e e e e e e e e e e e e good I will now call the regular school board meeting to order at 5:00 P p.m. Mrs Sinclair please call the rooll district one Barbara mcquin here District Two Alexandria Ayala here District District three Karen bur here District Four Erica Whitfield here District Five Frank barbier here District Six Marsha Andrews here um district 7 Edwin Ferguson is absent tonight also joining us is superintendent Michael Burke general counsel Shan Bernard Inspector General Teresa Michael board Clerk and board clerk Tony Sinclair senior member staff members will join us periodically as directed by the superintendent tonight the national anthem will be performed by the Santa lus Community High School singing Chiefs would everyone please stand for the pledge of allegiance to be led by Mrs Whitfield followed by the national anthem aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with libery and justice for all see by the's early light so proud We at the Twilight last GLE by stripes and bright stars the fight or the r we streaming and the rocket red GL the B bursting in a pro through the night that our flag was still there starled W for the land of the free and the whole of the [Music] [Applause] viewers and listeners can access the meeting today by either watching on Comcast channels 234 and 235 Erse channel99 or by using the YouTube link on our web page page at Palm Beach schools.org in the event that the link is interrupted for technical reasons please switch over to the TV channels all board meetings are recorded in their entirety and posted on the school district website within 24 hours we also offer a listening only option which the public can access by calling 561 357 5900 or toll-free at 1866 930 7015 the meeting ID is 156 61880 11124 pound we do not have any minutes this this tonight to approve um we have I have two items to add for good cause first one is bd1 alternative appointment to Value adjustment board good cause exists for adding this item to the agenda at this time the value adjustment board VAB meeting is scheduled for March 14th 2024 since there are 39 Recon consideration positions the meeting has been scheduled for the entire business day the meeting cannot be cancelled and the VAB final certification is March 28 and must be submitted by March 31 2024 Florida statute 94.0 one5 requires that a school board member be present for a quorum of the board to exist the board member appointed to the committee is unable to attend for the entire day and the district was informed of this on March 13th further on March 13th the district learned that the two Al alternates appointed by the board for the VAB are also unable to attend for the entire meeting accordingly another member of the School Board needs to be present for bab to VAB to conduct its business and Frank Barbieri who was formerly appointed to the board to of by the board to VAB is available for the entire day and is willing to represent the school board at this particular meeting thus he needs to be appointed OED by the board if the board is agreeable the second item that's been added for good cause is PT Personnel addendum good cause exists for adding this item so that employees can begin in their new positions as soon as possible Mr superintendent do you have any items to withdraw no Madam chair board members do you have any items to pull seeing none we will review and approve the agenda I may have a motion Mr Barbieri made the motion seconded by Mrs Whitfield all any discussion all in favor all opposed motion carries unanimously with six board members present any discuss disclosures or abstentions seeing none Mr superintendent you have some comments for us tonight yes I do thanks uh so we recently held our annual academic challenge this is a a competition where each High School Fields a team and they come in and kind of like in a Jeopardy fashion they get ask some pretty difficult questions on a wide range of subjects from you know mathematical calculations to musical notes to All Kinds of uh hard to know facts and I want to congratulate our uh sharks down there at Spanish River High School they are the 2024 academic challenge winner so good job principal castalano and way to go sharks and you got a picture there hoisting the tro trophy there it is all right the uh also down south I want to congratulate the book rone boys soccer team they are the 7A state champs they have won the state championship five times in their history and uh there they are celebrating again hoisting the hardware so Boke is doing pretty well this month Mr Barbary and uh the Bobcats went undefeated this year with 24 wins and two ties and zero losses so great season there and then I also just want to recognize that March is women's history month and this is our time to celebrate the achievements and contrib contributions of women both broadly throughout history but more specifically right here at home and even closer to home right here in our school Palm Beach County we have 17,33 to Dedicated women that help us run this district and that is 76% of our total 22,800 employee Workforce so anybody who's working here knows that this nothing happens without dedicated women and they're doing the The Lion Share the work and uh you know the same could be said for this board where we have five of our school board members are women so anyway we're happy to celebrate the recognition of March women's History Month uh also want to congratulate March is a big month for Schoolboard member birthdays and uh we've got two Pisces and two Aries so I'll start with the Pisces which is like in the first half of March and that's Mr Frank Barbary and Miss Alexandria AA happy birthday and then uh to represent the Aries we have Miss Erica Whitfield and Miss Mara Andrew so happy birthday and I'm also excited to announce a new member of our team Palm Beach and that is Mr Shan our chief of strategic strategic Communications and engagement there's Sean in the back se's got the right color tie on for St Patrick's Day will be here Sunday but Mr Coy would you like to say a few words yes thank you Mr superintendent Madame chair Madame Vice chair School Board member superintendent just want to say what an incredible honor it is to join team Palm Beach I'm really looking forward to uh advancing our our priorities and telling the great stories about the wonderful options our schools have across the county so thank you very much thank you Mr coie Madam chair that concludes my comments thank you Mr superintendent Mella thank you madam chair um I'd like to Echo some sentiments happy women's history month and belated International women's day I'd like to thank um County Commissioner Michael Barnett who recognized uh Susie Diaz our councilwoman from greenacre City Council myself last week at the County commission for working together as a team and recognizing the representation that does matter to show young women and girls that they belong all places where decisions are being made I'd like to Echo the welcome of our new chief of communications and strategic engagement Sean kie um I'm so excited to have you on the team um your resume speaks for itself and we are very fortunate to have you join us at this very pivotal time so welcome I look forward to working with you and to working together for the betterment of our district and finally we have a little video that's going to play about our Windbrook Wildcats and their exciting transformation we're so excited there's words cannot express how long we've waited for this it's a big day I'm really excited to break ground here to build the new Windbrook Elementary School this is one of our oldest schools so it is long overdue for some Renovations and it's also a community school so so many of these students a large majority walk here it's a really tight Community feel of progress of the future and of the excitement of having a brand new space to call home so it's 58 years old it's time to give it a brand new fresh campus with new building state-of-the-art facilities technology security all the good things that we're able to do now to me this is about showing students that no matter what your ZIP code is where you come from you are here we love you we want to give you the absolute best possible education and that includes the facility that you're in we're a wonderful Community we had parents here today students um teachers staff and also Mr Peg is here and my admin team is here with me as well so for everyone here uh we we're so excited there words cannot express how long we've waited for this and I have to thank the taxpayers for their support of the penny sales tax it's thanks to them that we'll be able to fund projects like this and continue to making sure that our Capital Improvements are happening at a rate that's appropriate for what students deserve it so we're very excited about that and um I'd like to thank everyone involved in that project our partners at Hedrick Brothers Cooper construction Harvard Jolly as well as principal Barry and um her entire team who is ready for this new change thank you madam chair thank you Miss aella Mrs Whitfield thank you very much um I just wanted to take very very brief amount of time to talk about um a an event that I went to on uh Friday I just want to say a huge thank you to Kimberly kums um we went to the lak the V at Lakeside um this is a organization and a group I go visit frequently but it was so nice to have her common to speak about our Holocaust Education I feel like I learned so much from the work that she's doing and I'm just very proud of the work that this district is doing around Holocaust Education and the work specifically of Miss kums um to get out into all the schools and one thing I learned at that um at that event that I didn't realize is that we're the only District in the country who has a full-time Holocaust educator so that to me just really shows the dedication of this District and the work that is being done so huge thank you to her for coming and speaking to our um folks over there at the Viet Lakeside um also I want to extend my uh heartfelt congratulations and welcome to Mr Sean kulie I am absolutely thrilled I think this is going to be just a really amazing addition to our our team here I've been really excited since I heard he was going to come um and so I uh I'm really welcoming you and I hope it it's just is everything that you were hoping it was going to be um and I love that you're contributing to the district that your boys are going to be going too soon so that makes me really happy uh finally it is spring break coming up and I just want to say everyone please be safe enjoy I know our staff and our students are really exhausted it's been a long few months since we've had a real solid break so I hope everyone enjoys themselves and comes back to us safe and sound in a week thank you so much happy spring break thank you Mrs Whitfield Mr Barbary well since the superintendent stole my thunder sorry about that I'm usually one that brags about the Boer schools Mr superintendent that U but anyway I want to also congratulate the the sharks at Spanish River and the Bobcats Boon for a great job and I'm always proud of those teams down there they do a great job I also want to recognize principal katano of West bokeh um he he woke up this morning with a very difficult situation uh fpnl didn't show up in the middle of the night when they were supposed to there was a fire there yesterday that put out the lights and when he got there this morning there was no electricity there's no air conditioning there were no computers uh there there was no way for the cafeteria to bake any foods or cook any foods for the kids and he was able to keep 2500 kids I think a lot of them left during the day but a lot of them there all day long because obviously we couldn't just send them home without notice to their parents he was able to make sure that everything went well in a school that had no power or anything today while the Auditors from the state were also there auditing um everything that was happening at that school so uh congratulations Mr capiton we have great principles in this district and he's one of them thank you Mr Barbary Miss Andrews thank you and good afternoon to everyone I would like to say a picture is worth a thousand words so you will see some pictures across the screen but I'd like to tell you what I've been doing over the last few days but I want to say first of all I'm looking out in the audience and I think I have HCA healthc care in the in the building today and I want to thank HCA uh Palms West I have the opportunity of being on the Board of Trustees for HCA Palms West but but I just know that HCA at JFK North HCA at uh the main campus on Congress you do so much to keep our families healthy and safe but most of all you're a great business partner with the school district of Palm Beach County and I know you're going to be recognized but I had to say personally thank you for all the work that you do for our kids for our schools for our staff our community thank you so much and on just last Saturday we had the annual uh 43rd annual Glades uh Festival afro Arts you'll probably see some pictures all of the children from The Glades I think were out there on Saturday I mean we had the bands we had a parade uh just those uh students reciting uh presentations about what they feel education means to them they had dancers I mean the children performed for about 3 to four hours of intense excitement about talking about their history and the belglade Elementary School go Elementary School Glade View Glade Central the whole works Crossroads I may miss a group Pioneer Park they were all there and it was exciting and thank you for the city of belglade uh for always performing with the afro Arts Festival The Zeta F Beta sorority you do it every year it's awesome last night I had an opportunity to be in Wellington it was kind of Bittersweet for me because you know we're losing several of the council members from Wellington and I want to thank personally and professionally tonight uh to the mayor mayor an gerwick you have been the mayor for so many years in the Village of Wellington your leadership has been outstanding vice mayor Michael napalone you have been awesome I saw how people hugged and kissed you last night and felt like you had led in so many great ways and then uh councilman Michael Dre hos you are so awesome all of you will be missed the school District of Palm Beach County thanks the Village of Wellington because you put your money where your mouth is when it relates to our children's academic achievement we love you we thank you you're awesome and lastly I want to say that I had an opportunity to be with our chief of wellness and Equity Mr Keith oswal I mean I want to thank you Mr Oswald sometimes we don't know the beauty of great people sitting right in front of us but I do know that Palm Beach County School District has great leadership and Mr oswal I want to thank thank you from the bottom of my heart for pulling together all of the leaders that help our children with mental health as it relates to the Juvenile Justice System we have to keep our kids out of prison so we had people from the Sheriff's Office the judges the lawyers all of the health agencies the mental health agencies coming together and it was called Juvenile Justice critical intervention mapping training so that we can work together to save our children we don't want anyone to to go to prison and be locked up in jail certainly not adults or children but you lead this work Mr oswal and I'm so excited and proud that the school district of Palm Beach County took the lead and had that Palm Beach State College auditorium packed with people saying we're going to work together and save the children and lastly I want to say happy spring break everybody deserves a break I know some of the B building people can stay for a few days if they want to but I'm encouraging them to get out and enjoy the spring break and rest and come back recuperated and also Easter thank you Mrs Andrews Vice chair mcquinn I am going to just reiterate um a couple of uh board member Andrew's remarks so much thanks to HCA I feel like they're becoming friends I they are just there with their checks for our thanka teachers uh the kids are excited the teachers are usually crying because they're so excited about being recogn ized so I want to extend my thanks also and she just said something else oh I'm so sorry Happy Spring great relax enjoy come back refreshed thank you thank you Vice chair mcquinn so I'm not going to rehash what everybody said I do want to just make one comment about the Mrs Miss ael's presentation to thank her for thanking the tax taxpayers because without the help of our taxpayers we would not be able to do what we do so thank you every month when we meet we do recognize our employees who have passed away tonight we're going to remember Lawrence Bradford who is a teacher of social science at West boka Ron high school he was born February 5th 1960 and he passed away on January 177 2024 Byron Payne was a leader and support operations maintenance and plant operations who was born September 3rd 1964 and he passed away January 23rd 2024 ananya Valentine was media clerk 1 at Watson B Duncan Middle School she was born December 20th 1960 and passed away February 1st 2024 I now ask for a moment of silence for these employees thank thank you and that's now going to bring us to our presentations and M na no nolm from Communications and engagement department will join us now for the March board recognitions good evening na good evening chair Brill Vice chair mcquinn board members superintendent Burke staff and community members and this evening we we have two recognitions on the agenda uh we begin with a recognition for a member of our school police officer Armando Sanchez for his heroic life-saving actions back in January in the adult education area of Palm Beach Lakes High School a student suffered a medical emergency the student was slumped over in her seat unresponsive she was not breathing and had no pulse the classroom radial for help and officer Sanchez quickly responded he performed CPR until the paramedical arrived and restored the students breathing and pulse fire rescue showed up on scene and took over from there thankfully the students survived no doubt due to officer Sanchez's quick thinking and actions officer Sanchez has been with school police for seven months the latest chapter in a 22-year career in law enforcement his motivation for entering his profession was knowing he would be placed in a position to help those who needed his services and that he would be able to protect the community in an unbiased and professional manner in his words what keeps him going each day is that with God's blessing he is able to get up every morning and be able to provide for his family the board is proud to recognize officer Sanchez for his heroic life-saving actions let's give him a round of [Applause] applause for [Applause] finally we are recognizing HCA Healthcare an organization that has become an exceptional District business partner they generously donate time and money to enhance student achievement and uplift teachers and staff some of the ways they have made a huge impact on our students and employees include being the sole sponsor of the thank a teacher initiative which recognizes a teacher each week during the school year providing a $250 check to that teacher and acknowledgement through videos produced by the education Network HCA is entering its fourth year of sponsoring this effort HCA has also donated supplies and time to South Olive Elementary School in Fall 2023 with Executives medical staff and other HCA employees showing up to help beautify the school grounds plant flowers Place sod pull weeds and otherwise help to create a more beautiful environment for students and staff additionally doctors nurses and other medical staff routinely participate in activities with students from a number of the district's medicalm to enhance their real world experience and knowledge the company donated $20,000 to 11 schools before winter break last year HCA also donated three ultrasound machines to the district one each to John I Leonard high westtech and Royal Palm Beach High additionally HCA was instrumental in the 2024 celebrate the great Awards which recognized principal of the Year assistant principal of the Year teacher of the year and school related employee of the year they donated $3,500 toward two of the four cash Awards the district is grateful for hca's contributions and extends our thanks for their support here to accept this recognition we have Julie Houston test director of communications and Community engagement for Palms West Hospital Elise Martinez assistant vice president of community engagement HCA Healthcare East Florida Division and we also want to acknowledge Jason Kimbrell CEO of HCA Florida Palms West Hospital Ashley vertuno CEO of HCA Florida JFK North Hospital and Ken West CEO of HCA Florida JFK Hospital let's give them all a round of applause [Applause] Madame board chair Madame Vice chair board members superintendent staff and members of the community this concludes the recognitions for March thank you everyone for your attention this evening that will bring us to the student government report our student government representative is not here tonight which will now bring us to our commun committee reports first we have the academic advisory committee report chair Charmaine postal is she here I didn't see her okay that we don't have an audit committee report the construction oversight Review Committee report is attached to the agenda chair Juan Pagan District diversity and Equity committee uh the uh good evening DC chair uh good evening Mrs BR byce shair M Mrs Queen McQueen board member superintendent Mike B the D DDC met on Thursday January 25th and February 22nd at the end Mr oswal discussed the open of Dr hin Garcia high school and groundbreaking at the of the Rell site he reminded everyone that the seq is open to complete and preserve and presented information on school graduation rates the committee was extremely pleased with the growth in graduation rates the committee requested additional information on the classic learning test a a presentation will be scheduled for an upcoming meeting presentation were given by the following ddec committees myself as the Florida Hispanic American Chamber with representation of 2 countries from Latin America and the Caribbean and residents of Palm Beach County chairman postel of BBC Council PT Dr Deborah Robinson on Coalition for black students achievement each agency spokesperson share presentation and information about each of of the organization they share what their purpose and priorities were and how they support our students families and communities the presentation were very informative as each agency is unique on its own way the goal of this presentation is at each of the members Network which is of each other to leverage the resources to support each others and the community an update was given by uh was given by Kimberly Spire o Chair of the DDC at hog sub commmittee the immediate focus of the ad hoc subcommittee is to fit meet more frequently and create a plan of action to present to the board regarding successful black male students in our schools the D DDC committee met again on Thursday February 22nd the committee discussed meeting the needs of successful black students and up they G my my Kimberly Spire chair of the dec at hog the dec at hog committee is working recommendations to bring to the school board regarding sbms they have scheduled another meeting for tomorrow morning at 8:30 in the morning in with intention to discuss and clarify the recommendations on BR before the dec on March 28th coming up meeting for the full boat to move forward a motion was made an approved to change the April ddec meeting day from uh April 25th which is take your child to work day to Wednesday April 24th at 10:00 in the morning agency presentation connect the Greatness by Andre tattis executive director of connect to Greatness we Empower and Inspire African-American boys to be leaders and change makers in the world Mr olwell remind everyone of the committee responsibility of networking with other organizations and agencies to further their priorities these include but not limited two partnering with each other sharing of other organization services to assist their own constituents and much more this presentation have been very informative to the entire committee and well received announcement from committee members Compass Group starting in March Wellington Jupiter and Bel glay PBC forward PTA uh PTA scholarship are open a event will be held in May signing for the connect to Greatness webinar Coalition for black student achievement commissioner by analyst of black history classes are available in the middle schools and high schools the next meeting will be Thursday March 28th at 10:00 thank you and enjoy your spring break thank you thank you Mr Pagan general counsel do you have a report for us no report thank you thank you Inspector General do you have a report no report thank you that brings us to the legislative update Mr superintendent yes I'm going to invite up our chief of staff Miss Jamie Wyatt and also miss Rita solnet who is our part of our legislative team and represents Us in Washington DC and with local issues and then online we should have joining us uh virtually is Mr Ron theace and Miss Megan Fay of Capitol City Consulting Miss Wyatt yes good evening we're going to jump right in with legislative updates from Capitol City first good evening everyone Ron face here with capital city Consulting uh we very much appreciate the opportunity tonight to give you a preliminary report of session which as you know ended uh ended last Friday uh we will be providing a more detailed report uh between myself and Miss F in May um with more government action or Governor's action as well as a review of some of the bill nuances but just wanted to give you a high level of what happened as the dust starts to settle um the legislature did perform its constitutional Duty and passed a general Appropriations act on Friday I think it was around 1:30 or 2:00 in the afternoon which is also known as the States's budget uh the total budget was about $117 billion and uh the legislature did set aside $10 billion in reserves this year which is a significant amount uh five billion of that is unallocated meaning it's just kind of cash sitting in the bank um 4.4 billion of it is set aside in a budget stabilization or a rainy day fund and the legislature also set aside $500 million for any sort of State emergencies that we may have whether that be a hurricane or or something similar so that the state has money ready to access uh during those times and also finally set aside $500 million to pay down uh remaining State debts um but just to give you a kind of a high level overview of issues that are important to us in the budget uh the legislature did do a BSA increase for early learning um of 3% uh for for VPK also did a BSA increase for uh the ffp of 3.72% um which is which are you know both BSA increases that we follow and that's kind of the available Revenue that the school district has to spend um in addition to the BSA increase in the ffp the legislature also set aside an additional $40 million uh for the safe schools allocation so the total funding for safe schools will be 290 million Statewide and also added an additional 20 million to the mental health assistance allocation for a total of 180 million which will help school districts address youth mental health issues um and then finally I believe they effectively put an additional $200 million into the salary allocation uh so the total um instructional salaries will be about 1.2 billion um but what's important to note with this uh this budget which I which is something that we kind of talk about each year is when we have these VSA increases you know we're also looking at usually additional costs that are hitting the district whether it's a Florida retirement system or maybe some some downward pressure on more scholarships uh being selected than were estimated but I am happy to report that this year you know we do not see any significant F FRS or Florida retirement system increases which is something that we specifically put on our platform um you know and also this year the legislature again like they did last year set aside I think it's about approximately 250 million dollar in budget stabilization which means that if more students select scholarships than are estimated this money will be tapped by the by the by the basically the state to help offset the additional scholarships that are selected rather than school districts being PR ratted on our per student allocation uh so both of those are kind of critical uh issues to us and happy to report that they're in that they are in the budget uh Miss Fay is going to run through a couple of policy bills and then we can answer any questions Miss Fay we're not getting any sound hello can you guys hear me yes we can now thank you okay thank you so much uh thank you so much for allowing me to present to you kind of at the end of this legislative session um I'll kind of start with a high High Lev overview of of what um what we saw this session in terms of um education uh the Senate President as um you all are aware um her legislative priority was live local um or learn local I'm sorry live local was another one um one of her um priorities was learn local uh which was her kind of trademark name for the deregulation um K12 traditional public education that passed during this legislative session and S sort of that um there was really a focus on if we're passing additional legislation is it needed is it another another requirement for public schools to to implement and um and I think with that mindset and that kind of framework set out um by the leadership in the Senate it really cut down on the number of um new requirements that were passed in legislation the school district will have to you know spend the summer implementing and so I will say it was a very good year for public education I think that your staff will have a lot less work to do um between now and next legislative session to implement a lot of these U pieces of legislation that passed because they're pretty most of them are pretty straightforward um and it's very different from kind of the feel that we've seen um in the past um over the past several years where there was a lot of really heavy complicated um partisan um education legislation that passed that in the district had to Grapple with kind of on the back end and figuring out how to implement um so before I kind of jump into just hitting a couple highlights in terms of what passed and as Mr leface mentioned we will do um a much more thorough recap um in at the May meeting uh with a with a PowerPoint presentation and um more information about you know what the governor has signed uh if he happens to VTO anything we'll have more of that information in May but um some notable bills that we were tracking that we've been talking about that did not pass I'll start there um suits against the government which was the bill that would have changed the sovereign immunity limits um increasing them for the school district that bill did not pass um House Bill 109 which is the charter school conversion Bill uh that would have allowed a municipality to take over a school district building if they wanted to start a city run Charter School um that bill did not pass um district and school advisory councils um that was the bill that would have um changed the names changed some of the um responsibilities of the the council members um establish term limits and uh set percentages in terms of who could serve on those councils that bill did not pass and then um government accountability by Senator engolia that bill also did not pass that was the bill that would have um limited kind of the renewal um of an appointed superintendent in a district General Council to a unanimous vote within a certain amount of time of a contract being up so I wanted to kind of start with those because those were bills that I know that the school board had been following closely because they would have had a negative impact to the school district I'm happy to report that none of those bills passed and so just to hit kind of a few of the the big picture bills um that did make it across the Finish Line um I'll start with uh House Bill 1285 this was the department of educations bill by representative Canada it's sort of we'll affectionately call it the education train bill of this year um just a couple highlights that um that I'll touch on um beginning in the 20242 school year um any changes to the school grading model made by the State Board of Education or the school grading scale um cannot take effect for at least one full year so that should give local school boards um time to adjust to any changes that are made at the state level that's a really positive change um the bill also kind of at the last minute on the floor um picked up language that limits residents of a county so residents of Palm Beach County who are not the parent or guardian of a student in the district to only one book or material objection per month and so this in theory will cut down on the number of um of material objections that you might be seeing from people who do not have um students in the school in the school district um school safety I know we we briefed at our last uh school board meeting um a number of new um school district and um and and school level um changes to um active as salent emergency drills um gate and access requirements requiring all classroom doors to be locked while students are are in the classroom um hard Corners safe Corners to be marked um a lot of recommendations that came out of the margerie stowman Douglas commission uh recommendations that were championed by Sheriff gter um made it into this piece of legislation um also kind of a good piece of um a little bonus in here is the legislature did provide funding um in the budget to provide um each El eligible School principal who has kind of a clean bill of health in terms of school safety compliance with a $1,000 bonus so kind of a little bit of carot along with the stick on that one um the two Public School deregulation bills did pass um they do have um probably less than we probably would have liked to see in terms of you know what the original Senate bills looked like but still some some really good um pieces of um pieces of policy that changed in these final versions um certainly things that tracked with the school board's um initial priorities in terms of U flexibility on um on educational plant survey that is um no longer going to be a requirement that the district complete one or a localized need assessment and submit it to the department um it also authorizes the lease purchase of ancillary U plants and ancillary facilities which is something I know that was important to the district uh it continues to suspend the cost per student station limits through 2028 um they are currently suspended through 2026 um and it removes the requirement that School District staff have to staff District facility ities during a declared state of emergency so I know that's something that's been on the district's platform for you know a number of years um in terms of having more flexibility during states of emergency this essentially says the school district you know must open the shelter but that local emergency management staff are responsible for Staffing that so you don't actually have to you know recruit and pay you know your teachers or or School District staff to be there away from their family during a storm um a couple of other um high points kind of in the other um piece of the deregulation package uh school districts are now um allowed to meet the requirement to offer summer VPK programs by Contracting with private providers I know that's something that many school districts felt strongly about because they maybe only had one or two students at a school and so they were opening a summer VPK program just for a handful of students um they kind of gives you some flexibility to figure out maybe that still makes sense uh to provide access or maybe there's a way to do it kind of in conjunction with a private provider um it also removes the requirement that academically High performing districts like Palm Beach file annual reports at the State Board of Education this was something that you know we lobbied for and um I know that a lot of the other high performing districts you know had complained that why do we have to file reports if we're already kind of cream of the crop top of the barrel um why does the doe need to know what we're doing um so some really good stuff in there we'll send obious see comprehensive reports out or we did send a comprehensive report that sort of listed out all of those provisions there's a a lot of stuff in there so I would really highly recommend that everybody read it and kind of familiarize yourself with with which requirements went away um a couple of other bills that passed uh the history of Communism did pass and we'll go to the governor um School Chaplain by representative mlan passed this is the uh bill that allows school districts or Charter Schools to decide by School Board vote um to put um a school volunteer School Chaplain uh program in place um it's not mandatory but it would be voluntary um housewi 1403 school choice by representative tomow did pass um that put some more requirements into place for the scholarship funding organizations that fund the private school scholarships um and then there were you know a handful of other um pieces of legislation um that that passed that I won't touch on today just for time constraints but I'm happy to answer any questions specifically um on pieces of legislation that anyone's interested in thank you at this time are there any questions Mella thank you madam chair thank you uh Ron and Megan for those updates I was hoping you could give the board an update on the settlement regarding the parental Bill of Rights that came out earlier this week sure thank you Miss AA um so I I will say we've had an opportunity to review the document um probably just the same as all of you have um our understanding of it and of course I would say with a disclaimer you know I would defer to whatever your general counsel's um guidance will be after they've had a chance to review it you know I'll say we're just the lobbyists um but in terms of um you know Ron and I's reading of it I'm not sure it really changes a whole lot with um in terms of classroom textbook materials but um it certainly does lay out a number of scenarios that are that will be allowed in the classroom moving forward um it really seems to clarify what is not part of classroom instruction um that Library materials are not part of classroom instruction that conversation um student debate is not part of um classroom um instruction and there's it seems to really clarify that there's no prohibition on you know students discussing their family situation teachers discussing their family situation I think it's um it lays out you know safe space stickers are not prohibited by the bill and so I would really um encourage everyone um to take a look at the settlement agreement because it probably lays out I'd say 15 to 20 different scenarios that um the the doe has agreed are um kind of permitted within the within you know House Bill 1557 um everything else that's not specifically agreed to as permitted I would still say you know you put in the bucket of not allowed um but really it's trying to um directly the the court is making the doe agree that we they have to narrow in on what exactly is class classroom um instruction and the way that they've done that is sort of saying what is not classroom instruction and so you know of course these will be subject to interpretation I don't think the doe is going to issue any kind of guidance on this um the judge in the settlement offer all they've really required is for um the doe to provide the settlement um information to school school boards and School Board attorneys and I think sort of the onus then is on um local districts to to implement that um as they will followup Madam chair thank you well thank you Miss Fay and our phenomenal General councel has already provided a um update document providing her interpretation of of of the settlement I just wanted to make sure there wasn't anything legislative that you wanted to share additionally but thank you for that um next question is on we had emailed about 1473 is there any Clarity on the additional reporting that's going to be required from that legislation no not not as of right now um that is the school safety um the school safety Bill there is quite a bit of new reporting um I do anticipate that the Department of Education will do um some Ru making um over the the next few months kind to if there is the need for additional Clarity I know that they have been directed to develop um some new forms uh for school districts and school safety specialist to use and so I would anticipate um there being some followup and some additional um kind of rules and guidelines on that developed by the doe did the bill come with any attached funding for the additional requirement of Staffing the bill May impose on our district no ma'am okay and the last question in dollar amounts do you have how much of the budget allocates um dollars for teacher pay increases in per student funding that would actually come down to our district hang on I I want to say it's $200 million but I'm looking through my notes for that right now R do you have yeah miss miss a I'll I'll answer that question so the so the BSA increase in the ffp is $11.25 million um and then uh and then we talked about the early learning 3% which is another 12.5 million but as you you know you're very aware that these are offset by other costs and we're still getting our hands around what those other costs will be to the districts as well as um estimated student count and and also uh selection of scholarships and how that all comes together to impact what district funds are available of course thank you both for the information Mr Barbieri yes Mr leface can you my I don't know the bill number but my understanding of the bill that affects the inspector General's ability to investigate complaints um I just want to know what your take on that is I understand that my understanding is the only Anonymous complaints the Inspector General can investigate are those that involve possible criminal activity is that your understanding of this bill so this is a somewhat of a complicated question and we're going to spend some time really digging into it um just to give you kind of the overview of where this where this uh language ended up um late in the process as as you kind of asked about in our last school board meeting on the state's ethics bill which was focused on the commission on ethics there was a provision added to it I believe on the Senate side um that basically said no political subdivisions complaint process can be based on hearsay so any complaint whether it's the school district Inspector General um or or complaint made to them must be based on somebody's personal knowledge and also that a school board itself as a governing board cannot initiate a complaint um this language was enacted into the final bill it does have some some specific words in there about any non-criminal complaint procedure that's what it's limited to so it's really just on the ethics side based on conduct and so we're going to need to understand that and would also like to look at our the school board policy related to Inspector General um but but that is what the what the final bill does and I do think it's important to note two additional things one is that this language does require uh any political subdivision to establish a process where a person can recover costs and attorney's fees if a complaint is filed against them with malicious intents and then it also has a provision in there that says if if any political subdivision has a ordinance or rule or Schoolboard policy in our case uh that is in conflict with this new language it is void and what that how that actually plays out um is something that we're going to need to work with the general council's office on follow yes so I I guess I don't completely understand your answer so based on hearsay so if an anonymous complaint comes into our hotline that this that the inspector General monitors and it's somebody that says I saw this happen that's an anonymous call and we have a person that doesn't want to disclose their name is the Inspector General allowed to investigate that so so the language specifically says in that scenario that the complaint uh must be written and signed under oath or affirmation so it would be personal knowledge because that person saw something happen but they would need to affirm it in order to make the complaint um which would be the subject for the investigation but but what I'm also kind of getting at and as we want to understand this bill a little bit more it also doesn't necessarily stop the Inspector General from doing whatever investigations they would do on their own this is this language is directed at the initiation of a comp and and that's what I think we need to work with the General council's Offices to understand exactly what that means with your current policies okay um so Madam chair to the general Council this we need some guidance on this because my understanding is if she starts a comp investigating aaint but there's nobody's willing to sign that she can't no matter what she finds she we can't we can't take any action against any uh employee in the district that did something that they shouldn't have done violation of board policy if it started with an illegal investigation with the Inspector General because she wasn't allowed to start that investigation anyway because it came from an anonymous complaint so I'm concerned that it really hampers the an independent Inspector General from investigating ethical violations in this in this school district so we the could you bring back some guidance to the board on what exactly the Inspector General can do and if we have to Mo modify our policy then we need to do that um yes in fact the myself and um Inspector General um Michaels we've been in talks about definitions what is meant by investigation versus um inquiries and things of that nature this this statute is very specific to initiating and then investigations and so there may be some other processes that the IG has in place that wouldn't constitute either of those um that we might be able to look into all right thank you thank you madam chair thank you Mrs Andrews thank you and first I'd like to thank the team for the work that you continually do uh as I look at Mrs solnet I have to tell you personally you have made it happen for westtech for almost 10 years the Appropriations have come through each year for us to open the school up and put the programs in place for the children and for the community of The Glades region so I have to always thank you and the last time we sat here we were asking about the appropriation so I'm going to ask Miss sonette to help you know with uh Rona face and Megan chipping in to say where we are as it relates to the appropriation thank you Miss solette for getting the letters out to everyone I've been talking to people on the phone they want to get the letters to the governor because everything rests with the governor's signature but maybe can you give us an update someone to give us an update as to where we are sure um we are at $989,000 we got the full funding from the Senate and from the house and now it's SE it's uh sitting on the governor's desk so those letters will help and as of today we already have 14 letters and I'm looking for another I think nine or 10 will be coming in and we will make sure they get delivered directly to the governor fabulous I want to say to the public that it has gone like clockwork over the years and the reason the West technical education school is open and thriving is because of those Appropriations that we've BR uh we have taken to uh Tallahasse each year and I do appreciate uh Megan and Ron uh at Capitol City Consulting but right here on the local level you've made it happen so I want to acknowledge that and sometimes when we're sitting here and we're going through the um the uh session people don't know that you are in Washington DC making it happen you're going to be there next week working on these de s that's happening as we uh look at the federal level so I do want you to kind of make mention to this board you never stop tell us a little bit about your next steps I you want me to do we have are there any more questions from on and Megan before we move on thank you Mrs Whitfield thank you very much um uh as you guys know I've had um two two issues that I've been following um the first one is um If U Megan if you can give me a little update about the bill um that is seems to be going through related to homelessness and um uh putting people in jail for being outside um and sleeping outside I'd love to hear a little bit more about that and then also um I know we talked a lot about our VPK funding um and I understand that there's no additional funding for more hours within the the the budget right now but they did give a little increase the BSA for VPK and I was curious a little bit about any impacts that you think that they may have thank you um absolutely U thank you Miss Whitfield um so the homelessness Bill did pass um pretty much in the format that we last talked about it um the bill is on the way to the governor and um it is expected that he will sign it it's kind of being touted as a priority bill of the governor and so I would anticipate that that uh will receive his signature um on terms of the VPK funding um I think Ron touched on it earlier the legislature did do um a kind of an across theboard 3% um increase for bpk funding um so this is discretionary funding that will allow uh VPK providers to use that money sort of for whatever they see fit um it's very similar to you know how the school district has a base student allocation and that's your sort of your flexible increase and so um they did receive a 3% kind of across the board flexible increase um there was toer point there was no um requirement or funding put towards the requirement that additional hours be offered um so that's you know something I I know every year is sort of a another you know another year of fighting for that um in terms of the Early Learning coalitions and the VPK providers thank you very much all right we can move on with the federal update M snet good evening and happy birthday times four so um on the on on the deadline of March 8th both the Senate and the house did in fact pass legislation on six um government spending bills unfortunately it one of those was not education so um Congress is on track to pass the remaining six government spending bills um these are the the largest and the most complicated ones it'll be Pentagon spending Department of Defense and education is considered one of the largest and most complicated ated but um if the first six were any indication the department saw similar budgets to 2023 um only a few departments saw some reductions and they were M they were two three 4% reductions so I I don't know if that's a predictor um we can only hope um so sticking with Congress for a second I wanted to mention that uh Senate minority leader McConnell uh announced that he will step down in November as the Senate Senate minority leader he will stay um on his term a senator from Kentucky but the reason I mention this is because one a Florida Senator has decided that he would like to seek the position that's a very coveted powerful position of Senate minority leader and that Senator is Florida Senator Rick Scott this will all play out after the election in November so I wanted to mention that to you um keeping the update on Congress something happened today which I was following very very closely so the legislation to ban Tick Tock Nationwide has picked up a lot of steam and just today it went to a full floor vote in the US House and it passed handily it passed 352 to 65 um so far this is the one bill that um seems to have bipartisan support uh it's pretty amazing and also has support in both the house and the Senate um Senator Rubio will be shepherding that bill through the Senate next and they do they do have the votes to pass it um whe whether or not it actually gets on the floors U Senator Schumer has not said whether or not he's going to put it on the floor but um I want to explain it for a little bit and I also want to make sure that we don't confuse the tick tock bill with the state bill that just passed that's the social media bill that was more about parent Ral controls it was more about you know uh ages of students and holding accounts this is actually a ban on the application Tik Tock so this Federal bill is a ban and lawmakers feel um that this bill uh poses a national security threat so Tik Tock is owned by a Chinese company by the name of bite dance and lawmakers are concerned that bite dance has access to millions and millions of Americans information and that they could give that information to the Chinese government and cause harm to our country or cause harm to those individuals now the other side of the argument is that content creators built businesses and reputations on Tick Tock their politicians their artists their entertainers and businesses so um but the what the language says today is If bite dance does not divest from the Chinese government in other words if they don't sell the company off then we will institute a national ban on the application Tik Tock and just to mention we have 170 million users of Tik Tock in in the country um so there's that and in the president's State of the Union speech he did say if this bill comes to his if Congress puts this bill on his desk they will in fact uh he will sign it so speaking of the State of the Union speech the president outlined his education goals last week he emphasized um VPK Early Education for all children as a goal reading by the third grade was one of his goals academic recovery post-pandemic and then he also mentioned and got a lot of Applause for higher salaries for teachers Nationwide those were his goals that he mentioned during the State of the Union um moving down the street about five blocks to the US Department of education two weeks ago the US Department of Education issued a bulletin and a fact sheet on the topic of students with four common health conditions um being entitled to protections under the federal disability rights laws which includes accommodating them in schools so those conditions were asthma food allergies diabetes and gastro esophageal reflux so these four are considered disability under Section 504 of The Rehabilitation Act if they substantially limit one or more of a student's major life activities so keeping on the Department of Education topic um another update is for the first time in the history of the United States the SAT standardized test will be offered only in digital form and that began this week the test is shorter and it's more adaptive meaning that the difficulty of the test questions in each section depends upon the students performance at the outset this particular test was piloted with 220,000 students around the world and um college board says that 84% of the students said that they prefer the paper um I'm sorry they prefer the digital test over the paper and pencil uh version the US Department of Education they've been very busy actually lately and they um also put up two new Mental Health Grants uh about 10 days ago the school-based mental health provides funding for school-based mental health services and supports the deadline for that application is April 30th and another one uh Mental Health Service professional which aims to increase the number of mental health uh professionals serving in schools and that deadline is May 15 um I know I mentioned this in my last update but I do want to bring it up again because Dr Sheffield uh cornered me tonight and Mr Tierney and asked about FAFSA and I did um kind of predict that this was going to start to Bubble Up and schools were going to get to um they might be bombarded with phone calls and that is is is happening now parents are panicking so um as I mentioned Congress asked for an overhaul of the Fafa in 2020 they did that they just launched it this year and they're running into problems um on the accounting side of it and what they're trying to do is like blend three different websites together and it's it's an issue but the Administration has put $50 million into fixing the technology they've sent out thousands of accountants to literally thousands of accountants to universities to process these applications and they've also created a hotline for parents who are um panicking and I do know that many universities have pushed back their deadline date for admissions so um that's all I have for tonight I leave tomorrow for Washington a week in Washington and a few of those days will be at the Council of great City Schools um and I'll be learning about what their priorities are and also next week while um you're all on spring break we'll be on cap Mrs Andrews and I will be on Capitol Hill knocking on congressman's doors oh and Mr Ferguson I believe is coming also and that's my report for tonight thank Youk you all right thank you both chairwoman BR that concludes our legislative update thank you Mr superintendent thank you again to the legislative team that's going to bring us now to our elected officials and delegates when I call your name please come up to the microphone James gabris president CEO of the Education Foundation good evening good evening and thank you chairwoman Brill members of the school board and superintendent Burke um couple of quick updates uh it's been as I shared with you earlier today pretty momentous at our new job site had you walked on there Thursday you would have seen it looking all catawampus you had pieces of cement everywhere and in literally 36 hours our friends at Proctor construction using tilt wall construction have completely assembled the footprint of what will be the headquarters of the Education Foundation so it's moving along very nicely we invite you all to come and take a tour of that if you get a chance obviously tomorrow night is our distinguished alumni Awards where we will honor and uh recognize the pride of Palm Beach Gardens High School state senator Bobby Powell as well as public supermarkets as our business partner of the Year chairwoman Brill I think you're very aware of this as you spent so many years on the board of the Education Foundation one of the shifts that we have tried to make over the last couple of years is not just to be the funer uh the connector between the business community and the world of education that which we do and and we enjoy but also to begin to lead the conversation uh to create programming to find the funders who are looking at more creative programming and then to work obviously in close collaboration with the school district two things I'd like to share with you tonight one uh I we are so honored to work with Dr Sheffield who is also a member of the Education Foundation board we're pleased to announce a grant from the tutor Foundation of $50,000 to provide for a consultant and we're working very closely with Dr Sheffield we're in the conversation stage right now this consultant is going to do a deep dive into our career acmy working with our department of CTE to really assess are they doing what we hope they're doing what does the future hold what other the career should we be looking at again this is your Education Foundation leading that conversation and we want to thank the tutor foundation for that marshia Andrews you were magnificent these last two days in this incredible convening I'm going to invite uh Keith oswal our director our chief of equity and wellness who has played an instrumental role this is a contract we have with the federal government to bring resilience training to our school district again the Ed Foundation leading the conversation not just following it and and connecting funders uh this was an amazing group and rather than me taking up time Mr oswal I invite you to share as you were an intimate part of this for the last two days the true impact of what that conference means for the future of our young people and the mental health and their stability Mr Oswell thank you Mr Cav and first and foremost thanks to you Mr Andrew you gave me some Kudos but really goes to the Education Foundation without that funding this would not have occurred so this critical inter intervention mapping that occurred over the last two day was in partnership with a number of community members and you named some of them leadership from the State's Attorney's Office the public defenders probation juvenile judge judge croll the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office Child net Department of Youth Services and other palum Beach County officials Children's Services County County and numerous other service providers as well as the school district including our own Chief Mooney um in addition Mr Burke was there miss Andrews and Mr garos who setting the stage really did a great job of the importance of this work through this process I'm not used to a clock so I got to go talk a little quicker um we mapped out from initial intake to re-entry of our students from there we identified five priority areas with the Criminal Justice Commission partnership we identified uh uh Consultants that are really top-notch in Juvenile Justice systems those five areas are one around family and youth involvement across the Continuum increasing the number of Behavioral Health and transition services available for our community improving Transportation supports and pro-social activities for our students and families improving followup after re-entry and lastly improving on early interventions we developed an action plan for each of those five areas those five action plans will be shared and kind of owned by the circuit 15 Juvenile Justice Advisory Board and Berta 22 and we'll provide the full report to everybody I just want to say I never go over time it was Mr Oswell anyway uh we are your Education Foundation not just following we are leading the conversation and hopefully creating programming that we can all be proud of chairman BR thank you very much thank you Mr Gillis is Claudia Kirk BTO here I don't see her okay so that will bring us now to Gordon loffer CTA president good evening chair bril uh Vice chair mcquinn Mr Burke board members and honored guests I am Gordon loffer president of the Palm Beach County classroom Teachers Association and as always I want to thank you for the time to address you uh spring break is upon us the end of the school year is not that far off and the annual Florida legislative session has ended as you heard last week during your workshops the district will not be required to make a significantly larger investment in F FRS which will undoubtedly provide additional flexibility in addressing compensation issues increases in the base student allocation for public schools though moderate were also included um that was already reported by Mr Lefay from Capital Consulting both of these line up well with your legislative priority for higher funding to increase teacher salaries for all including addressing salary compression for Mid and late career teachers Additionally the budget passed in the legislature again allocates additional funds also spoken of by Mr Lefay specifically $200 million Statewide that is to be directed solely at teacher salary increases given that our district is already deep into preparing the 2025 budget it is vitally important that you prioritize teacher compensation throughout this process process including dedicating our County's share of the 200 million to be used in addition to the amount of funds typically used for raises so that we so that we are able to really move the needle on teacher pay as well as provide sour compression relief to Mid and late career teachers during these times when many teachers find themselves burdened with two or more jobs just to pay their bills we know that statistically the most important piece in moving student achievement is a highly qualified teacher in front of the students in every classroom each and every day if we are to meet this challenge we need each of you to see to it that sufficient funds for this task are allocated first after all what is a classroom for Learning Without a teacher to lead it let us ask the tough questions do the hard work act on your priority for teacher pay and finish this task in a strong way so that when the day is over we can say together job well done thank you and have a good evening thank you Mr long haer we do not have any speakers for agenda items tonight so that will bring us to the consent agenda I'll entertain a motion to approve the sent the agenda motion by Mrs Whitfield second by Mrs Andrews any discussion all in favor all opposed motion carries unanimously with six board members present we don't have any unfinished business business that will bring us now to new business and the first item is our item which is that I recommend the board appoint Mr Frank Barbary to the value adjustment board VAB as an alternate member for purposes of attending and participating in the March 14th 2024 VAP meeting motion by Miss aella second by Mrs Whitfield any discussion all in favor all oppos motion passes unanimously that will bring us to yes cao5 this is an informational item this puts the public gives them opportunity to let them know that we will be uh bringing in some instructional materials for high school health education grades 9 through 12th so this is a public notice item and there's no action required by the board so I will move on to C3 I recommend the board Proclaim March 2024 as women's History Month motion by Miss aella second by Mrs Andre all in favor all opposed motion carries unanimously with six board members present C4 and I'd like to recognize we get some help with the this uh initiative from Mr will ramales from digital Vibes see him in the audience there it's going to help us move tonight but this this Proclamation I'm sorry let me just go ahead and read the action I recommend the board Proclaim March 20124 as let's move Palm Beach County month motion by Mrs Andrew second by miss aella any discussion all in favor oh so Mella I'd like to read the proclamation so we can present it to our guests if that's all right absolutely thank you madam chair whereas the school district of Palm Beach County takes special notice and acknowledges exceptional organizations that help residents who live work and play Within the jurisdiction and whereas local organizations reach out to underserved youth in Palm Beach County by empowering them through Dance Fitness technology and the Arts and whereas the let's move commit to change physical activity challenge is a countywide initiative that focuses on physical activity nutrition and healthy behaviors and whereas the challenge takes place annually from March 1st to 31st and encourages individuals within and Beyond Palm Beach County to take charge of their health by participating in fun fitness exercises and whereas the let's move initiative was originally introduced on a national level in 2010 by then First Lady Michelle Obama with the goal of decreasing ing childhood obesity throughout the United States and whereas nearly one in three children in the United States are overweight or obese and if this problem persists a third of all children born in 2000 or later will suffer from diabetes at some point in their lives or will face other obesity related health problems such as heart disease high blood pressure asthma and cancer now therefore be it resolved that the superintendent and School Board of Palm Beach County do hereby Proclaim March 2024 as let's move Palm Beach County month and urges all citizens to join us in moving to improve their Fitness mental health and overall health done this 13th day of March 2024 in West Palm Beach Florida and I believe uh Mr Romulus and Miss finger are here to recognize yes they are pick up the proclamation yeah we need we need to vote first so um we had our motions all in favor all opposed motion carries unanimously so now let's move down to the floor you you was okay that's going to bring us to P2 Personnel addendum yes I recommend the school board approved the Personnel addendum as submitted motion by Mrs Andrew second by Mr Barbary any discussion all those in favor all oppos motion carries unanimously so that now going to bring us to our speakers on behalf of the entire School Board I'd like to welcome the any public speakers who are joining us today please address the school board as a collective body and do not address individual board or staff members directly our policy provides that we do not respond or to or engage with our speakers however we do make note of your issues and we will follow up with District administration regarding them as a reminder public comments must relate to the subject matter of the agenda item which the speaker has requested to address or the agenda or the item they have told us they're going to address pursuant to Schoolboard policy speakers whose comments do not relate to the topic that the speaker indicated or whose comments disrupt or interfere with the order of the meeting may be subject to removal from the meeting or having the microphone turned off and forfeiting the right to speak at the remainder of today's meeting again your attendance here at the board meeting is truly appreciated app and we thank you for joining us and with that I will call two at a time up to the microphones first is going to be brother Carl mammed and otella M mree I apologize if I messed your name up but come on up car muhammd I want to say um happy women history month and happy Easter because we're not going to get a chance to see each other again until the resurrection has taken place and I wanted to thank some of the women like I said last time um that provided us with an opportunity to at Le at least reach for proper education and that was County Commissioner Mar for Lee um Miss War Leonard from the Riviera Beach educational um committee um Miss Eran Weston from the NAACP and Miss Louise Buie who was the emminent chair at the time and Miss star who was over the um the Urban League and Miss Joanne Cole the former superintendent here and U Debbie Reigns um was over there the African and African-American curriculum department and I want to thank Miss aella um for your delivering some information to our community that was relevant to us and that's the kind of um connection that we need inside of our community because what you delivered to us we're able to utilize it for the betterment of our community now I brought the book um from this uh graduation um task force that was set up and it's it's the graduation strategic plan and inside of this book this is what I'll talking about knowledge that is required from our community that has some specificity as it relates to our problem specifically and this was developed by the Palm Beach County School District and then also if we would take a look at the African and africanamerican history infusion that um particular uh curriculum was supposed to increase the literacy the student performance school safety and environment and it was supposed to provide us with a challenging curriculum staff development continuously and a financial respon responsibility because we understand that there haven't been any real resources placed in that kind of Direction and the parental um involvement and the productive citizenship and when we look at the um the um the Strategic plan it has 10 different topics that our community is not even aware of I'm not sure if many of you might be but in that those 10 um different tenants it provides us with some real structuring for the problem that we have that is gerain to our community because we have have some issues that no one else has and I thank U Mr Biden for at least mentioning Us in the um State of the Union when he talked about the people that were captured and brought here I happen to be one of the children of them and I try to come out here each and every time to insert some idea because we the ones that's been lagging behind and it seem like everybody's getting momentum and we constantly get forgotten so I'm hoping that while you go through the Easter holidays seriously pray for if you don't believe in Jesus uh it's a spiritual time and I connect ask you to connect back with your morals and your principles that you have as a human being on this planet Earth and thank you for your time happy Mother's Day Mothers thank you otella mree Daisy Danielle Dr Tanya Small good evening part two entitled don't know much pleas state your name oh I'm sorry Daisy Daniel thank you part two entitled don't know much don't know much about history don't know much of biology don't know much about a science book don't know much about the French I took but I do know what children need and I know that if you take my heed What a Wonderful World this would be the Florida statute 1 06.12 states that every school district needs to be staffed with school counselors who are implementing a guidance program however due to the school counselor shortage over 40,000 plus students did not receive these services or guidance classes in elementary school this past year half of those students affected were Elementary School students guidance is taught only in elementary school as a fine arts weekly class these students are then thrust into Middle School experience with very little emotional intelligence or tools to effective handle the chaos that they would experience according to the Json Foundation the number of suicides for 10 to 14 year olds has more than doubled in the last decade making it the second leading cause of death for that age group these are middle schoolers we're talking about I'm sure social media bullying family Dynamics and cyber bullying and many other things have contributed to these statistics these kids were left to fend for themselves last month I presented a solution to help solve the counselor shortage by using the district approved position of family counselor job code number 31570 I gave a copy of the job description to every board member with some tweaking this job description can allow counselors who have a bachelor's degree in psychology to fill the school counselor positions these mental health professionals with years of counseling and case management experience can close the gap and provide the mental health services that are lacking in many schools unfortunately I checked the district jobs on the district website today and there are still no family counselor positions being offered why is this position being why is this position not being utilized to help the situation and now we have 52 thank you thank you go ahead state your name I am Dr Tanya Small with a stronger Foundation it is a mindset development and education enrichment program that's located out in Royal Palm Beach I'm a former teacher in Palm Beach County I taught many many years and I know that students I know what we need is Early Education for our children I as a teacher I remember as FCAT that then approach or FSA approach the children would begin to chant I'm G to fail I'm going to fail and back then I was a great teacher and it kind of offended me I thought wow what such a great job that I'm doing why would they think that then I realize that you have to reach the children early before they develop habits all right we know about Eric Ericson's stages of development we know that if we don't reach our children by by age six we've pretty much lost them but also you know with Dr ssa's uh window of opportunity we also have to make sure that we're getting our children at a certain stage to get a certain level of Education I believe if at a certain stage we have our children that they have a certain level of Education by a certain development stage that's how we're going to raise achievement across the county and we have a plan that is holistic it also incorporates the parents um you know sometimes that's the missing link When the Children leave the learning environment because we have great teachers we have a great curriculum we have a great District okay what happens is the space that these children are filling once they leave the learning environment there lots of great program out there but they're aimed at rescuing children that have already fallen off the cliff I believe that we need to reach our children early so that they develop great discipline at the early age because whatever they learn before age six it's what's going to be fossilized we know no a baby bird you know if they don't learn how to fly within the first three weeks of their life they're going to become roadkill they're going to to be pray so we don't want this to happen to our children because it's a moral implication to allow our children to get past third grade and then we're trying to you know try to fix what's already wrong knowing that again according to the stage of development they're in that stage where really can't change much of their habits anymore so we've written a book it's called what you say is what you are and it actually comes with a curriculum it's an entire curriculum we know that in order to teach a kid you must first reach that child but also realize that if a child don't want to be reached you will not reach them so what we need to do is to help them to develop that mindset that's phase one of our program develop a mind and and become disciplined and integrity and understand that what you say the book is called what you say is what you are so when you fail your math test it doesn't mean that you're not smart it means that you did not practice enough and I'm really excited about this and I'd love the opportunity to be able to present to the board a proposal to get this program initiated throughout our County thank you thank you Jacqueline major Adrien Smith how you doing good evening today Adrian Smith just want to start off by saying that I renounced the way I was cut off on the last meeting when I had spoken about the agenda topic item I sent all of you an email and I also sent the uh Governor a complaint which uh they sent me an email back that they're looking into that it was extremely rude and inappropriate and I was uh just starting to speak on it and in your email I'll resend the email again tomorrow but I sent every one of you the email about that topic so uh please don't do that to anyone again in the future uh I'm I'm talking to you uh one again about a uh topic that is very sensitive and it's a very important topic and it's about how sexuality is described to children when they go to school and involving gender issues and things like that and uh and trying to make suggestive uh uh opportunities for children to consider that uh they belong possibly to a different gender that they are born with and there's an alarming uh movement that's going on in the culture uh there's very damaging and permanently damaging to children I was speaking uh on the topic last time on the agenda topic of kids safe and I would like to give you a model response if any child comes with this question to the school this response was uh given by Martin Luther King to a juvenile it was published in the ibon Magazine 1958 where the student uh said uh he approached uh uh with a comment saying that he is attracted to boys he feels attracted to boys the way that other boys feel about girls and he asked Dr King this question Dr King's response was your problem is not at all uncommon one Dr King replied however it does require careful attention the type of feeling that you have toward boys is probably not an innate tendency but something that has been culturally acquired during his lifetime Martin Luther King was vocal and and expressed these problems uh he goes on to say your reasons for adopting this habit have now been consciously suppressed or unconsciously repressed therefore it is necessary to deal with this problem by getting to the back of some of the experiences and circumstances which lead to the Habit by and large that there are many children that are abused and they go into a gender confusion and when we approach them at the school this should be a model response for kids safe and our counseling and they should never lend themselves to try and distort or or uh uh lead children to to to to a different sexuality or a different gender than they're born with that's the parents responsibility the LGBT IO plus is an organization that is radicalized and is exploiting and continuing to have more definitions by the hundreds of sexuality thank you so board members that's going to conclude our agenda I'll take a motion to adjourn motion by Mr motion by everybody second by everybody any discussion all in favor all opposed motion carries unanimously everybody have a very safe and relaxing uh break for spring and hopefully we'll have some nice weather have a good night be safe