test test test one two one two test test good sounds good out here sounds good [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] good morning everyone as school board chair and on behalf of the school board of BR County Florida it is my pleasure to welcome you this morning to be part of this special occasion as we swear in our new superintendent of schools Dr Howard heurn we can't wait to team up and create an amazing brighter future for Broward County Public Schools together at this time we would like to recognize elected officials and dignitaries attending today's ceremony senator o good is there any other dignitaries or elected officials in the audience please stand Mar Ellison Mara Ellison W thank you so much now I would like to welcome the honor hble judge zebede Wright who will be swearing in Dr heern and his wife shebba heern to join us for the oath of office judge Wright and Dr Hein please come to the podium boy so good morning everyone what an amazing day my name is Marsha Ellison I'm president of the National Association for the advancement of color people the NAACP this the significance of this judge on this day at this time has to be considered history and so we know we in the district are all about Black History are we not and so Casey Wright this is her husband so this is Holy Ground for us what this building means and and what it means to the community just can't even be put into words but we thought it not robbery to have judge right come in and swear in our super intendent in the KY Wright building on this day Senator just to add a little more to that History Dr Kathleen Wright was a legend in our community she was the first African-American School Board member elected countywide the first African-American School Board member elected in the State of Florida the first black female African-American School Board member so it is a great day for us to continue to celebrate and promote black history we do know that black history has a lot of educational value so we are honored today to be here with our new school superintendent and to continue the great work of this community who thought it not robbery to memorialize Dr wri's Legacy with a statue in front of the building today is a great day in brow County Public Schools [Applause] yeah all righty uh good morning everybody I'm Z Wright Kathleen husband and I was the first black County judge in this County now I hope you bear with me I hope you bear with me because I'm having a sight problem so I'm going do this the best I can and uh hope all of you appreciate h I repeat your name Howard hurn Howard H do solemnly swear and affirm do solemnly swear and affirm I will support protect and defend the Constitution I will support protect and defend the Constitution and the government of Florida and the government of Florida the United States the United States and that I am duly qualified that I am duly qualified to hold office to hold office under the constitution of the State under the constitution of the state and that I will faithfully and that I will Faithfully perform the duties perform the duties of superintendent of schools of superintendent of schools huh on which I am now about to enter on which I am now about to enter so help me God so help me God conat [Applause] nice big smilees soup that in here you [Applause] once again congratulations to our new superintendent of schools Dr Howard heurn and thank you to everyone who was part of this momentous occasion Dr heer thank you madam chair Vice chair and the entire board it was a true honor to be sworn in by judge Wright who we learned who not only proudly served our community and was also the spouse of former board member in headquarters namesake Dr Kathleen C Wright both Trailblazers in their own right I'm incredibly incited and humbled by the opportunity to serve our students staff and Community together we will navigate some immediately Challen some immediate challenges including our budget and the need to redefine our schools for the future we will provide stability and focus for our schools my Administration will be laser focused on the work ahead striving to achieve an a-rated school system and ensuring full transparency with our community as we continue to redefine our schools my team and I are committed to creating an environment where every student can succeed and we'll work tirelessly to make that a reality on a personal note let me take a moment to acknowledge a milestone today today also marks my 19th wedding anniversary happy anniversary to my beautiful wife uh the mother of my children uh as I finally call her babe happy anniversary I love you and thank you for sharing me with the amazing uh School District in all 200,000 plus kids of this school district I love [Applause] you also I want to I want to also express my gratitude to my mother family friends and my mentors and all of my supporters your guidance and encouragement have been invaluable additionally I want to thank the board again for their trust in me and their con consistent support I appreciate it um together let's redefine our schools for the next generation of BCPS students thank you the swearing in ceremony is now over 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 the regular school board meeting is now reconvened at this time the school board will continue with the remainder of the agend agenda the next item of business on the agenda is F1 a motion to approve the interim financial statements for the period ended March 31st 2024 May the chair have a motion and second on item F1 move second move by F holy second by Hixon is moved in second to approve F1 a motion to approve the interim financial statements for the period ending of March 31st 2024 is there any public comment no Madam chair not at this time board member comment Dr Zan thank you so much chair chair I'm curious um if you noticed the fund balance report uh on page five of the F1 report yes thank you so much chair uh and I'm curious if uh this number is projected to grow from now until the end of our school year on June 30th Dr hurn Miss Marte thank you Dr heurn so the the the staff is meeting weekly as we prepare for year end reviewing Revenue estimates and uh versus collections as well as expenditures we do not expect it to grow uh we are hopeful that it stabilizes um but there is not an expectation currently sir that it grows thanks so much chair I just also want to point out to my colleagues uh you know when you look at this U monthly closeout you see that our revenue is up $200 million our operating expenses are up $150 million so we are spending that uh additional revenue and we're outlaying on the capital side for our defp budget another $100 million this year compared to last year which is exactly what we want to do we have a big backlog in in uh construction and buildings and so increased Revenue increased operating expense which we would expect given the the tremendous amount of inflation that's affecting our Workforce um and additional money being spent on Capital so uh to me this is exactly the kind of report that we need to see we need to make sure that the Public's aware of it um and that we uh continue to uh highlight fund balance as something that this board has said is of of great importance and I look forward to talking more about that next month thanks chair thank you any other board member comments Mr Alon yes thank you madam chair um I know during our uh the prior portion of this meeting we had a conversation or Direction around uh $100 million of cuts that we were hoping for from the administration uh will we see that uh today do we know that Dr heer no we will will not present that today currently the team and I are currently working on that okay and the intent is for that to come back to the board uh at what point Dr he hopefully by June to our next board meeting I don't think we have another Workshop between that time um Dr W can you confirm do we have another Workshop in June before June 18 no it would be the June 25th yes June 25th um Schoolboard Workshop was a plan to bring it back thank you any other questions just a question for uh the board chair uh we've asked for $100 million my assumption was that was on the operating cost side not on the capital side I just want to clarify that uh with you does correct operating sign super thanks so much any other board member questions Miss fam yes I'd just like to know our balance on 2023 compared to 2024 balance remaining balance I count P um page six but Dr Heber Miss Mar than thank you Dr heer Miss fam for clarity sake you're talking about our ending fund balance yes ma'am right so at this point in the year for March of 2023 the total fund balance for the operating fund was 176 m935 600 and for the same time for the current period it is 165,000 uh 653 thank you for that any other board member comment seeing none all in favor of F1 say i i i those opposed say no no Alon F1 passes with one dissenting vote Mr Alon may have a motion and second on j6 so moved second moved by Zeman second by hickon public comment no Madam chair board member comment Dr Zan thanks again chair uh this is a largely good news story with a complicated ending uh city of Dana beach has made uh a significant investment um in one of our middle schools uh on our property in response we've of course uh signed an agreement about use the the use will continue to prioritize uh the students of this school so it's an incredibly generous uh gift from daa like we've seen from other cities in Broward County um what's really remarkable about this is the school wanted to make changes in what was being built and continues to have a few ideas about smaller changes uh to what is being built by the city of Dana and daa uh to their credit accepted all their changes and are building a playground a recreation facility next to the school that is primarily designed and will be built for uh student use and then Community use uh after school so I wanted to make sure that we gave credit to Danel Beach uh number one number two it makes issues very difficult um on the repurposing side uh we're going to get into plenty of discussions over the next year I suspect on repurposing um but it's uh it's it highlights to me like how complicated these decisions are um some folks want to focus F us on enrollment others want to focus on proficiency of academic success uh others want to focus on demographics of the area or what schools uh uh the students would end up going to if if something is repurposed or closed and then you add on top of that municipalities deciding to take their scarce dollars and spend them in support of our students it makes the decisions on things like Olsen uh Middle School in in daa Beach a very difficult decision and chair I just wanted to point out uh that as we move forward uh the these repurposing decisions uh are a lot more than just about enrollment or just about money or just about academic success they're also about Municipal support uh future projections of demographics in certain areas um and all kinds of things so uh this is one issue that kind of highlighted kind of the generosity of a city but also pointed out how difficult the decisions are going to be going forward thanks chair thank you seeing no other comments all in favor of j6 I i i i those opposed say no k6 passes unanimously may have a motion second on 01 moved second moved by Zan second by Hixon public comment no board member comment Miss fam1 pre-qualification of contractor superintendent recommendation I don't believe that's one that I I put into pool but I have no comment any other board member comment seeing none all in favor 01 say say I I I those opposed say no 01 passes unanimously may have a motion second on 03 move move by Zan second by hion public comment Madam chair we have one registered speaker but I do not know if she's in the auditor in the meeting space is Dr Natalie Lynch Walsh okay Dr holness um I have my questions answered on o thank you perfect any other comments seeing none all in favor of 03 say I I I those opposed say no 03 passes unanimously may have a motion and second on hh2 Mo second move by Zan second by Hixon public comment or member comment Mrs Hixon thank you I just had a question um I believe when we approved this we approved it for one but it seems as if we're we're aiming for two so I just wanted to verify if we had approved having two um of these school safety officers or if as the board we had only approved one Dr heurn Chief alberty good morning um Ison Jamie alberty chief of Safety and Security Officer yes ma'am uh the funding is on my budget we are waiting for the approval for the board for this job description and we're ready to um post the position as soon as it's approved so as a board we approve two of them yes the the funding well we approved $200,000 and half $50,000 for the can's officer so as soon as the position is approved approved and we can get a body to fill that position we will move forward with that unit okay cuz I I thought I what I remember is that part of that funding was coming from an outside source and they were funding the funding for the outside sources for the K9 dog itself okay the funding for the officers uh it's in my budget okay thank you that was the confusion thanks ma'am all in favor of hh2 say I I those opposed say no hh2 passes unanimously Mo have a motion second on BB2 moved moveed by Zan second by Hixon public comment board comment Hixon oh no no sorry no one pulled that um my only comment is that um and I know it's in the new policy when board members go to conferences if they could come back at the end of a board meeting and give a you know a one two minute summary update anything they can bring back to the board to to help us all improve all in favor of BB2 say I I those opposed say no BB2 passes unanimously may I have a motion and second on jj1 moved moved by Zan second by Hixon no public comment this is hion madam chair yes I'm sorry I I don't mean to interrupt but on BB2 if I can make a motion to open the agenda I want to withdraw my application to to travel to that particular conference I have a conflict okay um Madam chair Mrs Batista can you weigh in it um the Miss baa is it okay that the board but then she just doesn't take the trip and then that way the finances aren't expended by the board exactly I'm withdrawing um2 and reference to me you said BB2 but you went into a lot about attending conference this is solely the BB2 I have this Solly directed at my expenses for attending the conference so I was going to open the agenda and make a motion to remove that and um and withdraw it right so to avoid having to reopen the agenda if you as uh suggested if you just don't take the trip then that expense will not be um seen by the board there we go whatever way you prefer okay okay thank you thank you um Mrs Hixon jj1 thank you um I just as I do every month just wanted to point out this month we had very high expenses for consultant error and Omission um all together total was $700,000 so that is concerning it was going down it was less than 100,000 now it's jumping back up to where it was um when I started calculating this so I just hope that um we're keeping an eye on this making sure that it doesn't continue to rise like that thank you any other comments seeing none all in favor jj1 say I I those opposed say no jj1 passes unanimously may have a motion second on jj9 move moved by Zan second by Hixon no public comment Mrs Mrs Fam thank you um in reviewing this I notice um this adds an additional three years to um this change order would bring about additional three years for construction completion and um now it would push the date back to 2027 um I looked in according to the the contract this started back in 2019 this is almost going on up to 10 years although I know we we need to do this I just wanted to point out that these delays we need to look into them and why it is taking so long to complete this work because it's hurting our students they don't have the facilities and 10 years that's how many what how many years that we've lost that students that should add access to the facilities so I just want to bring that out um it's a long term like I said in order for them to complete this 2027 or later okay um I recognize we have to do it but we need to be cognizant of all these change orders and the impact they're having on our students thank you Dr Zan thanks so much chair chair I'm curious what the impact is of this extension uh 1191 days is 3 years and 3 months roughly what's the impact on the students at uh West Hollywood El Elementary School Dr heurn Mr Dorp West Hollywood any impact um with this change order and the length of time the increase in the length of time good morning board um through the chair um if I can ask um Shelley Maloney to come to speak to the impact of the delayed uh project go ahead Miss Maloney thank you good morning Shelley Maloney executive director of capital programs uh Dr Zan to your your question as well as Mrs fam these buildings are already being occupied if you look to the left of the the executive summary you will see the actual substantial completion date was 615 2023 yes it did add significant time to the overall construction schedule however the buildings are in use so right now at the bottom of the page you see status of work the project is in substantial completion phase which means that the buildings are being used chair thanks so much for that um I appreciate the the Insight um we have to continue to be honest though with uh our community about this uh the substantial completion took four years for a $3 million project yes uh we continue to underperform uh in this area uh and then when we add things like 3 years and 3 months to to uh the timeline um the the community um has just completely lost faith with our ability to maintain and increase the Capital stock of our schools I'm tickled that we have a new Chief facilities officer Chief Operating Officer or whatever title we landed on last week but uh at the same time uh we continue to see um kind of the vestages of previous decisions um and previous behaviors that um just make it um inconceivable to our uh to our our residents of bar County about why would a $3 million project take four years to get done on an elementary school in West Hollywood um the students deserve better and the community deserves better and I appreciate the efforts for making it better going forward thank you very much any other comments see none all in favor of jj9 say I I those opposed say no jj9 passes unanimously may have a motion second on jj1 19 no move second move by Hixon second by fogan holy no public Dr Zan additional funding request for Nova blanch form Nova blanch Foreman Elementary School yes chair um this has kind of an interesting aspect to it when you get into the details which is you know we had an easement on a elementary school from Broward College um and they requested uh that we do some construction to free up some Transportation space for them uh to get into Broward College what I'm concerned about with this is kind of our negotiating position which is this is an easement that was granted to an elementary school and it's uncommon for the person who gave the required easement to come back and say hey why don't you go spend a couple million dollars and make it better for us without helping to pay for it I'm a huge fan of Broward College I'm a huge fan of every uh University but at the same time uh everybody's got to uh find the resources to pay for the things that they need so the question is did Howard College offer to contribute to the redirect of this uh this property uh which they had granted an easement to Dr Mr dors said or Miss Maloney Dr zman no they had not terrific uh I will not support this then uh and I um would happy to table this to if other members of the board felt like it was worth talking to them but this is a case where Broward College gave an easement to Broward County Schools and then they saidoh we want it back and we said sure we'll spend a million and then it comes back and it says oh we it's not a million it's going to be over a millionar and then there's some other potential increases costs that are going to go beyond that um I would prefer for us to sit down and negotiate with prior college and find out a way to find a mutually agreeable solution rather than us just paying the full cost uh for for an easement um so I'm curious if any other colleagues are interested in uh that as well otherwise I'll just be the the loone n v which is fine Miss seon thank you um Dr heurn can you have staff talk to the fact that this was something we were doing in terms of improving traffic flow for um that whole Nova complex it's part of the defp that we approved and you know why they're asking for this extra money but I believe it's a project we already approved T Miss Maloney yes um Mrs Hixon that is correct This was um I guess triggered by the the Broward College wanting to re regain use of that easement because that was the entry point for Nova blanch Foreman we had a driveway that um you know obviously you could enter from that point and and circulate on site when Broward College asked for that easement back because they wanted to be able to build a roadway to access I I don't know they're doing a lot of development on the campus we worked with them to see what options we had also they had um the town of Davy was very concerned about our stacking on Davy road because of the you know waiting to pick up drop off pick up so those were things that precipitated the need to make improvements on blanch Foreman as well as the um middle school and high school we also Al included in the design even though we have not we don't have the money for construction but we also included improvements to Eisenhower because the the entire campus as you familiar um with the way it works it's all sort of interconnected even though they are separated by fencing however all the traffic tends to flow from going from North and then going across on on 39th where you access both the high school and the middle school so we have significant improvements in the area that will um support some of the the improvements the town of Davy is making as well but in addition obviously the the the the trigger for the entire project was been um having to move from the easement chair thanks so much uh last question on this topic in our facility needs assessment work are we going to be looking at Transportation around our schools Dr Miss Malone I believe we are including um transportation as part of the needs assessment I have to verify but I I recall um where we talk about site conditions and and side circulation so I'm not sure about offside but onsite definitely terrific I look forward to getting that data we uh are funding some projects for traffic mitigation um it is an issue of great concern to our neighborhoods yes we continue to get calls and emails uh from people who get frustrated Tred at buses and parents lining up uh two times a day uh to do their required Transportation so I look forward to getting that data and I hope that this board chooses to find dfp money to fix those problems on a prioritized basis um not based on a college requesting their easement back which I think is uh something where uh where we probably should have thought a little bit about shared expenses rather than bearing the full cost ourselves thank you very much chair any other board member comment seeing none all in favor of jj1 19 say I I those opposed say no no no two dissenting votes Al and Zan may have a motion item passes may have a motion second on 01 so moved move by Zan second by Hixon no public comment Mrs Hixon um these are the grants so again just want to say thank you so much we have two $3 million grants and very exciting to continue with the Perkins Grant that's over $30 million that helps our um College and Career Readiness postsecondary programs also thank you to seino Coconut Creek Education Foundation they're they're um funding a couple of grants in here so thank you to all of the hard work that our staff does on on securing these grants thank you all in favor of1 say I I those oppos say no o1 passes unanimously my have motion second on 06 move move by Zan second by Hixon no public comment Miss spam thank you madam chair um both these Agreements are for materials that examine or or track keep record of our students and their independent reading um L6 and L7 combined comes to $150,000 I think at this point in time we are trying to cut corners and I'm trying to support um my Mrs fam just for claric clarity o06 is to vote down so you're going to be voting no and then so it's only a a $4,490 75 impact when I combined it with the following which is also Zoom be that's why I came up with 150 o That's why I said o6 and O7 I was just going to speak to both of them okay yeah anyway I just wanted to say I I am supporting voting down it and the reason being is because we can do either um we can do manual things to keep track of the children and what they're reading we can do um a graph we can put together um a spreadsheet but at this point in time we are as a board trying to save funds and I want you to let you know that that's the reason although it would be great to have some kind of app that does that we can manage this on their own we just have to go back and and do some things cut some corners but this will be approximately both 06 and O7 $150,000 savings thank you okay so 06 is to vot memo to vote down so you'd be voting no all in favor 06 say I those opposed say no no no item fails may have a motion and second on 07 move by Zan second by B holy public comment seeing none board member comment Miss fam I already gave it that's why I combined the two any other board member a comment all in favor of 07 say I I I those opposed say no no one desending vote Mr Fen Holly item passes may have motion second o13 moved second moved by Zan second by Hixon public comment Madam chair we have one registered speaker I'm not sure if she's here Dr Natalie Lynch Walsh Miss fam okay this is um cognia annual accreditation membership and online platform yeah okay um what I have here is um I'm agreeing with this um the reason I have this here I sent an email in reference to getting some information um between cogy and the school but I have have no opposition to it this time thank you no other comment all in favor o 13 say I I those oppos say no item passes unanimously may have a motion second o5 move move by Zan second by Hixon public comment Mrs Hixon I don't have I don't have any questions all in favor o5 say I I I those opposed say no item pass motion second 06 move second move by Zan second by Fen holy public comments seeing none um miss rert all in favor of o06 say I I I those opposed say no item passes unanimously we have a motion second o28 so move second move by zman second by Fen holy no public comment no board member comment all in favor o 28 say I I those opposed say no item passes unanimously may have a motion and second on o29 so moved moveed by F and holy second by Zan no public comment board member Comm Mr fam yes I will not be supporting this motion um at this point in time I don't think the district should be expending uh 3,600,000 per school to get um Turf for the fields I think we need to wait and see take that approach see how our budget is next year I think at this point in time we've held on um and dealt with um the grass in addition to that um and researching whether the injuries with Turf are greater than injuries with regular grass it is um a higher likelihood that a soon will get injured so will not be supporting this or O3 thank you U Mr F thank you very much chair and I just wanted to add on there that of course the item because there's confusion with this item um tur Fields were approved right this is just looking at the vendors but I did want to add on there and I wanted to compliment our student adviser um Landon and he did such a great job I had questions of course about the tur Fields but when they talk about feedback from our students and our athletes um he did such a good job but I wanted him to talk about that if that if we could at least the hard work that you did thank you chair Landon good morning Landon spelberg student adviser to the school board uh I sent an email about a week ago to you all with survey results I had the wonderful opportunity uh to hold focus groups at South bar high school at Dillard 6 through 12 um and at Deerfield Beach High School um with a really good cross-section of of their athletes um to get really meaningful feedback regarding um the turf fields what was uh very disappointing to learn uh for many of the athletes and and specifically at South bar High School is that they have dealt with more injuries because of the condition of their bumpy whole field that has led to them not even being able to play on their campus the southb high school football team has had to move games off campus pay for that um in order or or because of the condition of their field uh in addition in speaking with Dillard uh 6 through 12 and with Deerfield Beach they were very concerned that um the per their performance uh on the fields has been limited because of of the condition uh whether that's football players soccer players um lacrosse I I really had a great conversation with them all so uh there's there's detailed survey results in your email um but want to say thank you to the administration and athletic directors at those schools for uh taking the time to host me and and really having a great conversation and a a big thank you to the students for for sharing their feedback thank you L I'm still going CH sorry thank you very much uh Lon I appreciate that and I really ask that my colleagues do look at that survey um because it had a lot of information in there not only just about the fields and we talk about the athletes that do use the fields but we talked about there were athletes basketball players right softball players that were giving feedback saying hey the representation on our fields are unacceptable and it's safer if we have a field that looks like that but also I appreciate Landon putting the extra work in to get feedback from the students because one thing that was really clear with all of that regardless of turf fields was new uniforms right new tool like new cleats helmets equipment right we talk about it and we talk about school choice and we talk about private schools and charter schools and the one thing they're doing better than us is that we look at universities when we talk about enrollment at universities booming what happens you make it to a state champion or a national championship if you make it to the playoffs if you make it to the knockout round sweet 16 you see the enrollment boom because the representation is there for a school students get excited with that and that's one thing that private schools are doing way better than us people aren't students aren't going out of their way or parents aren't putting them out there for a lot of these schools and I'm not going to name the names but just because of the facilities no it's it's everything it's a representation of when it comes to the Athletics so when we talk about the representation of our schools when kids put on a jersey and it has South Broward on there Fort Lauderdale when it has Deerfield Beach Dillard that's a representation of us so I again get offended when we see our kids take the field and uniforms don't look good helmets don't match Fields have holes in them and they keep getting hurt on them it's unacceptable so these are the type of things it's a start but I believe we need to start looking at that if we really want to start competing with these private schools Charter Schools we need to do a better job so I appreciate Landon getting this feedback but it's a lot of good information in here and it's really good to hear from our student body firsthand so I appreciate it Shar thank you thank you thank you Landon Mrs Hixon thank you also want to mention I was in um Michigan Ohio a couple of weeks ago for my niece's um soccer game and the industry standard is turf fields everywhere you go they have turf fields in other places so that I feel like doing this is moving us to what is becoming an industry standard so thank you thank you m fam point of Cl point of clarification um I'd like to know the difference between repairing the field the holes in the fields um as compared to purchasing the turf and also why our Fields aren't being maintained currently why have they been allowed to get in this condition where students actually can get hurt so we're now at a a place where we have to look at millions of dollars had we instead maintained the field in an appropriate way Dr yes I'll let um uh Dr Brown U provide some additional information but for our grass fields for many high schools due to the amount of views from multiple Outdoor Sports football lacrosse girls and boys lacrosse flag football so many soccer girls and boys soccer so many uh athletic teams utilize the field and if they don't have adequate practice space to get off of the field during practice the continue use to continue pounding of the field we know that our growing season stops in around November and it doesn't start back up until this time of the year so the grass is not growing it just turns into literally a dust bowl and if you want to add anything um Patty Brown thank you I appreciate the title of Dr working on it not there yet I'm speaking it existence I really appreciate that um I I definitely want to speak to the need to uh install the turf fields now um for several reasons one uh it is a safety issue when we talk about the safety of our athletes on the fields that we have now when we compare artificial turf to natural grass um natural grass at the NFL level is completely different after each game they roll up the field and they put down a brand new one we don't have that luxury in Brower County Schools so we're not comparing the same if we are comparing natural fields in that aspect to our natural Fields um ours are a disaster ours are a safety issue uh just walking on them uh without the repairs that are necessary will cause our students to be injured on a regular basis as Landon has shared we've had to move several games to private schools uh to Brower College where they have the artificial turf to play these games um if we have one person in our district that is responsible for maintaining the fields which is a little unreasonable um he does a phenomenal job but it's not easy to sustain especially with the condition of the fields in Florida um the fact that uh it could be a resource for us we have an International Rugby team that would like to partner with several of our schools reaching out to our schools as we speak just got a phone call this morning they would like to do a lease agreement with our schools that won't happen with our natural fields we could be renting out our fields in addition to ensuring all of our athletes and students marching ban all activities can take place on our Fields another reason I don't think we should uh prolong this is as Landon has gone to the three schools that were awarded and afforded this opportunity they are excited for this a press relase police went out um and informed the entire Broward County community that South Broward High School Dillard 6 through 12 and deri Beach High School are to receive these fields next school year I would hate to have to roll that back and as these three schools are extremely excited about being the first three and knowing everybody else is next in the series to come would be yet another disappointment for them to hear that you're getting a turfield sorry you're not any longer um for the safety of our student students for the upkeep of our programs we need to please keep with what was already voted on and install the herf fields thank you for your time um thank you Dr Brown I just wanted to say this is what I love about the bait because she just persuaded me thank you for coming forward appreciate it thank you um so I would just suggest moving forward Dr heurn that until everything is approved there's no press releases that should be going out um so that's my first comment my second comment I just want to Circle back to my question I had previously as far as the turf and having carcinogens inside the turf can staff speak to that now Mr Dorset or Miss Brown good morning Mark Dorset uh task assigned Chief facility officer yes we actually uh uh receive information from EPA with regard to carcinogens in the crumb rubber that I spoke about before and um it's an industry standard to use crumb rubber um um it um there there is no um scientific evidence if you will to indicate that uh this product cause any harm to to anyone at this point uh the uh information is still the the investig is still going on with that but you have major uh uh Industries uh football fields I think there are like maybe 30 uh football fields that that uses crumb rubber right now is the exact same product that we're we're trying to install in our schools right now MH okay so I would just I mean obviously best practice if if you have an open wound that it's covered but that we make sure that that is followed uh the other thing I I would I know that we're just approving the companies and we've already approved the artificial turf but I would like to have a bigger conversation because now if artificial turf is going to be our our standard on our football field then we need to figure out a longer term plan of how we're going to fund these at all the schools and I did like the conversation we were having as a board about how do we bring in companies and outside Partners to partner with us to help with the funding of or cities to help with the funding of these turf fields so all of our schools could have turf fields any other comments all in favor of o29 say I I I those oppos say no o29 passes unanimously okay at this time we're going to need to recess this meeting for attorney client session miss Batista thank you madam shair I would like to request the school board convene an attorney client session in order to discuss litigation pending before the 17th judicial circuit in and for Brower County Florida in the following matter the school board of Brower County Florida versus Ohio Casualty Insurance Company a foreign corporation case number CAC 24- 0041 156 the following persons will attend this attorney client session school board members Lori alhad chair Deborah Hixon Vice chair Tor Alston Brenda fam Esquire Daniel fogan holy Dr Jeff holes Sarah leonardy Nora rert Dr Alan Zeman Dr Howard hebburn superintendent of schools Oscar eoto Esquire and Marilyn Batista Esquire BCS in anticipation of this request the attorney C session was properly advertised for today May 29th 2024 at 9:00 a.m. in a ordance with Section 28611 parent 8 of the Florida Statutes the purpose of the attorney client session is to discuss settlement negotiations on our litigation strategy relative to the pending litigation a certified court reporter will record the session only those persons noted in the advertisement will be permitted to attend thank you madam chair e e e e e e e e e for e e e e e e e e e e for e e e e e e e e 3 2 welcome back I have a motion and second 030 move by P hly second by Hixon no public comment Miss fam artificial first oh um as I as I previously stated I was um very much persuaded by principal Brown's uh explanation and the partnering very favorable and I've reversed myself on that D thank you and and my only comment is that we do have some schools that do not even have football stadiums right so that needs to be a priority of this board moving forward um and if Dr if you could just follow up with the board with a list of those schools I know JP tal High School is one of the schools Hollywood Hills Hollywood Hills so that that needs to be a priority to to get that in the dfp so we can look to fund this and so that you know they can have a football stadium um definitely like other schools yes thank you chair and I appreciate you saying that just like terella Hollywood Hills Unfortunately they have to play their games at 4 a 400 P p.m. in the hot sun and it's uh it feels like a disadvantage no lights at either school so one of those things and and ask is if we can talk about talk to those cities also right how can we do a partnership can we do a partnership uh of somehow meeting us halfway seeing how we can do that schools like that my sister went to teral for years you know that's class of 2001 one if I'm not mistaken that she graduated and they don't have lights and they deserve that you know Hollywood Hills deserves that such history again first state champions coming from Broward do not have lights you want to talk about a field we call it the sandbox that's what they're going starting to call it now because they don't have grass now it's just just sand so again I appreciate that chair and at the same time when we're talking about Turf I don't want those schools to be bumped to the bottom of the list because they don't have lights it's happened so I want them to be considered the same and how can we partner up to see we find a solution for those schools thank you very much chair thank you Dr Zan yeah thanks so much chair you know last week uh we talked a lot about our work chart and there's uh a piece in there for Partnerships and that that partnership ought to be talking to uh all the folks that we know all all too well not just our sports franchises but to uh universities to uh philanthropies and the like about sponsoring field with uh seats to to eventually grow stadiums and things like that uh so so that we can have the kind of facilities that fit you know at the same standards that we have for academics we ought to have for our Athletics as well it's a huge part of this community um and we would do great in terms of enrollment if in fact we invested um in how our uh our kind of curb appeal looks at a lot of our schools you pull up sometimes and you wonder if you're in a commercial warehouse Zone not in a public school of Broward County and then the second is Athletics but I think that partnership division as it gets stood up this and Foundations they would love to put their name uh you know in in the places where we've underinvested historically that's actually where they want to invest and uh uh you know to me that's a great uh Synergy with that new department and over time I'm not sure that we made that uh Department big enough they may need more staff uh just to deal with all the all the money that we get flowing in thank you very much chair Perfect all in favor 030 say I I those oos say NO3 passes unanimously may have a motion and second on pp2 second move by Z second by Hixon public comment Mrs Fam thank you mad chair um I'd like to direct the board to page three of the purchasing policy 3800 and the second par paragraph on the bottom prohibit unauthorized purches if you um if you go back to the last sentence in that paragraph it says payment for any authorized unauthorized purchase shall be the personal responsibility of the person placing the unauthorized order I'd like to make a motion to expand the language of that and include instead payment for any unauthorized purchases shall be the personal responsibility by the persons involved in placing the un uh the UN authorized order and financially responsible for that because if the chain of command is ordering a subordinate to do something and they have no choice but to place an order I think the person that made that that placed that order or put that person that's subordinate in the position where they have to abide by what they do or what they're instructed to do in order to keep their job I think the U hireup should also be held accountable so that would be my motion just to remove where it says uh unauthorized person shall be personally responsible of the person and make it uh instead responsibility by the person's plural in parentheses s involved in placing the order and be financially accountable is there a second moveed by fam second by Altin public comment on the motion board member comment on the motion my ear I can't hear them now my hold on M rert we hear you can you please mute Mr Alon yes thank you madam chair uh board member fam it's on 3 or 820 right you're just expanding what that is I don't think that's harmful it says here prohibited unauthorized purchases that's the name of the subsection okay yeah yeah I got it okay and it's the last sentence in that paragraph got it okay I'm good um Miss Batista can you comment is whether that is necessary or is it already implied in a sentence well it is implied I don't think there is any harm in adding that additional information thank you any other board member comment if I can respond I just like to say the it's in the singular it says person so I'm asking that the entire uh team that participated and and making that happen be accountable so everyone looks over other people's shoulders and saying should we be doing this so it's almost a self-monitoring because now it's not just the person that's acting on it but it's the people that are instructing them to do it thank you any other comment on the motion all in favor of the motion to say persons say I I those oos say I those opposed say no motion passes back to the main motion Miss Hixon thank you I also would like to make a motion on page five or 822 depending on what your package looks like um District purchasing forms um I'd like to add at the end of the sentence um to require them to use electronic signatures to expedite the process there seems to be a hold up when they need handwritten um signatures and it sits on a desk waiting for for someone to have to sign it I know they can do it electronically but is it possible for us to require or either or I mean I don't know but the idea that it can be electronic is um not helping the process because we're not utilizing that to the extent that we should be if I may yes so um I think what would probably be um appropriate there would be to say that if an electronic signature is um allowed or permitted that it be used um because there are many times when it it not allowed right yes in the instance where it is because their folders are sitting on desks and it's not moving through the process believe it or not still in this DNA you have certain items and and transactions that require an you know an actual signature so in the in how would can you say that again um when when permitted um how about whenever permitted whenever permitted okay um whenever permitted um staff will use electronic signatures period do I need to put expedite the process no is there a second second second move by hickon second byess public comment on the motion board member comment on the motion all in favor of the motion say I I I those po say no motion carries back to the item any chareston yes uh just a question so when it comes to and I'm going to just jump to cone of silence I know kind of it's both procurement but just kind of big picture um at the County Commission uh the county for example uh they have I'm going to call it I guess it's a part of their process policy um that the public official can call a vendor during the cone of silence but the vendor cannot call the public official have we considered that for the school board why or why not M Batista I think that's a better question for staff Dr heern Miss Andrea Jennifer Andreu executive director operations good morning uh board member alustin we have not considered that and that feedback hadn't been given previously but if that is the will of the board I can work with General Counsel on adding that language but it was never considered in the past okay thank you let me just go down to my other items Madam chair so on page 5 or 822 we have the word Deputy superintendent with an S I don't believe we're going to have more than one Deputy superintendent um I think whenever that date comes so probably all throughout the document that's in one place place also on let see here on page 7 or 850 again it refers to the superintendent's delegated authority to the deputy superintendent um I think that also at some point um goes away so we need to clarify that I'm assuming before this passes uh I also have a question on page 847 or page four or 847 and I've raised this before the term lobbyist um I think that's going to come back on another item as well um we are very exclusionary when it comes to a union or a bargaining group is now the time to make that change if we want to be inclusionary um when anyone is lobbying the board for anything that comes before the board Council missa so um the language regarding lobbying um where it would be uh pertinent um would be in the in the lobbying policy that we have our actual lobbying policy this is the purchasing policy um correct however through the chair uh on page 4 847 we are tinkering ING with the definition of lobbyists so my assumption is if we're tinkering here it will also revert back to any other place in our policies where we refer to lobbyists including the lobbyist policy so if we're opening up the lobbyist definition then I'd also like to uh move uh that we amend the lobbyist or how the school board defines a lobbyist to also include a union or bargaining group that's my motion is there a second second mooved by uh alustin second by fogan hole a public comment on the motion board member comment on the motion Dr Zan thanks chair I'd like to make a motion to strike the definition of lobbyist from this policy document please is that substitute motion yes it is is there a second second move by Zan second by wholeness public comment um if I could chair just why one second public comment on the motion for member comment Dr Zan thanks so much uh um we have an entire policy on lobbyists uh and that's where we should have the single definition uh it would be much cleaner and easier to understand by the public and by our staff uh if we just refer to that definition in this policy and then uh to the extent that we want to change that definition we ought to pull that policy through the process and and change that uh there doing it here is kind of doing it in a derivative document we really need to go to the root document and and make that change if we want to uh I think what we're doing here is just not necessary in a purchasing policy Other Board member comment so I have a question Madam chair M charson so if the substitute motion passes and you strike the word lobbyist which is all throughout this policy what is the impact general counsel Batista there has to be um in in lie of the definition here if it you know if it needs to be referring back to another policy or um I think that would be appropriate to refer to the lobbying policy well that's not my motion so let me refer the let me repeat the question the substitute motion on the floor is striking the term the definition of lobbyist in this policy so my question I'm going to repeat is what is the impact of striking the entire lobbyist definition in this policy so as we you know sit here today I would have to look at at the policy with that in mind because I did not consider that as a possible uh as a possibility um so I would have to look at the other Provisions in the policy to see how if in any way they would impact the remainder of the policy I don't know if there is U I think Miss andreo is is checking nodding yes so um what would be appropriate the definition here is the same as the definition in the lobbying policy um so perhaps that would be one way to um take the that definition out of here and then just have a a reference to the lobby and policy of the district but that's not my motion on the floor I understand just answering your question got it thank you this leonardy um so I guess I I don't know if I would offer like a friendly Amendment or recommendation and I don't know the polic the number of the policy for the lobbyist policy but I might add um instead of just striking the definition I would add something like uh definition of lobbyist as referred to in policy whatever whatever I agree chair that was my intent was not to just strike the word lobbyist or the definition but to reference our lobbying policy I think it's 1120 uh um because that's where our single definition of lobbying ought to be okay so you're amending your motion yes ma'am thank you this maam yes okay um thank you madam chair I would um make a motion that we table this particular policy because I want to compare the definition and uh policy 1120 exactly through this and also consider the impact um that the effect of changing this would have on here because we also have the definition not just of lobbyists we have the definition of lobbying we have the definition of competitive um solicitation we have the um um numerous definitions that affect purchasing and I think this is the primary policy that deals with lobbyists you know is the purchasing aspects of it so before I make a decision I want to know exactly what we're looking at in the other policy and I'm worried about the inconsistence if there's other definitions like lobbying that may be ambiguous because we have one definition in one place and one in the other so we need to cross compare so my motion would be to table this and bring this sorry you can't make that motion right now we have Dr Zan substitute motion on the floor you have to wait to see if that passes or not any other comments on the substitute motion Dr heern Miss Andrea thank you madam chair I just for clarification would like to tell you that the policy that's being referred to the lobbyist policy is policy 1100b and it is the exact same verbage as well as the other definitions that board member fam alluded to those are coming from the Florida Administrative Code so we are consistent with State Statute and fac as well as our current 1100b policy thank you all in favor of Dr Zeman's motion to remove the word lobbyist and to reference 1100b say I I I those opposed say no noon no roll call we hear you just no Mr Austin uh no Mrs fam no Mr fogan Hoy no Mrs Hixon yes Dr holess yes Mrs Leonardi yes Mrs rert yes Dr Zan yes okay motion passes 54 okay Madam chair now that I can't talk about the lobbyist uh portion since that substitute motion has passed thank you board members um I'd like to move that we remove all references to uh positions that no longer are um reflected on the prior organizational chart second second move by Allon second by fam public comment board member comment Batista um just to um and I need the staff to weigh in on this but in lie of in lie of the the um named um positions that are here if there is a different name uh position for the in the new orc chart that would like to be replaced that is in the same level I think that would be appropriate yes I think it could be replaced as executive cabinet um you want to give it to a person go ahead Miss Mara if I may I thought the intent would be your direct report who supervised the procurement oper operation so I think in that case it would be the Chief Operating Officer corre correct Mr Olson can you confirm what page they are on every page so I mean I can go through out I think you all have seen all the different references and I know everyone's nodding so anywhere where there is a reference to it's scri is yeah yeah I don't think it's agreed but I just want to make sure that it's it's reflected because it's all throughout the document can you just repeat the Mo again so my motion was actually more broad so and that gives a superintendent and staff latitude to replace all uh titles or positions uh that no longer are reflected in the board previously approved organizational chart effective July 1 correct right yeah any other comment on Mr alon's motion all in favor of Mr alon's motion say I I I suppose say no motion carries thank you madam chair I'm now on page 8 or 851 under annual report of pecard transactions another favorite of mine so I'd like to add a sentence actually I'm going to add two two things um I move at the end of that sentence that we add by December 1st and then the second sentence the report shall include vendor name dollar amount description of the service or good address and the principle is there second second moved by Allon second by Leonardi public comment just a point of order chair could you give us a page number if you don't yes sir 8 or 851 so annual report of peard transactions I'm adding a date of December 1st typically I know the when the new fiscal year starts it's not hard to reconcile and have a report that's ready by the end of the calendar year um and I'm adding Clarity on what should be included in the report no page 8 8 or 851 depending where yeah member comment seeing none all in favor of the motion say I I those opposed say no motion carries I get I think those are all of mine on this one thank you madam chair okay um Miss Batista I do have a question regarding all the Motions that just passed are we in compliance with State Statute at this point in time if this passes yes yes absolutely any other comments see none all in favor of pp2 say I I I I I oh as amended I those opposed say no motion carries passes unanimously as amended have motion and second on pb3 so move moved by Zan second by Hixon public comment for M comment Mrs famam sorry I I have that I have no comment on that one that was a typ off for member comment Mr Olson yes similar to the last item I move that any reference to positions I'm sorry pp3 oh I'm on pp4 sorry my apologies yes sorry yes Mrs Hixon thank you I I have a couple of um motions so on page 7 of 13 or 927 um for number one Mrs we3 pp3 oh sorry all in favor of pp3 say iOS say no pp3 passes unanimously I have a motion second on pp4 move second move by Zan second by Fen Holly public comment Z wanza Madam chair we have um Miss Jackie lusum it's registered to speak and I'm not sure if Dr Lynch Walsh and Mr Chris Nelson are here but they've registered to speak but I know that Miss Lam is here move again hi good morning speaking as um ESC advisory chair um so the I want to speak to the um part about the requirement to have all advisory chairs and committee chairs submit a written report to days before a board meeting we've had so much discussion about this and what's being captured on documentation here is actually not correct um so miss Hixon asked um in a memo uh of Staff saying I thought we asked to remove the written report requirement if they're not present and they should send a report but if they are they can just give an oral report that pretty much was the message that we had given please stop trying to put on volunteers more and more and more requirements we come some of us meeting to these meetings faith and we report to you we have minutes of our meetings we're now being asked to submit written reports 2 days before your board meetings I write my report sometimes here I've been writing this one right here right now and I write it in Shand so good luck reading it I'm not going to be able to so if you're going to make this a requirement maybe also think about what the penalty is going to be for me and others because you're going to have to penalize me so if there's a trial or some kind of a fine or whatever you want to put me through you better be thinking about that too this has not been to a rule development Workshop I did actually um uh email yesterday and in the last 20 minutes I've had a reply back with with yesterday's date on but it was sent to me today saying that there already was a rule development Workshop um in the hurry to actually read that two-page memo um that's just been sent to me I've done some checking and there was not a January 30th 2024 rule development Workshop there was a scoreboard workshop at which there was a rule development item that's a whole different thing to having a rule development Workshop um we have to look at how this um requirement well proposed requirement got on the uh draft policy in the first place you did not put it there there was discussion about whether people did or didn't agree that board chairs would have to file a written report two days before board meetings um we're being told it's now on the draft in uh because there was board consensus and that would now need to make a motion to remove it from the draft it was put on the draft by staff it was not put on by you um we actually as advisory chairs first heard about this requirement in a memo from Dr wanza over Christmas on December the 22 saying from now on we would be required to um make written reports we a number of us objected um and uh then there was the uh board Workshop but it was not a rule development Workshop shop uh if you're going to make us write written responses uh written reports I'd love then please to have written responses to every item we bring up because pretty much every time I do stand here and bring things up it's not listened to it's overruled by staff you don't come back to us and check what you're told um and I've got billions of outstanding items that have never been finished thank you thank you any other uh public comment Mrs Hixon thank you um I'd like to to make a couple of motions the first one on page s of 13 number one one member of the public may speak for no more than a total of 15 minutes instead of 12 minutes during a single meeting including that person submitted written in general comments moved by Hixon second by Leonardi public comment or member comment I Nora Miss rert um I agree wholeheartedly on the motion Dr Zan thank you chair um there's a hidden cost to additional time and I actually uh appreciate the change in this policy and the hidden cost is the the the disinterest that there is in the public on coming here to speak um there's incredibly important information that we get from the public and we want to encourage everybody to come and speak and when we have time reserved uh in totality for people to speak and they take it up uh it discourages other people from coming to speak um we're a county now of just over 2 million people I'd love to hear more uh from those people and uh we've had the 15-minute policy a long time um I value all the people who come here and speak it's interesting to learn from them all the time uh but over time as Brower county has grown and it's grown a lot we want to make sure that we're encouraging people to come here and speak and when we allow individuals to take up more time uh it actually discourages other people from coming they come they wait uh they either get less than uh 3 minutes because there's so many of them or um they just get discouraged by uh people talking uh at multiple opportunities during the meeting so I think the 12 minutes is reasonable it's just kind of an adjustment you make as you grow but but one of the critical things is to make sure that we always encourage people to come and talk talk and I would prefer to hear more voices uh at our school board meeting so thanks chair um okay so my comment on this is to say that so this number one this whole 12 minutes 15 minutes this change I think and staff can let tell me if I'm wrong I think only happened maybe two years ago there was never even a number St speak to when that Chang Dr W that um thank you Dr he said that is correct it was about two years ago where an actual time um frame was placed in the policy right so this is relatively new there was never a time restriction on someone um someone can just come and and to speak on the item so I'm just bringing that up to the board because there's another side to this that should be considered hion thank you yes and the how how often have we had to tell someone they've gone past their 15 minutes maybe three or four times that I can remember if people are coming and they want to speak on an item and they've sat here all day we have a few of them that are here today that if they want to do that then it shouldn't we should be listening to them they've given their time they're coming to share their thoughts with us not everyone wants to write a public comment and it's 3 minutes and I don't think there are people abusing that power at or you know that time limit at this time there there are a few people that maybe get to the 15 minutes but it sends a message it sends the wrong message to the public that we want to limit the time that they're coming to talk to us and I'm not okay with that thank you maam thank you m CH I have a a point of clarification when you're saying a total of either 12 minutes or 15 minutes are you talking about on the agenda of items or does that also include General speaking time so in other words would someone come in there be able to talk to four agend and the items for 12 minutes or five agenda uh items for 15 please clarify right so they can speak to the items for so for so there would be four items uh for 12 minutes plus they can be a public speaker for their 3 minutes the beginning of the meeting or the end of the meeting and then if they're a committee chair they get five minutes for each committee chair that they represent thank you so you just to clarify for the public so you're saying that they would be able to speak if we keep it at 50 minutes on five agenda items plus the public speaking time thank you Mr Alon yes thank you madam chair so I recall and I think you're right um Madam Chief of Staff um that all of the um I guess there was a time and a limit placed on folks BT before me too um but I also recall on this board where we also used to read public comments people on this board you all were very adamant about reading every public comment so let's go backwards so we're going to pull if we're going to hit rewind rewind it all the way back many on this board wanted every public comment that was emailed to the board read out loud remember that we went from Reading every public comment to trying to be orderly because this is a six plus billion dollar Enterprise let's remind everyone where we've been then it was okay you know what let's slowly move away from Reading every public comment to posting all public comments which we did then it was well you don't have to read all those comments just posted then it was placed on the website then it was email to every board member we have gone through every iteration of increased public engagement I support public engagement we have increased speaking time slots to members of the public I'm only talking about the last two years let me speak for my time on the board I know what I did we added the open comment period at the beginning of the meeting less than two years ago that's why people can do it today separate from the amount of time you can speak on multiple agenda items so if the intent is for us to increase public engagement Broward schools has done it on steroids more than the County Commission more than probably any municipal government in the county good job school board but are you going to let that get in the way of doing the Public's business that we still haven't gotten to Madam chair we're going to push today's agenda back for a third fourth or fifth time because we want unlimited talking more speaking reading out live public comments how about I do make that motion let's read all the public comments let's do that let's go backwards I remember I got pushed back on that Madam chair when I sat in that chair well look how times change folks want to hit the rewind button but you don't fully rewind if the intent was for us as I recall this first conversation around Rules of Order Madam chair it was to one I think put a time limit on me and many of us up here that's what we talked about we also talked about making sure that we don't have 14-hour board meetings that was the big picture intent the other intent was of course to increase public engagement we've done that but we're going to rewind the clock so no I don't support Madam chair because I actually know that over the last two years we which I'll say we increased public engagement we added a public open comment period at the beginning of the meeting I didn't say I I said we but guess what also has happened we've pushed meetings back we continue to have to Grapple with agenda item after agenda item on meeting four five six and seven because we just can't get the business done every other government agency laughs at the Broward School Board because we have 15-hour meetings and we don't get to the business until hour number three barely sometimes please be reminded of why we're having this Rules of Order conversation because it sounds like we're going backwards Madam chair what I like to do at this point is make a motion similar to what I did before now that I realize I'm back on pp4 any reference to a position that is no longer on the organizational chart that the board just approved we should what am I oh that I forgot what I'm talking about right go ahead I'm sorry we're still on Miss hixon's motion to increase to 15 minutes any Miss Leonardi I just want to call the question all favor of calling the question say I I those oppos say no no no okay passes all the question passes uh roll call increase to 15 minutes okay roll call Mr Austin no Mrs fam yes Mr folen holy no Mrs Hixon yes Dr holess yes Mrs Leonardi yes Mrs rert yes Dr Zeman no Mrs ala no okay motion passes by4 and if I may Madam shair if I may just want to clarify that um I think Mrs fam had asked a question as to the 15 minutes or the 12 minutes what it includes it includes the general public comment qu uh time as well so it speaks as to the entire the entire time for a speaker unless you're an advisory chair correct if you're an advisory share that does not include that is not included within that time frame thank you m okay last motion that I'd like to make is on page 8 of 13 letter e where it says two business days prior to the scheduled regular school board meeting each advisory committee committee shall electronically submit their written committee reports if they will not be present at the board meeting and Associated formal motions to the deputy superintendent so I do not believe we should require people who are coming here to speak orally to also do a written report but if they're not going to come they should be writing an oral report to let us know what's happening so second move by Hixon second by Leonardi public comment thank you Jackie lusum at the risk of laboring a point um I support this motion um there is a lot of unsung work um that folks are doing for you I don't think you know the half of it some of you and I would just point out that when I did write a report this week a number of or last week a number of you still haven't read it and I can tell you haven't um so no no thank you to any more reports if we come to meetings we speak you listen it would be wonderful if we don't get treated like the seventh inning stretch where you get up and walk about or go and get your lunch or whatever if we're here to speak and you listen then we're good um and that way we have reported to you but yeah if we're not able to come a written report would be helpful um and I think uh to the point of 15-hour meetings also folks making speeches on the day does make those 15-hour meetings too um but we will keep to the time that we're given thank you member comment Madam chair Char thank you um as someone who was an advisory uh Committee Member more than 20 years ago um I definitely know the role of advisory committees um and members who add value to what we do um my question is on E how does that differ from D so by striking e as suggested by the maker of the motion keeping D still requires committee written committee reports and again I'm looking at 9 of 15 from the recommendations that staff has proposed not from the original text so that's why that's why I'm asking the maker of the motion m t can you clarify it was the opposite you were saying yeah well it just says written reports of the committee nowhere in D does it indicate that they're required it's required in E so if they're going to to make written reports they should be typed and and all of that but on E I'm just saying that we're just requiring them to do written reports if they're not going to be present at the school board meeting you can still dictate what the written report looks like but you're not requiring it in D you're just making the guidelines of what the written report should look like but in E you're saying they have to submit it I'm just asking to say they'll submit it if they're not present at the meeting so they're either going to give an oral report or they're going to give a written report they don't have to do both got it is your intent I'm sorry madam chair and I just want to make sure because because we're now talking about uh the motion and you're not debating this is I know where folks lose sight of uh what happens with time um so D versus e d just provides the framework for written committee reports e is only is that targeted to all advisory committee members MERS is your intent for all advisory committe members to include the chair or because as we just had on a separate motion if if it is solely for the chair so just just talk to me your psyche around this okay um so yes the chair traditionally comes to give a report right right so and and that's actually a great question because this says advisory committees but when we do those reports it's also esab um bef can come all of so I guess that's a bigger question is are we I think everyone should be reporting to us every month it's kind of frustrating when people don't show up so they either should all of them listed under those reports should either be coming to give an oral report or give a written report each month so we know what's happening but the intent is always a report verbal from the chair or design or whoever head of the group or or a written report if they're not attending correct that's the intent of what you're proposing okay thank you Dr Zan thanks so much chair um again I like the change um and here's why we're asking as a board for advisory groups to share with us two days in advance what they want uh us to know about their Advisory Group meetings including motions that have passed that on recommendations to this board one day earlier those reports get to us so now we have 24 hours to read ahead of time so when our distinguished volunteers come in and say they'd like to talk about things now we've had some time to think about it uh we'd know how to react to some of the Motions um as a as a chair of an Advisory Board a long even more than 20 years ago there you go um and as one uh six years prior to joining uh this board um it was a standard practice I wanted to submit written reports to the board because I wanted to know in writing uh what our board had done um I don't think it's owners for them to do it I think it's an important thing to keep us informed uh particularly on the formal part of what they've done which is the Motions recommendations uh conclusions that they've made uh I'd love to do that so that the chief of staff under any orc chart uh can put those together and get them to us uh because that's a that's an important thing and an addition that we've done recently uh but I think 48 hours in advance makes sense 24 to us it's the minimum amount of time that they can get Cate it put it together and and get it to us so they can read it before these meetings um so I i' like it as written thank you next just Also to clarify we do now require those motions it's it's a board item right Dr heern that they are writing their motions and recommendations and we are are accepting them and then either writing our own motions so we've addressed that that I'm not changing that about formal motion it is about the report of what happened for the month yeah I'd like to get um through the chair some input from Miss Lon I've attended her meetings her ESC meetings and there it's a huge group of parents they very active parents and there's a lot involved she has a lot on her plate and one of the considerations is I just want to know how to make this easier for these committee reports to come in so it's not as time consuming but still as thorough and I don't know my phone I dictated to my phone for messages to go out as far as emails or or uh text messages I don't know if you're using that Miss Lum would that be something that would help you what what can we do to make it easier for you that's what I'm asking you thank you but you can vote in favor of not making us do one more thing I I know I'm a writer for a living I know how to write reports I know the technology that can write reports for you if you want to dictate it that still takes my time I come here faithfully and I report and even when I do with all due respect all nine of you aren't always engaged I've written a 42-page report this week you're still blindly going ahead with something that is dangerous dangerous dangerous to kids so please at this point thank you but I'm not up for tips as to how to write a report I'm just wanting to hear that you're not going to make me do one more thing I I copy you in on on issues all the time that with some of you I just never ever hear back back from um open items that I'm bringing um cases forward that are affecting our students and our parents I'm sitting in these board meetings listening to you to get to the item I want to get to sometimes constantly texting messaging I'm sitting here that's what I'm doing here is your work is the parents that are coming to me because they don't feel they can come to staff anymore because they don't feel there's a system in place to help them I've got staff lighting up my phone saying I'm done I'm quitting this summer because nobody is listening to us but thank you for trying they're coming to me they're not coming to you and they're not coming to staff and they're not going to their principles they're coming to me and I Faithfully try to represent fot for them and I still don't feel it's hurt so please don't one more thing me to use somebody else's phrase by putting on me a requirement to write a report two days ahead of a meeting when it's not even clear 2 days ahead of a meeting what need to be in that report because quite often before a meeting is held there's a staff scramble to suddenly maybe attend to some items that they know you're going to be up here talking about and sometimes I'll be very fair and say hey I'm going to be speaking about this at a board meeting so I think that there is uh and to Mrs uh Vice chair hixon's point about motions you already have a system for making us submit motions and they're falling down right left and Center as well um Dr holess was kind of enough to pick up three es advisory motions and say he wanted to move them forward but only one of them end ever ended up on one of your agendas so the other two have fallen by the wayside even though you I know from some of you you that you would have supported it it's the cameras in ese classrooms um matter that's going to time out and none of us then have time to uh fix what's going to happen after the summer you get told stuff by staff that then we don't have an opportunity to counter in these meetings so we we come we say our thing we follow up afterwards you know those of us who are working damn hard and if there are people who don't then ask them to but within the limitations of their own volunteerism what you require or what would help you but stop requiring volunteers to do things because we already do that and more thank you remember a comment thank you thank you very much I think we all needed to hear that thank you okay Mrs Hixon can you just clarify your motion before we vote okay so on p on page 8 of 13 or 928 wherever you're looking letter e under three two business days prior to the scheduled regular school board meeting each advisory committee shall electronically submit their written committee reports if they will not be present at the school board meeting and Associated formal motions to the deputy super well I guess that'll have to change also the deputy superintend I think that's Mr Austin so I'll leave that part okay and you're not doing anything with D no because these just the guidelines of if you do write a written report what it should look like not um requiring people to write a report and D okay could she repeat it one more time sorry say that would you mind repeating it one more time e two business days prior to the scheduled regular school board meeting each advisor committee shall electronically submit their written committee reports if they will not be present at the school board meeting so that's what I want to add could I ask a question Mr Al so what if they are present at the school board meeting they have to do a written report I got you so now I'm going back to process do they now submit their how do they submit their formal motions and everything a part of the agenda item that's a different that's that's a different process already have yeah okay so we're got it okay okay any other comments all in favor of the motion say I I those oppos say no no one desending vote Dr Zan and okay Dr holness thank you madam chair so um okay I um I know uh regarding the uh has the superintendent determined the appropriate placement of um uh certain functions in policy 1020 um since we we changed the role of the chief of staff and there's a lot of reference to that and I know board member Alon will be coming later with with with changes to to other positions in here so I'm just I'm just concerned about the chief of staff there's a lot of reference to that here in 1020 and that role has now changed so are we to assume that um these functions will be assumed by the uh Chief of Staff which will be the communications um uh director Dr yes that's correct Dr holess okay very good so I have some uh motions um on the redline version uh item 5B on page six of the redline version um I have a question first uh what is Robert's rules on uh board member um uh um uh speak in time Miss Batista Robert's Rule says that is 20 minutes per item okay so um I am not so much in favor of Item B uh on page six of the redline version so so I would like uh to uh motion to um to uh go back to Robert rues guidelines as far as speaking time for board members is there a second Point clarification wait for a second maam did he did he say C on page six because I don't have it Redline version P 65b it the item is asking for board members to have an initial 5 minutes to speak and 3 minutes of rebuttal um I don't believe any of us have overly um abused the speaking time I think we're respectful of that and I'd like to move back to Robert's rules um guidelines for speaking time for board members is there a second move by Hess second by public comment board member comment thank you uh Dr holess and I love the oxymoron of your motion so the last motion we were in favor of increasing the amount of time for the public but uh it appears the staff recommendation uh is to decrease the amount of time for board members right I'm assuming that's what's before as Mr superintendent right um so I understand uh your point but I also if the big picture and this this is for the board not you um is for the board to have a procedure in place that allows for ample engagement back and forth um to allow us to get through our agenda in a timely manner we have to have some pushing pull at some point and we haven't pulled anything we just haven't I mean we we get we get weak knees when it's time to pull something that's what this board does and it's frustrating that I'm just put a period there thank you Z thanks so much chair I just want to do some quick math uh last week at our school board meeting we had 137 items uh we've had uh readhead materials that have gone well over 6,000 Pages um if everyone gets 20 minutes to talk on a meeting times nine people that's an hour excuse me that's three hours per item times 13 7 hours that's 400 and no scar be 501 hours which I can't do the division by 24 but it's a lot of days um I believe uh 5 minutes is more than sufficient to make your points uh on the acds that we have before us 5 minutes and then everyone gets five and then three again uh is really uh important to have these limits the poll to Mr Austin's point because it's important that the community watch this on Beacon it's important that they come and sit through our meetings they will not come when they're 15 hours routinely um and it forces all of us uh to get a little discipline in preparing for items if You' got something to say uh please say it in five minutes or less um it's also by the way according to Robert's rules at the discretion of the chair uh to wave those rules so if we're talking about u a former superintendent's departure package if we're talking about repurposing schools and there's a whole bunch of critical decisions it may very well be that the chair at that time allows for uh both greater public comment great school work comment um and a series of meetings including workshops before we get to any final decision so uh I really think this is a strong pull and in if you have a nine member body I'm surprised Robert's Rules gives you 20 minutes each to talk about an item they must be talking about items that have agendas that have three items or less uh not 137 uh like we have according to our coreign policy so I think we got to keep this uh otherwise we're going to be uh making mistakes for the system that we have in terms of engaging the publicness so Madam chair while that may be factual if we all use 20 minutes um it's actually uh not a um a reality reality statement because none of us has really um spoke for 20 minutes on every single item I I think there are occasions when we need to speak longer on specific items but if we look at it in its ideal form yes 20 minutes for all of us to speak on 139 items we would be here here for a very long time but that's unrealistic because we have not done that that would be the extreme uh but I I I am not in favor of limiting public comments as well as limit limiting the board members comments I think we're all reasonable and I think there are times when we have to debate for a long period of time depending on the significance of the item so I don't want to be placed with those limits and and um I don't think there has been any case where all of us are speaking uh lengthy on every single item um we all have pulled items that we focus on and um given us the appropriate time to do so I think is important not only for us but for for the public Mr thank you very much chair and I appreciate uh the motion Dr holness I think we've had the conversation I don't know what board meeting it was I think it was one of the town halls but it it's frustration sometimes because it feels like of course debate is good um but not being able to make the point um of course we can maybe change the verbage to just uh keep it specifically to board member alustin maybe that I'm joking joking we won't do that um but no I appreciate appreciate the motion Dr hold um I like yeah so I don't think I don't think we should be limiting I love it and debate thank you very much CH Miss Fam thank you I think we're all mature enough here to self-limit and to try to get to the point as quickly as possible um I enjoy the debate I think we sometimes um face very complex issues and then sub isues come into play that haven't been considered so we have to go off into other areas therefore I I don't think you can say one subject is limited to this because it can lead to so many different other areas that are affected so I am not against I mean I am not in favor of limiting um the speech of board members up here um but those that choose to want to limit their speech they can they're free to to do that so and I I think the two most people that speak enough I think I I learned the M from and I really enjoy um listening to different points of view I do I I I value that so and I'm sure the public does because remember we're reading things or or we're getting memos that they don't get to see so a lot of information is things that is not that's available the public hasn't seen it so it's important that we verbalize it and vocalize it for them right but a lot of the questions and people say to me why you ask so many questions because a lot of times I know the answers to the questions but the public don't and I am accountable to the public to keep them informed so I ask the question so then it's right there you weigh it you weigh the pros the cons everybody's inside the circle of love thank you thank you and I'm willing to try this recommendation I think we need to do something if you always do what you always have done then you'll always have what you have right now and all I keep hearing is people want to go faster get the meetings done but that can't happen when and no offense to anybody but people go on dialogues and Rants and repeat themselves over and over and they don't get to their points so this will help people be concise get to the point and you know I think that we should try it maybe things will change that's Madam chair may I say something Miss rert yes I I am wanted to kind of remind people that the chair also has in her Arsenal her toolbox um the ability to say um does anybody have anything different to add to the conversation or another option to add to the convers ation and that seem to work for me where we were pretty much out of there by 6: pm. every night and uh we certainly had a board that was um prisic speakers but it was one after another after another so I I just say I believe at this point that that the chair has the ability and I know she has the strength of character to do that so I I would would suggest that the chair um be a little firmer and say um is is there something new to add to the conversation M rer if I say no no and we're done so that's just my point Thank you any other comments on the Dr fess's motion Dr holness can you repeat the motion okay I motion to um to move back to Robert ru's guidelines for item uh 5B on page six of the red line um policy roll call roll call on the motion Mr Austin I am against no sorry this fam he did he did I did what I did it wrong right did you repeat the motion again cuz then maybe I misunderstood no problem um I motion to return to Robert rules guidelines for item five b on page six of the red line uh 1020 policy Miss fam no I did misher it thank you for reading that I thought you said roll back can you s remove just to clarify thank you move back to Robert rules so that again miss fam is a no vote correct correct Mr fenoli yes the board dialogue yes Mrs hion no Dr Hess yes Mrs Leonardi no Mrs rert no Dr Zan no and Mrs alev no motion fails 72 me and you Hess okay okay back to the item okay I still have more Madam chair thank you okay so on page seven of the red line policy 1020 I motion to remove the second and third sentence of item D under Roman numeral 5 is there a second hold on should I read it out Madam chair pleas okay no member can speak more than twice on any agenda item on the same day refering to school board members um contingent upon the sum of uh business before the board of subject matter of the agenda item the number of speaking rounds may be extended at the discretion of the chair I am motioning to remove those two sentences um again I I am not for limiting the time or the number of or the fre frequency to which a board member can speak I think we have very significant items at times and I think just limiting this is actually um tying our hands in um being able to significantly discuss items and to come to a good decision there a second second second move by holess second by fogan holy public comment for member comment Mr Alon yes um I appreciate the motion but the the the second part of what's being recommended to be taken out is actually I think the positive part right where we're trying to give discretion to the chair or if you were in a friendly mode uh you know maybe it's discretion of the chair and or a majority of the board right so a majority of the board could you know do what what I think you're attempting to do but I think to remove these you know two s well anyway I I get the motion you can do it friendly meaning to keep it but add that at the end of the word chair you you see where I'm referring to the number speaking rounds be seen at the discretion of the chair or a majority of the board there you go right my motion is to remove the two sentences are you implying to to keep the third sentence and remove the second is that your friendly Amendment so if you kept them so that's why I'm talking out loud if you kept them both but added in a majority of the board to that second part of the sentence that still gives you the discretion right you maintain the two rounds okay if you need to do more the majority of the board or the chair can do something different okay friendly Amendment accepted okay just remember we don't do friendly amendments but you can make uh change to your motion the motion is change to to add the majority of the board okay other comments seeing none all in favor of the motion say I I I those oppose say no no motion carries with one dissenting vote demoness okay Madam chair I have two more and and here's the brave move now I since we're all talking about saving time so I make a motion on agenda item pp4 to revise rule one section g to read as follows and and if this motion passed then it would insert uh in section g um and motion is regular and special meetings shall not commence pass a duration of 8 hours unless 2/3 of the present school board members vote in favor of extending the meeting and Madame chair I have a a second motion that's coming up that I would like to read because it it will help with the decision of this motion is that okay yes okay so the second motion is I make a motion that the agenda items are moved in the following sequence for the regular school board meetings first priority item selected by the superintendent then items that have been pulled by board members and finally any agenda items for which 10 or more individuals have registered to speak if the board meeting reaches the 8h hour duration that's if the first motion passed all remaining agenda items shall be recessed to the next regular school regular scheduled meeting time of the board or to another date established by the board so the first motion is to limit the board meeting 8 hours the second motion is the priority at which items are discussed up to the 8 hour time limit okay so let's work with the first Mo motion and that was second it was that second it I'll second the motion for wait a second move by Hess second by Altin public comment or member comment bam point of clarification here's um Dr H directed to doctor through the chair you're saying for8 hours and G says 8:00 p.m. just want you to clarify are we talking about 8 hours 8 hours I am talking about 8 hours not 8:00 p.m. so whenever the meeting starts 8 hours because I believe as a human being and and respected the public as well keeping your concentration for longer than 8 hours you start to lose focus you start to get exhausted and tired I think if we prioritize the items uh in which is in the second motion at the end of 8 hours we can uh um recess uh the rest of items for another scheduled board meeting or Workshop board member comment Austin yes uh I like the spirit of the motion but so the reason I second it so this the second part of the motion if I heard it correctly was a super majority to extend yes I would hope well I would ask for you to consider making that a simple majority right you never want to hamstring the board because there could there there will be time well let me not even add there should be a simple majority that's accepted okay okay I'm good fam yes um thank you madam chair I just wanted to um through the chair ask Mr H um holness in the past they board actually had approximately an eight hour board meetings and they had two meetings a month so when they took away the second meeting that's what really extended this the current meeting to such a long period of time um so I'd like to make a motion if possible for us to go back to two meetings so we can at least get through everything during the month and and we don't have a problem because I think we're going to get backed up backed up backed up because we're not going to be able to get things done it's not realistic you've been down that road let's vote on Dr holess and then you can speak to that any other comments on Dr hess's motions to send a eight hour meeting and um to uh have a majority simple majority yes simple majority to extend to extend the meeting Mrs rert thank you um I I agree on the the second and third part but not the first part because we have a lot of decisions to be made and um we will get behind we are already behind we're behind behind so um I I would not agree with the very first part I understand um Dr holus the reason for it however um sometimes it takes 10 hours to get the business done that's my that's my point but I would support Parts two Madam chair Hess okay so um to board member uh Rupert's Point um we can always extend the meeting Beyond 8 hours with a simple majority vote so if there are items that we feel that we need to continue and get to uh a simple majority can achieve that but at least we're holding ourselves to a reasonable limit of time that is respectful to us and the public uh in proceeding and then the second motion prioritize the items to make sure that we're getting through the significant items up to that 8 hour limit and we can always change the 8 hours with a simple majority I think we need to have some guidelines we sat in here last week for 13 hours straight hours that's just too much and I think unless we set some limits we're going to end up continuing to to do that so I think prioritizing the items and limiting the time with a simple majority to extend it is reasonable okay so let's vote on Dr holess motion 8 Hour meetings and with a simple majority vote to extend beyond that eight hours all in favor say I I I those opposed say no no no rert Fen Holly no motion carries okay so the second motion um in regards to that is I make a motion that the agenda items are moved in the following sequence for the regular school board meetings first priority items selected by the superintendent then items that have been pulled by board members and finally any agenda items for which 10 or more individuals have registered to speak on if the board meeting reaches the 8 Hour duration limit all remaining agenda items shall be recessed to the next regularly scheduled meeting time of the board or to another date established by the board is there a second let me second for discussion move by holess second by atin public comment board member comment I just would say that that does already happen but I'm okay with it that's what already happens Mr aluson well I was only going to ask so priority items by the superintendent versus Pools by the board members what's the rationale in one versus the other or what goes ahead um well for the board members versus superintendent I have no problem in in which goes first with those two so if I could through the so now to the chair um I don't know if this is what happens now so a majority I agree um and I don't know if this is your intent I'm assuming this is after just call it committee reports I don't know what what your intent is right after you pass that piece right then this is how you how you flow um is it Priority items you know right now technically you don't start with priority items by the superintendent today is that right no it's only one where you see we're running at a time right then we'd go to what has to be voted on today right and once we get to the we're at 7 hours and 45 minutes right that's when we revert back to what are the items that need to corre pass go ahead I have a suggestion I we I can work with the chief of staff and the superintendent maybe we rework like priority items in the single letters priority items and the double letters true so that they get voted on first absolutely that's the intent Madam chair I'm good with that any other com with that change right so it sounds like it's going to go back to board then suit then 10 or more speakers I think that that all shows priority items right yeah single letter versus double letter that makes sense Dr Zan ma' I'm ready all in favor of the motion say I I those opposed say no no mo motion carries with Fen hly descending any other comments that's it Madam chair okay Dr Zan how are you chair um we spent some time on on this it's important uh I think the comments that we've had today uh reflect uh some of the goals that we have which is you know we'd like people to watch we'd like people to attend we'd like critical information to get to the board and we'd like to have some cognitive abilities left uh throughout the meeting to have good honest open debate uh to inform each other to to make sure that we have critical information um but there's some other changes that I think uh make sense uh I'm going to point us to page two rule number two section c give everybody a minute to go there page two of 15 page two I'm on the red line version two of 15 yeah it's a little bit easier you can see what was there and what wasn't uh rule two section c I'd like to make a motion that Workshop agendas be prioritized to focus on students progress monitoring and learner learning centered topics all remaining topics are to be shared with the board in advanced and briefly summarized at the workshop is there a second moveed by Zan second by fam public comment board member comment Madam CH can you please or pleas what page one page two rule two section c Red Line can you just read what it says Dr Z right now it says uh Schoolboard workshops are explorations of matters concerning the business of the school district workshops for the sole purpose of communicating information and engaging in general discussion on operational and policy topics the school board will take no official action in a workshop my motion is to uh in essence strike uh workshops are for the sole purpose of communicating information and engaging in general discussion excuse me that that's all good but instead of on operational and policy topics it would be replaced with uh with a focus on students progress monitoring and learning centered topics and a new sentence all remaining topics are to be shared with the board in advance and briefly summarized at the workshop okay Dr Zan thanks you so much uh to me um and I've heard this from my colleagues I've heard it from people that used to go to Workshop meetings is that there were things disc discussed at workshops were about our core Mission our K through2 education core Mission we talked about students we talked about progress monitoring on things related to learning and to students and to learning centered topics including budget and things like that which are essential for it but there are now topics that we talk about in workshops that take a significant amount of time and are of little interest to the community and frankly uh are not part of our core Mission our goal is to become an a district and for every student to achieve at the level of their potential and I believe that our Workshop should primarily focus on that this doesn't tie the hands of us to do other things but it just says you know our job is to become an a district and get everybody to their potential uh why aren't we talking more about that why aren't we talking about student absenteeism why aren't we talking about staff absenteeism why aren't we talking about days that are dedicated to things that are not academics uh these are core issues and we should be talking about them in workshops and inad we load workshops with with other things which are all important but they're not the core Mission and I would like workshops to be cool again I'd like people from national uh groups like education trust and universities to come and talk to us about things that matter uh but the things that matter the most to me are the core mission of Brower County school which is K through2 education Dr holness thank you madam chair so Dr Zeman I I do appreciate having workshops focus on student um achievement progress monitoring and learning centers and so on um however um are you asking to remove operational and policy topics from Workshop discussions I mean I like the idea of adding these um very important student oriented topics um but I do believe occasions where we have to discuss policy or operational issues so are you I can support the motion if we're adding these additional Focus um as priority but not complet removing operational and policy topics so can you elaborate on what your motion is yes and and with your comment in mind I'm going to strike the second sentence I don't want to um say that all other topics should be done in advance and just summarized I mean I I would like that as a general working rule but I don't want to Rite it into a policy what I want the policy say is our priority should be on students progress monitoring and learning centered topics all it is is a statement of priorities there's plenty of room for operations and policy and and other things uh uh so so the only part of my proposal that remains is that we focus focus on students progress monitoring and learning center topics okay my question to the superintendent is how does this affects staff's ability to Workshop any of these policies or operational matters if we do this thanks chair I think it's more about uh we will be happy to bring more academic student Focus topics to Workshop um I think it's more about time management because we know with this redefining process that's U coming up we have facilities issues to discuss we have um fiscal issues to discuss so this would be the point that Dr Zan is making what the uh other topics to add would be in addition to this but it won't tie our hands we just have to manage our time appropriately and preempting the board with the right information and informing you as such so you don't have a lot of questions you can provide input and feedback to the staff prior to so that the workshop flows um a little bit more efficient Dr holness so so Madame chair I want to make sure that I'm voting correctly on this item and I hear Dr Hepburn's uh response and what I gather from that response is is that we will include these other Focus areas that are student oriented but we will not be removing uh items such as policy and operational issues and I want Dr Zan to concur that that's what he means so when I vote I know what I'm voting for Charon yes I want to actually double down a little bit more um on where I thought you were um I don't think we disagree on anything we've heard right including all of these items um student Focus operational policy topics where we can uh get the temperature of the board uh we can't make any votes right Madam Council um but when we had the conversation before um I thought we talked about having a very clear percentage of the agenda for example right because we don't do that now um I don't know 5% of this agenda is academics okay so if we had a metric where we said we want whether it's 70 30 60 40 right 60% of the agenda is academics the other 40% is operational and policy right staff you figure out how but we want a majority overwhelming majority of Workshop agendas to reflect that that is the type of uh statement that we can make uh to push back to show that yes we do focus on that or we will focus on it going forward so I would love for you to as part of your motion that you have on the floor uh if you'd add in maybe like a 60 40 split right right 60% on academics 40% other right to include operational policy Etc that's when you now say a majority of our Workshop is focused on students Dr um I I would uh like it to be a majority uh I I don't again I want always to be flexible you know after a storm after a hurricane after right you know uh a big town hall around repurposing uh we may need a workshop for eight hours on repurposing and I would say that that's a Learning Center topic because that's where we learn you know in schools so I'll U amend my motion chair and say that the workshop a a majority of the workshop agendas will focus on students progress monitoring and learning centered topics okay I like that um ad Mr Alon um what I don't want is see though is bypassing the Sunshine Law where there's you know individual board craws with staff where then decisions are being made not in the sunshine so we need to make sure that whatever materials or information that it's posted on public agendas and that we work shop have public comment and do everything in the sunshine Dr Hess thank you madam chair so again I want to clarify the change um when we refer to majority um for Workshop items are we speaking in terms of majority for each Workshop or cumul cumulatively majority of items in our workshop for the year is student Focus or are we saying the majority of items for each Workshop should be student Focus are we looking at it on a comprehensive level or are we looking looking at it individually Dr Zan can you clarify yeah that it would be a majority of each Workshop agenda yeah okay ready to vote on that motion all in favor say I I I those opposed say no no motion carries foken holy dissenting demon thank you ma'am three more Miss rer yes yes ma'am thank you Dr Zan second is page five rule 4 section c and this is just more of a legal issue than anything else but on page five rule 4 section c I'd like to make a motion to add an additional bullet that reads any other matters limited to statutory responsibility of Florida school board members is there a second second move by uh Zan second by wholeness public comment board comment saying none all in favor a question wait wait before we go to a vote um so under eight and nine isn't that well let let me not make an assumption what is I I support what you're saying right what's in statute is actually because we limit ourselves but what's under 8 and N what's being proposed is that in the entirety what's different from8 and n that cite that citation to statute versus what you're proposing so there are 22 specific statutory responsibilities of school board members they're not all listed here and I just want to make sure that our policy is consistent with state law uh that gives us the authority uh to do everything from attendance checks to open and close schools and the like no I'm with you and I don't have I have it in my bag my question is chapter 120 1 1.43 that's not what is that Vista that is the SE that is the section that talks about the uh rights of scho War members is that the same passage that we're talking about all the RO the roles um that's part of it um that that is part of it that is not um all of the sections are not included in here okay I'm fine I just wanted to be complete so Dr zian is there a fla statue number that you're quoting yes uh to be honest there's there there's not just one single section that gives School Board statutory Authority there's several and I just want the point to be clear in our policy that the state provides us things that we we and only we could do and I just want those to be included and I'd also like it to be flexible for laws they passed in the future and add or distract so I just want that general statement there sure but I would just recommend that that we list all those statutes in there after that your motion I agree with that Amendment chair thank you all in favor of the motion say I I those opposed say no amend no we're not there yet motion carries Dr Zan yes ma'am uh page seven and n on the redline version rule s sections 2B and 4C both uh talk about yielding time and my motion is to strike all language permitting the yielding of speaking time to other registered speakers is there a second eight of 15 can you repeat the motion Dr Z on page seven uh rule 7 sections 2B and 4C I wrote down it's also on page N I think it's repeat on nine page 8 of 15 that's where it starts yeah thank you 941 the motion is to remove all language permitting the yielding of speaking time to other registered speakers is there a second motion dies terrific last motion uh page 10 rule 7 section 4E page 10 rule 7 4 e I'd like to make a motion to strike the words Schoolboard member from the sentence derogatory comments expressed against individual Schoolboard members or School District staff are strictly prohibited my intent here is to open the the the door anybody that's frustrated uh with something that I've done or one of my colleagues have done to come to a public meeting and exercise their democra rights to say what they don't like I do not feel that it's appropriate for them to do that at stat uh but we stand before the public for everything that we do and everything that we don't do and if they want to say derogatory statements about a school board member I'd rather them come here and say it in public and I'd rather them be able to say it in a forum like this uh rather than to have those derogatory thoughts about any school board member and keep them to themselves or Express them in other other forms is there a second second moved by Zeman second by rert public comment Le second by miss leonardy Page 11 15 okay public comment board member comment Miss leonardy do you want to speak no I just wanted it noted that I that remember comment ma'am yes ma'am I I would be against that only because um there's a lot of defamatory statements and untrue statements that are made that come come flying across and I've been subject to them and the chair has not stopped at where I've been called literally um someone that carries um pornography around with me other board members have implied that I have some kind of connection or I am a proud boy and it's ridiculous that I have to face these false defamatory and inflammatory statements um all because it's a a political guys and I am absolutely against that if you want to be constructive and your criticism but this labeling that's hate speech because you don't agree with someone that's outrageously inflated that does we with the the best quality that we should have as a board on here the ability to debate thank you Dr hes Madame chair thank you um you know I believe there is a reciprocity in how the board deals with the public and how the public deals with the board it add to the professional decorum um and you know uh the board should have no right to speak in a derogatory way to the public and neither should the public do so to the board I believe that we can have a professional uh constructive dialogue with the public um but I cannot support um either way for any board member to be derogatory in their remarks to the public or the public to do so to the board so um and and the term derogatory although we all know what it means may be relative to other people this may provide um a permission to then have individuals uh uh starting to be significantly disrespectful to each other and I don't want to see that premise for neither the public nor the board any other comments Madam sure I'd like to make some comments actually go ahead yeah you know it is a fact that many of us have been the subject of derogatory comments um that is part of being an elected official I believe uh I agree with Dr Zan that this is a a you know a freedom of speech issue Madame chair reads the district character traits at the beginning of each board meeting and I would hope that we can all whether or not we are board members or members of the public adhere to those character traits uh you know we as board members have a platform and and we can use that for better for worse um I don't believe in limiting the public and their ability to make certain comments about us however distasteful they are um and I would just I'll leave it at that thank you any other board member comment roll call on Dr Zeman's motion you clarify the motion CH y Dr Zan the current uh sentence says uh prohibits derogatory comments against school board members and District staff uh the motion is to uh leave in School District staff so it'll read derogatory comments expressed against individual School District staff are strictly prohibited roll call roll call on the motion Mr fogan Hoy no Mrs Hixon no Dr holess no Mrs Leonardi yes Mrs rert no Dr Zeman yes Mrs alhad no Mr Austin no Mrs fam the motion fails 72 27 thanks chair that's all I have thank you does any other board member have a motion charson yes yes uh so back to the original motion I'm sorry the original thought of a motion I move to uh strike all references to positions uh not reflected on the or chart that the board just approved is there a second and replaced with appropriate second position second who member move by off second by Fen H public comment board member comment all in favor of the motion say I I those oppose say no motion carries I do have one more question so and actually board member holdiness uh is has stepped away U but he raised a question Mr superintendent uh around uh Chief of Staff I think your response back was that you intend to now replace uh the position titles that were not approved on the or chart to reflect which role because we voted down Chief of Staff chief of communications and legislative affairs got it okay I just want to confirm that all right so everywhere where there's a current reference to the deputy superintendent chief of staff that now will be the office of communication and legislative affairs is that correct correct okay thank you any other motions on this item just one Dr Zan thanks so much chair um meetings will be different um on this I uh I do want to point out something that we left in which is our speakers are supposed to identify themselves if they're lobbyists and I don't know exactly how we uh enforce that with the folks that come and stand before us but I think it's critical for good government to make sure that anyone that stands here that's being paid to come and and Lobby uh is clear about that so I'm glad that that stays in and also chair uh I think these rules uh did they uh create agenda categories called open and consent items Dr hurn repeat that Dr zon can you repeat that please uh does the does this policy uh create categories for agenda items uh that are in plain English like uh uh consent items and open items Dr want yes it does um Dr H bur Dr Seaman yes it does in um rule three letter C thank you and I just wanted to share with that with my colleagues uh when we come back we'll actually be able to commun unate with the public there won't be double C and single F and things there'll be open items and consent items and it'll be clear to everybody including the employees of BR County schools and the public uh that we have two different agendas one which we think you know unless there's some objection could be passed on consent and others which if there's any you know discussion uh on those more significant items uh that they'll be included in the open Agenda thanks chair thanks um Miss P I just have need some clarification on uh what we we did pass which was be with the speaking of the 5 minutes and the 3 minutes for the rebuttle per motion um it says while debating a motion so I just want to clarify you know we're in the school board meeting and anytime when the board member speaks is that considered the five minutes yes like I want to make sure like that there's nothing else like giving their opinion whatever that is encompassed in their 5 minutes when they start speaking so pursu to Robert's Rules the way that it works is that when there is a motion on the floor and there is any discussion about it that's called debate that includes whatever the board member will be stating whether it's opinion or um argument to or you know for or against the motion okay I just wanted everybody on the board to be crystal clear about that so once you start speaking whether you're giving your opinion or telling a story or debating Dr Zan I thought we just said you couldn't disparage a Schoolboard member but wow I I plead guilty the way minutes I I plead guilty you said it was okay okay I'll go to Speaker Jail um any any other motions okay all in favor of item pp4 as amended say I I those opposed say no motion carries unanimously I have a motion second on pp5 second mov by Hixon second by fogan holy public comment M fam I mean Mrs uh Hixon thank you I'm not sure if this this is where my question goes or not um but it was a good place to start um when we have school board members that use the PE card to sign up for a conference or a workshop and something comes up and they're not able to go where is it that we indicate that they have to reimburse the PE card because often if it gets charged like for a conference if can someone explain Dr heurn how that works um um so that we're just sure that if they don't if they're not able to attend for whatever reason that the district isn't getting charged for that Dr W um thank you Dr hmer so um Miss Hixon and Miss Batista can opine it it may be um appropriate for that to come to the Prof to be um embedded in the professional development policy that's coming to the board um actually when we get to the workshop okay it would be in wasn't sure where it went it back there okay all right thank you next one any other comments on pp5 school board policy 1080 ethics go for school board members Mr Austin yes I'd like to move that school board members have a zero gift policy removing the $50 amount to $0 uh reflected all throughout the policy that's my motion there second second move by Altin second by folen holy public comment board member comment roll call Madam chair can you repeat the motion please my motion is to have a0 gift policy for school board members as opposed to the other I'm sorry yeah yeah so page so it's excit starting on page 4 of 12966 section D limitation and acceptance of other gifts under Section e so I'm explicitly asking for a0 gift policy for school board members any comments ready for roll call roll roll call on the motion Mrs Hixon no Dr holes uh no Mrs Leonardi no Mrs rert no Dr Zan no Mrs alev no Mr Austin highly in favor of Mrs ma' go with yes Mr fogan halling yes motion fails 63 thank you uh board members uh council is this also the place I know we've had the conversation before I think in any other environment um everyone would go crazy uh because we just went against a z gift policy for ourselves um where is the appropriate place to also look at uh the same gift uh constraints for uh executive uh members of the district and all employees so this is the um this this is the policy for board members um as you know um you know the $50 uh limit is actually less than what the that's a specific rule for just board members that is $50 uh because normally for other uh governmental agencies it's 100 right I'm used to zero I come from the state um I appreciate that all right so Council my next question I know we've debated before on a separate policy so I believe I can bring this item back um where we refer under Section 6A report of lobbying activity we expressly are now including one new area so I also believe I can also add an area or take out an area so this I know refers uh to um I'm assuming the current lobbying policy that's in place but I can't tell because I don't believe that the new recommendation of six applies to that or maybe it does so let me just go backwards to what I was attempting to do before so we we explicitly exclude several groups which I don't believe we should should exclude so I'm going to attempt again on this policy which is the ethics code for school board members um in this policy and if there's a distinction then we can deal with whatever that difference may be so I move that we remove uh the exemption for several groups explicitly including uh section one which is school Allied groups and section two employee bargaining groups that's my motion second move by Alon second by Ala public comment board member comment I like it thank you Mrs leonardy yeah um I have a few questions about how that would work so when we talk about employee bargaining groups um would that be like members any member of that group um a member of fopi for instance Batista yes it would it would include um any member of the um of any Union uh that is coming to speak to the public official uh in their capacity to speak about either you know something related to the union would that include um like so you know a lot of times during negotiations we get emails from members of those groups would that that include those emails yes okay so we would have to file the appropriate paperwork for each email well M Batista can you clarify though because ites to the whole entire School Board you wouldn't only if it's specifically to you correct normally yes that's how uh the lobbying activity would work if um you would not have to um so normally if there is something that is addressed specifically to a board member that's when you have to complete the appropriate paperwork right we do get those email I mean I certainly get those emails as well um that are just addressed to me um how does this and if I may um you know because normally so if if it is addressed specifically to you even if everybody received it sometimes you don't know that everybody received it so then you would have to fill the the paperwork um what if how so let me back up how does this fit in with Florida what does Florida statute say about this m batia Flor statutes um do not specifically um you know have that um called out um as as the board does but is um obviously allowed permitted if the board would like to keep it out or or if um you know now you want to change it okay um I wouldn't be in favor of doing it for every single member I you know could support potentially you know officers of those labor groups um in bargaining groups um I think it's a bit excessive to have to file that paperwork for every single email we get from a a teacher or an SRO or um you know I could go on down the list thank you yeah just to to board member Leonard's uh good point in question um which I didn't get to the second motion if this passes I hope it does um the reporting onus could be on the individual so the way the County Commission works is if you when when the ethics originally started I should add the onus was on that other individual so if you were meeting with in this case a school board member the reporting onus is on that individual to report to your question to your point as opposed to the report the reporting onus being on the school board member in this case so that's just another way to deal with it if this were to pass um I could support that I again you know I I would be hesitant again to include every single member of those bargaining groups because I don't know how many uh you know teachers might be aware of that report if we were to implement a reporting requirement that would put the onus on them um I don't I think that that makes it very difficult for them to reach out to public officials and I don't know there would have to be like training around all of that so I you know again I could support uh something on like the officers of those bargaining groups not every single member Mr Charon that's fair let me ask a question because there's a difference between advocacy and lobbying so back to definitions right I know we wanted to strike out so I don't believe in this policy we are clear on the Miss Leonard's Point um anyone can be an advocate right advocating for something that's different than I think lobbying right or is it or is it a gray area this maybe more for Council you think it's gray okay I think yeah that's I think that's just bleeding hairs okay okay are you changing your motion no the motion I think is perfect um but what I like is I think I'll add if you want to be explicit on let me just go back and read the exclusion because I think the intent is for transparency I think that's what everyone wants to know and see um you know officers or or uh the leaders right maybe broad of these organizations when they reach out to public public officials that you know that is reportable I think that's what the intent is so I'm good with that recommendation if that's what you're supporting because some of these groups don't have officers I'm looking at it right they may have leadership yeah I just so I I I support the the piece about transparency if we're going to say leaders I want to be I just want to be very clear so that no one is you know caught off guard or or it's a gotcha right so um if we're going to include leaders I support that I just would like there to be a clear definition of that other board member comic Miss ales can you put me on the list go ahead Miss rert um I would not be able to support this item although I um of course love Mr Altin uh but it would make my job exceedingly different and it would also make uh holiday meal around my house a little bit difficult my child this is going to be no surprise to you is very opinionated and she's a teacher and she's a member of the Union right it's I understand the difference between advocacy and lobbying but I don't believe other people do and we really see it very different so I do know that I meet with employees and I emphasize the word employee all the time from food in the ition to our bus drivers to our uh of our Chiefs some of our Copa members it would be very difficult to even know what kind of H education um it would be very difficult I'd actually have to report every single conversation email and uh meeting that I miss I'm sorry meeting that I attend and um I would find it own is on not only on me but on the public and on my assistant as well right now she she does you know people say that they're lobbyists or even if they're not saying that they're lobbyist and they're actually with accompany I still send I still sign the thing and I send it Forward just to be super safe but I really I about that as it is uh we have TS of thousands of members of our organization that our employees are part of our family and it would be very difficult to do my job without meeting them and without listening to them and what the problems and or solutions that they actually uh are asking about or offering and additionally policy changes so it would be difficult for me and I would I would have difficulty supporting this as it is thank you thank you Dr Zan yeah chair I'm curious um do um persons representing ptas uh meet the um our definition of a lobbyist M Batista I'm sorry would you repeat the question do um people representing a PTA uh meet our definition of a lobbyist so depending on what they are so they could yes thank you um do members of the district advisory committee meet our definition of a lobbyist again it depends on their message do members of a band booster or other athletic booster Association uh meet a definition of a lobbyist so right now they don't right that clearly something that is carved out no no I'm not asking about what it says in this uh section I'm asking um we have a definition of liness in 1100b mhm and according to that definition could a band booster Association or athletic booster Association meet the definition of a lobbyist our definition lobbyist most likely not because those um folks are not um you know they're not asking for something that would inure to their benefit MH so um my sense is that um the conversations that typically come from members of a PTA or a sack or a a booster group of any school uh any member of an advisory committee um those conversations uh at least the ones that I've had uh don't meet the definition of lobbying they are not asking for anything that would help them uh and if they're advocating and lobbying for anything is to help their school which to my definition does not meet the definition of Lobby is that correct General councel that is correct that is correct thank you very much so I think one encourages the kind of conversation that I want to have and want to make sure uh uh they share their information with Schoolboard members who um might be able to you know understand something better after those conversations I feel the same about number two um uh I learn a lot uh from organizations that we work with uh we share common goals about uh compensation uh to our employees um I think that the exception for this is uh well-meaning um and uh I wouldn't uh support having to report even leaders uh of bargaining groups or meet and confer groups um as a lobbying activity uh they come and talk about our employees which I care about very much and I'd love to be educated about them and I'd love to you know hear from them often uh and in great depth um but they're not lobbying for the benefit of their organization they're L arguing for the benefit of our employees and um and I I I like that debate i' like to hear what matters to the employees I like to hear where we've missed it you know last year we had a raging debate here about slps uh that would not been as fully informed if we didn't have open and Direct Communications with uh the folks who represent slps and as a result of that we took action and I think we've had uh improved uh retention Behavior Uh otherwise so uh one I just think is wouldn't pass the public muster I I of course want these groups to come talk and I don't view them as lobbyists uh in general if they did come and say I want you to do something that helps me um uh I would report it because it's lobbying it fits under the lobbying Rule and regarding folks that represent our uh our our employees uh I also want to encourage that I understand what they are uh in favor of it's the same thing I'm in favor of is give people the appropriate wages that live in brard County who come to work every day to fulfill our mission and to help us achieve our goals um so I I I like these exceptions in our policy and I'd like them to remain thank you chair ma'am U thank you madam chair I respectfully disagree with with Mr Zan because I myself has received hundreds if not thousands of the same emails where it's just cut and pce where it's a just a different name and the signature line and a lot of these are from union members and they go on about the same topics and it's very very wasteful for our staff because it ties them up from ours where have to sort through these emails and they have to make sure there isn't one phrase or something different that would kick in which needs to be addressed and um they have to pull them they have to them they have to keep them and plus our servers we've actually had to turn down I think our servers at one time or something we did something to the point where we blocked out because we were just being inundated inundated and it's not helpful it doesn't change anything when you write the same letter over and over and over it's just cumulative you know if if we got the message for the first 10 we don't need a thousand more we understand we understand what you're saying so um because I think it's more of a group effort to overwhelm and uh it frankly it almost seems like bullying it really does because it takes our time away as well as our staff away from what we could really be focusing on and that's the students so we understand that you want higher wages we get that we know that we want to have the money for you I don't think one person at this board disagrees with that not one but for for people to do this mass mailing over and over again is really wasteful thank you any other board member comments on Mr alon's motion Mr Al yes if I could close out thank you board members uh for the good discussion I'm going I think I did say I accept the I call it the Leonardi uh suggestion um but I want to be clear uh because this is not for me focused on any group um but it's also about us being transparent so councel if you would just help me out the item actually says well let me ask it just a very specific question let's use p pa ta as an example and then I'll give a personal example uh that I'm sure we all can relate to so uh can a PTA quote encourage a school board member to pass defeat or modify any proposal or recommendation before the board you saying as the as the policies now yes they can right yes Can a district advisory committee quote attempt to encourage a school board member to pass defeat or modify any proposal or recommendation before the board yes that's right so the point is and I appreciate the prior questions uh Dr Zan any of these groups if there's an item on the agenda or not on the agenda can influence or encourage a school board member to do something right so that is the intent behind this and we have many current looming uh items that are currently in the atmosphere uh along with many others that may not be so prevalent so that was the intent behind this just so we're very clear the other point is just like all of you you all get emails from I'll just pick on PTA ABC not calling a PTA who said hey I hope you I hope you pass jj1 2 345 right for this reason right I hope that you consider adding playgrounds to the you know for this reason right we get those all the time so back to I think Mr nardi's Point how we then get to step two which is which I agree how we do the reporting how we track that I think we can come up with the right way to do that because my intent is not to put additional burden on these groups but it's also to be transparent about the types of things that we're asked to consider as a board thank you if I may just just to clarify that you know the definition um of lobbyist right now um in the policy states that is is any person that for compensation seeks or sought during the preceding 12 months to influence the governmental decision making so um just wanted to clarify that Mr Austin that when you stated whether they you know the PTA or any other group is able to influence um you know or speak on behalf of a certain the passage or defeat of a particular recommendation the answer is yes the difference would be that they are not doing it for compensation okay any other comments on Mr alon's motion just one more I'm sorry uh chair Dr uh chair possibly to The General Counsel would a collective bargaining unit who gets compensated by members only and not by Broward County School Board would they uh fall under the lobbyist definition of b County school board so the that's difficult question because we actually um reimburse um I believe the salaries do do we not uh for purposes of uh F FRS we reimburse the salaries of the um the leadership of the unions so they are not just being or we are reimbursed by them Dr he need a little help M Mar thank you Dr heern it the portion of the Union leadership's earnings that they would make as an employee they reimburse us so those dollars are eligible for f FRS they're on release to the union but they are still employees so there is a portion with with with that answer there is a portion that the district is is paying because we are paying the F FRS contributions toward those uh particular employees this lardy I just was going to ask for some final Clarity on the motion before we vote okay Miss ton I just have a question so a lot of union members are um constituents also so how how would people know know whether they had to report or not report if they're emailing us cuz they want to raise whether they're a union member or or not they're still our constituent so it seems like we're getting into a lot of um sticky area here Madam chair M it's not sticky for me I'm not a sticky area that's kind of The Next Step so let me go back to I think your question which was uh important I'm only focused on what's included or excluded right now and one and two are clearly excluded I'm suggesting to put that back Miss Leonardi raised a point if we can be specific around officers leadership right just being very clear on these groups which I think is the right answer so I thought I accepted that back to your question the motion that's on the floor to include that right limited to that that group so whether it's officers leadership I call that scri as ER I think everyone if it passes understands the intent around these groups okay I just want to clarify something that I thought I heard but maybe misunderstood is we're the ones that are doing the reporting we're not asking for anybody else who's lobing us to make any type of reports correct correct under if I do a second recommendation that is cor yes that's I stick yes correct based on this batia there is a separate policy that um prescribes that lobbyists also have to register so they they also have to there there is a component for lobbyists to do certain things this is not that part of the policy but yes there is another section that pertains to lobbyists okay roll call I'm sorry before you do a roll call chair I think we have to be clear about whether it's officers or leaders uh they're two different words and they would Encompass different numbers of people so I think we need be clear in what the motion is uh it's it's more than just a scrier error it's it's um there's a difference between officers uh of a of a of a organization and leaders of an organization so I need to be clear about what I'm voting on Mr I'm good I am fine with officers as suggested but this just maybe a question to council does the district advisory committee have officers using this as an example yes does ban booster associations have officers yes yes so all the groups under one and two all have officers back to the wording I just because it all means something which I agree I think I need a little help with the boosters and the the ban booster associations because I'm not familiar whether they would so for for boosters what I'm familiar with and um staff can add additional information sometimes they have a Bo a an officer maybe a president of some sort in some of the in some of the booster clubs go ahead Dr so I think the con the what probably needs to be clarified is so Dr heurn is absolutely correct most booster organizations will have a president a vice president recording secretary I think we um the question needs to be clarified particularly as um board member Lear raised around leadership of organizations for example you have you know I was a member for x amount of years of bpaa they have a president a vice president but they also have an executive director whose leadership but is not an officer okay that didn't help that did help by the way that didn't yeah we ready to vote so I know before Leonard ask is your question is it officers and leadership I was actually going to to say that if this passes um we should make sure that all of the people who this polic like that they should be aware that they need to now register as lobbyists that that was my only and then ask for Clarity on the motion again Madam chair so back to the word I understand officers but you just gave another exclusion which is not my intent right so and you just gave one specific example so how about this let me go with officers for now and then I'll come back to it let me just make it simple roll call roll call on the motion Dr holess could you repeat the motion please Robert's Rules the motion needs to be read thank you Mr charson for the fifth time can you please read your motion thank you m I'm going to I am going to try uh so it is we're on page 7 of2 969 under Section 6 a reporting of lobbying activity uh my intent is to not um exclude number one and number two but only for the officers making that requirement for reporting that's the intent right now one and two is is expressly excluded the intent is to expressly include officers by all of these groups I'm sorry chair I still need a like a literal reading of the motion what words would be in this policy uh if this motion passes all right well let's pause so with the word persons we can make none officers is that the intent right I think and I think we all can since we have to go to school here um replace the word persons with nonone officers because the intent would be to report officers did I do that correctly Council or is it the reverse the intent is to report officers of these groups right it's the opposite because the sentence before it is saying not required to report so if I may suggest um that the word that needs to be changed would be right above um number one where it's talking about um so the reporting of lobbying activity as defined in this section is mandated for all forms of activity to Lobby an individual School Board member inclusive of written correspondence or any form of electronic or telephonic communication Schoolboard members instead of saying are not required you would say are and cross out the word not I think that's what you would like if I'm not mistaken you're putting the onus on the school board member that's your that's your change right I got you I'm with you no I got I'm not sure if that's what you want no no keep going I got it okay um school board members are um then strike the word not required by this policy to report any contacts made um number one it would be um person officers or officers representing School Alli groups PTA District school boards ban boosters Etc I got it and the same for two persons will be officers yes okay okay that General counsil you'd have to repeat that sentence to say that you would not be required to report starting with number 3 4 five and six so you you would be required you would be required so the the the motion is to your question Mrs fam the motion um is um to on page seven um of 12 to strike three four to strike on the Fifth Line the word not uh on the six line the word persons and um change it to officers uh and on the uh the next line cross out after the number two the word persons and add officers as well but miss Batista you you then have to repeat the not sentence starting with number three which is why I took it out yeah does that make sense yes yep okay and then add um however not required to uh by this policy to report three public officials or employees Representatives Etc okay so probably change also the three and four and five to one to three because I would be a new section thank you it is clear roll call roll call Dr holess no Mrs Leonardi yes Mrs rert no Dr Zan no Mrs alhad no Mr Austin yes Mrs fam yes Mr fogan holy yes Mrs Hixon no okay motion fail4 I think I'm done any other board member with a motion see none roll call on pb5 I'm sorry I apologize I have one quick correction uh chair um in the previous uh policy we struck the definition outside of 1100b of of lobbying I make a motion we do the same on this policy it would be striking the definition of Lobby on page two of 12 on the redline version and refer to uh our policy that does Define lobbyist uh 1100b there second second move by Ala move by Zan second by Ala public comment on the motion board member comment on the motion um doc Dr heurn um is it a lobbyist do they pay to register as a lobbyist and if they don't why not and should they be currently they do not for Brower County Public Schools I'm going to let Mr Sullivan add some additional comment or even M Marte but go ahead Mr suan uh I know in other districts and government agencies they do charge a fee and that fee is utilized for the person who U mans basically the operations of uh registering lobbies for the organization but we do not charge a fee and most organizations that do charge a fee it's an annual fee I believe Miami and Miss Marte might be able to correct me about 350 a year or so okay so my suggestion is that superintendent brings back an item with the fee involved with registering to be a lobbyist chair would that be an annual fee annual fee yes ma'am um okay so Dr Zan can you repeat your motion my motion is to remove um paragraph after number one on page two of 12 uh to define a lobbyist in this policy and instead refer to our uh uh policy on lobbyist which defines lobbyist so that we have a common touchtone for what a lobbyist is across all of our policies thanks chair okay any other comments see none all in favor of the motion say I I I those oos say no no motion carries with I think roer and fogan Holly dissenting I said yes oh sorry fam sorry Mr it's Miss fam and fogan Oli dissenting any other motions on this item Miss fam use your microphone move your microphone I'm sorry I'm sorry um this is uh page one to 10 so it's an Inception and it's under the um ethic code for school board members General provisions and I'd ask Miss U Batista to address uh the provision and B that talks about um the standard there's a conduct prescribed by this policy and any other standards for conduct the stricter standard shall be applicable to the school board members now if the school board is writing a policy that is stricter than the state statute that would be a violation of law they cannot restrict put an additional restriction on they can expand it but they can't restrict it and the other thing that's part one in my opinion that we would be entitled to what's provided by state law that would Trump the Schoolboard policy the second issue is um they have here that there would have to be a determination of which is stricter which I think calls for a legal opinion and if you go down to under B there's seven different statutes mentioned there that someone would have to SI through a lay person included uh sift through these statutes to compare that to the board's policy which I think is over Brad vague and ambiguous and I think that um that would be um just not reasonable under the circumstances to expect parents and residents to make a legal comparison and and nor I think it would be confusing to all of them so I think that language should be removed and that comparison should be removed and they they should rewrite this provision to say what the policy is and that it can't be stricter than what the state law provides their rights are and and other speakers rights are you making a motion Miss fam I there was point of clarification I'm asking her for a legal opinion Miss Miss patista thank you madam chair um so the answer is that you're correct Mrs fam you're normally when there is a law you can't do something that is stricter than what the law requires um and that is because you are normally affecting a group of people that have no um ability to change the law in this particular case because the board is um setting standards for its own conduct if you wish if if it is the board's wish you can set standards that are stricter than what is provided for in let's say you know the principles of professional conduct or the code of ethics for example you know Mr Aon was asking for a zero amount instead of the $50 that is um owed under the statute so that would be a stricter standard that you could have voted for and approved okay thank you any other motions seeing none all in favor of pp5 as amended say I I I those opposed say no no alustin no Austin no fam item passes with two those two dissenting votes we have a motion second on pp6 move by Hixon second second second by fogan hly public comment yes Madam chair we have one registered speaker Mr Jason is it coring or luring I'm sorry luring I'm sorry hi my name is Jason Lee lauring I'm a veteran of the United States Army and I'm also an Oakland Park resident I want to start off by thanking the office of the Deputy of superintendent chief of staff for editing this originally there wasn't much to it now this looks great there's a lot of legalities in it that I appreciate I want to look at f um number General Powers Number F school board members should practice governing Excellence by preparing for meetings conducting official Schoolboard business and ensuring Quorum is maintained by attending meetings in its entire in in entirety and practicing good uh stewardess and school District resources some of the stuff you guys talk about and all and your other uh things you guys passed recently and thank you for your time thank you any other public comment for member comment Mr cam thank you I have a motion um I move to amend the policy 110 at section 2f to add a sentence stating school board members are permitted to access unredacted Student Records if they have a legitimate educational interest and parentheses need to know student Pi piia personal uh information oh they put P2 Pia as part of their duties and responsibilities as a school board member otherwise they're entitled to records which have been redacted of Pia this is in reference to the furpa law which is a federal education protection act um which protects um education records that can't be released but however Schoolboard members have a um access to this information on a um with a right to know if you have a right to know for example you have safety issues you have a right to go into these personal um for a federal education protection act records and either have the information redact or Andor um you can be permitted access to the unredacted student information in order to address the safety issues or other issues that are pertaining to your job description and um and support of your your obligations as a board member so that's what I everyone's been provided with a copy of this so is there a second let me second for discussion move by fam second by Alon public comment on the motion board member comment one more thing Mrs Leonardi I think the maker of the motion had one more thing she wanted to say m famam yeah just one last thing um Miss Batista worked on this with me to make sure we came up with the appropriate language that would be acceptable under the law so we wouldn't be in any violation of laws in order to allow Schoolboard members to access essential information in order to employ um to um fulfill their job applications Mardy yeah I just had a few questions um Madam chair are Schoolboard members considered mandatory reporters tror I defer that to miss Batista yes every every individual um yes is mandatory reporter okay so um if a school board member had a safety concern about a child whether it be abuse or neglect what is the mechanism for them to uh P let me back up if they have a a concern about the safety whether it be abuse or neglect of a child um is it appropriate for them to do an investigation themselves as a mandatory reporter M Batista that is not that would not be appropriate the appropriate uh process would be for the just like any other mandatory reporter you would have to call the hotline and report to this you know to the agency right to the Department of Children and Families correct okay I can just speak as as a parent myself um I don't I would not want uh school board members to have access to my children's records um you know I think that parents and children have a right to privacy um and there are mechanisms if you do have a safety concern to report those safety concerns uh so I cannot support this thank you Mr Alon yes thank you madam chair uh simple question uh so and I I am not an academic expert so let me now that I've said that and I get the motion that's on the floor but I think I just had a separate question for you Council um and back to one of your items that we dealt with earlier on all the items that a school board member uh is allowed to do so very simple question is a school board member today permitted to do this mam thank you um so Schoolboard members are permitted to access unredacted um Student Records if they have as the um amendment to this policy suggests as if they have a legitimate educational interest so they have to have um you know a need to know the the personally identifiable information of the student um but if you do then yes you would be able to access that uh and if you are do not have a um a need then you would be um receiving the record in the same manner as you know uh any other person would which would be with reducted information if if you receive it at all so let me make sure I understand if without this motion we can do this today all nine of us that is correct all right so that's why I'm wondering and I don't know what you know I know it's your motion right so technically every board member can do this right now let me ask another question so where the legitimate educational interests need to know who makes that determination so I the you know there is prescriptions under furpa for how those determinations are made at the end of the day is a a legal question so you know normally um if it's something so let me back up so normally um there isn't a need to know um personally identifiable information which would include you know the name of the student um just the you know birth date information such as that um there would be really rare circumstances in which um a board member uh as part of their role would be entitled to that information so most of the time uh that if let's say there was a request at a school for for all of the records of a student um it would be an answer that the principal can provide to the board member immediately if it's something you know where there is no need it's a you know pretty obvious U response if there is a question as to whether that particular board member uh for example if he's part of an expulsion process or something along those lines um then there would be you know then you would be entitled to that personally identifiable information and actually those records are provided to you um at the exclusion of the rest of the public you receive certain information that no one else does so let me because I don't think I understood so technically we don't need to pass this motion today we can do this now correct yes I think in discussions with Mrs fam um she was having some issues where um she felt that she was not receiving certain information and that's why she wanted to come up with some language that would um just uh play something in a in a policy for you know everybody to understand what the rights of the board memb so back to the second part if we can do this now under state law who is making the determination around legitimate educational interest the principal or a councel who's making that determination well so whoever is the the person who the information is being requested from it would be the you know the principal ultimately the principal probably the data uh processor at the school whoever it is and then if they have questions they would call my office right cuz you represent you're representing the principal the district District the employee as well as the board members side the board interests right yes that is correct well I I would be representing whatever it is that so I'm both the general counsel and the school board attorney yeah so uh in that particular instance I would have to make sure that whatever um you know the board member was requesting was something that was not violative of the rights of the students so me not knowing and and then I'm done and go back to you Miss fam not knowing kind of what's going on why can't we just say the law is the law and whatever Miss fam is asking for I don't get why we need to pass a motion to reinforce a state law hold on right I I just that's kind of where I'm at before I even get here I don't know you're being M fam wait okay I'm done my point is but my point is and then I'm done I don't see the need based on what I just heard you say to pass this if some is not doing their job or following the law that's a different question right that's what we need to deal with separate from passing a motion that passes the law I don't get that than Dr Zan thanks so much chair just a quick two points one we just um amended a policy to make it very clear that any Flor of Statute that gives a board member the authority to do something uh exist and that's important because it really reiterates that you can never uh uh numerate all of the the statutory responsibilities of a school board member and oh by the way they change and so if we put this in this uh in a Broward County policy which I absolutely don't think is necessary to Second uh Mr Austin's point if in fact the law change then we have to go back and change our policy as well so when you just call out the statutes and say hey whatever the statutes give us the authority to do we could do is great as soon as you start uh cutting and pasting from existing uh law especially furpa law which is very volatile um you know you're kind of inviting um uh um you know uh need down the road to change this we have this according to flor statutes we can do it now uh and this motion is not necessary nor is it necessary to add it to this policy thank you chair ma'am thank you so much and I want to uh give the public as well as the board uh the circumstances around this and it's very needed this uh clarification because the principal in question has advised me that they're not allowed to give me any information based on general counsel so there's been a misunderstanding here and all um information has been blocked so I have an instance at one school where four boys managed to get out of their PE class get down the hallway get to a room that was locked get inside that room somehow became unlocked don't know and I'm not entitled to information whether it was they had a key whether the lock was broken or someone opened the door and they proceeded to beat up another single individual boy in that classroom video was taken of it and then the students afterwards were threatened that if they showed the video or told what happened then they would also be targeted so absolutely is there a need I need to know how those kids one got out of that PE class without the PE teacher missing four students two how no one in the hallway picked it up or no one with any video picked up these four students coming down the hallway from outside in the PE coming in to this class how they got in that room if someone opened that door and it wasn't the teacher or even if it was the teacher we need to hold them accountable they had no right to open the door to a gang of four boys period Then them getting in the classroom as well um to intimidate and to to actually beat up someone and I I and just so you know I am also working with Miss batia about the the principles asking the students to delete the videotapes that they take of criminal actions or breaking of policies because under Florida law that's called spoilation of evidence you can't destroy evidence that's going to be used in an investigation or trial that is not private property it's on you lose your right to privacy when you commit crimes so therefore those videos need to be protected and preserved and produced to the people that are involved and not destroyed not those students can't be intimidated or threatened if they don't turn over and delete those videos so they are important evidentiary issues that can either show guilt or it can clear a person of guilt so as far as the furpa I don't need the names I know who the players already are from the parents but I need to know the circumstances of how that happened so I can make sure it doesn't happen again so that's the issue here it's not about digging into someone's educational records it's about PR protecting other students from this happening to them there's no reason we should allow this bullying there's no reason that that boy had Cypress Bay should have had his head fractured and we have to step it up as a board we have to be on top of things and say safety safety safety that's what we campaigned on and we mean it I mean it so I'm hoping that my other fellow board members will vote in support of this so we can properly get to the bottom of what happened and fix it if our locks aren't working on those doors then we're going to get better locks if too many people have the keys then we're going to put on combination keys to those locks but we have to do something we can't just sit by and let our children be injured like this so I hope you'll support me in this thank you oh thank you Miss fam so I'm going to weigh in um so first of all this motion is is already permitted by law so that's number one number two I think that as a board member it's vitally important that we stay in our lane and we do not get into the operations of the matter until the superintendent brings an item before this board to vote on and so if this was a situation in my district I would be meeting with the superintendent and discussing it with him and giving him an opportunity to fix this Miss Hixon thank you just a quick question would this motion Miss Batista do any of the things that Mrs fam was discussing about making sure the locks are fixed or that students couldn't have walked into a room or any of those items that all of us are very concerned and want to be sure don't happen again P um so the example that was provided by Mrs fam would not this motion would not be affected thank you okay roll call on the motion Mrs leonardy no Mrs rert no Dr Zan no Mrs ala no Mr Austin Mrs fam yes Mr fogan hoing yes Mrs Hixon no Dr holus No the motion failed 62 62 okay back to the item as a whole any other motions on pp6 seeing none all in favor of pp6 say I I those opposed say no no item passes with one dissenting vote Mrs fam may I have a motion second on pp7 moved second moved by Zan second by Hixon public comment we don't have public comment Madam chair but I believe the student advisers do want to have an opportunity to speak student advisors you good okay thank you uh I have Miss Dixon thank you I have two motions um first motion is on page two of four to strike out I students may not serve in an advisory capacity while campaigning for a seat on the school board of Broward County I just don't think we have the legal ability to do that so that's the first one second move by Hixon second by Leonardi public comment board comment Miss Batista can you weigh in do we have the legal authority to keep that in well because you are a um you know you are the school board you dictate who you would would would want to be um serving in an advisory capacity to you so that that would not be uh in violation of any law if you wanted to have that restriction so I have another question then we have people on advis District advisories who are campaigning for school board and we don't deny them that option so I don't agree with denying students that option so um I that's why I'm not supporting I so if we can vote on that any other board member comment the only thing I would just say is that I know when this did happen it was it was disruptive to this board I'll just leave it at that okay all in favor of Mrs Hixon miss roer you want to speak yes I'd like to speak I'm sorry um this just seems very non-democratic um and quite honestly we should have absolutely no bearing on somebody who is campaigning for a to be a colleague of ours I mean if we're going to do this then we're gonna what what's next we tell employees they can't run either because they work for us I I I do not believe I is appropriate in this situation thank you you're welcome any other board member comment just a quick question chair um and I think you'll know the answer to this if a student advisor decides to run uh or uh um School Board they're currently prohibited from campaigning while working as a student advisor and while on property Rel uh owned by Brer County Schools is that correct correct okay so we already have a Prohibition that prevents them from campaigning while they're uh uh in schools uh I prefer to keep this in and but I just wanted to get that fact out there for my colleagues to consider as they think about voting thank you chair okay yep and that's not really enforcement okay any other comments roll call on the motion roll call Mrs rert you want remember the the motion is to strike I oh I'm so sorry thank you I'm concussion sorry uh the answer is yes I agree with it thank you m okay Dr Zan no Mrs ala no Mr Austin Mrs fam Mr fogan holing no Mrs Hixon yes Dr holess yes Mrs Leonardi yes motion passes 4 three I have one more motion ahead thank you last motion I would like to add on page 404 a number or a section five called term limits originally it was only a senior that could be a student advisor but now they can be um you know at at any level in high school so I'd like the term limits to say the student advisor term will be the length of one year and they can serve no more than two terms second move by Hixon second by Ala public comment Bo member comment all in favor of the motion say I I say no motion Carri oh one desending vote open any other comments all in favor of pp7 say I as amended say I I I I those opposed say no pp7 passes unanimously okay Miss uh Dr wano we have gone through the agenda yes Madam chair we have addressed the entire agenda okay at this time do any of my colleagues have students success or something to bring forward to the board Dr Zan thanks so much chair uh it's with uh great sadness that I uh will report that my confidential assistant executive assistant will be leaving um and I just wanted to share to anyone who's listening that there's a great job opening to come and support a countywide school board member and come behind uh the current executive assistant if you're working in another job or outside barer County schools and want to come be a great executive assistant uh there's a tremendous opportunity waiting for you thank you chair thank you madam chair um wanted to mention this in a prior last meeting and we ran out of time but I during the 24th annual kids and staff character year and award ceremony I had the honor of witnessing students and staff from across the district being acknowledged for their outstanding character I would like to take this opportunity to extend my personal recognition to Ethan McFarlin a student from lud Hill 6 through 12 Juan Martinez a student from thir Good Marshall uh Katie Perez a student from Plantation High Miss uh f fian a teacher at Parkway uh middle and Miss gram a teacher from Plantation Middle thank you Miss Zen thank you to quick things one is congratulations to all the community involvement award re ients it was a great um event and we're so thankful to all the volunteers and Community Partners that we have and a great big congratulations to the class of 2024 we will be starting graduations next week and um just want to say you know great job and we look forward to seeing all the amazing things you do as you move your journey forward thank you Miss leonardy May I go actually I'll bring it up Miss rert thank you um I wanted to empore the superintendent and my colleagues to uh really take a close look at switching over from Ed plan to focus this has caused uh a lot of problems I know that you've received emails texts Etc I've taken the other um you know an extra step before I got bmed on the head um to call other districts and see what they're using uh around the country and this is two I know we don't like to kick the can down the road but sometimes we kick the can down the road through multiple Che changing and we keep moving on and on what I would say is um deal County had a heck of a time they had um the the focus group beinging part of their programming but they also um actually personalized it for their dist I don't know if we have done that but I'm asking that we stop we take a moment to breathe have the superintendent brief us and not just a little conversation from from Dr Joe but brief us and listen to what our parents are saying right they're having a lot of difficulties and I do not need us to have our es population are at risk group and our teachers having difficulty um doing some of the programming and not understanding and above all meing compliance we will have trouble meeting compliance if we're not doing the right thing so that is by Mye today uh Mr superintendent and to my colleagues please let's put a break on just right now thank you andon I'd like to congratulate the Western High School softball team for winning the class 7A state championship congratulations to coaches John Bradshaw Eric solo as well as seniors Emma Moser Orana Cyprus Jade Castillo Arlette caraka Ashley zamano and Sophia nasse congratulations wild cats thank you the scheduled order of business for this regular school board meeting of the school board of Brower County Florida has been completed seeing no obligation I now adjin the meeting e e spe e e e e okay okay this Workshop the school board of brow County Florida is now called order please identify the exit doors that are clearly marked for emergency exiting while in the order while in the boardroom refrain from the obstructing the exit doors while attendees must occupy a seat in the boardroom with the exception of media once the boardroom has reached the seat in capacity attendees will be directed to a designated overflow area upon activation of fire alarm system please exit from the room in orderly fashion continue exit building remain outside until the authority that has jurisdiction has deemed this building safe to return we ask all attendees to maintain a respectful and professional demeanor during this meeting disruptive behavior including but not limited to yelling interrupting speakers or engaging in personal tax will not be tolerated board member Hixon will now introduce her school to lead us in the pledge allegiance to the flag Mrs Hixon thank you it is a pleasure to introduce the students of forest Glenn Middle School to lead us in the pledge of allegiance to the flag followed by a song by the all male chorus all right please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all you see the what [Music] sooud at the last and bright stars through the the RS we so G streaming and the rocket r the in through the night that our flag was still there do that [Music] starled W for the land of the free and the [Applause] of thank you I would like to request a moment of silence for a student from Silver Lakes Middle School I would like to request the moment of silence for rayquan lter rayan was a sixth grade student at Silver Lakes Middle School he was a very loving and happy young man with great humor his infectious laughter and radiant smile brought warmth to the classroom and hallways he enjoyed playing games while interacting joyfully with his peers rayquan was with Silver Lakes Middle for six short months but in that limited amount of time he was able to leave a lasting impression on the staff and his peers alike he will surely be missed please join me in recognizing a moment of silence in his honor at this time thank you as we prepare to begin this school board Workshop we are reminded that our vision is 100% proficiency for all of our students aspiring to become an a school district our purpose today and every day is to achieve this goal and achieving this goal we are committed to ensuring everyone counts our culture will be student centered teacher supported and principal L the following topics are scheduled for the board discussion at this time Bond oversight committee report fiscal year 2425 budget Workshop student generation rate and school impact fee update study Office of the chief auditor audit plan forecast update on office of Inspector General Services redefining our schools and school board policy review project rule development at this time we will now move into our Clos door session for about minut on Miss Lam would you like to come to Podium to speak on one of the agenda items before you leave I appreciate that thank you very much um because I've got a kid to pick up midaf afternoon it's going to clash so that's my reason thank you um I just wanted to speak to item five where you have the um um Office of the um Chief auditor setting out the um proposed plan of audits for the coming year or years there is identified in their um audit of the focus project I would like love to see and I'd like to humbly suggest that you specifically state in that audit um proposed audit plan that the focus SSS module not just the student information systems part that the part that's called sis but the um module that kind of comes Under the Umbrella that is specifically Focus SSS that that needs to be specific in the audit too ideally we wouldn't even get to the point of having to uh audit it because it wouldn't happen I wrote a 42 Page report saying why and I can only just keep coming up here and just please please begging you to read the report and understand why I'm not just here for fun spouting off about this um I do think if you were to add that into the um proposed audit draft that would be helpful um It also says in the audit plan um that uh the audit will look at quote the consideration of the needs of key user groups hence it's really important to record that you're going to assess whether that was done with the focus SSS module uh I could save the chief auditor some time actually and tell you that it wasn't um I do want to just stress why I'm not just being flippant here and just trying to mention airpl at every possible um opportunity um but the migration from the transition from epan to focus SSS you have days left to turn this around I can see that a number of you are saying yeah isn't this awful but nobody's actually doing anything to do so and scuttling off to the IT department and getting answers that count on mine and then it's just being written off that I'm wrong I'm not wrong I've given you a 42 Page report on what's wrong and to follow on from Miss Rupert's um point about what the other districts are doing I can give you what all 66 other districts in Florida and our top 30 districts in the country are doing and I will send that to you as an addendum please please please listen um I'm going to be out of the country in a couple of weeks and this um system is going to be upon us I part of what I'm doing here still is liasing with staff um on this matter who are just saying ESC Specialists are going to be quitting because they're grumbling about um there's grumbles among ese Specialists about their concerns about compliance and the compliance s fail safes that check and balance them and check and balance for our kids every time they write an IEP and every time they open a process are not there in Focus SSS whatever you're being told they are they are not it has taken years to build a system to do that you've got that system why go all the way back to the beginning and start building another one this is serious serious serious please listen and I would love to see that in the audit plan but ideally you wouldn't even have to thank you thank you so much at this time we'll now move into our closed door session for 45 minutes all attendees for the session please remain remain all their guests please exit the boardroom at this time for 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 this 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 thank you welcome back the board the school board Workshop is now reconvened the first item for discussion is Bond oversight committee report fiscal year 24 Q2 I will now turn it over to staff for a presentation good afternoon Madam chair board members and Mr superintendent um Tommy demopoulos from the oh Omar shim director of capital budget uh Tommy demopoulos with is here from the bond oversight committee um unfortunately he had to go um he did leave a few bullet points from the committee meeting in addition to that you have materials from the workshop uh including questions and answers from tax watch tax watch's report um so I'll just go over what he had to present um the meeting was held on March 21st at nor Eastern High School and before that meeting uh our chair uh Adam robinowitz who was with the committee uh from the beginning of the committee um he resigned the committee he just had other obligations that he had to do um so the the the uh committee um wanted to send you know that they really appreciate his service on the committee uh a vote was held for a new chair um which was Mr hilberg and uh Mr Demopolis as the vice chair they wanted to also thank the uh media and social media outreach efforts by staff and and Consultants um they also wanted to stress that they need there was a discussion about need assistance filling uh Bond oversight committee vacancies uh now that the Florida bar seats vacated uh there's a open seat for special needs children uh seat a construction Contracting and minority Builder I just on a side note I did get a reference at that meeting from one of the members to follow up on an interested party for the minority Builders uh position I followed up with them Unfortunately they had conflicts and based upon the resolution that established the committee they couldn't participate uh in addition to that the there were 19 projects that were identified as not being complete completed um in in the schedule by October 2025 deadline as per the new resolution uh that the the school board passed uh and so they wanted to know uh what happens to the boc after that deadline um so there was some discussion about that about the the program itself and when the program comes to completion that those projects would uh be continued in the capital program as well as according to the resolution it appeared that the the committee's role would be completed at the completion the program um there were was a discussion about uh five schools which include Collins Elementary lyd Estates Elementary Oakridge Elementary riverglades and uh Virginia Schuman young uh that were identified as high level of risk um with many with some of them that had legal issues or or were on hold um and they were to get uh weekly updates along with the superintendent to get week weekly updates on those schools um the district uh they they discussed that the district should stop adding items um that are not uh approved on the plans or the scope of work causing uh risks to costs and delays and they talked about some items that included uh the new sprinkler new sprinkler systems or egress or doors and I think some of these issues were code issues but they stressed that that if there was a way that in which those things could happen after as not a part of the program but would be included in a program for po or another entity to complete as a priority item uh and then they talked about having training or better better second yes Mr you're doing a great job just a question to that point um so I items let me make sure and I thought I heard you correctly so there are the recommendation and which I read uh was not to proceed on items not previously included in scopes of work is that correct I believe the discussion was about expanding the scope and to try to minimize expanding the scope of the uh the smart program and that anything that's that could be excluded from the scope B pers as a different scoop of work program or Project Specific projects got it but when you expand the scope that doesn't come back to the board yes sorry go ahead oh yes they do in change orders and you see those things as in in in each board meeting when when the board gets a j item but the warning was just to stay away from that that's correct got it but there is no instance where the board will act and then there is a separate change on the scope that the board is not aware of no the board approves all change orders uh during its business okay thank you so so though to your point though Mr Olson if I'm reading you it sounds like we're being warned not to do that but not saying maybe not to fund it but to just categorize it or label it or bring it to the board in a different manner so that sounds like a good way to move this forward Dr yes we can um possibly work it out where we can actually bring it back to the board in that way go ahead Jud you want to add something Dr he you're absolutely right so we have a habit of calling everything smart but we've added projects like um the auditorium that's not smart so the I believe Ashley and aeom are now reporting it in a separate section of their monthly report Okay so we've already separated out so it's not part of the expectation of the October 25 deadline rickords is not smart so we' we've if you look at those monthly reports they are categorized separately part of what the bond oversight committee was concerned about is unavoidable if when you're doing the work there was an omission of a fire sprinkler system that's a life and safety issue we've we got to come back to the board with those and they should be categorized as part of smart if the original program to which they're attached is smart but we'll take specific care I can assure you because pea and the building uh officials office anything that is out of scope is flagged and as her supervisor I would get it and it would have to come through an approval process and funding with this board so there's nothing being added I'm not going to tell you that was the case before but uh since the grand jury report that is absolutely the case okay over there thank you Dr he didn't breaking any toes did you Dr Zan do you want to weigh in yes ma'am I do thanks chair uh what's absent from the oversight committee's report is two things that are really really important and they get to your point Omar um right now uh it may be that with change ERS we're creating more bureaucracy than value so there are some change orders Mr superintendent that come through that are relatively straightforward it's clear that um you know the engineer thought we needed this AC it turns out we need that AC right now those are taking north of 12 months to get through the process because we keep doing time impact analyses for every change order some some of them are just unnecessary um but guess what time impact an analysis that takes 12 months caus you at least 12 months DeLay So when you're trying to do what figure out what the time impact is for a relatively modest or an obvious change to the building department to the engineers and Ecom uh for some reason go through very expensive time impact analyses and then they in essence cause uh another delay so that's something worth uh thinking about the other is that there certainly are uh change order um speed with which once a change order is needed it gets to the board So the faster it can get to the board the faster we can make a decision but I would ask uh us to think again about time impact analysis um and whether or not you know things under a half a million dollars you know really need to go through that and again two impacts one is it causes a Time impact delay on its own and two these things are not cheap you can spend a couple $1,000 on a Time impact analysis but it's never put on the project cost it's just put into the overhead pmore cost uh but when you put all that stuff together instead of things costing us twice as much they might have cost us even more than twice as much compared to what we told voters in 2014 so those are some ways that we could speed it up too in addition to not having change orders and scope changes uh we might actually do the appropriate change orders and get them done and maybe avoid the time impact analysis which is expensive and causes quite a bit of delay on its own I'll leave that for uh others to think about but it's an area that our gc's and our big primes are saying is just uh not something that exists in other programs Miss vien thank you yes I agree wholeheartedly most of the complaints that you hear from from the contractors and um the other vendors is those time um analysis what the ti um that they're very combersome and that it doesn't make sense and it really is slowing down some of the issues which is also why we have payment concerns so we could solve a lot of problems by looking at that and doing it a different way so so if I get this straight we're doing we're paying to do time impact analysis knowing we already know we're delayed so we're paying someone to tell us we're delayed so I would say we need to stop doing that immediately I don't see what the benefit of it go ahead M Marshall thank you Dr heon the the analysis and I might need Shelley to help me but the analysis isn't necessarily about us part of it is because of the delay there's a cost to the contractor that they now want compensation for so the time impact analysis measures if there is any money owed to the contracted because of delays so it's more of a negotiation between and it is part of a routine uh construction project Madam chair what we need to do is I avoid the delay and to the point of board member Zan if the board is willing to further revise the policy to give the superintendent more la attitude to sign off on change orders without coming to the board we could move faster but the biggest one of the biggest issues this program has had is the threshold of items that must come to the board that is lower than most big construction projects of this size but with all due respect chair we we have changed that we changed the the limit there are still time impact analyses that are done that are far below the threshold that we've allowed and so it's a judgment call but some things are just so obvious an engineer a GC and our own building department and our chief facilities officer SL uh C Foo or the appropriate title uh would look at and say don't take $200,000 in 12 months on that one and do a TIA you don't need it I know how much it's going to cost I know it's going to take six more months we can get it done in six months or we can wait 12 months to get a TIA done and then do the work for 6 months and then pay costs that are in 2026 instead of 2024 and not give the service to our plan so uh I just feel like we've got to make better decisions about when do we do tias and when we don't good point okay anything else thank you no that's basically it the the he also wanted to note as well that we we did have the meeting in the new uh Media Center at Northeast and uh I think the the committee itself really like like the venue um and they also wanted to mention that the beacon did a really good job uh at the meeting um we also have included uh there's a presentation in the packet there's of course the tax watch report and and staff's response so we'll we'll save some time and because a lot of this information is from this information is from December and I know that the board gets regular updates monthly updates um so if the board has any questions about those responses or any of the material staff is ready to take uh questions I just have one comment on the high alert projects that you spoke about if there's any lawsuits Dr Hein if you can include like just the statements you know saying that this is uh under legal litigation yeah any other comments from the board seeing none thank you very much the next item up is the student generation rate and school impact fee update study excuse me ah fiscal year sorry I skipped one the second item is the fiscal year 2024 2025 budget Workshop number five I'll will now turn over to staff for the presentation St thank you Dr heurn um I am going to turn it over to miss marala she's going to do the presentation today today's presentation focuses solely on the capital budget and what we're asking for is the board to try to give us some final Direction so irum Omar and the team can complete the defp um so we're going to need some final decisions about recommended expenditures but I am going to sit in the passenger seat today and I will not speak anymore unless irum tells me too so irum take it away it's all yours CFO good afternoon you go Jud silence smile silence smile good afternoon Madame chair board members and superintendent today we will be presenting the fifth budget Workshop that focuses on the capital budget and the defb the district Ed educational facilities plan during this presentation we will provide update dates on the revenues Appropriations and available Capital funding we will also discuss the funding categories and the new funding recommendations for board feedback and discussion at the conclusion of the presentation we would like the board to provide consensus on each of the new funding recommendations as we go through them and provide direction to develop the 2425 dfp that will be presented for approval in July slide four shows the projected revenues and Appropriations the difference between the revenues and Appropriations would be available for the new capital funding initiatives the 6.64% increase in millage Revenue projections on this slide are based on the preliminary estimates that we received from the property appraisers office on May 6 as compared to the July 1st 2023 estimated certified School tax role the June 1st estimates received on May 24th from the property appraisers office provides for a 7.69% increase in millage Revenue projections which is an additional increase in revenues of about 4.6 million the estimates will be updated again through July the fiscal year 2025 available funding would be 39.5 million based on the information received on May 24th instead of 134.5 million shown above on this slide which includes a 55.3 million in capital funds reserve on Slide Five um it shows the available funding from the previous slide and also the recommended allocations the minimum capital reserve which is 10% of the millage rate revenues it's based on the proposed fund balance policy 3510 which has been discussed with the board the policy will be coming to the board for approval in June the cost index shown here is a 3.5% increase to those categories in the defp subject to inflation and set aside in future years of the plan to address inflationary cost this is based on a 10-year average Consumer Price Index as information is available through the discussions on the long range facilities plan and redefining our schools plan we will Incorporated in the dfp for board approval slide six summarizes the new funding recommendations that were collected after meeting with individual departments and those departments are here today to answer any questions regarding these recommendations once the presentation is complete slide 7 and8 cover the facilities project and recommendations the largest item on this slide is the pool replacement for MacArthur High School for 8 million in fiscal year 2025 Nova High School's request is to re-roof some re-roof the small buildings Noah blanch foran elementary schools request is to construct uh traffic improvements larkdale Elementary School's needs include Windows Palm View Elementary School needs to repair the structure and install a new roof pmo Beach Middle School requested to repair the structure and install a new roof Crystal Lake Middle School's request is to replace the covered U walkway Maplewood Elementary School's request is to replace switch gear the roof Asset Management report addresses the roofing issues districtwide for $4 million in fiscal year 25 Americans with Disabilities request is for districtwide projects that affect fiscal year 26 27 and 28 funding of an estimated 23 million for the final year of program management for the smart program is also included here the item will be presented to the board in June next we have the funding for the it initiatives um the capital funding is recommended for the implementation of enterprise software for sap Ariba success factors employee Central and maximal for a total of 9.4 million additional funding needs include upgrading servers and Equipment funding needs for eate equipment and upgrades phone system upgrade funding and increase in radi Communications and funding for the intercon project the request for athletics includes additional funding for six artificial turf fiels per year protective netting for baseball and softball fields and football helmets funding for p physical plan operations includes a 3.5% increase to cover inflationary cost for goods and services performed across the district to maintain the district's facilities the request from in environmental health and safety include the underground storage tank Replacements and the hbac controls at specific schools that are impacting indoor air quality and Energy Efficiency additional requests include traffic and pedestrian improvements flood control and sight modifications and storm water maintenance that concludes the presentation of the new funding recommendations and we will take any questions from the board and summarize the feedback for the next steps thank you um do I take public comment first yes any public comment on the budget discussion Madame Vice chair we do have one registered speakers it was D L Lynch Walsh I do not see in the audience but that's our only public registered public speaker all righty thank you um board members discussion on the the dfp do you have something okay Dr Zan thanks so much um there's a lot of work that goes into putting one of these presentations together and um I appreciate the staff's perspective on things what I'm curious about uh chair and and maybe the superintendent wants to comment on this is we're making a bunch of decisions about walkways and it equipment and uh continuing uh the purchase of electric buses and and and like on this uh spending money on Acom for p more support and things like that all of this is supposed to help us achieve our strategic goals you all of this is supposed to allow our students to learn more uh that that's why we're here and I keep um asking about this but um are we going to figure out a way or can you opine now about how this proposed way of spending money is going to help us achieve our strategic goals Dr hmer sure and I ask staff the way in if needed I think um first of all making sure our students have the best experience possible with the right upgrades in the facilities um also addressing our transportation Transportation issues by replacing um old and and worn buses that probably need to be surplused um with new um and available technology so we can be a little bit more efficient when it comes to Transportation um so it's more about ensuring that we can accommodate our students the best way we can and providing the best learning opportunities with the right facilities um in our district so they have the best learning environment also I appreciate that and and the concern that I have and I hope that maybe we talk about this a little bit is if in fact this is approved in a workshop format today we generally concur and it comes back in the thef budget for us to formally vote on um we will have in essence spent all of our capital budget for next year ahead of any decisions about repurposing and I worry about that because another way to do this would be to take 30 or4 million and set it aside and say hey let's wait and see what schools might be closed in 25 26 so that we don't spend money on schools that we're not going to have anymore let's think about what money we want to spend on the schools that are gaining students um and we need potentially some dfp money to to do programs because programs aren't just people coming in and teaching often times it's a lab it's a robot lab it's a Marine Science capability and things like that so um in the absence of you know criteria and an analytic method of looking at all these expenditures um there's some thought about do we want to hold back some of this money or at least create um some off-ramps on some of the projects so that as we start to make decisions on repurposing in the November time frame um there are funds available to do some things that we would like to do um I I would advocate for that um rather than obligating all the funds right now because if we obligate all the funds and then you know there's uh one school closes and the and the students there go to three other schools but the community really advocates for a robotics program and I need $3 million in one of those schools to build that uh we're going to be tapped out so uh I just see a lot of hard work that went into creating these priorities there're certainly priorities from the staff's perspectives but from the community's perspective um they may or may not be uh limiting our ability to do the right things in the 25 26 school year um to to make sure that all the repurposing actually work in the best interest of the community so I'm curious if my colleagues have any other thoughts about that anybody Mr fog hly thank you very much Vice chair um no and I agree with Dr Zeman um I think especially going into changes we're going to keep looking at these schools but um you know I think some of these things we might want to look at and say hey just pump the brakes on them a little bit until um we understand what the next steps are but of course we know that this is a living document we like to say that all the time I like that um you know but I am glad to see MacArthur High School on here talking about the replacing the pool um for me I had those questions right let's just fixed the pool but I know it was a bigger problem when we went to go look at it and it's starting to sink into the ground so it's a bigger fix um yes now just a question with know MacArthur High School does have a pool South Brower does have a pool so schools like Hollandale that do not have a pool how much to get a pool if nothing is there right now we have would be sorry go ahead miss matala it would be roughly around the same 8 million why is that why is that yes please Dr Dr W so um thank you for allowing me to speak I would say approximately 15 to 18 years ago um the city came with the same request that the district looked to do that and um architectural engineering designs were render um studies were done because that school is built on what was wet land at the time a rock you can't dig deep enough it's right on water it's right on water to put a pool there so that's why then the city then um built the other pool in what was BF James Elementary School that's now BF James pool um and park over on the in the Northwest section and for the long timers they will remember Dixie partk pool on Road way back when that was the pool in the Northwest section and the city decided to close it and then um they rebuilt a pool in the Northwest section right in front of for your it's right in front of Ebenezer Baptist Church understood thank you very much Dr W it's good to have the background on that one because that was always one of my questions especially talking to staff there and community in Hollandale um yeah that was just my point very much that was it chair thank you thank you and to weigh in and what Dr um Zan said I still have another Point besides that I I agree but I have a question so is all the money accounted for in here or is there money left over where we have if something came up we would have money to use it Miss matala um so Slide Five shows available funding after all those funding recommendations so for fiscal year 25 it shows 16.5 million and yeah and then the reserve is set aside for any contingency purposes that's the 10% reserve for the fund balance policy proposal that was brought to the board before okay so the 46.4 plus the 16.5 is not accounted for all right okay I thought so I just wanted to make sure so it's kind of in the the plan already I just had a couple of items um in discussions with Miss chipowski and having her look at a few things um Margate Middle School their cafeteria is extremely too small for their student body it holds like 200 and something students they were promised a cafeteria bless you there's drawings for it it was supposed to happen and then it kind of got way pulled to the side and so Margate Mill school cafeteria was supposed to be added on the dfp but I don't see it on here so I'd like to s um ask that we add that on there through the chair we didn't receive that request I have it I actually have an email from her that said she would put it on the dfp the capital team didn't receive it so I don't know what happened well we can follow up right so I'm asking for that to be correct okay any other board members Dr holness thank you madam chair um so for for Piper High School uh there are 38 unuse Portables with widlife intrusion and um I had requested that these are removed it says uh the response was 14 of the 38 Portables of Piper High School are deem unsatisfactory however we are working on adding all 38 to the list of Portables to be demolished in 2024 2025 B FPS they are vacant so I need some information on um whether or not this is going to take place the progress of this and what are we to look for Miss matala Mr Dorset will speak to that go ahead Mr Dorset good afternoon hello can you hear me yes okay good uh yeah we do have funding for the Portables at Piper I think there were like 38 Portables on site so that that is included that is a request that we were made and I think that funding is available for us now okay so all 38 will be one yes sir okay good any other M FR yes sir thank you very much for removing Portables how about Hollywood Hills can we take a look at that as well because I want Portables not being used and being on top of tennis courts is a little frustrating thank you so I just want to make a comment about like our process here and we yeah no no question okay hold on a question my comment is this right we all could sit up here and say you know for our District 4 I want ab and c and and everybody can go around doing that however that is not what we're we should be doing and so Dr heper My Hope and you know I see there are some recommendations that were brought forward to us that there is a strategic plan of how this is being brought forward us for these recommendations and and so I caution the board with taking certain you know asks as we you know we are voices not just for our district but for the entire School District uh so Dr Heen can you just speak to the process staff went through to bring these recommendations forward to us at this time yes uh Miss Marte and also Mr Dorset can provide an additional info thank you superintendent so we can provide the board with whatever level of documentation they'd like to see but a request goes out to all the Departments all of them as to what their Capital needs are they have to provide a justification they're all put together in a document and then a committee goes through EV with all the stakeholders involved goes through every single one as to why and and what and what happens in addition to that during the year and in the early budget Workshops the board has told us some of their priorities covered walkways are priority getting all our buses in line with an average lifespan of other major urban districts in the country these are all things that the board has told us so as we put this together those are those are the things that we have in the back of our our mind so please know that what is in front of you was not anywhere near the original ask at all some of the asks were much larger but we had to take all of the information and synthesize it into the priorities some of the asks are health and safety the ask from um Allison wosinski in environmental health some of those EPA issues that have to be addressed and we don't really have a choice about them um but as far as as um marrying the asks of the Departments and the needs of the Departments that work out in our schools with the board's Direction this is our best recommendation to do that once the committee goes through all of that then irum Omar this year I didn't do it but they did sat down with the superintendent and went through everything with his you know with with his final approval to present to the board because the budget is uh recommended budget of the superintendent of schools to the board it does not address everything um but systematically programs that you are concerned about like the lack of covered walkway space we're trying to do some every year uh the the baseball netting we did some last year last year you told us to try to do a few every year we've done that the the turf two this year you want a couple every year so that's what this plan lays out and if the board wants to go in a different direction staff certainly can do that but the that's the process of this and it started back in November November okay and then just my last comment is pretty obvious that these recommendations we were to approve them we wouldn't see one of these schools hypothetically down the road in the closing of schools obviously we wouldn't be putting or allocating money into a school if we're going to be closing it that is correct M Mart you want part of the thought process so this is this is a workshop so if over the next few weeks as Dr he's plan for redefining schools um is discussed if something in that plan were to be decided that went against this you would not see it in the final dfp so we're going to have a preliminary dfp vote in July and a final defp vote in September so this is today is preliminary Direction I it's not a final Direction at all and we can recalibrate as the redefining um discussion progresses m m Madam chair yeah Mr Charon thank you madam chair uh actually you uh I have won you over uh I think your comments were spot on from uh a series of comments I held before and by the way great presentation uh thank you for the feedback um but it was and I think you made the point that all school board members represent U County Schools is that correct corre oh okay all right so I just want to make the same point I've said um meeting after meeting this board has to make comprehensive decisions that impact all schools and all of our students so we've had a couple workshops where to your point um it has been very evident that we could have done a different approach so I'm not talking about the current approach that staff has taken um but a different approach so it feels as if we clearly are doing countywide to your point Madam chair all of us could just spit off probably three to five uh big needs in our respective districts I don't think that's conducive to what we want to do I agree with actually your comment uh Dr Zeman I didn't I was listening intently because actually before I make that point think you just made the comment or your question and response was this is a tentative blueprint that's true this also Madam chair does not and I can't speak for the superintendent he can speak for himself I don't think this in any way limits what's a part of the redefining plan okay so for me by that statement being a true statement I am not ready to give any green light to this today me I'm also not in favor of the remaining available funds 16.5 is nothing so based on not knowing what the appetite of the board will be because I guess that's a coming discussion so we put this before that one right not knowing what year it will be not knowing the number of schools will be impacted it's hard for me to make an informed decision I'm sorry to make an informed poll or reach cons or contribute to any consensus building today as a board so I'm not ready to do that um that's just where I'm at thank you thank youon thank you I just wanted to point out I I did I did reach out to the facilities chief and ask them to go check on the cafeteria at Margate and see about that and it was through discussion where she said she would put it on there but I will also remind us that when the final defp comes all of a sudden board members are throwing projects on there $70 million is one of them so I um you know I think it's important that we have the discussions now and that we're asking you to go back and look see I don't expect Gate Middle to get us a cafeteria next year it's a 5-year plan so I'd like to look at what that issue is they have a school that has 1,400 kids and a cafeteria that holds less than 200 there's clearly a problem there they can't do a lot of the academics that they need because they have to have so many lunches um you know we looked at it when we were talking about Stranahan and why they needed a new cafeteria so my ask is that we look at what where can fall in here and understand that it it doesn't allow them to have assemblies in that cafeteria because it's too small it is affecting their academics so um and I'm countywide I don't have a particular District that I'm advocating for I advocate for all of them but it's something they were promised a long time ago and they didn't get it and they're growing and the cafeteria is not so I think it's really important that you look at it if it makes sense where does it fall in here it doesn't obviously next year is full but we have areas where there's more money coming in and somewhere in the next five years I would like to see marate middle their their cafeteria be addressed because it is not working for the academics of their students thank you yeah thank you and I I really want to pick up on Miss hixon's Point um it would be fascinating to think about Margate Middle School cafeteria uh something that has a direct impact on their ability to do academic things well uh as opposed to some of the projects that are on this year's list and to that end chair I'd like to see kind of Big Ticket items out 5 years you know what are the things that we know that are backlog but we can't potentially pay for this year and let the board decide do we do a pool which does not affect academic performance in my mind or do we do a uh a cafeteria at a very large Middle School that clearly does directly impact their ability to do academic things well uh I'll tell you how I'm going to vote uh on that you know because our strategic goal is to become an a-rated district and to get everybody to the academic potential uh that they have but I would propose that when we get this back we see what those big projects are they're out there and Miss Hixon I don't think that Middle School cafeteria is the only one I think there's a a school called Bennett Elementary School that we promised an academic building years ago uh and we didn't deliver that there are other uh programs around and I think we ought to see them and then maybe with the superintendent we can have a conversation of how does a pool affect academic performance compared to a middle school cafeteria where they have seven lunch periods where they got to squeeze everyone scheduled in order to get everybody fed uh to me that would be a much better discussion than just getting one year at a time and to Mr alon's point this can't be strategic if it's one year at a time right and if you have no choices probably not strategic either um but to miss hixon's point I think it's time we start making strategic choices year over-year and move some of those tiles around and say hey can we do the cafeteria next year and postpone the pool year can we accelerate some of the synthetic turf fields uh where we have free funds uh that that come up uh I would appreciate doing that chair and uh it it we've got time left between now and and September when we approve this uh to start making real trades um across years U to make sure that we achieve our strategic goals um Madam chair may I go sometime soon the nurse is here to check on me in like five minutes yes please go I'm not sure if this is the right clot but first first of all um thank you for putting the items in that need to be there um especially the the roofs and um the other I absolutely concur um under it and Equipment I'm going to try to squeeze the conversation in which is the audit for I it's audit I want to add it to the audit but it also is a it's a an equipment issue the death and part of hearing audio visual enhancement project it's 13 months beyond the delivery date I don't know if that needs to be here it needs to be talked about so at least in the audit when we come to that conversation I'm going to bring it up but um Mr superintendent does it belong here Miss Rupert no it it doesn't belong with this item even though it's about Communications and stuff audio no Miss Rupert um Dr Phillips that's it correct yes just under um it it doesn't have anything to do with these capital projects okay I'm looking at the budget Workshop number five fiscal year 2024 and and number nine and it says I equipment go to page nine Miss rert I'm on nine and I think what you were referring to is already budgeted tell me where if I'm hearing you correctly oh okay this just talk go ahead Miss Marte thank you Dr heer Miss Rupert the death and height of hearing project is funded in the current budget there's no ask here for that okay so maybe just an update on the 13 months being behind delivery date and what that date would be and I will take that um as a as a followup but I I did want to mention it you know me I I love Robin bman and I love to do robin bman puddle jump so thank you for listening thank you any other board m comment okay so I think really the direction is to continue the conversation we'll we'll continue to take what the board told us today um our next budget Workshop is um actually my last day of work June 25th we will ask the chair for a little bit more time so we can revisit the capital ask while we're trying to land the plane on the general fund thank you madam chair very much thank you the next item up is our student generation rate in school impact the update study I'll now turn it over to staff for a presentation Mr Alaba will be presenting um we'll just wait for him to move up to the front for e okay begin make sure your bike is on yeah okay sorry good afternoon board members my name is Kaku director facility planning and real estate um I have here Neil who's our vendor or consultant for the study this study is required to be done at least once every three years by the uh triler which is the third amended and reinstated inter local agreement between the school board Par County and 27 cities so the last time the study was done what what normally happens is the study is done it's done in coordination with the county and their municipalities uh it goes through a process um there's all kinds of schedules which we have the schedule on the present which is going to be shared and then um this is part of our process after this depends on what happens the next step is to come to a formal board Workshop the board may take action formally to transmit uh recommended um recommendations from the study via resolution to the bar County Commission and then the bar County Commission the goal is for them to adopt men the Baran Land Development code to pretty much in include um recommendations mainly the two outcomes which um Mrs Camp is going to cover is the student generation rate which is the multiplier the growth management section of the department I oversee utilized to determine how many students are coming from proposed residential development and the second piece is the school impact fees the last time this was done was in 2020 and then it's due again for the um again within the three years so I'm going to turn it over to uh Mrs Camp to um go over the presentation just make sure that can you hear it now okay Camp would [Music] finish right right okay oh here we go okay so I think Mr auso covered the background uh the the presentation includes few summary slides to give you the main purpose and the results if you desire there's a more detailed presentation behind it so again this is uh a study that's required for Chila has two components student generation rate and impact fees and then the um final results have to be submitted to the board of County Commission so the purpose of the student generation rate is to to measure the impact the new development has so it's sort of a multiplier that the school district uses for planning purposes uh it's also represents the demand component of the impact fee calculations uh impact fees cover the cost of uh new facilities capacity expansion facilities or uh Debt Service payments on the existing um on the facilities that were bonded and there were also capacity project uh they help implement the capital Improvement plans and some of their uses are again classroom additions uh additional technology uh any kind of core facilities Debt Service and so forth this slide shows the change in student generation rate since the last study and you can see that for the most part all categories decreased that that's a reflection of the also the declining enrollment and then this slide shows you the final impact fee results and um since your last study the we had a new bill that passed and that requires fee increases to be limited to 50% and also be phased over four years if it's up to 25% it's over 2 years if it's more than 25 up to 50% it's over 4 years years and if the local government would like to increase the fees more than 50% then uh they need to show extraordinary circumstances and two3 of the governing body has to vote for them so uh in this study the you can see that current adopted fees were ranging anywhere from $375 so about 11,000 and then next to it we are showing the full cap fees that's the maximum you can increase or the county can increase without having to go through demonstrating extraordinary circumstances and that increase itself would be phased over four years so in the case of uh single family with three or fewer bedrooms the fee would increase from 8,800 to 9900 the first year then to 11,000 then 12,000 and 13,000 so it's sort of a 1,000 increase and the earliest these increases can be implemented is 2026 because another change in legislation was fees cannot be increased more than once every four years and your last increase went into effect in 22 so the first time another increase can be implemented is 2026 so that's kind of shown on this slide um and then some of the comments received during the public workshops or through that process or oversight committee meetings included there's a decline in enrollment you know why do we need an increase again impact fees are used for any capacity project and the school district still H is paying debt on new stations that were built while back um so those stations are available for new development to use so that's part of the reason in addition even though at times there's a countywide capacity it may not be in the right places anytime you are replacing for example Portables with permanent stations those are considered capacity so as long as the school district is able to use and has a need and place to um spend the impact fee revenues as projects then the fees are basically calculating the uh the value of the school infrastructure the new growth is consuming there are concerns about impact pce effects on affordable housing and I think that was also a discussion last time around and School Board increased the allowance for affordable housing so that could be something to be relooked at um there some suggested that there's a need for a school master plan kind of showing more of a countywide approach um and then there were questions about a large County how do we show the benefit to the fee payer and that's why you have separate seven separate benefit districts so each uh District basically when is collected in each district is spent in that District um and that's kind of how it's achieved uh there was a question about student generation rat can they be done for high rises by bedroom um if that's the desire of the board we can look into that analysis and then any new stations in a given sub area I think that was a question are are there any new stations being added I think from an impa impact perspective any time you are replacing Portables is considered new just because um again they are not Portables are considered a temporary solution and they are not included in the fee calculations Miss camp and missusa the board is ready for questions whenever Mr Alon thank you madam chair thank you for the presentation I know we all have looked at it in advance so I'm just going to jump right in um so at least for me I know I I won't be supporting any U increases come July I think that's when uh we'll be asked to do something is that right July okay um let me jump to your second bullet where you reference the kind of the impact fees the phasing of the fees and I think you raised it from some of the public comment uh that was referenced before um but why I mean what's the rationale for raising fees while also closing schools right the Optics just doesn't lend itself can you help me understand that yes so this is something you know School planning is one of the most challenging planning of as far as all the infrastructures goes just because again when you have capacity in one school you can't and then somewhere else you are using Portables to meet the capacity needs you can't just take that unfortunately space and move it Without Really redistricting you have the ability to redistrict and adjusted that way but whenever we are looking at it schools the countywide uh average sort of misses the locational issues and again what the study does it calculates the value of the infrastructure New Growth is receiving this is what's you know whenever we are building these things this is what it's costing and that's the value that you are receiving on the expense side the project side as long as school district school district needs to have a plan to spend these like if if you were accumulating a huge fund balance or you have no place to spended you eventually have to return those fees there's a six to seven year time period if they are not spent so that's the part that takes basically cares care of the is there a need okay and then let me jump to kind of the third bullet um and I think you referenced before openness to uh both if we wanted to consider waivers for affordable and Workforce housing both corre just one category and you can expand on that maybe sure so the school board has been waving impact fees School impact fees since 1987 um you know approximately over 6 million through that time currently the school board has a resolution whereby $450,000 is set aside and it's an administrative Masters whereby is 50,000 per project and then if there's a um moderate income component then it goes up to like 75,000 so we expend that money administratively and then we provide a memo to the board twice a year to tell you how much is been spent so the last time this was transmitted it was I think about 375,000 and so the county said in as part of the condition to amend the code is to opt it the board upate to 450,000 the county is not saying if you're going to have these increases go on they want us to increase that um pull of money now it's going to be up to the board if you want to do that but that's a pull of money that we give the waivers from but you can't do Madam J just follow you can't do a full waiver for both groups you actually the law uh one other change in law was that um if the local governments want to discount or wave fees for qualified affordable and Workforce housing they can't do that without having to back fill so that's a that's a uh actually a nice exception because normally we can't just reduce fees for one L use without reducing it for everybody so it's normally this is like under legal um requirements that's not allowed but they made an exception for uh affordable housing and Workforce housing as defined in the statues um and it's based on the income levels and and so on I want to follow you you're saying think it is permissible something that we that can be done yes okay got it so we're on the same page that would need to occur in July correct board member just to clarify the school board basically this is in the bar Land Development code excuse me waves up to 100% of whatever is due right so if it's 50,000 and my impact Fe is 100,000 you only get 50,000 yes got it okay and then just kind of a thought and I actually let me just see I thought I saw this one I think you referenced it in your comments just kind of the all the various categories um have we thought about collapsing it it wasn't part of this uh study but I think there are others who were interested in that I can speak to that a little bit the last time the study was done the BR planning Council staff Administration not the council itself and then the county staff from the planning department sent a letter recommending to collapse the categories right the bedroom right now you have residential type and bedroom mix Mi so they said was so complicated now the conversation was to collapse it potentially into five categories but then um potentially doing by square footage but then the challenge becomes if I take a single family what is the average size between a studio and some Mansion I don't know so yes there's been that conversation but um it hasn't been discussed at this particular meeting it has not no is that something that could be looked at maybe in the going forward I would recommend that because of the time frame that maybe for the next study we it gives us enough time to do that sure because we have to look at the repercussions regarding Revenue to to the school board is that direction you uh we could give now or you want that direction in July you can give it now you can give it in July but that will be something because again for July the school board is going to be making a recommend to the county you can give it now as a takeaway and then we will communicate that but you can give it now you can give it at that time okay well I've given it if there's no objection from the board Madam chair um for the next cycle okay got it um those are my three thank you any other board member um so I have a comment on page five so looking at this so the fees are increasing each year uh but we don't necessarily have to say yes to this we can say where we were now we are currently now correct correct okay and and so this I think only only thing that may be good is because the generation rates changed some some categories are decreasing or not increasing as much so it may be good to to say we want to keep single family at a pick pick one of the categories the same and then adjust Everybody by the same percentage so if current single family is 70% of calculated fee make entire fee schedule adopted at 70% so that relations the student generation demand relations are up to date like we are not charging anyone more than their their share because the generation rates decrease but it decrease more for some land users so they should be charged less than what they are now if you are uh do do you see so so how come you didn't show that page or are you showing that page oh I I wasn't because I didn't know that was the interest ah okay but we can bring that bring back to you and show what it would look like yeah I'm interested to see what that would look like because there's other there's options here you're only presenting one option so I would like to see that option brought forward what else do you need the the board is that on page seven um adopt resolu student generation rates schedule I'd like to see the other option adopt the school impact fee schedule is there another option for that that you're not presenting for the school impact fee I mean you can adopt the fees at any percentage you'd like or the county would like so it could be the current rate it could be uh not all the way up to 50% something in between um those there's a lot of flexibility only thing the board or County couldn't do is exceed the rates but beyond that and as long as all the land users are treated the same percentage decrease like we couldn't just discount single family but not discount Garden Apartments or whatever it is so it they all need to be treated this equally basically but yeah there's a lot of flexibility Madame chair just for me to add to that so you have this recommendations again today for the workshop is you know interaction with the board to get some kind of Direction so when we come back we will then reflect those Direction because you're going to be taking formal action right so if you have this with three components the student generation rate is the resultant of a formal right that's the multiplier we use so we can't really change the rates because they are what they are right that's what we use for multiplying to determine how many students right so that's what it is and as you see they're going down the impact fees the schedule of the four years is triggered by Statute that they cannot go up for no more than um you can increase for no more than four years so if you look at the categories they're only increasing by Le ,000 now if the board through this Workshop saying okay rather than 100% of what we're showing for the four tier I want to bring them in at 75% or 50% it's up to you but not going below what the current adopted rates are right so whatever Direction the board wants bring it at 75% 50% but not below whatever it is now we will bring that information right and then the third is up to the board like I said the last um used to be 375,000 that the board set aside your resolution you opted to 450 from the last time the board can choose even here now say hey I want to make it 600,000 or whatever and so we'll bring that again so those are I I think that's going to be good for a proactiveness because I think again the school board has been waving impact fees right contributing towards housing affordability in BR County to at least since 1987 so the school board is still enabling the school additionally um can say okay you know what I'm discounting so if you up the ratees you're then showing I'm concerned I understand what you're saying regarding impact to affordable housing I'm increasing the dollar amount so again it's up to the board okay it's really um kind of confusing but I'll just say this I don't agree with the increases on page five I'd like to see you bring back um a lower numbers and I don't want to increase the impact could could you could you share more uh why wouldn't you want to increase impact fees up to the Limit Allowed by the law is that's just putting more burden on our our citizens our uh family it's on the developer business business so this is a developer paying their fair share of you know classrooms that going to be required because they're building houses that have kids M and so uh but are they pushing that fee onto the person buying the home uh part of it um but part of it is the person buying a new home uh that hasn't been built before is increasing uh the need for schools in that area and one of the real issues is you do this in Deerfield Beach if you do that large parts of Parkland Weston you really are creating a requirement for more buildings you know you need more classrooms every time you add you know 20 or 30 more students up there so the pro the way that the development law in Florida works is that developers uh have to put that into the price so that it pays for uh that they have similar impact fees for water connections and Sewer connections and schools so typically we would want to collect as much as we can you know over time I think this is a ramp if I understand correctly over four years to get to the maximum correct which is a pretty I think a generous policy to wait for years to get to that point we certainly need the money uh our facilities uh are between three and6 billion dollar uh in a rear in terms of the need and so where there's already uh schools at capacity uh and they're building thousands of homes in downtown uh Dana Beach Hollywood 7,000 new condos Fort Lauderdale 7,000 new uh condos every year Broward County has to add 15,000 new homes in order just to uh deal with population growth so there is um an advantage to you know try and collect to the extent that we can so that we can pay for the schools and particularly in the areas um where where we're at or above capacity okay does anybody else want to weigh in no yes just one more thing um it will be helpful if the board can I mean if you're amable to the increasing the current um allocation then we can as part of the formal action bring um tailor the resolution that the school board is going to do to say okay we often from 450 to some number um that would be helpful uh if not we sta for the superent can propose whatever you think is uh necessary leard yeah just I wanted to agree with Dr Zan um I think you know we have a lot of financial pressure on the organization right now and we are talking about you know cutting costs and I'm all about cutting costs I'm also you know all about trying to make sure that we can pay for facilities that we need um and paid debts that we have thank you so so to miss Leonard's point so in 2020 where every year are we is Broward schools getting back money from the impact fees the impact fees uh Schoolboard has an agreement with the county so every quarter those fees are transmitted to capital budget via the seven planning areas right and then once a year after the budget of the organization has to provide um report to the county on how you spend the fees in compliance with what's in the code so you get the fees 100% then you wave fees towards affordable housing but you get the fees 100% the county collects 2% for administrative um transactions you get the fees 100% transmitted every quarter we're talking penes here I'll meet up with you later okay anybody else well I heard two too we haven't heard from five I agree with Dr Zan and Mrs leonardy I think it's important that we're collecting the funds as they're building those developments to be able to increase the number of seats in in our schools and that's what the impact fee is for as they continue to grow it and we have to grow our schools um that's that's part of what this is I don't know if the percentage is exactly right or whatever but I I do know that um I agree with the fact that we we haven't been collecting what we could be and we have facilities that are in the billions of dollars that need to be updated and we need to to make sure that we're we're doing this in a collective manner so I agree with what Dr Zan thank you very much chair I am um with you and board member Austin put all the pressure on Dr hus thanks um drus thank you board member fogan hly but I am going to go with Dr Zeman and board member Hixon and board member Sarah Leonardi Pam well I agree that we need the money I just don't know that people are going to be to afford to stay here that's my biggest fear I see more and more uh families that can't even afford to move into the area so I I don't know that we are going to continue to grow until um we get our housing costs you know reasonable and lowered it's very very difficult to um afford to live in Broward curently so you don't want to increase it I I I'm hesitant I'm very very hesitant because what is the breaking point for these you hear the teachers all the time saying that they can't afford it when are we going to reach the breaking point when maybe people will move out and a new group of people will move in they can afford it but I think you're going to lose a lot of the Native lians and the people that are currently residing here I really do I fear for that Miss rert okay we're at a 44 there's AG there's we're not voting there's agreement on the categories nobody objected to that right for the next cycle will this come back um for a decision at the next school board meeting July I mean we're we we I think chair we need options you know what's the impact if we uh don't increase impact fees what's the impact if we do yeah I wish that was brought today I would also ask that the staff bring um the net impact that there is of additional students because it's significant significantly more than the $113,000 per unit and so over the course of 13 years of education U there's a pretty big impact on every new student that comes in and so uh the County Commission is very jealous of the Brad County School Board because we get to charge impact fees um they'll be interested in the discussion and how it ended up today but if we can bring back options I think we could make a decision at a Schoolboard meeting okay so the July 23rd is school board meeting Dr heurn right Mr Hill or Dr wza can you confirm July 23rd is that a school board meeting or a workshop that is a board meeting okay so I guess so Dr he based on the board's conversation today and what you think is the best interest of our County then you will bring that forward in the requested action correct um Mr akabo can you state your takeaways just to make sure C captured everything so my takeaway like uh one member um T Austin pretty much said we are okay to look at the collapsing of the categories in the next uh you know study and um I'm understanding to bring pros and cons regarding if you increase the fees where the prod on conses I've not really heard about if you're um entertaining increasing the waiver dollar amount from 450 to some number I didn't hear that that may be helpful um but just to be clear currently the four phases we will bring the pros and cons right regarding the four phases and then based on that hopefully then the board will make a decision those are my takeaways then also um heard the B board chair mentioned about the the different options if uh a 50% or 75% so if we can we could talk offline about those okay you're good good all right moving forward to the next item next item is the office of the chief auditor audit plan forecast fiscal year ah public comment I'm so sorry public comment Madam chair we do have one speaker his name is Mr ski Jonathan Madam chair is this on okay I'm ski Jernigan representing the Builders Association of South Florida this afternoon um we have some very strong concerns about the proposal to increase fees we raised these concerns uh three years ago and most of our concerns remain the same it's been interesting to listen to the discussion here today I think that one of the things things that this Board needs to fully understand uh and come to grips with is what an impact fee really is um and recent uh Supreme Court case out of California within the last 68 weeks has reconfirmed the position of Broward County I mean Hollywood Inc versus Broward County which said that a local government must demonstrate a reasonable connection or or relative Nexus between the need for additional capacity facilities and the growth of population generated by the subdivisions or development in the area in addition the government must show a reasonable connection or rational Nexus between the expenditures of funds collected and the benefit uring to the subdivisions what we have here in Broward County at the Schoolboard level flies in the face of this legal requirement first of all the majority of if not all Impact fees collected in Broward County over the last four or five years have been used to pay Bond debt not to build capacity so a fee is being collected from the homeowner and that fee is supposed to provide capacity for the child coming from that home but you have no capacity Construction in your 5year Capital plan so for the last number of years the school district has spent all Impact fees that have been collected to pay Bond indebtedness under the theory that those old bonds built capacity that is now being utilized by new students that's not necessarily the case old bonds many of which were refinanced were used to build not only capacity but to buy equip and Equipment leases so no analysis has been done of those bonds to determine how much of those Bonds were utilized to build capacity that against the background where the capacity that we currently have which may or may not have been built with the bond proceeds is now excess capacity but no child is coming from a new home needing to have a student station seat built for them there are 40 to 50,000 vacant student stations they may not be in the right place but they exist and it's it's incumbent upon the school board to ensure that those vacant capacities are being utilized appropriately by the students coming from new homes there should not be any overcrowded schools in this County it's a difficult political situation to address but there should not be any overcrowded schools in this County so the um Builders Association is opposed to any fee increases and we would like to continue to be a part of this conversation um and uh I'll be glad to answer any questions thank you any other public comment see none Dr Zan thank you very much um I'm the school board rep to the uh uh advisory committee to the County Commission on on uh plan development and the like and we actually discussed this legal case last month right after it had been decided uh I would ask that when we bring this back uh that we ask our general Council to provide us uh a quick assessment the County commission's Attorney has done the same they might want to share it with you um and as I said before the County Commission is is quite jealous of us because we get to recapture some of this and um uh the case uh that has been cited today I think ought to be presented back to us from our Council on what impact uh that might have the the County Commission had a very clear opinion about it it would have no effect on us um but I understand that you know not all taxes are good taxes but impact these are you know a long-standing way for communities to um assess the the specific people that are causing the additional tax burden to be required so new people move in you need new sewer you need water you need new schools and they pay a very small portion of what that seat costs uh over the lifetime of it and so I look forward to a you know a full conversation on this when we get this back as an item thank you may much chair thank you okay the next item up is the office of the chief auditor audit plan forecast fisal year 2025 I will now turn it over to Mr rhs for a presentation e oh man good afternoon Madame chair and board today we're here to present to to you all our proposed audit plan for fiscal year 2025 and um before I get started in looking at the actual plan I wanted to kind of give you an idea of how uh how we looked at this and how the how the process worked and uh beginning with the very first paragraph of the uh policy 1700 office of the chief auditor it states that the primary objective of the office of the chief auditor is to assist the school board of Broward County Florida with its oversight responsibilities as well as assist the school board's audit committee um which has identified uh with its advisory responsibilities in addition to assist the superintendent of schools and District management with their strategic and operational responsibilities and with that um thought in mind um uh put together with I've I've spoken with uh each of you um since I've been task assigned and one of the things that I had uh underscored was the fact that having been uh gone from the school district for that 12-year period uh a lot of things shifted uh specifically the risk and the areas of risk um so it was important for me to come in and and get a really uh a good understanding of where that risk is um in order to assist in all of those areas that I just listed from that first paragraph of our of our office of the chief auditor policy we tasked um an outside firm to take a look at and perform an audit risk assessment at which point they were able to determine from the the many um questionnaires that they received and then the the interviews and conversations with the various Chiefs and leaders throughout the district as well as the board members and some of the audit committee members um it's very qualitative in nature uh to identify uh the age-old question what keeps you up at night or what is it that you think is going to keep you from achieving your operational objectives um from that we were able to uh glean from the the uh districtwide risk assessment the areas of highest risk and to uh incorporate those along with other areas that we already maintain um coverage over and um measurement and testing of internal controls to be able to put together uh what I think is a uh a great um proposed audit plan knowing that it is subject to uh input and some suggestions along the way um with that in mind um I wanted to we we we attached the risk assessment which was really more than anything for your review and consideration and if you have any questions about that I would be happy to to address those but more than anything it led to the development of what we're here to talk about today which is the um proposed audit plan so we've broken down the um proposed audit plan into various areas um and for Simplicity sake we'll just identify that uh there are areas that we perpetually um review and test um it takes up the largest part of our staff um to do so for example we have uh about 10 uh internal funds auditors that are just looking at uh one school right after the other going through the entire list throughout the years which is a statutory requirement um we also have a group that consists of about eight people which is the property and inventory uh control group and they do the same thing they're they're moving from one location to the other to try to account for all of the district's assets um and to ensure that those those who are charged with accounting for those District assets and management are are doing so and doing so in accordance with the appropriate policies procedures and state statutes I I mention those two in particular because you know we we we have to tie these things back to what do we do um with this work that that helps the the daily lives and learning um environment of the children and uh when it comes to the internal funds those are funds of the children um and to look at 100% of those each year is um and what I would see to be a a huge benefit to the children and the money that they raise or that other folks raise and donate into those funds that we would then Monitor and account for and report back to you so you have an understanding and a sense of um confidence that this is being done in accordance with the rules that govern govern that um the same thing goes for the property and inventory work um we have slightly retooled the property and inventory um process uh since uh just shortly after I came on board because we got a new property and inventory manager uh who was a 21-year veteran of the Marine Corps and one of the first things I asked him was what is it that you do when you come in to a new um operation uh and you're head of that operation and he said I I do a full assessment I Tred to take a look at what happened before that day so I can be accountable for what I'm accountable for and what my people are accountable for and ultimately to identify the weaknesses in the process or or the opportunities for improvements even though it might not necessarily represent a weakness in doing so um he worked on uh a new standard operating procedure and took into consideration all of the various rules um statutes uh business practice bulletins that we have throughout the district and put together a program that is now um uh putting a little bit more emphasis on the requirement of uh the semiannual inventory by the the folks who are responsible for those Assets in those various schools and departments um it's it's been working out very well and as we talked about before it's a living document um I heard that mentioned earlier it's a living document and it's being improved every time um Improvement opportunities show themselves or uh a need for improvement is identified um so staying on that first page looking at the items that are really just kind of uh Perpetual we're looking at um the schools departments payroll overtime over payments the the constant calculation of these wages and these things that go on they come to us at different times and in different ways uh we look at those things and we identify um the risk using those risks that we identify we put together an audit program say again I'm sorry uh we use a um we use a a series of internal control tests to identify what's happening with those items as well um uh the behavioral threat management has become an in-house uh item that's going to be looked at uh quarterly by our group and when I say quarterly that means that they'll be reported on quarterly but they will be looked at um early and often uh throughout each of those quarters to lead up to the reporting mechanism and then the uh last is that we provide uh um oversight and management of the group that identifies and looks into the contracts uh that are providing this District oversight of the bond program uh through its completion Mr Rose if the board's okay with it I'd like to go to questions sure thank you board member questions hold this um you can you can come back get for questions okay back to me okay so the presentation is completed right we're just going to go in okay okay so I'd like to um request that we add uh the defant heart of hearing audio visual enhancement alert project to the audit plan um there has been significant concerns with the implementation of this system there has been significant delays and um I think that it would be in our best interest to add this to the audit plan um so I would like the board to weigh in on that and see how we can proceed seon I know a large portion of the time that it's behind is because the board directed staff to start and then it didn't start for almost six or seven months until it came up um to us that it hadn't started we were under the impression it was moving forward early in um 20 21 I think right before 2022 so um I think once it kicked into gear it went on the path that it was supposed to but I'm going to guess an audit will just show that somehow the ball got dropped right in that very beginning probably six seven months of us thinking it was on track and it hadn't started yet so I just wanted to kind of put that into context a little understand Dr Zan thank you so much um Mr rhs how many vacancies do you have in your department right now um we have four vacancies currently thank you so much do you have the uh staff and contract resources to complete compl the audit plan as you've described it today yes we do thank you very much Austin y actually I'll start there because uh I know before we we started with that conversation around Staffing and then kind of Consulting works that's good to know um so Deen hard of hearing let me just go backwards um that was around what year Mr Ro 2021 I think that's right it's right before 2022 got it okay I just wanted to confirm uh so you're intent uh Dr holness is just to look at what went wrong during that period with leadership Etc right got it okay I support that um I won't say anymore uh based on prior uh guidance uh to the board uh during that time period for this board um so my question is and I know Madam chair uh we had um I know there was Prior Direction around when there are um audits or reviews that come from outside uh entities I believe that typically comes directly to the chair or the superintendent or you Mr Chief auditor when you get those from outside agencies how do you typically handle those well uh the first thing is is to take a look and and determine whether or not the uh nature of the allegations that are contained in those complaints are uh within our jurisdiction and if they are uh then I would look into it at what I call a Desktop review level which is using open sources on the internet just to try to use that and any internal uh systems that we have access to to determine if there's any way uh that we can we can identify that an inquiry and that I use that term differently than an investigation to determine if an inquiry is even Justified to look into this if it is within our jurisdiction so once that happens and I get to the point where I believe that uh using my professional judgment an inquiry is is merited I would then take that to the chair of the board bring the chair of the board up to speed on what it is that is um is happening and to determine if there is uh again through the policy the check and balance to determine whether or not the chair agrees that this is an item that rises to a level that should be uh investigated or audited and once that determination is made and we've identified that that is in fact what the direction we're going to go then there's a responsibility per policy to notify the rest of the uh board members that this is going to be ongoing and then uh at that point depending on the circumstances around the complaint uh or allegation there uh there in some cases will be confidentiality rules that will that will apply and in other cases depending on just how public it is that might not be the case but then uh at that point the inquiry would take place determine if good cause is found to take it into an investigation or a full audit and um move forward with it in in in whatever way we find to be the necessary way to address and report it to the board got it let me just follow up um and actually let me just make this comment out of the gate we've had our one one briefing on this I have no additional things to add so uh thank you for what's been presented I think it's big picture comprehensive um in line with what we've seen before and more so just want to make that point now that I've said that one point you just made actually caught me a little offg guard so I think you made the point that the board chair can give the green light uh to go forward uh on an audit uh just talk through that process and there's a reason I'm asking sure per our policy that is identified as the check and balance to make sure that before we do anything outside of our audit plan that we are that I would be checking in one-on-one with the person that I report directly to which is the chair until such time that that would be determined to have been good cause then everybody would be notified of that now I um I know that I I can do and will do a better job of communicating with individual board members when this happens but right now now um I've explained to each of you some of the places where my office is short-handed and where I'm doing a lot of different things when I'm a little bit more free to do that my intent is to make sure that each board member is much more up to speed on these things over and above perhaps a cryptic notification right and and by the way my my comments are not criticism based it's more process so if there is a so back to the initial question when there is an inquiry from an outside agency that comes to Brower County Public Schools your process is you get it you triage or do a Desktop review uh you determine if there should be an inquiry if it is warranted you then notify the chair so I'm going to make sure I'm repeating your process at that point the chair will make a decision if uh the green light is warranted on proceeding with additional steps is that correct yes and then and then the notification so if the chair decides to yes green light or to Red Light something at that point when do you notify the board of the initial inquiry that came and subsequently if a decision point was made by the chair red light or green light any Chair by the way I didn't even know this was I'm just listening so explain that process let let me let me back up a little bit because you you reminded me of something I may have glossed over a little bit um some of these um notifications that we received don't simply come to me right they come to a a small group of people the allegations contained in any given complaint may have an audit related or an investigative component uh it may also be strictly Personnel issues so in that triage um uh process that you kind of just identified it would be first and foremost to identify if there is any audit component to this at all all if there is then it would be that desktop part that you that we talked about to determine whether or not that um there is a justification and even u a responsibility to look further into that to determine if and where it should go um and because of the way that the the policy is written up that's the way that the other things I've described to you why they happen meaning uh contacting the point of contact for the chief auditor which is the chair and then notifying the entire board before any action would be would happen officially do you anticipate um where any board chair could you know say no to green lighting some additional inquiry uh where you have in your professional judgment you believe you should move forward how do you handle that situation um that's a great question uh but the way that I would answer it is that there is a check in Balance built into the policy for a reason because no more than um a chair or no more than a chief auditor should simply have the ability to undertake um an investigation or an audit on their own there has to be some determination that there's um either good cause or there is information available suggesting that good cause could be there so I haven't had a situation um where at any point in my professional career where my professional judgment was in any way impaired by somebody who gave we'll call it what you called it a red light um however um I do I do have to say that I have a professional responsibility over and above the responsibility that I have as a as a an employee um my contract spells out pretty much what the policy says um for that reason um it would have to be some pretty extreme circumstances where I got a red light before I would jump outside of my lane and try to start doing something on my own because I do believe that there are some cases where uh board members have access to information that I don't I may bring something that looks strange that looks uh like it needs a review and there may be a perfectly good explanation for that that was not known to me prior to that discussion um and I again I I always leave room for that because the way that I look at auditing or investigation I take a legal pad I put a a line perfectly down the middle anything on the left is things that disprove this allegation anything on the right prove this allegation because I don't get paid and none of my people get paid an extra time to go out and actually come up with uh a substantiated allegation the facts are the facts and that's all that there are to that's all to do no and I appreciate this conversation just around this one and then the next one uh as we talk about independence and Audits and I appreciate that um is there anything in the the policy that prevents you from notifying the board um when you reach the point where you have discussions with uh any board chair um there's there's language there's language that that touch on that but in the way that you just described it I don't think it's spelled out okay and because and I appreciate this at least I've seen from afar um I only can do it up here on the Das uh cuz I know that there were at least one or two where the entire board was notified I'm just making sure regardless of who the chair is uh that that process is clear um that there is true Independence uh and when that there when there is some outside review inquiry um and you've made some decision point that the full board is notified right no one person should be able to use my words again uh light you um and of course on your side you know clearly there should be a green light from the board uh ensuring that you move forward on whatever the item happens to be so I just want to make sure I don't know if that's already spelled out if not I think that's something that we should look at uh as we're talking about uh just the process here to to some degree what you just described is spelled out in that the audit plan cannot be unilaterally Changed by the chief auditor the audit plan would have to have the um the the knowledge and and concurrence of the board but if if I in my professional judgment believe that the audit plan needed to be updated or changed I think that I would be able to make a pretty strong and compelling argument for why that would have to happen or you wouldn't see my face in your offices for sure or let me let me say it differently the area that you have other I think that's what we called it uh right just kind of those other buckets of potential things that could come up known or or more unknown um that's kind of what I'm referring to right I'm assuming that's where where that will fall right let me find it yeah that that is uh a part of of where you would find it and and I guess let me back up for purposes of this audit plan that is the most relevant place that you would find it right yes so if it so if something were to occur technically it's already a part of the the plan cuz you've you have contemplated um the work hours I W call them man hours there was a an elected who snaap folks fingers for that right so you've contemplated work hours uh for a potential review investigation looking into whatever right yeah yeah um but there is a caveat to that and that is that in that line item for other it says note per policy 1700 uh special assignment may serve as substitute for audit substitute is the word where we would have to identify how would we rej juggle those resources to make this priority investigation or audit remove something else that was already in the audit plan because e either that or to come back up and say to the board the one thing that you know I'm not looking forward to saying and you guys probably aren't looking forward to hearing is if I'm not going to re juggle my resources to make this work I'm going to need some money to be able to to pay someone to assist us as an outside resource right either way depending on the priority of it I I think that we would get concurrence before that would happen there would there there shouldn't be any problem like I said if it wasn't something that I believed required that I I don't bring every item that might pass my desk uh to the chair or to the uh attention of the committee or the the the board sorry um unless I really firmly believe that this is something that should become a priority and that's where the professional judgment piece is always is lingering all right and I'm the last Point uh and the only reason I raised this board is uh when I was chair uh during 2022 that period there were times that things did come from the outside and I made sure that the entire board was notified uh because sometimes it might have went to the superintendent at the time uh or the chief auditor uh just whomever so the reason I'm asking these checks and balanced questions is really to make sure that everyone is always in the loop uh so you are fully informed about things that could come come up uh from whomever so that's why I raised those points thank you for yep um so I have uh some comments um first is and maybe I missed it I need to have a key to identify some of these words OCA Pi I mean I can figure them out but for the public you think it it's have a key somewhere is helpful maybe I missed it might be is it on a p so so um just to be clear we're talking about definitions of terms of art that might be found in this document well like under assigned auditor and audit area OCA PI right yeah I'm just saying if there could be a key just so the public can cross reference what those mean I want to follow up with that again for clarification were we still looking at the policy or are we not looking at the can I help oh I'm on the chart see it's the so it's it's from the chart so I think you're doing the color code and you see it the color code and the the acronyms right yeah so just for clarification somewhere you're asking that there would be a legend that would spell that out to make it much easier for the reader in the audit plan yes please okay and then so one big glaring thing that jumps out on me is number audit number three the Safety and Security security plan and then the the activity scope reference in there so these things are so crucially important because I'm thinking that you're going to audit these things then you're going to find some compliance issues and therefore that affects the Safety and Security at that school so my my question is in this long list of projects and audits for me this would be number one to make sure that we get through before doing like caps and gowns for example and so I'm asking to prioritize this ahead of everything else but in your mind like how are you how's your team prioritizing this so if you look at the um the heading for for that page that's identifying this these sorry not not the heading and and looking at these items in general these were all high-risk items that we identified and so they're not put in any specific numerical order of of of like a hierarchy of importance or priority but if it would be if the board would would like for us to do that we can go back through and we could take a look at what again using professional judgment to do that would be the best way that we could do that and put those in an order these were really more in an order to show the difference between what is Perpetual what is in the current plan what is in the long range plan and what things are on hold so if if that pleases the board we can put that in that order based on priority from beginning to end I think it's helpful for the board to see what you're prioritizing um because again I'm going to say that for me I would like the Safety and Security to be prioritized as the outcome of this audit is going to directly AFF Safety and Security of our students at our schools so as opposed to you know you doing the Caps and Gowns AIT right it's important but not as important as as the Safety and Security audit does anybody want to weigh in on that you agree disagree absolutely agree understood and um I not just caps and gowns but other items like that some of them have a a certain amount of uh they need to marinate before you can do it because like right now it wouldn't make any sense to go do a caps and gowns audit before they've actually gone through graduation season completely and we start to take a look at what's happened um but your point is well taken and that goes for any other audits that wouldn't rise to the level of the Safety and Security of the schools um there are other areas in here that look at uh things that touch on uh the Safety and Security of the schools for example uh when we're looking at um it audits of uh say Focus there's information in there that's very sensitive that we would want to make sure not only did we get what we bargain for but it's it's functioning as intended and that the safety mechanisms and the controls are in place to protect the information that's in that system so that's another way of looking at that Safety and Security component and that would be something that based on what I just heard from from you and the general consensus of the board would be that also would be something that would necessarily be moved up that list of priorities okay thank you and just for understanding when you put in the audit area OT you put that all in red did the red signify something no it was just a a color coding red is not intended to uh identify like emergency or high high risk uh all of these uh items are high risk no I think it's I think it's a great question um just like yellow isn't necessarily anything that's approaching high risk it's just we had to have a a color coding that made it easy for everybody to understand that there is a different function for each of these things and to identify what that function is okay if you could just follow up with the board though with um I guess the priorities what is the top priority because and and I'm not going to speak for you if that's a top priority of yours does that mean that is what your team is trying to accomplish first well as I mentioned at the outset we have about 18 uh staff Auditors that are specifically assigned unless there was some reason to reassign them uh to uh recurring and and and really I just call them Perpetual audits that are happening in internal funds and and uh property and inventory the remaining part of the staff some of them are identified for operational which could be anything from an operational to a performance audit they're they're kind of like um designated hitters if you would um and then we have a very small construction outfit that as we get closer and closer to uh getting past the bond um it would it would naturally be that at some point in the future I would either uh ask the board for more resources in that area since we would now have to provide more coverage in-house or find a way to uh cross train uh the existing staff so that we could have some of those operational folks that I said are kind of they do various different things we could put together a bigger team if needed to be able to look at contracts or projects or things of that nature in the construction side of the house so um the remaining part of the staff um is we have a few clerical uh although what we're we're down to only having one vacancy in clerical right now and we're working very hard to fill that one uh the other other vacancies that we have uh are primarily uh in the U internal funds area which is an area that we have actually in internal funds and property inventory historically we've had a little bit of turnover and when we can get that to stabilize things will be a lot cleaner and easier for us to get through both the Perpetual audits as well as the audits that are listed 1 through 18 okay I'm going to try this one more time to say my question in another way so I have clear understanding ing so the Safety and Security audit plan that's going to your team is going to make it a priority and try to accomplish that in the next next amount of months yeah um any any audit that we do we will have uh audit procedures in place to test internal controls to find out if there are Safety and Security issues in any audit that we would do uh just the same way that we would do the same thing to test to see if there is fraud present in any audit that we would do um we usually are pretty able able to pretty quickly rule that out but to answer your question specifically yes um all of the ideas from the input that I received today we will make sure that not only are they listed in the audit plan that way it will be my instruction to staff to ensure that those items are the first tackled thank you Dr Z can I try let me try and say it a little differ way if I can and square the the uh the circle here there's a teams uh that are qualified to do specific audits yes and those teams are going to do those audits because they're really good at internal controls they're really good at real property inventory those kinds of things to ask for a single priority list would be difficult because the Auditors specialize in what they do well and so when you get a plan all of these are going to get done um and they're going to get done in the cycle that allows them to get the right data reported out so if it's an academic one they're going to do it over an academic year and and put that together but I think that the the challenge is that as a board we're we're curious about what's going to fall off the end if something does fall off and we're curious about things like what your contract spend and what is it your contract Auditors are working on that might be able to be accelerated because if it's a Safety and Security issue and you have a contract auditor you might be able to turn to them and get them to do it right now whereas your staff you have this many Auditors they can do this much work over the course of a year contractors could could flow in as things are required so that's I think something that the chair is asking for to add to the plan to kind of make sure we understand that if we run out of Staff people if you have higher vacancy than you thought you'd have if contract money goes away or contractors aren't available at the old prices and so you don't get as many contractors what aren't we going to do what's kind of going to fall off the plate in the course of the year or what's going to get done in a way that's just uh maybe samples at a smaller rate than would otherwise is that possible to put something together like that um the short answer is yes um and but I I would like to also say that it's a very astute observation on your part because it is the way that we re that we use those extra resources they become resource multipliers for us and we use them in some cases when something pops up uh when the board ask in the course of a of a year they might say hey we want you to take a look at this this and this if we don't have the internal resources to do it that's going to be the external resource that we're going to use um the other thing is is that uh it to get to the other part of your question is just the way that budgets look as the year progresses uh you have less and less money look at our audit plan we will have less and less projects so to say right now what project or to give you an idea what project would drop off the best thing would probably be by looking at the way we're going to reorganize this prioritized list you would probably look at number 18 and go there's the one that's going to fall off if a special project pops off I think that's a pretty safe way to look at that part of it and again um knowing how many people that we have that specialize in it or the number of folks that we have that specialize in contract those are also necessarily places that we would use external resources but this year uh like the last uh last year year um we start off and we're more than cautiously optimistic that we'll have enough funding to help pay for those external sources that are going to multiply us um but we never know and if and when that time comes there could be a situation where the board could say we really want you guys to look at this this is a very hot ticket item for us it's a it's an area of concern for the board as a group um we might have to say to you we can do that we want to do that but we would necessarily have to ask for money to be able to get those additional resources or start to drop things off the bot totally preferred I'm I'm just trying to amplify the chair's point it is the purview of the board to help you prioritize audits so if you can figure out a way to communicate back to us either what's going to happen no matter what and what's probably going to happen and here are some things we do and we hope that there's enough staff and contract dollars to do it uh I think the board would like to look at that and say yeah hey that makes sense or hey you know know there's uh some puts and takes or pull pushes and pulls uh on those things so if you use us to do that then uh what your what you're uh expressing is kind of the general uh positive impact that a board can have on an auditor well I'll do that all right we're all good moving on to the next item thank you very much Mr Ruth thank you m RH and we're Madam Madam chair it's Nora oh go ahead Nora I'm not sure if covered because I had to step away for the nurse but I wanted to make sure that there was a a mention for the death and heart of hearing uh visual enhancement audio project it's 13 months Beyond deliver gate someone needs to take a look at that that is a safety issue for not only our students but also our employees okay so we're talking sa will yeah there were two yes it's added to the list thank you thank you so next up is the update on the office of Inspector General Services Miss Batista thank you Madame shair um this presentation is to update you on the process to secure Services of the Inspector General to the school board so for the last 8 months uh the office of the Brower County General Council the office of the Inspector General and my office with the help from the chief auditor's office has been uh negotiating over the terms of an interlocal agreement the product of those negotiations and collaboration is before you um in this item and I just wanted you to have the opportunity to take a look at the the Clauses and the provisions in the agreement before the this becomes a reality um one of the things that is uh will be happening next week is that um and just to back up and and make sure that everyone is on the same page as you know we as the school board we were not part of um we were not under the jurisdiction of the Inspector General so that necessitated um uh requesting um special election to occur um with the res solution to expand the jurisdiction and the authority of the Inspector General to include the school board of Brower County so um next week um the after all of these months of collaboration next week the the county the Brower county is going to consider a resolution and also they will be looking at the ballot language that will be going to the ballot um for election on November 5th and and so that um that election as I said is November 5th and the the county will be looking at those Provisions in the resolution on the ballot um on June 4th next week so very quickly just to go over the major provisions of the agreement this would be an interlocal agreement that in addition to the expansion of the jurisdiction of the office of the Inspector General that we need to have have this in place to be able to have the services of the Inspector General uh the purpose of the Ila would be to provide Inspector General services to the school board and th those Services would be provided pursuant to section 10 of the Brower County Charter the um one of the things that has been very clear from the very beginning with the Inspector General is that they want to maintain their independence they don't want to have any changes or encroachment to their already to the to the uh provision of services that they have pursuant to article 10 of the charter the Brower County Charter and so we were very respectful of that and that's part of what is uh in this in this Ila of course one of the things that that is very important is to have the school board cooperation that's found in article two and it just states that the School Board District officials employees and providers must fully cooperate with any investigation conducted by the IG consistent with Section 10 of the Brower County Inspector General um Charter for the county even if the there is no or lack of cooperation that office has the ability to issues to penis so I'm sure there will be cooperation one way or the other but um that is one of the things that that I I know the board was very interested in having that be part of the investigative process the cost of the Inspector General Services um I just want to remind you that in the event that the that the uh that there is success in expanding that jurisdiction uh on November 5th that the board will have to incorporate this as part of their budget because we need to pay for those Services the initial um Services uh that the that the oig has identified are found in appendix a they include an investigations manager um a special uh special agent senior auditor assistant legal counsel and so on and so forth they're all listed there and um I also you know in addition to the agreement I have provided you with a table which is a summary of the major provisions in the contract cont the initial fee is still to be determined depending on you know how much all of this um is I I know that um I will be asking uh Mrs Marte and uh well and uh Miss morala to figure out uh how much this would be for the upcoming year um let's see anything else that I would like to um highlight here for you so the in the event that there needs to be any additional funds the oig will provide invoices and they will explain what the short fall is and then they would ask for additional funds if if necessary um a couple of things that I do want to go over with you that I think are important is the manner of determination of the agreement which is a little bit a little bit different here than in normal in other usual agreements so here here for any reason you know the parties can terminate the agreement with a 30-day calendar written notice that's nothing special but what is special is that there is a wind down period and that means that if even if there is a notice of termination if the oig is in the middle of a uh particular investigation um again because they don't want their services to be compromised by you know the School Board all of a sudden trying to terminate an investigation that they maybe were not you know going to like results of uh so there is this wind down period um and so the wind down period means that they will complete whatever investigations they have pending and they will just not take on any new investigations at that point so that is a unique an unique feature of this agreement the indemnification uh Clause is somewhat unique as well uh we are indemnifying or we would be in indemnifying the office of the Inspector General just like we would indemnify one of our employees to the same extent as one of our employees um if they we would hold harmless you know the the oig's office from any any claims against them any demands or or liabilities if they are sued as a result of services that they're providing for the district with would pay for their attorney's fees and again just as an employee we would not be liable if in the in the in event of intentional or Reckless misconduct by the oig's office and um I believe that's um in a nutshell um the update I don't know if there are any questions Mr Alon uh yes uh I can't wait for this to be on the ballot and I can't wait for it to pass I recall the initial conversation Madam chair and I think board member panoli I think you all kind of pushed this a while back um so let me jump to page 14 and 15 U similar line of where I was earlier in the meeting so uh why exclusions on certain groups and if fraud is found today so let me use the term fraud um that jurisdiction today falls under the chief auditor or does because it's waste Fraud and Abuse uh is that the auditor or is it uh siphoned out to another uh independent agency I.E State Attorney Etc so kind of a two part so I think I I may need some input from uh the chief auditor as well but um as far as the reason for the exclusion is because the um inspector General's office does not have jurisdiction over you know they would not do an investigation over certain groups um and those groups are the ones that are excluded here which are the school Allied groups PTA booster clubs and so on and so forth so that is just a um something that they they do not have jurisdiction per their article 10 of the charter they would not have jurisdiction over this group the inclusions um are the exact opposite right so those are the groups that pursu to article 10 of the Brower County Charter the ig's office would have if if we were let's say we were part of the County right now they would be able to do an investigation over these groups of people and those are the school board um School Board either appointed or or elected members the superintendent the um advisory committees where they are um appointed by the board so you're saying Madam chair just to follow up that if we wanted our uh let me go back to the organizational chart that we left all of our advisory committees on our school district organizational chart uh that links to the board that links to the superintendent that is a part of the fabric of what we do so you're suggesting that we uh cannot include them a part of Scopes and services of the oig is that correct that's correct okay so now based on that if there is fraud waste and abuse found today my assumption is uh that falls under the chief Auditor's jurisdiction is that correct well it depends okay um I think we have a a current case that has received some notoriety in the papers regarding well a booster club and so where that the appropriate place for that uh would be the state attorney's office I think that's where it resides right now that investigation um likewise if there is an issue that like that that comes up in the future that's where it where it would go additionally even if we had the services of the Inspector General one of the things that they do within their uh the parameters of of their um duties and and responsibilities is that they are able and Powers I should say is that they they are able to um decline the investigation of a particular item if they feel that there is another agency that would be more appropriate for that for example if if they receive uh a complaint related to ethics they may very well say well you know we see it but we believe that this is um better handled by the commission on ethics and they would refer it to that uh or to the state attorney's office and so on and so forth so back to the second part of the question if there is waste abuse fraud found today from these particular groups that are excluded how can that be reported today to the chief auditor and then the chief auditor makes a determination on how to refer it out how was that handled today Mr R um it still comes down to whether or not there is a jurisdictional connection so for example if the statute say uh that these this or that group or this series of of uh clubs or groups are uh not part of the jurisdiction of the school district's uh Chief auditor um then that would have to be referred to someone else exactly as she had described before uh sorry about that exactly as M Batista had described before I'm going to stop using that term sorry let let me let me ask let me be more targeted do you have jurisdiction to investigate or review waste abuse and fraud from any PTA that falls under or that is Loosely or directly connected dotted line to the Brower County School District I couldn't give you an exhaustive list but I think that there are some groups like ptas and PTO uh that do have a connection to the school board but if I got such a um um a complaint or a referral I would have to do a complete review to determine whether or not I have jurisdiction at that time so for this this whole list of groups on here I couldn't tell you if I do right now or not all right so as a followup uh if I could just ask for these clearly excluded groups I just want to know if all of these groups fall under your current Juris ition clearly they're being excluded from oig I understand that um clearly I understand if it can be referred to um State Attorney or you know some other third party but curious if this falls under your jurisdiction or what falls under your jurisdiction pertaining to these groups uh that we have maintained on our organizational chart um and that many of our volunteers and Community uh you know me included are also members of does that make sense just want to know your jur jurisdiction yeah that does make sense um historically the the list of uh electeds well now electeds uh employees vendors um those are all areas that we would have audited in the past this list of inclusions uh are things that historically I would not have seen the the office of the chief auditor look at the exclusions are still um somewhat uh just unknown to me and because I'm always going to maintain my Independence and objectivity I would never go out and try to push to put any of these people under our jurisdiction and I go back to my original response is that at this point in time as I sit here today I do not know if any of these excluded groups fall under the office of the chief auditor right but you'll get back to us say again in a followup yes I will got it thank you thank you Dr Zan yeah I just want to thank uh Miss Batista and all the staff for putting this together these are small documents when you get them in the end uh that took hundreds of hours uh to put together but this one makes a lot of sense and I'll second what Mr auson said this will pass this will be helpful or something around a million million and a half dollars I suspect uh because it's 6 and a quarter FTE uh to do this uh out of 6,000 million this is so smart to have an IG that um can do all the critical work of an IG do it quickly do it well do it professionally um under the jurisdiction of bar County Commission is uh is a great step for this body and for our school system so thank you very much for doing all the work and I look forward to uh putting this issue to to rest thank you and I support this and I also greatly appreciate all the Broward County Commissioners and the oig for bringing us in and bringing us to the ballot for a vote one thing I would ask is that we allocate uh space in our budget and we start year marking money that we're going to have to spend to support this Dr M Marta we make sure that happens at the workshop on June 25th Madam chair and Dr to have bur and and to be clear next year would be pro-rated right if it's adopted in November it's a half expenses for the first year right I just want to make sure I'm accurate that is correct even though there may be some startup um expenses which you know will not miss mowal Will estimate that and I just sent her the oig budget from Miami Dade which also has six FTE incidental is incidentally which would be a good Benchmark to develop a budget from the board do you mind if I ask what what does it cost by day for the 6 ft say um including expenses $892,000 yeah that's a great deal Mrs Bam yes um to Mr Batista through the chair um Mr Batista are they going to have an office location set up in the Casey wri building one of the provisions in the contract states that we um have to provide a uh site here if they request it but right now they are thinking that they do not need that that they will stay where they're at and they have the room to add more Personnel thank you ma'am any public comment thank you any public comment Miss lardy yep I just wanted to thank everyone for their involvement in making this happen um and I'm looking forward this passing I think it will really help with building Community Trust in the school district thank you amen thank you all right no other questions we'll move on to our next item which is redefining our schools you are on schedule chair way to go thank you chair thank you board uh Mr Strauss our uh South Region superintendent will start the presentation ASAP and I will um provide provide some supplemental comments as he's presenting for the record we are ahead of schedule Dr Zan okay we'll take the seven minutes not not that we're goingon to try to utilize them we'll take it so uh good afternoon and our next presentation for redefining our schools want to make sure this is okay there we go um first we want to start off by sharing with everyone back when we had our meeting U on the 14th the board deliverables so kind of from that Workshop board came back with some deliverables for the superintendent and they're right here on the screen in front of you I'm not going to read every single one but some key points uh wanted to talk about adding the closure of eight schools um stakeholder committees and also using some of the same criteria under enrollment historical significance underutilization school performance facilities and sufficient adjacent capacity along with that you asked for the board asked for how the district will interact with the community as well as doing a pros and cons and so through this presentation we will uh share that um for this presentation and you'll this is just a start and you'll see this at the end of the presentation um the board direction that superintendent is asking for is to establish a threshold percentage for seat utilization to guide the redefining our schools process um as an agenda overview we will go through the problem and theory of action we'll once again talk about criteria data analysis we will look at District seat wide utilization and we will also talk about Community engagement as well as redefining School boundary timelines and then the pros and cons and then finally once again that board direction that I just showed show you um problem with theory of action the problem that we have is BCS BCPS enrollment is declining and our footprint is too large however if we resize and repurpose our schools then we will retain and recapture our students so and as you see there under the problem uh just want to make sure everyone's on the correct numbers cuz we've thrown out 50,000 49,000 right now the empty seats is 43,000 I just want to be very clear and that's due to the States changing in April of permanent capacity no longer including the modular which knocked us from 49 down to 43,000 empty seats in addition to that Broward County as a whole has over 300,000 school age children with roughly 200,000 attending our schools 50,000 attending Charters 50,000 and attending privates then we also have a number of students that homeschool um as we said with resizing repurposing we want to inform by providing data driven information and engage with the community by collaborating with the students parents staff and the community and finally by retaining and capturing improve student center learning opportunities increase parental and Community involvement and be more fiscally responsible so on the next slide here we have some of the superintendent redefining goals and so um we have from the top to the bottom is as we stated reducing the footprint to align with enrollment to optimize our facilities utilization optimize student outcomes and experiences be the choice for students and families offer Innovative programs where students live promote equity and resource allocation strength and capital reserves and exhibit fiscal responsibility on to the next slide which is our data points our data points um are some same ones that we had and some additional Ones based off the board ask from or deliverables we have the enrollment concerns withed realization Benchmark enrollment then permanent capacity we also have the 160 day enrollment that's looking at what it was just I mean obviously 160 day was just 10 days ago roughly so we looked at um current enrollment um then we also looked at April permanent capacity we looked at sufficient adjacent capacity the school type school grade age of the facilities once again anything that's built before 1960 and then the student demographics within a school we look at percentages sign meaning Bounder to sign that are attending and percentage attending Charter on this next slide here um we dove into those data points and here's what we came out as a result and I I'll walk you through this table here so when you when we looked at it for under enrollment of under 55% we came up with 18 elementary schools four middle schools and no high schools when you look at it under 60% that adds up to 25 5 and one under 65 34 13 and2 then ultimately under 70% 45 17 and4 once again accumulates as you go from left to right in the parentheses next to those numbers where you see 37 11 and0 that talks about sufficient adjacent capacity so I just want to point something out here so we have 66 total schools that fall below 70% in percentage seat utilization the number that's in the parentheses that says 48 48 of those schools have sufficient adjacent capacity but I do want to make a caveat and it's a very important caveat that is if we looked at it only at one school at a time and so the example I would say is we have two schools that are neighboring each other and they are both underutilized and we're both closing both of them necessarily the schools that are around them might not be bble to absorb them however if we're only doing one then we can do that so I just want to be very clear although the number is 48 that number would be a much lower number once we closed a school because there's some impacts that would have happened on the surrounding schools I just want to make myself very clear to the board as well as the public before you move on Mr Strauss I just want to make sure um for the the board direction that we're asking for this this slide and the next few slides are very key and showing you the uh the seat utilization um and the number of schools under the percentage of seat utilization so we can get direction about what we want to start with with this redefining process starting this summer so that's going to be key um in addressing the additional criteria so the seat utilization is very important in helping us identify uh what schools need to be addressed um because that number could could fluctuate if we say under 70% if we say under 55% so the next couple of slides are plus this one is key um and helping the board um provide some direction to staff all right on this next slide um this shows just elementary schools I want to be clear as the title suggests on the top of the graph here on the scatter plot um so the schools that are listed by orange dots those are schools that were identified that have below 70% seat utilization the the dot the blue dots are above or 70% and above um as you can see the considerable amount of orange dots that are over on the left side and at the higher mark it shows that there's a higher expense per student to have run those schools than the schools that are on the blue dots over towards the right side um so therefore higher enrollment typically leads to lower cost per student under enrolled schools typically cost more the inverse there and then some schools do have higher costs due to ESC programs that exist on their campuses that's a look at the elementary and as we now look at the middle school you'll see very similar um with the orange dots being over on the left side higher expenses per student and the blue dots more occupying the right side of the graph and those same Trends continue and just a reminder that at small schools they often do not have all programs or specials or electives that are available for the for students and we've talked about that before and other presentations so before you move forward Mr Strauss so just uh for the public and the board to really understand why the cost is so high additional operational cost for a smaller population of students in a building that can uh house more so severely underc capacity also um the district supplementing small schools to ensure they have enough teachers and have the possibility of of of providing um uh special interest or uh program and academics to students too so that increases the cost uh for students at those small schools and the last of these slides are the high school and obviously there's less high schools and there's a few that show up there and there um also once again the lower the enrollment or the lower lower the seat utilization it becomes at a higher cost per student and as you know Dr he just mentioned it's costs more to provide resources to those at a per student basis uh when we look overall at schools in general because there's always been a asked like how much if we close a school how much would there be of savings and obviously each school would have a unique dollar amount savings but in on average here it's estimated that Elementary would save about 1.8 million Middle School 2.7 million and a high school 4.3 million for for Savings in regards to that as we move forward um into the next slides it's going to show you a progression of our schools so this first slide shows you where all our schools are located throughout the district um and the different CS there and then on the very next slide it's going to show you where all Charter and private schools are located throughout the district and then the next slide here shows you everything where all schools are located all over the district right here's there's all the charters private schools and all our traditional schools um throughout the district then what we doing is taking that as a visual and now pairing it down to show our schools that are 70% or less less than 70% and then you'll see us going downwards in that regard so this slide is for 70% below 70% utilization you'll see obviously less colored dots on the next slide 65% under 65% fewer dots next slide 60% fewer dots and then ultimately 55% for the least amount of dots there but in regards to you start seeing a clustering of schools into certain locations in throughout the district even when you go back and forth between the slides you'll see that there is portions of the district that have more underutilized schools and other portions of the district now into talking about Community engagement on this slide this slide represents um the the approach that will be taken and um I think I don't know if Dr Black he and you want to speak a little bit more on this then I'm going to speak on this I know this is this this is probably one of the most important parts of this redefining process coming up starting this summer and throughout the fall um we've heard loud and clear um that the community felt like they were not engaged in the process that they didn't have an opportunity to have real intimate discussions with staff and and for us we we started out defining the problem and also talking about our theory of action of how we're going to address these concerns so we we put a lot of thought in how we make ensure that the community feels like they're they're fully engaged to also provide assurances by working with our advisory chairs um and also we took the feedback from the board about creating stakeholder committees too um and also ensuring that we're going out to parents students and and also staff um throughout that Journey so that we're getting as much information we're defining our problems we're talking about our theory of actions we're we're going out to specific communities with specific challenges that are unique to them um and also providing options that staff has vetted um that are high value uh uh provide the best outcomes for students so they at least have some options that can start the discussion and during those and during that opportunity when we're engaging with the community uh we may learn more uh uh learn more about different opportunities that we may may not have identified or being able to to enhance the options that we presented to that community and hopefully coming out with something that benefits the district the community and especially our students when we go to the go to those different areas to have these conversations so number one we're talking about engaging and empowering um community members to be a part of this process um and empowering is a very powerful word it helps them to understand that they're going to be a part of this decision and that they have an opportunity to help to own it with us um also ensuring that we're Gathering a lot of input and feedback along the way um um also defining access and outcome guard rails this is about uh providing assurances that resources are going to be equitably uh uh distributed uh programs is going to have a defined k212 Continuum or articulation because we understand there's there the articulation between some programs are non-existent between middle and high or elementary and middle um and some programs just have a a strong Halt and then that kid doesn't have another program to go through go to to support their interest that they started at a different level and and uh achieving results together that's just about building trust uh um along the way we've heard about the distrust uh we we've we've heard about the the the past and we want to take this opportunity to build trust with our community um parents faculty and staff along this journey also and at the end of this journey we know it's going to be some very tough decisions that have to be made but we're hoping that going out to the community doing this in the methodical and engaging way and at the end of that Journey uh we have some we optimize our student experiences is ensuring that they have the best learning opportunities possible uh so we've already um talked to our advisory chairs um what month are we in I'm my months are collecting together actually this this month and our advisory chair meeting and we've told them that we want them to be a part of this journey that we're going to work with the advisory chairs to provide a level of assurance before we actually go out to the public start building our stakeholder committees um just to make sure we're doing this the right way and everybody's is engaged and empowered along the way and so you can go to the next slide um Mr Strauss and I don't want to like take it over but go ahead if you want yeah I'll hand it off so timeline wise so this is looking if we're looking for the 25 26 school year this is the timeline that's in in on the on this slide so as you just heard Dr Hein talk about the engagement part so he pretty much spelled it out if you look at June in July we would talk with cities faith-based organizations city leaders Civic associations and also start um orienting and training those advisory and stakeholder committees in the month of June to prep up for when school returns back in August then August that's when we're meeting with principes assistant principal staff students but more importantly then have a school board Workshop to identify schools and proposed process and timeline and then we're into the community engagement piece which is the months of September and October to um you know approve the process in schools that need to be addressed have from that process develop scenarios um continue that Community engagement and receive recommendations and then do rural development to present feedback from the community and get consensus on Final proposed changes that would take us up to November and then in November the school board would you know make the meting to adopt proposed changes right so we would stop in November and it just coincides with as you see at the bottom of the slide the proposed First Choice application window is the month of November so as we would make final decisions that window would be open still and allow parents to make application within our first choice or our school choice um window um and that would take us like I said all the way up through November and then we would have that second semester to do all the further planning because as we said the 2425 school year would be the planning year for the implementation for 2526 and I want to stop low Dr epin if there's something that he wants to speak yes so I I I want to put a stamp on the Orient and train advisory and stakeholder committees that also includes my cabinet um also the regional office staff Regional soups directors everybody's going to be a part of this process and making sure they're well trained to facilitate these conversations the right way that we're all sending a common message but we're also if we're we going out to specific communities they know how to facilitate the conversation based on that specific challenge within that Community um for the things that need to be addressed so we come out with some form of consensus about next steps understand these are going to be some tough decisions for some communities because there's going to be some school closes but there going to be some repurposing there going to be some reconfiguration as we go through this but definitely want to put a stamp on that to to to let the public know um that it's not just uh Dr heurn Dr wanza and Mr Strauss show again it's it's uh uh a community um effort plus with my staff to go out and facilitate these conversations so the next slide is if we delayed and went to the 26 27 you're going to notice the boxes the languages are the identical in the boxes so it's just when we're doing this versus what we're doing the what stays the same the when would adjust a little bit obviously in June July we would still do the same thing in August we would still do the same thing but then instead of only having September through October we would have September through April of 25 to do the community engagement which would be you know you're talking about seven six seven months of Engagement and then may through December of 25 to do the the next steps then that would put us already in the 25 26 school year or the implementation for the 26 27 school year nothing really different except basically another year added on um in that regards so then you ask for pros and cons doing implementing in 2526 and then the next slide will be 25 26 27 so if we do 2526 which was originally stated in our original um redefining plan you're going to reduce to underutilize schools earlier you're going to optimize the facility and we're going to see cost savings on the earlier um schedule than we would obviously um the cons there's a little bit shorter window for stakeholder engagement as I just shared with you a couple months versus about six seven months uh for transportation remapping there's a con always because whatever decisions made and transportation has to hurry up and catch back up to whatever the boundary changes exist and then there's also the potential timing of school choice as I mentioned that board decision would happen in November right when that window's open so it cuts it a little close but it's still available and then phase implementation depending on what is chosen for each of any any of the schools and what needs to be adjusted for instance um there might be some facilities adjustments that need to occur because you're reconfiguring grades so there might be a phased implementation that to exist through that and then finally facilities assessment you know we don't have enough time to do a full facilities assessment um in that shorter time span if we move to 2627 the pros and cons obviously the first pro is we have a longer window to to continue that stakeholder engagement we're still going to have facility optimization just in a year later and we're going to have fewer logistical challenges because have a little more time to um do that uh from a con standpoint you're still going to have the annual boundary process and it's still going to have to take place and transportation remapping is going to still take place the same way in a in a little bit of a rush fashion you're still going to have phase implementation potentially depending once again what is decided by the board and the superintendent to um make adjustments in by school by school finally the facil facilities assessment Still Still we said I think before that the facility assessment to a true full one would be over an 18mon period so it would cut it short just to even have that information to even have those Community engagements you'd still be doing them through that time and finally you would delay the cost savings by a year um in that regards so once again just want to remind everyone of the timeline as we sit right here on May 29th at the board workshop on June 18th there would be a decision Point by the board at that board meeting and then you're either going to say we're going to implement for the 25 26 school year we're going to implement for the 26 27 school year and just once again to see that slide one more time receiving board direction to establish the threshold percentage for seat utilization under enrollment that is to guide the redefining our schools process and that is the conclusion of our presentation thank you public comment Aaron go hello board and superintendent first I want to congratulate Dr hurn on the formal swearing in as superintendent today it is with great hope that we rally together for our students thank you superintendent and board members for listening to the community over the past few weeks it was so important to re-evaluate this process to prioritize data develop models and make no decisions without Community input the presentation today is a significant Improvement on the previous version however today's proposal for the community engagement process description and timelines is still insufficient I very much appreciate what Dr hurn said on slide 20 about empowering the community however where the timelines were listed and key stakeholders were listed on those slides 21 and 22 we were missing parents we were missing Sachs we were missing ptas we were missing saffs and it is so important that we are explicitly including those groups on those stakeholder lists also the on the timeline slides key parts of this process are slated to take place in June July and August those months are incredibly challenging to engage families so I would strongly caution against that plan given the options presented today I ask you to please opt for a slower timeline rather than just rush the process and to please strengthen this plan this will ensure that the community is engaged that your deliberation includes discussions with and not just presentations to the community a key aspect of this redefined defining our schools process is developing parental staff and Community Trust in the district a relationship based on dialogue and transparency will see increases in enrollment and Rising achievement rushing this process will not generate that trust that is so needed and in fact will undermine it my other ask today is to please deliver a process that expands highquality program programmatic options across Broward County as someone who has studied the history of American Education I am a strong supporter of public school districts I know that schools best serve their communities when they educate students to explore to find passions to dream and to have have aspirations for a better future please as you approach this process do not just consider the efficiency of seat utilization but rather the quality of Education each and every student will receive when they take their seat in every Broward County school thank you thank you Mary fer can you hear me yeah thank you um thank you so much Dr hmer and board members for what you've done with this process uh when I first went to a meeting in January there was a lot of Ang ER when I went in May well kind of so but I feel like you have come up with a process that may lead us where we need to go so I thank you for taking the time to do that I want to reiterate what uh eron Gul said about uh Pages 21 and 22 I believe you will be successful if you Empower your community your parents to do what needs to be done these are our Public Schools they belong to the the public and you may be a governing board but you will make better decisions if you have an empowered public working with you so I encourage you to make that one amendment I I heard Dr HB bur's word so I know it's there and and and what you're intending to do but I would just like to see it on paper um I would also hope you would start with a simultaneous marketing program I've been concerned as you actually named schools with with anything that might be perceived as a deficiency that you could actually risk losing students in this process as opposed to gaining students uh the you met here a couple months ago and many of you spoke about the kinds of programs that you could bring into schools and what that would do and so I hope there's more conversation about that and that you have some professional guidance and how to sell that to the public um and the facilities assessment uh Miss alidev I know you you spoke about that a couple months ago and and cautioned against doing something without good information I'm just wondering where that is in the process CU I saw it as a but if you could get that finished I think it'd be a Plus thank you again uh we all look forward to working with you and I think we can say that around the county please involve us thank you thank you for your valuable feedback information any other public comment for member comment Mr Al go ahead hi thank you thank you for being here today Juliet stera I just wanted to take this time to say that you have an opportunity here to make our public schools great I want my children to go through Public Schools all throughout High School let's take a look at this plan let's follow what we've been talking about um what Mary ferte have said and Aon go and let's make this your time to shine and we want to be there with you we want to help you and I want my kids to go through this public school system so let's take this opportunity and let's expand on it thank you so much Mr Alon all right thank you madam chair um first let me thank you again uh for a difficult round I don't know what round we're on Mr Strauss whatever round that we're on so thank you for the presentation and Mr superintendent um actually let me ask the easy question up front is this the help burn plan Dr yes okay all right so now that we've established that um and I think we all know uh enrollment is down um our facilities uh you know we know what the needs are um our district reserves continue to uh unfortunately decline um and you know I'm still of the opinion that we need immediate action uh I know that we've had continuous conversation with the public uh that we would take some action mons ago uh I think we did do the right thing to uh quote unquote hit the reset button to have additional conversation uh but I'm in favor of us continuing uh forward um I think that we all have been supportive of you know more academic programs more academic offerings program additions I don't think that's been uh most of the uh the concern or heartache from the community I think it's been more around uh the closing of schools how do we get there um you know what are the data sets uh which is actually where I'm going to focus again similar to kind of where we were before um so I know that the last slide reference two decision points one around uh the under enrollment with a percentage uh as well as I know we'll get to it you know in a couple weeks uh you know what is the right timeline uh for implementation so no surprise I still don't support uh using under enrollment data as a Baseline line right because I think we all know the original subset that I carry with me every meeting right because it continues to uh highlight uh really what uh that graph showed right black communities Hispanic communities uh South County and really along the 95 Corridor so we know that right we know what those uh who those schools are uh I think we all have that uh data set let me ask kind of the one key question because I know under the Lata plan uh he was very clear high schools were being left out um so I just want to start there as a Baseline and I know we included kind of both elementary middle and high schools are are high schools on the table initially let me just ask that question Dr yes everybody's every level is on the table all right so what will be helpful to me uh Mr superintendent is and I know we've kind of seen some of this but dollars that have been invested in all schools if you're going to continue to use you know the capacity utilization uh information right so what those resources look like um not just dollars but you know just in a couple different areas so that's kind of first point um I know we've seen some of that but I don't know if it's been uh at least for me to the level that makes sense um secondly uh every part of the county I think as we saw before uh had under enrolled schools and there was only one uh board member district that did not have under enroll schools so I'm going to continue to uh stay in the same Lane of I support a countywide comprehensive approach I appreciate uh you putting that up front um and I'm hopeful that once we get to whether it's you know a couple months from now or or I should say 25 26 26 27 um that whatever number of schools there are the seven or eight schools that it really reflects a countywide view not just clustered um in one or two or three areas so that's my feedback um I appreciate kind of the reset I'll call it I'm still in favor of 2526 so I'm actually jumping ahead giving you more that what you didn't ask for um I haven't changed my position there um we've had a continuous dialogue with the community um and I believe that the the the resetting of the community conversations between now and then uh can meet our need so that's my feedback you have anything on page 26 uh or well do I have anything on the percentages I do not I don't report that as the Baseline that was kind of what I said out the gate thank you Mrs Hixon thank you go on the list please yes um I have a couple of questions and then um a s suggestion on page 12 where it listed how much we would save um per level is that a one-time savings or or per year savings per year Dr heurn I would say per year um savings because we're not operating those schools anymore so okay great thank you um as was mentioned on page 21 and 22 I'm pretty sure it is a an oversight but um where it says meet with principals assistant principal staff and students we're missing parents so I think that was a I'm sure an oversight but I'm in terms parents aren't listed anywhere on here they're not listed under stakeholders and they're not listed under BCPS so so okay so it's not an oversight um we're very specific uh knowing that parents and um um other community members would not be available until school starts so um I appreciate the feedback from from the U the speakers in community engagement that encompasses we probably need to spill it out more but it encompasses parents um and other uh additional Community groups because we know the summer people are on vacation and things like that so that's why we we're targeting municipalities faith-based organizations and the like during um June and July uh once once school starts or before school starts we can talk with our principles and assistant principles um and then once school starts uh we can talk with our staff and our students and once we get into the the beginning of the school year we know parents are are are revved back up in parent mode they're back from vacations their kids are in school then we can start engaging with our with our parents our ptsas and Sack so we'll uh uh we'll spell that out more with when it says Community engagement just to make sure everybody understands that they're part of that process in the September October portion of it and and I just want to point on slide 20 it clearly starts off with parent students and staff so collaboration speaks on slide 20 it is involving parents and then to Dr hein's point on the 21 and 22 community agement obviously parents are the community I just think we need to do a better job of spelling it out because it looks like we're not including them um I also just want to mention we're going to get to it but on policy 810 it already has criteria for closing schools and it says enrollment below 70% so we have a policy that dictates that already if we're going to change it which is fine we'll have to also address that when we come to the policy so I think it would be important to get the information now so we can in a few minutes go back to what the policy is because by policy it already says enrollment below 70% which is on page 58 um so I think that's important and I I think we all want to do this as quickly as possible but I would say if we're going through a community engagement and we say we want to do it in 2025 that's when we want to start the process but in the process of getting to there and we realize we don't have enough time there isn't enough information we need to engage the community more I think we have to allow ourselves as a board because it's our arbitrary date we have to allow ourselves to say his this was the goal we had but we are realizing and I would hope that the staff would be able to come to us and say we know this is the goal the end goal that you have but we haven't been able to engage the people what if a hurricane comes through and things have happened and we're not able to get those meetings together so I don't want to have such a hard deadline on that I think the answer is we want to do it as soon as possible but not in the respect that we're speeding everything up and running through to just check a box that we met with people because we really need to sit down with each individual community and roll this out with them let them be a partner with us because then we won't have meetings where people are angry at us because they've made the the decision along with us they've given us well if we close this school then here's what we would like to see in the community what we use this school for and this is how we can we can work together on it and I think if you try to speed that up it's going to take away that the trust factor and the transparency of us in including them if we're just trying to hurry it up so I would like us to be able to do what the 25 26 school year have been asking since I got here in 2020 but I don't want to do it at the expense of doing it right so I don't know how that lands on on the year time but I I think that that's really an important um piece to talk about and finally we you didn't really have this in here but we talked about it last um workshop and then we kind of skirted over it the land that um doesn't that doesn't have schools on it right now that's possible to sell which is stuff we could be doing now that's separate from repurposing the schools there was um there was something mentioned and we didn't really discuss it but that particular land in Parkland um that Mrs alhad had mentioned about selling it to the highest bidder I really would like to ask the superintendent and and hear what my colleagues have to say about having a discussion with Broward Health and the City of Parkland to see if they could agree to what would belong there if and if it made sense to sell it to Broward Health and ask them if they would include a space for Eagles Haven in that agreement and also that they would provide opportunities for our Health occupation students if they provided some kind of Health Center there but do it in conjunction with the city of Parkland to make sure that it makes sense because Broward Health already owns a big chunk of that land and if we can get them to agree I know you had mentioned Eagles Haven if they agree that they're going to give them a space with no cost to it it would benefit us even though it may not be the highest bidder it still helps our students in a way that makes sense for a really long time so I would like to ask my colleagues how they feel about asking Dr heon just to have that initial conversation see where everybody is and if that would be something that makes the most sense for that piece of land um Elena sorry okay um so Alana barrero uh alternate student adviser um I would like to know if the board would be open to the consideration of appointing at least one to two students for the stakeholder committees um we would love to further extend past SGA to try to um reach as many demographics as possible uh to make sure all students are truly included in this process um as another suggestion uh maybe to lay off the weight from some of you guys we could obviously uh appoint students to these positions um to make sure we're getting the best representation while while still meeting all those demographics thank you thank you Landon dran thank you chair um probably the biggest uh issue we'll face as a board for a long time I do appreciate superintendent that the problem is clear and that the theory of the solution is clear I think that that uh could color a lot of the um confusion and and uh disappointment that we got from the community if we all speak with one voice our problem is that we have too many facilities not enough students and our goal is to do K through2 education really well this is a case of local short-term pain so that we can have countywide long-term gain and any educator will point out that there's a formula for spending money to get educational excellence and there is no entry in either the debit or the credit column for facilities they're neutral education capital and education quality is what matters to give you educational outcomes the facilities are just what you need to get it done but our biggest issue is going to be a big fight about facilities which don't enter into the production function of Education isn't that interesting Dr heern your charts show that your question may not be specified the right way if you look on uh the charts that are provided that show the cost per student and the percent enrollment I know where you're going what you see I apologize I think it's 11 10 and N you can see that there's a direct correlation between cost and number of students not percentage enrollment and if you ask anyone in the charter school business what will they tell you about schools 100% full th000 person Elementary 1500 person middle at least 2,000 people in your high school if you want to operate at the efficient level so what I'd suggest is that the question on page 26 might not be specified the right way it might be more of an emphasis on the size of school than it is uh on the percent capacity do I think it's appropriate to close a small school that's 100% full and doing fine academically it might it all depends on what fits in The Innovation Zone and what allows us to spend the most money on education not on facilities it's pure economics so what matters here Size Matters percent of capacity matters academic success matters the room to place students in adjacent schools matter X factors matter Legacy matters this board is fully qualified to consider all those things and the decisions that we make we just need the data we need to hear from our community then we need to get real let me tell you how real we need to get nobody on your staff has pointed this out yet that I know of but every year we can close five more elementary schools Mr Strauss you pointed out there's 800 kids on average in an elementary school Miss Marte you've told us a few thousand times that we're going down 4,300 students per year over the last 10 years that's equivalent to five elementary schools per year in and here we're dancing up here about whether we'll we'll close any schools in another year or do we wait two years I think the inevitable answer is yes school year 25 yes school year 26 yes school year 27 and we'll keep doing it until we're spending what our solemn oath tells us to do which is to spend all our money on educational excellence and educational capital and as little as possible on facilities of of course the community matters but the community wants us to have great education for your children it's what what I want for my three kids that are going through public school and it's what I would demand as a parent make the decisions that allow my kids to have the best teachers the best curriculum the best educational capital and quality and I'll be one happy parent uh participating in that process $ 1.8 to $4.3 million per School couple couple months ago we thought it was around 2 to 5 so we came up pretty pretty close in our initial estimates I think we need to use all data for all schools in order to make the best decisions I think we should do it in school year 25 and 26 and 27 and then forever until we get this equation right and then when enrollment starts to build back up because we're an a district and we're the best system we're already the biggest system in Broward County by a long shot we're four times bigger than charters we're four times bigger than private schools we have the best real estate we have the best teachers we have the best compensation package we have huge advantages and when our enrollment starts to click back up we have to make sure that we have space to build more buildings to increase capacity where we need them but we have to learn from Charters and we have to learn from private schools thousand kids in an elementary school to reach a peak economic gain and and academic outcomes at least 1,500 in middle schools and at least 2,000 in high schools so it's really more the number than the percent enrollment uh so I think our policy may be 70% Miss Hixon but you know the data suggests that that there's huge economies to scale uh and that means you're paying a lot of money if you're below them by too far I think the community engagement is an issue of quality more than it is timing if you had the right facilitators well trained with a common message talking about local short-term pain because there will be local short-term pain when we close schools in order to have long-term county gain but point out that the kids who are in schools to close will go to another Broward County public school if they choose to and it will be better resourced it's very likely to offer even better educational opportunities than the schools that close chair that's all I have on this issue but I look forward to us uh working with the superintendent staff to make sure that our message is clear to everybody this is not easy it's not painless and it's the right thing to do we need to get on the horse and get going uh because the last thing we need is to be vague about our goals or vague about what we're going to do otherwise we're not going to get the kind of community engagement we want there won't be any pressure on the system for all the people to participate in a way that allows us uh to do well I will uh share Mr superintendent that I've gotten a lot of feedback from County Commissioners and City commissioners and Mayors who all want to be actively engaged uh in schools it's almost like they woke up and realized they had schools in their cities you know uh some of them have known that all along but now all of them know of it because we're in the middle of a crisis and they're hearing from a lot of their parents uh but they do want to be involved I think they want to help us raise money you know for some schools which would be great that might be a real Tipping Point for some of the schools in question um and I look forward to participating and supporting you and and uh this process process uh as we go forward but I think we need to close the 8 or whatever the right number is in 25 we need to then keep going with the process through 26 so I would stack your community engagement model and just keep going it's just you stop every November and say okay what's the list this year uh we are 30 to 40 schools oversized and I I wish that weren't the case um but that's primarily driven by birth rates but it's secondarily driven by people having choices to go to more Charter Schools uh and more private school we've ever had in BR County thanks so much chair Fam thank you madam chair um I don't want the public to be blindsided I want you to be aware of florer Statute 100233 and Section 8 on there provides that if a district school board has property that's available because it's being surplused marked for disposal which could mean sold or otherwise unused it shall be provided for a char schools use so I'm not certain if many people are aware of that now Dr heurn has spoken to the board in the past about partnering with Charter Schools because apparently this to me as I interpret it seems like a first option so if we do um sell any schools off or lease any schools Charter Schools would be the first ones that have that opportunity before a government before um a city coming in and saying uh we'd like to put a shopping center we want to buy this they have the first option that's my interpretation so Dr heurn I know you've talked to the board about partnering with Charter Schools I just if you would speak publicly on what you envision with that so we get an idea oh first Miss fam Miss patista needs to say something thank you Madame shair so um and I'm I can pull off the statute but the interpretation of that language in the statute it's I believe the Lang language states that the properties will be made available to the shorter schools to the same extent as district schools um so if that's the case and um district schools are not being given the ability to um you know use the property in any way then that is the same rule that would apply to Shorter schools yes it says public schools in what I'm reading yes right that's my interpretation as well right but that doesn't mean that we are not able to sell a property if we wish to do that and we would have to sell it to the Charter Schools instead of you know someone else certainly the you know if they bid and and the price is right then we can sell it to anyone okay I so if the charter schools are the highest bidder they would get it period so they're still in the in the voting pool there it's not they can't be shut out or discriminated against correct okay absolutely so I know Dr had said that he had some um ideas about partnering with Charters I think it's important we need to to discuss that since that might possibly be occurring Dr thank you chair I would say this um I think in this process of going out to certain communities where there is a large amount of charged schools there may be opportunities for us to collaborate and coexist um in a symbiotic relationship for the betterment of our kids in our County can you just describe what you envision with that um I can't describe it right now um this is an organic process and I think when we go out we start having these discussions we present our options as far as what we want to see in a school or if it or if it results in a school closing uh of some sort um us working together um for the betterment of our students I'm pretty sure we can come up with something that that U supports the interest of the of the district and our kids I just felt very important that the public is aware of that provision out there so they understand that thank you thank you Dr Zan I mean Dr holus thank you madam chair so um I would especially for closing schools um um and um schools that will be um repurposed in a significant way um I am hoping that we will certainly have have significant Community involvement I look at the PowerPoint and I am concerned um I think that um you know I don't just want us to do this to dot our eyes and cross our teas it's important that the community really feel that they're involved and I'm concerned about for example engaging the community over the summertime I think that's uh that will pose some challenges um there are many Civic organizations that don't have meetings in the summer time um so I would much rather that uh we get it right in the wrong time then we get it wrong in the right time and so um I am I would much prefer that we slow down the timeline so we can have the required Community involvement that's necessary rather than just doing this to say that we did it um I think it has to be authentic IC um and I believe that in making it so we do have to consider the months of the summer would not be the ideal time to try to engage all Community stakeholders and uh I would like this to be extended even if we um slow the timeline down in order to do so in addition to that um I would like to see us start uh at 65% um utilization um in terms of looking at any schools that will be closed um I don't think any school that's above 65% should be closed um and so I am hoping that we could start at that number I did mention in the past that it is Equitable and that it is necessary and that it involves significant Community involvement so um those are my points I would like to start at 65% slow the timeline down and make sure that we are truly trying to get community involvement and input in a very collaborative way to move forward rather than proceeding with a timeline trying to meet a timeline to say that we did it as opposed to doing it in an authentic way thank you m leonardy thank you I I completely agree with Dr hess's uh piece about doing it right right in the in the timeline um I have a few questions first though how is the choice window impacted by each timeline I just want everyone to be very clear about that so I start and then um Mr stra said Mr Beck can um provide additional followup um I would say for the first um option of 2526 the hopes is that we come to the board with whatever school closings reconfiguration and repurposing um simultaneously the the choice window would be open at that time and so it would be publicized immediately what that next step is and parents will have the options to start applying for Choice opportunities um for the next phase uh the additional timeline of 2627 um the only difference is we're we're widening the the the time frame of collecting Community feedback but um at the end of that Journey there'll be ample time for for parents to be able to apply for Choice programs once we make an announcement about next steps for certain schools in the district and anything to add um Mr stra or Mr be I almost would say it almost similar if we do it for 2526 it's would fall right in that announcement period if we did it in 2627 it would fall in that next year's announcement period to relatively speaking so it's just it's just a year I mean it's just the year the time difference but relatively the windows for those gears would be the same time what he just described okay so I just want to be clear will a board vote take place right before the the window opens or is it just an announcement that this is what the board will be voting on and then the board votes in the middle of the the window our hopes is that the vote will happen in early November or um that's our hopes so that there's ample time there's a uh mostly an entire month for families to make some decisions on on Choice applications and exercise that window I mean I would strongly encourage a vote takes place before the window opens um what is the plan for a facilities assessment in either timeline because I I see that um the LA the the needs assessment that we're going out for won't be complete either way so what what is our plan to assess our facilities for each so a couple of things and Mr Dorset you can weigh in on on this too and um Miss Marte so we have the previous um facilities um assessment that we can utilize but we also the knowledge that staff currently has about each facility we're going to utilize and leverage that to to make the best decision possible about needs for facilities if there's upgrades that's going to have to happen or if the upgrades are too cost um to help us make decisions about what we're going to do with schools that may be impacted but because the the the facilities needs assessment that uh we are trying to procure will take 18 months to complete so okay and when you say previous facilities assessment you mean the one from 201 yes there's one from 2014 but that's that's just uh uh utilizing us a portion of that but the knowledge that uh the staff the maintenance and po staff have about the facilities that they work on every day will um also be considered um to help us out and also with the knowledge that the facility task force um we can leverage that information too okay I would not advise us to use the needs assessment from 2014 not only is it you know 10 years old but it resulted in grand jury investigation and quite a a scandal with the bond so um um I would really like to see like a a demonstrable plan for doing a facilities assessment in either timeline um it you know I I appreciate the knowledge our employees have um but I would really like to see that like written down and and have some measurables to to look at um and even then that's problematic considering what the grand jury recommended um back in I guess in recent years I can't keep track of all of the the different reports now um to the point that we've heard reiterated throughout the day um the community feedback timelines really need to be explicit in the groups that they're going to include um so sacs ptas I would include our labor groups in our meet Inc confer groups and I you know you and I spoke about this yesterday but including students student groups as well sgas BCC um even groups like Latinos in Action and and things like that um you know our students are the people that we are serving directly and you know when I was a teacher I had kids tell me what they want in a school you know they they will be very Frank and uh they're they will go where they want to go um so we really need to be deliberate about including them in this process um I have had uh Lou Naylor a super volunteer parent Community involvement task force reach out um talking about reaching people through parent University I know that's been very successful so I hope that uh we can involve those uh those groups um and those methods of communication um another theme that we've heard talked about today is quality education and quality programming and uh you know we've talked about it a lot throughout this process if we provide those things to our schools to our students our students will come to our schools and you know the conversation I know dwells a lot on closing schools but I think it also really needs to we need to emphasize how are we going to bring kids back how are we going to offer quality education and programming and that does not happen by recklessly closing schools in the name of ripping a Band-Aid off and if we are going down that road my my fear is that we will be using all of our logistical power all of our Manpower dedicated to triaging communities with closing schools instead of improving our quality of education and improving our our programming um so I'll leave it at that uh in terms of board Direction I do think we need to follow the policy and look at 70% um if we want to change the policy I'm open to that but I think we do need to look at a percentage threshold um because otherwise you know it it does not make any sense to me to close a a school or close a program that is highly successful with students that are are going to that school that aren't under enrolled um I think it's important that we also look at projections so maybe a school is under enrolled right now but its enrollment is increasing um and we wouldn't want to close a school like that looks like that and the historical piece as well um that that was referred to in the presentation thank you okay so don't forget me go ahead Miss rert sorry yeah you forgot me it's okay girlo um thank you to my colleagues I I agree with um very much so with Miss Leonardi and my colleagues before I make this Su same like I usually do um to miss hon uh us to have um land um discussed with Broward Health etc etc VI the superintendent I would support that I would support the student advisor's request to have one to two students as part of our stakeholders group um policy 810 um which uh recommends below 70% we would have to look at that I am closer 60% that would be my uh recommendation um okay and you said 60% Miss rert sorry 70 70 I thought she said 60% according I did she did say 60% I did I said 60 thank you for the clarity for that um when we talk about stakeholders um I know it was just we're just putting a fee down however not going to BL the point sax PTA but even more importantly Innovation Z in school communi why do we need to recreate wheel when we already have Innovation zones for areas those people facilitate very well in their area so I would highly recommend that we include the inov zon because it's we're already doing it parents understand Innovation Z they be more willing to have a big conversation that way so that's my one request for that and as for when to start it it's I I would prefer 26 27 so we can get a lot more Buy in in what we're trying to push and get through and I do appreciate with saying that if we go forward with 25 26 we would at least give ourselves permission to slow down the train I'm afraid that we are trying to get this done in a timely manner because we're we to be physically responsible but we also have to be beholden and and appreciate our number one stakeholders are parents and students so um that those are my comments did I not answer any of the questions or do I leave something out Madam chair oh you're good okay thank you thank you okay so a couple things I'm concerned about I'm I'm concerned about there not being a board vote in the period of time to say I'm going we're going to close eight schools whatever the superintendent the number he comes up with not naming the names of the schools but just to say that there'll be eight schools that will be closed what I'm concerned about is that we go through this huge process whether it's to um the 2526 or the 26 27 and then there's some ultimate vote at a later period of time and the staff Community has gone through everything and the board votes it down so whatever this superintendent whatever you can do to get the board to vote along the way to commit to getting to the end point so that's concern number one concern number two is that I agree there needs to be community community engagement however I know there was also a lot of frustration within the community engagement that we just had and people getting upset within the process of the community engagement is my kids school going to be closed it's going to be closed next year and then those parents saying well maybe I should go somewhere else because there's going to be better more stability so that part of communicating to the stakeholders needs to really be on point and give them the so they don't have that feeling of of frustration cuz I clearly saw that and and I don't so that's why I was apprehensive of doing a longer time period because now we're just extending that instability frustration um with with our with our families and it's not just the parents and the students it's also the staff that works at that school am I going to have a job and that those concerns so we have to also think about the staff at the school as far as the facilities needs assessment I mean I've said it from day one that is Paramount so if we get down to a certain group of schools maybe you look to do a facilities needs assessment on those groups of schools which you would be able to do within one of these periods of time um not having to do every one of our Brower County public schools because to use the 2014 facilities needs assessment is ridiculous that can't happen we have to come into 2024 and and do current facilities risk assessments I don't want to make the same mistakes twice and um so that that is a top priority is that facili risk assessment on any of the schools that we're going to consider closing um I agree with the student stakeholders in the committees as far as the land in in Parkland on University as far as you know I already discussed this at the last meeting I agree with selling that land I uh Dr he is going to be having meetings with the city of Parkland and you know what I would say to the superintendent is that however you're going to bake the cake whatever that looks like making sure that we follow State's statute on selling any land and following all of our our policies and getting appraisals first that you know you're going to get the maximum amount of money for that prestigious piece of land which there is not much left of in the city Parkland and also working in collaboration with the Commissioners and the mayor and the city manager of of Parkland so that's what I have to say about that and um also I do support space there for Eagles Haven for the mental health of our students and teachers to be able to have space there for free and any other student services that whoever it is can offer to to our students and then as far as the utilization piece of it the the percentage you know I guess what I'm I'm struggling with is just throwing out a certain percentage because that percentage shouldn't be the only factor that we're using to make these decisions for me I want to see other factors and you want to speak to that y um thank you chair just to be clear it is not the only criteria is one of many um if we go to slide help me out here Mr Strauss what slide number is that four five so if we go to slide seven so um other criteria would include of course we're talking about the enrollment concern which is the seat utilization number we're asking the board to give us Direction on so we can include that in multiple criteria Benchmark day um U permanent Capac sufficient adjacent uh capacity historical significance uh school grade average for the past 5 years age of the facility um and then student demographics and I think there's probably a few more um that we've captured but it's it's one of many criteria we just need to um get direction from the board of what seat utilization to include in the list of criteria so we can start identifying the schools the specific schools that need to be addressed okay and um if a school is at how many schools do we have at 60% 60% that was 31 31 and how many do we have at 55% 22 so I will land at 60% um those are all my points Dion thank you um I had a couple questions and I I just would also like all of our my colleagues or our colleagues to weigh in about the idea of Broward having a discussion with Broward Health in the city of Parkland and the reason I really push that about eagles Haven is that if it's not a health facility that's on that space I don't know that it makes necessarily a lot of sense for them to want to put a space in for Eagles Haven where if it's a a um health facility mental health falls into that and I think you would have more people feeling better about going somewhere for mental health if they're also going there for physical health so I really like um everyone to waigh and I know Miss rert did and um I don't know that it just makes sense to only put it to the highest bidder so I'd like everybody to weigh in on that but I have a couple of questions before that um we paid aeom if I'm not mistaken a million dollars to do um a facilities assessment so what what did we get for that million dollars Miss Marte thank you Dr heurn the fee was to write the RFP to find a to do the needs assessment they wrote the scope and bread of the work million I know okay so do we have what have we done with that document I apologize Mrs hion I'm going to have to get you a followup I believe I know they completed the work I don't know where we are in the solicitation process so I don't want to say anything that might violate the cone or anything like that I'll have to get you a followup I will tell you that there's significant current information about all our facilities that between Mr Dorset and the smart program we have access to when we start honing in on um the measures so the number of outstanding work ords the amount of money we spent was smart and to the point of honing in on a number once the board comes up with what their threshold is Dr heurn can have Mark and his team and Shelley Maloney and some of the program managers go out and do some of the assessments to a smaller population okay and I think that's what Mrs alhad was referring to is once we have a number of schools to go out and see what makes sense um I would also like to ask um Dr heurn along with um one of our public speakers that along with this repurposing that we're marketing what we do have because everyone keeps saying that we're going to give our students a a a good education our students get a great education in Brower County Public Schools I've been around to every single school there are there's robotics in elementary school there's debate programs they have um firefighting in some of the areas I don't think that people in our County understand the amazing opportunities that our students have across the district so I think it's really important as as we're repurposing and redefining what schools look look like we need to let everyone know what's happening now so that they don't feel like they they're they're you know we're just going to do better we're going to have more of these great things but I I don't think we talk enough about the amazing things that are happening in every single School across this District so I think that that should be part of what this is also um I'm okay with the 60% but I'll say when we get to the policy 8010 we're going to have to change what it says in that policy and I think our June vote should also to Mrs alad's Point say the number of schools that were so whatever we're voting for come next school board meeting it should be a a definite number of schools that we've decided for this time and to Mr Dr Zeman's point maybe next year we do you know more as we're moving along but I think our vote should be on the specific criteria including how many and then what things we're going to use to decide what's what the names of those schools are I think that should be what we're voting on um and again I'd like to just hear my colleagues about the the Broward Health Park and the vote should also be what year that we're going to be doing this well I don't I agree with that but I also as as I mentioned before if we're moving towards that goal and we realize realiz that there is not enough time I think we need to have a clause or some Grace where it changes because we're we're making an arbitrary date and if we just if things happen and it just doesn't make sense to do it then I want staff to be able to say to us we know that was the goal but we're not going to do it to Fidelity if we do it at that time I don't know what that looks like but I think we need to give oursel that space thank you Dr Zan yes ma'am uh I I want to just comment on the Parkland uh land option and maybe all land options I think uh we need to fulfill our responsibility to the people of brard County and always get a competitive bid and then we can also have an alternate bid so that we know what we're giving up so in Parkland the land is worth X but brard health will pay 3 million less but then they give us the two things that you mentioned we now know uh that that's a hell a deal and um it'll actually help Broward Health to set a price so if we can get what the competitive um appraisal is put it up for sale figure out what the highest bid is and still have a second bid that we can choose between it's legal to do that but then we know what we're giving up sometimes um like with the Broward County easement out at Forman uh Elementary School in Nova um you know they just ask us and we're going to go spend millions of dollars condemning a street that they're just going to use for a street to get into brard college and we could have used it together um and if they really felt that strongly about it they could have helped pay for it you know they gave us an easement and we have to be I think um as uh business-like as possible with the government money just like we would with our own money so if we can do a competitive bid or at least an appraisal and then ask Broward help you know what would you do and could you do EOS Haven and could you do um you know a training program with X capacity forever uh for that area uh you know that could be great one other um body that I would include in that discussion because it's not too far up there at least one representative from corl Springs as well yeah and all I really want to do is be able to say to this give the superintendent some Direction like does it make sense for you to start having a conversation with all of these people I'm not saying we're saying do it yes or no I think that makes the most sense to have two plan you know here's what it would be but we're going to get all of this if we go you what are we getting for the difference in the money I don't think we should just say highest bitter and that's it because I don't know that that helps us um because it's a onetime thing where we would have um those services for a long time afterwards thank you Thomas thank you madam chair so um I understand board member hixon's um point in terms of um uh having a facility that's there for physical health and that would um you know it would make sense having a mental health facility Eagles Haven uh on a facility that provides physical health as well however um in I do agree that instead of the I agree that we should have a competitive bid but instead of the highest bid maybe maybe the the bid that suits Us best depending on what's being offered so that would be my direction you say that again instead of having instead of the highest bid um maybe the bid that would suit Us best depending on what the comprehensive offer is so it's not just monetary um so this you know this could include if brow Health has additional options that they provide to us um that would be great but I also believe that we should go through the competitive bid process and instead of just looking at it from a monetary standpoint we look at it from what's been offered comprehensively by any any of the bers so I'm similar to Zan I um I like the idea of starting to compile schools so we can start looking them as soon as possible I think we should include as many people as we can over the summer uh I don't think we should make any decisions but they should be included in discussion so we can start getting input early on and I think that um once we feel comfortable with a certain number then as you said Mrs Zep um we need to stick with that I've seen there's too much vacillation we're at 60 schools and then we're at five schools and then we're at no schools and we're just all over the place so we need to um be sure of ourselves and confident in our decision and and stand by it so um no more of this wishy-washy going back and forth no no no so anyway um I I feel comfortable especially with Dr heer going forward and and leading the charge and and starting to really look at the situation and what's best for the the county and what percentage utilization 60% I well certainly I feel that we should start at 70% and then we can um based on Dr heer's recommendations of how many schools we can back off of that to a you know a a lower percentage to 65 or 60 move down the scale but I think initially we should stay at the 70% I don't know how many schools fall into that category so I don't want to move off the mark until I know thanks okay all right Dr heern takeaways so takeaways um we're going to bring back information for 60 to 70% because I I didn't hear uh any consensus on on on that uh also uh we will ask the board I I have here board to vote on the number of schools to close in June 18th so we'll we'll wait for that specific number on June 18th from the board um in addition this is more so work that we'll do on over the summer with our advisory committees and and also our student advisors also to appoint um student student members to the stakeholder committees um in addition and also um bringing back information about facilities needs assessment the plan of how we will carry it carry that out to ensure that we have the right information to address the facilities needs of our schools um that may be impact impacted during this um process I have that noted also and I I think it would wouldn't it be important to for to vote on the timeline yes so we will bring we will bring back this deck with the additional information um so that the board can vote on the timeline also vote on a specific number of schools that they want to possibly see close at the end of at the end of this journey um and then most of the work as far as stakeholder committees working with our advisory chairs most of that work will be done during the summer um as we build out uh the groups to to help with the facilitation of this process okay thank you very much thank you staff all right the next item up for final it is the school board policy review project role development I will now turn it over to staff for a presentation okay hey staff you may begin when you're ready Madam chair if I may so um staff is preparing and as you know um obviously the board has had an opportunity to look at the policies that are before you today and then you can determine if you want us to go through a presentation or if you want to move to questions for the in the respective policies question you guys want to go to questions okay we will go to questions this is public input on the policy please any public input on the policy my person you can you can begin I think we did we sign up I think I signed up you may begin where's Al is the microphone working it's going up and down just hold it down with your hand okay hello yeah okay you may begin thank you good afternoon Madam chair Vice chair board members and staff I just um want to thank you for um acknowledging all of my emails I really appreciate it much I just want to speak specifically to to the policy first of all was former policy um the 5.1 the enrollment and withdrawal my ask is that on the updated proof of address that you reconsider them not adding allowing to just have someone to just present a receipt as proof of address anyone can go and get anyone to write like a name and um anything on it and it kind of can create a non- Integrity situation so to just consider that not being allowed to be used as proof of address just a regular Rental receipt the other thing that that I would like for you to consider is um within the email I sent to you based on the new appendix online only version second revision the new pages that would like for you to review with my thorough email to you is now on pages 10 and 11 and 23 through 27 so those are the new pages I would like for you to reconsider um and then finally on um I would like for you to look at the Florida statue I just want to bring your attention on the policy the new revised policy 6400 the Florida statute for the parents um is not specifically the Florida statute um however when which is on the page 11 however when you go to policy 570 on page 64 they do have the correct Florida statute stated so you have two different policies and one actually has a Florida statute and the other one does not so I just want to bring that to your attention thank you very much thank you Miss Grieves that's Mary feric I'm sorry I signed up because our parent Community involvement task force report is on so I didn't I'm here if you all had questions and so is our is Lou Naylor who's really done all of the work and um and I don't think this is the right time but I'll just say that our our Task Force at our last meeting which was not in enough time that I could send it to you timely did vote to support the other advisories on I think it's 11:20 with not accumulating the time for the chair so I didn't know if that was coming up today if it is I can speak more but if not I'll speak another time thank is that Randy Brandy hi my name is Brandy Siri and I'm going to donate my time to Nicole Morris thank you six minutes Morris good good afternoon Nicole Morris Coral Springs Florida um first I want to say thank you to Mr Beck for coming and presenting to us time and time again and for answering all of our many of questions we appreciate you um so I'll start with the uh policy 810 concerns removing level of service from policy um last year demographics presented a Redline policy to the longrange planning committee that changed the over enrolled definition to line up with the level of service definition that is in the grow grow management policy the definition would be 110% of permanent capacity or 100% of growth whichever is higher something changed between then and now and instead they are just removing concurrency and level of service from the boundary policy allog together demographics has said the boundary changes are never done based on level of service however this was stated to be one of the only two legally binding considerations during last year's boundary change if the the level of service is 110% of permanent capacity and 100% of gross then the definition of over androll should be the same or vice versa you should not be telling developers they can continue to build in a Zone while simultaneously telling a community community that they need a boundary change because the school is Gravely over enrolled as is what happened last year although this does not also this does not provide consistency across the district not all schools have portable so schools without Portables would be considered over enrolled at 100% of permanent capacity While others with an unusually high number of Portables may go to 130% of permanent capacity also on the growth management site it states that public school concurrency could result in a boundary change the Departments and policies are contradicting each other community boundary proposals as it is current okay see if I can see as it is currently as it is currently every year in October community members are able to submit boundary proposals that they see a need for in their community and the board has to review them if this is removed the only proposals considered would come from the superintendent if a Community member wanted to advocate for a boundary change for a boundary proposal for their Community they would need their board member to add it to the agenda this would not work if you have a board member that may have bias for one community over another demographics has stated that this change is needed because you all are inundated with bogus proposals every year only you would know if that's the case school choice okay so miss Collins has stated that she came to DAC twice she came once the first time she came she walked up to the podium she said I'm not ready to present and she left that was in April then she came to North Area before we got to page two there were so many concerns because we had a 44 page policy that we were asked to hurry up and and look at like we were asked to get her on the agenda and we had so many problems we said could you please come back this is 44 Pages we have so many concerns we still had uh demographics we didn't have time to look through it she refused to come back so here are some concerns that we had with um school choice monitoring a reporting it looks like it was um put back but they are changing the so as it currently is you have to accept reassignments up to 102% of your um capacity so they are changing that to capacity will be determined by the school board of R County it's on a school by school basis so here is is a problem we have with that is that that doesn't provide consistency across the district so some schools may be accepting reassignments up to 100% and others may be only at 80% and they're not they're instead of making it clearer giving more instruction they're muddying the waters they're it's it's less clear they're watering it down and I have a concern with that because when we realize that they weren't accepting um reassignments at Park trails trying to figure out how I can see this better when they weren't accepting reassignments at Park Trails um at 77% of their capacity we looked through some records and saw that shortly after there was a conversation with North Area um Miss Collins's office and the principal Park trails where um they said I think it would be um beneficial to begin the conversation to develop a plan to meet the school choice legislation while discussing the uniqueness of the combined boundary so I would would be concerned if they're taking out um thresholds that says that you have to do this and go to a school by school basis because that gives everyone room to do what they want to do at different schools and that that doesn't seem fair um I would also ask that you look at all of the diversity gells that are being removed from both policies um I think in the middle of closing schools if you're taking out language it says that any one student group is guaranteed an equitable educational experience and you're taking that out then that kind of tells you where we're going with closing the schools and they know what they can't what they can't keep up with so that's my comments thank you no other public speakers board member comment Mrs Hixon thank you um my first one is policy 1090 uh Schoolboard professional development on page one um I'd like to make a motion to add something we're not we're not making Workshop oh oh sorry that was before sorry I'd like to make a suggestion um under number one on page one so well there's more than one one but in the red part there where it says Schoolboard members are encouraged to attend conferences meetings and activities at the end of that paragraph if we could add if PE cards are used for registration and the board member is not able to attend the professional development they must reimburse the cost charge to the PE card Mr Hill do you have where that's going to go in the policy the if the if we get consensus do you have exactly where yes thank you Dr W yes I'll put that in uh section two or rule number two which talks about if you charge um yeah the school board um will reimburse it talks about this being reimbursed but it doesn't talk about if you've already charged the PE card and you're not able to go then the school board member should have to reimburse the district for not participating in that yes are my colleagues okay with that professional development okay you have consensus on that thank you perfect um on policy 810 on page 58 I already mention this but it says there in that let me go to page 58 sorry it already talks about closing schools in this particular um page and it has three requirements so if we're going to be changing those requirements I think that this document should reflect that I'm not going fast enough to get to 58 through the chair may I speak to that Dr Wan Mr be am I on can you hear me no yes okay so so there's two different pieces is here thank you Mrs hion very much for the for the point uh first off there's a definition of under enrollment which is referenced elsewhere in the policy of below 70% and I think I don't think there's any controversy there you know we're facing an under enrollment crisis in our district right now and we're enrolled at 80% districtwide so 70% should be sort of a a trigger for the board to start to to look at schools it doesn't require any action on the board's part uh but it is it is sort of the the the threshold where we would start to to consider a school Under enrolled and look at options for either increasing enrollment there or somehow otherwise utilizing that facility so with the section you're referencing though the three conditions for the three criteria for for determining uh School closure um in this could be open to interpretation but a school shouldn't by these criteria would be considered available forclosure or consolidation if it were below 70% that's that's um meets the under enrollment threshold or if there were significant facilities challenges that or uh the facilities were Obsolete and it would cost a significant amount of money to bring them uh into parody with other facilities or otherwise the operational costs of this the school uh were were prohibitive so it doesn't have to include all of those things but it should include one of those things if you're going to designate a school for closure and those these criteria do um none of the criteria identified by the superintendent in his pre presentation were stand loan criteria but all of these should be uh should inform that process we feel right I don't disagree with any of that I'm just saying you know on page 58 when you go there it says schools that are being considered for repurposing consolidation and or closing shall be identified using one or more of the following criteria so my point is if we're closing schools and we're setting criteria it should reflect what's in the policy so whatever we're making changes on as we go through through the process of repurposing or redefining it it needs to be changed in the policy so that they align and we were having a discussion on what we thought the percentage was so if we're going to change the percentage from 70 to 60 then it should be reflected in the policy it sounds like we didn't have consensus to do that so we can leave it there I just wanted to be clear there is a policy that that lays this out and if we have specific we had a list and there's way more things on the list we heard today than there is in this policy so they should be the same is is the point I'm trying to make whatever we land on in what we're doing to close schools needs to be reflected in this policy so I don't know if we can write it all out today because we haven't finished that process but before we vote on this policy it needs to be clear what we're using for those criteria M chair may I really quickly address that one so my my advice would be that if you're looking at 70% as the threshold to just start looking at schools then it automatically checks the box of this policy because that meets one of the the criteria so you only have to you know you've met one of them just by being below 70% if you decide that you want to refine that in your process in an annual process and only focus on schools below 60 55 50 or whatever threshold that doesn't contradict policy because still meet that below 70% threshold right that was just my point what if we're going to make changes we all need to be aware as a board there's a policy that directs this so if we tell the on the June 12th whatever day that is we say no it's 60 we better not be voting on a policy that says 70 because they don't match that's the point I'm trying to make Dr won so the current policy language says below 70 right so if you're at 60 that's still below 70 correct however but to your point Mr tixon I um and we I'm certainly taking notes for Dr hebburn what what I would offer is wherever the board um gives the superintendent direction through a vote or or what have you on the 18th then we need to make sure that that direction is not in conflict with whatever the board votes on when this policy comes back for final Ru making right that's that's basically my point okay thank you and then the the last one is policy 1140 which is the parent involvement um on page five of that policy letter when it talks about who makes up the the committee D should be two parents not one I don't know why it got changed and E should be one business not two somehow those numbers got spit from what it was before Dr Z just a quick point on this a lot of work that went into this thank you uh all very much um I would prefer for page 58 that you reference to just change one word which is in said shall be I would say it maybe um it is the authority of the board according to Florida Statutes to open or close schools and having a policy that says we must meet these things creates a false perception in the community that if you're at 71% you're safe or if you're at any you know just a little bit over any of these things and it gets them into details that I don't think are appropriate because this is a really complicated Factor about opening and closing schools and we ought to have the authority as a board uh to make decisions that allow for the health of our uh our system and to allow it to achieve its goals which is great education um so I would always be careful to kind of set a perception that if you just trip over these three numbers you're safe um I don't think that that's true and I think uh uh our policy ought to just say that these are things that we would consider uh in decisions related to opening or closing schools next I I do not think we should ever make a policy that says may because then it's not why it's not a rule right you can or you can't it's always silly and we had personal issues where May was the terminology and that is how we landed in a lot of places with people not here anymore so I am not okay with putting May instead of shall either it's a rule or it's not if we don't want to put it as a rule then just get rid of the whole thing but may is just too ambiguous and just the Counterpoint to that is you know when we pass policies that tie the hands of the school board uh you know we we take Serious actions against people if they violate the policy we ought not to do the same thing so if we create a policy it it better be toothy than and something that we mean and I can think of lots of circumstances where there are specific instances of appropriate and well-meaning closures of schools where they don't meet these three criteria so my preference for a policy would be to say here's the things that we'll consider in closing a school so that everybody knows what we think about along the way rather than to have trip wires and so uh you know we can we can decide to tie our hands or not but my preference is not to do that particularly on something as serious as closing a school any other board member bam thank you madam chair um I'd like to bring your attention to policy 6400 and the the number all the way to the right is page number 1267 and if you look um more than well close to 34s of the way down there's a paragraph there that talks about scholarships specifically and what I'd like you to note is that you have um sorry someone's beeping in and I need my phone to look at this oh God sorry according to the Department of Education we have 1 two 3 four five six seven scholarships available and some have been omitted I think we need to be inclusive so parents are on notice of what is available and out there on this page 6400 you want the middle number there mine doesn't have any other numbers is that's the only number on my page it's 1267 no that's what I was provided 6400 it's policy 6400 school choice the the front page it's on the first page right toward the bottom is that where you are the second page yeah it would be page one it doesn't have to printed on there okay it's about three4 of the way down it goes into scholarships it talks about um choices in Innovative programs Magnus schools and then it goes into scholarships opportunity scholarship program and then if you look on page 1287 it gives a definition of that but there's a lots uh there's several scholarships that have been left out specifically um what we need is the T credit scholarship is not included in there the Hope Scholarship is not included in there and I think you should also although McKay Scholarship is now referred to as the family empowerment scholarship you should include formally known as because many people know it as the McKay Scholarship has been around a long time until at least people get familiar with the new name so they know it it's a um acronym or a synonym for the same scholarship so the scholarships I have here which I content should be included f a family empowerment scholarship Florida tax credit scholarship Hope Scholarship McKay Scholarship which again is a synonym for the family empowerment but people don't know it is that opportunity scholarship um the new world scholarships account and then there's something else called facts and figures I'm not quite sure if it says what that is I I don't think that's a scholarship that's just in reference to that so that would be included also you should include a paragraph what they're all about you have on on page 12877 uh a paragraph written what is the opportunity scholarship so no one knows that the Hope Scholarship is such an important scholarship that's a scholarship that's available to students that are being bullied harassed they've been involved um in fights they've been injured they've been assaulted even um raped so that's an important scholarship where that student gets the right to leave that school they don't have to stay there anymore they don't have to be and go to the same location so we need to put in there that that's available for students as well as the other ones um in addition you also have the empowerment scholarship on page uh 1301 I would just suggest that you keep them all together you have them in more than one location you have it on page 1287 and then you have that's where the opportunity scholarship is and then you have the family empowerment scholarship 1301 so paragraph for each Define each and try to keep them together I would suggest you lay that out um in addition on the very very first paragraph um about halfway down it says um that the settings for Education promote understanding of diversity tolerance and fair play so that the the positive tenat of a Democratic Society that's an inaccurate statement we are a republic I pledge allegiance to the flag to the United States of America and to the Republic for which we stand also I think that can be interpreted as a political statement or a political affirmation so I would just ask that that be pulled out or that it be corrected because we are a republic and I have here a list of the difference between what a republic is and what a Democratic Society is so I'll pull that up for you okay um okay in a republic the people elect representatives to make laws according to the constraints of a constitution in a Democratic Society a voting majority has almost unlimited power to make laws minorities have protections from the will of the majority so I think you're going into dangerous territory so I would uh again recommend that you remove that um talks about here uh Republic a constitution protects the rights of the people from the will of the majority Democratic rights can be overridden by the will of the majority so in an effort to say apolitical that should be removed that's all I have to say about what I have andon thank you madam chair quick one and it's um on page 29 of 39 of the policy 35 if we're looking at the booklet under College Academy at Broward College B application process um is there an opportunity for one of the admission requirement or admission uh opportunities to be through the PSAT that's what other dual enrollment [Music] um processes uh accept uh so in addition to the ACT SAT per and accuplacer um I know at least Bard College and FIU accept the PSAT score Dr wanza so either Miss Collins or Dr tumor will answer that question so through through the J um our experience has been that the students that take the PSAT their scores don't Translate to the same degree of success as as others but we still can take that into consideration s I'm Sorry Miss alur no Dr tumor I was going to say the exact same thing and just say that we could look into that because it was the same thing that information that I had as well so thank you any other questions Lon good okay if that is allowable I agree with Landon we should add the PSA all right so what is the next steps for these policies Dr heer Dr W um so we thank the board for um their input today and whatever we um whatever we gathered consensus from the board on the policies will be a be revised to reflect that feedback from the board and then they'll come back to the board in July for final Ru making June quick question um did you also capture some of the the concerns of the public speakers we might not have weighed in on that but I think there were some um very valid points on things that the public speakers had brought up do you want to give us so we we do have um the comments that the public speakers made but I didn't hear board members give us consensus on saying you know we would like to see certain language um reflect some of the feedback that was received today okay well as one board member for for sure the Florida state statute concern where it was written properly in one policy and not the other so it should be consistent across the board yes ma'am if we may good good afternoon we may address that um the C and C we did review all the statutes and confirm that they are indeed accurate staff then went behind us and check them again to say and they are indeed accurate we believe that the misconception is we didn't quote the statute verbatim we basically provided the statute and gave the gist what the statute means without using Express language we had got some direction from the board previously there's no read to just re quote every Statute in you know in its entirety this 40 page document probably been 80 pages but it is accurate stat statute the language that's reflected is accurate statement consistent with the statute is just not verbatim okay so if there's confusion I would just do do we have to write it out can we just say this the statute number do we have to add verbiage to that honestly we would actually prefer just to put the statute itself but we receive feedback that the public may not going that will require the public then have to go read every statute so we in we try to have a balance of not just putting the statute only requiring them to go look it up but rather giving them the gist of it what the statute represents and if they want greater detail then they can go look at the statute expressly so it's the board's pleasure we receive feedback on both ways of try to come with a a middle point of providing some information without verbatim but not just referring to the statute by itself okay um it seems like it's maybe giving a little confusion though if we're not doing it verbatim if we're condensing it seems to some people in the public that it it's missing something so maybe it makes sense if we're going to St state that we just actually State the statute any other board member comments you have your direction Dr W yes we do particularly as it um relates to the policy on um demographics and School boundaries that would and I think that's one of the greatest concerns that whatever um is the final direction of the board on June 18th that that policy is not in conflict with the final direction from the board other than that and yes it will come back in July because we have to go 28 days I'm so it'll it'll come back in J boundaries will be coming in June the at the June at the June 18th meeting the other policies will come to July 23rd I just one more thing when we're talking about the school choice I do agree that it needs to be consistent if we're having reassignments it shouldn't there should be a a consistent number that we're saying they're going to allow one school to do one thing and one to do another we're talking about consistency and transparency I I think that it needs to be clear so um we'll make sure the policy language does provide for consistency but I think one of the things that maybe confusing and Miss Collins um or Mr Beck whichever one can speak to it is if the um I'm just going to use arbitrary number right so school is going to be at 100% capacity that number may be different for my school as opposed to your school right I don't have a problem right and I we should if we want everyone to be at 100% capacity then that's the number I may only need 20 kids to get to 100 so I agree with that but there's if we want to reach 100% capacity for everyone shouldn't be up to the principle that okay well I'm going to be okay at 80% capacity because we want everyone to try to reach 100 they may not but they should have the the opportunity to reach that based on um opening reassignment seats at this time do any of my colleagues have anything to bring to the board or Student Success to share Dr Hess thank you madam chair just a couple of things um uh there have been some uh concerns regarding um the implementation of focus which is coming um soon shortly and I just wanted the super intendent to weigh in on any kind of concern about transitioning uh briefly and then um and then I'd like to uh give a suggestion or Direction Dr he yes Dr Phillips and I and his team that are implementing Focus we're in constant communication um as of right now there are no concerns that um would prevent us from going having a a great implementation and going live uh shortly especially for the SSS module which is the the portion that uh we're going to utilize for our ESC um um compliance issues um so I'll actually uh ask Dr Phillips to weigh in if um if possible to provide any specific concerns from his end that that he's discovered recently but um over the past couple of months um been intimately involved in meeting with their team to find out uh if we're going to have a good implementation if there's any that we need to be concerned about how is training going um and all the nuances to make sure we have a good roll out and we'll be actually going live um this summer uh just to make sure we can work out the Kings before the before the uh start of the school year Dr philis anything else to add thank you Dr heern uh I don't have much to add don't have any concerns we've been working on this project uh for two years now since the board approved it in May of 2022 and specifically we've been working on the SSS module since uh December January of uh 2022 2023 we've put thousands upon thousands of Staff hours uh into standing up the system uh very robust B workshops with the ESC committee and those stakeholders that ese has brought in I also have two ese compliance Specialists uh on my team on the IT team as business analysts that have been working non-stop to set the system up so at this point in time I do not have uh any concerns okay so um Dr hebburn can the implementation process include a survey uh to be conducted after say 6 months assessing the end users experience which would include ESC specialists at our schools um um districtwide and all the appropriate school-based staff so on the management of the IEPs and can that result be shared with the staff because I I would like to get feedback to see if this is really working um so would be possible after 6 months of implementation to provide that to us in some sort of a survey of districtwide of the ESC Department yes we can actually provide a survey okay thank you very much and Madam chair just one more thing and I'm done um I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge several outstanding Scholars from Plantation High School um Amir Wallace recipient of the Gates Millennium Scholarship Gabriella Martinez and Watson luor recipients of the m hard opportunity scholarship okay Miss leonardy yeah um I wanted to I guess hear from my colleagues um I think there's been a lot of conversations happening Nationwide about cell phones and schools and I I know that one of my former appointed colleagues mentioned this um on his way out I'd really be interested in having a discussion or a workshop and I I'd like to know if my colleagues would be interested in doing the same um about trying to limit cell phone use in our schools um in different ways different districts are doing that um of course you know we have safety considerations to to look at um I'd be interested to uh look at you know survey da data um from students and employees and parents about their their support or opposition to uh different policies around uh limiting cell phone use in our schools I think it we're seeing a lot of data now um on the impacts on mental health and academics of our students um so I'm just uh wanting to hear from my colleagues if they'd be interested in having that discussion as well okay Miss Fam thank you um I just wanted to send out a big shout out to Knob Hill Elementary they're located in Davy and they've taken multiple school trips this year and they took advantage of the local community and they went to the old Davy school I don't I don't know if you've ever been there and they um learned how to wash H uh laundry by hand with washboards um they also went to the berson rodeo and and got to see some of the animals over there um performing in addition they went to Flamingo Gardens and um the Museum of Discovery and I think it's really creative and it's great that um the school is using using local places to travel to that are much less costly and to show their students what this community has made up in addition this was their first year that they did a Spring Showcase and the children were fabulous so I would just like to thank this parent that that sent me this long email saying how glad she is her child is there at Knob Hill and how wonderful and caring the staff is for their with their children thank you m fam can you weigh on this surveys in the cell phone surveys from Dr fullness actually oh no I can't this time want to give us some thought six yes for surveys and cell phones okay and I'm a yes for surveys for the cell phones I would like it to go to the technology advisory committee first for a recommendation and then if they make a recommendation Let It Be voted bya the board um does so I guess I'm wondering how that works um does that like automatically go on go to the technology advisory committee or they have someone has to put it on the agenda how you work with your appointy and they bring it up at the meeting and then they can vote on there and then it comes back to us in a school board meeting okay okay perfect and the and the survey is a is surveying our students and staff about cell phone use no that was Sur oh okay your survey for Focus Department got you I was a little confusing all right gotcha all right so this scheduled order of business for the school board Workshop of the school board of bar County Florida has been completed seeing no obligation I now join the meeting and it's before e e e e