be here it's um appreciate your giving us the opportunity to speak and talk about NE very briefly I'm not going to be long um but I just wanted to give you an overview um my my experience I'm my name is Tom where I live in elro County uh I was a staff attorney and School Board uh assistant school board attorney in uh L County and in pinelis County and um that's my experience I've been with niola for probably 10 years I also have a ancestry was named after Henry Clay so he had to sayette you want to he my name's Annette Martinson I'm a career educator I started out as an exceptional education teacher I was a principal for 20 years and then I retired from vuia County Schools as a area superintendent but I spent the majority of of my career in Monroe County so we're glad to be here and I'll turn it back over to Town M is a policy services company we have a large presence in Florida you can see on the map that we passed out we're located everywhere between scambia and Monroe counties and our populations go from a th000 students to 350,000 students so um you may want to I don't know where you are in wanting to to do this but some boards want it's a good idea to review your policy manual periodically it's just a very difficult thing for it to do in light of everything else that's going on but some policies might be inconsistent or duplicative they might mix policy and procedure or they might be about more than one subject um they might be out of date and not in compliance with federal or state law or regulations um and it's a difficult thing to to keep all this going the other thing is you may miss you may not have policies right now that are necessary to have um because we've got to add new subjects for policymaking and um but few administrations can do this and keep the system going at the same time so it really is good and the all it's all we do we we create and develop policies and keep them up to date and maintain them for these districts um now neol has a series of templates for its policies the templates are just a starting point it's about every you really about every subject you can imagine um hundreds of them but they're they are a beginning Point only they have options in the templates for choices about what which way you want to go on a certain issue uh sometimes they have different version of the same template so they are intended to be a starting point not a substitution for any of your policies and we would work from both your policies and the templates um to come up with a with a unique policy for your District um if I can take just a minute to describe what the policy project would involve uh it is a collaborative effort the only would work with the staff of District um there would first be an orientation meeting where this The District staff would become acquainted with the Neola people and there would be a team leader the superintendent would appoint a person who would be the primary contact with theola to sort of manage the project keep it keep all the cats hurt it in the right direction um there is a we would have a meeting and try to establish a timeline early in the project the timeline could be anywhere from 8 months would be probably the minimum to it could be three or more years we've had some districts go for that long a period of time but uh it's better to keep it less than that um and we would have training sessions also with the staff to teach them how to use board dos board dos is the platform that Neola maintains the policies on the purpose of of using board dos is that's where you access you can access the policy drafts you can edit them you can share them and the staff would be using that platform for the uh development of the policies so it would be a training session and then after that we would begin what we call a drafting process where Neil would come to the district meet with the team and review the different policy options for all the entire policies that's what takes the time to do and they effort a lot of takes a lot of Staff time too um and then so during that as it evolves the superintendent and the staff would make decisions about what they want to recommend to the board in the way of policies um you it could end up where it is your current policy that happened many times it also could be that you choose to go with something like the Neola template or one version of it or it could be a combination of the of your policy and the template or it could be something entirely different a whole new different policy that you created with our help for this District um I would like to say the policies in this process are developed together it's a you you see the policy in the context of the whole chapter or the whole subject across different policies and so you may that way you can avoid conflicts and and and tensions between policies you can have everything aligned together and that's what we strive to do is have every all the policies aligned uh with the same subject the only will advise which policies are required and which are optional the second phase of the workshop after the drafting or near the end of the drafting is the workshops we would have I anticipate a series of workshops with the board to review the preliminary drafts of the policies before they final for input from the board and there would be an opportunity for them the board to review all the policies and to uh make suggestions and and ask questions to get explanations the first workshop is normally the bylaws that's the chapter that deals with the regulation by the board of itself how it conducts meetings how it establishes priorities it's Communications procedures things like that those are all it there a great number of bylaws and we would take those up with the board early in the project because there's no the staff won't be working on those that goes straight to the board you see the templates and discussion and make some boards can do all the bylaws in one session of 3 hours some boards take several months at it but it can be done and it's not that difficult um for the other chapters we would break them down into bsid chunks it would be manageable where the board could absorb the quantity of material that's coming in usually usually we do the Personnel in one Workshop operations and safety and facilities and another one curriculum and students perhaps for another one so there' be different chapters and and different subjects of the workshops um the involv of the attorney is uh is is certainly welcome and some attorneys like to be involved before the policies go to the board other attorneys want to wait until the work shop and then make comments and Su at that time and then after the workshop there may be other further revisions and and changes to the policies and the next phase is the adoption and once the policies are finalized they would be submitted for adoption through the APA and um I don't know probably have a hearing uh for public input and at the end of that NE recommends that the board have one vote to both adopt the entire group of new policies at one time and resend all the old policies so you're never without a policy manual and it can be done any time of the year it's certainly great to have it done before the beginning of the school year but um it's whatever works out and then at the end of all this you have reviewed the policy manual completely and you have up to date set of policies Neil will post them on the board docs platform they'll be accessible to you and the public and they will have links there will be keyword searchable and they have links to the other policies that are referenced and to statutes and regulations that are the authorities for the policy um the final phase of the project well it's really never a Final Phase but because policy never stops but the next phase of the of the initial project would be to develop procedures administrative procedures which normally don't get adopted by the board but come from the superintendent and I would say that in our experience the procedures are really just as important as the policies that's where the rubber hits the road the procedures are the directions and instructions the internal Communications from the superintendent to the staff about how to do their job to implement the policies and it's very valuable um in in two respects the first one is for training um these would be great training documents and everybody could be on the same page about what the responsibilities are of the job and and uh have have it in a clear way rather than have memorandums and uh emails and and different uh notes that they've been taken over the years spread out all over and not not organized the second reason the procedures are good is that they're good defense to the allegations of discrimination and disperate treatment because if everybody is working from the same set of procedures then you're more likely to not be accused of of dis disperate treatment and discrimination to people treat them differently instead of employees simply doing what they want on their from situation to situation inw way after the initial project n has a continued role policies it's not something that never really gets finished um n would publish on the website the policies and the procedures um using multiple servers these are available all the time on the internet um there would be regular updates twice a year based on new legislation uh new Court decisions regulations or based on best practices from the's other clients we're constantly reviewing and come up with um suggestions for best practices and that's important too um these updates are developed in collaboration with our for Florida attorney Stan Spelman in Tass and um they're involved with it so it's it is legally compliant um the updates may include a legal alert about some issue of importance such as new title 9 regulations or the family first Corona virus response act the uh public comment at workshops or the evidentiary standard and student discipline cases those are just some of them that we've had recently um and this this is just be informational the legal alert to explain uh some new issue that's come out and how it might impact how the policies get implemented um so the updates are presented and then NE staff will visit the district and meet with the staff to help with the update explain it um and everything and then the staff would enter the update into the policies and the once it's adopted then the the would put it on the internet and we also have special updates for special issues that come out um throughout the year we've had several of them every year almost um this is on an ad needed basis with recommendations about changes of policy for those are not the regular updates I just want to reiterate that neolis is to assist The District in writing its policies it's it's the district's policies not not not NE doesn't come and impose anything on the district we are a resource and um I don't know if NE is been considered but I would certainly welcome it we would love to help you out can I just throw it at I'm more the operations person you know and he he's the lawyer but but we need them we know we do but for NE I was um a principal when I got involved with Neola and my district went to Neola and so I did it on the site where you all are sitting I was sitting there going oh my gosh and so what we what's so nice about Neola is from a district perspective is that like last July we updated 80 policies so between last July and now how many policies have you all updated and it's very important that you do not do that in isolation because that's how things get out of whack and that's the beauty from area superintendence point of view is that I know that everything has been vetted by the state statute by the feds and I know that um everything is legal and you we can make a a template can be much more uh reserved or they can be loosened but it's based on what you all want and I like that that I'm from volution we have a a a very a population that wants things a certain way and that's what I liked about Neola respects that this is some non-negotiables if you go with Neola you have to come over to our numbers our numbering system because that's how we update things we can't have you know a bunch of different numbers that's non-negotiable how we get started it's like how do you eat this elephant one bite at a time and what what we do is we do a codification we have all of your policies and we run them against the templates then the team leader can then start assigning them to different staff members and so that they can start writing uh adopting the PO writing policies to bring them to you because this is your job this this whole policy nut is your job and we make it so that it's very easy to eat that elephant one by a time but policy review an adoption is never over so that's what I say when I come to District I said how many policies have you looked at if you're not looking at them regularly and you're you're you're probably your manual is out of date and that's there have been so many changes we've we've got to keep up with that because that protects our staffs and it protects our students so those are just a few of the big items like I just because I just heard this I've not looked at it but let's say you want your policy on book adoption you love that policy we just put our number on your policy and then your attorneys will vet it because then we wouldn't for a lack of better words ensure it any longer it' be your your attorneys that ensure because all of ours our policies are vetted so if your people have a someone goes up against it our people are going to work with your people on it because we make sure that it's by the feds and by the state is legal so those are just a few of the the operations person wanted to mention that to you but what I'm going to do is I'm going to leave my card with each one of you and this is how we work I live in Bia County I mean and I'm available so if you need if you want to call me and say Anette I'm from CL County I have this question call me the only reason I wouldn't get back with you right away is if I'm with a group of people like Tom and I have been out for a week uh in districts and what I would say to you also it's like one of your Schoolboard members she goes hey I called a scambi and ask about talk to people who work with us because um that's that's our that's how we advertise I mean most of the people call us and we come in and we work very closely with you and the first one is he didn't really hit that hard enough for me is bylaws it's good to do that right out of the box and I'll tell you why then you all learn real quick what your staff members are going through because you've got to read it you've got to dulge it and you may say no that's not for us okay fine we want ours uh and we just put the number on it but it's it's it's a good s session right away after we do the training to do and then you will U you'll appreciate what they're going through a little bit more okay and yes I have a question I want to make sure I heard this right so you guys essentially would take over our um our website where our policies are you would would you re structure that and what see I don't know what what what system do you guys use right now we okay well we use all of our information is on board docs so and I'm not a techie I mean I'm like I'm a fake techie but I don't know this like I don't know if we can put a link on your website some districts have um taking their policies off of board dos and have it on their own link yes well my question is is ours is I know that there is some frustration with us as board well a few of us as board members that um you can't find a policy can't even find the policies it's they're not set up accurately um they're very confusing and and and I guess our challenge would be would you guys when adopting your your word dock or whatever would you then make it to where it's like other counties nice and neat and if you oh yes that we know we have call our cleaners so like after we let's just say your PO your bylaws we work on the bylaws we change some words we Mark things off before they go we will send them to our production department they clean them format them everything and then we have different sections like 1,000s is administrations 2000s three um programs 3,000 teachers 4,000 support so it's all laid out that way and like all you have to do is there's a search bar and you would type in some key words and it's going to pull up every policy that has those words in them like I use we have a meta search and I mean like I just was with a County last week they going now we need a new bement policy so I mean I'm like okay I just clicked the uh Meta Box which you would have and put the word bement and I got 90 policies and so I just I pulled them printed them and I met with them and we actually you know picked a little from each one and we created a policy and now they've got to go through the process you got to advertise you there's a 30 you know 28 day process that that whole process that you do but we will guide you you know through that but so no that is it's invaluable and and I at our last board meeting I gave you guys a copy of just the 5,000 section do you remember when I handed you that we don't have a student section so I was amazed that we didn't but I handed it to you and there was like 130 different policies based on students and you can go to any County that you want the minute you click on their policies you're like Neola not Neola not because when searching for library media policies examples of them um there's a a distinct difference on how to find it it was super easy for me to find parental rights documents in the Ola to find the book policies in Neola but on other websites without it it was unorganized I mean literally sometimes I would search for an hour trying to find a County's U media policy so I'm going to be honest and upfront I was never a fan of Neola uh I'm not really sure why you know I might have my personal reasons why however when I started actually becoming a board member and having to research policies I realized the positive impact it could have saves a lot of time on on us as board members saves a lot of and it save time for staff it sa time for everyone what I would say is another benefit for me because like when I do a Meda search I'm looking at every District so you all when it's a Neola District you know how to go on you can search you can pull up all kinds of information so I you all are busy people I respect that I'm going to leave my card I'm going to leave them with the second you hand them out if you have any questions after the fact uh give me a call give Tom a call but where we would start is right out of the box training staff and then we come right to you we get on those bylaws and I would recommend if you want to get this done in the school year we really try to do that bylaw meeting with you before you know before July is that a public Mee on that uh you know what they are they're a workshop how do you all handang workshops here yeah so and it's um but and then we and then we would uh meet with the staff next and uh so we look forward to the opportunity thank you both very much we appreciate thank you all right next on yes ma'am did you have I just going to say if anyone had any questions we're not staying all right so the next item on our agenda is a presentation from penda yeah yes ma'am so you know that one of the things that we started doing was uh giving a presentation about computer computer programs last board Workshop you saw one on I ready math by gind deor this is one on science by by Katie RIS that's going to give a brief presentation for each one of these programs uh what we found is bring information to the board is helpful so you can understand the number of minutes that these programs are used and the impact on students and so without further Ado Katie go right ahead hi good morning morning um my name is Katie Ras I am the Casal science pral specialist here in the district um I before I took over this role I was a high school science teacher um taught everything from physical science biology chemistry um the range so I'm just going to talk to you a little bit about what our science program in the district looks like and and then how penda kind of plays into um our instructional practice so first of all I want to take a minute and just recognize our our students and teachers um because they are performing amazingly well um our fifth grade students sit and take a Statewide Science assessment at the end of every year and on that assessment they are tested on um benchmarks that began in third grade and continued in fourth grade into fifth grade um our district had an average scale school last year of 206 compared to the state Aver Aver of 199 and our district rent six for our fifth grade science scores um our eighth graders also take a test that covers benchmarks that begin in sixth grade move into seventh grade and eighth grade and their average scale score is a 205 compared to the state average of 198 and we ranked fifth across the state in for all the districts um biology they they are just all the the content is covered in one year um and they have had an average scale score this year of 411 compared to the state average of 403 which put us at number seven in the state um we're very very proud of our teachers and students um a number four ranking overall across all the states um for all of our science students they are doing amazingly well and that is particularly impressive if you consider what they have going into the test so our third grade like I said it covers third fourth and fifth grade is tested and fifth um third grade has 25 original benchmarks and then fourth grade has 35 original benchmarks they don't necessarily grow from the third grade ones they're totally different and then fifth grade has 35 so our fifth grade teachers have to teach 35 original benchmarks and also go back and review um 60 benchmarks that they covered in the two previous years um our eighth grade students similarly in sixth grade they have 27 benchmarks 7eventh grade is 33 and then our eighth grade teachers teach 34 benchmarks in addition to the 60 benchmarks they have to review from the two previous years and then while biology is only one year of content there are 54 brand new original benchmarks that they have to cover between August and April and they sit for their test in May so um considering just the sheer quantity of information that our students have to um just really comprehend because it's not just a vocabulary test where they can answer questions um they're doing amazing well so um a little bit about how our teachers teach science in our district um and state and Nationwide um best practice for science teachers is using the 5D instructional model if you have ever taught science you probably have seen this before if you have not I'll give you a brief uh review basically we start by engaging our students in science we want them to pull in background knowledge or just get curious about the topic um and then we allow our students to explore because because the student should always have some kind of science experience in order to attach the content to and then we go into the explain portion where the students explain to us and then we fill in the blanks and move forward into the elaborate where we um sort of go back and remediate for students who need some additional scaffolding or we extend for our students who um who are getting it and they need more of a challenge and then we always evaluate to see where our students are um and the evaluate is written at the end but we really do it all the way throughout um this is an actual toolbox that we provide to our teachers when they are creating instruction for our students um and there's list of different activities that they can do at each level each one of these 5S um since we are going to talk about penda today you'll notice that penda is not necessarily written in the engage or the explore it is does have a place for the explaining where the students can start Gathering content knowledge um and then again a little bit of the elaborate so it is um penda is a very valuable tool for our students and teachers um but is not necessarily a daily lesson plan in any format so let's talk a little bit about what penda actually is um it is a supplemental resource we use it in addition to a variety of other things our curriculum guides our textbooks Hands-On experiences um digital simulations okay um it's a support for small groups there's a way to use penda to assign to small groups and individual students um it's support for our ESC and elll students and I'll show you exactly what that looks like in just a minute it's hugely beneficial um and it does provide quick checks for understanding um penda is not an independent computer instruction um we're not they the kids don't just pull it up and teach themselves science um it's not a full class lesson plan in fact if you sat down to teach one Benchmark um even if you assigned every penda lesson on that Benchmark it probably especially in junior high and high school wouldn't feel 50-minute class period um and it's not a daily lesson plan in that 5D model as I pointed out there's not penda every day um so this is kind of what a pendal lesson looks like on the screen um for our students when they are um introducing a topic so penda provides um content in the form of activities for every single Benchmark that we instruct on grades three through biology so um this is an example of a fourth grade um lesson format so this is something that has been assigned to students you'll see that there's three different levels on the same topic so we have developing achieving exceeding and then we do have a mini assessment for every single Benchmark so the science content is the same in all three of these levels and it was written the really neat thing about pendas is written in Florida using Florida benchmarks um which is hugely different than even our textbooks which are written using National standards and then crosswalked back to try to match Florida um so this is if you're looking at the benchmarks this is better content for our students than even our textbook necessarily provides um so penda has a developing lesson achieving lesson exceeding lesson like I said the science content is the same the the only things that are different are the readability so the students it gets a little bit more difficult for them to read as they go up from developing to achieving to exceeding um and also the test the questions the checks for understanding throughout each lesson get a little bit more difficult by the time they hit exceeding there is a um a short response answer that the students have to respond to um whereas developing is mostly just um multiple choice or Dragon drop type um information and then as I said every Benchmark has a mini assessment um there are five questions on that mini assessments so it's and they um they came from Scantron so they've been highly vetted they've been analyzed over um many years and given to many students so they know that they're quality questions um so as I said earlier we we do use digital lab simulations for our students um a lot of times either um we don't have the supplies to do certain things like if we're doing speed or forces in motion we don't necessarily have all the means to create these elaborate setups to have students analyze data um so that where these digital lab simulations come into play and these lab simulations are embedded in the penda platform so the students can just go to pendo which they know how to access and they can pull that and teachers can walk them through the lab simulation in order to get the data to analyze so that they can move forward from there um Panda has an immersive reader and this is um this is a single screenshot this is not two screenshots side by side okay so when the students enter into the immersive reader option on their computer um it pulls up the immersive reader side by side with their current screen and so I've done a couple of different things with this because it supports both elll and EC students um it translates into over a 100 languages and it will read it verbally to the students in most of those languages there are a few dialect languages that they can't verbalize um and then it also will do um reading support for our students and you'll notice this particular one the words are spread out so it's easier for students to um identify letters individually um it'll do line Focus so it'll just highlight one line at a time and then it will also read it in English to our students um you can change the background color and the font and many other things whatever works best for our students it's very similar to the accommodations they get on State Testing and so it's something that they're used to being able to do um and when you toggle to the next screen it stays up there and just rotates with them um and I do want to point out penda has been extremely responsive to us when we ask for things or we tell them certain things aren't working this is an example of that it used to be that when you went into immersive reader it took a pull screen and then you'd have to toggle back to the original screen and then come back and we said this is really difficult for our students and also with over 1,400 elll students in our County now um we really need to be able to show them the English and their language Side by side to support their their um English development and so this was a recent um update that they made to their their platform so that we can see those two things side by side and that students can better understand the English and their language um so penda is also able to be um assigned either to a whole class or you can create small groups or you can assign a lesson to an individual student depending on student need um I went in you may recognize this name of this teacher um camel is our district teacher of the year I went in and um pulled up a picture of her small groups that she has um she's an amazing amazing science teacher at wion Junior High um and you'll noticed that she's created small groups and assigned lessons accordingly this becomes especially helpful when you get towards the end of the year and keep in mind those fifth grade teachers and those eighth grade teachers are reviewing three years worth material um and penda is really the best option for them to be able to access the previous year's information so if we want to see how much did our fifth grade students remember from third and fourth grade you can give them a mini assessment see where they are assign lessons according to benchmarks where do we have need um so we don't in fifth grade we don't have third and fourth grade textbooks sitting there for them to access but we do have penda where they can go back same thing with 8ighth grade they can go back to those sixth and seventh grade standards and access that information really easily um so we um a couple years ago when we when we were analyzing Pena's uh support of our students in the classroom so um we kind of looked at how our penda users were doing compared to the state and compared to our non- penda users um when we talk to teachers and we provide training for them on how penda is best used in the classroom we kind of have a three-pronged approach um we ask as them to complete two to three activities per week and you at the very beginning the slide that had the developing achieving exceeding each one of those is an activity so essentially we're asking them to cover one Benchmark a week um so complete two to three activities per week reach 80% Mastery on those activities and penda did do something this year that was extremely beneficial and you can toggle on a require Mastery switch so the students can't move from developing to achieving without hitting that 80% goal um and then same thing from achieving to exceeding with you can't move on without getting that 80% goal um and the third thing that we've asked teachers to do is make sure they have a written component with the students so if they're on penda and they have a computer in front of them they should also have notes next to them that they are actively taking while they are going through this process um so in this particular um example this was our fifth grade um scores I think from two years ago our penda users had an average scale score of 210 um you'll notice that the level four achievement is 2115 so um we're creeping up on that four level four um understanding of science um and this is a comparison of how many of their activities in compar uh compared to um the scale score so if they mastered 100 activities that year they were a level five student or almost which is um which is really impressive again considering that's 94 benchmarks um and then when we look at our e8th grade um you'll see that there's a similar um relationship so penda users had an average scale score of 213 which again is almost that level for and if they mastered 50 activities or more um they were essentially a level five student again on those 94 benchmarks over 3 years um and then uh also have the same information for our biology students our penda users averaged 417 um and then if they mastered over 100 activities they also were a level five student on biology and that's again 54 benchmarks that they learned in one single school year um so I do want to show just this information came directly from the penda platform this is this year's usage so I pulled all of the usage from August until the middle of February um and we have just shy of 20,000 students that are actively using penda in our district um and this is the average number of minutes they spent per week again you can see the average score our students are hitting that 80% Mastery like we're asking them to um and in elementary is the highest amount of usage which is about 16 minutes moving down to Junior High average is about 11 minutes per week again this is per week um and then 8 minutes in high school um for an overall total of about districtwide 12 minutes um per student so I did break it down even further by grade level and you'll see that in fifth grade they do have the highest usage about 24 minutes but again this is the only platform that they really have to be able to access those third and fourth grade standards um that they are being tested on at the end of the year um and you'll notice that as they get up further into like 7th 8th 9th and 10 10th grade the usage kind of um dips off when you hit Junior High in high school you really start getting content specialists in the classroom um and they a lot of them have been teaching for many years and they have a lot of really solid um instructional practice on how they present to their students um and at no time has the district said you must use penda um it's just it's highly recommended and it's an extremely beneficial um platform for our students to use and many of our experience teachers do use it but they don't all necessarily need it and so that's kind of where they taper down um as you get into the older grades um but again fifth grade A lot of times in fifth grade you start having um a much larger chunk of time set aside for science in fifth grade so in fifth grade often they have 60 to 90 minutes per day to cover science so if you're looking at 24 minutes a week that's still only one10 of the time that they're spending on penda in the classroom um so the last thing that we did is we did asked teachers how they felt about penda um did they think it was useful how are they using it so one of the questions that we ask them is um if they feel like penda is providing a necessary support for science instruction beyond the textbook and the curriculum guide 78% of the teachers just said yes um about 15% of them said no and again we do have those content Specialists that don't necessarily need the support of penda um and of the ones that felt the need to give us a detailed response um about 5% of them essentially said yes we need penda um so that's 83% of our teachers that are asking that say that penda is providing a necessary support to them in the classroom um and then we ask them what is your recommendation for moving forward for the 24 25 school year um again 76% of our teachers said that they would love to keep penda about 8% of them say we don't need a program at all um and again the ones that provide us their very detailed responses about 7% of them also said we essentially want to keep penda um that is a survey out to yes third grade through 10th grade anybody who has um students who are on penda um so about 83% of the the teachers say that they want penda for the 25 school year so that was pretty much everything I've got so questions yes having been the fifth grade science teacher sure I wish that I had we've had been for a couple of years is that correct I believe this is our third okay got it um question about the fifth grade sure and the timing um and more of a procedural question let's say I'm a student and I'm in group work obviously in my science class class and I've got four groups doing different things and this group is assigned to the the computer at this point to D penda you've got this amount of time and I don't finish okay my my whatever I'm doing on penda at that time that particular standard um but it's time to switch groups and this group is now coming to me and this group is going over here and doing a lab and whatever right um does that does the work that I've accomplished hold over it does to the next step I mean I can go back and I can just pick it up again yes ma'am when you go um when you leave the Pena platform when you log back in it it has a you want to continue um and you just click on it it takes you right back to the screen and the I love the differentiated instruction yes whoo because kids partic and I'm thinking Elementary and well and can happen in Upper grades as well well but the differentiated instruction of being able to start with something a little bit more simple and be tested on that and realize yes I do know that and now I can move on to the next level and I can I can achieve just like the smart kid next to me achieved and and quite often we have our teachers um especially in elementary do that developing lesson whole group so they present it to their whole class and the students work their way through it and then we have them go in and just answer those questions and so they do they get that immediate win and they think I can I can do science I like science and they move on to that next level um and and they are they're doing a great job they're achieving and just for historical perspective when we did at the time that I left the classro we were still doing FCAT science but and but um the other subjects were in a completely different right I mean they were in all of the new testing yes the math and the in the language arts but with that FCAT science we used to literally have a folder with okay these are all of the third through fifth grade standards and if you want to do a refresher you can start okay FCAT was in May or April usually and if you start in January February and you start reviewing all of this then you'll have then the kids will be up to date when they take that down yeah and and we have worked really hard um that's amaz with teach and our curriculum to make sure we try to embed a lot of the third and fourth grade standards throughout the year um but it it's it's a Monumental feat to to have your students test on 94 standards anden that they're doing they are they're really doing are there tests at the end that they can like practice for I may miss this but practice for like the um yes so we have um so our district has Baseline assessments so all our students they're is a test available for third through biology um a baseline assessment a midyear assessment and then our tested subject areas have what we call a mock assessment so um sometime between March and April the students will take a practice test and they'll get it it'll look just like their their test will um through Synergy and the St the teachers can pull that data and start using that to um go through the remediation process penda also does provide um SSA practice tests so a lot of teachers will give um the arach and then they'll go through the review and Remediation and then they'll give the penda practice test um so that the the students can see where they had growth on the different benchmarks and what they still need to study before they take the test so I did use penda sure I was a sixth grade elementary teacher CU you have to teach more than one subject down there yeah yeah it just happens quite often math and science which means that's the way that works which means you're then responsible for two tested areas absolutely so this is I'm going to I'm this is great and and I agree with you when using the right conditions it's a wonderful program sure um but anally like if if you experience this in a classroom M there's a couple of things and I I think maybe Mr brasy this is really more procedural that we really need to get a handle on it but I'm going to give you some examples so you can't finish any lesson in 11 minutes so I'm not sure like the time to me is not the time on the computer doesn't match up with the actual um correlation I think with time and achievement for me okay um and what I mean by that is I know for a fact that teachers use it for homework I know because I had to help my granddaughter through a lesson sure that I missed a question on it was so difficult the reading level was very difficult they were also using it as part of her grade I mean penda became 15% of her grade I can tell you when I worked with sixth grade teachers when we adopted the new textbook that I know that the intent is not for them because if you use penda as an independent learning tool and you said it's not an independent computer instruction it absolutely needs to be pre-taught the lessons are really hard compared to what they need to know on the Florida aligned um testing the fast test okay this year maybe so I think we have a procedure problem people are assigning up for homework it doesn't differentiate reading levels like people think it does so if you have um a low-level reading kid they're going to struggle on that independently without a teacher so I don't know the the 12 minutes or 10 minutes I can I can I think we're using it I think that's inappropriately I think that in some cases some people probably do use it or misuse it the way they should the actual number of minutes is is an actual fact because that's taken from and using it for a grade when it's something they don't know how to do we could certainly provide information and training to people because I don't want to just say that you know though it's a terrible program because the kids are online but I know that it is not managed the way that it should be in a lot of teachers classrooms one of the dangers is and one of the reasons why we started these presentations and also return on investment analysis is simply because there are anecdotal examples which people don't use it properly well I didn't see anything about how many minutes were at Homework how many minutes were used for class time like that's total number of minutes taken right from the platform so the the minutes that you saw are fact but not anecdotal information it's taken right that would include home use as well that would include any use any use so I think the purpose to the graph was I think the concern the B the board at one meeting previous meeting was the amount of screening time M so that clearly demonstrates by fact the number of minutes that they've used both home and and at school total number of minutes and I think sometimes anecdotally you'll hear information from people use the program clearly we're not saying that penda is the Beall end all of science instruction what Katie forgot to tell you is all the other stuff behind the scenes that's being used to make to make our district where we are currently in science which is four in the state pen is a part of that though when it comes to the review process if you're teaching in fifth grade the standards third fourth and fifth grade that's a lot to put on teachers or in eighth grade sixth sth and e8th grade so this is a this is simply a tool a supplemental resource for teachers there are teachers that choose not to use it because they believe that their skills are honed and their capacity is such that they don't don't need that they don't need to use it you saw the graph in which 83% of teachers said we like this program and want to continue out this program that would mean 17% didn't say that and that's fine when you have an organization as big as ours you have teachers at various levels of capacity and ability and therefore you have to provide a variety of resources in order to ensure that people are successful so I would just kind of like say to the board that this is a piece of the overall program Curriculum maps and what we do in in other areas and how we embed standards across vertically across curriculum is a very big part of it this is just one piece of it and so in you know are there rules though with it I mean rules like we don't use it for homework for a grade for kids who struggle in science um so we don't do independent as you said we don't use it as an independent tool for a grade we we do have um professional development that we that we have gone out to schools and and we offer districtwide every year um and so we we do offer certain guidance um I I don't know that we can provide rules per se um because when it comes to individual teachers classrooms they have autonomy to best practi to yeah to um and and things like that so we do offer suggestions in terms of um best best practices for penda and and the like um and we have when we go out to um schools or we have districtwide meetings and we discuss penda um we do mention best practices and we practice with the teachers on how to do the different things and how to include um the note taking and and all of those and so uh again this is the third year that we've had penda so we we've been building capacity every single year um and also a lot of times especially in elementary school the teachers get moved from grade level to grade level and so sometimes you have somebody this is the very first time they've had penda and um especially if they're like a math science teacher they're quite often going to math trainings instead of science trainings which is totally fine and appropriate and great because the math is a huge part of it um so so we just try to make sure we can get in there and and um support them as we can yeah well I'm also just to throw it out there when I I believe in teacher autonomy but if we were using using this for homework and independent work teacher autonomy never outweighs what's best for a child so yeah we can also we can provide additional guidance for folks I think what what Katie is trying to point out is that she's not going to be there to personally tell the teacher do that provide you got to provide best practices for those individuals and what the rules and guidance are related to it remember that's anecdotally the numbers the facts kind of show you the number of minutes that it's being used um the program and so I think a lot of times there's misconceptions we just want to provide some data to you related to each program can we can we still get um I know I asked for this last time and I know it'll take some time but can we get like a side by side screenshot of all of our programs that we use penda I ready all the things that we use in a uh screen time what I think and not not just the I mean you can't include technology I mean I completely get that but like what is actually academically utilized that's what I would like to see so we saw today an average okay great I would like to see that next to I ready so we can total up the amount of screening time I think the only caution I would give you in reading that data is like she said there are going to be costumes that don't use one or the other like maybe they have more of one than they do of the other so I'm not sure that it would give us it would still give us a snapshot of an idea of what what time kids are I think it would give us an idea of what the district is recommending for you right but I'm not sure if it would give us an accurate reading on what screen actually looks like for individual students if that makes sense right but we would have a a screenshot of District recommendation what we're looking at you're right and it's going to vary each semester it's going to vary each week it's you know like if we're out of school if we're not in school you know I get that but I just want to see like a just just a picture of what we have and if I could ask another quick question related to that those were average numbers of minutes per week if I'm not mistaken and it's and each week is going to be incredibly different as well because some weeks you're going to I mean the leading up to leading up to the the fast test oh my gosh the review time is going to be different than at the beginning of the year when you're establishing your your routines and it's basically when let's say if I'm the math science teacher and I use I ready for Math and I use Pema for science it may happen on the same day because today we're on Wednesday we've already gone through the general produ the general introductions of everything on Monday Tuesday we're doing perhaps a lab or something Wednesday we're now getting into the the meat of it and you're going to be practicing on your own a little bit more and part of that going to be a group rotation so in math I'm doing a group rotation and they're getting I ready in science they're doing a group rotation and they get penda so that day I mean I could hear one of my grandsons coming home saying I'm on the computer all day you know what I'm saying I think saying is that so far we've seen the math program and we've seen the science program haven't and I know you hate to SLE local stuff but I'm going to tell you that's telling me that kids are only on a computer less than 40 minutes a week if so why do we have so much technology I think she wants to know is there a limit how many how what are they using the Chromebooks for why do we have so many and how much time are students spending weekly is what I think Skipper saying because so far we've covered two of the main curricula and we have hardly any minutes being used so it is it's I understand where she's coming from yeah we can certainly look to provide a visual representation with that would look like and to miss Gus's Point based on an average it's not going to look the same each week each grade level for student but at least would give you a visual refence but you today you just showed us an average a total average and then you broke it down into grade levels and stuff like that did you just pick a random week or was that just an average overall I took I took the the total hours that were on the computer year to date so I took they they give me a running total what I would like here to date screenshot side by side which would be the average that I'm looking for that's what I would I as a board member would like to I mean do we have a limit I mean how much time do our kids spend on a computer according to this we're spending no time at all yeah we can certainly provide that information you know I think what we want to point out is just the total number of minutes versus the number of minutes of instruction and kind of show you the difference there it's important like in this particular case when you see the average number of minutes remember students are being assessed on a platform like this to not have students practice that would be malpractice in the process so there there is an approp rate amount of time and where that balance is we can certainly give you that visual representation that's all I want I just want to see where we stand visually thank you ka thank you ka when you talk about chemistry can't imagine that used yes so they got we weren't allowed to take pH are we ready to yes the next item is the review of the draft book challenge policy okay so so uh I'm excited to introduce this so Mr brosy we're leaving I I hate to ask not I'm not anybody in this meeting but I've been on grad night buses that were warmer in this room oh take a couple minute recess like everybody's got to go e at this time we will hear a presentation on the draft of the book challenge process so yes let me just uh let me just give an introduction to this you know first of all nothing has elicited more passion in this particular topic of books and I get it and everybody has a different idea on on how they should be handled and book challenge is something that's been around from the beginning of time I remember when my friend fleo was challenged in playay County the Harry Potter series which challenge but now we've entered kind of a new phase and the new phase is um that a great many challenges come and so the board has had policy revisions one in April and now we're looking at another one and the proposal here today is just simply that it's a proposal it's a place to have a discussion to make the changes that need to be changed so that the board by consensus uh has a vision moving forward on this particular issue so I know that uh Jennifer for Collins and Cindy Johnson have worked very hard Miss Hansen has been a leader uh on this on this particular issue and has worked very hard very passionate Le towards this so while everyone may not agree on certain pieces of this right because it's kind of complex and how this works what I am asking for is that we allow the presentation to to occur first right we go through the whole thing and so you can kind of see the whole thing at one time and then we go back to the beginning and start to dissect piece by piece because sometimes what happens is in a presentation if the if the presentation gets stopped or it's disjointed you don't see the whole thing so if you see the whole thing first and then you come back to part one and kind of work your way through it you'll see how the pieces are interconnected so with that I'm going to turn it over to miss C good morning good morning board members and good morning so we are so excited to be here with you this morning to share the proposed draft of the school uh the challenge materials policy on library books and so again like Mr Broski said we've had a lot of time to collaborate with Mrs Hansen and we're very thankful for her input um that she's provided and so we are going to present like Mr Broski said um the information and then we'll have the discussion obviously you'll have the discussion and be able to lead that and we'll be able to answer any questions I know along with Mr brosi or anybody else in the room um that we would need to talk to about this so thank you for your time this morning so you have a folder um with some materials in it and so we'll start with the first document and that is the policy draft and this is what Mrs hon was referencing earlier with the 3.25 Pages um of I know when we first kind of started and when she was talking um to different people it was a lot longer and so um Mrs Hansen has done a lot of work um seeking input and feedback to get this um along with um with the support and collaboration of of us at the district level so if you kind of look at the different parts here um I'm obviously not going to read it to you but um I'll kind of just highlight some of the things so first the introduction just kind of sets the tone for the policy um and why um we are doing this and really focusing on that informed consent um with parents being able to choose um and what we really are looking at is that access level to the library for their students who are checking out those books so um it also in the introduction part talks about the challenges to titles that have the mature themes and how they would not be removed from the collections but they would be flagged for particular gray bands and would require additional parental consent and that something we can we'll talk about in just a minute when we get to the other forms so the next part goes into the terms in the definition and it highlights the um what a parent what the definition of a parent is what a definition of a resident a petitioner and a library material is so that outlines that in that next section a section that we talked a lot about um with Mrs Hansen was about the parental rights regarding libraries we all know um that it's very important for parents to be the ultimate decision maker for their child and that people's homes and Views differ and so we made sure to write this in here that that our school district does support a parent's right to determine titles that are appropriate or inappropriate uh for their child to read and so um you'll you'll see here in this part it really emphasizes that um and this part really drives the rest of the forms um that are to come and discussed and so it also talks about as uh titles that are flagged as mature will require parents um to select a certain level of Library access on the secondary library book access form which we'll go over and talk about in a few minutes so then it goes into on this form that um excuse me in this policy draft is the petitioner responsibilities um if somebody objects to a book um that that would be made in writing um then at the bottom of page one it talks about the request for for review and consideration so um in a minute Dr Johnson's going to talk about the specific material objection form and kind of where we're at with that um but that they would have to complete um that objection form and so it goes on to outline um that process in here and so knowing that local board School boards establish a policy regarding challenge challenges um it's also to the board um and the board can choose to determine any guidelines to use within this policy so um this is some work I know that Mrs Hansen and presented at the last um when when with the draft policy to of the community standards and so that has been incorporated then into this draft policy so you'll see here just underlined the board approved Community standards are to help ensure that parents are able to make more fully informed decision decision so we go back to that informed consent about what their student is reading and is considered appropriate U by each parent so again emphasizing on that parental rights and informed consent and so then you see here the list of the proposed Community the board approved Community standards and those are listed below um kind of moving on then onto page three in the event that there was be there would be a challenge received um of course we have the statut compliance team we have um first of all what would happen is that the chief academic officer along with the um supervisor of instructional resources and the district media specialist would pre-screen those requests and we have a nice graphic that we're going to show you in a few minutes that kind of helps outline this process but they would pre-screen those to look does it violate 847 is it meritless is it um they can apply the community standards to those and if then that is the case if there's a question about one of those books then it would go to on to the next committee which would have eight people and something that Mrs Hansen and um we collaborated on was about having a um more parent representation on the committee and so you can see here the that the proposal would be to have um a representative and we put may have a representative appointed from each school board members District as a representative on that committee um so again all that be discussed that was just something that was added and so then um of course going to number three they would review each submission and then there would be the outcome they would recommend immediate permanent removal they would reject or deny the request um they would um use the board approved Community standards to see if we can return it to the collection um and then also in number four um the chief academic officer would have that um say as well about it being meritless or maybe a duplicate request or something like that so in the event that an appeal is made then we go into the appeal section on the bottom and um you see here of course that and we'll have the graphic which we'll help with this in a minute so within 10 days the petitioner shall file um a request for appeal and then that's when um it will go um to the board and we put we took out some of the other language in there that was kind of the middle stuff um but if number three it's understood that the school board it's not the vote is not an endorsement of of the particular book or the subject matter but that law has been followed that we follow the state statutes and that all decisions of the board are final um when it comes to that so we're going to now move on to the specific material objection form draft and Dr Johnson's going to talk about this that's the second document that's in your packet good morning the specific material objection form that you have before you is um one it's based well it is the form that the state requires at this moment we've we are able to change part one to reflect our policy uh and we're required to do that as well so part one is amended for our school board policy and then part two sections 1 through 4 they remain the same because because that's what the state has has dictated uh however and that's based on my last communication with the doe I've reached out to them and sent them a copy of this form just to make sure that that this is what they're looking for and that we as a district remain [Music] compliant okay so like Dr Johnson said our most recent communication with the doe um talks about how we can change section one but we are getting clarification and having further conversation about that but what we were able to do in this is add in the proposed school board approved Community standards it's at the bottom of page one and the top of the back of the first page on the top of page two as well so that adds that in there as an additional piece when somebody's making this objection miss Colin yes she's talking about part one not section one oh I'm sorry part one yeah yeah CU section one has to do with um and the state said part one right not part one yes thank you Mrs the first page and a half two pages so this part one is what the state is saying based on our most recent communication that we that we can make changes to Dr Johnson has we have an email communication with that and then Dr Johnson um has sent in our form to just say okay is this does this work or is there can we change some of the other just for further clarification but right now we're going on but by what most recent information so so the next paper that you have in your folder is the is the graphic and I am super visual so this helps me like I could read words all day but when I see it in bubbles and different colors that makes me just okay it all makes sense to me so you can see here um that if we have a complaint the district uh preview committee and that would include the chief academic officer the supervisor of instructional resources and the District library media specialist so that would be that that information like I was saying before they would look okay does it violate 847 okay yes it's gone right no okay then they can also they can apply the board approv Community standards okay this list of of things they can deny as Merit list and we can probably all think of examples of of those kinds of books right so like they look at all these things these three these three things right and so they say okay we can we can deal with this we we can return it we can remove whatever want to do with that but then if there's a question with one of those books if there's an issue with one of these well obviously that looks automatically then we would go to the statutory compliance team for review and that is those people that we talked about there it would be three District people um and that would be it could be a choice like so it would be like for example the chief academic officer the district media specialist and two media Specialists or would be the choice or whatever put three people three of those and then it would be a board appointed parent maybe from each each section because what we talked about was maybe you don't have a parent that wanted to you know do it from your particular region or you had somebody else that you needed to so we didn't want to write that in specifically but of course you you all can can change that however you would like so then that committee would look here they would use the community standards um and they would remove retain or they would flag as mature for for the parental advisory status and so then that would go here and then if somebody wants to make an appeal to that process then they would send that to the super um intendent office he would send a notice of board action petitioner and then the school board would do their part at that point following the procedures and then the vote would be final of the school board so again I just to me a graphic and I think Mrs Hansen you had talked about that at your at the last meeting too so I appreciate the graphics like I said if you're me and now that we have CA we amazing we do all kinds of fun things so okay all right so the next um two forms so we're emphasizing these are called book access level forms and um the next two forms talk about the varing level of access and and we know that there's differing needs of Elementary versus secondary students and so um you can see here and I'll start with the elementary the elementary one at the bottom you'll see the different number of access levels for the library selection you'll see that there's General access you see that we use the same language as we did when we talked about the Book Fairs um in here both from a reading level and subject content the appropriateness of individual titles are unique to a child's ability and family values books in the elementary library range from kindergarten through six grades and may contain content that's not appropriate for all ages so we included that same language as what we worked on in um when we talked about the book there and then the limited access um would be again what parents can do they can write a list of different topics or authors or titles that they can't they would not like their child or they can provide a list that they are allowed under the limited access and then no access they're not they're prohibited from checking out books section two I always have to chuckle because um the email notifications of checkouts so last year um Mrs Hansen you talked about you know like the roll out and that sort of thing so as a parent last year I don't know what I was filling out I wrote my email down and so now gladly every day at 4:30 I get my daily email report of what my child has checked out at Lakeside junior high school and um I'm I'm very happy about that but I'm trying to figure out how to get off that list over there this like sign let me know but anyway so I'm I'm I'm I understand this and get this as a parent but that and and I but I can attest it works because I get it every day at 4:30 so her dad's like please don't write our emails on anything else so anyway um so the section two talks about the email notifications and so even though I was a parent and I said okay I want whatever kind of access I can still get write yes I would like to get a daily email or no I don't want a daily email of what my kid so I know next I no okay and so then I'm not trying to pursuade anybody way I'm just okay and then the secondary library book access level form um also has the same sort of thing but this is where we start talking about those parental advisory books right that we've that we're flagged and so those start to get into the different access here so the general access the unlimited access and you can see the different pieces um the unlimited um starts talking about the parental advisory um including those books that are that are flagged as a parental advisory the limited access is the same as the elementary school where they would have a list of not allowed versus allowed and then no access and then again they have the email notification of checkouts as well on um on the bottom so I know one of the big things that we've really talked about is the communicating that informed consent and level of access to parents and so this is just examples here um it's basically the information that um that is in these forms on the Flyers so we just put it at the end as examples like these can be changed again all of this is just proposed and it's a starting point for the discussion um to happen this can all be aligned to what's in those letters so this can easily be changed but this is something that we would really push out to parents have like a big campaign about like look these are your different options and you know that sort of thing they would have the information ahead of time also I know that Ethan and his crew are working through Synergy and having um the permissions at the beginning of the year pop up like the health forum and different um things you know that we have to give permission to as parents and so they're working on that um Facebook web uh the website Mrs Hansen also mentioned and it is a really cool little video um through a scambi account does that literally shows the um you know parents how to do it how to get on and how to to access and um so I think with all of that and and having a solid plan moving into the school year we can really get this information out parents so they're able to make that informed decision about their own child so um so yeah now that we have the screen castifi we can make a little video so um again that's the information that's in the folder and so again I'll turn it over to you m Skipper can I clarify something before we go into this because there's a part of this that I need the board to understand real quick okay um some of this is not what I've been working on for 6 months um as of yesterday part of this is changed like I left there 12:30 yesterday to be disappointed is understatement so on the policy I went in knowing I would give up pretty much everything but there was one thing I wouldn't give up and that is because the will of this board last summer was to make sure that our parents had informed consent we voted on it the district rolled it out halfhazard as it was when they had problems with it they blame the board it was our idea to do this um opt in but I have to tell you although it was a wonderful experience working with these two ladies what you have in front of you in this document I just want to make sure you guys understand this and this document is all opt out this is not informed consent it's just not at the secondary level we voted on this last year we talked about how parents need to know that there's material in the library not appropriate for their kids we know that I believe we've moved 300 titles of 847 as of right now 300 that would be 300 pornography books per state statute and I might be wrong about the number don't hold me cuz I know how people do that don't hold me accountable for that when and we have removed books from elementary as well so part of my give and take with the district yesterday was first of all I need you guys to know the second year that you roll into something it's so much easier than the first year and if we have safeguards to protect our media specialists in their time then there's no reason why it shouldn't roll out again parents are expecting it I agreed although I don't agree to use the same Elementary levels as we did last year this is an opt out much too many of my friends anger at me they didn't want it well my idea is that in elementary school why would we want to put fear into like a kindergarten parents for the first time kindergarten parent that there's inappropriate material in their Library I agree that we needed to handle this in a very sensitive fashion so Elementary is the same as last year with clarification not hard language but clarification that there are things in this Library too mature for your students so we did that in a very nice way I would say it's a very political way you know because I you know I'm not very political and I would just tell them hey man we found porn books in your library I didn't do that I didn't ask for that most of the library is good so for the board's understanding this is an opt out and I know Miss Gipper it's not your ideal thing and we've talked about this at board meetings when it gets to the secondary level most of the books removed from Clay County Schools came from secondary not not junior high but high school I'm not here to to blame how they got there I don't want to talk about why they shouldn't be there blah blah blah right we would be mistaken as a board not to make sure that every single one of our parents understands we removed 3847 books from this library and there's more in there and we don't know how many more number one was not my plan this this is an opt out my plan was to make it super easy using the power of Technology from Media Center to manage this so they wouldn't have to do any extra work so Synergy technology could mix with Destiny where they have a box my other idea was we also upload every kid as a yes in the first two weeks of school they're not in the library we wait for parents to enter Parent Portal see their video and make their choices folks informed consent means informed consent it means we are telling them parental advisory books VI that do not violate statute but may count uh contain content that is considered mature such as profanity obscene language horror violence glorification of weapons suicide self harm mental illness glorification of drugs alcohol and tobacco used by miners gender Theory medical transitioning those are in our libraries do I want them all gone no does a parent have the right to know they're there isn't that what this form no box number one loads everybody up as a yes they do not you do not have to have verification that a parent understands the policy when I left there yesterday we had unlimited limited and no access with the hope that the county can use our millions and millions of dollars of Technology to Mel these things together I would also say people like to throw around lawsuits as words but you let somebody's kid go into a library pick up one of them books and you find a parent who discovers that they're reading an 847 violation that is where the lawsuit would happen there's not many we have a lot of titles but to take our board vote and just throw it out as if we didn't talk about this last year it takes a lot to make me mad and I have to say right now I'm sorry I'm passionate but I'm also infuriated that we went back to an opt out cuz that is not informed consent it just isn't and I needed you guys to understand that what you have for secondary as we voted last summer should be an opt in so parents can say you know what I don't mind if my child sees all these real life books I do mind I don't want them to see these titles these kind of books and I don't want my kid in the library at all and we're telling them why right here number one is an opt out unlimited access limited access and no access is when we literally get proof that the parent understands what's in the library that is a basic parental right to understand what a public school system system provides to their kids that's all I had to say about that so um well I have a couple questions that I'll just hit really fast and then we can because I know this is going to get crazy so um first of all okay we know that parents don't always know the content we figured that out with with Scholastic um what I would like as a board member to do moving forward with all forms is utilize our technology I know I've emphasized this kind of like the portable situation you know kind of Beat It on the head a thousand times I would like every form given to a parent to be electronic and you know I don't know maybe it's just because of the doctor that I use I I'm not really sure but before I can go to my doctor's appointment all my forms are created online right you can access them online a lot of times you can't even view your portal till you freaking sign the paper right so my thing is is why can't we use a little special I think they're called widgets GS whatever and Technology world to make it to where when you sign on the Synergy you have a box that pops up and says you have to complete these forms whether it's your help form whether it's this form all of these forms so everything's electronic so that you guys don't have much if any work to do because it's already done it's electr all of our systems have talked to each other which is exactly what I have been asking for for all systems not just this system so getting everything to talk to each other gets a lot of work off of them a lot of work off of Everybody actually cuz it's just the parent signing it and then making it to where I do like the suggestion where they're all uploaded that way we don't have to worry about individual typing every single last one of them in um and utilizing it that way because I think a lot of this aside from the rest of the drama I feel like a lot of it is that we're just not using technology to work for us and so we got good news for you we're not but hold on I'm I'm not done so that is my first thing and then you can address that I would like to know from our lawyer would these guidelines Community standards Community guidelines if we were to vote on this policy could we utilize this for future purchasing for our our media specialist so Mr blacker can I explain that part about the the appendix can you just you can explain what we're working on okay or that I just need to know maam that's corre if we voted on this yes ma'am could we allow them could we unfreeze this purchasing and allow them to start purchasing um yes ma'am if the board the board finalizes this then then obviously there's some funny considerations but yes we can but the the state statute does allow the board to create a community standard um generally that was geared towards current content but you can but the board you know sets policy can work with the superintendent to to do that to direct that um the actual purchasing of the books is something the superintendent respond for with the work and outline a community standard that they would like to use as a guide so the only reason I hesitate this is what you know I'm going to give you a non plural answer the answer your question is yes however when the statute was written it was specifically designed to address existing content in the schools obviously it's evolving as it's it's rolled out throughout the districts so some districts are absolutely using a community standard as a guide for purchasing okay that's what I want to know to about the purchasing purchas there is an it we kind of breezed over it and forgot to mention this and it's so weird because when you work on something you forget other people don't weren't in the room right there is a rubric it's a very well- defined rubric with examples and non-examples for every single category here and it will be part um the media specialist will be involved in the process of creating this finalized uh rubric which would be used consistently from buying to talking to parents to the challenge forms to the uh special committee it's it will be the rubric that is used across the board because the only time you get in trouble is when you're deviating if everybody's not doing the same thing so if we're all using the same thing so miss Skipper that part that you're addressing can we use it absolutely yes I have developed one with um the the district and I wrote all over it yesterday and we decided we need some help we need to get some valuable input from media Specialists perhaps and parents or English teachers people who read a lot to develop one that can be used consistently across the board and they added that language in the paragraph C the appendage or appendix in the procedure in the procedures manual so it will be there for the purpose of buying talking deciding okay so that's what I want so I guess my question is could that be something that we do immediately following this or conjunction with the well I can't be conjunction with this because this is already done but immediately following it so that they can start purchasing so so a couple things I can so you know the purpose of this is a starting point that you know obviously the board sets the policy so we brought this forward so there's been any uh any changes um you know Miss answering the board has the right to change it back or do whatever you want related to it we're just simply trying to figure out how to move forward in the process when it comes to technology I would say this the goal is to do exactly what you described here we have really a multitude of ones that'll be part of our Synergy platform we check in that's what happens you're going to choose your library access status you're going to give permission to use the clinic or not use the clinic right there's three or four big ones that the state has pushed to forward they would be part of that sign in process I think eliminating some of the paperwork that the I see I get can I get an amen amen so for instance the the nurse's card right so as a teacher this is kind of like them trying to track down media Specialists like media parent signatures so as a teacher you have a home room and you have these forms and this is the whole idea behind what I'm saying here using technology you are literally responsible if you have 35 people in your home room and you don't get it back you have to call them every day you got to call them every day to get that form back it's like complete desperation as a Home Room teacher you offer candy bars to everybody who brings it back you send emails you do whatever you can it's like desperate I need to get all mine back and they announce teachers to get them all back and it's like a really big deal we shouldn't have to do that it's a waste of teacher man hours all of it's a waste answer your question yeah that's that's the plan when it comes to purchasing having community guidelines would be a great start for purchasing right because one of the challenges is when you're talking about Community standards everybody's view of what's appropriate for their child is different so if you go to purchase a book and within the statute the media specialist the principal the superintendent and the board are named in the statute related to that process so having a policy that stipulates what the community standard is then in my mind provides direction for future purchases cuz you're saying these are the books that we want or these are some of the challenging topics that we don't want in there which makes it difficult realize that even if you adopt a community standard uh someone and this is just totally normal this is what happens because people are different right someone will disagree with your community standards or I think it's uh they just don't agree with me right so the board recognizes that if the board uh codifies it in their board policy it would seem to me that you're codifying that all those other books are books that you are saying we should we should purchase right so purchasing can can begin after that in regard to informed consent and the process I was not in the in the meeting but I I just wanted to to clarify or maybe even ask a question since you know I wasn't there would be if a book is flagged as mature content and the child has no no form the parent hadn't hadn't filled it out what happens so there would be um in the system if the child brought it to the desk right and said hey I want to check out this book check out this book parental advisory book with a sticker on it the media Specialist or the TCH who's trained would scan the book and up would pop like a little red box fact somebody's made an example of it of how they could do it in Destiny so the red box would pop up and it would say this is one of those books the media specialist would see oh I don't have that level of access for this child so you cannot check out this book until I contact your parent or whatever further steps would happen at that point so it would trigger something in the system so that's that's what I thought was said a couple meetings ago I I wind up and yes yeah well what about all the books we don't know about I think that this is an OP out it's just not I was just trying to point out what happens if if a person doesn't turn in a form if they attempt to check out a book that's been identified then additional parental communication is required in order to do that so clarification on the form and following up on Miss Skipper's suggestion which is totally great having everything online if a a parent has to turn in a form if it's online for them to get into the I'm assume this is I would guess unless they didn't have Synergy I but to get into the parent portal before you can proceed this year you have to complete the following questions and it could be question about the health form it could be question about you understand the the the license policy do you understand that whatever policies we ask fill out which is a form and in support of Miss Hansen yeah we do we used to the one form that I can think that may not be able to be on is the Federal Form that we all have to get filled up probably still this year um but that but those forms are going to be required and if I get as a secondary parent and if I'm looking at these okay wait a second General access unlimited access limited access no access so I'm looking at General access provides access to check out library books excluding titles flag parental advisory status so that's excluding those books okay unlimited access says my kid can check out anything they love horror books so yeah I want them to be able to check out horror books because by God they're reading and so I would check two unlimited access and that's the end of my requirement then is that correct yes as a parent pick you would just pick I said my kid can check out anything I'm assuming the percentages that I was hearing the 60 70% those were the parents that opted in those are the parents that said unlimited access I'm aware having talked with a number of media specialists in the Elementary grades there were some parents who said no no access my child cannot check out books and in elementary school that is a resource students go to the the library as a resource once every 4 days let's say sometimes 5 days depending on the schools and I know that there were numerous phone calls made to those parents as well who said no access because in the past those children had been checking out books and all of a sudden their parents said no can't check out any books and the media Specialists or assistants would call and say are are you sure this is what you want but they would require new form if there was a change in anything um so I know that and in just talking with all levels in the schools there's still plenty of usage of the libraries and they aren't checking out but if it's reducing because this is I and and I guess this is where my confusion is coming in this allows me as a parent and I'm assuming it will be on synergy for 2024 can I assume that Ethan supposed to be maybe hopefully so as a on the parent portal I can check in and it says stop you have to do your library question so I do my library question I want my child to have unlimited access so technically you're not they're not touching anything they don't have to deal with any paper that's and it's opting in or out doesn't make doesn't count anymore what I'm doing personally is what I'm choosing to do on my computer for my personal child and I don't have to and when it comes up and let's say they want to check out a Goosebumps book in third grade and oh my you know is that considered horror you know so it says okay well your parent said that you don't get to read this because it's got whor in it you know whatever or yes you can read this no problem because you have unlimited access so that's why our Focus was on using the term Book access level um you know to kind of go back to that informed consent but the problem is it's not informed consent unless you say we have poem books in our library we haven't found yet that's informed consent this is not informed consent I'm telling you at high school I taught 132 kids 132 kids do you think the parents knew every single thing in my class rules that they signed do we really think that every single parent understands the myth are there bad books in there are there not bad books in there there are books we have not found in our libraries so Miss B I'm trying to help understand here it'd be like someone giving you a blank piece of paper and you sign it you would say what am I signing for but I think it explains it expains it it tells you exactly what could be in the library no not under General under General access it says general access provides access to check out library books excluding titles flaged parental advisory status but I what about the ones that aren't FL what about all the stuff in our libraries that you're going we're going to have should I'm sorry but I am as a parent I have said I don't want that to happen I'm just saying my child checks out a book and oh my gosh there's Horror in that book I'm going to use the word horror because that's one of the stand Community standard and I don't want and and oh my gosh my daughter comes to me and shows me this book and there's Horror in it and it was allowed to be checked out well guess what we just found a book that yes slip through the cracks will a parent come to us and say okay I'm going to sue you because there hor in this booking you didn't let me know possibly no possibly rather take that that chance distorting this Miss Bola I have a question this says we just let the parents know there's a possibility there's some books in there that are not appropriate but we don't tell them your child has a chance although it may be small to check out a book we never should have bought that might be an 847 violation that that is informed consent there's stuff in here you might not want your kid if if they say yes then they say yes but we have to get their permission can I can I make a su what if we just add sexual content to the unlimited access there may be sexual I I don't so we just neared when we when we did wrote the list we neared the community standards so then you would look back to the community standards and that would be something you would just want to add in there as well and then it's reflected on every document so like in that list the other question I have about implementation the under the limited access um I love giving parents as much control of it as we can like you know say for example they have a problem with um profanity and obscene language but uh books on mental illness are okay so if I if I wanted to differentiate that it says that you'll attach a separate form how would that work with Synergy would that be a that would be a separate that happens this year right yes and so what they would do is they would have to U provide a list to the librarian of their child school okay and it state it well it says that in both the uh flyer and the form itself so that would be a strictly paper document that would have to be yes are there many of those from this year I don't think we had many we had that option this year with limited consent did you get have many no okay I just wondered if it would be worth our time like I I know at home and our family for um videos we use an app called vid Angel and it gives you like 300 plus things that you can screen for um it's very specific about you know holding hands is okay but kissing is not if it demonstrates um this word that's okay but this word is not okay um so I just wasn't sure if there's not that we would want to get that specific but um if there's a way to add that into Synergy so it's not a separate form but if it's not something that you're seeing a lot of then and there's concern that would we have them would they even be able to write in their in Synergy what they want to limit or would we have to have check boxes then I don't know if that would become more confusing even if we just kept with the the broader language that's in the policy of community standards like I like the example I gave where books on mental illness are okay but I don't want violence or you know what I mean and I don't know if that's something that we could do in cery that would be a well limited access I taught in elementary parents don't know authors and titles they don't want their kids to read until they've read it I mean nobody Go I mean I don't know a single person who even all my own kids when they read I mean I didn't know what the book was about till they read it so limited access is almost I think useless in elementary but if we like to keep it there just in case but they don't I would use that you would I understand that and I I don't think you can say that you know but we can't say I don't want my kid to read books our libraries aren't set up like that that's the problem until we start going through the descriptions which are not accurate well I mean there are different groups of books though that are real obvious Goosebumps is real obvious I mean there were some Goosebumps books that I read that I was like you know but kids love them devour them you know and it's like everybody and and like I said if my child was reading them keep reading enjoy not keep them up at night and have a good time one of the other things that I liked about this and and when we first started getting into Community standards I was starting to get anxious because I am hesitant in the community standard side of things I do not want to put any restrictions on books that are not I just don't want to put restrictions on books period um to assist in this any challenge title that is found to contain subject matter or content that meets the criteria listed below would be flagged as mature so we're talking current books I have a question for the media specialist are you familiar with books that have excessive profanity have horror violence glorification of weapons glorification of suicide self har or mental illness glorification of drug alcohol toac use by miners do you have access to anything that provides you those sorts of things to be able to flag flag those books just curious just let you know one thing there is a difference between a a a book publisher and a book vendor so the Publishers are those people who are actually trying to make money off of the authors and their printed work our book vendors are who we use to purchase the books the book vendors primarily who we use are flet and Mackin they're the largest ones out there for Library bindings and things uh they are coming to understand the issues that we are facing not only in Florida but across Across the Nation so they are starting to Mark books as mature themed which may or may not I do not have a rubric on that but it's the same topics but they haven't shared the rubric as to what makes it IMM mature theme but I feel like that's at least One Step that is occurring right now that is trying to help all of us in this room make decisions so that is something that you are going to have access to as well most of us have been in our position for a while so we do know our collection now I am a a big reader and I've done this a long time so I really know my collection and I've read the majority of my books unfortunately if you're going into a new library you haven't it it would be lovely if we had time maybe even in the summer um to go through some of the books that we are unsure of or that you know we don't have and be able to pull them to look up the reviews to see because it could be we purchased it like some of the ones that were challenged we might have purchased it because it went with a set you know and everybody was reading it and we might have read the first one in the series and it was perfectly fine and we didn't realize in book six that there was a scene you know because the books are this thick and we never got that far okay um so that would be lovely if you know that way we could double check our collection to make sure we're not going to have those surprises and a kid's going to return a book and it's going to have that sex scene that we didn't know was in there um but if if we had time we could do that now it would be an issue with new librarians in a you know that they don't know their collection yet it's really not an issue if we start sharing titles we've read yes it's not an issue if we have an open Google Document like we used to in one library and read 300 books one Summer and One read two but she can look at that one's list and go okay this person said they're good these are all semantics that we have to figure out in the procedures manual but I can tell you this we opened up a new school Spring Park and then remove 200 books from it you cannot trust vendors period that's true they're all making money Publishers maybe more vendors yes too and by the way we did get in this mess because of vendors I don't blame you guys at all we got in this mess because someone sold us books they shouldn't have sold us to and I just want to make sure we come back to that because I don't care if they start going through them the descriptions are wrong they did that on purpose they should have said this book has a lot of sex in it but they didn't do that they're liars and the manipulators to make money and our kids and our parents and us you guys the school board the district we were all duped and here we are stuck with it now I opened up I'm sorry I opened up a library and I know from the the first day collection that was presented to me from various vendors because I'm a huge reader I caught several of them and I'm like oh I would never have that in elementary oh my gosh but again I'm a big reader so I knew that title but one thing especially with a new collection like that you're given the opportunity to see the book because because obviously when you're opening a new school with 11,000 titles you can't review Title by title as and you don't have the book in front of you so that is offered by our vendors that if something comes to our school and we physically read it look at it we can send it back and that's what we do with Spring Park right that's what happen with Spring Park I just wanted to say um when when we go through our collection like right now we may find a book that is not appropriate that is in violation of the state Florida State Statute it may have a lot of FWS in it or something that's not violation of the Florida State Statute okay 847 is 847 whatever the number is just this past month in my library I found three books that violated 847 what did I do with them they're there okay I I weeded them out I also looked to see if who else in the county had those books' I contacted the library Librarians and said hey look at this books I'm just saying I'm weeding it and you know so it's not like we're not being proactive when we find something you know we don't want those books in our library either it's the questionable books that we want kids to have access to if they're on on level I mean we don't want you know 50 Shades of Gray in our library but if they're on level for young adult we want the kids to have access and we believe that it's the parents ultimate responsibility to see who's reading what their kids are reading but we are proactive you know and with the email option they have the option of seeing what their kids are reading if they check it out and they say wait a second my friend from church told me this is a problem then they can also Madam CH we could just to kind of focus on the agenda there's the question piece of this maybe it's appropriate it's your decision maybe it's appropriate to do that piece now so we can kind of conclude the book so I do have several cards um but I they seem to be asking questions any think might as well get that part over so do we want to skip over the the cards and just take three questions nor I guess we could the board's up to it okay all right hey I can I just say just call I appreciate this right here this to be S I mean like if we're going to send something out on paper this is what I would like it's O this is what I mean by overwhelming yeah you may annoy the heck out of a parent but at least they can never say you never told me right because I emailed you you signed it I sent you this pretty colorful paper um I've done all of the things so I really do appreciate this um greatly actually and um I just really want to emphasize that all forms be electronic and then make it to where hey you can't look at your kids's grade you can't do anything until you you can't click off of the screen until you click the square yep and Dr Johnson put a lot of work into these think Dr Johnson no no we were both I just didn't want to steal we did it together team we are a team Qui quick question yes and these are the students are worried about parents that don't speak English do we have the soft yes yes yes absolutely yeah I'm like looking at my it um and these would reflect these would reflect whatever was on the form you know these were just an example for you so yes all right so questions okay so my neutal question but then I had I developed a few more as I went along um so for first of all I want to just address like where where we said parents rights you said you you get emails and you're like uh every day if you get an email that says Susie wants to check out Stephen King It you'd be like what the heck I'm going to look that book up so there's sort of that too like a safeguard where if you're getting the email that says what the title is as due diligence as a parent I need to if I'm concerned look that up so that was one of my things is that possible like that that's possible for you you see that before you take you read the 800 page book yes I get it every day in fact it's not an ongoing joke since I've been involved so so that was my other question so my other it question sorry because I'm married to an IT guy would not want meis so we can see if a kid has an allergy or if a kid is military or if a kid's ESC or what there's a box in Synergy for Teacher perspective not me but as a teacher if I want to take my class to the library if if George doesn't have a little icon then I know his mom hasn't done this form yet so I need to be cautious with him is that sorry a possibility also that asthma inhaler looks a lot like a sock so yeah if that that would be maybe an I don't know that would be a good thing for as a classroom teacher if I had everyone with a little book not a sock a book that you know hey okay they can go I don't know if you want never mind I'm say like color code the books if they're they should talk the forms and interface with each other the software should interface all right so now to my original question purchasing I know that you mentioned the statute was for last year that the statute like the purchasing go the statute that was developed last year I so my question is if I have Percy Jackson and book three has just totally been trashed and destroyed or lost I can't buy book three right now is it possible to buy replacement books of things that are already in our library that like Harry Potter I missing two Harry Potters so I'm just like well you're G have to make that one up did volor die I don't know so that would be great but I understand what you were saying like that statue matches the money so we can't buy new stuff because we can buy replacement stuff we can also buy reference materials you're not allowed to buy replacement stuff AR you yeah so so once we get to that point we we can certainly do that reference material um material that's replacement for books that are not that kind of thing does the statute say they can't buy books I thought they had to be trained in the library media specialist training does it say for two years they can't buy books that's something we decided I just think they ought to be able to buy books this is ridiculous gu kids they're not going to they they care about kids but we also want to protect them yeah but but they've been trained and they're professionals I I'm not sure why we're stuck on why haven't they been able to do this it's just uh it's mindblowing to me so are there other questions oh yeah you you want to go down I just skipped I'm sorry so I kind of gave I'm my name is uh Aaron Crawford I'm the first year media specialist and I'm at bless I'm at Lake Hasbury Junior High um and I kind of gave a preface that I was going to have a small comment before I asked my questions because my questions won't make sense without my comment um I'm a product of play County schools from kindergarten through 12th grade um and upon graduating from play Virtual Academy in 201 2015 I went on to graduate uh summum wad from UNF in um 2018 and I will graduate with my master's degree in from FSU in two months um and I currently have a 4.0 GPA and I attribute all of that success to the education and the teachers that I had in Klay County um and I have the experience of teachers who taught me to love reading and how to write and how to um communicate both advocate for myself and um advocate for for others but I also had teachers who knew at third grade that I was reading at a 12th grade reading level and they did not give me books that were 12th grade content but they gave me books that challenged my vocabulary without tarnishing my innocence um and so my question for that is how can we as teachers as media Specialists um continue to foster a love of learning a love of literacy um in younger Generations with all these barriers in place and also I know that some of my kids they're they come to school to eat they don't have parents that are home so if we're expecting them to give um their parents to give or responsible humans to give access for their libraries even if Mom and Dad are working the night shifts and they're taking care of their younger siblings all the time um they're just coming to have a safe place at school we are supposed to be the people that are there caring for them um that they may not have the ability to go to a public library and check out books but we can at least teach them about the content our books and have someone that's a responsible adult to communicate and say hey maybe you don't want to read this um and so where is the second question of that is where is the Trust In us as the Professionals in our job uh to label Andor purchase um books that are appropriate for our students that challenge them and allow them to never stop learning but we also keep them safe um at some point where does the Trust In us come back to us that it's not um while we want to you know make sure that we're in legal compliance where is the trust for us that we're not going to willingly put pornography into the hands of children but we may want to um show them diverse stories and show them or kids that come from broken homes that there are books that represent them um so where is the the Trust In us that we know how to take care of our kids or we wouldn't be in this position in the first place exactly oh um someone had asked a question oh God I'm so sorry the brain just died um one comment that Miss Bola had made um and that Miss terod had commented on is when we find stuff we make the appropriate action I had a ninth grader a ninth grader bring me a book that only two of us had in our our libraries and he said I don't want to get anybody into trouble but what do we do with this and it was three lines on one page and yes because of what it described it violated 847 had it been found yet no can we it was a Stephen King book yep yes Stephen King is is an adult novelist we know that but man our kids can't get enough of it and and I looked at this book and I'm going yeah technically it violates 847 and I called Carol and I said Carol you're the only other one with this book come on want look this page and the kids said I love the book but is this going to get somebody into trouble so our kids realize what's going on and they realize what a predicament we could be in so not only are we looking at our collections heavily to find books that we wait a minute when did I get this book maybe I better read this you know so we are doing that we are being proactive and but what's really surprising so are our kids M so we are the professionals we we have had the train we did the state training as Miss Ganon can attest we haven't done this year's yet but we did last year when we were told to and but we're also under the same kinds of um information on the outside that we have had for the last for me 37 years of reading Publishers reviews and we're going oh hey that's book four in the series that looks really good put that on the list but one thing Miss Ganon told me recently was that a couple of our big vendors like fallet and Mack if we order a book and we look at it and we realize maybe this one should not have been on the list even though the review said it was okay they're taking them back and replacing them with other things so they're being they're trying to be proactive as well but getting but like Aon said getting every p parent to fill out a form she's right we have parents that we can't even get to come to conferences to talk about but even kids finding books is why I said we should at least inform the parents that they're there that's I mean to me that's a prime example nothing bad happened but at least we could tell the parents there a possibility they're going to discover something they might not want to read that's called informed consent why is that a big deal that's why I'm just am kind of curi we just going to ask Mr blacker that same thing yeah K could we do that I mean you know how you always have a disclaimer tiny letters at the bottom of a whatever you know like hey you may have this so you don't yes ma'am yes ma'am you absolutely can do a disclaimer absolutely AB I mean there's some built in you know as Government you have sovereign immunity you can you operate you know under the rule of law there's an understanding that as Government you're going to you operate in a certain way there there's no way that y all as as a board can account for every single situation so that's why there's sovereign immunity but building in disclaimers and and understanding you know that way you know making sure that that people have that um I mean Dr up the verbage said that it's I mean you know that it's pretty on paper but you know what I mean like why why is that can we just not do that can can we agree that that might there's no reason why we can't inform parents right I mean it's not like it's not a bad idea you know what I mean like letting it app parent know hey if you have unlimited access this may or may not happen like the the boys who open this up because you might have that one that's that would they would come in and say hey you said you removed all 847 blah blah blah blah you know like now my kids over here wanting to do experimental things because they read this book and yes ma' I think one of the I think one of the if you look at sorry took my glasses off but if you look on the second page of the policy under Community standards you know it says to assist in this any challenge title that is found to contain you know the the permon that is you're going to find you just as was described by these you know ladies here you know a student descri is that correct a student discovered this brought this attention so he put a Post-It note on the page we go we go so absolutely so a disclaimer can be put in here that it's possible that this could be discovered and exactly just like on the form you know that they're going to sign that's all I think that's all I want them to know that their kid could find one under the general or the yeah the general accent you have something to yeah we can C we can certainly do that okay so so if we could just to kind of bring some structure to this uh Miss Miss kid I'm sorry I just have a clarifying question um so I have written down and I've looked through you know the wonderful flowcharts and the Elementary Book access level forms and secondary access level forms so is the default my question is is the default the general unlimited access form in elementary and the general access in secondary with the general default be access to the library without the form and I'm speaking specifically of the kids who aren't going to return it their parents aren't involved and or they don't get on Synergy they don't want know what the grades are are we going to give them access to generally library or we still is this still in my reading of it an op in for every student and if they do not have this form signed by their parent either electronically or by paper then they would be prohibited from accessing library books and classroom libraries which is it is it opt in or out so as this stands a kid would have access to a book if they didn't return anything they would have the general access they would not have access to the parential advisory book so one is the default General access as it's out it stands but that's again that's board discussion but that so just use an example I use an example I am a second grade student but I want to read a fifth grade book and or I'll go even younger first grade student most of our kindergarten and first grade students are directed if I'm not mistaken to a section in the library that's predominantly first and second kindergarten whatever but I go over to the older group and I pick out the book whatever and I want to read this book obviously a media specialist is going to stop them number one and say you realize that this is not in your reading level and it's well above your reading level and this is probably not the best choice for you but let's say it's just in their reading level but it's a Goosebumps book use that as an example I don't know that this is the best book for you right now is that considered a parental no choice it has to be identified and goone through the excuse me so if that that particular child could then check out that book yes and as it stands as it stand okay if they can read it so if I if I you know one of the things that has to happen in the process of making a policy we have to come to the point how to proceed forward right and the discussion for that we heard a lot of great discussion a lot of great input from folks we do have that I hate to be the Taskmaster but we do have a piece of paper with a proposed policy why don't we just take a look at it kind of go through there because we need direction you know on on this on how to move forward with this are we this is what we would put on the agenda the white paper right not the other papers corre so we're looking only at the one that says draft and it says challenge material so in order for us to to move forward if the board likes the way the policy is written here we could then theoretically I'm just throw it out there we could advertise the the policy and then wait the 28 day period and then have the hearing for that remember we're only voting on we're only making consensus on the policy itself on the one piece of paper that we have here so the other part of that is embedded within here is the idea of of access and so I heard some discussion related to access so it would be great to have consensus related to access because I believe that's part of this process so the access piece of that has to do with uh and the only thing that I heard as discussion points going back and forth was on the issue of of General access and what I heard and if I'm not hearing correct Sue says sometimes I don't hear when it's so we I'm not hearing it correctly just because I hadn't heard it correctly I'm not trying to influence anything I'm just simply trying to poop it forward you know however the board wants to go so with General access that would be for a student uh if a student did not turn in a form it's theault is General access but under General access if a book is flagged or marked then it requires parent permission in order to receive that book you know I heard discussion going back and forth back and forth related to this particular issue we've heard everybody in it but if you're liking me if you put yourself in my shoes ultimately somebody has to decide what what wording goes on the piece of paper that people have to vote on and so it's hard to get uh you know we want consensus in order to move forward it makes no sense to bring a policy forward in which there's not consensus right that's kind of the start so do I do I have consensus on the on the general access piece perhaps as a caveat to kind of bring it together I did hear um some other thoughts on it would be a stronger or or more wording about the disclaimer piece yes on what parental advisory is so that we can feel like informed consent has been been beefed up a little bit or you know you know related to that that would address the concern that I heard from the one board member but would also bring forth the idea that I heard from the whole Gallery related to this issue can we can we get consensus that that's the direction you would like for us to move CU I'm simply here thinking I what's my next move what do I do like listening to all of this so is there consensus that we want to move the policy forward can I just say I had them change a word yesterday and it's wrong it's my fault okay it's the part it's the part the parents will be appointed by each School Board m it needs to say will because we are trying to have more non-district people in the meeting than we have District people in the meeting so that parental representation piece what I was saying it doesn't necessarily have to be by the school board's member from their District because we're elected by our constituents and a school board member might want to pick somebody who represents their constituents versus you know it could be it could just be anybody it doesn't have to be from your District can you clarify that because it says the parents will be appointed Ed by each School Board member and may be a representative from each School Board M's District what does that mean to us they may can we can we pick one even if they're not that's what our discussion yesterday was that you were concerned that a district might not be able to find someone within their District however there's a parent in another District that they might want to appoint so the word m is just that we could pick who we'd like but it could be from their District that's the way we that's the way May that's what I said do it does not have to come from your District okay just make sure may I may I go back to policy yes very basic petitioners responsibilities when we started this I mean we have been way too nice and I'm over pre preach on I'm going to be very brief let's add that they must read the book entirely we don't have that in here anywhere but we don't read them entirely to buy them so but let's let's try let's put that they should read the book you can't go online and take a snippet from another County from another state and then present that in a challenge with one the state doesn't require that though on the it's not just have to provide proof so if it's 8:47 you only need one sentence of proof so that's not I mean I'm with you like emotionally but the state doesn't require that gotta but if it violates 847 well it's not how could it violate we're not going to have for I mean if somebody's challenging a book I want to make sure get you're coming from I'm just saying if if it hasn't been already and they challenge it as 847 that's right cuz I'm trying to look at the other Avenue would you just want them to ATT test the book just check a box that sounds okay let's let's Mr Mrs Clark my apology you and I did have a conversation about this with the community standards there may be some built in for that but the way that the way the law was written specifically 847 the legisl specifically decided not to require that for the porn for the 847 pornography part if you all move forward with the community standards and there's a you know let's say there's a disagreement as an example on here you know glorifying you know weapons you can have there's some examples here but you can have some disagreement on that that may be something that the board has some leite way requiring you know look you got to read the whole book and put it in within its context but for 847 pornography yeah the the legislature has decided that that will not be a requirement for pornography specifically if there's a exle us we have to pull the book but for Community standards we could maybe you know if there's a a dispute or in the appeal process that someone look I think this glorifies you have some book on General padon well I think this glorifies weapons there could be some dispute about that there could be some you know well have you read the whole book have we you know so um and my apologies for not having a chance to clarify that beforeand but yeah I mean I'm I'm not talking about 847 yes ma'am I'm talking about all these other needless challenges that we've had and it's obvious somebody hasn't read 2,000 books yes ma'am so maybe as a possibility what we can do and I can work with with the staff on this maybe what we can do is modify for the petitioner responsibility bifurcated where related to community standards um you know there is there is uh you know some good faith you know check off that they've read the book that they in its entirety and and put it all within context um maybe bated that way that's the will of the board we can we can work with the staff and and maybe kind of separate that if that makes sense does that make sense ladies well how does that apply to the state's form that we may or may not have to use word for word cuz they don't require well well I think is my understanding with the state form and and I know we're getting some clarification on on on this is that the first part of the form um so so when the law when when this law was written the legislator specifically left Community standards undefined they left that to school districts to to clarify that so the first part uh in part one really addresses more of the community standards um I think what they were trying to do if I've read as I've read the the minutes from the discussions the legislature uh did not want leeway when it came to pornography if it's if it's obviously pornography now as we know the Supreme Court has said that it cannot identify pornography it's up to the viewer but the State of Florida has identified what they believe is pornography so we do not necessarily have leeway now we're getting some clarification because there other school districts that I to section 4 Miss Clark do you examine this material in its entirety yes or no question number two so they already I mean anybody could just say yes you could lie on it I but the state form actually makes them answer and then if not what sections did you examine so for instance in 847 if you just read page 10 and there was some really you know involved things you would just say no I stopped the page 10 it's an 847 right I think that's what they're trying to do here yes ma'am and I I think that's consistent with the statute because it's not requiring that they read for 847 specifically again setting community stand this is 847 specifically my the pl reading of this to me as as one Observer would be uh we're requiring this is the state form you're requiring whether they've read the whole thing whether it's just a portion of it um but again I think this would be separate for the Community I think you all have some leeway to to maybe have you know hey we've read the whole book or whatever we can work on that I think I think the district reads the whole book when we right the somebody will be reading the whole book so if if I may there's one one more point I just need to make just there's one just one typo on the on the back back part of the page under um sorry page four number four P page four thank you thank you Dr Johnson page four number four it's on the very back it says uh uh under Florida statute 28614 so this is the statute that codifies a public comment which in all government proceedings in the sunshine so the no should be removed speakers shall be allowed to address the board so speakers so this when when this board sits in a quasi judicial matter y'all are essentially the judge the jury and the decision maker based on that you have to conduct it almost in in a a quasi judicial proceeding yall are sitting as judges in this proceeding obviously in the court of law we're not listening to public comment however public comment was still apped the public could still uh make a comment now having said that y'all's role in this process is simply to be the final decider of the process so if there's a disagreement y'all are not weighing in on the content yall not deciding what the content is you are not making a decision whether you endorse or not endorse you are simply looking at the process and making sure the process was follow so as an example there's you know within 10 days or whatever the the time frame yall are simply reviewing it if someone says hey wait a minute the school district did not properly process my petition or my complaint all yall are doing is essentially as sitting in a judicial capacity making a decision whether the process has followed correctly so there no endorsement y youall actually cannot in that role weigh in on the content now having said that um the public can still stand up and say you know look we disagree just like any judicial case I'm sure there's commentary on the judges and their decision making including the Supreme Court so the public can certainly walk up and say we disagree with your decision we don't think the process has followed I think what's important is is to remind the public when we do this in sitting when yall are sitting you are not weighing in on the content so we have a little statement that's right into the record this is p was the process followed correctly in a judicial capacity does that make sense cuz I think that's very important to make sure whatever process you youall decide on procedurally we're following it correctly so y thank you I'm comfortable with moving forward okay so can I get consensus from the board to move forward like shake your heads seen this Stu we just discussed the white okay I think I think I'm good with that all right so the next item on our agenda is the 20204 2025 proposed allegations I'm excited about this and media specialist you can stay if you like that's that's that's this is your chance to get out of town if you'd like if you want to hear my presentation you're more than welcome too that's that's it for your your portion thank you all for coming heycome last week me days yes we talking about yes this will be onl hear meeting be there all right and I just share them with you thank you thank you all right let's get this going all right all right let's go out so let's I'm excited I was excited about the book stuff don't get me wrong I'm even more excited about this stuff so so here we go so the start of the 24 25 school year actually starts in December you know for us at the at the at the district level planning for next school year part of that process is the staff allocation package which is in your booklet you got two binders one binder is presentation that you're about to see and the other binder is each and every position within Clay County school so the intent of this uh today is to succinctly kind of point out the the process that we went through and while Bonnie's pulling this up you know the goal of the presentation is do three things one to provide you with the guiding principles that were used in order to develop the allocation package that you're about to see two is to describe for you how the allocations were determined like how did we figure this out and third is the financial impact which of course is is perview of of the board so there you are that's everybody's name nice so in talking about what did we use how did we come up with this the very first thing I point out to you is is stability excuse me Clay County Schools is is an organization of 5,000 people it's the largest employer in Clay County it's bigger than every other governmental agency added together by a thousand to give you an idea so it's huge it cannot be done in a short period of time in order to have stability within our system and people that work for us we go through a whole process to get to next school year one is the allocation of of positions which happens in March after about a 3mon period to get to us get to we are today I'm trying to condense things for you and then after that I'd be more than willing to meet with anybody for as long as it takes to go in depth however deep you want to go into all of this in April we reappoint people to jobs people have to know they got a job next year that happens in April okay there are a couple mechanisms that we use in order to ensure that fiscally it works out one is we don't reappoint uh first year employees as well as administrators until June right in case something happens with the legislative session or something happens related to the allocations of of these positions so you know people's lives are involved so stability is a huge principle upon why we do the things we do and the timing of everything the second thing is it's physically fiscally conservative you have to be able to afford it whatever it is you have to balance the needs of students with what you can afford and how to achieve that objective it's not as simple as um I want more of these or I want less of these that's kind of like that's too simplistic it's if you were to talk to any person do you need more social workers do you need more psychologists do you need more they're going to obviously say yes for every single position in Clay County that's impossible because financially we can't afford that right so it's a balancing act it's fiscally conservative this particular package we're about to see is about oh gosh $8 million less than last year okay to give you a range of that after careful analysis of each and every school each and every position the needs of each School the needs of each department within the district all of that is considered it has to have flexibility so let me just go on the record is saying will it be 100% correct at the start of the school year next year in August the answer is no it will not okay this is a fluid document it's not written in stone it's not on Mount Si we're not saying this is it okay you know that every month we bring allocations to you every month you will see adjustments to this package I'm sure next month and the month after that the month after that because needs are con constantly changing and they're constantly evaluated so this is not like a an end all Beall this particular allocation package I would say it's the start it's the Baseline for what we do and we make those adjustments as time go on how else do we make adjustments we have 10day counts do we move teachers at the beginning of the year yes we move teachers based on need at that time perhaps the number of students that we thought were going to show up up didn't show up thus or more showed up right then you have to make these adjustments which is why we have the uh the 10day count we also have reserved teachers there's 10 reserved spots built into the allocation package because sometimes it is difficult to to anticipate for example we look at the elementary level we look at every teacher we actually have a spreadsheet teachers's name grade level how many students in there how many are in the grade band because class size is at the elementary level uh is K3 and 46 are two different bands that are calculated for class size so we monitor all of that stuff in order to determine uh the allocation package and provide flexibility and transparency is another key ingredient we're given you a book with every single position every single dime that that's spent on those positions is located within that book one of the things that I always find very interesting is people always want to say you know we should audit that the Clay County School System gets audited every year every year it gets audited on our budget we get audited on FTE we get audited on operations all of that is out there for anybody to see that uh that they want to see okay so those are the basic principles that were used in order to develop this allocation package so what do we do first thing we did was we reviewed our strategic plan goals you know that Student Success Talent recruitment family community engagement safe and positive learning environment fiscal and operational efficiency all of those things are kind of considered in the process next we review our current allocations what allocations do we have what have we seen as problem areas within our allocations this year in order to move forward so you can see that we did that line by line so I know that uh cabinet and school leaders don't like it but it's very exciting we sit at a table like this you know and and we would have all of the division leaders sitting there and we go line by line through this book that you have for each and every school and do we have enough teachers based on class size based on student population based on growth uh within that area all of that is analyzed over a period of months to produce the book that you see in front of you right so it's not like willy-nilly let's take a guess and flip coin and see what happens so all of that is occurs in the process then the next step is we analyze our current needs and when it comes to current needs I'm going to point out there's three major things that the board should be aware of so trying to to provide you a big picture vision for this there are three things that are different this year okay than previous years one is elll so English language Learners uh you heard somebody mentioned today we have 1,400 English language Learners that is an increase a significant increase of 30% right so we have over 50 languages spoken within Clay County schools and how what the the standard that the state and federal government has set for that we want to make sure that we meet those standards related to the education of those students so you're going to see later on in this package you're going to see an elll Department right in which there's teachers that teach what's called ELD curriculum uh English language development teachers involved you're going to also see uh elll facilitators people facilitating the work and in the past I I would say this we our our system for how to educate these students was not as robust as it should have been I'm just going to say it it just wasn't and and so now we're attempting to make those corrective measures uh some some districts in the State of Florida manate is one it's thought of as a as a leader in this we were far being a leader in this and we're moving closer towards that within the process so you'll see elll embedded in here and positions for that it's uh it's important remember we educate all students uh regardless of their ability level Etc yes ma'am that different funding do we get extra funding for that we do not get extra funding however we we've used uh Federal funding in which to pay for the majority of the additional cost in order to make that happen and so you'll see on the AL ation document the reduction of teachers and federal funding then going towards this particular Mission involved it's an area that uh much effort and many many meetings have gone into how to develop a different program for students that are elll so within that you're going to see all of those positions that are related to that particular mission where there's direct instruction of at least 30 minutes a day with them in a classroom be happy to know it's not computer-based instruction uh as in a previous model but if you don't let's face if you don't know the language it makes it more difficult to learn and so creating that transition so big changes when we analyzed what was happening in our district were elll the second has to do with ESC Services okay within C ESC Services when we get to the page where it talks about reductions of allocations and addition of of allocations you're going to see a position that the board approved the job description on last month called an ESC site specialist so in the past and uh I would consider it to be uh an itinerate model so you would have a staffing specialist that would come to a school depending on the the number of students at that school would be there for one or two days a week then you might have Behavior resource people that would come to a school for one or two days right and so was a different person different day kind of thing this would then reorganize um the allocations pushing them more out in a Schoolhouse model where there's individual site people responsible 5 days a week at that school so no longer would would folks be coming on antin on an itinerate basis a couple days a week be the same person every day that provid provides consistency uh it pushes more people out into schools to support the work at the school level now I say that and one of the challenges with allocations is it's not official till after we do that and so I know DR Sanders is probably over there sweating as to what I'm saying about it you know right now because this is a change it's a change in way we deliver services for students uh I I always operate under the pr or the first question I ask is this good for kids this will be better for kids and we believe in the long run based on consistent services for Esa so that's a big change so when we get to that page you're going to see a lot of positions deleted a lot of positions added no additional no additional people needed it's re reallocating people to a different job role to create consistency it's a huge huge undertaking I appreciate DR Sanders leader ship in doing this it takes courage to want to change and improve services so you know translation uh when you move cheese sometimes you know it comes with an adjustment period right but but the first question is is it good for kids is it good for the school the answer is yes so we're moving forward with that with that model the third thing that you'd see is different is one that you already are aware of which is the transition from um the Schoolboard police to the to the Sheriff's Office so you'll see a lot of deletion of of Officer positions because we're no longer uh needing those services so this is the formal process by which that's done I know the board made decision months ago but you might say Well when do we actually vote on the people well this is it you're voting on the people on on the March board agenda we also added um um Guardians I remember the discussion about adding Guardians and doing that piece that piece of it so we'll have more discussion when we get to that that piece of the of the p and then of course you adjust the Staffing um accordingly we shift it based on increased enrollment increased need re reallocate positions like I spoke of there so when you look at uh these are all the things that we use in consideration for the allocation model uh that you see here Bonnie could you could you show them the formula for school allocations y you run off screen there body now I'm trying to uh get my power point to go down the who Escape that's what I'm doing oh there's no escaping this so what do I'll just press on in the back of in the back of your book Financial worksheet in the back of your book there's two things one there's not only the financial worksheet but prior to that there's a model so the Staffing model that you see there looks like it says uh there you go it's up on the screen it's in your book might say well how do you know when to add a position you can see that one there is the I believe it's Elementary I can't see the top of yes okay then you have Junior High and high school so how do we decide how many teachers how many guidance counselors how many assistant principles how many cafeteria workers are at that school well it's based on population and you can see the formula that's used in order to determine that Bonnie if you can go ahead and and flip to the dates involved so the dates involved if you look up there you probably can't see the whole thing and I don't think this is in the book but all you really need to know is that today's presentation is one step in a three-month process to get us to this point it's not like this is just comes out of out of nowhere we started in December and been working at it ever since uh related to oh Bonnie you got to go back to the what is the state deadline the state deadline when you have to submit your allocations you don't have to submit your allocations but you do have to submit your your FTE projections to the state and that just happened that happens in January in mid January I think was the deadline so we have to look at we have to look at and the state gives you like three different models to choose from and there's a formula that Doc uses in order to determine that so here's what here's what I've done for today I've taken the book and the book has all the schools every school every position I've kind of generalized it for elementary junior high high school and alter alternative alternative school and I'm not going to read it to you but you can see it and it's there all of the changes that you would see within the elementary rankings uh related to allocations you can see a reduction of seven basic teachers all the way to to the cafeteria workers we've reduced uh two administrators a nurse all of this is based on either projection number of students or particular needs of a particular school you can see the ELD teachers the English language development teachers added into that um you can see the officers being reduced you can see the Guardians being added so the purpose of this slide is to take the 20 um somehow elementary schools and say okay what are the changes that occurred Within in the elementary grade band and put it on one slide you can see that um uh that that's pretty it's really not that much movement when you look at that and you look at it from a big picture that's not much change I know it might look like a bunch of change but really not the biggest thing being the addition of the ELD teachers Junior High you can see the same sort of thing with the financial impact now Junior High have an increase uh because uh because of their needs at the junior high level in the age of the student so we we generally take each grade band and we move it up one the assumption is is if that you're if you're in sixth grade you're going to go on to seventh grade next year Etc kindergarten is very difficult to predict uh what the kindergarten number is but the rest of it is pretty stable to predict the next year how many students we're going to have in each particular grade band so you can see the reduction of resource officers Etc at the junior high level you can see the same sort of thing and I I realize it's a lot to digest in a short period of time I'm trying to give you the the summary version of that you could see the high school and its impact then you can see the alternative school and the impact on the alternative school we just separate them out into four different categories then you can see the overall Financial impact you're looking at an impact to the general fund of about uh uh $534,000 to the general fund the millage you're going to see a decrease and in federal funds because of the elll teachers you're going to see an increase in the federal funds so general fund impact of $534,000 last last year's impact total with the opening of the new school and other stuff was almost just shy of 10 million total impact uh of all of this was like 1.4 almost 1 1.5 so a significant reduction uh in uh expansion of personnel so we do the same sort of thing for for the district we go line by line each person what's needed in in each particular uh area and we go through it and of course all of this position by position is within the book but you can see uh the school board there's really no change superintendent's office communication no change remember we kind of also uh I would point out to you that we we actually push our positions out to schools the the um the Facebook groups or Street committees that think there's a lot of people that work in the district office most of the people that work in the district office are here today 92% of positions that are quote District are in schools 8% of the people that you see and have contact with you know around here and it's not like it's a large group remember me making the point to you last year just within Communications that we have Terry Dennis in Communications and I kind of pointed out to you the example the board of county commissioner having five five people for the board of County Commissioners in the communication department so one of the things that we're proud of maybe we shouldn't be so proud of it is that we do things on the cheap within the district and and if you don't believe so just you know look at the facilities that this is a you know this is a nice renovated um room this used to be the print shop for a long for a long time but if you take a look at the buildings and you look at the district it is it is far from the T Mahal and uh I always I always comment that I went from oaklea high school to here I went from a brand new building I went from the uh from the penthouse I was going to say to the ouse to the courthouse right we do a great job and Doc you know is the CF no you know she says no she she starts off and I say hey you got to listen to the question first and then she says no again right so we we don't have money within the quote district office so that's a misnomer I will gladfully um Advocate against that uh that misnomer that people have related to that so um I wanted to show you something like for the district offices this is a mental health resource mapping because you're going to see that we are going to be adding some uh social workers and and school counselors to meet the need so one of the things you do for each department is we analyze the need for each department if we're recommending a change in the area of mental health it's not important that you kind you can kind of see that there's different schools then you see different categories and you see different green boxes where you see a green box is a person's name there's a person in the green box right one of the things you have to do from a district perspective is you have to ensure equity of services among all of our schools so we analyze for each particular Mental Health Resource and for each particular school is each school being covered correctly and if not then we either have to shift resources or we have to add resources another piece of the pie when it comes to allocations is what funding source it comes from so mental health is a categorical fund uh related to Mental Health Services so the expectation from the state is that mental health funds are going to be used for mental health services for students so one of the factors that may um influence the addition of positions is if you're given additional funding for mental health the expectation is you're going to have more people in mental health related to that so when you look at the next uh page of the booklet you can see within the climate and culture division you can see adding a social worker a school counselor uh two school counselors and a coordinator of me of mental health all paid for through mental health dollars okay oh you said this is based on the FTE to or just to fill the position like like well I guess I didn't ask that correctly my question is is like why does one school have more than the other all well it's also done by the number of referrals okay so not not within here you can see there's there's the overall population of the students but then there's mental health referral so if uh if it's noticed that a student uh has a need for services then there's a referral process and then you have to divy up resources based on who's got the most referrals to see the most children so that's another piece of the of the analytics that's used cuz I was just wondering why some high schools have like way more than other well then the Community Partnership is additional well in the case of of mental health you can see across the top all the different categories there's a lot of ways that we attempt to fill the gaps of Mental Health Services Mr Bros Laura is here if did you want to question okay if you wanted to fill on any if there she she's proud of her work she's going to Hung here I'm all in Skipper if I could address one of her questions um some of the different resources is with our mental health clinicians which we are you know seeking to add to we contract on the outside so we contract with ycc we contract with cl play behavioral so sometimes we contract in so for like a high school sometimes that that is a better fit um but all of our sets secondary schools have a Health clinician depending on the number of referrals if we have more than a case load and I will tell you one of my clinicians is seen 148 and we are in February almost the end of February but up until now has seen 148 I was just wondering why like middleberg only had so so much bless you they have you blew it away well and I get a screenshot on it so I need to like kind of say I did a screenshot but we're not seeing all of middleberg on there more if that makes sense I was I have four they have I was just trying to illustrate process involved and there's a whole analysis as to the number of referrals in order to provide the resources okay so Bas off off the referrals that's all I needed to to I just was curious so the next slides on ESC you see a lot of movement within ESC but you can see where we have the 36 School site Specialists that are 10mon 11mth and 12 months so you may ask well why 11 10 11 12 all of the current employees are in positions that are either 10 or 11 or 12 months there's no there's no um removing of people or positions related to that they're simply right sized so that they're at the school for 5 days of of service so it's a it's a very different model uh and uh very necessary I will say as a principal I've been a principal you know a few times and when somebody is there and they're only there for one day a week and then somebody else is coming in I'll just be honest with you as a high school principal I didn't know when they were there like is today their day like you know I'm busy doing other stuff and there's stuff going on so having one dedicated person for ESC service per school will be a tremendous um um uh benefit to the services of those students at that school I will also say that if you are that one dedicated per uh person you're going to have to build capacity in in other areas you're going to have to learn some new things right because now you're you're you're you're one one person show when so you're going to have to build capacity in certain areas that you haven't been before so do they they all get one evenly even though some schools have way more ESC needs all one one per school there going to be a lot of work and other schools it's going to be a little bit of work yeah go ahead depending on the size of the school and the number of students who have at that school there will be a little bit of a differentiated like some of our very smallest schools might only get um a half person still a lot more than they're getting now right now they're getting one day a week of a staffing specialist some of our largest schools I need one and a half so the plan would be to get larg by es population yes by es population not size yes so you know some schools we do have a couple schools that less than less than 10 wow students versus big a lot yeah you're right so I know how many I had in M CR versus how many I would have at swimming pen so so any any other ESC questions are we still one of the two counties Nationwide for military for ESC you you know I always hear that I've never seen anything officially in writing but it does it does it does it does seem that way you know because our percentage of of ESC students 21 we're about 21 now that's including gifted though so um which is considered ASC I will say I've never seen anything in writing either but we have had several of our military families tell us that they that there are two places they recommend if they have a student with autism specifically let me just let me just say this too in uh to talk about the work of ESC because doc does a great job I never I just say Doc and it's like everybody got a doc right now right so it's like doc doc Doles so so even you know tonight is our parent advisory Council for for ESC parents a lot of a lot of effort into Doc's credit has gone forward within ESC let me also say this you know raising a child is is challenging in today's world now so raising a child uh and also having a disability on on top of that creates even even more uh challenge for families and so the district consistently attempts to reach out now does that always work out I always I always laugh cuz when I'm around other people that do a business or that kind of thing they'll say well you know that that can't be that hard well you try doing something with somebody else's child right this becomes an emotional thing like and sometimes Common Sense goes out the window and you're trying to deal with other issues so that her team over there does it really does an amazing job you know the fact that I'm married to one of them has not influenced my decision I'm telling you that I'm just saying that you know what I you know what I think of that woman okay so uh you can see there within the department of Elementary Ed now don't forget within Elementary ad you have literacy VPK mtss and elll that's a lot that's under that under that division there the you see that 3.72 teaching positions right do you see that let me explain what that is cuz I don't know if we explained that last year on the on the secondary level you know one of the ways that you uh add teacher resources at the least amount of cost is a teacher can teach a sixth period most teachers teach five periods out of a six period day right and one period is their quote planning Peri period Well in the secondary world you have certification issues to deal with like if I'm math certified I can't teach a science class right there's different certifications so the way that the district handles that is we we uh we then distribute out those positions the 0.128 positions to schools that are in need of one extra period of algebra right well how do you do that you don't want to hire a whole teacher you want one extra period of algebra so you're hiring one of the existing teachers to give up their planning period and teach one more period so we were talking about the guiding principle of flexibility and one of our four principles for this presentation that's an example of that right that's how we that's how we maneuver you can't just get uh an extra 10 kids and have 38 kids in algebra and you say what do you do well you hire another teacher for one period and then ship the students over so that's all done in the process there and then you see the 10 teacher allocations I I have a question sure um are we I get um I don't know how to ask this as far as like early literacy I see that there's no change are we doing anything additional to I know some of the stuff on the Strategic plan some of us concerns about it as far as helping our kids read especially with early literacy are we supplementing help Within These like kindergarten K through3 classes to do more small group or more help with early literacy at all so what what we've done is if you recall last year and the year before we actually formed a literacy Department sad to say but I I I guess I can say it we didn't have a literacy department at all so now U me Melanie mcgyver uh as well as other resources are now there to provide those resources for students she also have been very strategic in adopting materials that focus on the science of reading and you know that the legislature in the last legislative session actually put into law Banning the use of of free queing in teaching reading so I feel like we're moving in right direction when it comes to reading instruction our our overall State ranking is is 12 it's obviously an area that we need to improve in uh related to instruction But to answer your question yes I feel like we're adopting the resources necessary in order to make that uh to make that happen no doubt so just so I understand what you're saying there is one person that that helps no there's there's a department one of the things department but you said one one of the things that happens is part of that resource right is through is through mtss we would identify which area of of um of reading instruction the student is we at and then provide the resources to address that area so if you think of reading as an if you think of teaching reading as an eight part or eight strands to reading right you have to have a way to diagnose which which strand needs Improvement and then what resources do you used to address that strand once all straight eight strands and of course this is oversimplified once all eight strands are strong then you then you have a solid uh reader there so if that makes sense we have M Tito here too if you you want to add anything to that say like so um with mtss on multier systems for the last few years we've been really um putting together a stronger um component that we can help articulate to schools on how to problem solve identify needs we have really rich decision trees like Mr Bros had spoken about like as far as curriculum that we've Ved and put into play um you know I think obviously having more support is always beneficial but I think one of the pieces that we've really spent is really educating teachers and leaders on the science of reading as well as like just getting them the right tools for their toolbox um but that's been a premise that we really kind of tried to to get in play but and really trying to use all the resources and supports we have in schools whether it's the media specialist resource teachers you know our instructional assistants um one of the things the last few years is we've done some professional learning through Lexia like the letters program which is really intensive but it's like it can get your reading endorsement but in addition the state has also put out like micro credentials that um our teachers can take as well as our assistant so I know leaders have really worked to get their capacity up by doing the micr credential professional learning so um but yeah that's been a lot of our premises just getting the right supports and right needs and again people's always great I mean it's just um right now just trying to get people in your skill set and and I will add that current with the size of our teams we have 12 people on our literacy team and like for example in science we just heard from Katie today there's only three and that's k12 and so our literacy Department it's an entire department that's so I'm glad you that's so there is existing that team is already do and that's evolved as well because originally like Mr brosi said four years ago we didn't even have a literacy team so with adding on a supervisor position we ALS now this year it's evolved to that we have like an early lit um specialist we have a secondary specialist especially those students that have those really big gaps um working through intensive reading we also have um one one that works with our raise schools raise meaning that they're having some underperforming in certain um certain schools under the 41st Federal index so with that being said we have these different individuals that we put into play to kind of hone in and focus on what those supports are and Melanie mcgyver come on board she's done an amazing job of facilitating those and then we have our curriculum coaches and Specialists that work directly with teachers within schools to make sure that everything that we have aligns together because sometimes you can have a lot of things but if it doesn't all interconnect and it's not easy for them to access then you got problems so I'm glad you mentioned that as well well my question I guess I I'm I'm glad we have all the tools and we have all the the upper people to utilize them and Implement them but what my question is is one of the biggest concerns that some of these early literacy teachers were saying is you know in a class siiz A large class size with kindergarten especially I feel like first grade is very crucial cuz that's kind of when they kind of get the concept of things I'm living it so um they kind of get the concept of things and now we're sounding things out and we're reading and and whatnot but I feel like the struggle with these early literacy teachers is there's not always and I'm not just talking about kids this is just teaching reading all together this is the help for everyone is having that extra support at every school um I know that would be an overwhelming amount whether it's just a couple of days a week whatever but having that extra person in these classrooms to assist in implementing these tools implementing all of this so that every child I don't know if I'm making sense but across the board that right that it's not just ESC kids that are getting this extra help that are going to eventually start soaring but every kid so that that that kid who isn't quite struggling but then has that extra help who is now can read on that fifth grade level or you know whatever I'm just saying I feel like the emphasis on these K through three but mainly those core years where they're learning that we have that extra help but isn't there in the class isn't there also I mean when I was teaching ESC I was also a kindergarten sips teacher right we pull kids out of the regular class and we do small group instruction for phonics through sips program do we not still do that sips is considered a tier two intervention for certain grade levels so we do have a lot of our supports through our exceptional student education teachers it it takes different models and deliveries a lot of them push in some of them pull out um we have Title One um facilitators and that support what you're speaking about and it makes complete sense is really like interventionist like supports within you know other and again that just takes funding and you know finding the right individuals and and all of that but you know we do utilize like our like I said like our exceptional student Educators and then you know as well as supports with our classroom assistants and looking at um like Title One supports as well so really trying to maximize whatever resources we have there and we just met with um Elementary leaders on Friday to kind of talk about different types of Master scheduling and ideas to use as well so it's just a stroke of a pen to add these positions correct I don't say we try to maximize like this start she start twitching too what you do is you try to also use classroom assistance in order to to work small group and do other instructional strategies in there so I would say this could we add more resources there of course uh no matter how many resources we would add there we could always add more to that it's kind of like the never ending kind of thing what I what I would proudly say is that we've we've pumped a bunch of resources in this because and I hate to say it this way 3 through six was treated it differently than K2 because 3 through six are assessed areas but it would make sense to me that you got to you got to work on the foundation which is K2 in order to have the success in three and so that that model has been implemented over the past couple years to work on that I will also say that it's very difficult uh to build capacity and that's when professional development and coaching comes in in in individuals that come from a non-education background and uh just have a love for kids and come into the classroom and now you're a teacher right there's a bunch to learn in order to become proficient at it and so that's another struggle that we had and traditionally there was probably more of those uh in that gray band so that's a that's a whole another thing okay here's the elll department you can see that there's uh a whole department has now been formed with teachers uh assistant the whole shooting match that's that's a big change for us yeah so we went from from really no no uh no program to now a full-fledged you know program it's a priority to be in compliance with both state and federal standards related to elll Services a 30% increase and I don't see that slowing down e either I will also say that that we're working to improve funding streams for there so to answer the question you ask is there additional money that comes with an El student yes there is in FTE in FTE World there is I don't believe that we were um capturing every dollar that that we needed to capture and now there's mechanisms in place to ensure that we capture every dollar and ensure that we we accurately reflect that so this is a lot of work of a lot of people and people are non-traditional like Kelly Kelly watt while being Chief of Staff has kind of spearheaded this on the side so we all have multiple things that we do that's just a little sidelight that Kelly you know you it's a little side job you know is to is to to deal with all of that as well as Ryan witson Title One um as well as the rest of the cabinet too so that's a that's a that's a major change so again three major changes I would say ESC delivery model uh elll and the police department you know um shift over okay you see the title one changes there and then the teachers that would then be used within um our elll department you see the deletion of the senet person you can see for operations cityian planning division having the supervisor you know and doing an analysis of the work for that position if look at uh St John's County as well as others the amount of work that goes into that position it's still I'm not going to I'm not going to most of those folks salary range is verging six six figures for people that are planners a director of planning facility and all of that we're kind of getting off on the cheap and I hope he's not watching you know right now but the need to change that position is there here you can see the differences between the police department and Safety and Security it kind of remind the board that Safety and Security is much more than just the officer in the school you know that's that's like one sixth of of the actual things that happen within Safety and Security is the person with the gun that's there so you can see that the chief of police currently is the director of Safety and Security that he serves as a dual role within that so the removal of the chief of police requires us to have a director of operations Safety and Security so you can see the changes that are recommended there including the additional Guardians uh that'll be uh involved and the lead Guardian is as we know it today it's not like the vice Guardian that's no what we have now yep and then for transportation you can see the slight change there they want to add 10 uh more bus monitors um you know he's done a great job out there and just not enough people to fulfill the role is what it comes down is what it comes down to uh business Affairs uh I'll let doc explain oh my good her Department okay um real quick I'll give you the r diges version of this um change um basically what I've done is tried to do a reorganization of just one Department well let's go back there's two changes that I'm focusing on one is a reorganization of one section one department and then of course um some oversight and another um let's talk about the oversight of another I'm stand um let's talk about the oversight of the the department which is the internal accounts um recent activities has brought to has been brought to my attention um that we need some really clear clear oversight in the activities that are going on at the school level as you know we have about 43 schools that manage uh internal accounts internal accounts of funds that come in from parents from other organizations that really um you may not think it's a lot but at the end of the year in my financials I'm transferring about um over $2 million that I'm just sitting on that's sitting at those schools so you can tell there's a lot of activities Financial activities cash handl that is going on in those accounts and um the overs I'm not saying that the schools are not doing a great job but there needs to be some additional oversight two years ago uh gby which is the accounting um um organization that I follow the rules with uh they came back and said that U moving forward school districts School Board who is responsible for this internal accounts is responsible for identifying those funds and monitoring those funds and Reporting it on their financial statements so with that we have taken measures to ensure that we are reporting those activities however um uh with the the organization that we have right now we have one person who manages all 43 schools with that and the most recent activity I believe that I need to add some additional um um oversight additional positions so with that I am adding One internal account specialist who would be able to assist the uh coordinator at this time to provide oversight and training to the school bookkeepers in managing those funds so that's the reason for that change that I am requesting the other change of course is the um restructuring of the employee benefits and risk management program as you know last was last year theard made a decision to go from uh fully insured to self-insured since then that was a whole new b g i mean we did not know what to truly expect and we've gone through it for a year now and what I've come to realize is that in the past um the uh fully insured program requires that the vendor handles all of the claims handles all of the um the um um the claims the invoicing the the everything that goes through dealing with uh health insurance um going to a self-insured program we become that vendor so we are now processing all those claims we are processing all of the uh data that's flowing through we're making sure that the employees are correctly identified the program the families are getting the correct insurance so uh you know so there's there a lot of background work that is needed so even looking at that um you know I looked at what the dep Department looked like and it was really operating by itself so um and then of course we also look at the other end the risk management side which when you look at it it it's it's sort of aligned in some way you know yes the risk management do handle liability claims and of course workers come well some of some of that that is interrelated so with that I looked at the overall how can I make this department function more efficiently and um uh looking at that I decided that okay um I am going to like align with just like all my with all my other departments as well I'm going to request to add a supervisor of risk management and employee benefits so I am combining those two departments into one so we will have that oversight I will delete the coordinator of health benefits as you know right now that position is vacant so I'm hoping that um I will be able to still fill that position but I downgrading that position to a coordinator too so it would be the superviser then the coordinator too will be overseeing the health part of it and then of course I'm adding a risk management specialist to assist in the risk management so because really we only have one person overseeing all of risk manag management so that is really a lot of work that that it entails dealing with the the liability cases and of course workers count we have a huge huge this year it just I don't know what happened it inflated this year so we have a lot of claims that need to be taken care of and um and with the insurance department I am adding another Insurance assistant the reason I am doing that is I've realized that we have our um our retirees population oh my goodness that has increased significantly as well and that is a separate U management of that program because they're not really in our system yet so um having someone just to focus on trying to get those uh that area handled is going to be beneficial for the Department um I am deleting the coordinator of one of risk management um and um so that's that one the inter account specialist I did speak to you about uh the delete of the two accounts payable assistant and I'm adding the two account is a balance there because I'm trying to align the positions within that account's payable division you know we've got too many different they're doing the same job so really I'd like to just uh um standardize the um the titles of some of our positions so that's the reason for my overall business Affairs re organization how do you I'm not saying you don't need the help but how do you when you like you have ADD seven delete four which is a plus three how do you guys so navigate the funds yeah so you look at the needs so we do an overall budget analysis before we even start yeah this process We compare the house the house version of of The Proposal which this is budget week right now in Tallahasse the house and the Senate inversion we also take a look at we go back 5 years to look at the history of all those funding sources as the way they're going to be and the projected Revenue that we're going to receive as well as the projected cost of that because in my mind it's very simple with budgeting if you add a couple hundred, you have to get it from somewhere else is that the same process yes it is so we look at what we project to be the revenue coming in then there's stock gaps that we use so so so mechanisms that we would use in the budgeting process would be we've certainly Frozen positions and not hired into positions we've done that before we look for alternate ways to pay for positions so for example in the case of the uh the health benefits they can be funded through through the insurance program not at a general fund so we're always looking for other sources other than general fund in which to pay for positions so when you look look at the El Department which is a huge undertaking uh the majority of that cost has come out of federal funds through uh through Title One and the money's there so you does that take away from Title One like we taking people away from tile no so to those Federal programs have what's called rollover which is unused funds so you that's another piece of the puzzle would be how much rollover funds we have within that account in order to pay for those funds so when I looked at the whole elll thing because that's the most expensive piece of of any of this by far is uh ell services and finding a way to pay for that that comes out of federal funds and not out General funds uh is a blessing because we actually have more federal funds to to use for that process so all of that is kind of factored into um if you lose the federal funds what happen s there's rollover for those funds so those funds would have roll over for this upcoming year but each year you have to look at the funding that you're going to receive before you decide it's kind of like before you go to buy a car you have to know how much money you have cuz that determines the well I guess I just wanted to know like if they decide to cut the funds yeah do we cut the positions so so ones that are titled or Grant funded we would we would have to we would have to do that or look for a way to reduce we would do a um a review of the positions and really in all of it whether it's federal funds or not we really take a look at where the needs are and we move it so with looking at mine yes it is going to cost some but what I did was I reduce some of the positions so that I can take some of the cost savings from there and apply it to the the the changes that I'm wanting to do but to support um what Mr Brasi is saying I do want to say that before this document is actually presented to you I did a preliminary budget believe it or not to say can we afford the modifications that we're making even we did meet several times and we looked at all of the different funding sources and try to collaborate with those funding sources to ensure that it is legal of course to support those positions as well as how can we Infuse Title One Ida title to general fund to balance a budget to balance the budget to make this work you know so that that went into the planning of all of this foration that is that so I would say it's a long it's a long process you guys get the half hour but it's kind of like I used to do this it's like three months it's like 3 months of work to get to today uh Information Services no change Human Resources they're deleting one position there you know you do an analysis of you know can you can you cut something so so there's the graph 92% of of quote District Personnel are actually out in schools serving that 8% are are the folks you see around us here today I know that that's something that people will say are your top heavy or you got too many people or whatever you know try telling that to the three people that deal with book challenges in District the one person that's the communications person you know you just take a look at at really it's it's truly on the cheap and I'll defend that uh you know extremely vocally related to that because I believe that wholeheartedly so there's nine days just to kind of wrap this up there's nine days to the board meeting I know I give you the quick version if you'd like to meet uh be glad to meet with you for as long as it takes for you to feel comfortable but I will insist that since this really deals with people and people's livelihoods we should be ready when the board meeting starts if not I I will make sure that I point that out because I don't really like to or don't appreciate uh messing with people's employment and so if there is a question please bring it to me or I'll meet for days I love talking about this stuff I live long it takes for you to feel comfortable going into the board meeting I'd also point out there's time restrictions here year April we reappoint people then we post positions and it takes from April to August especially in this work climate to hire all of the people that we need so it's not like we can mess around here with with people's uh employment so with that that that's it now if I could I'm going to take Liberty and uh since you don't like the agenda review piece anyway there's only one thing I'm going to review let you get a break right there there will be the Neola contract will be placed on there so you're going to see that we are actually voting on that uh in this board um so it wasn't attached here what do we know the price it's it is uh roughly 30 grand a year 60 grand for 2year contract well that's less than I thought I heard it was it was in the body there's a monthly there's a there's like a yearly fee after that it's not just for just for the board to clarify if yall approve this in March sorry if yall approve this in March then they would start the workshops with yall in April so and they anticipate Mr again you know a number of day we have the calendar some time because they they kind of have their whole collaborative process we would we need to be prepared April work on that but you would be like obviously you would would you be in the workshops with us yes ma'am I'll be with the Mr Bry okay I know so the superintendent will designate a couple of people himself included I'm assuming then Bo and I'll be there as well so we all work collaboratively through this process but they have some preliminary training they want to kind of pull us all into and and kind of get a feel for you know because it's it's localized to each each County and district and they try to flavor it based on you know there's some things the law can't change but we can you know ja's policy and and so for so so 2 years for 30,000 is that 6 30,000 year that's for the that's for the initial development period try it again cuz it's it gives you the 60,000 payable in eight payments over a 24 month period and then um it does add a couple of extra fees to it but they're not they're not this is outside my Lane but I do have some experience working with theola I would recommend considering the 2-year just because that's really we're really looking at a potential a to your process um just because there are a number of policies and we have policies that you all have identified that maybe we need to bring forth as well so there's there's over 800 policies in their repository well we don't have 800 policies we don't need that many but I mean it's a it's really a two-year process um so I would encourage youall to consider that so and then after that once it's all development then there's like update periodic updates that they bring forth when legislation changes etc etc that's what I think was awesome and they said that there were what 80 some updates last year and we were doing all yeah okay that's the only so I I think that that's the only thing oh the other thing I call attention to is within the personal consent agenda would be job descriptions because one of the things that have to happen and March is kind of a special month because of the time frame of March allocations reappointments in April posting of jobs and then hiring people until August if you look at it that way so the job the new job descriptions for any of the positions would be on there also traditionally I like to do it separated right one month to the next month but because of the timing of posting jobs in April they're they're all together on the same AG agenda so if there is any questions I'll I'll help sh sh sheer the board through the process to make sure that we're legally compliant with that okay all right um I did have a couple of yellow cards um but I think Miss Kidwell you're the only one standing just I asked my question it was clarifi clarification on that um anything further from me Mr no I appreciate the conversation on books I know that that's a challenge and and I know that a great discussion here today I feel I feel like there's um a little bit of consensus I appreciate the work of uh of Miss Hansen and um Miss Collins and Miss Johnson in doing that I was in one of those meetings and then I think there was a couple others that that I wasn't in but no matter what you do for that policy 100% of people are not going to like it's one of those you know we just have to accept you know that fact and and uh and move forward anything from you Mr blocker no I was just again thank you for the board's patience thank you Mrs Hansen our staff who work so hard on that with Mrs Hansen thank you all for your patience in this process your directions uh board member comments would anybody lik again or anybody have anything to add I just I want to ask um at what point I guess can we start focusing on or can we do a for for media Specialists to start purchasing again yes you once once the board I think the direction of having clear Community standards for which them to purchase certainly the purchasing of resource materials and and replacement books would make sense cuz that's there's no risk involved in in that uh the community standards that would then be the guide for for purchasing books so is that something that we have to like advertise no we can do we can do that we can do the in my view just to ensure the safety of the district buying replacement books and buying resource material things that aren't like controversial at all we could start that immediately the the the ones where there's the actual purchase in the books I was glad to hear the media specialist kind of explain uh and I think M Miss Hansen alluded to is that sometimes people are are duped or they buy set of books and it's hard to do that so in order to protect the the the district the community guidelines would be in place as as the policy by which we would purchase books that would make sense and would be in writing and codify for those individuals even when they buy books let's let's pretend they buy a 100 boy it's they're put in a very difficult um you know space on what potentially might be in that not can read every page of the 100 books I think that would be unreasonable to expect them to do that so we want to make sure that there's every precaution in place CU to me if we wind up purchasing things after all of this that are inappropriate that's kind of hard to explain like like we can explain how the very first book that was brought up was a 2005 book that was checked out like four times 15 years right you can kind of explain that away but if you start to purchase things that's kind of difficult to explain to people like how did that happen now with all of the heightened awareness to it well you can see how if there's not control in place though it could potentially happen right you know it's because of the difficulty involved so the answer to the question is yes we can start on those things first then the community standard piece would be later on once it's approved by the board I mean we literally haven't identified what the how many books are in there either so I'm glad we start with replacement and then your non-fiction or College Prep books because moving forward from there we don't we don't know exactly but that's what I'm talking about as far as the community standard is that what we vote on for this policy can we Implement do we have to or do we have to do a separate one advertise vote that I guess you understand if I could the the rough like the very vague Community standards I'll call them that that are in the have been translated moved into a much more complicated yes Miss Collins a much more complicated rubric that needs some work to refine it to make sure we don't trap ourselves or leave ourselves too loose I guess but do we vote on that that be part of the procedures manual and we will approve that yes okay okay that's what I just want to know like our timeline on when they can start purchasing because it well and I think Mr Rosy's point was it's having the community standards piece will affect how many books they can adopt because they we have to screen but we can start we can start the process right the other that was my question cuz for two years we've been [Music] having well that's what I'm saying I want to get like a Pinn down time I want to not like talk about I want to get it down so if we advertise they can be purchasing books Community standards will be approved at the May board meeting and they can hopefully get some of that work done before Summer Okay anything further right meeting is a journe Mr I have one quick question okay everyone gets a 30 minute yes yes I everyone will --------- Lord we would be a conduit of your love to them that our classrooms would be full of joy and wonder that we'd be an encouragement to those students who are persevering because learning is hard work and I just ask Lord as we take up this meeting today that you would guide us that we would seek your wisdom in all things and that you'd be glorified in the decisions made here today in your name we pray amen amen let's [Music] stand algi to the flag of the United States of America and to theic for it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all all right I will now call to order the uh special meeting of February 27 2024 I want to welcome everyone who's here joining us today and take this opportunity to thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedules to attend this board meeting this meeting is our opportunity as your elected representatives to collaborate openly and to make decisions that will decide the future direction of our schools here in Clay County if you wish to address the board on an agenda item there'll be an opportunity to speak for 3 minutes please fill out a card which I have a stack here um which you will find located in the back of the room over here if you need one um and turn it in promptly to one of our officers if you have items that you'd like to present to the school board or superintendent please hand them to our officer who will distribute them accordingly your participation is welcomed and appreciated um and if you'll look on I don't know if you guys have copies of our agendas but the uh comments will come the uh public comments will be after the Ford votes on the two items that we have on our special meeting agenda all right so the first item we're taking up is the interlocal agreement between the school board of Clay County and the board of County Commissioners uh funding for transition of the school resource officers to ccso so if I could I I'll defer to our attorney um to explain this it absolutely so good morning uh to the board so I was contacted by the County Attorney uh over last day or two about a basic requested change to this contract as you understand this contract is something that we need there was a timeliness issue to bringing this forward because we're working with three different agencies the sheriff department the county commiss in the school district but they have requested this change that the equ court be removed from this this specific part of the agreement this is purely just so we can keep this Focus between the County Commission and the school district so this is I don't want to use the word cosmetic but this is more just just a ministerial change it will not change the the content of the document will not change the the purpose or the legal effect of it it apply just focus the agreement between the County Commission and the school district so and my apologies saying this fairly late got it I got it yesterday and there's some ongoing discussion does the board have any specific questions about that that I can answer we're good okay I have a little statement to read that um kind of clarifies the change being made it says uh Council for the board of County Commissioners has requested a revision to the interlocal agreement between the school board of Clay County and the board of County commissioners of Clay County Florida specifically paragraph 7 has been revised to delete the phrase through its comproller so that the obligations under the agreement remain strictly between the school board and the county and do not involve another constitutional office right so do I have a motion I move approval and a second second okay have a motion from Miss baa second from Miss Clark is there any further discussion no ma'am just I think at this point just just the actual agreement itself okay all right all in favor please signify by saying I I any oppos say no no motion carries 5 our second item is to approve the contract for Legal Services between the school board of Clay County Florida and the Douglas Law Firm do I have a motion I'll move a motion from point of order move approval or un move approval thank you and a second I second okay second from miss bua any discussion I would like to possibly review this and months or so okay I think N9 months may be too far make sure that both parties are happy um I think we have to recognize as far as the pay that we've got to compare apples to apples and I think the what we're getting to attorneys for this price and yet we're no longer paying malpractice we're not paying for retirement or health benefits this is one heck of a day and I want to make sure everybody's happy so that we don't go down this road again and whatever it takes to meet the needs and you know we need to be positive and not negative and try to work this out smoothly I think a six- Monon review is it good is six six months would be at the end of our fiscal year as well right and that's time Y and I agree it's not it's not a regular employee contract we're not paying all the benefits we're not I agree clar it's important that we revisit that and you know I think honestly we should also revisit the um tool that we've historically used for evaluating Legal Services I think we need one that's specific to the board and and one that's specific to the superintendent office we did talk about separate remember job descriptions back in the day when we were looking for an attorney for the board to create a second job desription so we could vote on them separately to have separate jobs we didn't have both descriptions was my my understanding and I'm not sure we need it when you have a firm but it's something I would need to have more information about sure okay any further discussion I say this is the the next evolution in the relationship uh you know having a firm is a different mode uh than Clay County schools has been used to and so there's an adjustment period that goes on there I feel good about the direction that you're going uh JP being here uh you know fulltime and dedicated full time to the needs play County Schools is important so I kind of see this as the next Evolution uh in that process are you good with the six-month review 9 month that's actually contained in the contract it okay and um with the job description here again with a firm I think it's more not so much a job as are we seeing that all of the tasks that are necessary in the school district are they being addressed which we've talked about throughout as well so got it all right all in favor please signify by saying I I have a motion we thank you got it yep sorry any opposed motion carries 5 Z all right so at this time we'll move to presentations from the audience and missor I just realized I didn't sign into my agenda are you voting for me I'm I'm voting for I think cast a vote and that might be the only one usually I appreciate that Sor you voted for all of us though I did okay than so our first public speaker will be um Carol please forgive me if I pronounce the correctly kuga oh yes kuga that's correct um I just have a quick comment to make and it's something we haven't really discussed yet I thought we'd be you know making our comments after you know we heard a proposal um I'm a media specialist at fuming Island high school and um we're concerned about the direction of literacy in you know among our students um we had a um we considered an op in form this past year for students who wanted to check out parents who excuse me wanted their students to check out a book had to fill out a form to give their child permission to check out a book in our school libraries in the high school and um we had um 65.4% return which we felt was pretty good and but what we found is we had a 33. 24% decrease in circulation or checking out books from this year to last year which we attribute in part to the opt-in form yes because if a student would come and I wanted to check out a book they didn't have their form filled out we would give them a form tell them to go have your parents sign it come back we'll check out to you four out of five of those forms never returned the student never returned to check their book out um also due to reconsideration this year we've had to take so many books off the shelf so we feel like or I feel you know at least at our school that we've had this de decrease in uh circulation due to the op inform form and also um lack of books on the Shelf due to the reconsideration so instead of promoting literacy I feel as though we're really obstructing it with some of the things that are in place this year Kelly Robertson yes I'm Kelly Robertson um so I would like to speak on um the same issue but I would like to go back to the fall meeting that we had with Miss Hansen and that she was gracious enough to come and meet with a media specialist at flum island and um she was proposing a plan and we uh listen to her um and we felt that that plan um uh was basically laid out um some ideas but it wasn't a concrete plan when we left um but as um we um well she started holding these office hours with the public and what we appreciate you coming um the plan was not concrete and you didn't have our support you met with us but to go to the public and say that you had our support um was really not factual um so you didn't have a concrete plan when you left so I just wanted to make sure that that was understood um so you're office hours presenting it to the public um you you may have had a plan but to say that it was supported by all the media Specialists we met with us that was true but um you didn't have our entire support it was not a concrete plan when you left our meeting Madam Sher if we could let's we should not name any employee or board member in the comment so we can kind of keep that yeah and also um I forgot to be clear that when you um speak obviously state your name um and if you're an employee your address is on file so you can say it that way or you can State your address if your school if you prefer okay um our next speaker is Kim l l i Am Kim lenu I am a media specialist at Lakeside Jr I started as an English teacher in middleberg high school for 22 years so reading is definitely near and dear for me I did transition to a video production and spent a good 11 years on that so working with students doing the extra things I'm not scared of extra work I actually volunteer for it most of the time I don't know why um but I I'm not scared of work on this I know this is a lot of work all these forms and we're willing to do what gets books into children's hands but it is it is taking us backwards a little I know as at my school I have eight ELA teachers and I have them rotate into the library every month so every lesson that I prepare for them I have to then go back and check every single one of their rosters to make sure who's not allowed to touch the books pull them they have to do a totally different activity because they're not allowed to touch the books and it's just preventing so many things so many connections that can be made with books cuz reading doesn't go away this is the time to develop the skill in in a method that is a choice a book that they get to pick that they're going to like to read because they're going to have to read whether it's College whether it's a trade whether it's reading your mail reading you know from the bank whatever you you have to develop that skill and I feel like the way we have done this method I'm just hoping we can do something that's going to be better that's going to respect the parents but also get the books into the hands of the students um Christy that's me I'm chrisy tood I am the media specialist at oaklea high school and there's just a couple of points that I would like to make to the board and to the superintendent this morning one is the reconsideration process um we have a process the county does and while it's not perfect it is good um the books are moving through the process much faster and it should stay like it is at the county level it does the reconsideration process does not need to move to the individual schools needs to stay at the county level for lots of different reasons um another point I would like to make is parents rights and responsibilities um since I can't name names thank you for um having the um public meeting at the on Park TTC and thank you for the other member who was in attendance there um what I took away from that meeting is that parents do not want other people particularly other parents telling them what their child may or may not read um it's the parent decision ultimately um the county has a system in place right now where the parents can opt in to have an email sent when their child checks out a book so that the parents know what their children are checking out um this year it was an opt-in form we would as they've already stated um we would like to see an opt out form um and it be made accessible when the parents get all that paper work at the beginning of the year to have that in with that paperwork so that maybe we can get a higher percentage our our percentage is close to fling Islands it's not quite 70% yet and um that does make it difficult um another point I would like to make is um for challenged books if challenged books have met the state statute then all books should be readily available in our Collections and on our shelves if books are singled out by dots or colors on their spines or putting placeholders on their shelves or having books in the back room that make that makes them that makes the students want to look at those books and it may not be the right book for that child um and if you give books a category spicy mature Advanced theme whatever you call these books who's going to make that designation because what is spicy and mature to me may not be spicy and mature to you or to that parent of that child it is the parents right and the parents' decision to have their child check out the books that they deem represents their family values not necessarily another one I'll save my other comments for later thank y'all uh next is is this joette that's me I want to cross a lake from you oh I need you to go slow by my dog too big for my bad Vulcan stay away in the middle okay my name is joet Al Rebels I Live Well I live at school so I don't Jud to 5400 Pine Avenue that's good okay um so I'm kind of in agreement with some of the things that are said but I just first of all I want to say thank you to the unnamed those who shall not be named um for showing us up talking to us taking time out of your day and listening to us that was very important to listen what do we have to say what getting feedback we all say that as teachers ask the kids differentiate find out what everybody needs so that was kind of like where we went with that meeting um we came up with some ideas but the problem is we're really not coming up with Solutions we need some kind of solution at this point um coming to the library and checking out a book testing testing testing everyone doesn't have the endurance to read anymore reading a novel allows you to have endurance to read to to to sit through that boring passage on whatever test you're taking um keeping kids out of the library for whatever reason is kind of hindering testing in my opinion of okay they don't really have that endurance how do we get get a book from the library read it get ready I taught intens of reading for 10 years so I know the kids need novels they need to read they need to be able to sit through that test with that passage from 1837 and read that and take a test on it um the opin form H thumbs down to that so I've been teaching 29 years been in this game a long time back in the day some of you are with me here we had the opt in opt out for school pictures and everybody had to have inform if their kid was to get a picture made my idea is what if we have now they just op opt out I don't want my kids picture made so I send a for in or I don't want my child to stand for the pledge so I have to send a form in is it not possible to do this with the media forms everyone's allowed in the library everyone can pick a book and decide but if I don't want Sally to read this book then I'm going to send my parental right hey I don't want my child to read that and still get an email of what my child did read so you're giving the power back to the parents but you're also kind of lessening the burden on the teachers on the schools and so forth um I put my glasses back on I think that was it so those are my I'm just trying to throw out some ideas some solutions so I don't know how many minutes I have left do anybody have a question for me no nothing you sure so is it is it I'm not allowed to ask questions I don't know if it is possible the the opt out would be super thank you thanks all right next is Janette dco hi I'm Janette dco I'm a library media specialist at Green CB Jor High um I also live in Orange Park um I have the letter that the junior high uh Librarians we wrote together I sent it to you all um I was going to read it to you I don't know if you want me to though I think a lot of it was just a misunderstanding of you know people came in and and wanted our ideas which we truly appreciate because it's so difficult when others make a decision as our board member said about something they've never done and they really have no experience these opt-in forms for the secondary level have caused undo work strife and a barrier to reading in the libraries this year um we had a perfectly wonderful plan in place um with what's still used in the elementary basically where if they didn't want access the parents signed a form and said no I've done this about 30 years okay every year that I've gotten any kind of parent who said when Harry Potter first came out I don't want my kid checking out any witchcraft books put a little note in okay and I deal with it with that personal child but what the parents have said that's what they want us to go back to they don't they want us to stop putting barriers for every child based on one or two people's opinion okay I might not agree that that's such a great book okay but I'm a professional I have a M's in library science I've done this a long time I have certification I read reviews okay the books that I have at my level were recommended for my level and that is our job okay um as we move forward if we could please purchase books for our children they would really appre iate it okay theyve have so many barriers this year first with having to return a form to even touch a book in the library but then when they come in and they say do you have this book I'm so sorry sweetie that came out in the last two years and I haven't been able to purchase books in the last two years okay so they rapidly lose interest with reading and libraries in general okay we have a difficult yet wonderful and a form to move forward for for reconsiderations when they're challenged this year okay keeping it at the district level I think is the best policy if we move it down to individual schools I think you're opening your up yourself up for a lawsuit because if my community and the parents decide that this book is perfectly fine at the junior high but at another Junior High they decide it's not well who's right you know and then my parents are going to get said if you've taken the book off the shelf when they've said it's okay right so don't please don't open us up for any more lawsuits we want the kids to come in get books read for their enjoyment and to extend extend their classroom time as well so please let's keep the current uh reconsideration policy that we have in place um let's do away with parents having to send in another form as a barrier um we want the kids in and using our libraries thank you okay next is Michelle Bowman that's me um Michelle Bowman I am media specialist at Oak junior high and I think a lot of the voices that have been heard um I basically agree with with most of it um I became a media specialist because I love literacy and um I started right after Co so it's been a challenge every year but this year has been um incredibly challenging for me I'm sorry because I love ly and I don't feel like I'm promoting it anymore I feel like I'm restricting it so I just ask that you please help us do our jobs for the children and the parents and allow us to purchase books for them because they want the new stuff and I'm so tired of telling them I'm sorry I don't have that because I haven't been able to purchase books in 2 years and if breaks my heart every time I have to give a children a form instead of a book to read and celebrate literacy week was impacted because of the policies and activities that I do in the library book tastings are impacted because of the policiy and I'm just tired of sending students away sorry and that's is Kelly Robertson to hold that for the second [Music] meeting well I maybe I could sorry all right well thank you all for being here Shing your um so at this time we will move to uh superintendent comment no no comments I don't got a long day ahead of us we do school board attorney all right any school board members yes if I may first of all thank you thank you for for all of you being here today and for your comments never be sad never be upset about getting emotional about learning and the kids learning cuz that's what we're all here for and it's all about the children and you've opened our eyes to a number of different issues and personally I've been on the board since this began and I just want to offer my apology because we should have had you here for a meeting a heck of a long time ago and I think 2 years is too long and we should have had this meeting and had the opportunity to sit and talk um and I apologize for that that we haven't done this sooner so thank you for taking initiative speak to us miss gilhousen can I address the abely comments um I will remind you same courtesy just don't name names because I know the policy not until the next right so just for clarification for the board I had several Media Center Specialists let me know they wanted to make comments and I told them we can't do that during the workshop it has to be during the meeting and public comment does not have to be on an agenda item so I just wonder if I could address it because I know the actual policy is not till the yeah what you'd like to say your time um when I was asked to join the district at a meeting with the media Specialists I didn't have a plan you cannot have a plan until you have stakeholder feedback it absolutely doesn't work that way nor would I ever take credit for anything you said um on that day but I did take a lot of notes and I've worked very very hard in the last 6 months to put media specialists at the Forefront when everyone else wasn't and I mean I it it I have not I just want to say taken any ideas and briag about it or really gotten any support in the last 6 months you can look at my emails if you'd like to so what I really want to say is until yesterday at 12:40 we did not have a document or a policy I am unaware where that information came from that people thought everything was concrete and done it never was it wasn't um it went from 30 something Pages down to 3.25 pages and every single piece of that was a fight for two two groups of people parents and media Specialists I did not think about another person so I'd like to address some of the [Music] comments one I don't think it honestly this debate about opt in and opt out if if I listen to the words of every single media specialist and every single parent that I've had to address it's not really about that you know what it was about it was about the [Music] mishandling the representation communication and presentation of a brand new policy after the school year started it was about the fact that media Specialists had to type in every single Student's name as they got these form that we allowed as a district place that burden on our media specialist to make a mishandled beginning or start to an opin policy the media specialist responsibility I never once thought that we would roll out this process that would demand so many hours from a teacher and I can tell you and the district Personnel that I have met with can tell you the first thing out of my mouth every time someone wants to talk about something is is that what the media specialists want so I want to address this opt-in opt out problem so there's a lot of counties that do this without any pain or time from a librarian you might ask yourself how do they do that how do they do it without causing any time or hours from a media busy schedule what they do is is they as parents log into the parent portal for the first time they're instructed before they can use it to watch a short video on how to opt in that's it 99% of the kids within the first 10 days of all 16 counties that I asked because the parents go into the portal that's okay because the parents go into the portal the approvals are uploaded automatically into Synergy and put into Destiny this is the only plan that I'm going to ask for I would never ask for any plan that would require media Specialists to track down and accept the fact that we only have 64% of the students I am a 20-year veteran English teacher this is ridiculous what we need is a better plan the entire day yesterday and the last was spent before you develop a single piece of a media procedures manual the people sitting in front of us need to be Forefront in that activity they have great ideas and by the way this thing about stickers and pulling books that wasn't mine I got that talking to a group of 10 media Specialists after the district meeting I don't care how you guys work it out when we have this procedures manual creation but it needs to be worked out with the fact that unless a child has parent permission they can't lay their eyes on a book the books are there we all know they're there we don't know where they're at we don't know how many of them there are but I can tell you that not one parent's right supersedes another parent's right I can also tell you in these meetings I had 100% fight fight fight for the fact that every single book that doesn't break statute legislation 849 goes back on the Shelf immediately I'm trying to clear up some of the misnomers here because there are some there was nothing to take credit of that Librarians told me matter of fact all I've done is Boost you as wonderful people who know how to do your job and I will not stray from that regardless of what's been heard or said so when you see this three-page policy I knew going into it that I had to have an open mind part of that open mind was really listening to people which is how we got down to a three-page policy every single concern you have has been addressed and every concern you have maybe without the exception of the opin is what you've asked for so the like I said I have also called for your purchases your money to go back to you it was not a board decision to do that we have never had a discussion about freezing your money matter of fact I was shocked at the fact that they had for two years not giving you any money when I was told at the media specialist meeting that you were not even allowed to buy updated ACT SAT prep books this should be shocking to every person sitting on this board it is the day-to-day operations of the district and for some some reason we felt like it was okay to not allow purchasing of books even after the State of Florida trained media Specialists and required them to follow the media specialist training which gives specific guidelines on what to buy for books and lastly Unfortunately today is not the days of yesterday wasn't last year 20 years ago when I started it just isn't the fact that we have to do things different is because it is different and the hope is to do things different more effectively and better for parents and teachers and students and I hope when you see the policy as it stands right now that you know it was written for you and about you from your ideas in collaboration with the district so anything else you've heard that's exactly what has happened and that's all I had to say anything F I just wanted to also say thank you for coming out and taking time away and we love your emails and please send them you know it's always good to to get the experts thank you there some things I'll wait till we get to the actual policy part and thank you guys appreciate you all all right um so with that this meeting is adjourned and I will now call to order the workshop meeting and our first item is a presentation from Neola so we have two two guests here n uh Martinson and Tom Whitmer to talk about niola welcome welcome sir going to give a brief presentation and then answer any questions you might have about it there is an agenda items when it com