hand and then i h ah I understand yes I also find our vice chair is doing an extraordinary job could work on her number readings but everything else strong well okay but only one point of feedback when we get to the billions I haven't missed many meetings but the few that I have missed she has brought us in shorter than any meeting that I'm in so I think that's probably a good indication of her efficiency yes so if appointed to that or elected to that position would you agree to serve of course awesome wonderful without further nomination all in favor please say I I opposed motion carries unanimously
004all right thank you madam chair for the record it's just a motion by member bird and a second by member salamano is that correct it's a nomination so you don't need us I was just making no you're right I'm sorry I figured there was only one nomination so I didn't think we did a I usually like to have a motion at a second just for just wanted to clarify all right remember bird got the first and member salamona got the second and then we'll look at makes it easier for minutes parliamentary procedures later all right the next item on our agenda is the establishment of dates for the 2023 24 school board meeting the board has to establish dates for the upcoming school board meetings in accordance with Section 101. 372 Florida Statutes the dis
005The District School Board shall hold not less than one regular meeting each month for the transaction of business it's been the district practice to hold two meetings per month and it's been proposed that we continue to do so with the following exceptions one meeting in December of 2023 due to winter break one meeting in March 2024 due to Spring Break and one meeting in July 2024 due to Summer shutdown this point I will entertain a motion for the establishment of the dates as recommended by the superintendent is there a motion member Felder you recognized thank you thank you chair I move that we keep the dates as we've had them previous times all right all right we have and going for it yes all right we have a motion from Member Felder do we have
006a second second second by member ker denel all in favor please say I opposed motion carries unanimously we are now on item 5.01 request approval of officers to the leasing Corporation I'm recessing our regular regular meeting of the Orange County School Board and calling to order the meeting of the Orange County Schoolboard leasing Corporation the first action item is requesting approval of the minutes of the Orange County Schoolboard Leasing corpor ation dated November 15th of 2022 at this point I would entertain a motion to approve the minutes is there a motion motion by member Fant is there a second second second by member Vice chair Gallow all in favor please say I opposed motion carries unanimously the next item is the election of officers for the leasing Corporation the recommended slate of officers is attached
007to the agenda item we need a motion to accept the recommended slate of office officers or a motion for an alternative slate of officers I'll entertain a motion motion to accept the accepted the recommended slate of officers so member bird has offered a motion to approve the recommended slate of officers do we have a second second second by Vice chair all in favor please say I oppos motion carries unanimously with no further business bus for the leasing Corporation we I am adjourning the meeting of the Orange County School Board leasing Corporation and reconvening the reorganization of the Orange County School Board Dr Vasquez any further items for the reorganization it meeting all right thank you nope all right with that there being no further business before the board I am now adjourning the reorganization meeting
008and we are through at 45 seven get out on well done board we're done oh I'm sorry no there is other one other yeah yes all right we are reconvening sit back down we are y we are reconvening the meeting of the school board I apologize for the confusion I do want feedback from the board about a letter that I drafted with the help of our Deputy general counsel and I think each of you have been provided with a copy of the letter I if you have any feedback comments any changes that you want to request this would be the time to do so if not I would if if the majority of the board supports sending it I would like us to determine a date whereby we would asked the commissioner of Education to
009respond to us regarding the pronoun issue so with that member bir you recognized thank you chair yes I think that the letter is excellent I think it covers all of the points that make our case and my only concern and I shared this with the superintendent is I don't want to send our guidance out to our schools and then have to send out new guidance after we get confirmation from the commissioner so my preference would be for us to wait until we get an answer from the commissioner and then or not a non-answer from the commissioner and send out the guidance to our schools at that time so that we only send it out once because I think in the past when we've done that when we've had to like readjust some information it just
010adds for extra confus fusion so as far as with that in mind I would like to give the least amount of time possible and the most abbreviated turn yeah turnaround for this for this letter and I saw that it's being emailed and it's being sent in the mail but I think as as long as it's being emailed I don't know why we couldn't ask for an answer by the end of the week could we not ask for an answer by the end of the week from them he I mean they already have an answer they already know right I mean the end of the week is going to put us at Thanksgiving and my thinking is that way we could give the guidance out right when we get back if if I can share with
011you my thoughts and then I'm going to call on the superintendent also for for feedback I initially had thought that maybe we would you don't anybody Panic my initial thought was if we return from holiday break our winter holiday break that would be a clean time to start with that communication but after hearing the board's comments at the last two meetings I realized that is not I do not think in in sync with the board's sense of urgency which I completely respect and agree with so then I thought perhaps after we returned from the Thanksgiving holiday the only concern that when you say they already have an answer I'm not entirely sure that's the case and the reason I say that is when it was brought when there was concern raised about our lgbtq Banners
012at our schools I don't believe we ever got an answer about that which is why I think it's important for us to make sure that we communicate that we do plan to move forward we think we're on good legal standing but give them sufficient time and so before I call on everybody I do want to hear from the superintendent in terms of what her thoughts are on sufficient time thank you madam chair I agree that coming waiting until the we come back for winter break is too long I do believe asking them for a decision by the time we come back from Thanksgiving break is too short I don't know how many of them going to be on holiday break but I believe if we would extend it and maybe even say the first Monday
013in December that would give them if they're working next week but then a full week after that and we are making the changes that we received by Tuesday and so we will we'll have that document ready to go with the language the preferred pron noun language with parent permission so that if we get a response in the affirmative or if there isn't a response we can send it out and if we receive a different response that it's not in compliance with the law then we're able to take just that section out and replace it with just the name and no pronoun okay member or vice chair Galla thank you madam chair so I'm in agreement on the on the guide I do think that we should hold off until we hear just to cut down
014on the confusion with our employees I think that December 1st is reasonable this is a committee week and there's a lot of deregulation going on in Tallahassee right now so I'm not positive that while the doe may see it that they'll have time to really react or act upon it so I'd like to give them a little bit more time just to be CT courteous and I don't have any changes I did is that looks like a musical note is that correct I'm not a legal eagle that was my only question grammatically in that yes no I understand what is yeah the section is that what that is and that's correct and there's two of them yeah yeah it looks like a music symbol okay okay those were all my that was all I had
015thank you so much thank you thank you for writing this letter thank you member font thank you madam chair I think we all probably know where I stand with the letter so personally after reading through the letter and understanding the state laws and then the state Department of Education ruling I personally do not want my name on the letter I don't believe just the wording and the way that it comes across as if we are above the law and so for for that reason I'm going to respectfully ask for my name to be removed from the letter if you all wish to send that you are more than welcome but I would like my name to be removed from that because I don't think we need to get into everything while I agree with parental
016rights and I think that is something that I think we can speak with legislators regarding that in in regards to this law but currently it is the state law and the ruling by the Department of Education so for that reason I would respectfully ask for my name to be removed from the letter and when you say that I'm assum you're we weren't asking you to sign the letter well it says Schoolboard and so just like you had asked for me not to ever just assume that or just speak for the whole board and so I would prefer that my name not on it so if you would like to put like everyone's name individually and then just remove my name from it okay typ Ty when when I send something on behalf of the school
017board we don't all sign it I do want to be I want to be clear about one thing not confrontational but but clear when the school board votes it is a vote of the school board the difference is if I say something individually that the board has not authorized me to say or have a position on then it's not the board it's me so we do the stationary we have has your name on it so if we send it from that stationary it will have your name on it we're not asking you to sign it but at the bottom it says from it has your maybe signature and then under that it says school school board of Orange County yes but we have not we haven't like we've been copied on it is that what
018you're saying well the CC is just that we've been copied on the letter okay then I don't know if Miss enval Madam chair we can we can use the I'm guessing you're going to put it on letterhead like you usually do and that has each individual Schoolboard member listed individually we can just have whoever creates our letterhead remove member front's name from that list yeah I wasn't sure if you were saying you didn't want me to sign it as chair of the school board you're not saying that you're just saying you don't I'm just saying I don't want my name on the letter okay yeah perfect I that I just yeah I understand where you're coming from I wanted to make sure understood so that I want to do right by the board and to
019the extent that we can honor individual board members personal opinions on this I I will say I know I'm I know there are different opinions out there I honestly believe what I wrote I really believe that when you tell somebody you're not required to do something it you wouldn't say it if you meant you're not permitted to if I tell my kids when they were younger you're not permitted to smoke I wouldn't tell them you're not required to smoke that would give them the entirely wrong per impression so I think the fact that they've used the terms that we're we can't require our employees to honor those pronouns in and of itself speak pretty clearly to me that they're allowed to but not required to so I'll be anxious to hear back from from the
020state I won't be surprised if it takes to the end of that period to hear back because I think it might be might take a little bit more time to synthesize that so we will send it out the superintendent's recommendation was the first Monday which will actually be I think nov or December 4th and I think that's a good idea because I would imagine a lot of people are taking taking next week off all right I thank I thank the board for the support on this I want to thank again I want to yeah I want to thank you I want to thank John I also want to thank Kelly King for her help on this too over the weekend and with that member Salamanca you're recognized I just wanted to say that yeah December
0214th is that the Monday sounds like a good timeline and I appreciate the chair and Dr vas for working on this together to Prof some of the thoughts I think we've all had here on the board and I appreciate the wording I think parental rights goes both ways and it's you know if a parent wants a kid and respects the kids pronouns and we're not requiring anyone to call the kid by the pronoun but it is the Parents Choice and right and so this school board is supportive of parental rights and we're excited to stand by that with the Department of Education and I think that our letter is very explicit that our request is to clarify that we are for parental rights and I feel really great about that so thank you for the
022board for supporting that with the exception of Alicia guess on this one point the rights only goes one way all right any further input or comments from the board on this or any other subject all right then this time this meeting is really adjourned thank you still a record still a record aord so it won't if her name is n