[Music] good morning the July 11th 2024 special meeting of the Marian County School Board is called to order at 7:31 a.m. good morning board clerk please call the RO good morning Madam chair Dr Allison Campbell district one here Mrs Lorie Conrad District Two here Mr Eric Cummings District three Mrs Nancy thrower District Four here Dr Sarah James District Five here Dr Diane gullet superintendent here Mr Jeremy P Schoolboard attorney thank you and would you please also provide the proof of publication the notice for the July 11th 2024 special school board meeting ran in the Ocala Gazette on June 28th 2024 the proof of publication has been attached in board dos under proof of publication thank you I will now call the meeting into recess at 7:31 a.m. to clear the auditorium and then proceed with off a requests for families to address the board regarding exul expulsion matters we are now going into recess thank you e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e live we're going live the special meeting of the Maring County School Board is reconvened at 8:42 a.m. and I will now call the meeting into recess at 8:42 a.m. so District staff can prepare the room and hold the board's scheduled 9:00 a.m. administrative briefing and work session so we will now go into recess once again thank you e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e good morning everyone I now call the July 11th 2024 administrative briefing and work session of the Maring County School Board to order at 9:01 a.m. please silence your electronic devices to avoid disturbing others I'll Now read our board commitment statement we are the Marian County School District leadership team when we come together to work we are efficient effective and productive our three most important characteristics are dedicated transparent and individually responsible to work well together we must demonstrate respect confront reality and be accountable we will always put students first and we will leave a legacy of success mirroring and modeling how our students begin each day I ask that you please pause with us for a moment of silence thank you I'll now ask our Schoolboard attorney to explain the rules for this public work session good morning attorney Powers good morning thank you madam chair this work session is a public meeting as defined in Florida Sunshine Law the board is dedicated to full transparency in its meetings and its work in compliance with Sunshine Law the board has adopted uniform meeting procedures including the right for citizens to participate the board will allow public comment during any or regarding any work session item listed on today's agenda at the appropriate time speakers must fill out a request form located in the lobby and hand it to the board clerk after the board and superintendent have completed their discussion on a particular agenda item the board clerk will call the speaker's name in the order received each speaker will have three minutes as required by the Sunshine Law the board must maintain orderly conduct and proper dequorum throughout the meeting speakers May criticize subject matter make end decisions in a respectful manner but not people finally speakers must be very careful not to violate the Privacy rights of others especially students and their family members by mentioning their names or other identifying information thank you for your attention to these important rules thank you attorney Powers Miss Martinez good morning would you please provide the proof of publication for today's meeting the notice for the July 11th 2024 work session was published in the Ocala Gazette on June 28th 2024 proof of publication has been attached to board docks under proof of publication thank you Miss Martinez and we'll now begin the work session with the superintendent administrative briefing did you also want to share the changes in the order um Dr go yes thank you good morning Madam chair members of the board um nice to see you again this morning yes I just wanted to for my briefing review that we would requested that the legislative priorities are first um Mr Carlile is present um to help guide that conversation with the board I know it's a board item but he's here to help guide that conversation as well and then removal of the item of request by the County Commission which was previously 6.1 the request for Radio Service payment that item has been pulled from today per their request and will be uh tentatively scheduled for a later date when we hear back from them and then also the sale of the school board property I think that's Atty power it well okay all right and that is item um 7.1 so all right so can we Pro proceed okay perfect thank you so I have Mr Carlile come forward and you should have received a document from Mr Carlile uh board with regard to the discussion that you had last week pertaining to some of the legislative items and some input from the operations team and Mr Carlile has provided it to you and is here today to answer some questions um as well thank you thank you good morning H good morning board chair thrower school board members and superintendent Dr gulet first I want to thank you for moving this item up in the agenda I i' greatly appreciate that uh at your June 20th work session uh you began your discussion on your legislative priorities for the 2025 legislative s session following that work session your questions and requests for additional informations were brought back to the team uh our team worked to provide clarifying um information and and answer those questions we also uh provide it recommendations on behalf of the staff I hope those I hope that document that I shared this week was helpful um to to guide your discussion this morning um look forward to assisting with your continued discussion this morning and I am available to answer any additional questions provide any additional clarifying information thank you Mr Carlile um board member Campbell um as our legislative leaz on um do you want to start taking this forward sure thing chair I'll be happy to um so board if we can just use the document that Mr Carlile provided for us hopefully you all have that in your email uh as our guide today I think we can talk through each one of these I I've had the time to take a look at them and even shared some comments yesterday in my briefing with Dr gullet so um board I'm I'm happy to entertain what um your interests are as far as some of these go but let's start with attendance because that's the first one and honestly I believe that can still be our first priority we've had it on our a priority list for a long time I appreciate the recommendation that is specific to say adding calendar year as the time period as opposed to the 90 days I think if it's 10 unexcused absences in a calendar year that will be a specific recommendation we make agreed agreed I'd just like to say one thing real quick and that is supported by our trcy court judge he seemed mystified about the reset go ahead board member James just I think one and I could be wrong but I think one clarifying piece is is not is missing when I think calendar year I think um January to December so I only ask and I think I said it before a rolling 12 month and I maybe that language isn't perfect but I just I don't want to then get this done and still be missing out on the piece because really January to December would seemingly do the same thing that start of school to end of school does so I think what we're trying to accomplish is a rolling 12 month and so if there's a way that that language can be included or 365 days in the last 365 days maybe um I just I I don't want to miss what we're trying to accomplish understood very good point agreed and so I what my question would be is is Our intention to say I appreciate calendar year is but is Our intention to be January through December or is Our intention to be in a school year in a school calendar year because if you have 10 unexcused absences in that 180 day calendar school year is that our intent and I I would believe that probably is more so than saying you missed 10 days in May and then your first 10 days in the next you know SE in September it I I think you're still missing the component that if I get five absences in May I want to tack on the five in August and make my 10 which is why I think it needs to be 365 days or rolling 12 months so that we are not getting a hard Fresh Start in August that's what T Tendencies can start whenever for whatever reason for a plethora of things going on in home life or otherwise but we are trying to be able to address it when it occurs and not get a fresh start every August or every whatever so I would say um that is not going to do what we're trying to accomplish I think we want it to just be rolling and maybe it's 3 every a rolling 365 days I don't know statute currently allows for there to be either five days within a 30-day period or 10 days within any 60-day period 0 or 15 days within any 90-day period so that's currently what statute allows by making it so that it would be 10 over the course of an entire weather calendar year or school year however you want to set it and I would submit that the calendar year is not as good of a measure as the school year um that you are going to increase or decrease the number of absences total throughout the year required um to a period where a student if they had five in August and then five at the very last month of school they would be considered a truant student um and that actually takes it down by a full 2third of the number of absences required because otherwise 15 within a 90-day period would be you know 30 within 180 day period so you would now be talking about trying to get it to 10 days within a 180-day period and that would also include even if a student is absent for um you know two days per month throughout school um then that results in a um in in a substantial increase in the number of potential treny cases so um Statewide the statistics are going to look very different they're going to look like there is a performance loss instead of performance gain performance gain when these go in for schools that enforce treny I I don't I don't think I ever heard this board say we wanted to get rid of the 15 days though am I am I wrong in hearing that so statute I quote for me the statute like tell me exactly where is where it actually mentions 15 days in night because the statute that I read says 10 days in a 90-day period That's I've always gone so so statute actually is 10 days in a 90day period And so where you have the afforded opportunity to have up to 40 unexcused and again these are all unexcused for the public we're only talking unexcused absences but 10 unexcused absences in a 90day period is the way it currently reads I don't even believe it says 90 calendar days because that it's not statute just isn't fully clear but it does give the opportunity for before truancy even comes into Factor at all I believe that what this board's intention has been through the years I'm not going to speak today for we're going to speak for ourselves but has been the intention that we strengthen that language significantly that folks start getting scared that if they get nine or eight or nine absences then guess what truen is going to start at least having the conversation that the concern I have about a calendar year is say you missed the last nine days of school and then you start back and you miss a day in September or you miss a day in October and all of a sudden you're in treny court because that's 10 days in a calendar year but that's not the next step the next step is a child study team meeting and then the next step so like the process would be triggered to start but to get to truancy court is a whole uphill battle after the 10day trigger so I don't I don't think that it's a bad thing that in the instance you just said where you get your ninth and 10th day in September and that triggers the cas to start is a bad thing because we have trends of absenteeism from the previous school year which is why I really want to stick with a I'm just I really I think the a rolling 12 month or a 365 has value because I think we're going to miss components on either of the other options absolutely and and that has been the sticking point um as as I've witnessed and again it's important for the community to understand that these are unexcused absences parents can write what's called a mommy note and that was news to me in elementary school I think there's like seven of them where Mom just writes a note you know um and here's the thing we all know that if a student is not reading on grade level by third grade their outcomes are in jeopardy so we have to start this habit of the job that students and families have of their kids coming to school very regularly we all know that things can happen major illnesses that's not what we're talking about here and that would invite anyone if it's I guess it would be public if you wanted to attend truancy Court we do them monthly now on Fridays at 10 o'clock it is a tremendous eye opener and from a fiscal standpoint we are wasting so much taxpayer money on this issue of following up you know all of these CST meetings um you know getting even to the point where we can have some teeth so so that's what I'm about you know I'm a very compassionate person but school is school it's compulsory education it's called that for reason so I am I am in favor of any Lang anguage that makes it clear that if we detect a pattern of unexcused absenteeism that it is not allowed to continue so whatever that language says I support so I I did pull statute here it does say 90 calendar day period is how it reads so with that factor the recommendation would be to change that to Within a 365 day period yes because then it's it's March 1st to march to April 30th and and it just Contin I know from working and I know a lot of us have sat with our attendance response committees that would make their life there would be so many less barriers if they didn't have to just hard stop at certain points and they could just look at the attendance how many absences from one year ago to now that would just completely change the scope of the work they're doing and would get us to be able to start having conversations with families that's backed by legislation a lot quicker right right okay terrific I think we have consensus on that change 365 days okay perfect so striking 90day calendar or excuse me 90 calendar day period changing that to 365 day period yes perfect that will be Priority One Mr Christian and Mr Carly as y'all are taking notes because I know Mr Christian provides our little things for us and fast facts fast facts terrific okay uh next item is teacher pay so recommend recommended um language that we discussed a bit was Elevate average teacher pay to be among the national average what I believe we should do is to get a little bit more specific in how we want to say that we do have some statistics here that the team brought forth the national average teacher salary is $69,500 the Florida average teacher salary is 5300 98 which is 50th in the nation it also is a point of note that the national average starting teacher salary is $44,500 and the Florida average starting teacher salary is $ 47,7 of and that is 16th in the nation so we have something to be proud of in that area I think what Our intention would be is the average teacher salary to be increased and how we want to word that I am open to suggestions other other than just Elevate average teacher pay to be among the national average it's also interesting too the last bullet that the Florida minimum living wage currently according to the economic policy Institute um and this is the income needed for a family of one adult and one child to have a modest but adequate standard of living in the most affordable metro area um that Florida minimum living wage is now $58,900 so absolutely that gave me pause so I just have two questions uh well comments average is a really tricky word and so what what saying the flage average teacher salary is is not representative of how many teachers are in their first five years or their first 10 years and so we may be lower in average because other states have more tenure teachers working in the field of education and are thus getting paid more so I I just don't want to put a lot of stake in our Florida average teacher salary because it's not necessarily reflective of where we are because being 16th in the nation for starting teacher pay I think is more reflective of where we're starting our Workforce I I just want us to pause because if we put this in and it is unfunded we will be forced to do it but we not receive the funding to make it happen and so I my only pause I absolutely want to make it happen but if it comes unfunded what will we do then well in history tells us that that happens many times and and so I just I pause to make it a legislative priority when okay sure let's raise it to 58,000 970 and then we don't receive the money Miss Boston Ellis is GNA say ain't no way I don't know how so so I just that's my pause I'm in support of whatever the board wants to do here I just that's my pause does that make go ahead Vice chair Conrad she was starting and then comes I just was going to ask many times uh when we are visiting uh with our legislators they'll say is there anything else you would like to discuss with us maybe this could not be one of our listed items but it could be a top discussion item because I do think the points that you've um shared with us do bring quite a bit of clarity to where we are and so maybe we just want to have it as a discussion item you know at the conclusion of our our meetings just a thought Vias listening as a legislative priority that I I don't feel that obligates us to have to pay that if does if it doesn't pass it into legislation if they pass it and they then they need the man then they need the funded well we could say that but I thought you were saying have lots of unfunded mandates I'm just saying let's say our voice is so powerful which I would love to say it is that they hear us and they want to make it a priority at the legislative level and then they bring it into law my cause for pause is that what if they don't fund it because we see them historically pass things and then not fund them and then we are here to close the gap I thought I was hearing I was hearing something different I was thinking you were saying that because we put this on the list that Mar and obligated District No I was going to say no no I'm sorry if I misspoke and let's think about Marian County for a minute because we have a lot of longtime teachers that are retiring you know we years ago people started at a very young age came right out of teacher college boom boom boom came all the way through stay with us the whole time now we have and I'd love to see the statistics on this the comparison of tenur so to speak teachers compared to new teachers um I think that it is much less expensive to have a great teacher in the classroom and to pay him because when that doesn't happen and kids fall through the cracks now we're spending money on you know interventions we're spending money on Intervention teachers we're spending money on uh now Junior doesn't want to come to school because they're not doing well so now we have everybody outreaching to the families it just imagine if we didn't have as much of that we could be paying teachers a whole lot more so I certainly appreciate this robust discussion that we're having I I'm going to liken so first of all whenever we did have the Mandate from the legislature to raise the average teacher or excuse me to raise the starting teacher salary we did get that funded what we didn't get funded as an example would be when we were mandated to go immediately to $15 minimum wage for every education employee while everybody else in the ntion or everybody else in the state had the opportunity to do that graduation and and start at 10: and we 11 we had a plan in place didn't we miss Boston Ellis to get there and all of a sudden one day it has to go everybody to $15 oh okay so we scrambled and figured out how to make that work and that wasn't funded quite necessarily uh but I do appreciate this robust discussion because average is an operative word here and what's interesting is what the legislature really can dictate is what that starting salary is but each individual school district is going to bargain with their bargaining agents different rates that are either you know tenured how they look at that if that's zero to one year Zer to five years we've had those conversations we know what that looks like when we actually get to the nuts and bolts of that so I I agree that average is an an awkward way to bring this to a legislative priority uh I think that it can be one of those elements of continued concern that we have in a conversation with our legislative delegation separately in their individual meetings as opposed to possibly putting it on this but I also as our representative can submit it to Florida Schoolboard Association and see how that group when we meet wants to make that a conversation that we have at that level as well because it's it's a Statewide issue that we're really trying to address that our community certainly sees as a challenge yes and I agree I would like to take the temperature of our legislators because the narrative is out there that we're 50th in pay in the nation that's what people are hearing right and so what that tells me as a school board member that that we also need to be very mindful of increasing the spread between average starting teacher salary and our teachers that have been with us long term that have proven themselves over and over and over from every assessment measure possible that they're fantastic at what they do right and compensate them accordingly um because we have a shortage right and and be and having that convers ation oneon-one with them will be helpful to say not every district has a supplement a stien for master's degrees or specialist certifications or that and our district does but not every District does not every District would say what is that average is your average 10 years of your average 15 years is your average four and a half years and every district is going to vary on that so I appreciate the robust discussion I think we have agreed that we're going to move that to a continued concern without putting it on our list agenda can can can we sure because I think this is a priority and I do think the conversation has to go forward I just don't want to take it all the way off the table yet um as we go through these maybe we need to put it down somewhere else I as as being on the advocacy for the fsba I do will I will personally push this one but I think we got to at some point we're going to have to put it on there at some point because we keep telling our teachers we appreciate them we we love we we enjoy the job they're doing but at some point we got to put it in paper put it in in writing to our legislators because sometimes those back door those back room conversations is is is that's all they are back door conversations so um that's just I'm just one person I'm just kind of saying let's not all the way take it off yet just kind of wait and see how we go through these other ones and then see how it measures up and I feel like that's what we we kind of said is that you know we want to at least have have the opportunity to talk to our legislators first so they can share with us maybe what is brewing and then we can go accordingly and thank you for saying that you're going to make it a priority at at fsba because that's a bigger voice it's a bigger louder voice okay okay uh moving on to school safety so this recommendation according to the information we have here was increased funding for additional school safety mandates um so you all can read The Narrative on the talking points there I certainly want to open discussion on what this looks like um we continue to have school safety mandates as we all know I'm not certain what the request for increased funding will look like and so I think if the increased funding is potentially that the legislature actually funds all the sro's that we're required to have like that would be a specific request um but as we have learned in some of our meetings every Community also does that differently because some communities actually have their County pick up that cost or their County pick up half that cost and the school board isn't taking on that full brunt of what that cost is as we are so um I welcome your thoughts just popped in my brain what if because I I hear what you're saying but also everyone approaches it differently so what if it is a specific monetary um allocation for each level of school that equates to about the cost of an SRO so I I don't have those numbers off top of my head but we say every prek 5 site gets um 50 just these are numbers $20,000 and every U Middle School site gets 25 and whatever and you we Al we we ask the legislator to put a number a monetary value they will give per type of School site for um safe schools officers and whether they use that for Guardian funding or sro's or whatever then the school district has the Liberty to use that for anything related to armed security on a campus but then we're kind of doing what you would like to do Dr Campbell without explicitly saying sro's that's my idea sure the the um narrative here that we have is specific to the new legislation that is being enacted for this year uh about Gates on campuses and the number of gates that we have and now legislation says those Gates have to be manned and so what that is going to look like from a cost St Point School Employees working events that occur after hours and and what that's so I think that's a potentially a greater conversation about how that legislation actually is going to impact on each level so I think that again is one of those continuing concerns we have real conversation about how that legislation looks not saying we need to shift that legislation but also talking about how that actually financially impacts districts whenever we do have again one of those unfunded mandates and just for the community's sake we have an estimate of 425 to 450 Gates on our school campuses so I think that's um interesting at the high school level alone we have 120 to 150 Gates and now that we will have to have School Employees Manning those Gates if those gates are ever open um that will come with a significant cost and we're going to have to be experiencing that this year and we're going to grow through that and figure out what that actually looks like um but if we are making a recommendation for additional school safety funding um to your point Perhaps it is a per dollar amount per School amount per different schools are different sizes different it it gets maybe it's a per student funding it it is a tricky one because again there's we we know there are districts that have one K12 school in their entire district and so so would it be possible then to take and I don't know this number but you guys could come back with because I think are we making a decision or we could decide potentially and you guys could come with the number but how many students we have and how much money we spend on SRO and divide those two numbers up which would give us a per student amount of money that we are spending right now on sro's because then we could potentially come up with a because I'm thinking you're right asking for this is not going to fix the gate problem but asking for this would alleviate lots of money that we could then allocate towards schools to use to pay people to cover Gates so maybe if a per pup is probably the best way to do it to delineate it because then it's the same no matter where you are and so if we could use some of our current numbers to come up with a per people rate um then we would be able to and that' go off of FTE I assume um then maybe we could come up with a an a number that would be most reflective and safe schools there is an allocation already in the ffp Miss Boston Ellis there is already an allocation for school safety in the ffp so our specific re EST would be to increase that bu and whatever that amount becomes I I think we we have been very diligent Through The Years with Florida Schoolboard Association and others to say increase the ffp by blah blah blah perhaps this specific request would say to increase the ffp safe schools allocation by this amount and I would appreciate as I think if we're all in agreement on that to determine what that amount would actually be that would be helpful for us to not pull money from anywhere else in the ffp you know not touching anything else but to increase that specific categorical and I keep looking at Miss Boston but to increase that specific categorical that would actually make an impact we need to say you know what I'm sorry to say for that specific reason though right need to say that in the in the language sure absolutely and and we can save for the cost of of schools well I mean just save schools in general I mean all we have a lot of costs but I mean we can we can talk about it for Gates or we can talk about it specific to SRO or we can talk and and I'm going to look to miss Boston Ellis I think that we all would agree to give us what an idea of that request specifically could be for an increase in that categorical here's something to think about because our one mill which has been renewed a couple of times due to the extreme you know largeest of our community that sees this need and wants to keep our schools safe um how much of of that are we spending on school safety you know in that budget because we can't continue to count on that one mill continuing um I'm glad you know again these P public conversations are great because everyone gets to hear where the money's going and it's it's directly to serve students but whatever that amount is that we're allocating towards in the one mill to me that could be the starting point of the ask you know because we need to get that out of there and have that be a stable steady continuing source of funding which continues to be very sad to me that we even have to be spending taxpayer money on this because of the way Society is today but I have to get past that it's reality so we can continue this conversation we have two more pages to go through here um but if I believe we have consensus on from the board the the recommendation will be specific to say increase safe schools categorical allocation to or by a certain percentage a certain amount something and we'll rely on the team to give us a number and I'm okay if it's a percentage I'm okay if it's and Dr gullet I don't know if you want to add anything to that I do thank you um Madam chair board and so I want to just say we do know that we have and I want to acknowledge we've received an increase in funding from the state and we are very grateful for the referendum to do that but and I think to your point when we look at just the school resource officers everybody has done that differently across the state so with regard to the gates these new mandates the demands are outpacing the funding coming in so I just want to be clear that that's a disparity there so we're we're trying to keep Pace we're getting more funding we're grateful for that but it's insufficient so these new mandates coming are impacting all districts and and nobody has come up with an answer to say how are we going to man this in Marian County is what matters for us and we don't have that funding that was there was not keeping up with what we needed anyway even with all of that so this is a huge leap and there's simply not money so I would I would just um reiterate what you've shared about it has to be clear that it's not taking it from somewhere else because then we're just moving the money around and that's that's going to leave a void somewhere else and we can't afford that either so um that's just my ask is that we're really clear about what that funding is for that it's not coming from somewhere else but it's to meet new mandat dates and requirements right and since it was their idea to have these Gates manned which is very appropriate makes sense we just need the money to to do it so maybe mentioning that specifically would be important because it came from them true I mean I I think that we can increase or can include the word um with new safety mandates or or something to that effect and and whether that is specific to Gates or just increased safety mandates because we'll probably have some new ones come out this year so I I don't know that I necessarily want to say specific to Gates right so um but I think we're pretty clear and I'm looking again to Mr Christian and Mr Carlile I think we're pretty clear on what that one needs to say um but as we get a number um hopefully from the team and we certainly can say you know this would be an increase and to not pull from somewhere else to um just an increase specific to that categorical mandates yeah to meet mandates absolutely new mandates yes okay before you go into the next one I just wanted to offer because I did bring this forward I have had conversation with the Early Learning Coalition of maring County and have offered to support them in some of their conversations with the legislature regarding this item because ultimately they are holding the the legislation we're like a pass through receiver on this particular item so for the sake of the board's time I just wanted you all to know I I am having conversations with the ELC and we'll be an advocate on our behalf with the ELC to talk with legislators so um if the board wants to kind of move Beyond this item because it was one I brought forward I'm fine to do that okay so you're just for everyone following home bpk uh deregulation deregulation of voluntary pre kindergarten yes so it's up to the board but I just wanted to give that nugget that I am having those conversations with the ELC sure no thank you Dr James for that because at the end of the day we aren't in the VPK business we have vpks but we aren't in the VPK business so um I I didn't know if you had anything else to add on this Mr Carlow and I was talking to Dr gullet about it but yesterday but it's possible that we can just move on from it Bard if you are okay with not putting it in our top priorities consensus yes I yes sure I'm not seeing heads on my top priority would be more funding for VPK because again we know it's all about kindergarten Readiness to get them on the track and we were at the bottom weren't we squarely at the bottom and where are we now 30 37 yeah 37th in rank Moving on Up Moving On Up quickly within a year and we have a representative the principal from fora Early Learning Center with us today and also miss neveles um you know doing tremendous work um but that costs money and so and there's a huge appetite for Early Education um as there should be and and parents are the kids first teachers you know we all know that and uh and even when that happens the school can support it but when it's not happening it's very detrimental I think and I think the ELC of maring county is the is the force that we need to work with to make it happen they have a strong voice in our community um and it at the state level so I don't mind being someone who works in partners with them to try and continue to move those thoughts forward excellent we might even be able to team up a little bit when we're up there right until has you together sounds good great okay you're welcome moving on to our item for gifted education this was one that I know that I brought forth but I'm certainly um open to hear board member comment on the thoughts on this and it would be to provide funding specific to Services associated with students with written gifted education plans um this continues on to say including but not limited to funding to pay the salaries of gifted teachers and the costs associated with assessing and identifying students for potential gifted Services I still would be in strong support of us adding this but here's the justification in my thought process I believe this is something potentially that legislators are unaware as even occurring similar to I'll use last year's electronic signature example that Maran County School Board thanks to attorney Powers made as a charge this is a challenge this is a problem got written into legislation this year because we identified a problem this is one that I was unaware frankly as a Schoolboard member that within our ESC funding exceptional student education funding bucket that there is not specified funding for Education plans there is specified funding for varying levels within an IEP which is individual educational plan that other students in exceptional student education have gifted education are EPs and there is nothing from a funding perspective that is specified that is delegated for that group of students so how we want to word this if the board is in consensus to move forward I am fine with your recommendations but I believe more than anything this can be an eyeopener to people who may not even be aware that this is the way it's happening right now so I agree because it only makes sense to me funding both ends of the spectrum we have kids that have the most profound handicaps and they require a lot of extra support and funding for them to be able to get through a day in Maring County Public Schools now we have kids at the way other end of the spectrum that that word that um robotics kids Meg megatronics the megatronics kids you know robots are expensive and and they're perfectly capable of building them obviously um so we we should be funding the kids that are going to be the innovators you know um at at the same level as the kids that have the most profound needs um these are the movers and shakers and they'll probably be our next you know world leaders so I I think you're right I I doubt that there is awareness of this so uh I look forward to having the convers ation um I would just offer very similar to the conversation we were having about um the last item about school safety I would ask the team to come up with what they want that number to be and we specifically say we want it in this bucket and and that's that would be my recommendation that we come up with a per pupil funding on gifted students yeah especially as we have a gifted initiative to expand our gifted services and opportunities in our district I we again would be super helpful if that came with some more funding so that we could put more gifted Educators in our classrooms right so I'm completely in support what have I share Mr Carla I I would also like an updated number like what number of students we're looking at in Maran County and what that looks like across the state so we just have an idea as we're having conversations how many students that impacts for us in Maran County yes ma'am thank you and and we do have a meeting you are aware we have a meeting with one of our legislators next week so that I'm glad that we have the opportunity to sit and have this conversation today because we'll get pretty close to our exact priorities uh but the more detail that we can have before that meeting next week will be very beneficial so at this point we could potentially just say provide funding for services associated with students with written gifted education plans to be XYZ per pupil or something whatever that that is I think Dr goet Maybe thank you again so we do get money so I just want to be clear that what what our ask is is either buy pupil or or some other fashion because we do get money under the umbrella right so I don't want anyone to think that we don't get any money but the but the request is specific to um align the resources with the need absolutely and and thank you for that clar and increase the funding because I think anybody watching would say well there is funding from the state so it's just not in the same with the same matrices as other students under the ESC umbrella absolutely so if there is a more creative way to word that Miss Williams Jones perhaps can assist with that if there's a more creative way for you understand what we're trying to say there is funding and we do understand that but because of the significant needs of our students on the in the ESC population that funding is often I don't want to use the word evaporated but it often is allocated to more significant needs as opposed to there's nothing spefic specific in statute or in the ffp formula specific to students with EPs and that's what we would like to say legislature are you aware and can we change this put them on the Matrix yes give them a matrix but yes so I'm I'm open to whatever is determined Miss Williams Jones I'm sure has some ideas on that too um but I think we have consensus we want this to be one of our priorities if for nothing else to make the legislature aware of something they probably aren't well and after all we did have some kids that helped invent Facebook that graduated from Vanguard there you go there it is right there what else could have they been doing there you go um okay moving on to facility construction so if you read this narrative what I this was obviously one that I brought up as well what it appears to me is that srf actually does allow for what I was hoping we could have done um there aren't necessarily stipulations that are preventing us from having larger gym capacity uh and we I I think that we could have actually done something more than what we've been presented to do um I'm not certain that this needs to be one of our priorities actually I'm just going to say I don't believe that it does but where I stand on this board and I'm I told this to Dr gullet yesterday so I'll be public with this statement we're about to build a new High School school and this board was not afforded the opportunity to have a conversation specific to the indoor athletic facilities of that high school we were given a prototype and that was what we were given a little bit later today we'll be deciding what we're going to move forward with and I'm in full support to move forward and get going but if for some reason this board chooses today that we're not moving forward today and we're going to prolong this for another year then I would requ request this individual board member certainly we have to have a consensus that we get to revisit what our indoor athletic facilities look like in our new high school because if we built it bigger we could have collapsing bleachers a lot more of them and two or three full-size courts that would afford multiple teams practicing at multiple times at one time having wrestling going on the same time you have a basketball the same time you have a volleyball all at one time and we don't currently have that and we're not going to have that in our new high school I was under the impression that it was because of an F srf Challenge and based on the information we've received I don't believe that that actually exists so I am um ready to move on from that but I did want to make that statement since I'm the one who brought it up okay uh then our next priority is CTE Career and Technical education the recommendation here is to adopt policies that encourage and incentivize students stents to engage in CTE curriculum in programs specifically looking at the cape industry certification funding list that assigns additional FTE to certifications identified in the Master's credential list under this statute it's a lot of language um but I we we need to have a CTE priority is this the one we want I'm opening the conversation to the board we definitely I believe need to continue to push forward with funding for Career Technical education to push forward with policy to push forward with incentive um incentive in incentive excuse me um for CTE curriculum programs what do we believe as a board that needs to look like and if this is it great let's move forward but this is a big one for the community um and and for me personally you know if if it wasn't for my passion in in the horse business I would have never gone to college you know um and over and over again don't the rest of us here you know more vocational more life skills we want kids that can count change back from a dollar we want kids that you know know how to work as a team that show up to work every day that are very invested in the job that they've been given and are great employees um and that not every child is College Bound and nor should they nor they shouldn't have to be so for me this is something that I fully support continuing to grow it um but when I'm looking at these talking points there's no point is spending money on industry certifications for uh careers that really are not a big need in this community so that we need to have some flexibility I think all districts do um for what it is that each district or each Community is what's in demand so to speak so I just I'm I guess I'm a little confused because I think that this this talking point is kind of vague and so there's not enough meat in this talking point to make this a legislative priority for me at all um what I heard chair thrower just say sounded a lot like deregulation um but I don't see that really in this and so um I guess pardon my confusion but I don't really understand exactly what I I don't know that we've landed on what we want our CT Focus to be it's in the last paragraph and maybe this would suffice aligning the industry certifications that are associated with additional FTE funding with the industry certifications that are in demand in the workforce and in in the community's workforce maybe um ad Community uh May encourage more students to engage in and complete the CTE programs offered by the district so my pause is the word may right there's what data do we have to support that that actually is going to work and so that's why I feel that's why I feel very uninspired by this because I feel like I don't know everything else we've talked about has like a strong data point that we can grasp to really align this and I don't know can you tell me how many IND industry certifications are currently not in alignment with what we have because my understanding of what we offer in our community is very in line with the jobs in our community so I if I may interject here I I believe what our request might be and I'm going to kind of glance out and see if anybody has feedback on this I think what our request is to be is to expand the cape industry certification funding list I think that's the request that we have more opportunities more industry certifications that receive that funding so then we can have the FTE employee for said certification so I think the real request is to just expand that list Dr go yes thank you I would agree Mr Carl I'm sorry my allergies are terrible today I don't know if you want to add in anything but as the workforce changes we need to be able to get funding for those and have access to our students getting those properly certified Pathways so Mr Carlile is there anything specific you want to add to that no I agree and I think that language that you just said that expanding the cape funding list is is is is better than what I had here um because there are there are cert there there are certifications out there that our students would be interested in that aren't associated with that funding right um so it it becomes challenging to offer those certifications to our students right so I I think that's a simple way to say it expand Cape industry certification funding list I would request then additionally from you Mr smallridge whomever to give us some examples I.E this this this this what isn't currently in that list that we would love to see because we'll need that in our one-on-one conversations what missing yeah right to give us those examples specific to our community and even specific to the State of Florida that we know our jobs that are come in our way and we don't currently get funding to actually offer those certifications okay perfect so I think we have that language we good perfect okay we have two more to go and then we're we're done on this yeah a lot of priorities but I at this point I have we've chosen four um so good deal um so the next two so we'll talk about school district funding and this one is specific to Capital millage so we have approached this in the four years I've been on the board we've approached this for multiple different ways we approached it from saying picco funding we wanted PCO funding and then last year we went so bold as to say restore Capital millage to 2.0 while I appreciate both of those efforts both of them were like dead in the water so I think what the language potentially could say is course correct Capital funding discrepancies hear me out on this and and we'll figure out and that's just literally off the top of my head I didn't write this down I didn't I'm not thinking through this but I I'm thinking out loud so ffp the whole purpose of the Florida education Finance program the whole purpose purpose of it is to level the playing field of school districts around the state in every different categorical the one categorical that's missing is capital funding we used to have a PCO funding source that went away we used to have the millage rate of 2.0 that they then changed to 1.5 but it now relies on local communities to pick up the pieces for Capital funding and based on the convers ations we' have over the last two years it depends on how the community reacts to what those sources are there are only two other sources impact fees and sales tax that's it for Capital funding specifically PCO funding were those dollars that were associated with landline telephones that no longer exist most places and even if they do all of those dollars go to charter schools end of story you can still run a millage for Capital funding we because we did that years ago it didn't pass but so again that would have to be specific for Capital ours is specific for right but that again relies on your local community to make a decision locally about how they want to see school buildings and capital built in their Community right so we would be adding to that uh local millage local sales Tech local impact fees I just want to make sure that we're covering all that potential funding not that I'm advocating for it no potentially my request in this if we were to go back to this because again this is going to be the fourth year in a row we try to put something on Capital uh my request would be for us to talk about the course correction the legislature has been very specific on ffp being leveling the playing field so Miami Dade gets a different categorical on certain things than we do and we get all these compression funds all this to try to level the playing field per student but capital is based on your local community because you can run a millage you can run a sales tax you can ask for impact fees but all of that takes local decision and none of that is at the state level where every other decision that we have in education funding essentially comes from the state absolutely so I'm open to your recommendations on how we need to word that but I think that's the gist of what we've been trying to do for four years and we've been given specific ways they needed to do it and maybe they'll come up with something else but if we're course correcting the capital funding disparity that's what we're asking for so could we just go again to the team and ask for that pure per per P per pupil or percentage number from the team and as long as it's the recommendation of the CFO and the team's I'm in full support of saying this is our request specific for Capital funding I'm in complete alignment with that and I honestly second to attendance it should be our it should be tied for the first in in priorities in my in my book and that that's fine I mean I I could agree with that as well um so I I the language that I have is course correct Capital funding disparity and then we could and if via whatever um this amount of per pupil funding or something I I don't know where they're going to come up with this source of funding no idea I know there's been a lot of conversation through the years of actually adding attacks to the cell cell phones wow that was real Tennessee cell phones um having attacks on cell phones like we had on landline phones I I don't know that that would be but again those would all be legislative decisions to figure out how they would fund it but I think if we again highlight why we're making that request this is a state you're funding education let's also start funding the education facilities again not start let's do it again because they did for years um okay all right good so y'all have kind of an idea of what we're looking for Miss boson Ellis you have a lot of work I'm really sorry but there then you and Miss Dobbins can work on that one together and um we'll move forward with that so okay the last thing on here was also a recommendation that I had for geography education I talked about um this with Dr gullet yesterday some so the information I received from Dr Brewer appears that there may be some language already in our um our studies social studies curriculum that speaks to geography my question then I believe this may be a Maran County specific thing that I want more clarification on than if it's already in our Curriculum maps and in our requirements that we have to to teach why are our students leaving school without knowing geography and so if that is a Maran County problem I'm fine with us taking it off and and I'm okay with that if we see that the language in our curriculum requirements needs to be strengthened in any way I'm okay with us making this a priority I do think now that the legislature is specifically saying You must teach Holocaust and communism education not tying those standards to a geography element as well they're missing the mark well if you can't find Poland and Germany on a map you know and if you can't find Cuba while you're talking about communism that's a problem for Florida students so I'm okay with not necessarily making this a legislative priority if we believe there is some standards language that's already existing and it's just a Maran County based issue but if the team thinks that that actually we can strengthen some of this standards language to ensure that our students are learning in conjunction with Communism and Holocaust Education they are learning about Eastern Europe they're learning about the communist countries that have that type of government structure then we we can go either way oh I just wanted to say from a teachers lens I think that the things we're talking about are very basic recall versus versus you know if we're looking on um hierarchy of thinking I think we're these are all very level one basic recalls where is Poland that's a recall right we're not using higher order thinking skills to find Poland on a map and so I think it's about looking internally in our approach to learning and what are we focusing on because while I I appreciate the sentiment of knowing where Poland is on the map the concept in being able to apply critical thinking to the concept has more value overall than being able to identify where it is on the map and so I think it's just about internally looking at how often are we reiterating and hitting that point because that that continuously hitting it in more than one grade throughout multiple school years will be able to solidify the fact versus a t you know touching it in week 32 of seventh grade there's no way they're going to remember it if we address it once no dispute there um and education is a growth process but when a kid is in high school and they can't identify if five states the border the Atlantic Ocean that's a problem so I don't know if geography is a tested subject it probably isn't well us hisory I mean yeah you well yeah but there's something there's something desperately missing is the point and but is that as Dr Campbell just said is that a marry kind of issue or is that a Statewide oh I think it's everywhere issue it's not even Statewide I think it's it's it's our entire country I mean you watch these videos of people who can't even they don't even know that you know the national anthem right so but I think that's something that internally in Marian County we can give make it a priority to address and make it a priority to prioritize yes well and that has begun we did get a wonderful donation of it was over $20,000 I believe of world maps um and with a lot of encouragement for the teachers to reference them as they're teaching critical thinking to help Orient kids you know you are here you know this is there sounds very simplistic but um you know it's it's the beginning so um yeah I don't know that this needs to be a a a priority um for legislature but it certainly has been identified by more than a couple of board members that this seems to be a really big gap for kids from the elementary level what what are your thoughts Vice chair comrade um it is and and my comment really is is it boils down to just basic good teaching um back in the day when I started teaching it was whole language and so when you read a story and and the family moved to Texas you got out the map and you found Texas and so it's exactly what Dr James said it is day after day week after week month after month year after year of repeti repetition and exposure um to geography so that students are comfortable and familiar with it when they're learning and doing higher level thinking so I if we can wrap this up I I think what I'm hearing from the board is this doesn't necessarily make our legislative priorities but we have consensus that this board wants to ensure that geography becomes a significant focus of how we are teaching in Maran County K through2 yes agreed agreed yes thank you madam chair and and board I agree um I I don't think it's a I do think it's a broad issue um I do recognize that and I would agree with that I want to call your attention to the document that Mr Carl provided to you the C Palms link and I'll just use an example because to your point it is in our standards in our benchmarks and so for example in in just grade six and there's something all for all grades right this is Progressive and um it is a vertical alignment but even in sixth grade geography standard six says understand how to apply geography to interpret the past and present and plan for the future so understanding the context of geography what has occurred and planned for the future I think it speaks to a lot of things that Dr Campbell has brought up U and then you all discuss so it's in there I think there's an opportunity for us to spend more time helping to make those connections and a collaborative planning and look at the context with which the information is being shared great perfect okay chair I think we have our five priorities that we have and obviously teacher pay isn't in that five but I believe that with my serving as the legislative liaison and actually Reverend Cummings also being a part of that chair or co-chair of that committee with Florida Schoolboard Association we can push that with a louder voice in a different way I'll be interested to see how our colleagues around the state want to address that because sometimes that's something that in that robust conversation that they actually want to address it a different way and it it actually comes across in a better way um but I think that I've heard our five priorities which are attendance school district Capital fund we're moving that to the second one now uh school safety funding uh specifically uh gifted education and then Career Technical education those actually could be renumbered some way um but based on all the information that we have presented Mr Carlile do you have enough from us to know what next steps are yes thank you more than he wants actually I I appreciate it we'll we'll have the additional information that was requested to you guys as soon as we can compile it right terrific thank you chair thank you that that was really a great overview and and thank you uh Mr Carlile for uh presenting us with the the list and and the talking points and and summarizing um what our priorities are and that Palm card is not very big so I know but but it is appreciated um it has become very appreciated over the years by the legislators um to see so all right um is there any public comment on this particular item all right hearing none have a great rest of the day sir thank you thank you thank you and thank you Dr Campbell you really are very good at this so we appreciate your guidance in this for sure for sure thank you my pleasure all right Dr gullet yes so we are now board moving on to the exceptional student education policies and procedures so I'm pleased to bring forward um Dr henbrook um and the team thank you so much morning good morning again that's right we've been hanging out with you since 7:30 coffee together this morning good morning good morning good morning chair thrower board Dr gullet this morning what I'm going to do is give you an update on the three-year requirement for the exceptional student education policies and procedures document every three years it's a requirement that the board submit a policy and procedures document the importance of this document is not only that it identifies the way in which Maran County Public Schools addresses can you not hear me just talk a little louder a little louder for me IT addresses is that better thank you okay I'm sorry um the way that Marian County serves our students with disabilities it is also a requirement in order for the district to receive state and federal funding for the provision of these Services the requirement is a two-step process in which the Florida Department of Education will review and approve the policy and procedures document however the final approval of the document is provided by the Maran County School Board although today's focus is on the policy and procedures document I want to to indicate that we will be having an additional ESC update provided specifically to the board to look at the department and the plan of ESC moving forward on August 1st so there will be an additional update to the board that is specific to uh the policies and procedures of the the ESC curriculum Department moving forward and just as an additional piece of information the preliminary approval from the Florida Department of Education for all of the components of the ESC policy and procedures document has been provided to us so doe has reviewed all of the information that we have submitted to them and they have been have given the district preliminary approval on the policy and procedures document so at a later board meeting you all will give us the final approval on the document the ESC policy in procedures requirements really focus on the identification evaluation and eligibility determination and placement which is a major indicator of child find activities child find is an obligation of each district in order to ensure that they identify any student who might be in need of specialized placement or exceptional student education support the ESC policy and procedures document is divided into five point five parts the areas of the policy and procedures document are listed on the slide before you and as you can see there are several broad areas in which we were required to provide information to the state part one identifies general policies and procedures this addresses federal and state requirements regarding student and parent rights access to public education and the evaluation process this section really governs how we take state and federal guidance and develop District practices to ensure compliance as we support students with disabilities part part two of the policies and procedures document focuses on the eligibility criteria development of the individual education plan and the provision of supports and services for students in all disability categories part three addresses identification and service for students who are gifted it also addresses the district's plan to increase identification of underrepresented students for consideration of gifted Services part four addresses the provision of Equitable Services to parentally placed private school students with disability ities and addresses the district's responsibility to provide IEP services to students enrolled in private schools it also addresses the family empowerment scholarship for students with unique abilities which is a state sponsored scholarship program in part five of the document the district is asked to upload specific District policy documents which outline how we support our students in all of the areas listed in the appendices as I stated for you earlier the state has received all of the district's documents for review and we have been given preliminary approval of all areas of the plan awesome Dr gett thank you Miss Williams Jones the board were're happy to answer any questions you may have about this item thank you thank you and thank you for that uh presentation I'm I'm interested to know uh just offand how many pages is this uh document at last printing after the state's final feedback it was 187 pages I was going to guess 200 I was close uh there's it certainly illustrates how much goes into serving our students with very unique and individual needs and I thank you for um everything that you're doing um you haven't been with us that long and and being a director of exceptional student education is a massive job so uh thank you for the the good work that you're doing with with your team and thank you Dr henr are there any questions or comments from the board thank you thank you yes thank you I do have a couple questions yes um thank you for the presentation I I appreciate it so much I just had a couple of of requests for our part two um presentation some information if I could um request to find out about for August 1st yes yes absolutely um so looking at Slide Five um I'd like to see a timeline of Legally what we're obligated to as far as how many days and how much time um we have to get that these um yeah thank you plans completed I just when I visit schools it's something that we're struggling with and I know we discussed this Tuesday night as we're we're trying to get staff in place and so just so I'm armed with that information um what the timeline is supposed to look like um and how we're meeting it I can provide that for you absolutely at okay thank you so much and then my next question is just because I don't know um the answer on on slide seven um where you talk about um we're providing Services when they are in private students are in private school yeah is that just for private school or is it also if they're online doing online school or if they're homeschooling like how far is that reach so these specific um requirements here are addressing parentally placed private school students okay however there are some supports that are provided to students who are homeschooled um as provided there are statutory requirements for that so if a parent wants to um of a homeschool student wants an evaluation as a district we will conduct that evaluation if the student is found eligible then for the purposes of receiving services that student would need to attend their base school or the school that could provide that service in order to receive that so the student is still eligible to receive those Services it almost becomes like they're dually enrolled um because the parent is providing the primary educational supports but for those specialized supports they would come into the district and order to be able to receive that and if a student is say in a virtual program but has an IEP um if it's Maran County virtual we would work with that parent to address those needs and then of course if the student is in another type of virtual setting they all have plans in which they are expected to meet those specialized needs of students with disabilities okay thank you very much for clarifying that for me I appreciate it you're welcome awesome any other questions comments from the board yes thank you again and um I'm also aware that students that are hospitalized um we have teachers that will physically go to the hospital to provide services is that correct we for our Hospital homebound teachers they will serve students uh in the hospital if it is a long-term care type of situation um and we also have those teachers who go to the home for the those students who because of medical conditions um sometimes mental health concerns are not able to leave home to come to school and so we do have a group of teachers that that is their primary responsibility is to provide Educational Services to those students thank you for for clarifying that um your umbrella is very large and I'm very well appreciated and yes I look forward to the next work session in August where you know we can get more detail about um everything that's that's going on in the department currently and and the goals for moving forward there's been a lot of good progress the last few years and some of these important indicators that were audited by the state on so I just wanted to congratulate everyone in the department for their continued good work as well thank you very much all right thank you thank you is there any public comment on this particular agenda item all right hearing none um we will move on Dr gullet if you'll introduce our next item and then maybe after this one we'll take a quick break yeah are we're breaking at like 12 for lunch right yes we're gonna break at 12 but in case anyone needs a quick break oh okay ready okay thank you m thank you madam chair so you see Mr a is making his way down Miss Boston Ellis Mr SS are here Mr SS is going to lead us in a conversation about the resoning for the 2025 2026 school year thank you morning good morning good morning Madam chair Madame co-chair board members Dr gullet attorney Powers Miss Martinez I'm here this morning to present rezoning information for the 25 26 school year and more specifically the proposed areas for new Elementary W and X starting January 2025 we will formalize an annual process of examining student enrollment in District capacity a zoning planning committee will be created consisting of stakeholders who will analyze current residential development data and student enrollment needs the committee will review the current data and make recommendations to the superintendent meetings will be held from January through March of each year to analyze current data and develop and discuss potential result zoning plans Community meetings will also be conducted to gather Community input on any potential plans if necessary board workshops public hearings and a board vote on any potential rezoning will occur starting in April of each year any rezoning plans will be approved a year in advance of implementation the current resoning process for elementary WX started in April with a joint community meeting with the facilities Department to present enrollment data and the locations of the new elementary schools Community input on the resoning process was collected using an online form today the resoning plan is being presented and in August Community meetings will be held to gather additional input from the community by the end of October there will be a rural development Workshop public hearing and the board can approve the resoning plan this slide shows a draic a graphic from the Benes study from 2023 or 2023 as a reminder the areas in purple show the predicted population change in Maring County through 2045 the darker purple represents the larger population increase the orange circles represent the number of residential units over the next 5 years and the green squares represent new residential units for going 10 years out as you can see most of the growth in the south is in the southwest portion of the county this slide shows the location of new or replacement schools and classroom editions that are either underway or planned pending review the two projects currently underway are Elementary X and W represented by letters A and B the rest of the projects are planned pending review lakew Middle School replac is also referred to as Middle School DD there are three types of rezoning technical targeted and relief technical rezoning is used to correct mapping errors it is located in uninhabited areas and no students are impacted targeted resoning is used to alleviate localized overcrowding and a limited number of students are affected rele rezoning is used to alleviate widespread overcrowding and involves opening of new schools and impacts a large area and a large number of students this is an example this slide shows an example of technical rezoning this resoning will correct a zoning lines between Fort McCoy and East Maran zoning lines should follow roads this line follows historic map and section line the area involved is is a national forest land where no students reside targeted resoning should be considered whenever a replacement school is being built or new classroom wings are added once the lakew middle school replacement school's fish capacity is determined targeted resoning is recommended the resoning will follow the annual timeline targeted resoning is not recommended for the schools receiving new classroom Wings current or pending development will account for an increased fish capacity and remember fish capacity is the Florida inventory of Schoolhouse seats that is determined by the Florida Department of Education relief resoning is recommended to populate the new high school CCC which is scheduled to open August 2026 the resoning process for this school will follow the annual resoning timeline relief resoning is recommended to populate the new Elementary W and X opening in August 2025 the student assignment and records department facilities department and curriculum Department have been working on rezoning for elementary w andx the next slide will show the proposed attendance zones and enrollment projections for elementary W and X the proposed attendance zones were created examining all options and current data this slide shows the proposed attendance zone for elementary W in the west portion of Maran Oaks south of County Road 484 the attendant Zone pulls from current Maran Oaks and sunrise attendance zones this slide shows the proposed attendance zone for elementary X in the Winding Oaks area south of Southwest 66th Street the attendant Zone pulls from the current Bell SOS hammock Bowen Jr Maran Oaks and Saddlewood attendance zones this slide shows the new attendant zones for elementary W and X and the adjusted zones for bellw bellw Santos Hammet Bowen Jr Legacy Maran Oaks Saddlewood and sunrise the colors on the map represent the new School boundaries and the black line represent the current boundaries the chart shows the number of students in the attendance area they will come from to populate the two new schools just to point out there is an error on the chart the number of students from Sunrise going to Elementary W should read 463 not 419 I'll make sure that a revised PowerPoint outing is updated to boards following the work session the following slides will show the projected enrollment for the four years out starting with the 2526 school year for elementary W and X and the other impacted schools the projections include growth rate of the zones which was calculated using a combination of power school's Predictive Analytics and historical student enrollment rates the capacities of schools is determined by the Florida inventory of school houses or fish seats they are determined by the Florida Department of Education fish seats are adjusted annually as new Wings come online or p are moved the utilization percentage of schools is determined by comparing a student population and the available fish seats this chart shows the projected enrollment of Elementary W andx and the utilization percentage for four years starting with the 25 26 school year the attendance numbers for all schools will be evaluated annually following the formalized resoning process to determine the current rate of development and enrollments being maintained this chart shows the projected enrollment of Saddlewood Hammet bow Jr Maran Oaks and sunrise along with utilization percentages for four years starting with the 2526 school year note that fish capacity changes in the 28 29 school year for Hammet Bowen and Marian Oaks are because planned wings are pending scheduled to open pending review this chart shows the projected enrollment of Bellevue bellw Santos and Legacy and the utilization percentages for four years starting with the 25 26 school year following this work session the next steps for the the new Elementary School's attendance zones will be to upload the proposed zoning information to the district rezoning website and open an online survey survey to collect more Community input from all stakeholders we will hold inperson Community meetings in August to allow for more community and stakeholder input a rule development work session will then be held followed by a public hearing and board vote on the rezoning plan that was a lot and so I'm now open for questions thanks it was thank you Mr sis I want to thank um you and your team and all the teams that worked on this there have been a lot of we've had a lot of conversations a lot of people spending a lot of time and board understand there's a lot of information here it's a you know there a lot of moving pieces and so we are um very pleased to answer questions you may have thank you before we start I would like to thank um Dr talber Irving and Miss Teresa Boston Ellis who was instrumental in working with this as well as Stan Jacobs who's in the office because I would be lost without him so thank you it definitely takes a team yes ma'am s we'll open it up to discussion and comments I just got a quick question yes sir um slide nine where you talk about the high school resoning yes sired school resoning high school the proposed high school is going to to be for relief of Westport and dellan correct it well we that's not quite determined yet because we haven't started that process but it would possibly affect Westport dellan and Belleview and B okay all right thank you that was the only question I you any other comments or discussion from the board I I just want to point out one thing um I Mr SS and I chitch a couple times this week because I had a few questions so just so the board is aware when when I was looking at the numbers I I was confused because it looked like Sunrise wasn't losing enough kids to get to the number that's on the slide as presented but there are a significant portion of Sunrise students who are being and if you look at the map you can see it but there are a significant portion of Sunrise students who are being rezoned to B Santos Elementary is that correct Mr is that the right School Mr SS um Maran Oaks Elementary Mary NOS I'm sorry yes Mary NOS Elementary so there's a significant portion as like significant meaning hundreds yeah um just so that you know I'm I've gone back to slide 14 on the screen and if you'll notice the black line that was the original Sunrise Elementary thing you'll you can see that Sunrise is losing well students are being moved to the new um Elementary W as well as a good portion to Maran Oaks and so in total um as Zone students Sunrise um 83 six students are being transferred out of Sunrise to the new schools so I just wanted to highlight that because it's not that number isn't really in here and I and I had questions about that and Mr sis and I were able to talk through it on a couple occasions this week but um you can kind of see it if you look at the map but I wanted you guys to understand that and the community to understand that too that you know essentially over half of the population of ciz Elementary is going to be rezoned if you'll notice on the map the amount of shrinkage of the zone was it's in pink in there in the thing I have a chart which lists all the changes from all the schools that I will provide to the board members as well as upload the board dos when I upload the revised um PowerPoint that has that corrected information to it yes because we've talked a lot about this school and how overloaded U Sunrise is and and they just keep coming so it's it's a welcome welcome statement thank you chair did you have more well I um I I and in these Mr AR and I have had this conversation I was the board member that brought forth requesting this discussion occur because my hesitation regarding whether we need more space at our elementary W andx and the plan that is presented here while is the picture of currently enrolled and as zoned so it's this picture perfect capture of a moment it's not necessarily reflective of where we'll be in a year right um shows that we're not going to need those wings at wnx when we open and I as a board member just want to go on record and say I pray that I pray that this is accurate because my worst fear is that we open a school and a student isn't aordable that is my worst fear as a board member and I can respect that the data being presented before us shows that that is not going to be the case and we have to proceed based on the data that's before us so I respect that but I I want to to mince no words when I say that I will be so frustrated as a board member if we put students in Portables at brand new schools that is just something that I am so against and so I pray that this is exactly how we're going to proceed but I also know that Sunrise added 200 students to the tune of 200 students last year and if you drive around there it ain't slowing down so I I I'm just cautiously optimistic and I pray that this is going to project to be accurate and that we don't need any more or Portables or anything at those two schools um and and we're going to see how the cards fall and I get that it's a moving piece and it's all moving all the time and we can't come up with a a plan that's perfect because we're dealing with humans who come and go all the time but I just wanted to to I was the one who asked for this to happen now and so I'm grateful that it did and I'm grateful the team brought it forward and um that is just my thoughts on on the wing at w andx so I wanted to put that on record okay any other coming Madam chair um Mr Aris um just in observing this in a great presentation I just got a question I'm looking at the elementary schools in the area I didn't why wasn't Shady Hill included in this Factor when we looked was we looked at all options you know we started this way back before April as we're going through this and the option that we we have in front of us is the best option that even though it impacts a large number of students it impacts the least number of students and the least number of schools and so the when we looked at the high growth areas that's where we focused it on and so at this point Shady Hill is not impacted in this plan thank you I I hadn't actually thought of that are these Southern B Santos kids going to have to essentially drive past Shady Hill to get to B Santos no no because Shady Hill is North it's just west or east of the Pink Zone and it's north of that it's north of the B Santos Zone correct okay so presumably other than going to Belleview Elementary these farther because I think the the most pain is probably going to come from these far south B Santos students so they they aren't going to pass any school north of them to head to Bell Santos Elementary other than farther East bellw Elementary correct okay okay and the goal here is also the the the the black line that stretches up the middle is Interstate I75 and so there was a goal or an attempt to try to correct because all those students in the South that are now going to the to Santos did go to Maran Oaks and so they had to cross over 75 to get to Maran Oaks that zone okay any other questions comments from the board go ahead sure so first of all I want to apologize to you Mr s because I haven't spent time with you yet and so I I appreciate that Dr James has but I I have not so first comment is is going to be specific to something that Dr James just alluded to it does appear based on this data that we most likely don't need those wings just yet but I'm going to Echo her sentiment in that I'm what I will be disheartened by as a board member not is that we need Portables in the first year but that we need Portables in the second year well that too or the third year um because I if we're not Forward Thinking enough to say that these brand new schools that we haven't built in 20 years are not going to need to have expansion almost immediately than we're doing ourselves a disservice just be able to answer to address that sir um the formalized annual resoning process we will look at all data and so we will look to make sure that our current trends are on there's lots of things that are going to be happening in this country in the next six months and what will what how will that impact growth or not or positively or negatively that's why we'll have an annual look at all these schools all zones throughout the district to be able to make sure that we can adjust annually and make you know accordingly and um absolutely so I appreciate that because we certainly don't want to overbuild but we also don't want to underbuild and it's like it um I believe it was Dr James says you know human beings that's a moving Target there's so many things that influence you know enrollments and to be able to predict out four five years is very it's a moving Target so to speak but I'm I feel confident that the data that we have and the the process that we went through are the best that we can do for the students of maring County well what we also are are aware of um from our County growth perspective with the exception of very few cases the County Commission is not changing the urban growth boundary and the only places to grow are in southwest and so while we work in tandem understanding where growth is occurring part of the Benish study identified that as well um I'm grateful that we've started identifying growth boundary potentially as as a part of of how this growth is happening so that that's kind of point one I wanted to address I I we are building for the first time in a really long time uh we will need to be talking board about a Belleview Santos replacement school just and we've already talked a little bit about Belleview Elementary replacement school but Belleview Santos is going to be expand bursting at the seams that that's a that's an overcrowded school before we know it and and going to be quickly um so again apologizing to you for not sitting with you I I know that some of the concerns that we will have when this Elementary X opens are all of those folks who are super close to hammock Bowen that will be able to cross over a fly over over I75 to get to hammock bow really quick but still have to go to winding so that part of that pink is is a concern to me just because their proximity to hamt Bowen will be closer than they are to Elementary X that that's going to be a challenge we're going to hear it so we just need to go ahead and anticipate that's going to be coming um I I appreciate the um Sunrise actually shrinking in in this um My overall greater question when we're talking rezoning Maran County public schools because this is the first time with the exception of last year so we know what last year was we did a a little bit of targeted rezoning just to try to alleviate some pressure but now that we are experiencing new building to alleviate some of this overcrowding we are rezoning for other reasons will we also be considering any rezoning on the North side at all and I know that that's a large question but we do have schools on the northern part of our County that are not in at capacity and that is not a part of this conversation at all today I mean we have the Fort McCoy little air you know thing that you're going to fix there but I I believe this board seat wants to have a really large rezoning conversation it may not happen right now but as we get into 2026 conversations for new Middle School New High School I I kind of was hoping that we would be talking about rezoning elementary schools like looking more broadly than just the alleviation of overcrowding in these schools because of these new schools coming online because I think that it it's tough to take on eating an elephant and you have to do it one bite at a time but the elephant elephant still exists and we've got to eat it we have to and so what does that look like big picture this is our first time to have a conversation about rezoning these schools at all and I know you guys have been working so hard thank you Mr Jacobs thank you Mr s i I know it's so hard and I know there's so many factors that we're looking at here but are we going to see that conversation begin and when yes ma'am um like I had mentioned in the first slide we're going to have an annual resoning process that is now going to be formalized and the entire when we look at that the entire County will be looked at so again our goal in that in that committee meeting is to look at current enrollment current development capacities of schools what is the best options because again we're all stewards of taxpayer dollars and we need to do what's best for students so it's a balancing act and so we want to make sure that everything is addressed and so and I I appreciate that thank you for giving that timeline my concern again sitting in this board seat is that if we're looking at that annually which we need to be but I I also don't want to say that students who are going to fall into this recommendation will then be mov next time and we'll then be moved the next time and so having a broader conversation sooner rather than later I I don't know if there will be recommendations since you are beginning in January um if there will be recommendations coming forth to rezone other areas of the county for the 2025 2026 school year that we haven't seen yet and I would welcome that frankly from again I'm speaking individually but if we're going to be addressing all of this countywide issue that we have we have some pockets of our community that have some vacancies in their student seats and that's impacting other parts of the county one of the larger one of the bigger issues that we do look at is obviously we you know families we we want to impact them as least amount of possible so rezoning multiple times multiple ways um unfortunately with the amount of growth and the uncertainty you know some of that is going to be unavoidable and and but I want the the board to know that that is a Paramount concern that consideration that we take into account um I don't think that we could do any rezoning in January because we need to give not only the community and families but then the schools time to adjust so to be able to have rezoning that is approved in say January February to be effective for that following August you know that will be a difficult task um obviously anything is look atable that's not a word of apologize anything is that we can examine everything and again the focus that we will do is what is best for students best for families of maring County and also to be fiduciary responsible okay um I I think that wraps up my my questions I think you've heard my concerns um and this southwest part of our County we're just going to have to continue and even Southeast to some degree have to continue to look at what replacement schools look like um as potentially we have additional Capital funding sources as we talked about earlier today so um yeah that's what I'll leave it at right now thank you thank you board member camel Dr James I just had one thing to kind of back up that I actually missed Mr SS because you're right a January 25 conversation is impacting an August 26 start there's a piece to what she said because I'm if if we did it for a for August of 25 Dr Campbell and I would be completely aligned in making it happen because I do believe we are being fiscally irresponsible with the way we are managing our facilities size-wise on the North End I'm I and I have not been shy about that there is one if we're going to proceed in this manner which I will support the work of Staff my my one request then is that we get right now and our next time this comes up is the what happened at Evergreen fixed because that does not impact a lot of students but when we closed Evergreen and turned forom into a chart a um a school choice on Magnet School whatever you want to call it there are kids being shipped to timbuck two from whatever green closed as and that impacts not a ton of students but it does impact some and from a transportation perspective we we have kids getting picked up at 605 on the north north of 35th Street um south of 326 so they are minutes from the compound the north compound they are getting picked up at 6:05 a.m. and getting shipped all the way to Shady Hill and that is a transportation Nightmare and it's really not what's best for kids at all so if we're not going to address anything else on the North End before August 26 start my request would be we at least address what happened when Evergreen closed and rezone those students so that they are going to oakrest they are going to Anthony they are going to a school that is more appropriate and close proximity to their home because we could not send to oakrest and Anthony at the time because they were failing schools is my understanding correct so my request from this board seat and thank you Dr Campbell for bringing this up because Mr SS I apologize I didn't even think about this when we spoke um earlier this week that would be at least at a bare minimum my request from this board seat that we address that Madam chair may I Mr SS you want to speak to that I we've had some conversation yes so yes we can reexamine that um understand that when Evergreen closed there were certain um requirements that we were that we needed to follow by put on by the Department of Education yes so what we'll have to do is we'll have to look at all items to see if those requirements are still in place and then look at the capacities of the schools and go forward with that but yes we can we can look into that yes ma'am that can we can look into that and when we come back another time we can present that information for you thank you I would like to see that as part of a plan for an August 25 that's what this board member would like to see addressed because it is not what's best for kids and it is not what's best for transportation trying to remember how many kids were at Evergreen when it was when it closed there was only a couple hundred from what I remember I I I don't yes and they got disin out Saddlewood and and W Highlands they all had to go to High performing Shady Hill yes because of the situation so U but time moves along and I would agree you know Evergreen is a beautiful campus and it's one of our newer old schools oh yes uh so it it is important in my mind you know to have it be fully utilized and thankfully you know forom is been very well received and they're adding students all the time and it'll be K3 so there's I think is lots of opportunity there um and I look forward to that conversation as as well well and to be clear I'm not saying send them to forom so I just would like to go on record for that I think forom is a magnet that we have decided is a magnet and is pure for school choice so I am not saying send them to forom what I am saying is send them to the zoned school that would be meet the zoning pattern that is available and I know for a fact oakrest and Anthony have available seats and those would be the two closest schools essentially that those Evergreen students would have gone to so I just want to make sure that I was clear in the point I was making I'm not trying to change what forom is I am trying to send the students who are living in close proximity to other schools to send them there so they are not transported an hour plus one way right and and oakrest um their enrollment continues to grow because the school has been you know coming up and they you know it gets out in the community that they're all highly effective effective teachers there so their enrollment has increased quite a bit hasn't it yes ma'am yeah um so in my mind and I know you know we're just what do you call it throwing spaghetti at the wall um forom is developing a very nice reputation and I know we're looking at that as being a a K3 school but there's kids in that area and I would think that if the the room is certainly there that if we continue to grow that and turn it into what I hearing from parents is they don't want to leave you know they don't want to leave for them so who knows maybe that could grow into being an elementary school again a magnet elementary school that will have very good and high enrollment so that we're not just shifting the pressure um there's availability at Anthony according to my understanding and I know Crush has been growing fast but you know just some things to keep in mind yes ma' all right yes Mr Aris thank you again um this has been a good conversation lengthy conversation because it's been needed and we haven't we haven't done reson in a long time so I truly appreciate this because the community has to know that with this resoning it's going to be painful it's going to be difficult and there's going to be some uncomfortable uh conversations and some movement and um but it's going to be an adjustment and again the the the main thing the main idea the main topic that has to go forth is that we're doing what's best for kids and I think if everybody's on the same page with that we'll be okay but it is it is going to be painful and it's been painful for your department as well trying to put this together so thank you guys for that you get the phone calls we do too but anytime you're you're talking about moving someone's student especially if they're very happy in their school and doing well and they love the principal and the teachers it's the last call you ever want to get as a parent in regard to the phone calls I that's a part of my job is a double-edged sword because those are parents that are passionate about their children yes and I'm passionate about my own children and so I'm perfectly willing to have conversations with anybody especially when they're passionate about their children so I don't want to say that the phone calls are a negative aspect of my job because it's a big part of my job but it's also a job because I understand that parents are passionate as I am so absolutely and you know we want them to be advocating for their kids um anything else from the board ah go ahead I comrad just one comment that's um to bring forward is we're talking about the students that um were relocated from Evergreen when you bring those numbers forward from us and where they are I'd like to know the portion of the ese population I I know some of them went to Shady Hill and they too are on the bus for a very long time in the morning and the afternoon so if you could um separate out those numbers for us so we can see um what that population their needs are and what would be the closest hub which I know that's another conversation it's right not um so we could see if we can locate them any closer to their um home I'd appreciate that just me all right thank you yes board member James um I actually have thought of something else Mr SS um when looking at the Saddle wood zoning pattern can you go ahead and and remind me um in redoing this zoning pattern for Saddlewood did the northern part the top right part of this map get adjusted at all the top so the farthest northwest corner of the Saddlewood no Northeast directions are hard see geography we're back to that conversation yeah so if you'll notice on this map that I have on the screen now um the orange of the north is the is the new Saddlewood Zone the Saddlewood students that were pulled or the The Zone students that will be moved to the new school are in the south east section so there are two things I want to bring up to the board's attention first because Miss leir is a wonderful tour guide and she loves to take you on tours of her zoning pattern the principal at Saddlewood I would like to bring to the board's attention that there are some students whose basically backyard is NH Jones and I would like to make the recommendation that those students who are living in that little nook and cranny which I cannot highlight for you the street names but miss leir can so if you sent her an email or phone call she would be able to provide it those students are traveling a much farther distance to go to Saddlewood then they could essentially walk to Dr NH Jones so I would like to offer to the board that that that that be something we consider um Dr NH Jones is a wonderful school I realize it is pretty full but a handful of students isn't going to make a huge difference and I think that those students should be afforded the opportunity to go to that magnet school since it is essentially in their backyard so that's my first question can I say something on that yeah with that um a few years ago Mr AR I got the apartment complex is my number that's my number two yeah a few years ago you guys did the walk-in area for NH Jones yes it's the Jones pointy and Heights neighborhood correct so those kids may actually already live in that Walkin area and I think at that time we gave them an option has the option still been open or before before the um walk Zone was created the students that lived in that area were transferred to Shady Hill right but once we had this the walk Zone created again and those went there parents had the option at that time to attend NH Jones or continue to attend Shady Hill some chose quite a few chose to continue to attend and transportation was provided up through I think this was the last year that transportation is provided for that um if there's a student currently attending Shady Hill they could remain after this year but the parents would be responsible for transportation but the rest of them have been zoned automatically to Dr NH Jones and I'm not even talking about Shady Hill I'm talking about Saddlewood so I don't know if this is applicable to what you just said or not um but what I would like is is if they are in The Walking pattern for Dr NH Jones then they would not be in this Saddlewood zoning pattern is that a correct statement the walk Zone fur Dr H Jones is specifically defined in the consent decree that we had which is the historic po sien Heights neighborhood so I would have to look to see the area I'll get with you after okay to find out exactly what area you're talking about and see what can be done well and I'm going to be honest if you get with me I'm going get with Miss Lair because Miss Le call Miss Le yes she she's going to be the one that can best articulate where these specific students and it's not a lot it's a handful but she makes a very valid point why are we busting them all the way to Saddlewood when they are essentially in a walking distance from Dr an Jones so that's my first question and then my second question is and I and I can understand from a school perspective why we did it but there are two apartments right next door to each other on 27th Avenue and one of them goes to Saddlewood and one of them Goes to College Park and it's a lot of students have we at all looked at I I get why we're separating the apartment complexes I do understand from a school behavior management perspective why we're doing that but the Saddlewood bus for that apartment complex actually has to do two trips because I think there's like 150 180 kids that go that go from that apartment complex to Saddlewood which is significant is there not another place those students could go and then we wouldn't have to address all of these other students that are in this the pink encroachment into the zoning pattern because when I look at this map all of that southern part southeast part of the Saddlewood zoning pattern as it's presented is now becoming who's pink is Elementary X could those students was that looked at okay and it just doesn't wash out it you know like I said before there's tons of moving Parts in this it's not as you know it's not as simple as just plucking this and out you have to look at demographics of the school you have to look at you know lots of things that are involved in that but yes it was looked at yes okay so then I I stand by I would love for Miss Le to give in in input into those few students who are very close to Dr an Jones yes ma'am but would qu would that question those ones that you're talking about Dr James would it be NH Jones or College Park well I I don't know they're literally right next to each other so right now the other apartment complex Goes to College Park so the assumption would be that they would both go to College Park I guess I don't know but I the reason they you're talking about the two apartment complexes on 27th Avenue correct actually three two on 27th and the one around the corner right right yes but specifically I'm talking about the fact that there's a like a literal line between one apartment complex and the other and one goes to college park and one goes to Saddlewood we can examine that and I can get that information because I mean the bus literally has to do two trips that's how many kids it is yes so it's a rough bus yes and which is why the why the neighborhoods the two apartment complexes are split because it would be a significant load for one school to have I don't know how many bus loads they have to the other apartment but I haven't talked to Miss foresight about it but I imagine it's a lot of kids too and so it's a significant load for any one school to have which is why Miss Crawford actually when I spoke to her sometime in the spring was the one who afforded me that historical knowledge um because I think she was at one of the schools when that split occurred and said you know from a behavior perspective it was really necessary to split them so I don't want to discredit that I'm just wondering I was just really wondering if it was a part of the discussion so right um I your comrad did you have something I did not just thank you very much Mr aers go ahead bman camel sure so just to wrap up back kind of to come back originally to what I was talking about I think that at least again from this board seat I I do want us to start addressing some of these concerns like what Dr James has highlighted we have new multifamily units coming online all throughout this County at a rapid pace and that is impacting us in a different way than we've ever experienced before because it wasn't a housing type that was approved at the rapid Pace that it's being approved now uh whether that's a new Section 8 housing complex that's gone in by wyomina park or some of these other areas that that we've been talking about our Benish study also told us that our student generation rate shows we have a lot of students in multif family units a lot that changes our conversation and for the fact that this is really the first time time with the exception of last year in a very small pocket that we're talking rezoning at all in a very long time I'm ready for us to have greater conversations I know thank you for bringing up the Evergreen Zone thank you for bringing up the Dr NH Zone NH Jones Zone because we did create a walking zone for NH Jones that neighborhood is po Santa Heights is what po Santa Heights is but frankly that neighborhood perhap has grown just a little bit more beyond what is known as Point sah Heights proper that still is within a walking zone of essentially of in h Stones I know we've never had a Zone for Madison Street Academy that's a whole separate conversation I'm not going to talk about just to reach that briefly the walk zone for pointy and Heights was part of the consent decree with the federal government to get us out in unitary status right from the de segregation order so it wasn't a you know hey let's just create a walk Zone around this that was actually in The Descent decree you know that was mandated that absolutely that unfortunately we weren't necessarily enforcing but we which we are now right that's how thatone was created terrific from this board seat I would be okay with expanding that just a bit more now that we know we have more properties that are online closer Etc Okala Springs significant overcrowding significant we know that it would fixing this Evergreen little thing move some of those students I I I just think there are while we have open seats in oakrest Reddit call your you know we know where we have open seats on the North side we also have significant overcrowding in Okala Springs so anything that we can do to start that conversation sooner it's going to be tough pulling the Band-Aid off is going to be tough just like Reverend said this is not going to be comfortable I mean it's just not and we know that so I would prefer having uncomfortable conversations with a lot more people at one time than just this right now and then this over here later and then this over here later elementary schools need to be rezoned that's the last conversation I'll have about that and I I I agree with Dr Campbell I would prefer to see I know that we're probably not going to address the four big elephants in the room which are actually the smallest elephants in the room that is reic Anthony Spar and fesan but there are other pieces to that puzzle that we could potentially address with some of the capacity availability in other schools and and hit it at the same time I would like to I would like to have the conversation at the same time and then in a year from now we can have a further conversation about reic reic Spar Anthony and feston that can be a conversation for next year but there are pieces to this puzzle that need to be addressed and waiting isn't going to make it any better the neighborhood at next to Okala Springs there's new wood on roofs every single day so and we know that basically one student comes from every four houses every four roofs that go up that's basically if you were to make it easy math so I I I if there's one more board member who's in agreement with me and Dr Campbell that would be a majority consensus to be able to see it forward so I think Dr Campbell is that what you're looking for I would love elementary schools need to be rezoned I think all of us that's a statement I am feel like what I'm hearing is that you know we have the community's attention right now because of the resoning that we are doing and the building that we're doing so the engagement is there we might as well present the whole picture and and then go from there so so I do agree um even in my own area you know Cal Palms was out there by itself forever with nothing going on and now we're getting a hotel we're getting it was just approved for the over 300 in the same area where Publix is and then it was something else and then it was Trilogy and now it's Okala preserve uh those those uh Apartments popped up faster than you could turn around and so that whole area and that's going to you know what about Howard Middle what about you know the elementary school's College Park so we might as well talk turkey because it's gobbling Madam chair so if I hear the board's the will of the board is to bring back another component and looking at all the other elementary schools not all but other components of this including the former Evergreen students Mr SS is there anything that you want to add or any I think I think I I hear what you're saying how how long do you think I know that's that's a loaded question I'm sorry that is yeah um I know it takes a lot of time you think we could reasonably expect to come back with a some options you know I'm going to have to I mean that's that's a hard that's a hard time timeline to say um I don't think it can come back in August M Mr Eris I just seen it I just seen some over your head and I'm looking at Mr Jacob's head and perspiration is coming out of his head as well so we know this going to be a heavy lift but we know that you guys will get it done so so so my so without having to to say something without being able to meet that guideline I'd like to say that we will expedite that and then I will communicate with Dr gullet what our once we dive into it and look more because we trust me we've dove into it we we that work has already been started and it's a constant thing that's that's circling and so but to get more definitive information once I can establish um with my staff and others what that timeline would look like I'll communicate that with Dr gullet and then we can get that to the board and we'll share with board where we are and I I would just agree Mr SS there's been board there's been so much work happening in all these other places I don't want the board to think that we're not we're looking at so many moving pieces beyond what you just see here and you know this was the the priority right now to work on getting this done but there are other pieces and if the board's ready to bring those things forward we can go back look at those and and and uh bring some options back thank you guys sorry just one when we did the rezoning a year ago can you remind us because that was a shorter than a year's time total can you remind us when you we we started got that we we got that approved in november-ish and then to do it because understand once that you the board approves The Zone there's a lot of work that's done behind the scenes so to say that work can be done in two months is not able to be done we need at least 6 months of behind the scenes work to make sure that everything is up to date notifications are done to parents they have the opportunity to do things so that's that's where you know when I'm saying the annual resoning process is done for you know 16 months in the future just so that we can make sure that all things are done appropriately but arguably there is still time in the 2024 calendar year to address things Beyond this to follow the same timeline we followed a year ago when we rezoned I would say yes that's a possibility okay I don't want to be held to you know because once we dive into it it's it's a lot and um all I what I what I can tell you to do is that we will do our best to address the concerns to also address the concerns what's best for students and then we will be in constant communication to let you know where we are and what we're doing so that we can meet the most expedited timeline that we can I you always are and you always do I would be remiss to say yes this is going to happen right now absolutely not anything so thank you you got a few more gray hairs Mr Sis hey it's all good St Pat your head St Pat your head actually I do have a little bit of of input on this and it's a little bit of a different um perspective in terms of concern and and and fear I would say um I am thrilled that we're getting brand new elementary schools for a good chunk of kids they're going to have brand new classrooms to learn in brand new cafeterias to eat in you know brand new building to be in um and that's wonderful but we can't turn our eyes away from these schools that have had portable cities for years so I have a little different perspective um whether or not Portables go to the new elementary schools because in my mind everything else is new so if they go to a portable for art you know for specials or something like that um that's not really a major concern for me it's a reality I think is what I see coming but what I am very concerned about is having the funding to continue to maintain what we have and finally uh finally follow through on our promise to not have Maplewood have a portable City for Ward Highlands to not have have a portable City for Fort King Middle School to not have a portable City and in the meantime they're sitting in degraded buildings and we're talking about you know look continuing to have the best of the best only in two spots I I just think there's a disparity there that that I'm not comfortable with and we spent time talking about funding sources earlier you know Pico funds were on landlines how many of us have landlines anymore we we advocated for repealing what whatever landline tax there was and replacing it with the same tax on cell phones to try to get some Capital funding going well that was a non-starter another thing I hear about all the time is what happened to the lottery money talk about the biggest bait and switch ever you know and and it distresses me as a taxpayer to sit up here and say okay well we need the one mill because there's not enough coverage to do what we know we need we need a half sent sales tax now because there's not enough coverage to do what we need it's it's frustrating you know we're it says in our constitution of the State of Florida that we're supposed to be providing for a good public education system and I used to know it verbatim I can't retrieve it at the moment but I'd be glad to share it with anybody um because we are going to have we already have a real Capital funding problem and if this continues to get married to who's going to support or not support the sales tax I think the writing's on the wall because what are the better options and and and if we have better options what is the actual chance of those better options coming our way con considering the immediate needs that we know that we have so that's kind of where I am with this um I am thrilled that that were providing these new schools but my focus is also on taking good care of our older schools and continue to have those be as habitable as as possible to provide the education that we know our kids deserve CH yeah um chair thank you so much for those comments I I wanted to piggyback on what you said by using some information we Reed from Orange County Public Schools not sure how many of you went to the fsba session that we had where the Orange County representative and the member from the Realtor Association was there not sure if they shared the same information with you that they did in the session that I was in but one eye openening statistic from Orange County specifically and so I'm I'm not going to speak to Maran County I'm going to speak to Orange County more than 20 years ago was whenever they went out and asked their Community for a sales tax for specifically building and replacing schools at that time they had school buildings that were more than 30 years old on average 35 I think more than 35 years old on average and their graduation rate in Orange County Public Schools was 45% this year they are going out for a renewal on their sales tax specific for Capital funding and this year the average age of their school buildings is around 18 years and their graduation rate I think was 97% there's a correlation so that's what I'm going to say about that all right hate to be the one that took the bloom off the rose but you might as well you know acknowledge the obvious um and yes the the board has definitely made it clear how much we appreciate you and your department thank you Mr Jacobs um you know it's it's big stuff it's the community is not used to it you know we were stagnant for a very long time we haven't had to do any rezoning we haven't had to talk about any of this so it's it's a big shift for everybody but folks are talking about they're paying attention so let's just go ahead and lay it out there that's what I say all right anything else okay public comment yep I just wanted to make sure there wasn't any more Schoolboard comment all right is there any public comment all right seeing none um because we had a couple of items uh that were removed from today's agenda we're running a little bit hot so we may want to go ahead and take our lunch break now yeah I that would be my recommendation and then start at 12 I know that there are people who are interested in participating and we had said 12 as like kind of a time yep yep and I think we'll be close to meeting that we talked about breaking for half hour but we didn't take a bathroom break so we'll reconvene at 12:00 noon sound like a plan all right we'll go into recess it is 11:15 a.m. thank you can't clear e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e good afternoon everyone the school board work session for today is back in session at 12: noon and we will continue to our last item on today's work session agenda Dr G thank you madam chair members of the board again good afternoon now um going to to have Miss dobins come forward um as a reminder this is the this is an update um from the conversation we had on June 25th uh regarding procurement uh processes procedures recommendations that we've received and and where we are right now and what our next steps are so um without further delay Miss Dobbins will turn it over to you thank you thank you very much good afternoon cherur Vice jar Conrad board members superintendent Dr gullet today I will be providing upd Ates for each of the recommendations that were provided in the consultant report conducted by attorney Brian Williams and the investigative report conducted by attorney Julie zti as noted in both reports the mcps facility policies and procedures manual and School Board policies related to the procurement of construction and construction related Services is in full compliance with applicable Florida law administrative rules rules state requirements for educational facilities and the terms and conditions of our solic solicitation documents the recommendations contained in the report are consistent with the early findings of the investigative report and represent suggestions on ways to improve mcps procurement selection process they are not meant for in meant or intended to imply that the current process is deficient or an non-comp liance with current law recommendation number one is to enhance existing scoring language and the request for qualifications by adding a link to the the specific evaluation forms or by making them available on our current website our update is the facilities Department complete this recommendation by adding a link to any future request for qualification in the selection process for construction projects and we'll be adding the documents to the website as well and of course as the work continues and we have recommendations from the committee that are approved we will also keep that link and website up to date recommendation number two is to ensure training is being provided to selection committee members prior to the release of the RFQ and prior to the scoring of submittals and interviews as stated in the report mcps goal should be to identify members who will conduct themselves professionally and not use their position within the organization to influ influence other members of the committee in addition to vetting potential committee members for potential bias and conflicts of interest the designated procurement staff responsible for the solicitation should provide the select committee with a scoring and evaluation rubrics detailed information pertaining to the scope and nature of the project copies of the relevant solicitation documents board policies and Florida Statutes in addition that all of this information is reviewed in a training session prior to publishing the RFQ it is also recommended that all selection committee members be required to sign a document indicating their understanding of the cone of silence our update for recommendation number two is the facilities department has developed a cone of silence acknowledgement form and a confidentiality and conflict of interest form these forms will be required to be signed by each selection Committee Member during a selection committee training that will take place prior to the posting of the RFQ in that same meeting each member will be given information on the applicable scoring and evaluation rubrics detailed information pertaining to the scope and nature of the projects copies of all relevant solic solicitation documents and relevant board policies prior to the review of submittals for applicants and again prior to the interviews each selection Committee Member will be trained on the criteria to be evaluated scoring application and final decision procedures each selection Committee Member will will have to sign an acknowledgement of understanding for the scoring and evaluation of applicants and the steps of the procurement process through to selection Committee tabulation of scores and final decision at all three trainings each selection Committee Member will be reminded of the cona silence recommendation number three states that the board should strongly consider adopting Andor incorporating a provision into its ethics and our procurement policies which addresses the involvement of the school board members on procurement selection panels school board members participation on the procurement selection panels raises multiple issues which may impact both the transparency and validity of the procurement process in addition to raising concerns involving the appearance of impropriety as well as concerns pertaining to potential conflicts of interest to avoid these issues all School Board employees including but not limited to the school board members should avoid participating in the procurement selection process if doing so would be in violation of the code of ethics for public officers and employees should the district continue to deviate from the mcps established processes regarding construction related procurement it is it is strongly encouraged District staff superintendent and School Board seek guidance from the School Board attorney staff attorney and that an advisory opinion from the Florida Commission of Ethics be obtained prior to the commencement of the solicitation process attorney Williams goes on to provide suggestion excuse me suggested policy language and recommends adoption of a policy that specifically addresses board member participation on procurement selection committees as for the update this recommendation is specific to the school board and will require School Board action for recommendation number four it is strongly recommended that the school board superintendent and District staff strictly adhere to existing policies and procedures and that should changes become necessary they are properly vetted through all relevant stakeholders including the legal department attorney William goes on to make recommendations in regards to local preference our update is that District staff agree that the facility procurement procedures need to be strictly adhere to and when the committee makes changes that they are updated in the manual and on the web page immediately as for local preference the procurement procedures committee will be reviewing and making a recommendation on the process for recommendation number five MC CPS scoring and evaluation criteria should be frequently analyzed by District staff and updated to guarantee the effectiveness of the procurement selection process our update is that District staff agree that the facility procurement procedures committee should include a diverse group of stakeholders the committee will seek input from the various District departments such as facilities Technical Services purchasing Business Services as well as individuals serving in procurement positions in local governmental agencies and business owner representation for recommendation number six the recommendation is that mcps create create a purchasing position specifically dedicated to facilities and operational solicitations it is recommended that someone from the purchasing department facilitate the scoring and evaluation processes on all district procurement including construction our update is that District staff is exploring the possibility of reallocating a district Staffing unit to oversee the construction procurement process and consider moving the process to be under the purchasing department recommendation number seven the recommendation is that the district consider throwing out high and low scores during its selection process as well as incorporating a rotational process to diversify the individual idual who to who participate on the selection panels the facilities procurement procedures committee will take this recommendation into consideration recommendation number eight is in regards to board policies while mcps has an established policy regarding the cone of silence it is recommended that the district consider revising all procurement policies including but not limited to those related to construction or construction related profession Professional Services to include specific reference to the cone as silence as provided in State Statute it is further suggested that board policy 6324 be amend amended to specifically reference rfqs or the selection process associated with the Consultants competitive negotiation act as for the update the District staff agrees with these policy recommendations and the district will bring proposed policy to the board for a consideration at the next policy review for recommendation number nine it is recommended that mcps develop a comprehensive dearment procedure to address the actions of vendors who have violated federal state and board policy our update is that District staff agree with the policy recommendations and the district will bring proposed policy to the board for consideration ation at the next policy review recommendation number 10 is for the consideration of adopting a small business Enterprise policy small business Enterprise programs have proven to be a highly effective alternative to minority and women based Enterprise programs and when structured appropriately have resulted in a significant increase in equitable distribution of work amongst local small businesses our update is the facility procurement procedure committee will take this recommendation into consideration the following are the recommendations from the investigative report conducted by attorney Julie zti from Gray Robertson's for firm attorney Williams concurs with the substantiated findings of regarding violations of the cone of silence and with all recommendations provided specific to the selection process for procurement of construction services and that report investigative report the following were recommended that interviews be audio recorded a moderator who is a nonvoting member of the committee clear instructions prior to the start of the interviews be given on the cone of silence and also on scoring scoring and the rubric all committee members remain in the room until all scores are collected the scoring be calculated announced with all committee members present and another final instruction be given on the cone of silence prior to all of the committee members dismissing our update from the staff is moving forward all construction project selection process procurement will be audio recorded and facilitated by a non-voting staff member all selection committee members will remain in the room until all scores are collected it calculated and announced prior to dismissal of the selection committee following the scoring of interviews a reminder will be given of the acknowledgement that each member gave in regards to the cone of silence as previously stated in recommendation number two the facilities department has developed a cone of silence acknowledgement form and a confidentially confidentiality and conflict of interest form these forms will be required to be signed by each selection Committee Member during a selection committee training that will take place prior to the posting of the RFQ in that same meeting each member will be given information on the applicable scoring and evaluation rubrics detailed information pertaining to the scope and nature of the project copies of all relevant solicitation documents and relevant board policies prior to the review of the book submittal for applicants and again prior to the interviews each SEL section Committee Member will be trained on the criteria to be evaluated scoring application and final decision procedures each selection Committee Member will have to sign an acknowledgement of understanding for the scoring and evaluation of applicants and the steps of the procurement process through to selection Committee tabulation of scores and final decision at all three trainings each selection Committee Member will be reminded of the co silence those are all of the recommendations and our next portion is talking about the high school but chair if you wish to pause and have discussion I'll take direction from you thank you Miss doin PRI to that may may I uh just inquire a couple things Miss Dobbins um Miss Dobbins to provide some background can you tell me um for the board's input here as they factually consider some things what percentage of our construction projects to date have gone to local construction firms so in the last 20 years so going back 20 years when we talk about projects that are above the 4 million which goes through this exact selection process 70% of those projects have gone to local firms construction management firms we have two Elementary School construction projects going on right now right that is correct um and with our Construction management selection process they obviously are going to hire subcontractors who would have employees within their local community um how many local subcontractor companies if you know this uh have been employed with through this process here for that for those numbers I I actually do know that because your biggest impact on local business comes from the subcontractors not the construction management firm so the sub contractors that we have for both elementary schools to date are 20 different local businesses that then in turn uh most likely have local workers each trade is different like one trade could have five workers on site a different subcontractor trade may have 10 workers on site but as far as companies that are employed through the subcontractor there are 20 that are local now in my reading it looks like we've built six schools since 2004 yes is that about right yes um and then we've had some major remodeling of at least one other school yes um how many of those projects have gone to sort of the same group of local vendors that we have had so all six new schools between that time were given to the exact same company the other project was given to a local vendor as as well that was part of the six new High new schools as well so 100% Local 100 well six of the seven were the exact same company um and you and I have talked about this so it's nothing this particular next question but why is it that we have a a policy or a procedure regarding equitable distribution I mean what's the purpose of that thank thank you attorney pars according to Florida statute 287.00 55 it states we shall consider the volume of work previously awarded to each firm with the object of affecting an equitable distribution of contracts so it's statutorily driven all right thank you thank you sir thank you attorney pow um Dr G is there anything that you wanted to say and wrap up before we discuss no I don't think so Madam chair I think we've we've covered I I provided my recommendations last time um I think I will say yes um the committee that I said I absolutely think is is important and I think and I said this last time uh to include um our our stakeholders in a conversation of what's best for Marian County um I will just reiterate I said that last time publicly and I'll say that again and so I think the committee is a big part of this moving forward thank you thank you all right we'll open it up to the board who'd like to lead us off okay I'll start uh Miss doin thank you very much for your um work your time and your effort um that's gone into this presentation I'm going to start at the beginning because I actually have quite a few um questions so I'm going to start with recommendation one um I will say when I made the request this isn't exactly what I was asking for um this really just kind of reiterates the investigation that was presented to us and what I really want and hopefully we can have at a later date is a walk through of this process um with the documents included so we can see so I can see as a board member what this process looks like from start to finish so I hope in the future um that we'll be able to do that hopefully before um we start another building project okay um recommendation number one list and scoring the evaluation criteria um if I'm not mistaken the information that Dr James shared with us on Tuesday night showed that we've made some mistakes in that area in in the previously is that the case uh so so yes and no we indeed have so basically the documents shared was the letter that is sent to the firms that are interviewing and the scoring criteria on that letter did not match what every firm received in the RFQ so if you go back to the RFQ that each firm receives it specifically oh I won't say specifically it highlights the score and it highlights the volume of work that you do with Maring County and how that's applied in the interview process so no those two documents did not match but what I would like to say is is there an understanding of the scoring process by The Firm the construction firms and I and I'll leave you with this in October of 23 we received a letter from one of our local construction firms and in that letter they are withdrawing from the ool Middle School gym project and this is exactly what they write one of their reasons to be they say there are two main reasons for this first and again this is from the construction company first in the general information section of the request for qualifications it clearly states the final selection process score will be based on a full value of the score from the interview process plus a score given for the volume of work previously awarded it with the objective of affecting an equitable distribution of contracts and they add emphasis to that so they were withdrawing because they understood that we were applying an equitable amount of work across our district they clearly understood that scoring and they withdrew in hopes that their work with Maring County didn't impact them on future sites that same company who bid for the new high school even if you removed the two points that were given to the other firms for not having as much work in Maron County even if you remove those two points that fir firm Wharton Smith still would have won even if we threw out the two points I'd also like to say that the exact same process with the exact same scoring that we used to determine our two construction management companies for the elementary schools was the exact same process we're talking about with all the exact same documentations and The Local Company won given the exact same scoring portions to it okay so I I think that you might have misunderstood my question and so what I'm looking at is a document we were given Tuesday night at the conclusion of our board meeting and to me unless I misunderstanding what's been presented is the scoring criteria that we advertised we were going to score with does not match our scoring sheet and to me that makes me feel like that that is illegal if we if we advertise that we're going to score on 120 point system and then our scoring sheet has a 15 point system that's what I'm asking to be explained it's still all the same content the points were different levels but again in the RFQ it states how the scores are generated in the sense of the interview and the previously awarded the two documents clearly there are mistakes I'm not denying that but does it change the results of of the committee no it does not and did the firms that interviewed understand what their two points what their scoring was done clearly in the letter from one of them they understood that we wait the amount of work with Maring County Public Schools okay and and the lens that I have on right now is making sure that Maran county is doing the right thing all the time and so I I'm going to defer to attorney powers and if you can um shed some light on that is is it legal for us to advertise one point system and then score with another point system I'm not clear that that that's actually entirely correct I don't think that our our RFQ as I understand it had our points system explained we in in the criteria that are that ultimately resulted I believe the exact same waiting system was used though they did it on a different scale I think that if I'm understanding it's like whether you measured it in Fahrenheit Centigrade they're both translatable to the end now I don't know I I I don't know that to be accurate because I I can't comment on the factual detail of the differences between the two I don't I I don't know that except from what has been discussed here just recently what I do know is that so long as the process every every vendor within the process gets a gets the details that they understand of how they're going to be graded if the grading process is arbitrarily and capriciously changed um to the degree that it then affects an outcome then that is an argument for someone to make that that the process was inaccurate and incorrect if however the same result is there it's just a matter of the scale you know are we are we calling it a 10-point scale or are we calling it 100 point scale you know if if that's what happened then it doesn't matter a 10 equals a one okay but however if that's not true then it does matter so that's a factual thing that I would defer to the explanations that are given by facilities okay and so um Miss Dobbin then what would be the reason why we would change during the process it okay so let's just say it doesn't matter just going to go with that so it doesn't matter but why would we do that in the middle of a process so we didn't do it in the middle of a process okay so the scoring was changed three years ago and we have done eight different selection processes using this method what changed that was a situation where in conjunction with the attorney Powers I think you'll recall this we had number one we had concerns when I first took over this job there were concerns brought to me that we were giving too much work to certain local businesses and the word local wasn't even incl included it in it it was just that they kept seeing the same construction companies getting this the projects and so I was tasked in reviewing that when I reviewed that information of that specific company that was brought to me I didn't find that they were receiving an overabundance of distribution of work so we actually rejected that company and we went to number two well of course that number one raised a lot of legal concerns that's where we lose in attorney powers and ultimately what was our our procedure of changing it to going to number two was legal but the advice was that moving forward we needed a more object objective way to measure the local preference because when you look at statute there is a clear emphasis on local preference excuse me on distribution of projects so that's where it changed moving forward we've done this process eight times with all the same content so even if you throw out the mathematical all the same content all of the same procedure and eight times we didn't have an issue until the high school well from this board's member seat I've I've never seen these papers before until someone brought them forward Dr James happened to bring them forward and so this is one of my concerns about the board not being aware of the procedures and so when I look back give me one second so I can give you the right date when I look back to April 22nd in 2022 I wasn't on the board at this time Don Browning sat in the seat but we spent over $82,000 with niola to have procedures and policies available to our community to our staff members to our board members and so I'm struggling with these procedures changing during a process and none of us nobody is aware of it like it it's just happening internally and we we have no way of monitoring as the board who's ultimately responsible for the end process so how how what's the best way for us to be aware of these procedures is there are there PL to upload the upload these to board dos so so the so the procedures are on the website however I I will say that the facilities department has spoken to the board several times of the most recent it would have been September 1st of 23 when we approved the construction managers for school X and school W and which the then supervisor facility stood at the podium and explained that procedure but miss Conrad I am I am more than happy we we are not trying to hide anything uh procedures I if you want to know every single procedure that's in facilities then then let's sit down and go over those procedures um I'm not saying procedures aren't uh in need of improvement I don't know of a department in Maring County public schools that that couldn't be improved but to the point we've had two attorneys look at this and look at all of the documents and even the documents that were shared to you on on Tuesday all of the rfqs and and have no findings of it not being a legal process we have findings of needing to improve the process so if part of improving the process is more transparency with the procedures I am all open to what you and the board would like that to look like if you want you know there's a flowchart that's longstanding on the website that gives you a generic walk through um we're more than happy to do a work session or one-on-one briefings because the process is is very lengthy and very in the weeds and and you know it's a matter of how far in the weeds do you want to go well and Miss dobins I would point out that you've actually had four attorneys look at it and that was my predecessor and myself prior to two other attorneys looking at it here all determining to be a valid and legal process as stated I think the only question I think the only question that is now just being talked about is is the question of what not necessarily what was in the procedure but when the RFQ was presented to firms did they have the same information upon which they were ultimately judged yes they did okay then um more specific though not the same information the same scoring system points the same numerical number because number numbers matter when it comes to when it comes to two points two points is far more significant when 15 is the denominator than when 150 is the denominator so what I'm asking and if you could please clarify was the number the numerical number in the first initial publication the same as the numerical number that was used on the score sheet and that I don't know the answer so I'm asking you to ask that question not not was the information the same okay I think you just ask that okay absolutely absolutely so in the RFQ we don't break down the number of scoring points on the interview so the scale on the interview um what we do is link it to documents where they can see if I have a this amount of work with Maring County I get one point 2.0 points if I have an overall in the past 10 10 years this amount of work work I have these points and then it walks them through how those are applied as far as whether we count that as 10 points 50 points or any other points that was listed incorrectly on the letter they received that gave them the date of their interview Vice chair thrower could I just I just want to share something with the board since we're discussing the document I provided is is that possible I'm sorry Vice shair Conrad I was looking at Shar I'm sorry so it's very important for the board to understand that the only reason this even was brought forward because when you interview and we have some contractors in our audience who have interviewed with us when you interview with Maring County public schools for a project you do not receive your scorese sheet unless you do a public records request for the score sheet so the reason this didn't become an issue until it became an issue was because every firm was operating with the understanding that the information that was provided in the letter was the information that was used on the score sheet it then became aware when a singular firm Drew questions that the information in historical projects had disparity and that is the piece of information that's missing from here because two points when you are looking at over a 100 points total is significantly less impactful than two points of 15 points and so that is the piece of information that is so important and the reason I handed this to all of you on Tuesday so that you would have for today that is the part of this puzzle that you all need to understand the the firms do not see the score sheets so the firms would have no way of knowing that the score sheet didn't reflect the letter until they did a public records request or requested it from the Department themselves so they didn't know they didn't know it changed fundamentally correct which is why I'm struggling with our lack of availability of procedures so in this investigation they referenced Miami Dade and last time I brought just the cover but I'm a very visual person Miami Dade has 61 pages of procedures please pass them down for their procurement process they are available for anyone anyone to view and review we don't there's not for everybody didn't I have copy oh I'm so sorry Nancy and this is why I keep touching on the part of the procedures and because as I go through these recommendations every time I read policy I added procedure because although we were found to not we were not doing anything illegal when I look through this is through the lens of the growth that we are experiencing and the schools that we hope to build in the new F near future I want it to be done right and I want to be part of that process in making sure that it's done right and so I'm asking myself if we do a better job in our procedures which 10 or 11 of these slides that's what they say we need to do we we've got room to improve our procedures then some of these mistakes wouldn't be happening and so so that's where I'm headed I if we if we improve our procedures we make them available to everyone are we going to make less mistakes can I ask since we haven't seen the document could you read the title of the document you distributed oh I'm sorry it's procedures for the selection of construction management and program management service and you're welcome thank you so again you know you're using the word mistake I don't think we made a mistake I think Wharton Smith and that committee knew that Wharton Smith was the best group to build that high school do we have room for improvement absolutely yes these procedures that we have are currently now on our web page thanks to this I mean this has shined some light on things we do absolutely have to improve however would we have never distributed those procedures uh you know someone inquired absolutely not we do have flowchart that's been up there for for at least a year and a half that walks you through the process it doesn't go into the weeds of the process but it walks you through the the process so again I don't think we we've made a mistake I think there's discrepancies but I don't think those discrepancies really truly impact the result of who was selected I will say that you know Dr James respectfully speaks of all firms so so my question has have you asked firms because I believe one of those firms have requested their previous score sheets and saw that the two points were at it way before the high school but they had no issue because they were awarded one of the elementary schools and and really that's I know that's null and B to me because to I I don't care if it's John's Lawn Service that we're talking about if they're working in Maran County I want every single local contractor to have the best chance possible and I want to make sure that we are doing our part to make sure that we are legally and procedurally doing what we need to do to move the process 100% okay thank you for that thank you anything else for slide one CH if I could speak to this specifically since you don't have this in front of you so it appears and again I'm just going to try to clarify potentially and vice chair if I'm Mis stepping here please let me know but it appears to me what Miami Dade has included in their procedures is their scoring criteria and perhaps that's what is part of the challenge that we haven't had I know certainly getting our procedures up online is terrific I know we we have identified I'm going to use a completely separate illustration but we have identified at times in the letters that go home with our students with disciplinary infractions in their expulsion hearing have not included accurate information we ident we've identified that we've corrected that I don't know prior to us receiving these letters on Tuesday evening if that change in that letter in that specific section that you may not all you may just go back to the template you're changing the names of the people in the times but you may not be making the changes actually to the full document I don't know I'm not putting words in your mouth I'm just thinking out loud on how we've identified things in the past that have been templates that needed correcting and with no one ever highlighting the correction needed it just continued to remain a template I don't know if that's the case it's possible so I if the RFQ was always accurate but then the letter that went home wasn't then maybe the challenges with the letter but I did want to make you aware that in the middle of their procedures they do have section four which is specific to criteria for evaluation and scoring and it has I don't know five six seven I don't know how many pages there are here but it specifically lays out the points that are awarded for each of these individual criteria and that is listed in their procedure manual so I don't know that we have that I haven't clicked on every one of these links yet um perhaps it's there but because this is all in one comprehensive document it's easy instead of clicking on the six or seven different links that we have thank you can I reply just to give you more information on that that you're you're absolutely right so when we changed the procedure in the RFQ the template for the letter didn't get changed and unfortunately I don't see those letters now I will right and and so yes those letters have to be changed and also as you've seen in the recommendations there's they're saying you can solve this real easy put a link in the RFQ that links to all the documents and all of the scoring rubrics and everything so that is something that that we have we we've adjusted the RFQ template for future because we're we're on hold right now um to have that link directly go to those documents and to the rubric as is right now because we still have to go to the committee and talk about all of the other recommendations that are going to be driven by that committee and when those changes take place then everything will be updated is it is it accurate to say that either way it would or would not have made a difference in the high school CCC if what I'm sorry the which set of criteria they were looking at I don't believe that the amount of points the mathematical part of the criteria had any impact on the results of the content that was provided so in other words that letter that comes forward when you're interviewed so of I'm company CC C and I get that letter that I'm going to interview although it has mathematical here and this the content of what's being judged is the same it just has a different point system so they're being judged on the content given a certain amount of points but it does it needs to match I mean clearly so again we've got to make these changes we've got to make it all Aline but you asked me did I feel like it made a difference Barb doin says it doesn't make a difference I think 7 people sitting at that table made the right decision so chair just as a continuation of this thought and then I'll I'll leave this specific thought the thing that is most disconcerting to me since we're speaking specifically about the information we received from Dr James on Tuesday evening the thing that is most disconcerting to me as a board member who's been a part of making changes to templates is that there was a template letter that we now have a copy of from August of 2021 that no one ever told us was wrong and so that template continued to be used in the other examples of 2023 and 2024 so that's what's most disconcerting to me as someone who wants to make sure we're getting this done right if we had corrected it back when someone first identified that it was incorrect then we wouldn't be here today which tells me we are lacking some procedures we are but someone received this letter but they didn't know it was wrong because they never see the score sheet so if they don't see the score sheet until they saw the score sheet they didn't know it was wrong and then when they did receive the score sheet after the elementary schools the two points didn't matter then so it did wasn't a big deal because the firm that we're discussing had the most points without the two-point differential they they won the raw score so again it didn't matter and we awarded to two different firms so it wasn't it wasn't valuable information then and the score sheets aren't readily available so we don't know they didn't know sure they didn't know and I appreciate that I appreciate that that continued feedback on that the the other piece that I will state is I'm grateful that we now have in independent investigations that tell us to look to Miami Dade I I don't know how many schools they've built in the last year but I guarantee it's dozens in the last five years at least so this is not a situation Marian County has been in in the last decade and so I too am grateful that we are a part of making sure we get it right it's unfortunate that we had some missteps along the way to get us to where we are the the last thing I want to have happen is we have construction projects that are currently underway and if we throw out this process today completely do we have to stop what we currently have in process because essentially we'll be invalidating what we've used already for construction that's is currently underway and that's my biggest concern about what this conversation is going to be because we have additional projects whether it's an Oola Middle School gym or two elementary schools or whatever is going on I I am I'm concerned that we if we throw it out we're going to throw the baby out with the bath water okay anyone else slide one should we just go recommendation by recommendation share threr that easier yes okay she was leading um recommendation two providing training to selection committee prior to release of solicitation and so my concern here is that there were there were many errors made by many people District staff contractors community members the whole nine yards and so um when I was reading over this recommendation the first thing I thought of is just an analogy when we do State Testing at school we have to go in for training right before State schools and we have to sign that we understand all of the things that we have to do when we're you know proceeding with State Testing I have to sign a release stating I'm going to follow all those rules so um I was kind of surprised that we didn't have that have gone out I was surprised that we did not have that procedure already in place for the cone of silence um and I do see that that's being corrected it's in your recommendation but I find it very difficult um to hold people accountable District staff community members contractors all of the above when we did not we did not do due diligence in reviewing the cone of silence before during or after um this process and in the investigation on page 20 by all accounts note notes of the commit not excuse me by all accounts none of the community members were given any instruction on the Code of Silence and it that just gives me great great pause um that that that was a a big misstep for us um I know we have not been doing a lot of building and we're trying to get back into um building new schools we're hopeful that we're going to get to do this but I struggle with uh that we did not inform people of the process and so that's just something I want to make sure that is corrected yes ma'am as as recommended as you see on the update those things are already in process of being corrected I do want to say that yes we failed to inform staff members but firms were completely aware of the cone of silence and and I also wanted to note that there was more than one contractor that did break the cone of silence and that's not really been discussed in further conversations and so I just say that I'm not trying to throw anybody under the bus but there was a lot of miscommunication that happened during this process and I think having two contractors break the Code of Silence shows us that that we didn't do our job anyone else no I I'm I'm not aware of a second contractor so that it's it's in the investigative report okay I'll make sure I looked at again I didn't I didn't see that I concur I can Cur um Vice chair con the um investigation did specifically state that there was no reminder I'm sorry there was no reminder about that call of Silence um but I do see in Miss Dobbins in your update that that is included of being told before after and during the process so I think think you're reming that by your update I have a question this might be for attorney Powers is the con of Silence mentioned anywhere in these documents you know as our potential biders come forward you know what what do they receive that would have anything speaking to the con of Silence on it or maybe it's a Barb question because to me that seems um the con of for any uh construction firm that submits a submitt um is in their RFQ specifically spelled out to the statute okay I'm Sorry Miss dobins could you say that again yes yes ma'am so in the rfu that when we request for qualifications meaning we post it and now construction companies that are pre-qualified are now going to submit their book there we call it a submitt to the facilities Department in that RFQ it outlines the con ayum okay so you're saying it's available to them to read and so the the piece that we're adding is we're going to add a signatures that says we swear that we read this we're adding this to the staff side okay we are we have already there for the contractors contractors they're sophisticated parties who engage in these kind of contracts and it's within their RFQ they know the cone of silence anyone who is going to bid on a public contract besides the fact that going into it before any other information's uh put out there they know the cone of silence issues before they start once they start we get an RF the RFQ documents do also outline the cone of silence and the cone of silence violations that um the investigation seem to give committee members all committee members kind of a pass on because they may not have been really aware of them um the the report indicated that that was not true of the cont contractors that these were relatively egregious violations that these were not um accidental these were quite far beyond that's at least the language that the report uses so so it's as to staff um it it the investigative report did seem to indicate that the staff should have that it was that the staff should have been better informed of the con of Silence but cone of silence is a board policy our board policy um does indicate that staff can be can be punished for not following the Kon silence however the investigative report indicated that it appeared that all committee members were acting you know honestly and on the best behalf of the district but simply failed at that whether it was an individual failure whether it's simply that they had not been indicated or or or trained on the cone of silence that was an issue that the investigative report addressed and said that they simply didn't know now um as to contractors might be a different matter at least the investigative report found it to be a different matter so um I don't think that the investigative report indicated that any staff had acted improperly regarding code and I don't think it did either and so um but we clearly should have made a better silence a training opportunity for everyone before they participated in a committee agreed I agree okay all right thank you for I think that that's what she's indicating that is one of the actions that has been not only recommended but that we clearly submit that we need to make okay all right thank you for that thank you for that clarification thank you I appreciate that and I also have a question on the score sheet um what is the common practice or is there one for when score sheets become available um I don't even say publicly as a public record but just to the folks that were involved in the process that either one or lost the bid when they request them so they have to be requested all right and that's a common practice that you would have to request them yes if they request them they get them common for Maring County pardon is that what you're asking common for Maring County no I mean common practice for the industry is there a common practice because my goal would be to go with the common best practices as we begin to you know move forward from this well we can't provide information regarding the other biders we provide information the the selection process there's a lot of uh detail that we cannot provide information it's uh to other bids about what one bitter right right and that's not what I'm asking I'm asking like when do they get their report card right you know they don't just put it basically if they request it they get it that's all now I guess the question seems to be that you're asking is should we just forward their individual reports to them upon the conclusion anyway that's um perhaps we should but that's but but what we're not required to but if if they request they can have it but it would have to be disassociated from detailed reports that have any information regarding other biders I understand I would just want to know how I did so I can maybe improve my pitch for next time you know it's these are just the feelings that are going this is just what I'm thinking through and I didn't I don't know if there is a a practice that other counties in in Florida use that where they provide it sooner or is it typically just by request and if it's just by request is there you know a reason for that that I wouldn't be aware of that that's all and and it's in I'm asking the question in the spirit of transparency from start to finish yeah and I and I don't know the preferred standard for that Statewide I think that if it's not required then there's a number of different standards that can apply so if anybody wants it they can request it but if we wanted to include in our procedures that it would be automatically public any publicly available information be automatically sent to each of our of our biders each of our participants we could do the same all right um board member James is that is there something else you wanted to add I don't have anything else for recommendation to no okay anybody else all right um recommendation three um I think we've covered all my questions um in that area um just well let me go back a little bit so the money that we spent uh that we approved for bardocks for our procedures to be posted online is there a reason that we haven't done that or is there some underlying um issue of why why we're not doing it if if that's just something somebody could explain I'll ask for clarification Vice chair um Conrad when you say paying for procedures to be posted I'm well that's what that's what I'll I'll clarify that that that actually I think what you're asking about is the time the the funds that were spent to have niola assist us with development of uh template policies and it says policy procedures correct so we did that with policies now then also a portion of that contract was for um procedures as well for it to be for Neil to assist with development of procedures that's that that is not something that's been handled by the legal department something that's handled by operations my inquiry into that was that the decision was made to put them on SharePoint instead of uploading them to board docs but as to status of individual ual part departments procedures and everything that's outside my scope and that's within operations scope so we legal department is the one who maintains the contracts with um Neola in order to provide what we are you know what services that they provide us with template contracts and for advisement on specific uh administrative rules or codes that might be new impacts that we need to consider to bring to the board to modify our policies but as far as procedures go I can't speak to the status of that so procedures are not within the realm of the legal department I I can speak to that so in board docs because an Neola is the vendor that's used to provide guidance um by the board for policy they also have links to some suggested language for procedures those were provided to um my team and they've looked at those and so as we've been updating the procedures they're not only on SharePoint but they're going to the website and as you know the website's been under uh a comprehensive update by our technology department and if you even if you go search right now you'll you can go immediately on and see some of these and so the um the last update I have my team and my request of the team is to have it done by the end of summer they have assured me that they'll have those procedures updated and online by the end of summer but they are working through those Department by Department if you recall there was a very extensive update by this board that took years of policies so quite honestly those can't happen overnight um there there have been missing missing procedures there have been outdated policies and so that takes quite some time if it took years to do policy you can imagine the procedures are not going to be done thoroughly and appropriately and and effectively in a month so they're working hard on those and you can already start to see those but um by end of summer they've assured me the technology department that they're they're working through those but they'll have those up there so SharePoint is the utilization that we have internally for our staff to be able to go and search procedures which I think was also missing quite frankly um having access to those electronically wherever they are on campus or off- campus but also on the website so those are expected to be done but end of summer okay thank you Dr goet and I appreciate that but and just so the public is aware this is not an over the night overnight ask um you know this started if if my information is correct back in 2022 so we've had a lot of time to get uh these procedures in place and available and so I look forward to that winding up here at the end of summer thank you all right um You had shared that you didn't have any specific questions on recommendations three um I was just going to ask if there's any other board member that that does because I know I do go ahead board member James thank you um my only request with recommendation three would be that if the board is in and um Dr gullet and operations is going to move forward in this direction then I don't think we should have a board member sit on anything that's tied to money which would be textbooks curriculum if we're going to remove a board member from a procurement process which okay that's fine with me then I think we should remove a board member from every committee that we have that is tied to something that we TI that we approve that has money and from my just quick recollection because I don't have them all to eyes I don't have our committee sheet in front of me but I can think of for sure textbooks have money and our curriculum has money um either of those so so I do we do have I I um we don't have a board member who sits on textbooks no we we select community members to do that but we do not I none of us said on textbook okay so curriculum so insurance insurance yes absolutely that is that is one so insurance and so I'm just running through the list in my head of like things we do that we vote on so any committee that has a uh is a money attached so code of conduct isn't money so we don't necessarily need to remove a board member from that committee because there's no ability for influence there um attached to monetary value but any item that we would vote on that is attached to a monetary value board member needs to be removed from which I guess Insurance completely Concur and I'll be happy to step away from insurance but honestly I can't think of another committee that aboard I mean calendar committee that's not going to be money um but I'll be happy to step away from insurance and maybe there's a middle ground because where uh what I'm seeing here is that any any committee that would raise concerns invol involving the appearance of impropriety as well as concerns pertaining to potential conflicts of interest um you know those are things that we need to be mindful of and what I didn't realize and what really I'm so glad it didn't create even more problems is that by any board member recusing themselves at the board table that leaves us open to a stalled vote and not having a majority so I think it is very ill advised to have any board member that's serving on any committee be voting ahead of time and then recuse themselves at the board table to me that is a flip-flop from what our task what we're elected to do we should be prepared to sit up here and vote on just about anything um and be very careful to avoid things like this both for the protection of the board member and also um for that committee and and my recommendation would be to keep keep the board member on the committee and just have it a non voting position I thought about that too and and as board members I think we have to acknowledge that just our presence in a room has creates an effect I I have to agree with you there chair I think anytime that we're in the the logistics of this thing we're going to have some some type of influence and that's not what we need we our our influence comes up here on the diets we have that that ability I think when we were on those boards um whether the staff say it or not we're we're creating some undue influence that doesn't need to be there so and also too and I think this is to our credit as these board member that we are you know we're we're pretty passionate and we do like to go deep and we do want details and we do want things done right and then it really you know it's a fine line you know there are some folks that are asking us to take over the procurement processes this is not that's not in our in our realm um you know we I'm grateful to have these recommendations coming forward because that's the way it's supposed to go you know we say the what you know operation says the how and then we vote yet vote that up or down and send them back to the drawing board if we have to so I just think this is fraught with Peril I think it's documented that it's fraught with Peril and it obviously hasn't worked out very well Madam chair may I it it is possible a consideration relatedly that the final decision selection comes to the entire board and we do that publicly if the board would like to do that then the whole board can be involved and we can do that publicly I believe that's what Walton count there are there are other counties that do it there are other counties that do that County does it that way there are other counties that do it so I would I'm just um proposing that's an option and it comes to the board and it's done at a public meeting and would that be within the purview of the committee that's going to be formed um to discuss that and then bring that back to the board as a recommendation we bring the recommendation correct committee would committee would bring the recommendation right the committee can unless the board would like to make that decision now you always have the option I have as I've said before and I said again today we are going to move forward with the committee because I just think that's the right thing to do the whole reason that I wanted to have a consultant review this because I identified and could hear and see that there are opportunities for growth we are a district committed to continuous Improvement and it was I think the right thing to do to get a thorough review to get recommendations from from others that have been doing this a long time and quite extensively but if the board would like to do that the decision can be made whenever you so choose I'm just putting that out there if the board would like to do that it is done in other places does it mean didn't didn't have to be in a recommendation here but it is done right and we some of us that attended the finance um Forum most recent one that point was brought up and it caught our attention um it's my understanding that that we pretty much have one decision to to vote on today and that will be later in the meeting um typically this board doesn't like to make those types of snap decisions and wants a chance to think it over um and I can't believe I'm the one saying that but I'm the one saying that for member James I would just ask that Dr gullet articulate what you just said in the recommendation you just offered in an email because if I'm going to be honest I I'm not sure I captured everything you just said so what I would like is what because I I can totally be on board with what you just said but I'm not I'm not completely on track with what it the exact wording so if you could please type that up into an email to us so that we can review it I have no problem coming to consensus in the next meeting about it cheer thrower if that's what we need to do but I just I don't want to make a decision right now because I'm not honestly I would need you to say it again so all right so happy to do that or do we want to have the committee discuss it that's going to be formed and then bring that forward as one of their recommendations I'm fine with either honestly and and I Madam chair I bring it up just because you're having the conversation about roles of board members and I just wanted to offer it for discussion purposes you certainly aren't going to vote on anything but if you want to provide some guidance on whether it's an email of just a followup which I I understand understand or if they want to discuss it further or just delay it and have us bring that forward to the committee consensus on the email I can get beond that you can you can all right sure all right chair the only other question about this specific while we're still on this screen is the recommendation is that we create a policy for this is that going to be the direction we want to take or do we just want to make a policy that we don't have a board member that sits on a committee that involves money that's my question because this is a specific ethics policy right related to board member participation yeah this would appear in our 000000 section of bylaws right if we were going to instit Institute something like this it would be something that we would adopt at a future board policy sure um and I will point out that if it if something is to be brought to the board as a whole as opposed to being started by the committee we are also going to have to be cognizant that if a decision is left ultimately to the board to make from not just the recommendation of the committee but to then also weigh other factors when you're dealing with um with procurement some information at some times is both confidential and exempt um from public disclosure and so in those cases we're going to have to be cognizant of the public discussion about those items because you know some information that a vendor or bidder may have is proprietary information at certain times so that's going to require a little bit more be written into any policy or procedure that affects those factors okay I'm also wondering where individual briefings may fall in you know with this when the um the committee ends up um bringing forward a a contractor that you know they've selected with the scoring system is where I'm going with this then you know do we get individual um board briefings and so that we feel more confident when we get up here to vote together you know there's just I have a lot of questions about how it all would look come back to that so chair back to my question though it do we want to move forward with a policy about ethics of board member participation or do we want to make a decision today by consensus that we remove board members from committees that have anything to do with money I just feel like removing board members from anything to do with money is so Broad and there's and that's just kind of a snap thing and without it being encoded in policy it becomes something that you know hey those guys said it on July 11th of 2024 but it really there's no written sour well it's a procedure and when the board looks different because eventually we will all not be here if a future board wants to make a different decision they can make a different decision yeah but procedures don't typically control the board they just control that that particular process a agreed with everything that's being stated however we can today make a decision that today this board seated wants to change how we operate on committees that then can later be codified in policy potentially even this year but that's the question I'm asking do we want to move forward with saying how board members participating in panels should be done ethically as is the policy recommendation we have before us or do we want to collectively say we just don't think it's a good idea for board members to serve on any committee that has to do with money and if we make that judgment then that will change the committee makeups moving forward may I suggest that you uh request that you're attorney provide you with a number of samples of policies for board service on selected committees for your review so that then you can make some have some discussion points for a future policy determination sure so can I also ask that in the meantime until we get something solidified that we just agree that we will not sit on that's my question that's what Dr Campbell's asking that's do do we have consensus that that's the direction we're moving forward today will not sit on any committee that involves money that involves money and the only two that we can come up with white maybe you all sit on another committee that I don't have the committee list in front of me so but you all know the Committees you sit on but I think that I think that we we make the committee assignment and add committees or delete committees very informally as a board I mean that's been my personal experience of sitting as a board member so I don't think it's completely egregious of Dr Campbell to say let's informally make this decision collectively right now I don't know you know and it's probably because it's beyond the scope of these recommendations this was talking only about the situation that we currently find ourselves in I would like to make sure that this is met and followed first and then we can worry about other committees I would recommend that it just be for procurement purposes for right now for right now until we get together and come back together yes so if if that's the case then the recommendation three that we're continuing to look at Dr James will no longer be on a construction committee nor anyone board member there's not going to be okay right no board member no board member whatsoever on the construction committee nor will a board member serve on the insurance committee and if there are other those are procurement those are procurement and if there are other committees that you all serve on that of which neither of us because there's the only two we can come up with that if there are other committees that you all serve on that you can think of have to do with procurement of anything then speak now I guess but those are the only two that I can come up with right now that I'm fine with so in informally right now sure because I would also like to know you know we've had this is the first time that we've had a board member on the selection committee we've had a board member on the insurance committee since the beginning of time and based on what I've observed there has not been any issues at all um the service has been appreciated and and helpful um so I just don't want to put our put ourselves into a box you know no there's there's is the value adjustment board going to apply or not yeah there's plenty to do with money on value adjustment board but I have to serve on that that's legally required you know someone from the board does that was my point so that's a requirement and it does involve a lot of money so yes so that's going to have to be an exception to what we just stated right yeah and I'll point out that when we were talking about a board member being on any when we talk about any board member being placed on a committee one of the things that came up here was well can a board member serve on a procurement selection committee and at the time that decision was made there was nothing in our policy procedure or state law that prohibited it so there's I mean so long as so long as there's no violation of 218 we can't very well say to any board member who wishes to serve on a committee that thou shalt not unless our board policy or state law prohibit it and they don't exactly and and that's always been the Spirit of this board as I have served on it we've jumped in and served on all kinds in all kinds of ways because we're interested and engaged and you may limit yourselves more than statute already that's what I don't want to do if we can avoid it you know we're sitting here with a clear Direction so I think we need to take care of this today if if it gets the consensus through to add insurance for right now I guess I can get behind that but there just doesn't seem to be any justification for that one that I'm aware of maybe some of you are well chair I appreciate that the only reason I was going to do it is just for the consistency of what we're talking about today but to the point that you've made there has been a board member on that committee for at least five to six years of my knowledge and has never had any concern issue among the CFO Insurance risk management anyone else that a board member sat on that committee help actually board member helped get through self-funded Health Plan and have been able to continue that work so I I could go either way with how the board comes to consensus on whichever decision we want to make if we want to include the insurance Committee in this conversation the issue at hand clearly is based on construction and so I believe that we at least have consensus that we will not have a Schoolboard member sitting on the construction committee can we just yeah can we can we just go with that with construction and and let's move on on thank you for me all right we're there there okay all right uh Vice chair Conrad since you swung the bat first on questions we're moving on to number four okay all right recommen recommendation four uh strictly adhering to existing procedures I know you're tired of me saying it but it's hard to um know what the procedures are when they're not available to us so I'm just going to say that one more time and uh Miss Dobbins I'm going to apologize because I have kind of a list here for this one and so just um bear with me and again this probably um it doesn't fit exactly into this conversation but it is the best place I could find to ask the questions that I have and so in looking at our procedures I I want to know about our procedures for the direct purchase um when we are working through a project and do we have procedures for that process and how are those decisions made when we're going to do a direct purchase and when we're not going to do a direct purchase yes since that's getting into the weeds if you don't mind I'd like to ask our current interim director to come Fort Miss EV Von bmach to talk about direct purchases if you don't mind fantastic they're going to break you in today Miss bombach that's right good afternoon good afternoon um the direct purchase is a little bit more complicated it all depends on the funding as well um we issue a GMP a p o to the contractor that includes the entire project that includes that equipment that we're going to buy through a direct purchase so we issue a PO to the contractor to then be able to directly purchase the equipment we need to get that money back first so the contractor will have to issue a change order giving us that exact amount of money back sorry and um as soon as we get this change order processed that money frees back up in the project and at that point we issue then a purchase order and directly purchase the equipment and that will save us the um sales tax on that equipment so we try to do that on large amounts and I think in our policy we have I believe it's above $100 000 or 50,000 I'm not exactly sure but I can find that out so we don't do it on small amounts um just on large amounts where we do save a lot of money uh it's very cumbersome and involved for the contractor and for our department it might slow down the process because right now everything is on delay you know um equipment is hard to get in in Fast Times so so we try to Fast Track that up front early on um that's why we had for the elementary schools the early procurement um packages and there again the contractor gave us a GMP for the total amount of that package but then we're going through with the contractor through each item they give us the money back you see change orders coming through and then we can um order that equipment it's a slow process and sometimes it slows us down so we try to do that early on okay did we turn down doing direct purchase for one of our elementary schools no we are working through it right now okay can you tell me what that savings is going to be can you give me an estimate uh that number I don't have in in my head um we would have to go through and see um each item that we so far purchased or will purchase um that we have um how much uone you be safe on the sales tax okay all right I'd be interested in knowing what that number is and I'd also be interested to know if we have procedures in place for deciding when we're going to like is there a set number we say okay if we're going to reach $5,000 we are not going to do direct purchase yes but if we're going to reach $660,000 we are absolutely going to do direct purchase so I'm I'm just wondering if there is a procedure in place for for that step yes and you should see that uh uploaded on our portal it is in there I think it's under the construction one I forgot which number that was um but it's the dollar amount of the purchase we don't say the dollar amount of the savings okay thank you very much and is that on the SharePoint portal that's it's on our our website when you go to facilities website okay okay thank you very much okay um time timing of timing of purchase orders is my next question do we have a um specific timeline before our last meeting there was a a thread of emails that were shared with us and there was a delay in those purchase orders going through and so not being from construction I don't know what that looks like is that something that happens is that kind of common practice for for construction or is that something we need to improve on just because there's so many steps and we are missing people and we're not getting it done on time not not exactly if I if I can piece all of that together of what you're referring to so sometimes it's a learning curve on the firm's end of understanding our purchasing process and the information needed so in I think what you're referring to is in regards to one of the elementary schools actually it was both elementary schools we had a delay in issuing the purchase orders I want to remind the board that we had to wait for the loan the the certificate of participation to be in place so so sometimes when we received quotes too soon which quotes expire um we of course have to use current quotes and so that caused a little bit of delay once we had the account strings in place and so forth to have to go back and get those things but sometimes it's a learning curve on on both sides actually okay all right thank you you're welcome I just wasn't sure the protocol was for that all right um right I think I that's all I have for recommendation for anybody else okay Dr James thank you so based on this recommendation my request is going to be it says here in the update that the District staff agree that the facility procurement procedures need to be strictly adhered to and when the committee makes changes they are updated in the manual and on the web page immediately I want like to add whatever Redline changes are being made they need to be um put on a board meeting either for an information only item or in a work session I don't think that's too much to ask but we often see HR Redline items put onto board meetings for a vote maybe but if we're going to have Redline items changed with regard to procedures that may or may not adhere to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of projects I think they at least need to be on a board meeting under an information only item so that they're easily accessible to the community Madam chair if I may if you may recall when we first talked about the consultant report I said we provide an update today this is the first update so as the committee begins and convenes and makes recommendations those will come publicly to the board I think I think the best place to start is at a work session but those will be coming okay I'm just speaking specifically to this saying going forward changes will be it says specifically in this update they'll be in the manual and on the web page so what's left off there is in a public facing meeting so my request is that in addition to the two things mentioned here a public facing Workshop or board meeting is included I I did was able um I'll have to get Mr Christian to help me I was looking at the website and I saw the language part of the new website which the new website does look wonderful um unfortunately I only speak English and so I was playing around and changed my language to something that's not English and I can't figure out how to change it back now and I have cleared my cache or whatever it's called and I got nothing so I'm over here in another language so I went on my phone to pull it up um because I can't read the other language that's on my computer yeah well girl this is like an this isn't even comprend this is something else so page 11 of the procedures that are posted on the website I just want to confirm then to miss uh Vice chair Conrad's point so miss Dobbins you can conf confirm then that we have processed all direct purchase that are more than $5,000 for all projects in the last five years or just on the elementary schools or anything we've procured in the last couple years I couldn't give you that information on the spot I will say that sometimes because we have to uh move for the long delays in equipment that we foro direct purchases because we won't get the equipment in in time so there are situational things that would take us outside of that so I'll I just want to say as a as a board member who's elected to be the fiscal person who's responsible for the money I if that if we are going to not follow this procedure I want it to come before the board and I want the board to make the decision that we need to do that I don't want that Authority as we are the stewards of the money to go to anyone other than us because ultimately it is our job to protect protect the taxpayers dollar that's fine just understand it will delay projects significantly but we can do that should we uh think about adding a dollar amount because workflow really is important there's only 180 days in the school year we have kids coming every day that need things I do understand the the Fiscal Agent responsibility and I 100% agree but is there a a flow that can be put into place a procedure flow so that uh it doesn't create significant delays if there's one thing that I think we all hear complaints about is that how slow we are in things you know and but I don't want to lose that oversight but I also don't want to lose the flow so what's the solution Miss doin do we already have a threshold we do have a threshold in procedures but those are recommendation thresholds so in other words it's really a situational thing so in other words had we stuck to making every direct purchase on these two elementary schools we'd never have them open on August of 26 or excuse me 25 I I mean so it's it's a situational thing some especially in the global market of today and and I'll tell you you you have construction firms here in the audience if you don't want to hear from me please do ask them there are situations that if we don't act quickly we will not get the project done in time and and the elementary schools were one of those we were coupled with that and we were coupled with the fact that we as a a district were really hanging our hats on the impact fees being approved back in November remember and that impact fee got tangled up with other agencies and so because of that it delayed us moving forward with our certificate of participation which is funding all of this so we had the only chance we had to open these elementary schools early on was to take the early procurement packets and move forward without a direct person because we didn't have the money to do it mam chair yes sir I'm listening to this but I also don't want I also know that with delays Miss Dobbins you can help me with this with delays price increases with delays substantially um because right now I'm in a building project and because of some delays price is G up so we don't want to put road blocks in place but we do need to have some oversight some kind of way and I don't know where that that level is of thresholds of as as far as the amount but you have to have something where they can work you don't want to handcuff we don't want to handcuff our people so the superintendent has the authority to make decisions 50,000 and under is that is that the right number it is okay well I can get on board with any over um if time is the issue 50,000 50,000 are under and no direct purchase because of time sure I can get on board with that well to me that might be an arbitrary number it works for her maybe we need some direction as to whether it works for them well when you start tallying up 7% a number bigger than that I'm not okay with being a steward for our money if it takes longer I mean seven that's significant right so I don't not disputing that I don't think that time and money are the are two very valuable assets but we cannot just say oh well let's make it 250,000 well what is 7% of 250,000 a lot I don't I off the top of my head let me do it real quick but it's a lot and so I'm you know I'm sorry but I'm not okay with that I mean that's $177,000 here and here and here and here and here and all of a sudden it adds up and we we're at $100,000 so then what happen s if um there is a delay because getting it to us in a board meeting or whatever we're going to decide to do and with the way things keep going up now all of a sudden we've we've killed time and probably added some more money that's the only thing that I'm you know the real world implications of what you're asking and I think this board has shown that we are willing to meet every single week and we do meet every single week and I would be more than happy to throw a board meeting on to every single scheduled work session from here until timbuck two and we will have a placeholder so that at any time this board because we do meet every single week we have work sessions every other week and board meetings every other week so we could very easily add a board meeting to our scheduled work sessions and address any needs every single week which should should avoid any Hiccup and as we've been doing with uh approving construction contracts correct um but again you know I'm just not familiar enough with the timelines of things is is a week enough you know this board is not afraid to have a special meeting um you know we've proven that over and over but what would be what would be the recommendation um from your department if we were going to because we it's clear from the board that you know we want to be informed we want oversight uh we want the opportunity to be engaged in this process so I I think we have to clear up a couple of things because I'm getting mixed messages from the board because we can sit at one board member board meeting and we get criticized because we saved $180,000 because we went with someone second for one of our construction projects and then the comments are I don't care how much it costs we should have stuck with the first one but now you're telling me you want to get in the weeds you want us to then take the staff and come back to multiple meetings and do all the work of these direct purchases that ultimately will result in us not meeting the board's goal of opening schools so so I'll give you just a a simple example if we were to have to do that for the switch gears for the two elementary schools which was an early procurement purchase Which is far more than $50,000 and we decided that oh we have to go to the board and after that we wouldn't have switch gears we wouldn't be opening the elementary school so I don't know what the answer is for the board because i' I get mixed messages and I understand where you're coming from Barb um Miss Stans but we're also getting mixed messages because we're not getting all the information and so like in the example with the Middle School Wing if we had been briefed prior to that I as a board member didn't know that we couldn't go back to the first bid so I I'm just giving you an example of improving communication uh explaining and have specific meetings with board memb so you can walk us through this process so we can help you and and do a better job communicating what we need but as a board member I I agree with Dr James i i c i can't sit up here in this position and then interact with the community if we are throwing away hundreds of thousands of dollars that has to be visited and discussed um especially uh when we're on the verge of of asking for a half cent sales tax from this community if if we're asking for our community support in building these new schools and these new Wings then by golly we need to be watching every penny and I'm not saying that sometimes there's not an exception to the rule because we can't move forward but I would like to be part of that decision Madam chair may I um to Vice chair Conrad's point and I think Vice chair you said this before it appears and if the board uh would like a third th work session on the whole process implications what it means decision making is that what I hear yes ma'am so I think we we need to schedule that sooner than later might need to take an an additional work session to do that but I think that what I what I'm hearing are those questions pertaining to implications of decision-making that the board has and if the Board needs some additional training assistance we're happy to do that and we could do that at a work session in the meantime oh go ahead so I was just going to say and and I apologize again because that I was under the assumption that's kind of what we were doing today so like I said I'm throwing these questions in where I felt that they fit the best uh in trying to understand this particular process so we can move forward in a smooth and efficient way so so I feel like what I'm hearing is a work session you know a deep deep in detailed you know overview but then in the meantime with these direct purchases I think it's been helpful to have the information items on on the um School Board uh meeting agendas because that keeps us updated and at least do that in the meantime and then if there's something that's coming across that you know you really need it's a high dollar item you need to do a direct purchase I don't know if we could get contacted by somebody you know or there's certain things that whenever any of the rest of you have been chair or will be chair you know the chair has asked that question and is it okay to move forward you know yes or no for the good of the cause and and and that's what that's what we do um but I'm very much wanting to continue to put a lot of trust and and also not over regulate our staff to the point where they're paralyzed and then it looks like they're not doing their job because things aren't happening in in a timely manner so work session and then information item can we go with that for now and then if there's anything that is in your judgment something that we would really want to know um make us aware agreed and I just want to reiterate what Dr James says is I I feel that this board has been more the most accommodating we will meet at any time we meet at 7 in the morning we stay in the evening so if there is a need Miss Dobbins we will be here to help you get it done in a timely fashion I feel confident in saying that for the entire board because we all do our best to be here for every every single meeting and so I just I share that for the public to know um we're we're not afraid to meet Miss Conrad I appreciate that and and the sport has always been over to do that but I do hope you understand the amount of work that gets put on the department because of us getting into the weeds of things and and we'll do it we'll we'll do another work session and we'll prepare and if the board decides or the committee that looks at all these procedures decides that we're going to do this or that we're going to do this and that even if it's more work so I appreciate M doin you helping us get through the process absolutely okay um number five re-evaluating scoring criteria and weight distribution um that's a heavy heavy topic because um there's been some discussion on the local preference and we've had examples I know that it was shared there's a a Manatee County example um that has been shared um we've had examples from Miami Dade and so I just want to know what that process looks like our um you know we're working through this process right now with this high school but there's more to come and so I want to feel 100% certain going forward that we are going to re-evaluate this scoring and evaluation criteria and so I I need to know you know I see the comment here District staff agree and the facility procurement procedures committee should include a diverse group of stakeholders yada yada yada all of those things but can that be done before we do my question is can that be done before we start another construction process including the high school or excluding the high school for the next project can we evaluate um and and look at a different way of addressing the local preference in our scoring process because I I've been asking that question since day one and I've not been given any sort of Def definite answer and so I need a definite answer that we are that I can feel confident about moving forward that we're not just going to keep doing the same old same old that we are going to take a serious dive into this scoring process and how we can make it um suit the needs of maring County so as stated before we have not moved forward with any selection process over $4 million which requ re Ires these procedures we are waiting for the committee to convene and review everything before we move forward with the exception of what we discussed last week is possibly the high school I I will add to that we honestly need to talk about the Liberty school middle school Wing as well but today later on we're talking about the high school and do we do an exception of that so to your point we have said we're not moving forward with any of these selections but once we so as of right now there is a presentation on August 22nd of the 5-year plan and in that it was going to be the 15-year plan so to Dr Campbell earlier we really need to know what we're doing the next what what are our needs especially ahead of the sales tax I haven't been able to get to that 15-year plan because of all of this that's going on but I I continue to work tiously on that so does the staff so so with that once we have the meeting August 22nd and I'm just going to talk about The Five-Year Plan for right now which it the board has to approve in September because it's due to the state in October once we approve that Five-Year Plan and essentially what you're solidifying is that the upcoming school year none of the projects in the upcoming school year will be able to be moved forward until we put a process in place since we do not want to use the current process so we're most likely going to see a significant delay in projects that are over 4 million HVAC Roofing um wellwater and things like that that's on that Five-Year Plan also Middle School DD which is re replacement for lakee Middle School we're set to have those schematics back um for the company to go price for gmps in November so we really should have the construction manager of that School in place by November so it's really about how quickly the staff myself can move in through this committee and and get it going okay I feel confident since we have several good examples in my opinion to to follow and um replicate or adjust that it's it's not going to take us too terribly long so I I have hope and I I feel hopeful because um of course I want our students and our staff uh in these buildings just as much as anyone else and I think we can get it done faster than what's listed in our PowerPoint here I think it can get done pleas sure go ahead um two questions who is in charge of selecting the diverse group of stakeholders so that will be vetted up through the superintendent once we have that Committee just like we did the task force for growth in Maring County so I know that Dr G is the ultimate decision maker as she is everything in Maring County but who was in charge of the process of selecting the diverse group of stakeholders we'll have to get together and look at making recommendations I do have a current uh task force um one of the items that I was going to do is is consult with them because I put them in place for a reason and then we'll come up with a list and share with the board okay so the board will be briefed on who is on the the group yes okay and do we have an expected um an anticipated timeline after today's um session and updates of our plans with any change from the board and Direction uh we will we will gather and and start on this next week Ki when mam chair go ahead um both reports stated that that the scoring criteria and all that stuff was okay in the past whatever we understand that nothing nothing was wrong but we all need to agree that it it needs to be updated and you guys keep telling us that you're going to update it so we're we just keep talking in circles you guys have already said what your update is going to be that it's going to be upgraded and we're going to look at again we need to keep moving on and stop getting stuck so or member Campbell um I agree that I believe we can we can move forward I I was trying to look and see when actually the state statute 287.00 five5 went into effect I was just curious how that dates differently because obviously the what we've justed here has the former superintendent from Miami Dade so this is a little bit outdated as well and I was just trying to just to to make sure we're covering all the bases and that the procedures that we are referencing from other Counties have been updated to be a part of current Florida statute so as long as uh what we're talking about today still aligns with current Florida statute uh that was just adopted and approved then I think we can move forward with potentially updating scoring criteria if that is what the committee deems is something we need to do I think all these recommendations are based on who this facility procurement procedures committee becomes and what their recommendations are and as Reverend Cummings just stated we have two independent investigators that say our scoring criteria is okay um I I've heard a board member maybe more than one mention that they don't like our current criteria because they want to change how local preference is considered and I'm ready to hear how the facility procurement procedures committee recommends we look at that moving forward I agree with that y yes Lee County comes to mind that was another one um that seemed to be in play that has some good procedures um the board I believe would like to see the uh scoring criteria PRI prioritized um you know there's been a lot of conversation about local preference and none of us look good in Stripes um we want this to be as legally defensible as the one we have right now but we care deeply about making sure that the work is distributed equitably and I think I saw in an email somewhere you know all things being equal um referenced uh you know uh getting our our local folks work especially when it comes to the subcontractors and so on so am am I correct is that a correct summary okay so you know that can be a little bit of a Guiding Light there um and and quite a few of these recommendations you've already are putting things into place you know with K of silence and so on so maybe even prioritizing the recommendations based on what that you're hearing from this board so that we can keep moving with these schools yes absolutely I mean I think that's the ultimate goal that we that we keep this train on the track and we we move along um the only thing that I I will note there is we just had the board approve our new list of contractors that we can go from over the course of the next year I I think that as we continue building projects in this community and we're hopeful that we will be continuing to build quite a bit for replacement and and new construction maintenance and maintenance um the bonding amounts on some of these local contractors I hope the board took note of what that actually looks like because that may ultimately limit us and and so that that's not something that's going to change so I just want to make sure that that was highlighted because um that was just approved and so the public can go and see what those amounts are right and everybody you know talks about how they like competition till they have it and we are tasked up here with being the most fiscally responsible that that is on us so I I need to emphasize that we need to make sure that we continue to pick the folks that are the best match for the job and are I will just say it board very ambitious timelines you know and they have to have the the scope and the crew and the Readiness and the ability and all the things I'm sure I don't know about to get it done and so yeah all right um anything else on recommendation five all right on to six three more we're making our way yes we are consider the use of specialized staff uh and neutral staff for procurement uh I do not have a lot of notes on this slide except for what would the list of qualifications be for this position um and would we consider um doing something on consult I don't have anything in particular either but I would Rec I I would second that I think that as we get into some of these more specialized Fields if we feel like our own procurement department is maxed out or filled then why are we we outsourc a lot of stuff to meet the unique needs of our district we outsourc to specialized attorneys we Outsource to uh speech and language Pathologists and I mean the list goes on and on so um I would certainly be a board member that would be interested in considering doing this on consult and finding a third party to Simply run our procurement process for projects over $4 million Cummings agree uh the way I read this recommendation is actually moving this whole process out of facilities and that that's what I I think this recommendation says and so I'm I'm open to seeing what the staff recommends once you it says District staff is exploring the possibility of reallocating and actually moving this to purchasing um our procurement Department under Mr Collins has done a fine job and a lot of our investigative reports showed that they already have processes in place that were different than what we've seen in facilities and so I'm interested in exploring that I've had a few community members reach out to me to ask that question to see if that was something that we were considering doing and so it does State here that you're at least exploring it and I would entertain what you determine I agree you know we got to have the right Army for the war so bring it to us and we'll go Miss was that your vision uh yes as it states we're exploring it both internally but you've added the consultant consideration that we will also explore as well okay just because I know I know you're down a few people in your department and so and our work is workload is picked up so that was the reason for that recommendation you getting getting you the relief and the support that you need so that we can continue with our ambitious timelines all right anything else on six all right we're getting there number seven changes to the selection evaluation process um actually miss Dobbin you can help me uh with this one I didn't think this really was appropriate for us because we we didn't have that many people that qualify is that correct or did I misunder understand asking it's the talking about is the number of selection committee members you have so if you have seven selection committee members you would throw out the highest score of one of the committee members and the lowest score making five of them only tabulate it okay thank you I did misunderstand what what you were sharing okay so thank you for that that's all I had okay anybody else I would just ask again if that's going to be a decision that that come before the board before that becomes an established procedure of the district as Dr gullet has mentioned a couple of times once we have the committee recommendations we'll be back to the board with those committee recommendations okay yeah that's what I see here the facility procurement procedures committee will take this recommendation into consideration and bring it bring it back to us it doesn't say that last part that's why I'm just confirming that that is in fact believe that is a fact all right anything else nope not for six or seven that was seven that was seven yes yes not for seven okay number eight eight revise School Board policies uh 63 20 6322 6324 6330 um establishing policy for Code of Silence construction related Professional Service um the only note that I had here which I know you're you're tired of me reiterating this is that we add great that we add not just policy that we add procedure that we are updating and revising these on a regular basis that we are reviewing our procedures annually just like we do our policies usually during the summertime at least since I've been a member of this board um we we select some we feel the most are important and review them and so I would like to see that happen with our procedures I agree I'd like to see this happen with our policies too you know all the good work that's going into this and that will be going into this let's get these policies tight and then set and then board approved and move on and if if we have to have a special meeting to do it I know uh board member Campbell will be happy to take the lead on it with my tabs and my highlighters that's right you get it girl but but as as we're aware the policy needs to predate the procedure so if we are updating all of these policies which I also concur with we don't need to have the procedure come first that's correct correct I agree but coming yes sure absolutely prioritizing these and I'm sure there's going to be other ones that we're going to be told need to be prioritized as well but for for these purposes we really do need to keep this moving okay anything else good everybody's good down there all right all right recommend we're on nine recommendation number nine woohoo Implement and develop a strong debarment policy and so as I read through that um it says that the District staff agrees I just go back really to where this conversation started that we as a district have to improve the way that we are disseminating information make sure that everybody is on the same page exposed to the same information um and Miss Dobbin has already shared she's got a release form and I I'm okay as long as we do a better job of well if we're going to it makes sense to me if we're going to share you know what the expectations are then you share what the consequences are for not uh you know for not uh complying with the expectations and that seems to be from the research I've done very typical agree um and other counties anyone else I completely concur with needing a department policy that we don't have one is our mistake okay number 10 consider adopting a small business Enterprise policy all right I miss Dobbins will you share on that because it says that you are considering um this so we are considering it in the committee and we are seeking clarification on this as well because this is new to us so we currently have where we're required by Statute to provide um additional waiting for minority and women based Enterprises so this one is a different um vein of achieving that along with local business so I I'm not um yet up to speed on this what this one looks like but it will go to the committee for consideration okay and so can get updated on that as you bring as you everything that comes from the committee will be thank you ma'am okay and then the last one was um moving down to the end yeah the recommendations from the investigative report which we've reviewed most of them yes the Kona silence acknowledgement form is there anything else in here that any board member sees that we need to further discuss it's been explained to us I feel like multiple times CH I wonder and this is just a question for your guidance though would you recommend that we have public comment on that portion of our meeting and then move forward with the slid 17 through 23 absolutely because we split it up are we so are we through it slide 14 yes we are something on okay well then we still have to talk about the options for the new high school CCC but we've talked about 15 slides here so I think it would be good to take some public comment on SL 14 oh yes go ahead sir okay I all these recommendations on slide 14 are excellent I would just like there to be another component added to number one that not just be audio recorded but it be video recorded as well miss day and age of YouTube I think we need to be up why not updated yep I'm fully for that unless anyone can think of a reason attorney Powers if we shouldn't if you're having a bad hair day oh well no audio Andor video is fine I think video sometimes provides the uh additional Clarity when perhaps a speaker speaker hasn't identified themselves or you know you can sift through a whole transcript and not know who's talking or whether some you know comment came from from a particular person right that's fine now it may it's going to require of course that there there would be a little additional attention to detail paid camera placement and things like that so right but you know there was a time when I don't even think our work sessions were recorded at all and then they were and then you had to ask for the CD if you wanted to hear it and uh this board um has made it our business um to make sure that we are very transparent we are on YouTube which is so easy for anyone to see for the rest of time and um I think we should do the same with this so as long as the rest of the board concurs thank you all right I will say that of agencies uh and and governments within um probably several counties I've found that our accessibility to be able to view what's happened during a work session meeting during a um during during a a board meeting uh is far superior to um almost any other municipal government local government or even many other school boards so people can actually go on and very you in a very user friendly way identify exactly what came up with a very quick search it doesn't take becoming an expert on the website and trying to figure out exactly how to get to you know three different levels of stuff and then only be able to view it after it's already transpired you know it's so yep something for this board and District to be proud of all right well that wraps up all of the slides so is there any public comment thank you Miss Dobbins very very much yes thank you Miss Dobbins hello M Slaughter um with regards to what the I would ask the board to please not vote on contracts and no offense to the of you but you are elected politicians okay there is too much money involved and too much political threats to you as a board involved if you don't pick somebody that's from here who has a bunch of money and if the report didn't show you that I don't know what could I don't want you guys called at your house I don't want your spouses called at your house I don't want you threatened that if you don't pick me as your contractor I'm going to do everything I can to make sure you're not sitting on the board the next time you're up for reelection I mean it you cannot allow people to do that and you I mean I see it with the president I see it with the elections that we're going on right now political donors are trying to to dictate who the Democrats run as their president why because they've got the money and if you let people with money control what is going on when you're talking about millions and millions of dollars you as a board that are elected that rely on people to donate to your campaign and work with you on your campaign campaign I would suggest do never put yourself in a situation where you're voting on millions and millions of dollars because your polit you your integrity is going to be jeopardized people are going to be talked to threats are going to be made candidates are going to be put up against you if you don't pick their person don't put yourself in that situation let people that have are working for the state have don't have any ambition to run for public office let them make the decisions because that's the best way to keep our money protected quite frankly thank you thank you m SL is there any other public comment David Tilman good afternoon David Tillman umno president of the Maran County building industry Association and I'll stress it's the building industry Association not just the home builders so we do represent all the builders um in our community um you I I kind of prepared something but I'll have a few final kind of wrapup statements in if that's okay at the last me Mr tman may I encourage you to move the microphone a little closer to you thank you so everyone thank you um so at the last meeting it was said uh um only one person cares about this issue I'm here today to let you know I had a multitude of people reach out to me and ask that we' be here represented um to talk about about this issue um and so I'm representing the building industry industry to say that we do care we are paying attention to what is happening and we want to be part of the solution um it's apparent that the school board and the public did not know the selection policies and the continued changes in these policies we believe the school board should have a direct hand in setting this policy for the future we also know the importance of local vendor participation you asked local vendors to support tax initiatives you put put it on that you put on the ballot and we ask for your support as well the policy adopted should not penalize an experienced local Builder like Coulson Wright or Oley construction because they use additional local vendors and that generates local spending which benefits all of us including the up upcoming School sales tax if it's passed I want to remind the school board that there is a citizen Advisory board that um Dr gullet did mention earlier um who is in place and well qualified to help establish a selection process please use them and please use your procurement Department in the future for for this this type of process and always follow Florida statute 120 um I'll end with a thank you that you know I want to say thank you to Dr Sarah James for bringing this issue forward thank you to superintendent gullet for making um some very much needed staff changes and starting the change of this policy and thank you to the board members for listening to your community and making a better policy which benefits the community as a whole some of the things that were talked about today that I'd just like to comment on is that the current two-point penalty I look at it as a penalty for anybody local or anybody that's done business with you and if you've done business with somebody even if they're out of town and they've done a great job it's a two-point penalty against them as well that's 15% of the scoring criteria and it has a look back of 10 years I don't believe there's another another school board that has a 10year look back that they add that number up it's typically current contracts that are in that are that they have open at that time when they're looking at the amount of contracts that are had and it's a fairly small amount that we've got in place too you know the $15 million when you that's One Wing when you're looking at the projects y'all got open right now Orange County has awarded $315 million to one contractor over the past six years and complied with the statute that keeps getting mentioned over and over about Distributing work so it's certainly not not wrong to consider the equitable distribution but right now it's being considered very inappropriately to the point that I believe that it could be challenged as a Restraint of trade so please get rid of that two-point penalty and if you're if it's going to be two points as it was mentioned earlier it should be a 150 point system if you're going to make a two-point penalty it shouldn't be a 15 point 15o system where it's 15% of the of of your final grade basically time is expired all right well thank you again and I I did want to point out that the scoring information at the end of these should be available to everyone this is this is um your government entity you have to provide all of that information to anyone that ask for it and if it's even if it's a competitor scoring I'm I can go in and ask for another engineer scoring um whenever they've been graded so I can look and see what they've done differently than what I've done so that that should be available publicly thank you very much for your time I appreciate it thank you is there any other public comment good afternoon sir good afternoon Madam chair superintendent board members uh Kevin chiley with youra Metro chamber and economic partnership I I want to thank you for your great robust discussion today as always I thank you for your continuing partnership uh a successful Community has great schools and that's what we all want we want to have a successful community that has great schools and we continue to be committed to partnering with you on that I appreciate uh Dr gull's leadership and moving forward with the committee obviously we think that's something that's very very important in our industry we talk all the time about R&D uh rip off and duplicate uh why create something brand new when someone else is already doing it what can we take from what they've what they're doing doing well and take that and use that for our own and so I would certainly hope that the committee will look we've reviewed U probably a dozen counties processes interestingly they're all completely different um it is fascinating that in our state that there are so many different ways but there's some really good systems uh and I would encourage you to look at that as as how I would think other communities are working more similarly uh when it comes to both equitable distribution and to local preference I think there's some great opportunity there I think expanding the scores um most of those places 100 to 150 points they awarding I think that becomes very important but continue to think how you engage the community uh we are all in this together uh it is the public schools it is the schools of our community and we want to continue to work with you to help you be successful because again your success uh reflects back and becomes the success of our community thank you for what you do thank you for your service uh and we look forward to continuing to work with you thank you sir thank you Mr jie all right moving on to unless there's any other public comment all right seeing none we will move on to options for new high school CCC and I think Miss doin is going to walk us through reviewing our options that were presented to us a couple weeks ago so as we discussed previously three options option A B and C were discussed at a a recent meeting I'm going to actually slide past this one because I'm going to break down each one of them verbally and also with a with a visual so when we talk about option A what we're talking about is if we move forward with posting an RFQ of course it it wouldn't be this week but it would be next week using the same scoring criteria and using the same procedures that we had discussed about when we were going into the second interview for the high school so audio recording it having an all of those uh non a moderator that's not voting and and so forth but same criteria same scoring same everything then we could potentially move forward and have a possible partial opening in 2627 as you can see those yellow areas would be areas that we most certainly do not feel that could be um ready for the start of the school year which would mean Athletics would have to be uh diverted no gym no locker rooms which would impact PE and most certainly no Auditorium you would also have a lot of work going on while students were on campus so so again just to to reiterate uh option A it would be moved to an RFQ using the same scoring uh criteria previously used with the um modifications of audio recording independent uh non-scoring moderator um and and having it done outside of facilities over in our procurement Department our purchasing department with a whole new committee option b is to proceed with what the selection committee um came up with their recommendation and that would be to move forward after this meeting with the approval of Wharton Smith as the construction management for the new high school this would give us the best chance for a probable opening in 2627 um all things perfect um we would hope to have the entire school open possibly option C would be to delay everything until we have the whole committee review every procedure and get the new procedures in place and most certainly none of the school would be available to be open um in 26 and we would look to open in 2728 so to line them up side by side a post the RFQ just like we did the interviews with the scoring and criteria B accept whon Smith see wait until the committee determines the procedures thank you m doin Dr b no thank you uh thank you Miss Dobbins for the review um board we're just we look for your um guidance and your feedback on this direction okay all right um I'm going to start because my uh it's not typical but my opinion hasn't changed I think there's every justification for moving forward with option b it's the only option that makes sense to me so that's where I am I'm all B all in do I have it now yes thank you um thank you Miss Dobbins and thank you superintendent this is what I asked for um I think if we had this a couple weeks ago my decision would have been made prior I need to see things visually and want to see it um upfront and have opportunity to review it I too concur with the chair that option b is the best plan I would not like to see construction going on while we got students on on grounds um that presents itself to be a safety issue so I'm in agreement with option b as well okay any other comments from the board um sure I am struggling um I can agree I can compromise on option b but I am hesitant because I am afraid if we approve that we are going to see a delay in the changing of the scoring process is what which is what I'm asking for as a board member um so I need some sort of promise or public statement that moving forward we are going to aggressively look at working on bringing our scoring process up to date I'll be happy to answer that so as my words of last time which were very passionate we cannot afford to delay we just can't afford to delay so whether it's with the high school or the Liberty Middle School Wing or all the projects we're about to propose for the next school year we've got to get this process in place we have to that's our work that's our job so from this individual here I'll continue to work tirelessly until I'm not so my effort is for the kids this whole thing this whole thing if we go back to the core of this issue on April 24th the whole issue was over local preference local preference for a company that we would have possibly employed for 10 individuals in that company but we have stopped the work for 10 individuals who didn't get the job when we have subcontractors that are the true local businesses that are suffering because we're not moving for it so to those local subcontractors but more importantly to our students this individual will work tiously still to get these processes in place so we can move forward not just with the high school but with all the HVAC all the roofs all the other things we need and also be able to demonstrate to this community our need for a half cent sales stack so we can continue to make a better place for our students and Miss doin I I don't doubt for a minute um your commitment and your effort um to the students of Maran County um but my question was was not about getting the school done timely my question was how strong of a commitment is there to evaluate and move forward on the scoring process I I don't know how I could say it any more passionately I'd like to all I want sounds like if I may if I may if I may I'd like to answer um very chair Conrad I've already and I typically don't email during the work sessions but I already sent an email um this Miss dobins will see later in attorney Blackman to um to the point of saying by first of next week I want dates sent out to my task force so that's already been sent why we've been sitting here that's my expect expectation that we get dates out first of next week it's already it's already been sent and um we were moving forward there are two pieces here we've already covered the first that is my expectation we are going to move forward expeditiously with that thank you very much I appreciate the specific um answer you're very welcome thank you Vice chair Conrad um I too share that sense of of urgency and I felt like that's what I heard and what we had but we now have a direct clarifying statement and the the ball is rolling so good um I'm sorry board member Cummings I think I might have interrupted you no no no I was just saying that I think what uh Vice chair comrade was asking for was some insurances and I I I heard it in the presentation the insurances but I think you wanted build out specifically I did thank you for member James I I don't really have a whole lot of comments on it whenever I've recused myself previously I've just simply said I support the work of the committee um so I don't I don't really think it's super appropriate for me to go into detail as to which option presented here I want what I wanted was this to come before the board in a workshop because I didn't like the onth cuff presentation at the board meeting and I wanted the community to have an opportunity to share their thoughts which is what's accomplished today all right board member Campbell sounds like we have consensus does that conclude your feedback concludes my feedback all right very good well thank you thank everybody um is there any public comment hello David Tilman again Maran County building industry Association I get didn't get my address last time 3301 Southeast 41st Place of Cali Florida 34480 um I don't want anything that I said previously to be misconstrued as us crying over spilled milk option b needs I feel like needs to be selected and we need to move forward but I appreciate your concern Miss Conor absolutely we need to press forward we do not want to see another project come through with the existing criteria um that is in place so we you know we understand the importance of the timeliness of this school um and we're not our industry does not want to stand in the way of that in any way whatsoever so we certainly support y'all in your selection of option b um and just want to make sure we said that publicly so thank all of you thank you sir Miss Slaughter she's standing and I wasn't sure if she was stretching her on her way thankfully thankfully what we'll do for kids I know I know um everybody that I've talked to wants option b voted on today if possible please um because of the overcrowding in the schools and I appreciate everybody's wanting to do things the right way but we need the school build now thank you thank you thank you ma'am any other public comment ha out of the Mr Shey thank you madam chair Kevin Shey C Metro CP 310 Southeast Third Street I'll be brief we've already sent you a letter our executive committee uh has unanimously endorsed option b we encourage you thank you for your discussion again thank you Vice chair Conrad uh and we look forward to continue to work together thank you thank you any further public comment hearing none I think we've reached the end of our work session all right so we can save our board comments till after our special board meeting all right all right so we will go ahead and adjourn now um thank you everyone and we are adjourning at 220 p.m. all [Music] right e e e for