Hello. Good afternoon, and
welcome to the May 14th, 2024
board meeting of the Escambia Children's Trust. We ask that
all cell phones be turned off or
placed on silent mode for the duration of the meeting. Members
of the public wishing to make
comments should complete a public comment form located on
the table to the left of the
podium, and turn it in to Miss Alma. Miss alma, please proceed
with roll call. Judge Harris.
Stephanie White here. Doctor Northup here. Mr. Williams here.
Miss woods present. David Peden
here. Mr. Leonard here. Tina Cain here. Commissioner. May
just in time. Commissioner,
would you please lead us in the pledge? We'd love to. Thank you.
Please join me in the pledge. I
pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and
to the Republic for what? It
stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all. Thank you. If
anyone has. If everyone has had a moment to review the agenda, I
do have one request for an
amendment. Any other requests? The one request I have is under
program staff would like to add
OST year end measures report. May I get a motion to approve? I
move the agenda with your,
additions. Thank you. Second. Any questions? All in favor?
Aye. Any opposed? Passes with no
objections. Approval of the minutes. Staff recommends the
board approve the minutes of the
April 9th, 2024 regular board meeting as presented. So move. I
second. Any questions, one
correction. It's a small one that's got call to order at nine
a pm. Thank you. So with that
amendment, we have a second. Any other second with that change.
Second, with that change, any
other comments or objections? None. All in favor? Aye. Any
opposed? The minutes pass with
the one correction. The treasurer's report, Mr. Peter.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank
you. You'll see in your packet the financial, reports and on
the first page on the inside
gives us the analysis of where our financial highlights. If you
would take a moment and look
over those. But while we're doing that, if miss Abrams can,
there's one thing I want want
her to explain in terms of what we have on our balance sheet
versus what is already committed
and allocated, and also the administrative expenses and why
that fluctuates. That's, based
on what programs we're funding and, throughout the year. Okay
Thank you, Mr. Peden. On our
balance sheet, it shows that we have roughly, 23,861,000 in cash
in bank and we have committed
21,806,844 of that to contracts that we currently have signed,
that will pay that for the three
year balance of all those contracts. Okay, on our
administrative expenses, on the
statement of revenue, expenses, it fluctuates so much from month
to month because we like for
this month, I had to have our, our reports ready and submitted
to alma for our finance
committee before even the deadline for the programs to
have filed their reports for
March. So most of them have not were not paid at the time this
is done. So it makes our admin
expenses for that month look very high when you don't have
the program expenses yet for
those programs paid. So, I broke it down this month. So it shows
our admin the tax collector, and
the program expenses separated. And when you look at just our
admin less the tax collector
were running at 12, tax collector 5. And then the
program expenses are 83. Our
admin will go down as program comes in for the month. At the
time these were ran, we'd only
paid 26,000 in program expenses for the month. So it'll go up.
All right. Well, thank you. I
just wanted to clarify that I appreciate you doing that, the
finance committee met, and we
got into some discussions about the, the, moving forward and
this month and including for the
rest of the year. But we are taking a look at that and
monitoring. And as usual,
there's no abnormal, transactions, or unusual
expenses that were conducted
throughout the month. So there's any any other questions? I'd
entertain a motion for approval.
So moved second. Second. Sorry. Discussion All in favor? Aye,
aye. Thank you, thank you.
Before we move on to the business portion, we do have two
public comment forms. Miss
Green. Oh it is. Are they both under
there wanting to speak on the
agenda item under navigator? Okay, we will move on any other.
Do we have anybody else for
public comment before we move on? Nope If not under programs,
we have the executive director,
Miss Lindsay, to discuss future funding program opportunities.
Okay. Thank you very much. So as
we have been moving forward, from our workshop in March,
really looking at how we can
support our schools with our nonprofits, we brought two
models to the program committee
meeting to discuss. One was a general community school, type
of model. We can make it what we
want. The other was also a CDC approved model or framework
called whole whole school, whole
community, whole child, that is in your packet. And I think the
best way for me to describe this
is to ask you guys to go to page seven, and it's got like a
flywheel on it. It's really an
easy way to kind of look at this model and how we would wrap
around the schools, it's a
healthy school model. So we really look at a health focus
when we're doing this, but it
calls for alignment and integration and collaboration
into school settings. So that
includes, of course, the physical, the social emotional,
and then our academic
achievement of our children. And so with the model we want to
look at bringing together
partners in our community that can fill all of these gaps, and
I would say not all at once,
it's a heavy lift, but looking at focusing on specifically,
access to health care, was a big
part of what we talked about at our program committee, solid
after school programing that
focuses on physical activity as well as academics, parent
support around this and
nutrition, as well as other opportunities. And then the
school district provides mental
health services. So definitely integrating that in or bringing
in other partners that can do
that deeper and, and in the community as well. So those are
just some of the, the main
components that we are talking about as a minimum, it doesn't
mean that we can't do more, but
for a good starting place, this would be a model that we could
take our current funding that we
have rolling forward into the future, and, and bring up two
schools a year for five years.
We have a list from the school district that had ten of our
schools that are very vulnerable
. Some are F schools, some are D, and some are C's that are
toggling back and forth between
A, A, C and a D, and then they go to an F and then a D. They're
they're not stabilized in any
fashion. Worked with. So this is the model that, that our program
committee wanted to go forward
with. And so before I get into any sort of funding strategy or
what we want to talk about, I
want to leave this right here because it's a lot of
information and, and ask any
questions that you answer, any questions you may have. You may
have I know you've already told
me this, but just for the public, what is the approximate
cost for one of these at a
school? So I have researched this nationally. I will tell
you, I've only found one school
district that actually does this, and it's in Sugar Land,
Texas, which is right outside of
Houston, I've left messages for the director of Student services
and the superintendent. I have
not heard back from them yet, but what I have been able to
discover, just from the
information on the website, is that they they do infuse clinics
into their, school district.
They're an independent school district. So all of their
schools are receiving these type
of services. It's on their website. You can go on and fill
out all the information that you
need, to get health services, mental health after school. It's
all very integrated, so I don't
know if they could break it out per school, but what I will tell
you, the model for community
schools that we have in our community runs anywhere from
about 450 to 500,000 per year,
depending on what you're looking at and what you have going on,
or anywhere from 400 to 500, I
would say, so a good middle meeting ground for that. It's
about 450,000, I think that we,
we do have the capital to actually push that in for six
schools, with the funding that
we have with the set aside right now for potential TIF funds. So
my recommendation is that we go
forward with doing the six schools that we actually have
capital for and have need for.
Let's do an RFP or an intent to, to bid this summer and get this
going before or as the beginning
of school is starting. We just we have kids in need of money to
push there. So how are you going
to pick the six if there's ten schools that need it, how are
you going to pick the six
schools until we know what's going to happen with the TIF
money? Well, Mr. Leonard, I'm
really we're really I feel like at at that point, we really need
to rely on our school district
to let us know school grades are coming in now. So some schools
that may be on this list might
be doing better than we thought. Some might still might have
slipped. We don't know for sure.
I think they've I think they've got some preliminary
calculations. But, but the
schools most in need I think really need to be directed from
the school district to they know
. They know from our corridors of concern where these kids are
and what schools are going to.
And I think if we're going to be data driven, we've really got to
look at the data and follow
that. So, Mr. Leonard, I'll leave that to you. Sure As most
of you know, we're in the middle
of, high stakes testing should finish that up in the next,
probably within this week, if
the weather stays. Okay. I want to go by memory in the initial
listing that we sent, I'll just
go with the top three. And of course, it goes back to pockets
of poverty, zip codes of
concerns, corridors of concern, globe able Sims and Montclair
would probably be the top three,
that we would consider. Some of those are really looking at some
pretty significant academic
gains so far this year. But still thinking about the whole
child, which is what this
program should assist us in doing. It's not just about what
we do academically, but those
services that we're able to provide those students. But
those would more than likely be
the first three. And with what Lindsay just said, we would have
to narrow that down in that
first year and just select two. And then we would do that year
in and year out, that would be
my suggestion, Madam Chair. Yes, sir. Mr. superintendent and just
so we can have this conversation
with. Good seeing you this morning. So teacher
appreciation. I spent some time
in schools in district three, and one of the partner schools
of the county in my district is
Oakcrest, and we talked about navigators, community schools
and challenges, and with the
overwhelming amount of undocumented children, bilingual
children in their school, they
said, you know, we need help, you know, and, you know, they
like navigators would be, we
need teachers, we need teachers. A we need bilingual, we lost our
title one funding over at
Oakcrest. And so, whatever consideration that is for that
school, because I was there
facing with that principal, Miss Bonifay, and our dear friends.
And the new principal is great
friends, but I firsthand spent hours over there and saw the
challenges of that school,
particularly with those, students that we're not getting
the money out of Tallahassee,
and it is a unmet need on you, a burden on you and taxpayers.
They can't get title one
dollars, they can't afford to get the bilingual teachers. And
they gotta admit, those students
over at Oakcrest and they are to the highest degree of frustrated
and trying to do the very best
they can. And so I asked them, I said, put me on a map. What
would you want if I were if you
were sitting on the Children's Trust, what would you want? You
want a community school? And
they said, we need help because we're missing all this money. We
got to feed them. We got to do
all these things. We're missing money. So I just want to put
that I'm going to follow your
lead on it, Keith. But I know that that is a challenge for
them, they can't get through the
day. I mean, with the challenges that they're having over at
Oakcrest and I know that it's a
high need, and so you are absolutely correct. I will tell
you, they are on that list of
ten that we provided. Miss Cannon and the staff a couple of
weeks back, was it Global
Academy yesterday? And, there was a student that just arrived
two months ago that spoke zero
English, zero. And he did at least tell me good morning. So
we've we've made headway there,
but. Yes, sir, Oakcrest is another one. And they're doing a
great job. I mean, we have the
tennis for everyone over there that we're doing. We're doing
the partnership in the school.
But many of those undocumented young children, actually their
parents can't work. I mean, it's
a challenge just to get them meals at the end of school, and
there is a barrier disconnect
with even in our after school program, we're having to try to
figure out people who can become
bilingual and to hire people. So, I mean, to me, that's a
major, major challenge. I mean,
we're not talking 5 or 10. We're talking hundreds of,
undocumented children in your
schools. So anyway, so you help. I don't know what that model is,
if it's community schools and
navigators, but I know that they're having a little bit of a
challenge, and there are some, a
few at Global Learning Academy, too, as as well. And so just
whenever we decide to go out for
this, I hope that, you know, we are taking that into
consideration. And for me, it's
great for us to talk about it, but let's make sure that there's
conversation with the direct
providers of those principals and those teachers to get them
for us to not think what they
need for us to actually recognize what they need. And I
was unaware of it until I went
over there to sponsor last week. I really was unaware that the
problem was so, so massive, in
those schools. So anyway, I just wanted you to put that out in a
public forum with Yuki. Thank
you, Madam Chair. I have a question for Miss Cannon, in a
perfect world, how would you
roll this out to schools? School by school, year by year, to the
first year. To the. Well, we
can't commit past what we're we're voted in for. So we're
really looking at five years, I
think that two is going to be a heavy lift. I've done two
community partnership schools
myself in the same year, and two, 2.5 hours apart that was a
lift. I think if you have
solidified partners that are going forward with this, that
will work together in our
community is really poised to work together, a lot of our
nonprofits already do that very
well. So my recommendation would be if we're going to tackle the
most schools we can, we would
need to do two a year, and then and then keep going forward in
that way, and then hopefully
with the dividends that we make will be voted back in, we'll be
able to continue this long term,
there may be opportunities for more, legislative dollars or
other things like that that come
this way, but we won't know until we get in there and we
start showing what our partners
can do in collaboration with the school district. So that would
be my recommendation, the other
part of this, too, to answer one of the things that, Commissioner
may said is part of this process
is not just going in and, saying, this is what we think
you need. We know, we know
access to health care is definitely a barrier. And dental
and I we know that those are all
kind of things that we would like to do as a board. But
there's got to be conversation
with the principal, with the staff, with the parents, and
with the local community to
advise them of where to start. So, and where to start infusing
the funds. It may be in one area
that we desperately need after school services, or tutoring, we
desperately need, parent
engagement opportunities to spend time with our kids. We
desperately need, safe place to
play things like that, there's going to be different things for
each school. And so to go in and
just. And that's why this is a framework, of different
opportunities that make sense
for each school. So that's going to be upon the providers to do
some of that legwork, in
collaboration with that principal, to find out what
those things are and make a plan
and start moving forward. Any other discussion on that topic?
I just wanted to add, I know we
were talking about, bilingual kids, and I was of course at
Wise today. And, I was so
encouraged because they had one of the Spanish speaking kids
singing a song in Spanish and so
when I think a whole child like, that's something small, but
that's inclusive to that parent
and that child and makes them feel a part of that school, it
also helps engage. So, that's
just an example of what they're doing over there to help include
everybody. So I just love that.
So I'll tell you, I was at Oakcrest and two young Hispanic
girls came and sang a song, and
it was it was wonderful. Yeah. I mean, it kind of I'm advocating
for them today because it kind
of touched the heart and that did for me today just to see
that inclusiveness and them
feeling a part of the school and, like just having that
spotlight like that's important,
you know. Yeah, just the culture , the food, the singing, all
those things. To me, when you
have that school that, that diverse, I mean, our kids are
growing no matter what walk of
life. They're coming from all different neighborhoods, all
different backgrounds. Our kids
are already going and we can embrace that. Yeah, that's
really going to be a blessing
for them because that is I mean, you know, quite frankly, if you
have inner city kids who can can
be bilingual, you know, on both sides, I mean, how much more
marketable are they? I mean, you
can't pay for that in the business that I'm in. Everybody
needs to be bilingual. I agree.
Thank you Lindsay. And now I understand we have some exciting
news to share about the Director
of Programs and Performance position. Oh we need to make a
motion on that approved going
forward with that model. Okay. So it wasn't on my thing. Sorry
I make a motion that we go
forward with the whole child model. Thank you. Second, any
discussion? All in favor? Aye.
Hi Any opposed? Yes. Motion passes to move forward with the
whole child model. And Tory, I
do have one other thing I'd like to add to that report as well.
Yes, ma'am, so out of school
time, end of year. So I think you all are aware that we ended
those February 20th. Was it
29th? Yeah, it's a leap year. 29th started in fresh year.
March 1st. So Rick and I, and
mainly Rick has been staring at a computer screen and really
trying to solidify the end of
the year data, if you will. That's in our system, that would
make sense for all of our
providers, but also give us the opportunity to really understand
how they've moved the needle.
One of the things that we are finding is, I believe, only one
of our out of school time
providers does not have an academic measure tied to end of
the year testing. So we do not
feel comfortable going forward with I mean, we can make up a
report if you want us to, but
we're going to need to delay some of that to the end of this
school year. It's not
necessarily our providers fault on that end. We have an off
cycle contract from March to
February when everyone wrote these these grants, they wrote
them for a school year. So end
of the year, PM three testing are all there. So we will have
that. What? We're probably not
going to get that until mid to end of June. So, we're already
poised to Rick and I've talked
about this, we're ready to move forward as soon as we get that
data. We can plug it in fairly
quickly and produce a report, but really give us some some
real data on did this program
move the needle academically for some of our kids? What is
attendance look like? What does
discipline look like? What what are their parents saying about
the services they've received?
That real qualitative part that we're all wanting to see, but we
need to have the end of the year
metrics to do it. So, I don't want anyone to feel like we're I
know we're getting chastised for
harboring that stuff back. We're not, it's there, but it needs to
be real, and it needs to be a
report that we can actually say this is working and this is not
or this needs help, or you know,
we need to look at it. And in a data driven way. And we cannot
do that right now because we're
missing a bunch of data. Not not anyone's fault. They just
haven't got here yet. It's next
week. Lindsay. How will we, what , tie that together going
forward? I can understand what
you're saying, that we've got an end of year cycle that's ending
before the school year, which is
when those metrics come out. Is there a way to rectify that
going forward so that we can
well, not be in the same situation a year from now? Yeah.
Well, we we've talked about
that. I mean, I think the way that you could do it is issue a,
a shorter term. I mean, we've
already got our hours for the next year. We could look at
extending it, until June, end of
June essentially, and then restarting that third year
starting July 1st, so it would
be, I guess, an amendment. Right. Meredith. Like of an
extension. It wouldn't change
the money. It would just change the terms of that particular
contract. Right Because they
would be 3 to 4 months if you moved something. Yeah. Use that.
That's what I was. Yes. Tammy,
what Tammy was saying is we would move money from year three
into year two as part of that
amendment to get us to June. I would prefer a better cycle that
matches, there will be some
things we need to do in Samus to make sure that works. And but
gives us our data. But yes, that
that off cycle, it didn't really match what the proposals were
around that. But that's okay. I
mean, that's part of we've got the money out. These kids are
being served, and there is data.
We just we just need them to take the test so we can get it.
Thank you. Sure. Okay. So now on
to the director position. Yes. So do we need a motion to make
that adjust it or where do we go
from here. And trying to get those to correlate better. Well,
if we want to change contract
parameters for next year, we probably would need to make a
motion and a vote on that. I
think that sounds kind of like an administrative nightmare.
Would it be to change the dates,
the dates and everything? I mean, I think if you just can we
not just put a press release out
and saying the or whatever we need to do the contracts ended
on February the 29th, 2024. We
are waiting until the end of the school year of, you know, June
1st, and then we will evaluate
and then and then we will have a full report by the middle of the
summer as to whether the
programs succeeded or or what or how they succeeded. Yeah. I
mean, we can definitely put that
out there. I think. What, doctor Northrop's talking about is
extending those at a later time
and maybe that's what we do when we start looking at renewal
instead of renewal. We'll we'll
work together to figure out how we extend it as long as they're
performing. I mean, I think that
we can look at that and we, we measure that monthly, and we can
probably extend at that time,
but yeah, I excuse me. I thought you meant go through every
contract and change every single
date and. No, not not today, not today. But we can do that as we
get closer so that we can match
up the end of the year with the data. But yes, that's definitely
something that we need that that
we all need to be aware of. There's a reason for that. We
don't we literally the kids have
not taken their testing yet. And it was funny when we went
through it, we were literally
flipping through every exhibit B and we're like academically
tied, academically tied, which
is exciting too, because I think that there's been some confusion
that our out of school time
providers are not trying to tackle academics, and they are,
and it's very clearly written
and there is action towards that. So now we need to see
okay, what did it look like for
the first year. So I'm just, knowing that we're being
scrutinized appropriately by the
public with this recognizing we are stewarding public, tax funds
here with this. But that, we'd
be proactive in regards to the messaging as, Stephanie has
mentioned here that we're not
trying to, do anything, covert or anything else, but in order
to get those metrics out and get
the data from them to evaluate these programs and to do that in
fairness and transparency, etc.
here is our plan. Here's what's going to take place. Here's why
that data has not yet, even
though the contracts have already expired, we don't yet,
in fairness to those providers,
have the matrix and the data yet to evaluate them towards the
success that we're we feel
pretty certain is going to be there. We just want to be
proactive in that messaging.
Yes, we can definitely do that. That's not a problem. Thank you.
Okay. So do you want to talk
about the director of Programs and performance? So I am I'm
very excited about this. So we
have offered and she has accepted, Miss Deborah Ray, she
is currently the principal at
Pine Forest High School, we're very excited to have her data
brain around that. Mr. Leonard
is not disowned me yet for this one, no, but she comes. She
comes with very high regard from
Mr. Williams and Mr. Leonard as well, she the one thing that
makes her very unique is that
she is a totally different skill set than the rest of us do on
this team. And so we really feel
like her, the way that she thinks and understands education
programs and moving kids to the
next level is going to really enrich our team. So we're
excited to have her on. She is
finishing out the school year. We'll take a short vacation and
then we'll be with us on June
25th. So we'll be excited to have her on our team. Thank you.
Next on the agenda, Miss Abrams,
to discuss the employee benefits section selection for June 24th
to May 25th. Okay. Thank you. I
mean, 2025. I'm sorry. Yes. Thank you. We met as the
personnel committee, and this
year is the first year we actually received a second set
of quotes for our health
insurance. Previously, when I went out and asked for them,
we've been told we are too
small. But this year we did get a quote from both Florida Blue
and United, just as a reminder,
we've been with Florida Blue since, June of 20, 2022. But
United came in with a monthly.
It's about $360 a month lower. Quote for the employees. So we
voted. Everything else is pretty
much the same deductibles, everything else runs pretty
close. So we are recommending
that we change from Florida Blue to United Health Care. And then
as a little extra thing, United
offers life insurance that we can get for each employee and
even adding the life insurance
in would be 50,000 for an employee. We're still saving
3100 a year. So that is our
recommendation to do those two. Make a motion to approve that
recommendation? No. Second. Any
discussion? We have no discussion. All in favor. Aye
aye aye. Any opposed the
recommendation for resolution 2020 402? Changing the employee
benefits from Florida Blue to
United Health Care for Health and Life Insurance. Yeah, I was
saying I was just reading out
the resolution. That's what we voted to approve, the next
agenda item is a couple of
program changes. Lindsey, would you like to speak to those so we
can. There we go. We can start
with the Pensacola mess hall, as part of this end of the year,
like looking at data, working
with our providers, going out, one of the things that we are
finding is because all of the
providers wrote competitive applications around a variety of
different programing. So we have
traditional programing, which would be your 230 to 530, you
know, after school type of
programing. We have programing that is specialized and 1 or 2
days a week we have programing
that's serving on the weekends, and then we have overlay
services. And so Pensacola mess
Hall is actually one of those overlay type of services that
goes into child care type
settings and does Stem activities for roughly an hour
and an hour and a half, they,
they have been asked to come to other places to serve, they
originally had a relationship
with another nonprofit that did not work out for them to come in
and do that. So they have time,
they have asked to, to widen the scope of who they can serve in
their contract to include, the
YMCA at Vickery Global Learning Academy, Greater Little Rock
Baptist Church area housing, and
then also switching that age from where they had it listed as
grades 3 to 5, to switching it
more to an age range, because one of the things that they were
finding is that kids were being
held back, but they actually were older and were able to
participate. Some of the things
that they do require dexterity, and, and those kids would be
able to participate. So they
would like to change it from just third to fifth grade to 8
to 12 year olds, to encompass
more children at these sites. Question, Madam Chair and Miss
Cannon, has there been any
updates, regarding. I know when we had discussed this in
committee previously, the Area
Housing Commission was being looked at as a possible site.
Has there been any update or. I
have not gotten any update other than I know they were having
active conversations. She's
continuing to pursue it very actively. Okay. No changes to
the budget, just literally the
sites that they can serve. Any other questions? So the program
committee recommends approval of
the of the scope of work changes as presented by the Miss Hall.
Do I have a motion? Motion to
approve any discussion on that? All in favor? Aye, aye. Any
opposed. So that motion passes
then we have the scope of work for Pensacola Little Theater.
Yes So little theater was a
little bit different than mess hall, they had very targeted
opportunity at Oakcrest. They
are still very active with Oakcrest, which is what we were
just talking about. As a school
that's needing some support, they're continuing to work with
them. However, they have
capacity for more children in, that they can serve. No budget
changes. Again want to be able
to serve more kids. They're getting anywhere, Sid had
presented at our our program
committee, I believe he said around 18 to 20 kids per
session, which is still a lot of
children, but that leaves them about ten slots that they would
like to open up. So Oakcrest
would, of course, be their priority population, but they
would like to open up those ten
slots to other children that meet the parameters that we have
for underserved youth, in our
community. And so that that's what this proposal is, is to
open it up.𪦌 the program
committee recommends approval of the scope of work changes
presented by the Pensacola
Little Theater. Can I get a motion? So moved. Second.
Discussion No discussion. All in
favor? Aye, aye. Any opposed? So that passes. So the next up is
sole source. So we do have two
people that would like to speak on the sole source application.
Miss Green and Miss Harrison.
You both do have three minutes each. Miss alma, would you
please time for me? Thank you.
Thank you guys for telling us. Turn that speaker on. Hit the
button. Got it. That's better.
I'm Leah Harrison. I am the executive director at Children's
Home Society, and I want to read
this. You guys have a lot of letters, support letters in your
packet. I hope you guys were
able to read some of them. This one was not included, I wanted
to share this real quick, it is
from Principal Sanders at O.J. Semmes. She says, I wanted to
reach out to you about Terry
Ware. Mr. Ware has served our school navigator as our school
navigator at OJ Sims for the
last two years. I cannot even begin to express how valuable he
has been to our school. He works
so well with our staff and students and is definitely part
of our school family. He knows
the students and provides them with many basic needs. School
supplies, encouragement. Our
school is in is in turnaround. After receiving two consecutive
F school grades and was broken.
In many ways, Terry has been a vital player in the shift in our
school culture and academic
progression. When many students seek him out on a regular basis.
I understand the funding changes
and that you are searching for other means to fund school
navigators. If that's
accomplished, I would like to respectfully request Terry Ware
remain at OJ Semmes, and this is
just one principal. This is just one person, and this is just one
school. But this really shows
the impact that these navigators have. We have some of our
navigators with us today. And on
top of the impact that we can talk about, I got to sit in a
room with these people recently.
These people are incredible. And their largest concern is we have
been with these students and
these families for two years. Three years. We have built trust
with them. They trust us. We do
not want to not be there for them anymore, and just I don't
know how much time I have left,
but I do want to share, you know, just a little history. The
past five years, we have a lot
of data from this and this really the navigator program was
born out of the community
Partnership school model. The district came to us and said,
okay, 400 to $450,000. That's a
heavy lift for a community partnership school. But if there
was one position you could have,
what would it be? And this is it. It's the navigator position.
And I know you have data and you
have lots of information. And what we submitted, we're here to
answer any questions. And this
ask is directly because, there what we did have a three year
contract with the school
district. And they were Esser dollars. They were Covid, it was
Covid funding. And that funding
is not there anymore. The district is such a great partner
and they are committed to
funding our navigators and our three community partnership
schools, as well as a navigator
on the North end. So, thank you for letting me share. I'm going
to pass it over to Lauren. Good
evening everybody. I'm Lauren Green, I am a navigator at
Global Learning Academy and I've
been there for two years. And I really wanted to open myself up
for questions and not I didn't
have anything quite as prepared as as Leah did. But, you do feel
a part of the school, you know,
you do make relationships with, with, with the children. And I
feel like that, given the
constraints that the schools are under for grades, RTI, you know,
there's no one there's no one
that can stand in the gap that we stand in, and, you know,
we've we've received letters
from teachers. We see receive letters from parents and our and
our principals. And I think
especially at a high need school like global, there's really it's
not that I'm doing rocket
science. It's not that I'm doing anything that no one else could
do. I'm doing something that no
one else has time to do based on the constraints that the county
puts the state puts in terms of
grades and efficacy with with, instruction. You know, I'm a
non-instructional personnel, my
funding has got to come from somewhere else. It cannot come
from title one funds. My
principal would love to fund me with title one funds. She can't.
So that funding has got to come
somewhere else. But we play an integral part, that whole
Maslow's hierarchy. If a child's
basic needs aren't met, you can't talk about academic
performance when they come to
school without underwear and socks and they're couch surfing
and they never know where
they're going to be. The next night we stand in the gap of
feeling that Maslow's hierarchy
so that that child can reach that academic performance that
we so want. Thank you. Thank you
. So we have a the program committee recommends approval of
the Children's Home Society sole
source grant application as presented. May I have a motion
so moved. Second, any discussion
, Lauren, I just want to thank you for what you're doing over
at Global. It's an important
school. And, right down from some of the work we do, you guys
are doing a great job. No
discussion. All in favor? Aye, aye. Any opposed? So the sole
source grant is approved, and
now we have four items brought forward from the policy
committee. Lindsey, thank you
all. Would you like to run through those? We can vote
individually. I'm sorry, Madam
Chair. Can I make one comment? Yes, ma'am. I would just like to
say I'm proud to be a part of
the trust board for being able to fund the to fund the
navigator program. And thank you
for all you're doing. So I know we've had some negative press
lately about funding this, but
I'm proud to be here. I'm proud to be on this board. So
congratulations and thank you
for all you're doing. Yes. Thank you. I agree, I was reading some
of the letters and they are very
touching. The letters in here. The letters are. Amazing Now,
are we ready to move? We're
ready. Okay, okay. Are you going to run through them? And then
we're going to vote one by one.
Kept these meetings to like an hour. I'm trying to. I'm trying.
I'm just kidding. Yeah, so we
have, several school policy updates, that we vetted through
our, program. I mean, sorry, our
policy committee, they are ones that either did not exist or
part of our contracts that did
not match what our policy manual actually had. So the first one,
of course, is around, as we have
listed as Anti-nepotism, we actually put that into our year
two contracts with our cost
providers. However we did not have a policy related to that.
So this policy is here to update
and match what we have in our current contracts, and what will
be in our contracts going
forward. So any if there's any questions about that, I'll be
glad to answer. Make a do you
want to go through all four and let's go one by one. How do you
want. It's up to you guys.
Whatever you'd like to do. So I would like to, a motion. The
recommendation is the policy and
Bylaws Committee recommends approval of resolution 2020 403,
as recommended by the Executive
Director. So second, any discussion? All in favor? Aye,
aye. Any opposed? Cell phone
policy okay. Cell phone policy. So we did get our cell phones.
We have updated a policy to
reflect how those are to be used, we did have one. Change
also it was really great from
our, our policy committee to talk about this and compare,
Miss Kane gave us some really
great information that we've added in here too, that would
allow us to, of course, have
access to those phones at all times. Should someone leave or
something happens. So this is a
policy that updates how those phones are to be used, and, and
of course the, the passwords,
coding all that stuff. So we have full access for, for public
. The Policy and Bylaws
Committee recommends approval of resolution 2020 4-04, as
recommended by the Executive
Director. Can I get a motion so moved. Second, any discussion?
All in favor? Aye. Any opposed
passes and then funding. Funding policy procedures. This is a
another resolution. If you look
to page two, that has information that was added into
our contracts related to
overtime pay related to late penalties, for submitting late
requests for reimbursements,
reimbursement made for services outside the scope of work, and
then of course, written
inventory of supplies. And then, well, sorry, I skipped one part.
Pardon me, allocated the trust
provider for a specific provider be made to reduce in the event
that ECT determines that the
provider will not spend the entire amount allocated. Ed, and
then of course, a written
inventory of supplies and then, and no reimbursement shall be
issued if the provider's
quarterly report is past due. So again, all elements that are in
our contracts that we needed our
policies to reflect as well, the bylaws, policy and bylaws
Committee recommends approval of
resolution 2020 405 as recommended by the Executive
Director. May I get a motion? So
moved. Second, any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?
No. That passes and then funding
eligibility. This is another update to our policies, that
reflect things that are in our
contracts that are not currently in our policies related to the
excuse me, APA anti-nepotism
inventory, expiration of term upon other grounds, related to,
in the Tory supplies, like
computers and things like that, those need to come back to us,
we also have information related
to implementing a implementing a sustainability plan, for
providers, those were part of
their contracts as well, that they'll complete information in
Salmas, that they will provide
ECT with information related to its total agency budget and
percentage of its overall agency
budget funded by ECT. Those are some questions that we have, and
then we need to make sure our
very crystal clear related to how we work, and how we're
funding, understanding that
multiple doses cannot occur on the same calendar date. I think
you guys have heard that loud
and clear for a very long time, utilizing the program enrollment
form that we have for all our
participants, providing ECT with prior attendance rosters upon
request, utilizing ECT
transportation forms, those are really important to back up
mileage, and gas receipts,
maintaining indoor and outdoor areas free of debris and
clutter. Supervise all entrance.
As for security, it's another whole part of that that we
really need to look out for our
providers, also looking at, complying with all applicable
federal, state and local laws
that affect at the time of the execution of the agreement, as
amended, to affirm that has not
been suspended or debarred from the receipt of federal, state or
local funding, making sure they
have a fire certificate and they're following our local
safety codes within their
buildings. And then complying with the Ada act as well. Thank
you. So the policy and bylaws
Committee recommends approval of resolution 2024. Dash zero six,
as recommended by the Executive
Director. May I get a motion to so moved? Any discussion? All in
favor? Aye Any opposed? So that
passes. I'm sorry. Who seconded. You second some. Who's second?
You. Second. Second. Yes. Thank
you. And now we have the executive director's report.
Tired of hearing from me
already? Of course not. It's been waiting. Okay? I wasn't
sure if we were going to do it
at the end. Mr. Mr. Bennett, would you like to come? Miss
Elmo, will you please start the
three minute timer? Thank you. I'm sorry. Oh, no. I was asking,
Miss Alma. You have three
minutes. I was asking her to please start the timer. Okay
Thank you. Three minutes. I'll
try to put 10 pounds of sugar in a 5 pound bag. Good afternoon,
and thank you all for allowing
me to come before you today. We have a state of emergency here
in Escambia County, and the last
ten years we have had 272 young black men murdered. The youngest
baby was 18 months old when a
guy named Pine Straw shot through a kitchen window at
Pensacola Village. In the last
45 days, we have had six murders, two of those young men
will never be able to finish
school because they was 15 years old. Well, 19 year old lady gave
a 14 year old boy a gun and told
him to go and kill somebody. A week after the ambush were the
three people was murdered
sitting in a car. We had another shooting. A young man was
dropped off going to pick up a
car. He was killed. Last weekend , a lady on Incandenza and Ice
Street was shot in the head.
Before I came here today, my phone would not quit ringing.
Three people just were shot at
Diego Circle today. I'm not blaming anybody on this council.
Please understand. I'm a former
police officer, took my training in Winter Haven, Florida. Former
county deputy, Vietnam veteran.
I've been around the world and what I see happening in my
hometown town is unacceptable.
You all have allocated tens of thousands of dollars for after
school programs, and I'm not
saying they was not worthy of receiving that funding, but we
must, as citizens of Escambia
County, address the violence that's going on. People don't
have night Church no more. Just
seeing a report last weekend. Many of the churches is
considering having uniform
deputies at their 9:00 11:00 service. We cannot ignore the
violence that's going on in
Escambia County. I was invited on a national talk show program
last Wednesday and they asked
me, say, Ellison, what is the leadership doing about the
violence? I told him that was a
broad umbrella. Are you talking about leadership, elected
officials? Are you talking about
law enforcement? You're talking about ministers, sororities,
fraternities, teachers, lawyers,
doctors, or lay people like myself. I'm so proud to be a
board member of the National
Movement for Civil and Human Rights. Ten of those people on
that board, either worked along
with Doctor King, a march with him, doctor Ruby Moon out of
Rockville, Maryland, is our
chairman. She is a chaplain at Howard University. We have a
board member in in 18 of the
states out of the 50 they have assigned my duties. The whole
state of Florida. My phone will
not quit ringing. We have of a state of emergency right here in
our hometown. We can no longer
ignore it because we don't know where these gangs of evil people
will strike next. Just downtown
here in Pensacola. For a couple of days ago, nightclub showed up
and started shooting. We have a
problem. I'm willing to talk to anyone. I don't have the
solution. I pray every morning
that this nonsense will stop. Our school district have money
that they have allocated toward
mentoring our young people. We must address it because we don't
know who is next. Yes, a lot of
violence happened in district three, and that's not to single
out Commissioner May because
he's here. But we got violence all over Escambia County. I'm
sorry. That's time. Just two
years ago at a Little League football game, a young man was
killed at a concession stand at
Booker T Washington High School a year ago, a fight broke out.
People started shooting. It is
not going to end if we, as citizens of this county, do not
address the violence. So I'm
pleading with you allocate money for gun violence. It is surely
needed. I would answer any
questions if anyone had one. Thank you. And so let me just
say, Allison, I spent all day
Saturday at First Baptist in Warrenton burying two young
people that played ball for me.
Two young men, and I probably being at probably 80% of the
shootings on the scene. I just
left Montclair before I came here, and I'm probably going to
go back to Montclair when I
leave here. And so I know that as a county commissioner, as a
youth sports, we're doing what
we can. But I know we can do more. And I agree with you. I
heard exactly what was said at
the NAACP banquet, there needs to be more resources. I mean,
it's not a pandemic, but it's
certainly an epidemic when you lose that many lives. And I
don't think people was aware.
People are aware of how many lives we've lost. I'll tell you,
I was with the mayor on
yesterday. We spent some time on on homelessness and poverty. And
Alex is here. And Alex will tell
you, one of the number one things I talked about, was last
weekend, Saturday when I left
First Baptist in Warrenton. And I said, it's going to be
multiple, multiple shootings
because that's what the Street Committee had reported. And lo
and behold, Sunday two, Sunday
night, one, three. Today it is an issue. It is a problem. But I
can just tell you, for me, I
mean, I'm only one person, you know, I will be supportive of
anybody that brings a program,
that's going to address the gun violence that's happening in our
community. I mean, you know, you
got to vote with me. I heard you loud and clear. If I had the
solution, I was there in
Gonzalez court. I was there on Gulf Beach Highway. I was there
anytime there was a shooting.
We're there. And, you know, unfortunately, not many leads.
Neches, end up in ditches. You
know, I don't tell until it happens to me, we have to engage
with law enforcement. We was
just with the sheriff's office on Friday, working with Chip
Simmons, about the heroic act in
Inglewood at Boys and Girls Club when officers were attacked. We
have to change that culture, but
I do appreciate your leadership and your national leadership.
And thank you. I do appreciate
what you and the NAACP are doing. It's a crisis. I was down
in Miami three, four weeks ago
looking at black on black crime and what they're doing. And some
of the programs. And I can just
tell you, I know that you've been to the black Leaders Summit
in Miami as well on crime. I
mean, those are some of the things that I'm certainly going
to talk to our staff about. And
I hope that some organization will come forward. I get it,
there's not a lot of programs
that's happening for young, at risk black boys in Escambia
County. We're doing a lot for
young kids. You have my support and I apologize for, you know,
having to run out today, but I
needed to get to this meeting. But certainly I will be back in
Montclair tonight and let me say
this, I've been told by a lot of people, Ellison, don't call it
black on black crime because it
doesn't sound good. I talked to mothers from a group entitled
pain. These are mothers who have
lost children to violence. They're not concerned with the
language in which we are
addressing this problem. They want something done. Thank you
all for listening. I want to say
this. Thank you also, Mister Bennett, for what you're doing
and just letting you know, from
my standpoint, we're concentrating on conflict
resolution and trying to get
that in our schools at an elementary level. And then
hopefully in the future we can
eradicate some of this, this violence. But thank you for
bringing attention to it. And
just to let you know, we're we're trying to work on conflict
resolution as well with our
schools. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, sir. Madam chair Ellison I
know sometimes we're on the
opposite end of deliverables, but I want to thank you for your
leadership. No one standing up.
And I know at 4:00 in the morning, when I'm out there,
you're out there. So you're just
not somebody on the national level, but you're actually doing
the work. So I think that you're
going to find support in this community for what you're doing.
So I appreciate you being on you
and Cindy Martin every time I've gone to a shooting or a gun
violence, when the families are
suffering, I've seen you there. So you're just not talking.
You're walking the walk and I
appreciate it. Thank you. Miss cannon. Okay He's taller than
me. This is. This doesn't seem
quite as important based on part of the conversation we just had,
but, do you want to let you all
know what what I've been up to? And what our team's been up to.
I don't know how to make it
show. Can you guys see it? You can see it. Okay so we I just
had a listing of our our program
and personnel committees. Policy, finance and executive
committee. I think that those
are flowing really nicely, to have those monthly. I know that
it takes time away, but I
appreciate you all engaging in that so we can keep up, with the
things that are happening. The
other thing I want to talk to you guys about is what we've
been doing on the operational
side. So this says 14, but as of today, I've completed 15 of
those out of school time. After
school visits. I have to tell you, that's been really
impactful. It's one thing to
read it on paper. It's quite another to show up there and
actually see how they're
interacting with our kids to see what the kids are getting from
it, it's been it's been very
impactful for me. There's a lot of really great work happening
in our community and with our
providers. They're really stepping up to the challenge,
and some of them didn't
anticipate a lot of, a lot of the challenges that were there.
So, so they're adjusting and
working through that. We talked a little bit about the end of
the year data being entered into
Sammy's, and that we're looking at that reporting structure. So
we do have a reporting structure
for that, just to let you know, we just have not had the test
yet, so as we get that, it's
going to be easy for us to plug in and work. We've already sent
it to our providers to be ready,
to be able to provide that information our way. This past
month, we've also hosted we
started with that out of school time collaborative. We did that
as well with our out of school
time and our mental health, contract entities as well. It's
been really great. One of the
things that they really want is a meet and greet. They they do
not know what each other are
doing or even know who each other are in most instances.
Some of them have connected,
some have not. So we're working on scheduling that for the end
of the May, Megan, over at
Pensacola mess Hall was like, I will have it at my place. You
guys come. So really looking at
that blended approach between our out of school time and
mental health, because they
serve very differently, but they're serving a lot of those
same populations, so there needs
to be some connectivity with them. So if they're full and
someone is not they know who to
refer to. And vice versa, we also hosted that after. And I
have how many participated? I
didn't have this. I think there was about 30 participants in
this. We had, after school Inc.
come and they actually did a training on program quality self
assessment and improvement. Some
of this was not new for some of our providers. And then others
were saying, I've heard it
before, but you brought an element to me I had not thought
of before, and that I we might
be doing this, but we don't have it in policy and procedure or
we're not measuring that. So, so
it was a really great place for them to come. And it was a
combination of mental health as
well as those pure out of school time providers as well. We've
talked about our computer lab.
You guys have come in and you've had meetings at our board room
at our new facility, but the
computer lab has been set up and is ready to go. We're letting
providers know that is available
to them, as well as our board room, if they need to utilize
that. Some of them are working
in the community and need space. And so that's available to the
public for those meetings. We
told them just to call Miss Alma and schedule that out, and then
on communications and outreach I
had on here, our resource guide. So you guys all got a bag today,
of things that we've been
handing out, those are for you to keep or for you to hand to
someone in need. But we have our
resource guide loaded on to our, website. It's actually in our
email signatures as well. And
we're distributing those hard copies out. What's been really
interesting about that is, is at
these site visits that we've gone to, they have said, we are
so glad for this resource guide.
And they like fight over it and like this is a staff copy and
don't hand it out. So it's been
more beneficial to or not more beneficial. It's been just as
beneficial to providers as well
as it has been to the general community to help resource that,
the Touch-a-truck event actually
occurred at Echo Life Church. Michael was our representative
at that. There was around 250
people that attended that, and there were ten community
partners and 12 trucks. I
believe Fpnl was there. I know the fire department was there.
There's a variety of fun, fun
trucks for kids to participate in, it was a really successful
event. They actually were able
to do some screenings there and get kids rolled into services,
from that event, which was the
whole purpose, the other update also from that same group, Art
gateway is working through this.
They also hosted, I think it was April 19th, a dose training or
screening, which is an autistic
screening. And, they said that they actually have 28 children
booked now for screening for
that. That's a that's a large amount of kids, it respectively.
It doesn't sound like it, but it
is I'm sure doctor Northrup can tell you that that's they're
booked out through August 16th
for those screenings. So it's pretty significant turnaround
from that event, we're scheduled
for a National Night Out that's been secured, and that's going
to be over, near the Victory
Center, it's going to be a great night. So we have some fun
handouts for people. If you guys
want to come and be there, we would love for you all to be
there as well, we're working on
our updated newsletter. Michael's been doing a great job
with that. It'll come out on the
21st and then also we want to recognize that May is national
mental health awareness Month,
that's one of those things that we definitely want to lean into,
and support as a board and as a
staff. We're, we're funding those that are standing in the
gap. They may not be providing a
lot of that traditional mental health, but they might be some
of the first people that
identify that there is a mental health issue. And that's what
we're there to do, with our
mental health providers. So, you'll be seeing some
recognition on that as well, the
last thing I don't have on the slide, but Tammy reminded me of,
is you all should have gotten
your ethics email, the form that you have to sign off every year.
Is it due by June 30th? June
30th. So if you did not get that, you need to let us know.
And we will make sure you get
the link to fill that out. It's all online, so any questions I
didn't so could you. Yes. Miss
alma, can you write down Tory for me? Okay. All right. Yes,
sir. So I just want to thank you
for the work you're doing because every resolution we pass
tonight is because of you
digging into things that we need to do better, and also for,
communicating with, with this
board and for me in particular, that we know what's going on and
we understand the why behind,
something we're doing and it's made a difference. And that's
maybe why our meetings have
gotten a little bit boring, which is good. So to me, yeah,
for sure. So thank you very
much. I, you know, these resolutions tonight, I was
thinking about that and, and
how, how smoothly it's going and the things that we're doing is
because we're very much informed
. So thank you. All right. Thank you. I second great job. Thank
you. Thank you I would agree
with that as well. I was thinking the same thing, David,
as we were going through those
resolutions there that that is all reflective of the group as a
whole, being on the steep part
of the learning curve and indeed learning. And I think it's going
to pay long term benefits, to
the trust and more importantly, to the children. We're trying to
serve. So thank you very much,
Miss Meredith. Did you have anything to report or any
updates, the only thing I have
to add is, as most of you know, the Tiff hearing, on the
exemption was continued at the
county's request. They asked us to withdraw and resubmit for
that hearing to be held
September 5th of 2024. So we're in the process of resubmitting,
and that exemption request will
be heard on September 5th by the Board of County Commissioners.
Thank you. Does that postpone
the payment as well? Correct. So as part of our agreeing to, the
delay, it required that they
withhold, they continue to postpone any payment due until
after the hearing is heard and
continue to waive any interest or fees until after the hearing
is heard. Thank you. I want I
want to add one more thing on to that too as well. So when we're
looking at funding going
forward, these are things that we have to kind of put on a
liability line for ourselves. So
when we look at having $4.5 million of Unobligated dollars,
we've just approved a navigator
contract. That's for 1.2 for the first year. So we're looking at
that. I mean, all of our
contracts are annual anyway, depending on funding, but we
want to be thinking about that
as we're moving forward to. And I'll work with Tammy to really
get a good financial, picture of
, especially as we go into the contracting process there of
what that looks like, but what
we do have to set aside are, approximately 2.5 million to be
safe that we can't allocate out
until we have, we have some resolution of this. Thank you.
Any other any further questions
or comments from the board or staff? If not, we are adjourning
at 6:38 p.m. Thank you. Miss.