the fire alarm system please exit from the room in orderly fashion and continue to exit the building and 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 attacks will not be tolerated if you engage in disruptive behavior interfering with the orderly process of the meeting I will ISS show a verbal warning to seize the disruption immediately and failure to comply with the warning will result in removal from the board meeting by law enforcement removal from the meeting by law enforcement will be for the duration of all meetings held on this day our primary focus is to create a safe and productive environment for all of our participants thank you so much for your cooperation all please rise to the pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all as we prepare to begin our 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 in achieving this goal we are committed to ensuring everyone counts our culture will be student centered teachers supported and principal Leed the following topics are scheduled for board discussion at this Workshop one redefining our schools two 2024 2025 organizational chart the first item is redefining our schools I will now turn it over to staff for the presentation thank you testing thank you chair alad Vice chair Hixon and school board members today I will share my recommendations for redefining Brower County Public Schools this proposal reflects extensive Community input and presents an initial framework for ongoing transformation while the plan will continue to evolve the board's endorsement is crucial to implementing these changes effectively and in the best interest of our students staff and Community I would like to thank all who participated during the process I have listened to community faculty staff parents board members and other stakeholders feedback their feedback has truly been a gift leading to revisions of the initial considerations therefore a multip a multiphase approach will be implemented to redefining BC BCPS the current recommendations initiate the first phase of redefining BCPS with a focus on reconfigurations of grade levels and programs to met to better meet the diverse needs of students regain students from non BCPS schools with improved programs and learning environments and rebuild our financial reserves I want to assure all stakeholders that school closures are not being recommended during this initial phase I want to affirm my commitment that the next phase of redefin the BCPS will continue to actively involve families students faculty staff and stakeholders their input will be integral and shape in the next phase of redefining ensuring that BCPS remains responsive and resilient I also want to affirm my commitment to transparency throughout this process as I understand the impact that change can have on all individuals the next phase of redefining BCPS will involve identifying a variety of opportunities while engaging stakeholders in understanding problems unique to their communities and developing effective Solutions tough and often times unpopular decisions will ultimately make Broward County Public Schools a beacon of educ Excellence I want to repeat that one One More Time tough and often times unpopular decisions will ultimately make brow County Public Schools a beacon of educational Excellence today we are asking the board to provide additional feedback to inform revisions for the final plan to be presented in June for approval provide consensus for next for specific next steps for impacted schools of grade level and program reconfigurations also provide consensus for specific next steps to Surplus underutilized properties starting with following applicable steps to Surplus the technology and Support Services Center Annex for sale which is which many know as the former Bank building at this time I'm going to turn it over to Mr Alan Strauss South Region superintendent to start the presentation um one second at this time we need to recess the meeting for five minutes e [Music] [Music] do three testing testing [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] o [Applause] [Music] a [Music] [Music] [Music] he [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you so much for your patience welcome back Dr heer thank you chair alad Vice chair Hixon and school board members today I will share my recommendations for redefining Brower County Public Schools this proposal reflects extensive Community input and presents an initial framework for ongoing transformation while the plan will continue to evolve the board's endorsement is crucial to implementing these changes effectively and in the best interest of students staff and Community I would like to thank all who participated during this process I have listened to the community faculty staff parents board members and other and others feedback their feedback has truly been a gift leading to revisions of the initial considerations therefore a multiphase approach will be implemented to redefining BCPS the current recommendation initiate the first phase of redefining BCPS with a focus on reconfiguration of grade levels and programs to better meet the diverse needs of students regain students from non BCPS schools with improved programs and learning environments and rebuild our financial reserves I want to assure all stakeholders that school closures are not being recommended during this initial phase I want to affirm my commitment that the next phase of redefining BCPS will continue to actively involve families students students faculty and staff and stakeholders their input will be integral and shape in the next phase of redefining ensuring that BCPS remains responsive and resilient also I want to confirm my commitment to transparency throughout this process as I understand the impact that change can have on all individuals the next phase of redefining BCPS will involve identifying a variety of opportunities while engaging stakeholders and understanding problems unique to their communities and developing effective Solutions tough and oftentimes unpopular decisions will ultimately make Broward County Public Schools a beacon of educational Excellence I repeat that again just in case you didn't heard here the first time but tough and often times unpopular decisions will ultimately make Broward County Public Schools a beacon of educational Excellence today we are asking the board to provide additional feedback to inform revisions for the final plan to be presented in June for approval provide consensus for specific next steps for impacted schools of grade level and program reconfigurations provide consensus for specific next steps to Surplus underutilized properties starting with following applicable steps to Surplus the technology and Support Services Center Annex for sale which many know as the former bake building at this time I'm going to turn it over to Mr Alan Strauss our South Region superintendent to start the presentation thank you Dr Hein the overview for this evening's presentation we're going to have a slide that talks about the school board Direction back earlier this school year we're going to have some slides to talk about the community feedback that you spoke about and we will have slides with the superintendent's recommendations along those slides you will see seat utilization projections as well as market share recapture projections finally we'll talk about timeline and then obviously turn it over for the board for discussion so on July 25th 2023 at a special school board meeting the following was uh stated the school board directed the superintendent at the time with a motion to initiate a plan to repurpose five School sites by July 2024 with a one-year transition plan so from that point in time we've had numerous engagements with the community it started with Community conversations in the month of February three different times in the South the North and the central regions then there was a board workshop on March 20th ultimately on April 16th at the board meeting the superintendent gave a board update and then we just completed the last two weeks of seven town halls in each of the Schoolboard member districts during that time there was a survey during the town halls and I just want to share some of the data points that came from that survey feedback one of the questions asked what are the thoughts about the superintendent's considerations as you see on the slide roughly 44% of the respondents either agreed or strongly agreed with the superintendent's considerations with another 20% being neutral the next one of the next questions that was asked was do you prefer the superintendent's considerations or total District realignment which was showed during those town halls and as you see there 78% to 22% however I do want to say in addition there was written feedback on the question that came after this question that some respondents did state that they were not for either plan so I just want to be very transparent there because that question only allowed one or two options so they did provide written feedback to say they were not in favor of the either of the plans so now on to the superintendent's recommendations so as we've seen this before the map of the district with the colorcoded clusters of zones and the potential considerations being change grade level configuration lease or sell School properties schools or properties change School boundary enter into a public private partnership merge combined schools change schools to a full Choice School repurpose schools and close schools with that being said we're going to walk through the cluster of schools as originally were presented but now these are the recommendations so there were some adjustments and I want to start off this evening just pointing out with Pines Middle the recommendation is a great reconfiguration turning it in from a six to8 Middle School to a Collegian Academy 6 through 12 the next recommendation Within These zones is to have Silver Shores Elementry turn into a full Choice school and I just want to remind the public a full Choice school is one where the parents will have make application to the school to gain entrance into that school and if selected their child would attend that school it is not a bounded school in order to do so there's some boundary changes that would have to take place at Silver legs Elementary and silver Palms Elementary along with a program shift coming from Silver Shores to Panther Run Elementary in doing so at those schools the projected seat utilizations as you see on the chart increase at each of the schools and so I'm just going to keep this slide up for a few seconds I'm not going to necessarily read it but I want to make sure that the public sees it as that are here and present as well as watching online on the next slide we're providing our market share recapture or a projected revenues potentially from the changes and the recommendations so it's Silver Shores as I said would turn into a full Choice School therefore the school has a capacity of 820 students and we would anticipate by turning it into a K8 full Choice school that we would have utilized all 820 seats at at 100% capacity out of there because as you've heard the superintendent say we need to be more competitive and gain back some of our share with students that either attend Charter Schools or private schools the potential there is a low side is 15% and a high side is 25% of gaining back students or gaining students from the charter of private schools which are the associated numbers that you see for Silver Shores as well as for Pines Middle to further explain pin's middle Pines Middle would transition into a full 6 through 12 over a 4-year period typically you would start with a ninth grade then add a 10th grade then add 11th grade then after four years be complete 9 through 12 for the 9th through 12th grades we anticipate roughly about 100 students per grade level so 100 Time 4 is 400 students and then we also believe that in our Middle School portion we would capture back students so for a grand total of approximately 490 students and that could be either way it could be 100 per class 90 per class either way we think totality we would at least capture back 490 students into that school for a overall combined total of 1.7 773 million on the low end and 2952 million on the highend moving to the Hallendale Hollywood Hills and South Broward Zone um the recommendation here is only to reconfigure Hollywood Central from a K5 to a K8 there would be no boundary change for Hollywood Central they would maintain their boundary but open it up to K8 and as was mentioned in the town halls that the residents of Hollywood Central five years ago requested this but it was not um done on behalf of the requests however the grade reconfiguration will have an effect on olssen middle school because there are students in that boundary that are slated to attend Ola Middle School therefore there would be a boundary change needed for that on the next slide we'll show the seat utilization impacts of that we'd anticipate that Hollywood Central would go to 100% capacity being a K8 and we would expect Olen to go a little bit down as I mentioned in my town hall presentation roughly there's 75 students that attend Olsen Middle School that live within the Hollywood Central boundary so therefore those students would revert back to Hollywood Central and not at Olen so therefore there would be a reduction of the seat utilization there in doing so we anticipate a little bit differently here than we did in the Everglades Zone here we believe we have will have stronger um efforts in regards to having Charter or private schools come to the K8 at Hollywood Central to the point of 50% and 75% on the high end so therefore we have projected revenues for 1.67 4 million and 2502 million and the next set of zones Dillard and South Plantation zones there's only boundary change and a grade reconfiguration here these two are not tied to anything that's occurring Within These zones it's actually tied to what I'll show you on the in the next set of zones but I just want to speak to this in the order that it was shown during the town halls Sunland Park Academy right now is a k to3 the recommendation is to return it back to a traditional K to 5 therefore we would have to do some reboundary of that and also the adjusted boundary for th Good Marshall to do so you you would see that we would really um almost max out suon Park up to 94% seed utilization as well as third good Marshal increase by about 10 percentage points there is no Financial impact with this we don't expect to gain back any students necessarily because the students that live within there are attending our schools um so we don't anticipate that therefore there's not a revenue slide for Fel and Stranahan zones we have a recommendation for North Fork Elementary to repurpose it into a full Choice K5 school once again I just want to repeat full Choice School means parents would apply for their CH child to attend the school and if selected the child would attend that school and it does not have a boundary necessarily in order to do that we have some recommendation boundary changes which is Walker and north side and also like I said on the previous slides the impact of Sunland Park and therefore Thoren Marshall kind of all mixed together the last thing on the page is benett elementary and the recommendation is to look at a program addition through our town hall meeting especially at fallo high school we see a lot of the blue shirts out in front of us with vsy there was a lot of discussion about possibly considering adding the monu maybe to Bennett but leaving vsys alone so that's a something to potentially consider but I think that's something that uh Dr Hein will further discuss with the board but in one way or the other we're looking at doing some type of program addition to bendit Elementary and all in all doing that our projected utilizations for those schools as you see we would expect North Fork once again being a full Choice school would go to 100% And we would have increases at Walker in north side bendett is showing TBD because of depending on what that program Edition is well depend you know how much demand there is for that program however in changing Norfork Elementary into a full choice we anticipate on the low end a 10% and the highend of 20% uh students coming from Charter or private school that would be equate to 639 th000 up to 1.28 7 million the last zones are the dfield AR zones and the three uh recommendations or considerations are still the same and turned into recommendations that's for the public private partnership with the three elementary schools that are identified there and therefore there's not a impact on seat utilization with those decisions in totality when you take the three um zones or three pages that show some Revenue when you look at the low range and then you look at the high range you have a low range of project jeed of 4.86 million and a high at $6.74 million in addition there was discussion um during the town hall about trying to move some of our District staff out of Arthur Ash and originally it was discussed in regards to Olsa middle school but it doesn't have to be Olsa middle school there are still schools as we are well aware that are under enrolled that we can look and see to move staff out of Arthur Ash and move them to our under enrolled schools and utilize space there in doing so and talking with Atlantic Technical which oversees Arthur Ash they have a projected increase of their Workforce Revenue possibility of over $6 million that they could have by gaining back that space that our departments are occupying right now so we just wanted to make sure that we're fully aware and in doing so we're providing Services both to our adult students as well as our high school students through technical do enrollment in totality when you look everything and you take the previous uh slides into um totality of uh adding them together the low end we get 10129 million and on the highend 12.78 4 million of projected Financial impact the next slide as you heard Dr Hein in his opening dialogue talk about the technology and Support Services Center Annex or otherwise known as The Bank building and so we highlighted it there and I think he he'll speak a little bit even further on that as we go through the presentations the last thing that I do want to point out once again is the timeline here we are May 14th it is the board Workshop just as we said through the town halls it would come to having the superintendent's recommendations which you see before you this evening and then from the discussion at board from listening to the community this evening the superintendent will take those recommendations and turn them into final recommendations and present them on June 18th for the board for Action vote to be taken and I just want to remind the public once again that the 2425 school year would be the planning year not implementation year nothing would occur next school year we will be doing a planning transition year and then in the 25 26 year is the implementation year to be done and that concludes the presentation thank you Mr Strauss um board members we're ready for any questions or feedback sorry thank you Dr heern so now we are going to go to our public comments and if you've signed up on the sheet your name will be called and you will be given one minute to speak we have 35 speakers so pay attention to your name and direction I'm going to line up five people at a time behind a speaker so over here on this side One Alicia Dillard on this side two Elena barrero three Monica Prem four Chris Nelson five Walter Haymon no everybody on this side on this side you can line up six Aaron go seven Julia offer eight Dr Dennis Leota nine Juliet sturla 10 narni Pierre grants Alicia you may begin one minute good evening to everyone on the board uh also to our superintendent my name is Alicia Dillan I'm representing Osa middle school and the reason I'm here is to acknowledge the importance of keeping our school open I understand the the Dynamics of the econ economies that are involved but I think we should also look at the overall picture as well as the relevancy of educating our students as well as making cost effective decisions at this point I'm looking at not only repurposing our school but also to consider us for a K through 8 school as well we do have large facili uh looking at the layout of Hollywood Hills I think we are in a much better position as far as size to accommodate and hold the number of kids that would be needed to have a K through 8 facility right now we do offer different programs that would be effective for the kids and I think that in this particular incident thank you so much okay thank you two Elena barrero Elena are you here okay three Monica PR um hello I'm Monica Prem first I want to thank you as a board for listening to us I'm obviously with bsy the famous blue shirts um and it made me feel that we really are heard that being said um as you can tell we as a Comm School Community came together to speak for our children quickly and efficiently but we aren't alone many parents Educators past and present community leaders and even the students have ideas on how they'd like to see the changes in the county moving forward why not put together a think tank and continue the conversation as an ongoing basis let us have a say in the future of our district give us the data and see what we come up with and together let's try and make BR County Schools the best in the nation thank you um no clapping but please feel free to go like this thank you so much for Chris Nelson um can she give me her time okay Cory Panero okay hold on a second Cory let me find you at the end yeah okay okay two minutes Cory pero okay thank you oh she's giving your her minute oh I'm sorry okay two minutes Chris Nelson all right thank you Chris Nelson from Fort Lauderdale and I made sure to wear blue tonight because oh my goodness Virginia schum young um parents boy they came out in uh great numbers and boy were they really wonderful speaking up for their schools uh for their school and uh I I just hope I know it's only one minute but I hope that you let people finish their thought when they're when they're like in the middle of a sentence because not everybody comes to speak at these things and it it can be a little bit nervous for some people they're not used to it but um but just wow um monori School and a uh and a choice school I had not heard of uh how these work and this is something that wow would have really benefited me when I was a kid this is something really special and uh boy if you want to find out uh what the parents are thinking just put out a very bad plan go out in Hal town halls and boy they'll tell you what they think and uh Scott Travis from Sun Sentinel has uh posted all the comments on his Twitter so if you want to read what people's comments were you got some great comments in there about moving forward and uh when I hear about a plan that is to bring people back and bring people back into the school and increase Revenue I'm like wow am I in the right County cuz this is exactly what we need to be doing and uh listen to these parents this is something really special that they've done here at vsy um replicating this should be the thing to do and then think about this we could go out then and put commercials out there on TV and uh and tell people about the wonderful things that are going on at Broward schools and then they'll be like wow um that's something I want to be part of that's what I want to get back involved with so um I I'm excited about the superintendent's recommendations tonight and uh let's uh let's bring back some of the people that we've lost to Broward schools thanks thank you so much five Walter har hman Madam chair board members uh thank you very much for hosting this tonight this Workshop I want to remind us that I heard Community engagement from Mr superintendent Community engagement stakeholder engagement please go out and engage in participatory Community engagement listen to our communities they may not be here tonight do not interpret please do not interpret absence from this proc process as disengagement uncaring or not being interested in your kids education we're on bus 36 East and West if I take the bus home to go back to Hollywood which is my Manatee country Hollywood Central manity it's going to take me over an hour go out and spend the next phases to go out keep in mind Equity keep in mind Community engagement value each other in this process and then go out and take the time intentionally to do the right thing thank you so much all our schools and all our children six arle on behalf of the vsy PTA and broader Community I want to say thank you thank you for taking the time to read our letters to listen to our passionate pleas and ultimately make the decision to our to allow our successful and diverse School Community to continue to thrive when parents Educators students and community members come together our schools are stronger it is critical that in order for this redefining process to be successful you must slow down the process to create opportunities for authentic feedback and communication the stakes are too high going forward please be intentional And Timely about empowering and engaging the communities impacted by the proposal to ensure that plans align with their unique needs strengths and hopes please work closely with Innovation zones City education advisory boards and school communities to be transparent about the process and open to solutions that are generated by the community not imposed on them and the V Community is here to support thank you seven Julia o over tar hi good evening everybody I'm Julia overturf I'm a parent at Virginia Schuman young obviously and I wanted to come up today mainly to say thank you to all of you but especially to Dr heurn for re um reworking the plan I know we spoke after the meeting last time with a group of parents um from vsy just very briefly and I said you know we want there to be more schools that have what we have we want other students to be able to benefit from this and you said what if I hold you to helping us with that and we all said very adamantly we are here we are happy to work with the board and any other school groups so we still are here to help and happy to do that one quick question and I'm sure you guys will address this since the plan was released on Friday a lot of people have been asking us where do these projected numbers come from how are we figuring out what percentage we think will come back to a school or go from private insuror to come to a school say like Northport for example that's in our area um 75% of students coming back seems really high when you just see it on the paper so if we could get some numbers for that that would be great thank you so much Dr Dennis Leota yes um I was here last week and I had said that I believe that what was being said here was just smok and mirrors and I'm still concerned that it is still smok and mirrors because I'm only hearing part of a plan I don't hear an entire plan I didn't see any data I can't find any data I don't understand what you're going to do for the children at the end of the day uh I see this as something as I followed it through my research that has been progressing over a number of years that you guys knew about this uh over a number of years and now you're just trying to put something together to make it work um I need to see a plan I want to be as that uh lady said before as a taxpayer I have no children in the school say I'm just a taxpayer and I just want to see a plan I want to be part of that plan as a taxpayer $6 billion a year coming into uh the Broward County Public Schools is a hell of a lot of money 10 million $12 million savings is not a lot thank you so much nine Juliet sterla good evening and thank you for having us my name is Juliet ster I'm come closer to the mic I am my name is Juliet stera I'm a vsy parent and a Victoria Park resident um I really want to address the survey that was presented to the communities in the town halls especially in vy's case it did not represent how we felt and we could not answer that survey I did not answer that survey because neither option fit regard regard L of you know the answer after the fact that should have been included with the original questioning it had to be a one two3 that is not Community engagement and that is not gauging a problem in how it should be fixed and you know frankly it really shouldn't have been included in the presentation screen because it is not a fair representation of what is going on and what you're trying to accomplish in the Broward County Public Schools and we do want to be a part of the community outreach we are willing to go out and help schools get engaged become involved and know what is going on within the county thank you so much 10 arique pi gr uh good evening chair board um Dr hebburn um I don't think this is your plan I think this is your predecessors plan and I think that you should um stop everything and create a plan for your yourself um I I don't even understand the vsy thing didn't make any sense to me um everything else was just like thrown together and you're the superintendent now I think you need to take ownership and do something on your own away from your predecessor cuz I know you have the potential to do great things and so I'm looking forward for you to do that uh it's always the spooky wheel that gets the the oil as that's how it says it so I hope that you're not only looking at their Community but other communities are not who are not able to be here and advocate for themselves um and make sure you put that stake in that too but I honestly see that it's not your plan um take it and make it your own cuz I can see that you can do better um cuz what you have now is trash all right thank you thank you okay on this side pay attention to your name and number 11 Brian gold 12 Lori Capello 13 Linda ner H 14 Dorothy Mafi 15 Shina Williams on this side 16 Lena sadorf 17 shy Toth 18 James blasic 19 Pam Yuma 20 Tom Vasquez you may begin Lori Capello good afternoon um thank you so much for the opportunity hi um I'm really grateful that you've decided Well all of my colleagues my whole school we're grateful that you've decided to reconsider um give Olson opportunity give olssen middle another opportunity we have a leader Janet uh Jan Carly and an amazing uh Team of Administrators and teachers at our school students um are showing learning gains we are meeting the needs of our students mental Health uh we address that in our school we have Community Partnerships with the city of daa Beach and they've voiced that they're willing to invest in our school they've invested $5 million in a park our school has have had millions of dollars of enhancements and it just makes no sense to close our school enrollment is increasing um residents are moving into daa beach with families thank you so much is Brian gold here Brian gold okay Lind uh Lita can you hear me thank you for this opportunity I'm Dr L NAA um been working at Olen middle school for five years uh teaching Spanish first and now I'm the magnet coordinator so I'm very familiar with the area we've work coordinately with uh the in elementary school and sou Brower High School um I'd like to thank you for giving us the opportunity to express our concerns about the future of Olen Middle School in your plans of redefining and rep proposing our schools I'd like to start by emphasizing data which some of you know but also the community needs to know Olen Middle School is a title one school which means that students have lots of social academical emotional economic needs 63% of our student population come from other country 45% of our students population is Hispanic 24% of our students uh are ese they have multiple uh needs but they come to our community and regarding the low enrollment we keep hearing the word low enrollment but also middle school has had between 500 and 600 students over the last few years in spite of the strong D mxi 14 hello everyone y can hear me okay um I would like to say as a first year teacher here at in Middle I've experienced firsthand how genuine and how genuine care and dedication to staff and teachers have been to our students it's evident that our school Fosters a supportive environment where every student is valued and nurtured closing Olen will not only disrupt and crucial support system but also deprive our students of the caring Community they deserve and olon middle school also plays a vital role in supporting our ESC Community our school's ESC department is exceptional and it serves as one of the largest ESC populations with care and dedication closing ol would not only disrupt the education of our students but will also negatively impact the supportive environment that our parents and students cherish thank you thank you 15 Shina Williams Shina no lenina yes hi Lena sendor from Fort Lauderdale a mother of two boys at vsy an entrepreneur not a public speaker an advocate of public school education thank you for the opportunity to speak today I commend the school board for deciding to withdraw the recent proposal after recognizing its shortcomings in both preparation and lack of data of critical substance your willing willingness to listen to the community feedback reflects a commitment to our children's educational and psychological well-being which must must always be prioritized alongside fiscal obligations uh Dr he you just quoted often unpopular decisions will make Broward a beak of educ educational Excellence you said that twice actually I think four times um I'm going to challenge this notion Excellence should be exemplified by our actions and uplifting steps that impact the quality of our schools schools like vsy which consistently achieve higher ratings strong attendance diversity Equity inclusion the list goes on and on are the Cornerstone of browed success up uprooting these models of success RIS driving our families towards private education thank you so much sh to um hi thank you uh Shelley to from Olsen Middle School um just to reiterate what I've heard throughout the evening thank you very much for the reconsideration of The Proposal um I know this buys us maybe a year and it might come up again um however like everybody has said our enrollment has increased drastically since October we're one of the schools that has increased nearly 100 students that that hasn't happened I don't think in other schools um we service a very large es population as as well as English language Learners the services we provide to them are are I don't think can be fully replicated in other places for our community we are the only Middle School in daa Beach that's important it's important for the community to have a school one of my students wrote we had over 150 letters I sent you all 90 I know one of my colleagues did he stated in his letter an eighth grader wrote closing a school sends a message to the community that education is not of value that should say it all please don't close us now don't close us in the future one of the slides I saw is a concern but I'll write you an email thank you James blasic uh good evening James blogic um I have two two boys at Virginia Schuman um and Dr heurn and everyone were very very appreciative of you know removing bsy from this plan um but again it's kind of pushing it out one year you know so it's we're about saving vsy forever uh not just for one more year uh so we stand mobilized you know if this is one year from now we're in the same situation we'll be here as well um but I I think one of the more important things I saw there was in regards to Bennett and adding a montauri program there and we do stand to help them you know we do stand with Bennett to help them improve their montauri program to implement a montauri program um because we see it I didn't grow up montauri I'm I've grown up in the public school system in Florida elementary school middle school high school college as well um we're really here to help the quality of Education I didn't hear much about that I heard a lot about realigning things to get people back the quality of Education as a parent is really what I look at um and the last thing was just around transparency I think transparency in the survey methodology transparency and how things are presented thank you so much very important to us thank you no clapping um one second is paaa here okay Tom vquez good evening thank you vas as education Advocate and I've been part of the conversation uh with this uh redesign Town Hall since the beginning uh I welcome what I see here we uh I see the response and that's good we're we're off to to to the correction mode where we should be going again what uh I see the finances that's a welcome uh addition to to to what we've been doing here but now it's time to get after that public trust piece I again again take the time here to Advocate that and Echo what we've heard here we we need a seat at the table we have to set up some type of committee form so we can get it right had some other comments but I'm being inspired a little bit by what I heard over here you know education you know the root word of Education in Latin is uch it means to bring out the best from within we can't bring out the best from within in our kids if we ourselves not willing to bring out the best within us for the challenges that we Face ahead consider giving us a seat at the table and we can do do this together thank you thank you so much okay pay attention on this side Chris caner Thomas Mary fdick Joanne Fields EEG harkar over here on the right Janet gutier Patricia e jiren Powell Eric Javin and Julian Javin you may begin good evening board Madam chair Mr superintendent uh Chris caner parent um of a student here in Broward in a Hollywood resident um just want to say so thank you for listening or and hearing much of the responses especially in Hollywood for Hollywood Central Elementary um I do want to point out one thing I'm not seeing in the documentation are the is the root analysis what were the root causes that got us here and really looking at that I'm hearing some things about schools that we going to change the program but we're not real what that program is going to be that's a backwards approach to research and to data we need to go back and let the data tell us what needs to happen and what those programs need to look like my daughter just took the FSA today big day in our house right because we found out she's a level four and going on to fourth grade so real happy about that but if our focus in our home is academics then more so needs to happen at the district level to make sure we have a clear strong academic plan for moving the entire District forward in addition to repurposing these schools thank you so much thank you Thomas could you say your first and last name for the record uh yes it's uh Eric Thomas thank you uh I stand here in gratitude uh as a vsy parent uh thanking Dr hebburn and the rest of the school board uh for listening to our voices acknowledging our concerns and revising The Proposal uh we know there's a long road ahead and there's still a lot of tough decisions to be made um we at vsy uh we're here to continue shining bright and being a great example of what elementary schools can be in Broward County as well as the State of Florida um as you continue uh making decisions please keep the students best interest in the Forefront um these kids are Florida's future and one day they may they may very well carry the weight of sitting in one of your seats you know so we want them to have the best education that we can get them and also uh can you please keep giving the parents the teachers and the community members who will be affected in opportunity to share their concerns and make recommendations thank you thank you Mary fdick before I begin Joanne Fields is here and she's willing to give me her one minute is that okay can you say to save for the record I'm Joanna fields and I'd like to give Mary my minute thank you two minutes thank you I would like to start tonight by thanking the superintendent for listening to our community and for having the courage to change course addressing changing demographics is something we need to do but is something we need to do as a community it is time to take a pause and revamp or should I say redefine your process for many years there was a diagram in the boardroom at Casey Wright that showed how the system was supposed to work and at the base was the community for many years boundaries Associated boundaries and Associated issues had a process actually it's something that came out of some meetings here where uh representatives in school schools met they sent a representative to the Zone The Zone sent representatives to the areas a lot of the problems were hashed out there a lot of great ideas came forward it's a process um that was developed as I said after many night late night meetings and it gave voice a real voice to Residents clearly this process that has been in place is not worked but that's okay because you already had said you weren't going to do boundary changes till winter 2025 so you've got time um don't stick with arbitrary dates take a pause and redefine the process don't just address a few schools give all schools in the county an opportunity to be part of the redefining process just a few weeks ago a plan was released that addressed only 30 schools out of 241 and 80% of those were East to 441 the list of schools tonight uh is down to 16 of which 10 or 62.5% are located east of I95 six of the 16 or 37.5 % are located in the city of Fort Lauderdale none of this has been discussed with the city of Fort Lauderdale education Advisory board or any of our Innovation zones and by the way only onethird of your Innovation zones are impacted um and when you well there are more demographics and I'm happy to share them but I'm encouraging you tonight to take a global approach the redefining schools initiative and to include the entire public in this come up with a process that gives a real voice to the people thank you thank you so much Joanna Fields your time okay thank you EG harar harar um thank thank you very much I'd like to take my minute to thank three of you directly uh Dr heern for your transparency um and ownership of this very difficult process second Dr Zeman for representing us well to the board with your extraordinary Workshop here in Hollywood that I do believe brought forward our best concerns here lastly to to Mr fugle hly our district man who I do believe believes in the possibility of our local government and likewise our private Partnerships that can take advantage of Olen Middle School the Land There is perfect to be able to bring our community together with the sort of innovative things that you've brought together with the Boys and Girls Club my time is spent thank you Janet GTI this one I'm Janet galtieri um I'm the vice chair of the Fort Lauderdale education Advisory Board and um first thing I I wanted to say is that there was a lot of people that did not take the survey that you put out because of the misleading in um input on question four we didn't have an alternative to say none of the above uh we mentioned that at the Fort Lauderdale high school and uh we were told it was not going to be presented but I see it in the presentation that is very misleading uh at the Town Halls you asked for uh Community input rather we asked for Community input uh but to this point there hasn't been any and uh very little involvement with the community and absolutely none with the education Advisory board our mission of the education Advisory Board is to advise Fort La thank you so much Patricia no Patricia thank you next speaker [Music] can you say your name for the record Javon Powell not Jon that's a v not a r hello can you hear me now it's Javon pow not the not the giron uh I want to just say that we talk about root causes um a big part of the reason we here is Charter Schools charter schools are tuition free public schools which operate under a performance contract or Charter agreement between the governing board and the local school board I wonder what that agreement looks like when over half of the charter schools in our County are C or are lower um we're talking about closing schools but every year we have more and more money going out of our public schools to charter schools that are failing our students what does that agreement look like between our own school board and those Charter board Charter Schools it's supposed to be a performance contract they're not performing what does that contract look like I know the various contracts that I signed if I don't perform there are consequences so what does that contract look like we talk about closing schools but we say nothing about the charter schools we say nothing about anything that's taken away from our school I do give y'all credit for talking about expansion of vocational programs because that is more money that we can thank you so much is Patricia e here Eric Julian wants to speak first if that's okay um thank you for not moving my school but if you try again I'll be back thank you for coming to speak today Julian I'm Eric guys Eric okay I don't know how you top that but um so nearly uh my name is Eric uh nearly 30 years ago uh the community at vsy um started a program by planting seeds and if you look at the vsy logo it's literally a tree that says vsy in it and it's taken almost 30 years to get to what it is today and I do want to thank you guys for not uprooting what took 30 years to build and just throw it to the side uh so thank you uh to all the board members and the superintendent um so I do want to uh actually say that the Robert Lewis Stevenson said don't judge each day by the Harvest you reap by the seeds that you plant so keep that in mind when you are thinking of action now about how it's going to affect generations to come and uh lastly like I like I ended at the last meeting uh I still don't understand the North Fork no busing Choice program I still don't get it so thank you okay on this side I have latrica Latricia Greaves Michelle H Michelle Hearn Tracy caler JC s and Catherine sangera on this side Dr Warren sterman Fort laal City Commissioner shakz LaVine Dr n Lynch Walsh Gabriel Herer Linda feraro and artha Wimberly you may [Music] begin good evening Madam chair board member superintendent thank you again for coming out to the community hearing from the community and um listening to the voices it really matters a lot thank you for the new plan I appreciate it that show that you did listen um I just want to ask the board to continue to consider that children remain having stability in life because it means a lot um also make sure that Equity always stays there continue to engage our community and I also just want to point out to the board as well as Dr Heburn be mindful of policy so you can see that they they came to diversity with not a clear copy they went to DAC meeting without a clear copy they had already stricken out everything and I went there intentionally so I want to be mindful of those that's in charge of that they're not being transparent with you all thank you Dr he can someone connect with her yes Mr um tumor or Dr tumor rather thank you Michelle hi I'm Michelle Hearn parent of vsy students I have two children that are in the pre-ap program and I'm here to say first of all thank you thank you for listening to us thank you for taking the time I think that's very important um my second point is I do see the revisions but it's more of the 30,000 foot view right when do we drill down into the details that's what the community is really looking for and then thirdly is really engaging the community truthfully not just talking about it but also doing the walk that's pretty much it thank you for your time thank you Tracy hi Tracy cler City of Hollywood commissioner for District 3 thank you Madame chair Schoolboard members and our new superintendent Dr Hein first I would like to thank Dr Zeman for attending the city of Hollywood's impromptu meeting last Thursday night thank you Vice chair Debbie Hixon for always being accessible and willing to listen and talk to our concerns while providing Direction and fighting the fight in such a diplomatic way for all of our constituents on behalf of the residents of Hollywood I want to thank mayor levy my fellow commissioner and the City of dya commission for stepping up and providing Positive Solutions finding our correspondents for all of our community schools and the entire County we are all in this together let's not forget that granted our meeting was a Rea was reactive instead of pro proactive that over 200 attendees from OGD Elementary and olon students parents and teachers and leaders attended let's not let this rhetoric happen again our concerns and your concerns next speaker uh good evening my name is j stornetta and I'm a VY parent clearly with a blue shirt um my son Brendan is able to go to vsy um due to the fact that it is school choice um I'd like to thank our superintendent and board members um for not only listening to every single parent at the Town Hall at Fort Lauderdale but for also hearing us hearing what kind of a program it is um what kind of a culture it is and for not breaking this program um we hope that you can look uh work with the community to create new programs and perhaps replicate programs for schools that are in need and again we're all here to help in any way we can um I would also like to note that many of us did not complete the survey due to the fact that we did not have the option to pick neither option one or option two thank you Katherine sangera hello I'm Katherine sangera and I'm the proud Reading Coach at Virginia Schuman Young Elementary as well as a parent of three students at vsy I'd like to thank Miss Leonardi Dr hurn and everyone for listening to us um with all of our concerns with moving vsy as a Reading Coach I'm always asking the teachers to look at the data and thank you for looking at the data and seeing that this decision did not make sense uh especially on behalf of the staff I would like to thank you because we feel like we have been listened to and we feel this makes us feel appreciated for all the hard work that we put into that the parents have so graciously pointed out to you um in our monaster classrooms we often use the phrase a role model and talk a lot about being a positive influence and using peers as mentors to support students that need it both academically and socially so I would ask you to allow us as a vsy community to be a mentor to St schools that are in need thank you see what we're doing Fort Lauderdale City Commissioner Dr Warren Sturman one minute I'll be quick okay thank good evening Commissioners my name is uh commissioner Dr Warren Sturman it's Fort Lo City Commissioner District 4 uh my four children attended harbordale Elementary I was part of their HSA PTA served as Vice President part of the Innovation Zone and our education advisory harbordale is a wonderful school it serves our neighborhood and I'm glad you removed it from the proposed changes tonight there are six forlo schools proposed for redefining as for those six schools I would ask the same thing for harbell work with the community the schools Innovation zones and our our Fort lale advisory meets this Thursday and we'll see the plan for the first time I'll be presenting an agenda item for next week please give our community in Fort Lauderdale the opportunity to be part of this thank you very much thank you next speaker all right my name is squarus LaVine uh I'm a parent of a student at OLS I work at Olen I'm a resident of daa Beach and I just feel like I appreciate you guys giving us another year but I think some things should be taken into consideration we only have one Middle School in O in daa Beach 's been around for 70 years it's all we have in D Beach so if you take that away from us we have nothing also I think if you are going to turn Hollywood Beach into the K through 8 you should make all the the residents of dang Beach and their children to oen because we're going to lose enrollment numbers when you do that and I think that's why you got to help us out man the city's willing to help us everybody's willing to help us all we need is you guys on board thank you Linda Ferrara giving my minute to Natalie Lynch Natalie Lynch Walch two minutes good evening Dr Natalie Lynch Walsh chair of the district's facilities task force and member since 2011 and chair of the district's audit committee um let's be clear to the public this is not a plan and I don't care whose plan it is it's a series of ideas that are half baked at best and so I'm going to agree with my colleague the chair of the the diversity committee Miss nni Pierre Grant it isn't hard decisions that I'm afraid of God knows I'm not afraid of anything hard it's ill-informed bad decisions that keep me up at night and that's what this is so absolutely pump the brakes because some of the things on the docket for tonight Bennett why are you trying to put a program into Bennett you know more than half the seats need to be demolished and replaced which will cost at least 50 million I believe only a 100 of the students live in boundary pump the brakes you don't need to put a program into Bennett you need to think about phase two that you've known about since the 20th of October in 2020 Phase 2 just never happened and this is the problem when staff doesn't give you the full story and when you you shop unvetted ideas out to the public and bypass things like the long range facility master plan steering committee the oversight committee the facili task force the diversity committee DAC and anybody else that would actually be able to tell you what's true versus whatever staff is cobbling together remember you just lost a facilities Chief uh who didn't know which end was up either North Fork why are you trying to make that a full Choice School you need to demolish building one the goal of this exercise is to reduce the square footage not look for new reasons and pray and wish cast that you'll make up some student students Broward to States how many times have we said consolidate Brower to States and yet that's not happening either really really bad ideas that are happening in this plan thank you so much good evening artha Wimberly speaking all the schools she mentioned service majority minority underserved populations I believe that if you knew 64 years after Ruby Bridges was forced to take a test to prove she could have a chance for an equal public education some black boys are still being called monkeys and others are being told that they have a virus that makes them gay or that they don't belong at the school their parents chose with staff encouraging some students to pursue a more traditional option not related to academic abilities but social interaction you would be inclined to redefine I believe that 117 years after the first school opened in Broward Broward County for black children if you witness a young black girl being shown an image of a black youth picking cotton as a joke that she was told she was overreacting when a teacher makes sexually explicit jokes and shuns her because she is uncomfortable in her class and when a classmate tells her that he will kill her that she is exaggerating and expected to stay in the same class with him with no reassurance that his anger towards her was imagined that you would redefine I believe that you saw if you saw a mother cry because her child was placed on suicide watch after reporting harassment and bullying next speaker is there Gabriel hermer can i p this down I'm good than consideration byee NOP okay thank you okay that's the end of our speakers Miss leonardy yeah thinkk can you okay thank you um and I first want to start off by thanking everyone who is engaged with us during this process um who's come to the town halls uh throughout you know the last few months it's really important that we hear you hear your voices but it's also important that we continue to hear from you and I just want to highlight um I Heard multiple parents tonight say that they want to continue to provide feedback and be a part of this process um and I think it's really important that we do that intentionally moving forward um I have a few questions um from the the Inception of this process months ago did we visit uh sack sacks at our schools The District staff consult with Sac committees Dr heurn as far as the beginning of the process I wasn't directly involved and I know we had a shift in Personnel um throughout that process with um Mr Allan stra SP task assigned I want to say probably about two or three months ago so I can't I I can't speak to if sex were were involved okay can I mean is anyone aware of who the groups that we consulted with Dr heern any any um of Staff Dr wer or Mr Strauss if you're aware Valerie wano um so I wasn't directly involved either but to answer your question Miss Leonardi I do not believe individual School advisory councils were involved okay um what about our different Innovation zones Dr heer the only Innovation zones um meetings that I'm aware of are the recent Town Halls that we just had okay so where we presented the information to them but we didn't go to them proactively and no and then before that it was the three um Community conversation meetings right and I I want to preface this with Dr wanza I know you were not leading this effort um I think if you were it would be different um and in same with you Dr heurn so this is not an attack on either of you individually um I just I think it's important for moving forward that we consider these things um do you does anyone know if we visited any Civic associations Dr hurn yes and I'm pretty sure when Zoe um Saunders was doing the work earlier she visited some Civic associations okay um our ptas were our ptas contacted at individual schools Dr heer Mr St you want to add so if is it okay Dr hmar go ahead okay um so miss Leonardi um to the best of our by knowledge that there there may have been some conversations at advisories not all of the advisories um and I know that looking at just from doing calendars that there were conversations like mayor's round taes and a couple of other large groups like that but there were no individual conversations you know with individual schools with individual communities to do any type of initial um Grassroots or you know community outreach we're starting what are your thoughts right um and I think I think you can see where I'm going with this like you know our ptas faith groups City education advisory boards we heard mentioned um all of our advisories um even our sgas and BCC like were the those students consulted about any or or did we solicit feedback from them Dr urn in the initial part of this not that I'm aware of got it okay um so I think there are some lessons to be learned for moving forward um just over three years ago when I had recently joined the board um some staff had asked for a meeting with me and presented this idea of you know closing the monory magnet at vsy and moving it to Bennett and just over three years ago then I said it was a bad idea and when it was proposed to me this year I said it was a bad idea um I am very pleased that the superintendent you know heard the community feedback um heard my feedback uh and has revised the plan accordingly and I think it took courage and character to do that um and I I heard someone say tonight you know they feel heard and I think that's a lot of what our community is looking for um I again I hope that we've learned some important lessons from how we've gone about this process I think we've once again done things top down as opposed to soliciting input from our community that has important historical knowledge has a lot of knowledge about um their each and individual schools that we really could benefit from um and I I think it's very important as we move forward that this process process starts and ends with the community um two three more questions we talked about a programmatic change at Bennett Elementary have we consulted with or have we gotten feedback from the PTA at Bennett from our our employees at Bennett the administration at Bennett about that Dr heer yes so that's going to be part of the next steps um as we go into this what we call the transition or planning year I know we've heard from the public about the specifics and details around programs at specific schools that's part of our next step in going out to the community um really talking to faculty and staff really talking to community members to really leverage their Insight of what they want to see in those schools uh we have some options that we can present um and they can give feedback on those options plus uh probably learning more from the community about specific uh innovating programs they want to see in addition to some of the options we may present to them when we go back out right um and again I I would just really urge staff to not go to them and say this is happening but you know what what would you what are you interested in seeing what would bring students into this school um something that was raised to me and I was aware of this but I think it's a very important part of the conversation that's been missing about a lot of these schools um at Bennet there is a very large ESC cluster um with a programmatic change what happens with those students Dr urn thank you so we understand the complexity of the students there and so we're already looking at what possibilities if they actually stay at the school I've been talking to our ESC executive director and talking about how do we include um our ESC populations as far as inclusion opportunities for full choice or or specific innovating programs at a school and also making sure uh we're meeting their needs if it's not at that school we'll identify a school to actually meet their needs when it comes to an i AP but also focused on inclusion opportunities too and I think another theme for me at least throughout this process has been disruption right and we we it is not good for kids to disrupt their educational experience um so I would ask that we not disrupt especially our most marginalized communities in this process um I since the question was raised and we can't do back and forth during public comment um you know someone asked where are these projections coming from the projected numbers coming from if you could if someone could speak to that yes I'll have Mr Strauss and The Sims team um address that [Music] so in regards anything specific or just in general so like I think what what people we looking for was you know that we have these projections that certain a certain number of students are going to come back to certain schools or or some schools are going to see a decline um can you talk a little bit about the methodology behind that right so when we looked at each of the different recommendations and the zones and as you notice that I'll give you the for instance on the first set with Silver Shores and Pines Middle the projection is 15 and 25% where at the Hollywood Central is higher at 50 and 75% because what we're looking at is what percentage of our students in that area attend charter schools and also based off of certain information that we know like I utilize the in Hollywood Central we have 75 out of 330 students that attend our schools so there's 20 50 plus students that are attending not our schools are attending charter schools so we have a large population of students that we can attract to our schools so therefore in the Hollywood Central Plus in listening to the community who is asking in 5 years ago for the K8 bound within their boundary we believe the demand is very high for them to return back to our Traditional School setting away from the charter and there's some Charters right around the school so therefore for that example the projection is much higher for the other two projections at um Silver Shores and Pines Middle and then also the one in the central part of the county of the North Fork it's a lot lower because once again some of those schools are attending Charter some are attending private schools and I don't feel that the demand might be the same because we heard from the community in the Hollywood Central area where here we haven't necessarily heard fully from the Community but we also know that full school choice is an attractive option in the three Community conversations that we had and even in the town halls the demand for full school choice was very strong within the feedback so we feel that we're definitely going to Garner back students I just did not put the same value because like I said in the Hollywood Central um situation it was something that was born out of the residents there okay um just to to speak to that you know and we've heard from parents tonight talking about um you know not necessarily like grade configuration changes making that a more desirable school to send their kids to they talked about academic Excellence um and I think Dr heer and you and I have talked about the importance of there is there are excellent academics in our schools and we don't do a good job of communicating that out and you and I have talked about you know in increasing our marketing of our schools sending our school leadership out to festivals and things like that um you know I know the principal at Apollo uh has knocked on doors and sent postcards to the community to bring kids back and so I think we really need to outside of talking about boundary changes and things like that look at the best practices of the principes and the Educators at our schools that are increasing enrollment and do those things replicate those things um the last uh had one more question I can't remember oh someone in the audience brought up the performance of charter schools and who gets to hold those schools accountable um because I mean as a teacher I've experienced you know students coming to me in the middle of the school year um from a charter school not having received the services that they they needed um who gets to hold the those schools accountable for not performing Dr urn yes so initially the state holds those schools accountable just like they hold us accountable for accountability measures um often times what you see with students that are coming back they're dissatisfied with the level of Education they've receed up to a certain point maybe first semester second semester and you'll see them come back in some instances the perform if the state uh accountability system is so low um and the the charter schools continue to have a a low grade dnf uh reoccurring we start taking action and uh revoking their Charter got it thank you um so again just to reiterate as we move forward um it is very important that we go to the communities first they know their schools best they know their communities best and if we do that I think we can make a lot of these tough decisions with Community buyin um and we will have the data and information to support those decisions um and again I just want to thank everyone for engaging with us in this process I know it's not how you want to necessarily spend a Tuesday night um but we really really value your input um and I'm glad that this is the recommendation you know however flawed it may be um that we are taking a bit of a pause to to look at things in an informed way um and I I will just one last ending note we really need a facilities uh needs assessment done um I think you know we heard from a grand jury report that that that's important um I'll just leave it at that thank you m lardy on the three bullet points the last one with the Surplus technology and Support Services Center Annex for sale um yeah thank you for flagging that um I you know I think it's important that we lease property but I I support the superintendent's recommendation with a saleor lease but I I would lean towards leasing thank you thank you Mr allson thank you uh Madam chair uh thank you again to all of the uh members of the community uh who came out tonight uh your comments uh were spot on I know many of us uh received your emails um text messages faxes I think we still get those um and different ways that you all communicate uh in the community so thank you for that um Mr Strauss uh thank you sir um you were given a very tough assignment um but you delivered so I do want to uh make that uh Point publicly um because I know that you were thrown into this um to present both to the community and to the board so thank you also Mr superintendent and staff so I want to be very clear for those sitting behind uh because I know it's a very tough assignment uh that many of you all inherited uh from from one uh I think mutually separated leader uh to now a new superintendent of schools so I do want to make that comment uh clear for the public Miss Wimberly you made some comments and I think I wrote a note down I do want to make one other point uh there's still some black males uh that are called boys um so I wanted to make that comment which is still unfortunate uh both in 2023 2024 uh for many people that we know in this District uh so I want to make that comment which is still unfortunate today Mr superintendent uh this plan uh barely meets my personal objective Mr superintendent the spirit of the original motion which I vividly recall as I'm looking across the deis um does not meet that original Spirit but as I've said to you you presented a plan that I believe may get five votes which was very very astute you absolutely listened um I do recall our late Friday evening conversation um and I reflected after the posting and said wow I think he listened uh maybe to Me Maybe to the community maybe to many individuals so I want to point that out to you now that I've said that let me Focus uh back on the process okay so in my view um for this one board member um this plan is not bold enough for this one board member um it's not transformative for what I know Broward schools can be and I know that you were dealt a hand that we talked about and I'm going to talk about it now so many of my colleagues who reached out from Duvall schools Hillsboro schools Miami Dade schools elat schools many school districts have been watching what we were doing Mr superintendent as I'm sure you and staff know if you were looking for a Statewide bold model and plan to close and repurpose schools we can do more and we can do better because the school board can do it you did part one Mr superintendent the school board should do part two but let me point something out board members need courage and I'm going to point out a quote that really caught me by surprise but actually it didn't because it was a similar sentiment that I predicted almost a year ago quote it's difficult to make real big changes at a time when everyone is out campaigning so it may make sense to take two years of change and do it all next year if that's the Baseline for Broward County Public Schools leadership shame on this board enrollment down number of schools too many general fund dollars in the toilet does this plan fully address those issues it's now with the board I've seen the timeline it's going to come back to us in June superintendent did part one is now for nine elected or appointed members to get it right Madam chair do I support reconfigurations Academic Enhancement for all schools the same thing as I said several workshops ago of course I think we all do do I support being smart about our real estate portfolio of course I think we all do that's not why we're here I hope they pull the tape from the same meeting I said months ago weeks ago the recommendation before the board and to the public in my view it's wasted my time it's wasted the district's money and the hope that I had for this board is lower today than it was a year ago because I do recall the motion that was made and I'm hopeful because I'm an optimist that a majority of this board will do the right thing in June because it's with the board now many of you in the community were spoton the initial data points that were presented to me and my colleagues I'm only speaking for this one board member clearly targeted black and brown communities clearly the initial data that I saw clearly targeted South County Schools more than any other actually let me be clear Southeast Southwest the data clearly targeted the I95 Corridor that many of us know very very well and I think Miss fdick and others pointed that out the initial Zone selected made no sense at all we've all seen the color coding we've just picked some random colors I believe on some random zones I believe targeting random communities I believe what happened to the countywide approach to redefining our schools so let's talk big picture now let me get into some questions for the team will we realize the full Savings of this plan in year one Mr superintendent Dr no not the first year Mr superintendent I think I heard from the community um no one has seen a full Communications plan that will bring back children I guess next year I don't even I'm assuming based on this recommendation have we started that bring back brow County Public School students next year plan I don't even know what the plan is called drer so we're in currently in the development phases of that plan and it won't take effect this upcoming school year it will take effect the following school year okay so let me also follow up on another Point um the most glaring piece of information that's missing and I think I made this point several workshops ago and you will recall how does this plan improves student outcomes and getting us to 100% proficiency of all students I think I recall that that's been the Visionary goal post for the board the Visionary goal post of making sure all of our children are at and above grade level how does this plan do that so I would say this plan addresses a chunk of that um so we're taking a a bite-sized piece out of a overall countywide plan that we're about to embark on for phase two so I want to make that clear um this is just a small bite of that L large Apple that we're going to have to uh consume um so with this initial plan it does bring some Revenue back to the district it does uh create some new opportunities for for Innovation and address an academic needs but not districtwide more so for those specific schools and within those Innovation zones so just to follow up the specific schools that you're targeting or that you've stated do you have the data uh or will the board see the data that moves that shows us today here is where all students are versus with the changes that are being proposed here is where we believe students will be yes we can produce that okay we'll have that before the am I ready okay yes thank you Mr superintendent so let me keep moving on because again the academic piece is the most important let me jump to kind of another set of questions and this is around the finances uh and I appreciate uh the projections around uh what happens if we get 100% of our expectations of the plan how is the general fund impacted by uh the recommendation Dr hurn I said the general fund is impacting uh with additional Revenue not realized in the first year but will be realized in multiple years um for instance you have a one or two schools where it will grow per couple of grade levels a year so that's how you would gain some additional revenue for those specific schools in those specific areas okay let me jump to slide I believe six or eight depending what number uh we're looking at and I know this board loves to survey Mr superintendent and I think you've heard of your board uh that I believe likes to survey so the question that we presented was do you prefer the superintendent consideration or total District realignment 78% of those surveyed let me add sounds like they said they support your consideration what was that connected to so I was this is an acknowledgement for the public um like we said earlier we learned some lessons throughout this town hall and of course this learning from our surveys and how we surveyed individuals and questions is a concern of ours that will that will improve the next time but we didn't hold it against you CU if I actually utilize this survey in its value right now I will be presenting the plan that we presented to the public thank you for sharing that let me ask uh kind of one of the leading kind of last questions last points and then I'll yield so you reference round two I know we talked about it um and I think you referenced it here so the next phase of redefining schools will this be a countywide approach are we going to Focus just on I believe the five Innovation zones that were originally targeted are we looking uh at all schools what is what's the starting place for round two so this this will be a countywide approach uh we will be engaging every corner of this of this District intimate conversations from the micro level all the way to the macro level we'll be presenting information that's specific to communities about their specific problems for some communities they have an abundance of students the problem is not declining enrollment uh so so we need to figure out how do we bring students back for from those options that they're taking advantage of that's not BCPS for other corners of the district there is declining enrollment I mean we will bring those problems to the community potential Solutions and work with them to come to a consensus about what works best for those communities and for some instances there will be school closures um because it has to be we have too many seats in certain corners of of the of the district um that we have to address because we can't continue to operate the way we we are currently got it so you believe there should be school closures I know there are none uh in the superintendent's recommendation but the board can actually make its recommendation at the June uh meeting uh so is it your expectation a year from now in the round two of redefining schools when campaigning is over um that you believe at that point I think we'll probably be another year away from campaigning season because I think campaigns are continuous for those of who understand uh political Cycles so is my assumption that because there's no closing of schools now in campaign season uh for maybe members that are campaigning that a year from now you believe that you'll be able to get uh the board uh at that point uh to have the courage to close schools yes I I'm definitely encouraged that we will be able to present that campaign season or no campaign season as I I I uh for board members I think there's always something going on so that's not the the the variable I'm concerned with the variable I'm concerned with is what I heard loud and ch clear there's been a lack of transparency there's been a lack of community engagement there's been a lack of uh just really embracing the community and going out and having real discussions about our problems and how we can solve those problems together um making sure everybody's at the table please go like this thank you making sure everybody's at the table um as I said before we we won't agree on everything um there's going to be some tough and unpopular decisions that we have to make in the future but I want to make sure that we're transparent as possible and we're engaging the community in each step of that process so I'll close with this and I appreciate our back and forth Mr superintendent um as I mentioned up front staff you did an amazing job um from one separated uh leader um to now the new superintendent Mr superintendent I think you listened uh to the board uh based on uh comments that you heard from a majority of the board um but I also believe uh it is now with the board at its June meeting uh to do the right thing and and we very clearly laid out more than a year ago very clear objectives one we wanted to address uh that I believe the enrollment number that I believe from 23 24 to 2425 is which is close to 3,000 students I know we haven't heard that data point I don't know what this plan does to that we also talked about uh decreasing the footprint of schools uh we talked about uh increasing both the general fund and the capital uh Reserve fund uh so I'm not losing sight of that the biggest piece which is what the second question I think I propos to you is the academic side I want to make sure that this plan increases learning outcomes and the proficiency rates for our students I haven't heard that uh but I'm hopeful uh when I see the data that I will actually see that uh from this plan and uh what the board uh information presents the board and last point I'll make is Mr superintendent although we started with a big subset of schools I think we landed down to three um schools considered for closures I would prefer to see because you all have the data I don't you're the subject matter experts because I think you believe there should be some school closures so I would love to know what those uh schools are who they are um I'd love to know maybe the rationale for why some of the same points uh that we have been talking through um understanding how and or why uh certain schools should be closed because I don't like that this is kicking the can down the road I've been the anti- Kick the Can down the road um and unfortunately uh this plan as presented uh will put this board in that posture won't be me um but I believe uh that that is information you should share to the board thank you Mr allson can you weigh in on um if you're agreeing to Surplus the technology and Support Services Center I said yes uh so let me actually me well let me be clear um it's not an easy yes no because I think the bigger question is that we haven't talked about and I know there are several other lines on the slide that I've looked at we haven't talked about uh a piece of property that I brought to the board um that I know we've talked about publicly um I haven't heard any discussion on that um I know that we've talked about as I'm pointing in the back uh another piece of property that staff has been working on in my district uh with the town of Southwest Ranches we hav talked about that uh Madam chair so respectfully uh I think what the board should be talking about if we're not talking about anything else on slide 24 then I think before I answer yes no which I think I have an initial answer you know what is the overall District's purpose and intent right is it only solely to increase funds in one Reserve account a is it to reshuffle staff from one building to another right B are we looking to utilize current schools that we have not recommended for closures are we now recommending moving staff from certain places to these School sites so there are a series of questions that we really haven't answered today so I appreciate the question Madam chair I have an initial answer but I think the overall strategy we haven't talked about at least I haven't heard um and now we have a new superintendent I believe I think that's what the board said at its last uh meeting Madam uh counsel right we have one superintendent I believe but we'll talk about that another Point um so I just want to be clear um that you know I want to hear the full strategy from you as a new superintendent what is the intent and then I'll answer the question yep so yeah so if you could speak to slide 24 yes so the attent of that question is not just about uh tssc Annex it's what we want to start with so um the board can opine and come to a consensus about all of the properties um if it's two or three if it's all um for the tsscc annex um it was all of the above that you just mentioned um we have the ability to move staff out of that building right now um and place them in other areas around the district um it has the opportunity to to uh increase our Capital reserves if we sell it um it's also one of the few properties on this list that is that does not have the designation of an educational facility um it is um one of say designated as office space multi level uh which we can get more money for we don't have to go through the burden of working with the cities and the county to change the zoning uh right now so it's one of the easiest things to work on and push forward quicker than the rest of the properties which we'll have to go through additional steps to possibly change zoning and and um uh get our get the top dollar that we can for for the other properties Madam chair if I could so how many staff is it around 40 is that the number I recall how many no but what's the actually back what is the number of Staff uh that will be re repurposed redesigned shifted transferred 32 I was close Okay I recall all right so 40 um you like that yeah sorry um is this the only recommended item that's highlighted in green yes is highlighted because this is the one we want to potentially start with because it doesn't have the hurdles of the rest got it okay so you're only looking for an answer on that okay yes I'm fine with that okay thank you Mrs Hixon thank you um first I'd like to say thank you to the community at vsy um I think we are going to hold you to the energy that you have um brought forth you are an energized community and we need you to help us get other communities energized so um thank you for the volunteering to do that and I promise that we will take you up on that um also want to thank the Olsen Community for coming out my dad was a teacher at Olsen for 33 years I went to Olen both of my children went to Olen so Olsen is very um dear to me as well so I know that it is awesome Olsen and I thank you for coming out to share your your experiences um I would say that Mr Austin had Austin had a lot of really good points and I think as a board what we need to do is give better direction to the superintendent as to what the ultimate goal is because is it to get more students into the district or is it to reduce our footprint it might be its hybrid but I don't think we were really clear in the direction that we gave initially um and I know that people will say we're kicking the can down the road because it's a certain time of year but I feel like we were driving the bus off a cliff and I would much rather be kicking the can down the road and making sure we have a solid plan that makes sense I don't think it ever makes sense to do everything all at one time because I use this um sporting example all the time if you play all the sports at once you're going to be good at one of them and you're going to be mediocre at the rest of them so you have to be um intentional and do it right and do it in phases so I I appre appreciate very much the superintendent slowing it down not slamming on the brakes but slowing it down I do believe that we have to work towards getting more students 50,000 seats are empty if we're lucky enough to get half of those back we still have 25,000 seats that are not filled and I think that we need to look at reducing our footprint so regardless of what time of year it is I still stand true to asking the district in the superintendent to look at how we reduce our footprint um on that I would say you know based on the conversations that we've had at the Town Halls I've heard a number of things so besides what is in the plan with the superintendent has brought forth to us I think we have to look at some other things because we can change the programming at schools we can change the grade configuration but if we don't look at some of these other things people are still not coming back so first I heard communication we are not communicating well I heard we are not transparent and the community does not trust us that we have poor customer service in some places that the safety of our students especially in middle school is concerning and why a lot of people don't send their students to Brower County Public Schools and I will indicate that that doesn't mean active Shooters it means safety on a daily basis fighting um bullying things of that nature I've been asking about our countywide bullying um policy or Mark or you know what our plan is to be able to combat that um and I think we still need to work on it um as was mentioned earlier marketing once we figure out how to repair some of those concerns how are we rolling that out to the people in the community so that they do know that their children will be safe that they we do have good customer service um which all falls into marketing and communication so I would say that um oh and then the last thing I heard mostly was um financial responsibility so we can put great programs in we can have the best academics that are available to students which is what I think we all strive for but if we don't work on our customer service and our safety in our schools I don't think people are still are going to come back regardless so I think it's really important that that is part of this plan along with whatever it is we're deciding to do with the schools um because it all goes together um I have a couple of questions on there so Pines Middle School the projection or the Hope was to have 490 students can you explain where that number came from and I mean I've been to Pines Middle School it's a pretty big school 490 seems like a really small number what is the capacity for Pines Dr urn Mr Strauss Sims team thank you the capacity of Pines Middle is right about 1700 students so why where did the 490 come from so so the 490 came from right now they have a little over about 630 students and so the 490 as I said as you transition into the 9th 10th 11 12th grade the expectation is anywhere from 80 to 100 students per grade level of the 9th through 12th which will get you anywhere from 320 to 400 additional students and then we also believe that in the m in the actual Middle School portion of it we will attract back students into their in the range of about 80 to 100 students so combine it equals about 490 and that's just the initial projection As you move forward it might be a much higher but we wanted to be very conservative okay so that 490 is an addition to the 600 the 630 so it be over a thousand it would be over it would be right at 1100 students okay still 600 or so under correct yeah okay um the next question I have is because this has come up a number of times in terms of selling things if we were to sell Casey Wright building where would that money go Dr hurn M Martin [Music] I forgot they don't have any [Music] there as required um it goes in the capital reserve property sales go to Capital so what can we use that money for I don't have the entire Statute in front of me but we can use it to purchase renovate maintain facilities we can use it to um buy and Lease buses and computer uh Hardware software we can pay out property insurance uh with that money okay thank you but it can't be used towards salaries the only Sal it can be used for his maintenance staff okay thank you very much and um Dr heurn if we were to sell kcw where would the people go back bur yeah and we will have to put them in other repurpose space other repurpose schools one of the original plans was to um possibly use some of osen middle um possibly use some of uh Plantation Middle but we have some schools that have additional space um but if we were to close a school that could house all of that staff that would be the the main um strategy we we use okay thank you um so I would say I again want to reiterate I think we should be striving towards getting more students into our district um with the help of our amazing um community members here and also online um and we also need to reduce our footprint uh that may look like closing schools in some places but I would say I don't think we look at closing schools and selling that land because in 10 years down the road we may need it back and we won't be able to afford it so I would say looking at leasing it partnering with as I've mentioned to you um in the conversation I know the county has some grant money for for the homeless um transition period or you know transition while they're trying to to find a place for them and they have money but no space and I would love to see us partner with them and ask them to please prioritize our homeless population to be able to stay there and places um so that would be you know an example of how we could lease and partner with the county because they have money and no real estate so I'm I'm for closing schools where it needs to be but not selling the property I would rather lease it so we still have it in place but the properties that are on the page that don't have school buildings on them if it makes sense to sell them I would be okay with selling them and repur purposing or re or moving them relocating them to schools because I think it's important for our staff members our District staff to be in a school and see what happens there on a daily basis I think sometimes they're kind of far from what that looks like and you know I think it would be good for them to be able to be close and sometimes when you need to remember your why as we've been you know talking about here and when you can wander around and uh and look at students it reminds you of of what the why is I think that is um the main thing I would also again I you know appreciate that there's a phase one and that there's going to be a phase two also would like to reiterate that I think it's important for us to look at what a district charter school would look like in a place where it's um where it would work to give a unique program and that it makes sense in the community but I I agree that we need to spend time more intimately um where people are in order to have these conversations and make sure that what we're providing makes sense for the community for their academics and for whatever the community needs might be in that area but we we spend a lot of time on adult Behavior but we don't spend a lot of time on academics and I really think that um we have to as a board start working our way back to talking only about academics and not so much about adult Behavior so thank you so much and you're okay with the Surplus and the technology and support services as I said any of them on that page are fine where there's a place that doesn't have a school but where there is a school my preference would be to lease those properties not sell them okay Dr Zeman thank you chair um couple people mentioned uh meeting we had uh down in Hollywood uh that was a a dialogue uh with some wonderful people not just people from Olen and oakd um who didn't get the notice they should have gotten about being potentially closed ahead of their Town Hall um I really enjoyed that engagement uh I enjoyed the the all the town halls but I particularly enjoyed the ones where for three hours we could actually talk uh and I hope uh that was as useful for you as it was for me during those talks I was very candid I hope I always am and one of those topics that come up is campaigns that's a real thing so we're going to have to get over that my principal point that I made over and over at that meeting and all other meetings and every opportunity to talk to the media was about economics I've emphasized if we want to eliminate the say do Gap where we say one thing and continue to do another it is inevitable that Broward County will close schools we have to get off this ride where we continue to spend money on resources that don't get us to our strategic goal this board is committed to being an a district when are we going to start taking the steps that will get us there this is one of them so tonight I am going to make some suggestions about what we can add to this list because we need to spend all our money on what we say we want to do which is be an a district and to realize the potential of all children in this County and I mean all children at our schools every kid goes in on July 25th a year ago 10 months ago this school board directed The repurposing of at least five schools by July of 2024 two months from now we have to be honest in 10 months we have not made 10 months of progress we have not met Broward County's standards of performance I heard that from every speaker uh that that we have heard from we we didn't meet the mark chair has the school board made any decisions about closing schools yet Dr heer no sir thank you um I'm trying to reiterate that the superintendent's recommendations to this board will motivate a decision by this board and I don't want anyone to be confused about that uh we will stand uh before voters and before our neighbors and our colleagues and defend the decisions that we make but but it will be a Schoolboard decision according to Florida Statutes tonight I have to be very clear that we missed one big thing we didn't Define the problem as Miss Hixon said uh in her own way the problem is that primarily due to declining birth rates we are over capacity and under resource we have 54,000 unused seats and every year it grows by 4,300 seats on the funding side the national average is $122,800 per student this year we're at $8,900 we're almost $4,000 short of the national average don't be surprised when the National Education Association shows us 50th in teacher pay when we're 33% behind the nation in terms how much money the state gives us for Education it's time to wake up Florida we don't fund education here and when we don't fund it we cannot pay teachers what they are really do the current plan is based on flawed logic it was not built from the community up and it doesn't address the core problem we are overc capacity and underresourced in each one of these recommendations I will look at and I'll see does it decrease capacity and does it increase money that we can spend on teaching and learning and if it doesn't I'm going to ask my colleagues why would we even think about it where was the plan that started with the problem we're overc capacity underresourced we have to shed campuses eventually if we don't do some now when are we going to do it and the scale of that is 30 40 campuses minimum if you want us to offer great education to your children and create the Broward County of tomorrow you want us to close campuses and you want us to spend that money educating your students we're acting like Kodak when digital cameras came out they thought everybody wanted crisp film and great colors and what they wanted was digital prints that they could post online we can't be Kodak we must end the insanity we have to be crystal clear too though Brower County public schools has huge strengths we're in the right places we pay our teachers better than any schools in Broward County we have the scope to do programs better than any others and our system takes all kids and that's what Broward County needs we must adapt to build a thriving successful system I also think we have the best teachers in Broward County Bar None these projects in this brief are not based on Research analysis or any form of best practice modeling more importantly though look at the numbers Broward this says that we might save $12.8 million in 3 or four years our declining enrollment by that time will have cost us150 million what problem do you want to work on we're over capacity we're underresourced the more people we win back the more resources we get for the campuses that we have left we can't just make assumptions about 15 25 75% win back of charters in public schools we have to do analysis that passes the Broward standards I don't support many of the superintendent recommendations and chair I'm not sure how you want to go through all of them but um please let me know uh on your specific questions uh you asked us to opine on these things but before I do I want to ask about following the process that we' started with all the town halls it was incredibly useful for our audience and for the community and for schools to be thought about in an innovation zones so that you know if you take Hollywood creating Hollywood centrals K through 8 makes it uh more advantageous analytically to close an olssen middle school or one of the other middle schools because you're growing a 6 through seven while at the same time uh you're shuttering another one at some point what I'd suggest is that we have recommendations back to to us on June 18th within Innovation zones so we can look at it and say uh this system works or this system doesn't because Innovation zones are really the subsystem or the ecosystem of Education so that's what I would ask us to do so that we can look at the pros and cons of each one of these options most of them I do not uh uh support and there are some that I'd like to hear I'd like to add to the list the closure of the next five schools North Fork Elementary School one Elementary School in Hollywood Hallandale South Broward Innovation Zone one Elementary School in Pembrook Pines Pines Middle School and Sunland Park Academy for us to do our job we have to find schools that are low enrollment low performance and for which the demographers say there is no more growth coming in those areas closing this number of schools is no risk to Broward County and yet it gets us to close the S du Gap regarding property sales we are overc capacity and underresourced so you should sell everything you don't need we need the money to educate that's our job and so if we can sell anything and convert that money to Capital expenditures which do help us educate uh students uh through providing better facilities better Labs better buildings my God we need some better buildings uh we certainly need them to look better and that money would come in great hand in hand to uh to win back our students so yes I'm in favor of tscc I'm in favor of everything on on that list I want to work with the municipalities to eliminate the deed restrictions so we can get a higher price for them uh but I also would like to suggest that we need to hear back on five uh school closings for the 25 26 year chair is there anything else that uh you need that I missed I'm sorry if I did no that was great thanks chair Dr he can you repeat the five yes sir North Fork Elementary School one Elementary School in the Hollywood Hallandale South priority Innovation Zone there's seven right now which is the first to close I think that two will close there eventually Pembrook Pines Elementary School one of them there's four they're they're virtually contiguous they're dramatically under enrolled and uh there's ways to make the three remaining schools world class schools maybe even by fencing the savings from the fourth School uh for the other three for the next 5 years or so p Middle School dramatically under enrolled 34% uh might be a great place for headquarters and Sunland Park Academy a school uh that has done great things but is not the right size for us to maintain we have to sometimes look at things and just say uh that would be a great number of students to enroll who are doing great academically in a school like th Good Marshall and on an on uh our headquarters building I am at my very core d opposed to government agencies working in glitzy buildings it's called a Crystal Palace and it has been since the Daye was born we tried to sell it 1998 and we didn't and that's just my belief and if the board doesn't believe that as well that's fine but I think Broward County school should be headquartered in an old school and I think we should be reminded every day we walk to our offices that classrooms are where our business gets done and we we walk uh off the New River in downtown Fort laud which is not centrally located anymore in brard County uh I just uh feel like that's the wrong thing and I'd love to have that money so that we could uh support Capital expenditures uh in a way that they can help our teaching and learning thank you chair Dr he Dr Z just to make sure I'm capturing um your requ your request for these schools with that you named specifically North Fork Elementary Sunland Park Academy and Pines Middle um what is it exactly that you want us to bring back for those uh the pros and cons of closing those schools in 25 26 and for the communities but not specific school names you just want us to bring back pros and cons for a specific school that could likely close I wanted to give uh chair at your discretion um I wanted to give the staff the opportunity to look for example Hollywood H Andale daa has seven elementary schools in that eyes Zone uh which one can close based on enrollment academic performance location demography uh and all those factors uh and the same in Pembrook Pines there's four contiguous Elementary schools believe it or not we have enough students for one and a half I mean um if we're overc capacity and underresourced and we can we can stop maintaining campuses and paying for buildings which do nothing for us to become an a district uh how can we avoid uh getting started on that I'm anxious to do uh the school year 26 27 we need to do that uh we need to keep keep moving forward we need to grow some competitive nature for our schools uh because I tell you what when you start closing schools uh everybody's out doing what they can do to make a school great and I look forward to seeing that zest in all of the schools in brard County Dr holness thank you madam chair um so first I'd like to thank everyone who came out today um we appreciate your input Community input is always very important in any decision making process as I've always said since I've been on this board um so thank you so much for coming out appreciate you I'd also like to mention that our superintendent uh came on board our current superintendent Dr heern came on board on April 16th and he has hit the ground running he has been met with significant challenges he has taken the Baton from the prior superintendent and he was also under significant time constraints to be able to go ahead and move forward with the redefining process so I commend his efforts because this is really a significant uh responsibility that he has taken on in less than a month so thank you superintendent he for meeting the challenge now you mention uh we talk about phase one and there will be more phases there will be a phase two is there a phase three is this an ongoing process and if it is what is the ending point Dr heer so hopefully during phase two we can identify as many opportunities as possible uh again including school closures reconfiguration enhancing programs that we shouldn't have uh a lot of things to do in the additional phase besides Shoring up those opportunities that we identified in phase two so um I I know uh our population of students is in Decline and in some parts of BR County it's it's it's actually increasing in certain parts of BR County like the pompo Deerfield area so uh hopefully in phase two we can go ahead and have these robust conversations engage with the with the community really detail our problems work together in in solving those issues um and really address a majority of our of our concerns in phase two okay so um based on that response um are we expecting subsequent changes after phase two that will not be as um I guess as significant as the changes that will occur in phase two correct I I don't see the phase at phase three being as disruptive as phase two would be um and when I say disruptive school closures or reconfigurations of grade levels um you have you would have multiple boundary changes um you would have for school closures you would have boundary changes so you have a a more disruptive process during the phase two just just because of the Domino effects of what what would have to happen to move kids around to make it suitable for communities uh if if it involves school closures and great level reconfigurations okay so the majority of the school closures will take place in phase two correct and and can you reiterate when phase two is coming to us now we're working on that we're we're on the runway right now and about to take that plane off but we want to make sure Refreshments are are are chilled and and and and and food is ready to go uh before we start taking off and going out into the community okay and based on what I've heard the reason that we've taken closing schools off of phase one is together is for one transparency and to gather a greater Community engagement in the process is that correct correct uh for myself I I've heard from some many of the city officials too I haven't had opportunity to really engage with those City commissions or even the County Commission I haven't really had opportunity to really engage um um at the micro level with sack and PTSA members for for individual schools or individual Innovation zone so there's a lot of um conversations that I need to have with smaller groups of people as we work our way up um throughout the Innovation Zone and work our way throughout the entire District awesome well I do have some questions on specific schools um and um I'll go ahead and start with uh Sunland Park Academy now there's a significant number of kindergarten students um from prek for the pre uh from the prek program I believe they have five prek classes based upon your um suggested recommended changes in this phase one will these prek classes remain at Sunland Park yes that they will remain we we had a specific conversation in ensuring that that prek program stays put um cuz I know the families in the area really depend on that and it'll be disruptive and just moving moving that preate program somewhere else okay so there will be no reduction of the prek classes at Sunland Park no reduction okay now previously um Sunland Park was repurposed due to uh academic challenges um how will we ensure this does not occur since we're going we're uh proposing going back to a K through five well we've what I would call um in some instances a lab school where you've pretty much identified best practices and isolated what's worked and pro and continueed to provide support for those specific instructional practices um making sure that uh we're addressing their needs operationally budget Wise hr- Wise throughout that whole process so they're not they're not losing talented teachers they're not losing uh money that's that's pretty much kept them up to par with with their academics and making sure that their programs stay standard B uh standard-based and innovating at the same time and maintaining the right the right level of support that got them where they are today understand so currently there is a strong focus on literacy and math up to third grade and we're adding fourth and fifth grade to Sunland Park so how will the district support this transition to ensure that adding the fourth and fifth grade uh which would now um include uh uh a great greater Focus um on on specific uh requirements for testing and Science and so on how will the district provide uh the added support to ensure that Sunland Park becoming a a K through five is going to have this level of support necessary adding fourth and fifth grade which has greater implications such as um having the the required training of Staff uh for certain testing that's required during fourth and fifth grade and so on and so forth y so we'll be providing strategic support as you'll learn in the or uh in our or chart discussion of how we're realigning some of the the regional the schools within regional office to specific um uh new office that we're creating the good thing about Sunland Park is that they've created a great foundation so their their prek all the way up to three are performing well so they they have the foundation to continue to perform because they're not playing catchup uh due to the gaps that some other schools experienced with their first second or third grade hav ly are our our numeracy or mathematic issues so they're they're doing well and the foundation that's been laid is going to continue to help those fourth and fifth graders that are coming up continue to do well okay so I have visited Sunland Park uh probably a couple of times um it's one of the 35 schools in my district that I visited and um there seems to not be a large amount of available space I believe it's when I went or my understanding in its three available classrooms so if we add fourth and fifth grade and we're keeping the prek program where will the space come from so we're we strategically are addressing that by not bounding a lot of students if you notice um in one of the slides I think they're at lower 90% their in their increas in student capacity um is actually only a few percent um so we're strategically adding very few kids to fourth and fifth grade so we don't have a uh uh overpopulated school okay so there is an issue as you know at Sunland Park with the flow of traffic during dismissal uh this has significant safety concerns for both students and staff at Sunland Park Academy we're going to add more grade levels to it as a neighborhood school they face a unique challenge with an with an automotive repair shop directly across the street and I've seen it for myself when uh the vehicles have being parked in front of Sunland Park um this business often results in customers parking alongside the school leading to a disruptive traffic flow during dismissal the intersection of uh parent pickup school buses and customer and customer cars in this confined space poses considerable difficulties and I've seen it for myself when I visited the school so how does the district plan to address the flow of traffic while considering increasing number of grade levels for this school obviously Chief um alberty and his Safety and Security team do a really good job when there is a request to go out and and do a traffic safety check um they work with the the school and administrative staff and creating good uh traffic patterns to get in and out of school and we can definitely work with some of the businesses just to make them aware of our concerns so I I have a lot of confidence in Mr alberie and his um Team to be able to go out and actually we'll probably just go ahead since that concern is popping up right now we can actually send that team out to go evaluate that right now okay and um I would love to get feedback on that because I know as it currently is there are concerns with the uh traffic uh and adding two more grade levels I can imagine now I I will say that I did notice uh when I visited there is a um uh there's a property a neighboring property um that is there and I don't know uh if the district um uh because the the concern was the Bus Loop and so on and so forth if the district would look into that neighboring property because I believe that would address the pickup of students and dismissal of students in that area and I have a few more questions and then I'll be done all right so regarding um regarding North Fork um how will boundary change impact the Northfork Community if it at all will impact Northfork of other schools so with North Fork there would be a boundary change for the surrounding schools to the Northeast um of that school because it will be unbounded as a full Choice um program so those students will be dispersed um and have the the names on top of my head but of those uh two or three elementary schools and so those those students will be rebounded to the two or three elementary schools to the north okay so students that are currently attending Northfork in the uh surrounding Community um will they have uh priority in being enrolled at Northfork yes we'll ensure that they have priority choice for that program okay and um lastly uh I I did notice that a lot of the schools on the east side of District 5 um they recommended changes boundary changes but I also noticed that based on the data that majority of those schools on the east side or under enrolled so can you explain to us how boundary changes to those schools um will uh support increase in enrollment since that is the issue we have at hand so boundary changes for those specific schools it it they'll they'll from the the slide deck what I remember is about 5 to 10 probably 15% highest as far as increasing the percentage of students in those schools and this is going to also be included in phase two looking at other opportunities for all areas around the district including that area too so we'll be going out to every Community including the north for um I think it's uh uh North Side not north side but uh thut Marshall that that area going back out to those schools and those communities too to talk about additional options number one to try and recapture students or number two figuring out what the specific problem is and see if we can find root causes and address those problems okay so I I just want to be clear on that so boundary changes in those specific schools are not necessarily the only factor that based on the data you provide that will result in increased enrollment in those schools it will increase enrollment but not significant okay y I think the highest Mr Strauss correct me from I think the highest in that area with the boundary change was high 60s so just reading off uh North Side would go for from 47% to 67% Walker would go from 52 to 55 almost okay and then obviously the North Fork the expectation would be 100% and like you said before the Sunland Park would be 91 to 94 and third Good Marshall 43 to 53 and so hence while we have to go back out to every Community um to address those those um concerns when it comes to student enrollment numbers understand appreciate it so I'd like to conclude by saying I believe that as a district um although it is um it is obvious that we may have to close some schools I believe our concentration should be compete and not closed um I understand the necessity of of uh the possibility and necessity of closing some schools but I believe we need to do a better job compete in terms of marketing compete in terms of aesthetic appeal of our schools compete in terms of customer service compete in in terms of competitive programs compete in terms of sharing best practices compete in terms of safety and I believe that if we make the priority word compete as opposed to closing understanding that we do have to close some schools but if we prioritize that within our Consciousness that we are going to compete as opposed to close I believe our approach and our direction will be different so I am suggesting that we it it's better we compete the better we compete the less we will have to focus on closing our schools thank you Mrs [Music] fam are they is is he finished yes Miss Mrs fam oh okay good evening everyone this is Brenda Fam thank you so much for coming this evening I want to first thank Dr heurn I really appreciate his familiarity with all these schools and speaking to us personally and not deferring to staff to give responses it really shows that you care and then you're vested in the outcome of what happens with repurposing as school closures in addition I just want to acknowledge that when you took this position you took on a multi UD of challenges you inherited a district that's looking at closing and repurposing schools a district that has not given salary increases to multiple groups and classes of staff that provide essential support and oversight over our schools and a lawsuit and which involves multi-million dollars which Broward County school district is attempting to negotiate a settlement that is not easy these are all intrical issues that need to be addressed and we appreciate you taking on these challenges and getting the necessary support you need in order to address these challenges in addition I'd like to thank the parents that came out tonight I think vsy was heard tonight and I'm quoting to someone of the parents that spoke she said what they're looking for is they really want us to engage the community truthfully and I think not only do you have the right to ask for that but you're entitled do that and in listening to some of the other speakers it's my summation that what they're looking for is not a knee-jerk reaction from this board they want a careful and thought out process in which we evaluate things thoroughly while we also include and involve the community in those decisions in other words before we get to the point where we're giving feedback to the revisions for the final plan the community should be engaged and participate in what revisions are being considered and may be implemented down the road I think that the board should take on what I call is a front-end loaded approach and bring the community in fully in the beginning of the aspects as opposed at the end after what decisions and material and data has already been assessed and now we're at the point where we need to go forward if we evolve the community up front and open our communication channels and take down our guard and allow them to be a partner with us I think we will have less and less confusion and more and more participation involvement and commitment to making the community a better place okay um some of the things I'd like to discuss tonight is I feel that we are not addressing the root problems while parents are still leaving at my town hall in Weston I had several parents come up to me and said they are pulling their children out they were at that meeting because their children are currently enrolled in Broward County Schools but they are pulling them out and from the feedback that I'm receiving from parents it is coming down to three primary issues one is the lack of focus on academics in other words we're not performing well enough for our students to be successful when they graduate or when they compete for jobs out in society they want their children to have the necessary academic skills training and experience where they can even get considered and get an interview to qualify for some of these jobs that their doors are closed being closed upon secondly the parents are upset they do not wokeness in the school so I want to ask brow County School District have you considered repurposing any schools to Classic schools because they they are doing that on the west coast of Florida where students can now go to classic schools where they don't use computer apps all day they have computer apps for one class a day and the rest is pen and paper and goes back to traditional learning of math reading and science on top of that the third reason was the lack of punishment or discipline for students that misbehave and or bully others it seems again we're almost back at the promise program where students are getting multiple multiple chances but they're not getting it if they're not getting it by the second chance then we really need to take a look at them and what happens is the schools will say well these three chances were for bullying now they're not bullying they're harassing and they're just changing the category which is allowing them three more options to misbehave the parents are tired of their children not wanting to go to school because of the way they're treated and we have to address and flip to the victims and not to the aggressors and think what's in best interest of the victims are the victims entitled to attend a school where they're not afraid of getting their lunch money taken from them each day or are we concerned about the person that's taking the money because they don't have a l lunch money on their own where is the focus going to be the person that's taking or the person that's being taken from the other thing we need to look at and I'm going to ask questions about this is the three areas in which we're backlogged with money so the question is are we being driven by money to close schools because of a financial Cris crisis and if so is it the money that we don't have to give staff for raises is it the money that we don't have to pay for the charter schools or is it the money that we don't have for the facilities challenges that we're coming into as we're closing and finalizing a lot of schools that were under the smart program so I'd like I'd like an answer to that question from Dr heurn is this being financially driven and if it is is this for to make sure that we avert a financial crisis so which crisises are we going to address in the order of priority or is this being driven the closures and repurposing due to doing away with waste in the community Dr H thank you chair um m f we have uh several um concerns um which you've named some of them uh under enrollment is one um budget issues is another um Quality of instruction is also another and all of those intertwine um in addressing these through our redefining and re and repurposing initiative can I ask with a followup question how long are we financially secure if we don't sell any properties we don't close any schools what period time frame are we looking at miss barte you want to help with that question I'm sorry I didn't hear your response Miss Marte is walking up to the podium to answer that question we're talking about this scho school district how long can we stay with the minimum required by the state before we get taken over what are we looking at do we have six months a year two years yes Dr heurn so the school district will show the agenda that's published for the next board meeting will show the financial condition of the district is stable at 3.8% um absolutely acknowledges a lower fund balance than uh is recommended but we are not on a Time clock that's ticking away in the way that you are um suggesting Mrs fam but it is important that the community and the board uh understand that over enrollment I'm sorry over um seats over the amount we need for the enrollment we have have several implications some of which you alluded to those dollars would go into Capital but the efficiency of having the right number of students in schools would enhance our ability to manage class size to pay staff more money uh to do improvements to buildings so continuing to lose enrollment without addressing the footprint will eventually and it's not in the next year or two but will eventually create a school district that uh has marginalized the opportunities for students and I think that's the best way to characterize it that's what I'm ask you for what is the time frame in the word eventually that can't be determined here tonight Mrs fam we would have to have analysis of projected uh enrollment Trends over a period of time and um that that is an information that we have uh good data on to give you an exact date but given the fact that we've lost 20,000 students in six years the uh precipice is uh accelerating see that this might be another concern of parents they're wondering about the stability overall of the district that's why it's important that we address these issues publicly and they understand where we stand I'm going to move on to my next question I know that there was um a statement about the Nova lease for the property of the three schools or four schools over in Davy and we my understanding that the Restriction is no longer in effect that that uh land has to be utilized for an education facility for full school choice um purposes now does that change the Viewpoint of whether Nova School should be closed or repurposed or what how does that impact on the plan that you were reviewing and considering drer Miss fan we're currently researching the Nova complex um land use deal um because we've heard the same concerns we were um informed otherwise but we're continuing our research if that is the case that does changes some of the considerations for for that um those NOA series of schools it's it's my it's my understanding that we don't own the prop the property is being Leed but we do own the buildings is there any value in those buildings or uh it's more valuable to us to invest in those buildings and keep that property based on our current knowledge um about the over land um lease there's only specific things we can do on that property um but we're continuing our research to find out if that land lease if any um turns have changed if if any changes have occurred so uh we can follow provide a followup to the entire board on that okay um let me move on to the other ones I know one of the things the community said today that um they want to be able to participate and osed uh proposals and to revisions and consideration how are we going to implement that so we don't have history repeating itself where um they feel left out and not um partnering with us in this Pro in this process because we only have until June to get them involved how are we going to do that Dr hurn Miss Fam I'm sorry I I couldn't totally hear the entire question can you repeat that please sure um the community today has expressed a great interest to participate in all proposals and revisions being considered for the June hearing okay how are we how are you proposing to incorporate them into that process so based on the board's next step in consensus in the next steps that they want us to uh to carry out before June we will definitely put if it involves going back to community we'll definitely put some Maximum effort into getting back out to the community but I am concerned about the timeline of getting back to the community because of the amount of um graduations that we have coming up the amount of end of the Year celebrations coming up so that is a concern on the activities that we can accomplish before June 18 because it it does seem that things change on a daily basis and the parents are not even given advanced notice a lot of a lot of times of these uh items being cons considered where they can at least appear and speak on the topic so is there going to be a better way to communicate I know um Dr Zeman indicated that some parents had no idea that some of their schools were under consideration for repurposing or being Clos Dr heer Miss fam I can't fully answer that question until the end of this particular part of the workshop to get consistence on next steps from the board once that happens I can provide some information about what we would do as a staff um after that okay thank you and then I have I think a final question and that is in reference to um on the paper you gave us for consideration it talks about consensus consensus consensus um what really is your definition of consensus because I find that a lot of Staff members show up um at the town halls and sometimes there might be more staff than there are parents now is that a fair and accurate representative representation of the community how are you making sure that parents that can't get there in the evening or that have two jobs or they have children they can't um get away from that their opinions are incorporated into the decision-making process Dr her I'm Sorry Miss fam can you let me specifically yes what what what is the question again in the handout that we got about the workshop request it talks about provide consensus provide consensus provide consensus how as we as a district are getting consensus of all the community members because at the town halls there appears to be a large turnout of of Staff which is great but the parents may be under represented how are we making certain that they get to participate in this process the the consensus that I'm asking for is not specific to the public but specific to the board um so collectively consensus from the board about next steps to staff uh as far as this redefining uh recommendation that was proposed to the board so we can take action before June 18th is there any other way you're trying to incorporate um the input of appearance based on the actions of the board today uh as far as directing staff for their specific next steps then we'll be able to give specifics about what we're going to do if it involves in in engaging with the public or not well thank you so much for your honesty and I appreciate you responding to my my questions thank you m rert thank you first just like everyone else I wanted to thank everybody that you are are school's Champions and you've been Fierce advocates for our community and um far into the night and you're still here and I appreciate that um a suggestion I I heard from somebody very wise was to uh involve the parent involvement task force to facilitate roundtables with actual real time input and ideas right there instead of listening and just getting one point you would then have a round T discussion and I think that's really what we're I know I would be looking for as a parent is I love that we're listening love it but I also feel a little you know disconnected from from uh our community this way so I I would I would suggest that and it's important to get back to the voices who have been silenced these past 10 years I'm must say that again it's important to get back to the voices who have been silenced these past 10 years and those groups PTA DAC task force board committees we need your voices now more than ever so um I'm very hopeful that you all are here and just spread the word we need to be involved um okay moving on to this I'll give you the consensus first and then I'll do my question questions um yes for the annex sale but what about the other tssc building on that same site Dr he that specific site is our Hurricane Center and also our district hub for technology so it houses pretty much all of our most of our district technology to keep our district running and it's also fully occupied with that okay so we would only be selling one of the two buildings correct okay um I think it's important to go back to the root of the problems and just quite simply is gun uh the root analysis of families opting out it's that simple why are you going somewhere else okay it's different for each school and it's different for each Community but there is a why and going back to that uh you know Foundation of of your your community your um Advocates your faith-based people your um little leagues whatever it is they all are a part of that community and they will tell you very honestly I'm not going there because of this I'm not going there because of that so I think we need to do a root analysis to really find out why they are opting out so we can we can provide the best opportunity for them it's way simple you don't have to get a whole marketing firm you just have to go back to the Genesis of the problem which is hey we've become more under enrolled over the years it started to happen during this and what have we done to be able to so like for instance um one of my elementary schools is very smartly reached out into the community and said hey what kind of programs would we would you want to see and in in that particular school there's um a huge ESC population so they're asking if they could do an ESC prek three they have room for more than that but they've asked for three and I believe they reached out to their uh staff person at the district and I apologize if I don't recognize who you guys are but they're still waiting to hear back that's important you know we need to Market that if we're going to do it which I think we should do it if you've got the the capacity at the school and you've got the need and you got the desire let's give them what they want because we know that when you start in prek you usually got the in at the school and that could be a very uh simple and it could be done like now so that would be increasing enrollment um to me it's like lwh hanging fruit find a need fill some classrooms and personalization is the utmost customer service period you know as as a teacher and as a mom uh three kids under the ESC umbrella from gifted to sld to all the other things IEPs are wonderful 504 plans are wonderful I think we would be the best District in the world if every kid had an IEP if we could do that and I think we can and I I know the differentiation I know what the law is I I don't want to upset people but let me tell you it's it's what they're thinking that they're getting when they leave us and then they quickly find out that it's not and then we get the kids back so if we could work around that and I don't know what it looks like I don't know if my board members would agree I'm just popping out ideas so that's just kind of how I how I work as you guys no um all right so I have some individual questions that I have not shared the answers with people because um that is for our superintendent to do so I will go ask now because I can um 2023 and 24 we'll start with 20 and uh no surprise it's district 7 slide um Can the superintendent share the conversations that are ongoing with Deerfield Beach where are we in the process that is part one I I'll wait for that one because the other two are contingent yes you're referring to the uh private public partnership yes yes sir so those right now is just um private entities that are expressing interest so it is very very early in the stage because there's a specific process that those those entities have to go through just to make sure everything is uh done appropriately and not violating um any policies or any laws okay do we have a timeline that we're looking for for that particular process cuz this would be no not specifically yet we have to uh start with who has interest um uh direct them to go through our specific processes and then we can create a timeline after they go through those appropriate steps first okay because I do know that Deerfield Beach um workers are having conversations with our staff and and I know this but I don't know if my colleagues know this but it's something that the public should should hear about because when you see Deerfield Beach Elementary tedar and Quiet Waters all of a sudden everybody gets nervous um and we're one as you mentioned before we're one of the few areas that actually have um not enrollment issues in this particular area so um as soon as we can share that information the better that it would be for for everybody um and then the other one I have is on page 23 and it's talking about uh market share recapture Etc my question and and I brought this up with you before Dr hurn and you've been very receptive is what do we have now for our adults with disabilities and with Workforce programs and how can we serve all Workforce needs I know we have certain programs that do that but um I think that we've got we've got untapped potential we want all of our kids to be able to enter the workforce fully trained and ready to go yes so we've had conversations with our ESC um director about that we do have some specific programs um I don't know if Miss hollandsworth um has that information or or um would have to collect that from Diane Egan and get and provide a followup but we've also talked about possibly even visiting um Alon with Alton Road up in um Duval County to yes that we saw that presentation the um Florida School Board Association meeting um and bringing that bringing that information back learning from some of their best best practices that we can sced out here in BR County that's perfect and I actually heard about them uh via the Google education um lecture shares that that the board of directors for fsba was asked to to join and um I was just blown away um and then also actually visiting Ark and understanding that we don't really have a lot of our students that can um that get right into the workforce so I I think there is that opportunity and um I 100% agree in uh expansion for Workforce Development but I agree and definitely strengthening all of our students uh Workforce needs would be uh what I'm looking to help do so um that is it for now so thank you so much you Mr fenol thank you very much chair and point of privilege Dr Hess I just want to welcome everybody to Plantation High School home of the colonel thank you for hosting this and having us um welome to District 5 it's going to be that um so I just want to say thank you of course to the community uh everybody being out here um you want to know how committed vsy families are we had a ni fan speaking in today there's a game tonight so for him being here shows how committed he is just want to throw that out there um but I also want to say thank you to to our other communities our ol you know awesome Olen I want to say thank you to our students right the one thing and the one lesson I want our students to understand is that they have a voice when they work together people listen our community when we work together parents work together wear matching t-shirts sometimes it works so I think it's important and a valuable lesson for our students to do that we heard public comments we heard want to give a shout out to Caleb from Oakridge for giving public comment at one of the Town Halls which was phenomenal but it takes a lot for our children to step up and do that so I wanted to say thank you to our communities I want to say thank you to our commissions our commissioners stepped up our Mayors stepped up to start having a conversation that I believe has needed to happen a long time ago they've stepped up and I think Dania for example is a great Dania Beach thank you so much for the commission there cuz even before this whole ation they started finding solutions for Olsen they started finding Solutions how can we make this better this is our Middle School how can we make this better and saw a field that was falling apart no track for the students what can we do they put their money up they planned they paid for a new track and a new field for our community and for us we responded with the closure thank you right it was tough as a board member because at the Town Halls we were sitting there and hearing everybody talk but we couldn't say anything we're listening and it's tough but we listened we understand I appreciate doing something I appreciate the action I support doing something I appreciate and I support action what I don't support is doing something and doing it wrong I think that the quote that I that keeps repeating in my head throughout this whole situation is failure to plan is planning to fail I think this whole situation we look at the plan and I want to say thank you to Mr Leota he left but Mr leot say I still don't know what the plan is it's anticipation it keeps going on I don't know what it is redistricting closing not closing changing here changing programs adding programs taking it away what is the plan here and again I think we talk about the problem Dr Z and I appreciate that because if truly people really knew what the problem was you would understand that we do need to close schools it's a sad reality Miss Fam thank you for bringing that up I hate to say it State takeover is looming if we do this but I mean if we're stable then I mean why do anything at all it's just end here if we're stable they wouldn't have Community meetings if a state took over so it's important for everybody to understand this conversation this A to B for us to listen that wouldn't happen if they took over if they say we need to close 42 schools they close 42 schools we keep going back and forth so Dr Dr he I'm sorry not Dr Dr he this plan was in before you you came in it's still there do you believe that we need to close schools Dr that's a simple um answer for me yes but I think we need to do it in a more methodical and engaging way so my thing and my problem is this and I've told do this personally what we have is a Broward problem our whole county is having this issue but I don't see a Broward Solution that's where it became a problem for me because an oage solution is not a Broward solution an Olen solution is not a Broward solution vsy solution is not a Broward solution so now you went on from being we have a Broward problem to people feeling picked on did anybody feel picked on in this process cuz we did in District 1 where two of the three schools that you wanted to close were ours yes but again it goes back to not having a plan it feels like there's not a real plan so I do have questions let's talk about Hollywood Central it's a K through 8 the city wants it the community wants it fantastic so I ask a question if we're not closing Olsen then where are the kids coming from if we did a k through we there Dr recapturing them mostly from charter schools in the area so Dr heurn how do you expect families to put their children back into public schools if we didn't even fix what they left for in the first place I have again this is this the additional part of this plan is to do the implementation and planning stage coming up this during this school year and during this summer so I I I've heard louder clear from the public and from the board about details about specific programs that school specific next steps that's what the summer and the 2425 school year is to detail all of those things so we can bring that back to the board bring that back to the communities about options within those schools that we that we're Rec reconfiguring so new programs new options in schools that would cost more money correct there will there will be some cost I'm not going to um lie about that there's going to be some cost I think it was Miss Walsh who mentioned um you know cost about facilities and and and certain things that we would have to transform on that campus so those are all going to be identified and baked out during that planning year so thank you so I feel and I've said this before a solution for take a relative of mine that had a gambling problem I always figure something out I figured it out now trust me more money I got it now and it feels like it's always constantly asking for more we got it right this new program is that's where we'll get the kids back I got it but for me that's where it I don't think we're really number one seeing the issue we know the solution and the lack of planning because if we truly had a plan a real plan and said hey you're closing 42 schools but this is how everybody's going to affected this is how we're going to be back to where we need to be right size here we go we're moving forward there's no it's not there like I said it feels like we're we're getting picked on here Hollywood Central okay through weight now let's go through another scenario here the facility now we're going to bring in Middle School to a school that's an elementary school which had a teacher versus student flag footb game this past week you know where they played it in the Bus Loop no green space so are you telling me my middle schoolers can't play soccer at Hollywood Central if there was a middle school because we have no space are now are we taking opportunities and not looking at an equitable lens for our students to say here's a middle school K through 8 be happy you don't have a soccer team you don't have after school activities to be playing sports now we're stealing kids from an opportunity I don't think we're thinking through any of this and I get the direction but I think the direction was very clear it was clear enough you know what the problem is and you know what the solution is I want to see the solution this is not a solution it's not it's not in it's not ripping the Band-Aid off to me either feels like you're throwing NEOS sporn on top of the Band-Aid hoping that it will work this is just this is just not it and I feel like if this is the case that we're in stable position financially let's have a conversation why are we going to wait later let's just take that's what should take consensus on are we stopping here now pump the brakes stop are we going to continue for phase two then I'll here plan phase three Dr holess right I think we should take consensus on that chair if we should stop and really focus on academics focus on our students focus on moving forward doing things and getting things done I don't think it's worth it for us for our community to board member all in this point waste time it's not fair it is 8:15 we have families here at 8:15 so if we're not going to move forward with it let's be realistic as a board and I said this since day one remember I'm all for doing it doing it right though but if not if we're going to waste time don't waste time come on elections are not I don't care let's do the right thing for people it's going to stop let's go back to the drawing board Dr he if you decide to do this as superintendent do it the right way let's get back to it stop wasting our time I say this as a community stop stop hurting people getting people nervous getting our kids to do public comment shaking stop let's do it the right way so chair that's where I'm at and I'm not going to give my answer to lease property or sell property because I believe a one-time payment for selling something or getting more money if you can't handle your money in the first place or be a good Steward of it giving you more is not going to solve the problem that's it no clap so I appreciate the claps thank you but that's just where I'm at I feel we really need to think this through and Dr heurn again you have an opportunity you're the man now right have an opportunity do it right get the win let's do this you win we win the community wins we all do let's do what's right for Broward County but I want to do it the right way not just for pieces and people to be picked on our community can't take that so thank you very much here thank you Mr poogan Holly so um you must been reading some of my notes here and uh being here for almost three and a half hours listening to everyone intently um I've come to conclusion on a few things one is that we have pieces to a potential plan it's very confusing um it's picking here and there but it has we we failed to set the rules and you know as as teachers classes have rules and then the students follow those rules but I think as a board we have to set those rules and and and let the communicate that more effectively to the superintendent it is very difficult for us we we can't just go to lunch and say hey what do you think and have this open conversation no we have media here news it's live streamed it's a it's a difficult conversation but I think we we jumped into this and part of the the team that was the team they're no longer here so now Dr heurn you're in charge as a superintendent to take the information that the board is giving you and create a path forward so what I see is that we do need to close schools and I say that Dr hurn you bring a vote to this board to close eight schools that we will close eight schools by X period of time not saying what school that is or what district that is eight schools and if the board votes on that and could can agree to that at least then you have the confidence to go through all the work and Community conversations to to close those eight schools because what I was always afraid of is that staff and the superintendent they would do all this work and then it would come back to the board we get community telling us no not our school you know and then the board votes it down and and then now we've wasted another year so so that's one two is I think we we don't have a clear vision of what we're doing that needs to be clearly stated and then we need the plan and so I know Broward County Public Schools we are very Community Driven we are very much uh are having our different committees help be our voice so what I would suggest is that we create these redefining BCPS committees by district and allow the PTO PT sack staffs um all the Committees to have members into that group into that committee by District because they're going to come up with a plan specific for that district and you know we are such a huge massive district and and then we can be able to do this where we're not just picking at certain areas but we are we are helping the entire School District so that's my my third suggestion uh and then I do want to speak to page 24 on the PowerPoint so on page 24 there is three pieces of land that are in Parkland and I would like to talk to that specifically so the one piece of land that is on University and Trails End I know Mr Allon you brought a an item forward to for us to sell that that vacant land and so I think that it would uh be beneficial for us to sell that land um but I would like to see it to be competitively bided and I also would like there to be conversations with the city of of Parkland and the community um and also that when that land is being sold that $10.1 million goes to Coral Glades High School to help build their Auditorium where which would um help give them a black box an extra seating and also would help to I believe with the healing process between Parkland and Coral Springs through the rebounding process that we had with MSD um and then also in one of my suggestions to the superintendent to look into is we have Eagle Haven that was started after the tragedy at MSD and to see if there would be an opportunity once that land is sold that there could be a conversation where eagles Haven would be able to have space in that area so they can there can be a longer you know period of time that Eagles Haven can help to um help the community of of Parkland and Coral Springs uh so those are my my recommendations to explore those possibilities with that piece of land however the land the other piece of land on Hillsboro Boulevard uh in the wedge so this is vacant land that is restricted for educational facilities use and I do not recommend that we touch that land now so we have Hendrick Farms that eventually will be sold it might be 5 years from now 10 years from now but we're going to need that land to build a school eventually in Parkland so that shouldn't be touched at this point in time um I think that is that would be a good plan moving forward those are my uh suggestions any other board member have comments round two 825 Mrs Hixon thank you I just have um a quick thing I forgot to mention before we have a lot of schools that are over 100% capacity and I find that to be a problem because sometimes they're overc capacity because we reassign people to those districts especially the full choice where we have the ability to to manage that for example in the Nova schools so my suggestion and something I think we can do for next school year is make sure that we're not going over 100% capacity especially in the full choice schools which would limit some of that Transportation issue in Nova since there're 140 something per capacity at the moment um and that was what I forgot to mention before thank you yeah and if if you could add um if anything I said uh you believe in to speak to um so I I mean I think I mentioned this before already I I agree with a lot of what you said I think many of us said that here we we want to do a plan that includes Community input I think your idea of having districted committees specifically for repurposing is a great idea with the intention that we are going to close a school in each of those places you know and it may be because the facilities is just not able to be revamped right with the money cuz so whatever um it's doesn't necessarily have to just be because of the grade or over under capacity sometimes it's more about what it's being provided to the students there in terms of safety and things of that nature um I I think we need another year of planning that's why I appreciated the phase two because as we've said a number of times this is peace meal but I will say I don't agree with ripping the Band-Aid off I I think it's very difficult to do that all at one time I think you make a plan for what that looks like over a period of time and you do it in chunks because as I've said if you do it all at once it's I just don't think it's going to be done well all at one time not saying we don't make a plan for everything at once but we can't just jump into everything at one time so I would roll it out in a way that makes the most sense I don't know what that is but um I think that's important um and I agree with you you 100% that the team has changed and so we need a plan that each of the teams I mean each of the members on the team are fully invested in and I so I I think I don't want to say it's K kicking the can down the road as I said just don't want to feel like we're driving the bus off the cliff and that's how it feels at the moment I think not just to us but to the community and I think it's important for us to just slow down and look at it in a more holistic way so thank you thank you Dr Zan you sound so despondent chair I'll try to be uh quick um picking a number and asking the superintendent to bring it back without criteria uh might be a little dangerous and and I don't want to extend this meeting Beyond where it should but it seems to me that there's been some consensus here about criteria as well which is we care a lot about under enrollment because is we're over capacity we care a lot about academic proficiency and we really care about feeder patterns making sense you know at the end of the day districts have a number of innovation zones and those Innovation zones are really the the ecosystem of our education community and so working with the community and the homeowners associations and the and even the corporate Community uh even our Hospital Community to make sure that we're kind of doing things all in the right way uh make sense within those Innovation zones but it could be that tonight we settle on a number like eight I like eight I think that's the right number and I think you're intending chair just let me ask you this for 2526 year8 right not for 26 27 2526 terrific I fully support that I think uh that gets us moving in the right direction and it it's directly aimed at our problem we're overc capacity and underresourced so if we can agree that the criteria is uh under enrolled schools uh lower performing schools and feeder zones that make sense to allow us to win in a complimentary way with our public Charters and with our private schools and homeschoolers um I think that that makes uh a lot of sense and I think we can do that over the next 5 weeks um uh so I say yes to a number I like eight if the board consensus is eight uh it would be great to see that plan Mr superintendent um and the ones that I nominated could be options to that but I'd rather withdraw my ideas and let you come back with eight uh solely on your loan uh to kind of complement uh the chair's uh point I'm going to go back though to the to the need for money on this land um I would like to sell everything on this list and everything that's not on this list uh that we can because why do we want to own property when our job is to become an a district and if we can take that money from the land that we own and convert it into Capital expenditures that improve the look and the capabilities of our school and therefore uh win back uh enroll moment and win back the battle that there is in the choice environment uh I would rather do that in a heartbeat uh just because I don't see any value and holding on to things that don't get us to our goal our strategic goal is a district and 100% potential um we can't get there if we don't do something different given the the state of funding uh in Florida so I appreciate your uh recommendations I think getting to a consensus number like this and seeing what the plan is I think also chair your idea would be for that to be presented June 18th yeah yes terrific um could I also uh ask you to consider um a special attention to uh Community informing and to data transparency so as we start to look at schools if we learn something new and different uh I just believe the second we know about it because it's public data that we had to release it to the public and uh we didn't do that this time I talked a lot about it I thought we had an agreement to do it uh but then we went to the first town hall we knew that date on Friday because we told all our principles and we didn't release it till Monday at 6:00 and and and we just have to be honest with ourselves uh that was a mistake um and we have to be really transparent not transparent in quotes CU we feel like it uh to say it but we got to be transparent because people own that data and we need to give it over to them the second that uh that we possess it thank you chair CHR fam because speak yes go and speak Mrs fam Hi H can you hear me yes hello yes Mrs fam we can hear you great thank you so much this is this is Mrs Brenda fam calling back I just wanted to speak out on the change that the conversation has taken and I'd like to say that I do like Mrs alad's idea I do like portions of Dr Zan's idea about especially about moving forward in the 25 26th year I don't think we have a lot of time to wait I think we have to put ourselves in a recovery position and make sure that we go in the right direction so we can support our district and the community I would like to add another condition on to the proposed conditions about closing eight schools and make a motion if possible I can't do it here in the workshop but I'm going to put it out there that whatever school is closed that the money that is gained from the sale of that school or the property goes back to that district for improvements in that District I think it's unfair to close this whole in Hallandale and then take that money and put it over in Weston the money has to benefit the community for which it has been taken and I think that's fair and also Equitable and lastly I just wanted to say that I strongly believe that this issue should have been addressed so much year so many years ago and that by delaying it we're only going to be hurting ourselves so we have to move forward and we have to fix the problem no more Band-Aids we're going to fix this and we're going to be known as the board that is the fixer thank you thank you Mrs Leonardi thank you um I agree with uh many of your suggestions Madam chair um you know I I agree with your suggestions on the selling the land in Parkland and how we're going to how you would use that money and the competitive bidding and all of that um I agree with the idea of foring committees uh the members of which come from PT and Sachs and our advisories um I would like to throw out there that maybe those committees should be based on in each Innovation Zone instead of districts um just because that's a very those are very specific um communities and and they're very aware of of the issues and the feater patterns and all of that um I agree with the idea of an extra year of planning um not because I believe in kicking the can down the road but because I believe in the idea that we need to make plans Based on data and fact and Community input and that's not what's been done here today um or in the last few months um I wanted to speak to criteria uh so I agree with the criteria that's been presented so far about you know closing schools I think that um some other issues I would like us to consider are schools that are showing an increasing trajectory in enrollment um so we wouldn't want to close down a school that's been able to increase their enrollment in recent years um and has a projection of of growing their enrollment um also considering and I know this was part of the consideration for this plan but but also making sure that the schools in surrounding the schools that we would potentially close have the capacity to absorb those students um the reason I support and I just wanted to to respond to some comments that were made um I really support the idea of leasing land instead of selling land because that gives us a constant stream of income as opposed to you know land in Broward county is our most valuable asset um and we can't get that back and I I think one of my colleagues mentioned that before um so I think that's why it's important for us to consider leasing some land and finally I think it's very inappropriate for us to have conversations about campaigns and elections on school board time but the issue has been raised and I just want to point out some facts um none of the people who are up for election this year have brought up this issue about redefining schools none of us um I also think that it's really important to consider the fact that if we close Olsen middle people are going to remember that 2 years four years from now um it's really an insult to the intelligence of Voters to suggest that they won't remember a bad decision we've made no matter how soon it is to how close that is to an election so I just had to respond to that thank you thank you any other board member like to weigh in Mr chareston thank you madam chair um so I think in order um I do support I think the fam suggestion of reinvesting dollars uh back in that District so put me down as supporting the fam recommendation uh put me down also supporting I believe uh what I thought I heard from board member Leonardi there are two additional items uh well both the increasing enrollment but I'm also going to add the historical element the one thing that is also and I want to make sure that's included uh in whatever round is coming uh the key for me though so I'm against the initial zman piece but I think it's off the table because I think it did exactly what I stated before right um it clearly only well let me not say what it did you understand so if the plan does not solely support or solely Target rather certain communities um a which I've been very clear on the black community Hispanic Community uh South County and the 95 Corridor so let me say it differently it must be a countywide approach respectfully um what we passed uh almost a year ago technically is I think what we're about to do again based on your suggestion although the number changes okay so yes we can now go to let's just call it eight or I believe it should be seven because then it will clearly demonstrate if if a countywide approach is the other criteria that we're actually looking at every Community okay by not having that criteria what I don't want to see based on what I heard because I think I all based on the other criteria if the only criteria is let's be very clear under enrolled underutilized and you take off a few of these other I think I know what districts will be clearly targeted so I don't support that okay um but if if the intent is a countywide approach meaning there will at least be one closure in every school board member single member district everyone understands that point okay so that's actually what I propose in terms of a criteria um in terms of committees so I uh don't support the Innovation Zone uh idea um we're going to have too many committees that's the problem um I think that if we're going to do a committee by District that makes sense because we're going to have a countywide approach to solving the problem um here is the fear so yes at the June meeting we can have another vote a year later that says it is the intent of the school district to close now seven or eight schools you insert the number so what we don't know know is now the same as we didn't know a year ago the schools so I think what we're trying to do which is I mean if that's what we're going to do say it right if the intent is let's just pick a number so we put it out our intent is seven schools eight schools 10 schools but we're not going to tell you the schools today but a year from now once we go through this process once we have our committees uh however many number of committees there will be at that point we will all bubble up at at least what I'm thinking one School per district and whatever comes of that that's what we're going with what we also know is we could do the reverse a year from now so respectfully I appreciate and I like your uh thought thoughtfulness I just hope that we don't do this same thing again because that's what this actually feels like um because what could happen because we're still on track we still have a June meeting that we keep talking about we could actually do what you just said between now and the next meeting bring at least seven or eight schools that meet these criteria for the board to consider I mean I think we're you're adding in you know another year-long process for that we've already done that it won't take effect for a year so that would actually be my slight tweak and suggestion but I mean because we're going to go back to the same thing uh that we just did a year ago land sales I don't support selling all land uh what I also know is there have been a lot of conversations um in the community I've heard them um you know with business folks folks uh purporting to represent the district um and I think it's very dangerous because this board has not had a conversation um on uh our real estate portfolio um and I am into imately clear of folks that are having those conversations so no I don't support um you know doing the full list of land sales we actually need some guard rails Madam chair because right now there are no guard rails on many of the conversations that I know uh continue to occur um with those purporting to represent uh the school district so that's the one thing that I would also uh like to be very clear and on the record um I do believe that we should um and I support um the Parkland or let me call it I call it Parkland one Parkland 2 two different items uh so clearly I still stand by uh the original Broward Hill thing clearly I I think I know where the number is um but I just have a question on so your recommendation and I'm going in order here around the wedge property is there and I don't know the answer to this is there underutilization Andor under enrollment grossly whatever the right number is in in the parking area do you do we know that is there a need for a new school in Parkland I know the answer to that I'm I'm just want to I'm asking the subject matter experts Dr he Mr Tron Sim te currently no got it so currently no but projected so I think you're ask you so I know today the answer is no but the chair you're referencing uh some additional potential which every Community has so before I answer the wedge question I need to understand what is the driver to now turn that into a yes there will be a need for another school in Parkland Dr AB Mr B uh JC um director task assigned demographics so uh Mr to Mr alon's point you are correct there is one underutilized school currently in in Parkland Park Trails Elementary is in the 70% utilization rate right now uh What uh the chair is referring to is the the the the potential development of the Hendrick Farm which is the last big uh agricultural piece of land in Brower County and we've actually modeled that a few times uh to figure out you know exactly what kind of home sites that could generate and how many students and uh it would all depend on who who what developer bought it it could follow one of like the the higher uh higher end Parkland developments there's one called Cypress Head that's adjacent to that that has very Big Lots and big homes it could follow something with much higher density so that's kind of hard to project right now initially there were talks for that land I don't know if that's still on the table of reserving uh 20 acres to build a high school specifically I have no idea if that's still current that was 10 years ago so uh uh that would be specifically a high school though the piece of land that the chair is referring to is a combination piece for an elementary and middle school and as she correctly said it it can only be used for educational facilities so um there is a potential that that that development could generate several hundred home sites in the future but as she said it could be five 10 five years 10 years 20 years we we don't know got it so but Madam chair so but based on your projections you're projecting that this will do that when we're not projecting that at all sir because we don't know what what that will look like got it okay and your suggestion is to pause and not touch it correct absolutely oh okay got it all right so I'm I'm okay with that thank you sir and the last point I'll make is uh to my colleague uh yes you are correct uh board member uh I am the one board member who made the reference to um a very public comment by a colleague uh that uh I referenced almost a year ago uh knowing that this process would probably end that way Madam chair um so yes it was my comment uh knowing if you go pull the tape I said it a year ago um and actually I'm hoping that the board does not end uh where I think we're headed thank you madam chair thank you Mrs zon thank you I have a question just based on the conversation so I understand the suggestion about um looking to close schools which I think was the phase two part of this so my question is are we moving forward with the phase one part so I I want to leave I want everyone leaving here today understanding what the plan is so we had a phase one phase two was going to be closing it sounds like that's what we want to do but are we still doing what's being suggested or are I mean will you still be bringing us we're not voting today will you still be bringing us a recommendation for some of those other changes not just school closures when we move forward Dr so from my understanding and listening to individual board members the ask right now is to bring 7 to eight schools for possible closure based on a specific criteria laid out um I have under enrolled minus the schools that are increasing in enrollment the past few years also historical references um under under utilization of space many of the criteria that we already have right and I'm identifying seven to eight schools that we could possibly close in each board member's district is is what I'm thank you if that's not it if we can clarify um the next steps for for us and for me and staff yeah I think that's important for us to do I personally think there are some things on here that communities actually wanted that I would like to see brought forth along with the closures so that's why I'm asking the question U I think maybe that would be a question to ask everyone also for consensus so I would say phase one and two need to come forward to us thank you Miss rert thank you um when we're talking about criteria what percentage are we going to be letting determine which ones are closed is it 55% is it 65 is it 75 is it 94 because that makes a big difference and if I personally cannot support Closing one school in each board member's District especially if there is a uh demographic specialist who we have that says these areas are growing and and so there has to be that particular conversation as well as I I could agree to having something done in each person's District that will benefit their Community meaning possibly selling land leasing land behind schools whatever it may be which is what you were looking at so every district is going to be touched and have a footprint and there will be change I just am not going to support one in each district if we don't even have the percentage agreed upon I brought up this number before and I said 55 I I thought that was a good number uh you know but if you're saying there is no definition of under enrolled right now and and do you understand where I'm going with this Dr heer agreed um agreed um we used 55% as our threshold for um the original plan that uh considerations that were presented the school closures that were suggested besides Oakridge the other two were 55% and Below thank you I agree there needs to be cons some consensus if if you allow staff to come up with that as we explore those opportunities in each district to come up with something that we can present to the board right um or if the board members come to consensus about a specific number either or right thank you thank you for that because we can't cookie cutter everybody each Community has vast needs and desires and and what they want for their Community I'm not going to be the one that tells people what you're going to do in every Community I'm not going to say we need to close one here one there two possibly oh no we're going to hold on to one okay two it doesn't make any sense to me so um I for me I'm at 55 and under and I believe every single District should have um the ability to to either sell or lease so there is uh making our footprint a little bit smaller but not closing a whole school so that would be my suggestion Dr Zan thank you so much chair I uh is it a county I want to be very clear chair the idea we're discussing is eight schools in 25 26 so it's not another year of planning and then closing in 26 27 but it's coming back June 18th with eight School RS uh was your proposal for 25 26 year closing correct correct thank you and and I fully support that um and I also just will share with my colleagues that uh I'm a countywide guy so it's easy to talk about this but um by Statute we're only elected by District we serve our County and Our obligation according to FL statute is to make decisions that are best for the county not best best for our district it's fine to go meet with them and talk to them and get get to know them better than others but at the end of the day if what we want to do is be an a-rated district and do as best as we can for the kids for this sparse amount of money that we get uh we cannot tie our hands analytically to any number nor because we said eight so we're really waiting for the best eight ideas from the superintendent uh regardless of what the cut scores are but we also uh couldn't really tie the hands to one in each district uh there are are different needs there are different feeder patterns uh and there are different uh uh opportunities for getting to being an a-rated district countywide and I think uh part of the the Brilliance of the idea of eight is that we go eight countywide and it's really countywide but my definition of countywide is we have uh 206 traditional schools and 19 non-traditional schools and a bunch of uh uh you know adult technical colleges which I I think are off the off the the list of potential closes even I think we're going to expand some but uh to me that's what countywide means is you don't look at District you don't look at cities you know it's uh you know where is it that we want to have fewer campuses so we can put more resources in teaching and learning uh because our job is not to create success in individual single member districts it's to do it in brard county and there the the situation in Parkland and Deerfield and and pompo and Allandale and Tamar are all very different but wherever there is an opportunity to move the whole County to becoming an a-level District I think that's the eight uh recommendations I'm I would love to hear uh and vote for on June 18th Dr hus thank you madam chair um so I understand the um responses as far as one in each district but I also believe that there are um issues that we have that will come up such as this one that is a districtwide effort and basically any decision that we make is impa in all districts so I would hope that we're looking at this collectively that it will whatever we do will have a districtwide impact and will benefit our students districtwide with that being said um it's obvious that the process has to be Equitable and it has to be in terms of closing schools it has to be necessary and it has to be beneficial districtwide Madame chair in terms of picking an arbitrary number I'm not sure where the eight came from but I I disagree with an arbitrary number I believe there must be a rational for any number that we pick um I believe that uh um we can look at for example and I'll ask a few questions the superintendent um but I don't agree with a specific number I believe that and I don't understand where the number eight came from for me um I process things if there's a rational for doing it because someone else could say five someone else could say 12 um to come up with a number um I don't get where that number came from and I need a rational for that number um so I would disagree with that but I would ask the question to the superintendent um um uh how many empty seats do we currently have this District white Mr Strauss how many empty seats do we currently have approximate or or or miss the bet so just through the chair districtwide we we have including Center Schools 49,000 empty seeds this year in permanent capacity that number will change a little bit because the state has recalculated capacity is counted and our con concrete Modular Buildings will no longer count in that calcul that um that factoring so that'll be about 6,200 uh seats that'll come off 6,300 seats that will come off so we're actually coming out of the hole a little bit just by a change in the calculation of capacity but it's in it's in the the 40,000 range even still okay so if we use the 40,000 range uh what percentage of the district what percent of of the district is this as it relates to District capacity Mr B so I have that just an approximation if you have it yeah so so it would be 40 50,000 over our enrollment so it's what is that 80 80% we're at we 80% utilization districtwide give or take okay and how does this compare to neighboring districts such as dat or Palm Beach um I don't know specifically what their capacity utilization is I know that both of them have experienced enrollment declines in recent years Broward County being the most severe but Miami also Miami's experienced some enrollment gains in recent years but most of that has been in charer schools okay so how does this compare to say the state average for for our um for different districts in the state well I I don't know what other state or other districts capacity you ization rates are I can tell you whether or not they declined in enrollment but not what their their facility portfolio looks like okay so are we able to get some sort of a comparative with the state average with our neighboring districts to determine how big of a problem we have we can look into that sir as a followup okay and in addition to that how many empty seats then with the 49,000 with that or whatever the number is 40 plus th000 can we remove and I don't know if this is a superintendent question that will um by closing schools uh to remain functional as a district I know you probably don't have that answer now but um I think that there has to be a rational process to what we're doing so how many empty seats from these 40 plus thousand can we remove when we look at everything to determine that we'll still stay functional we'll still achieve maximum student learning outcome we'll still keep the programs that we have and so on and so forth is that something that we could have yeah we can bring that back as a followup um I think with when we get the specific consensus on the ask that would align to your question so if the board says hey bring us back eight schools or bring us back 10 schools we'll identify those schools based on the criteria and then we can let you know how many seats are we absorbing uh based on the number of schools that we're bringing back but heurn I don't necessarily agree with the eight schools I'm trying to see if we can work through a rational to come up with a number of schools that we can close so by getting the information on how many empty seats can we remove to stay functional as a district then that would lead us to what will be our goal in seat reduction and then giving you the latitude to determine how many schools we would need to get there to close Miss Marte you got any insight U for this for this question or we may have to follow up with we may have to follow up with that one okay so for me as a board member I believe that if we're looking at closing schools there I am not in agreement with picking a number I believe that it has to be a much more wellth thought out process because we have to remain functional we have to have um uh continue to focus on maximum student learning outcome and I think that there's a process that we can go through to achieve closing a number of schools but I'm just not in agreement with just picking a number I understand that we must close schools um but I think that if we can look at for example the number of seat reductions that would result in US remaining functional and then use that information to determine how many schools we need to close and then uh you bring back to us the schools that we need to close and make sure the process is Equitable it's beneficial districtwide and so on and so forth uh so that would be um my suggestion on it and as far as the selling of properties um I do agree with selling some properties but not necessarily all properties okay and then um Dr holness so it wasn't just an arbitrary number that I I wasn't sure because he didn't say yeah I'm going to speak to it okay so I asked Dr heern in phase two how many schools can we we close and he said 5 to8 to be conservative to close those number of schools but didn't just arbitrarily pick it out I understand so I have a question then um Dr heon when you mentioned that we can close five to school to eight schools because the question was asked how many schools can we close what was your rational for that number that's based on the previous criteria that the Sims teams developed with the criteria of 55% and under historical consideration um ability to absorb uh students if you were to close a school uh so many the same considerations or the same criteria that we've been presenting is where I got that number from so we utilize those same considerations and add uh additional um criteria that's been mentioned here at at the day um I'm confident we can identify five to school okay so we arrive at a number as well if we look at uh uh how many mtyc reduction would um result in this in the district being functional as well as I mean could we arrive at a number through that process or no yes we work with our finance team um to get an exact number that equates to a dollar amount um to ensure that the district is stable and able able to meet its obligations and provide the right resources to our schools okay so I would like that information thank you Mrs leonardy um I have some questions about the timeline uh moving forward in the committee involvement so just so I understand correctly on June 18th if you know there is consensus for this an item will be brought forward for the board to vote on to close eight schools unnamed schools for 2526 so I guess I'm wondering what the timeline looks like with the Committees um and the school choice window uh for our parents um so I was wondering if someone could speak to that so actually I was going to ask a follow-up question once the board was finished discussing CU our biggest concern is if we are going to bring a certain number of schools to the board based on criteria that's set on a day plus some of the criteria we've already created we won't have time to do all the other portions that we're that I talked about earlier uh and and also the additional suggestions of creating committees going out and having these conversations there's a lot that's happening between now and June 18th that's going to take up all of our times um and so that's why I suggested the phase two process of being able to do that um so whatever specific next steps if it is to bring eight or 10 schools or or identify a certain number of schools based on the ability of the district to be financially stable and provide the right resources to our schools it it it will be out conversation with the public yeah so I mean with you explaining that Dr heurn you know I have serious concerns about the the timeline especially um given the outpouring of community feedback we had so far and it feels like this process got started really late for whatever reason like we we voted on it last summer and it the conversation didn't really start until January February um and so I and I think that's part of the the problem that we've had with the process is you know it's been very very rushed and this these are some of the biggest decisions we're going to have to make as a board um and it's really unwise to to rush these decisions um so you know I would support a phase two as you had suggested um I think the alternative is that yeah that the community doesn't provide the feedback that that they need that we need them to provide um and that's really dangerous I think Mr Alon how do he get round three Sor okay he's getting round three chair Fen thank you very much chair no and I just want to thank uh board member Leonard cuz that's that's what I was going to ask right in this situation there wouldn't be any Community meetings it' go straight to a vote and that is what we call the reason why the community doesn't trust us you would just have guaranteed another Olsen middle school that's called the gotcha right we're not closing any schools they walked away they're not here anymore and then coming to a vote will come to this board and saying you're closing your school sorry that is the reason why people lose trust with us right so I don't agree with that process at all I understand the timeline I understand the need for the number that that is all bad and that is the reason why like this community will say m you're doing it again you did something without Community input you found a way you found a loophole this was the plan all along the board knew what they were doing doing they planned this all along they had the school listed last year that's where it's coming so again we have to take a serious and have a serious conversation if if that's what we're willing to do I'm not because if that's the case I'm not I'm not there I again again this is the board member saying bring me 42 schools I'm about if it's a good plan I'm about it but again we're doing this whole thing and if phase one I'm not happy with why am I going to phase two you didn't pass level one why are we going to go to level two that's it that's it you're still there so again let's have the conversation we need to be having is are we moving forward or not let's do it tonight let's have let's have consensus tonight let's have a conversation we can have consensus on the land we can have consensus on everything else but let's stop wasting people's time right now thank you chair that's it I don't want to I don't want to give anything else thank you Mr zon thank you so I was I'd like to to make a suggestion kind of to answer the question that you had about um the school choice and boundaries so boundaries come to us in December I think right whenever we get to boundary so we push the timeline to November late October early November where we vote on it then you would still be in line to make the changes that you need the school choice window opens in December so you wouldn't be affecting that so we're compromising we're not we're not pushing it a whole year but we're giving time for those Community conversations um and it won't affect you being able to put things in motion because we'll still be on the timeline even if we voted in June you really wouldn't be doing any changes until the November time when when the boundary process starts because you're obviously going to have to change boundaries and the window usually opens the beginning of December for school choice so you'd have all of that information information and you would give you time to have those Community conversations and make sure that we're being open and honest so I would like to continue but again I don't want to rush the timeline we made the timeline there's nothing to say we can't change the timeline and it I don't think it's kicking the can down the road I think it is being conscientious of the fact that the process was flawed we see that we recognize it and we want to do a better process um and we can change our timeline that that's why we're the school board so I think if we make it whether it's late October or early November but you tell us what fits best in that process of of boundary changes um I think we would still fall in line with what we are what we were planning on doing Dr H Mr Beck can you give us specifics on the boundary timeline absolutely Mr superintendent Dr superintendent so uh right now the policy that uh that governs the boundary process uh which will be 8010 is under under consideration for revision it'll be coming to the board for workshop at the end of the month so there is not a specific timeline lined up in this policy right now it's designed in this iteration to be maximally flexible to the needs of the district to the school board and the superintendent in any given year that being said the process the boundary process is a very link the process it involves a lot of community collaboration a lot of community meetings so even if the board were to identify specific schools in June the boundary process would still presumably take until March to conclude March of next year so there is always a problem with it overlapping this the the school choice process and my understanding this is not under our department but school choice will be opening an earlier window this year than December to compete with with other um with in private schools which do their registrations early so there would be a considerable amount of overlap the boundary process once the schools are identified for closure um typically the board has wanted the community to participate in designing what the new boundaries will look like once a school is closed obviously all of those students have to be assigned to new schools um and it's not likely that that's going to be a decision that the board makes a DI it's they're going to want the community to have an input in that design multiple uh VAR variations on the on the proposals so those would come to the board probably at a workshop sometime you know December or January and then uh that would be the rule development workshop and then there would be a rule making hearing on that a month later so earliest February that B batteries would probably be um resolved just a followup Mr Beck so um the compromise that Miss Hixon talked about if we were to bring uh after having our community conversations and identify those certain number of schools by November um and when would the boundary what would be feasible to start the boundary process and would it end uh prior to summer starting so the the end data of the boundary process is more of a firm Target than the beginning and and it dictates how long of a process you can have because schools really need to be organized the boundaries need to be adopted by a reasonable time in the spring if there so the teachers don't miss the transfer window so that planning can be implemented for the next school year so the latest I think that we've ever in in my experience run one was like late in late in April so that would be the boundaries being adopted by the school board for the following year by April at the latest the uh the start date and the length of the process is up to the the the board's discretion to determine what the opportunities for stakeholder engagement would be like how would it be individual proposals being accepted how many how many public town how many Town Hall meetings would they be Community focused would they be districtal well there's a lot of moving Parts there that the board will will have to make decisions on it could would it be I don't know can you hear me would it be possible in those Community to kind of fold them together and in the community conversation in the decision of what school might be closed could also Encompass some of those discuss discussions about boundaries because that's also going to affect it so you could kind of do some of it together so that um you're not wasting a lot of time to do them in conjunction with each [Music] other that sounds like something feasible Mr back that's a question so um so if I understand board member hixon's question correctly she's she's suggesting that during the town hall meetings or during the the public engagement venues that the actual Pro proposals could be created in real time in those meetings and then presumably at a workshop or at some uh board venue following that uh the board could sort through the proposals and and determine consensus around which ones they thought were the most reasonable to move forward uh we have never done that before but I don't see why that would not work okay except that except that um I will say just from having been in contentious Town Hall meetings uh and having come off the very contentious uh stowman Douglas boundary change uh you're going to get a very factionalized uh um atmosphere in in a meeting like that where people in real time are are crafting proposals I think the way that we've done it in the past is that people who have wanted to do a boundary proposal related to a specific board identified issue uh could contact our department and we would draft them M for them and post it to our website rather than have people duke it out in in a public forum but that's the board's decision Mr auson did you have something to [Music] add all right thank you madam chair so let me go backwards I support let's decide tonight um I also support that I'm ready to vote for something in June um I think we're trying to figure out the what um I support the wholeness approach I was sitting here listening like wow I agree with that um because I go back on what I said not that what I said was incorrect um but let me clarify and I'm going to re I'm I'm going to reframe the point so everyone understands so my countywide suggestion was not that I don't understand that we all support our kids countywide I clearly understand that I think we all do my Approach was a countywide solution so here is my fear if we stick with the same criteria that we did before without any additional considerations we know the 5 to8 schools today let's be very clear and we know where those districts are so let me remind us 17 schools are in District 2 13 are in districts five and District 1 eight are in district 7 and District 4 six are in District three so forget about the number and the percentages I got that we all understand the data we got that we've done our homework at least I have the point was let's come up with a solution where we share a countywide approach to moving the district forward however you want to whatever you want to call it right one per District you know but ensuring there's a countywide approach if we don't you know where the five to eight schools will be uh board member holdiness get ready you're going to have at least three or four schools okay I'm going to tell you now board foli you want to know you're going to have at least three schools okay I can keep going down the line we know where the schools are you know where they are let's not kid ourselves as if we don't depending on the previous criteria the previous criteria I think we all said does not work so if we believe the previous criteria is okay say that because we know exactly what districts are going to be impacted today my point was which I I started with seven to try to think of in let me use all these terms the right Equitable number that is countywide where everyone shares in whatever decision is made by the school board that impacts all kids period I agree with you whatever the right number is so I'll let you all fight it not let fight it out we figure out what the number is so that's my fear that if we go back to this plan we know the districts we know the schools and we know the numbers let's not kid ourselves if we don't know the data I thought I heard from your suggestion which I still appreciate you bringing us all back that whatever the number is let's make a decision in June we're going to the I'm adding my own word we're going to blindly select whatever the number is without naming schools okay we're going to set a strategic goal that we're going to agree to again here the here's the number here's the criteria now for the next year that's what I want to debate cuz I think I heard something different for the next year we're going to establish X number of committees by District by Zone whatever there that will be charged to do something over a period of time and at the end of the process we will know the 5 to 8 20 whatever number of schools we decide and whatever schools bubble up through that process that's what schools it will be because today June we don't know what the who the schools are is that your intent I just want to make sure I know I I'm trying to because I think we heard two different leas well anyway I I heard two different things so I just want to understand process I did not hear which I think someone over here said no input no Community input Etc right I thought I heard and I think you so if you could just explain your potential solution forget the number but there's a vote in June that says the board will set a strategic goal and we're going to close X number of of schools repurpose X number of schools rebounder reconfigure plan 1 2 3 like Mario Brothers right we're going to hit all the plans fine but here is what happens over the next 12 months based on unnamed schools and here's the process is that your intent well it's 9:15 at night you know I think that you we gone around and around and um there's a lot that's been said and I I think that we have to Dr heurn and his staff I mean we've said a lot and a lot has happened and I think that maybe we need to just pause we still have another item that we have to get through we don't have to make definite decisions right at this moment because I don't I don't want to us to make the wrong decision we we it's late and and so I think it's healthy to pause so I would suggest a lot it's been said today I know Dr heurn will talk with his staff and to come to consensus and maybe at the next meeting you can give us a plan based on what was said tonight and what is actually practical follows policy follows the deadlines and all that and then we can make a healthier decision chair can I just offer one question that will help us land the plane sure I think the superintendent needs to know whether or not this board wants to close schools in 25 26 cor with that information I think your guidance to bring that back in the future would be there but I think we've talked for a long time but we got to land that plane for for for the community does the consensus as board want to and and to miss Le 's Point that assumes some lack of some some minimal time to coordinate with Community groups so I just want to be clear about that if closing schools in 25 26 is the will of the board and again it's not a formal vote just a general you know consensus then uh then that's a different tasking to the superintendent staff then if it's nope we didn't get it all right we're going to do the full up Community engagement to the best of our ability which means we're looking at some number of schools in 26 27 I just feel like we can land the plane for the superintendent if we just say yes or no whether or not we support closing schools in 2526 but based on what Mrs Hixon said the can we still get community input and then have um decision in November and then still close schools in with that time in 2526 and with that time frame work Dr H this I think we can work on the compromise team and I can start planning immediately of how those meetings would look this summer and early fall so we can come to some um consensus about what number of schools and where those schools will be located y so we can bring back a plan the June 18th meeting um really uh uh creating a framework of how we're going to go through this whole entire process with Community engagement uh engagement with our city leaders and County leaders um we we can bring that back this leonardy you you have my name down already so just really quickly that timeline of community input is going to be the same as the timeline of if Community input that we had this time and that is my concern um sack doesn't meet during the summer I don't think a lot of ptas will meet in the summer a lot of Civic associations don't mean the summer um so I just I have real concerns that we'll just be repeating the same mistakes of rushing the community feedback piece of this so that's that's my concern Mr F thank you CH I um have the same concern I'm not clear of what we would be voting on like there's no Clarity on that and I understand it's late I know we but this is important like this is extremely important I don't think we move past this point until we're very clear on that so if it's coming to a June vote we voting on anything closures directions to close what whatever the case is that input is going to be out of it that's what I want I just want Clarity on that there's no public input on that it's going to be you're going to be presenting a plan at that time but again are we going to have a conversation of June then I'm going to present a plan that we're going to do in the summer that we're going to do later that we're going to do again I'm requesting we have consensus do we stop now stop wasting time or what are we doing all right so what if when's the next school board meeting June oh next week uh Tuesday 2st can your team come up with a plan by Tuesday and have the board vote on it don't rush this it's just a plan on May 29th we can probably bring it back May 29th talk in the microphone May 29th is probably more feed ible to to bring something back versus next next week Tuesday okay May 29th and then the board can vote on it and then you can make changes at the board meeting we're not voting here today and I don't know exactly what that's going to look like but he's taking the consensus from that what we've said tonight and to bring that forward in the plan Miss ton I think you need to be clear if you're asking for a plan with names of schools cuz I I think I yeah there's a lot of different conversations going on here I think we need to be clear what what plan are you suggesting he bring back on the 29th okay so then we're going to go around and then you can weigh in do you want to bring names of schools or just a number just to be clear chair is that a Schoolboard meeting or a workshop Madam chair how would that work Madam chair Well we'd have to do a special so and I thank you Dr zamon that was going to be the question May 29th is a workshop so the um there there would need to be um a special meeting scheduled before after the workshop if the board is going to take official action and vote on a plan but May 29th is a workshop okay so I'm going I'm going to start I'm for the eight schools I'm just asking us to vote that we're going to close eight schools without specific School that are closing in what year chair in 25 26 could anybody else take the way in M ton thank you I I don't think that we can do the community input that you're that you've proposed enclose schools by 2526 I I think that's um we'll be right where we are now um and I I I don't think again it's trying to move it on purpose we made that deadline so what was your suggestion 267 I think that whatever we do moving forward we need that year to be able to have at least six months to have the community conversations have it come back and again boundary things are in November right and you you want to be able to have that process all the way through so I think any idea of doing something by 25 26 in terms of closing schools is disingenuous of looking at Community input in the process maybe we could do the phase one things if we want to do that continue forward with those but I I don't mind voting on things but I don't think that we could get the community input where're we're all ask asking for and the community has asked for and be able to do that in the 25 school year I agree with Miss on 26 27 chair okay Dr hes thank you so um I do not um agree with naming any schools or presenting any number I would like the superintendent to bring back a plan to close schools and to tell us when that is feasible based upon his expertise and also I would love to see a plan to compete subsequent to closing schools okay okay Mrs leonardy um I I say we work on a plan to close schools in 26 27 26 27 M roer oh can I just add one one thing truly considering um the school choice window for our parents because that is what I'm hearing from our parents is they're very concerned about the way this lines up with a school choice window okay M rer ditto okay Mr Alon oh [Music] okay I'm disappointed so that's my uh pause not that I don't have an answer um because I thought and we still can do something well let me back up I don't support a special meeting I don't think we need it if we are going to do a workshop on the 29th whatever day it is fine we still have the June meeting set to take action as a board right that's what we still said so I don't want to lose sight of that so I think we have another round to or whatever round we're on at the workshop to decide if we move forward with all of the academic reconfigurations those are my terms kind of the part one if there still is a part two I was actually uh trying to add on to what I thought you were where you were going um where if we can still uh take action as a board to say we are now directing a year later the superintendent to close X number of schools unnamed over the next year the committee structure the community engagement structure engaging with commissions Etc HOAs everything everyone has said but we still do what we said we would do a year ago I'm trying for us to stay on that timeline because I think it's still feasible but also the reason I'm pushing and I guess I'm the only one in that category that's okay you're saying 25 26 I'm still where I am yeah where we were right 25 26 yes what I said yes with uh because I think what I've heard is there won't be the community engagement I didn't hear that I actually heard something different there still can be the same engagement with the adjustments that I think the chair was proposing so I'm still we use the June meeting to reaffirm what we said a year ago um that we will close X number of schools countywide so I'm still back to the criteria which we must look at because the criteria that we've done before for me does not work I have the criteria you all have seen it so if the intent is to come up with unnamed schools and number fine I support that no school you know no names um same timeline 2526 we engage all communities immediately um I mean that that's where I'm at I don't think we need to push it back anymore but I think to your point and I do support I'm going to call it the part one that's been presented today right I think I support uh the academic reconfig figurations along with reaffirming closing of schools uh unnamed schools by 2526 Mr F thank you very much chair and sub also I'm just trying to make sure we get it clear because I don't think we have a clear understanding of what we're talking about here um whether it be May 29th June 18th you're talking about and chair you were bringing a number of schools to say we are going to continue to move forward we're going to say whether it be eight seven whatever the case is the recommendation but no names of schools okay but the community piece will be had after that to talk about which schools they're going to be they're going when is that going to be named when is the community going to know that their school is up for it that's what I want to know when are we going to be engaged in the community to sort of say hey heads up this is what we're doing or what is it the committee is going to be started to have the conversation where it is long-term facil what are we doing like who well so we can bring a specific plan but but I think the beginning parts of that plan like Mr lardy said the PTSA sack and all of that don't meet during the summer but we have opportunities to meet with City commissions County Commission uh work with our advisory and uh and District advisory and District committees um start formulating what the Committees for each district looks like or each Innovation zone so we can map all of that out in a plan and bring that on the 29th cuz what I'm hearing here's what and you guys can correct me because I'm I'm listening and and I'm trying to uh uh come to an understanding of what the board is asking for um so what I'm hearing right now is on May 29th we we bring a plan of how we're going to identify or how we're going to go out and engage with the community to identify eight schools to close um by November so we can start the boundary process um so we can close schools for the 25 26 school year that's what I'm what I'm hearing unnamed schools and we go through the process to name those schools to identify those schools with engagement with the community and all the other stakeholders in in the in the county and ensuring that it's Equitable and it's countywide so I'm going to use board member Austin's comment here so you're going to go out to the community and I think the video is on there shout out to Scott Travis you're going to go out to the community and then they're going to willingly tell you they want to close their schools that's going to happen within that time no we will we will identify spec based on the criteria that's U continue to be established as I'm listening to you we will identify those sets of schools they're going to be multiple schools per District right and so working with the community is which school is the most feasible to close which school should experience boundary processes to send school students to whatever surrounding schools so I think like uh uh Mr Austin just mentioned there's tons of schools on the list we know many of them are right all over all over the county and some areas of the county have more uh of an issue with under enrollment than others so we have a based on the criteria that's being established here we have a large number of schools that we can go to the community with and say hey here's the problem now we have to make a decision about which one of these schools are going to close in your District so help us with the solution what's the most feasible for this community what can they what's palatable and provide the best opportunities for your kids if we close a school in your District so that's what that's what I'm hearing um and that's we can we can bring forth in the plan um on the 29th so that's bringing more clarity right I think for me because like I said this is one board member that believes I know the problem I know the solution I want a solution I want a plan it's going to be feasible here so for me that's I'm okay with the number and and moving with that chair so I think I'm going to go along with what you were saying um but again I think that you really have to lock down that process getting the community involved getting clear because like I said if it is a countywide solution that's that's an easier pill to swallow for for the community for you to tell me that we have to do something but then it feels like again you're singling out a community then you're going to get a fight now you're going to and I've said this to you personally either you're going to get a board member that's going to support the plans to move forward or you're going to make my community feel you're singling us out and you're going to get somebody fighting you the whole time I don't want to do that I want the plan to be Equitable across Broward County and it's going to be a Broward solution so for me I want to have that conversation continue to move forward we've had this conversation we know the solution but I also don't want to be a board that's going to say I know the solution let's just push it back why don't want to do that um and I don't want to say kick and the we've been saying it too much so it's I understand like what we're going through and and the hesitation but for me I'm okay with the numbers but again taking that next step and being very clear to to involve the community okay I just want to say this cuz I keep writing this down on my piece of paper as one of the conditions that I don't think we've talked about is the the condition of the facility being a conditioned and then also how much money we've already uh put in from the smart Bond program into that school as a data point uh so I needed to to say that and then also in my mind this isn't just about closing schools this is about opportunities for schools and adding those Partnerships or resources those are the other parts of this conversation that I want to hear that um these committees are going to come up with amazing ideas and I know that they already have and that's what I think that will be great feedback to the superintendent who will then bring that back to us as a board later in in June for a vote Miss I I have a question uh because I still have a concern that it's just not enough time for the community input so what if in nove we we do whatever it is that you want to do in June because it's not specific and then we say in November we asked the superintendent to tell us are you ready to give us names of schools or do we need to put this in because we're making the deadline and it's an arbitrary date we don't know we could have a hurricane and they won't have time to be able to have the community conversation we could there's lots of things that could happen so we're locking down an arbitrary date just because we we want to make a goal I understand that but we I think we have to be flexible in that so if we could say let's look at it again in November see how your community conversations are going are you ready to give us the eight names if not we know we're not going to hit the window for boundary changes in school choice so we'll continue these conversations and we know maybe in January you you have the actual names of it but maybe we just I don't want to push that we're closing schools in 2025 26 just to say we did it we because what if we didn't do it in the right way so we can go forward with the hope that we get to that point but in November let the staff be honest with us and the community say we we haven't given enough into this and we believe we'll give the list but it has to close in the next year because there's a lot of pieces to this puzzle and just making an arbitrary date and sticking to it because we don't want our colleagues to make us look stupid is just not what's right for the community so um I don't mind trying to do it but I think we need to open a a window where if it's just not working in that way we're willing to say we have to wait for the next school year Mrs fam M [Music] fam yes she is okay fam you're on okay hello this is Brenda fam how are you um quick question Madam chair directed to uh councel go ahead okay um Mr Pisa I'm a little bit uh in need of clarification are we allowed to vote at a workshop which means even to get consensus or is that prohibited because we are at a workshop I thought we weren't allowed to even uh indicate which way we are leing and that would actually um in my opinion um be violative of the the sunshine losss and then the the other question is um whether or not I can abstain because I I want to make certain that we are permitted to work uh to vote at a workshop thank you Miss Batista so Mrs fam um you are correct normally or we should not be voting or the board is not voting at a at at the workshop I think what what is happening from my viewpoint is that the board members are providing some parameters to the superintendent so that the superintendent is able to bring a plan at the next Workshop um as to whether um it will be closures in 26 27 whether that the plan will be for that or the plan would be forclosures during the 25 26 school year um so it's is pretty far from a vote because the only thing that they are uh discussing at this point is um bringing another plan for the next Workshop I'm in complete concurrence with the discussion I just there was some conversation about going around the room and seeing if there's a consensus and also whether or not we could write down where we SP as far as the number of schools that would be closed and I just thought that didn't comply with the sunshine so thank you so much for clarifying do you want to add anything to the conversation would you like to add to the conversation 25 26 okay thank you Dr Sean thanks chair uh I still think we're we're avoiding the inherent conflict in the conversation um we've all talked a lot about the current process and where we are today and kind of what could get done quickly by June um but that is not uh uh a timeline where we can have the kind of community involvement that a lot of uh members have talked about tonight um if it's a trade-off between Community involvement and speed to get to the the new steady state that we need to get to in brard County i' would rather have the community conversations I'd rather get that right make sure that we do it well um and that if that pushes us to 26 27 I understand that but as many people have said here tonight including members of this board better to do what's right than to do it quickly and it seems to me like we just missed the mark by so much this year uh I really want to kind of um air on the side of having more people involved rather than going fast thank you and to superintendent the one thing I would say is that I am concerned with us waiting to 26 27 of the the financial impact of that extra year and and so when you come back to the workshop you can com I would compare the two 25 26 and 26 27 and then the board can make a better decision the same table if you don't mind chair some kind of clear recitation of what community involvement could you get in order to get to a decision point this fall for a 25 26 close and what would the community conversation look like if in fact you were doing that and it it sounds to me like by the way it's not really NE or you know by the time this comes back as a series of items there's a phase one and a phase two so it's really about how much can we do in Phase One versus how much we can do in phase two and what does that look like uh but I think that table you suggested about uh the financial impact could use another column that says yeah but what would the community involvement look like is is the fast plan 10% of the full plan or is it 50% of the full plan uh that would be kind of a useful uh kind of metric and I think it would help us chair thank thank you Mr Alon microphone just bring a 24 I'm sorry 2526 versus 2627 two different plans um you know Pros cons um and yeah we go from there but so I think that's very easy I think we can all agree on that but still we have a June meeting so are we still doing the part one as I'm calling it The Phase One at the June meeting very possible and or right I mean I I think bring it all at the May Workshop that's already scheduled we don't need a special meeting at least that's my thought um move some things off of the workshop Madam chair uh and Chief of Staff um and then uh that allows us to make a decision on 2425 2526 part one versus part two that's where I'm at perfect okay last comment Miss rert I'm just going to point out the obvious a whole Community came out and they're gone another Community came out and they're gone they left thinking that we were you know basically saying yes you're important yes you're we're going to listen to you and they're going to hear on the news tonight that we reversed ourself and we're going to make a rush I I can't support that we're not saying that no that wasn't what was said well that's that's how I took it I bet you and my bottom dollar they took it the same way anybody feel the same as me can you raise your hand we've as we've asked the superintendent to come back to us at the workshop with two plans with pros and cons and what that looks like financially and then also with Community input phase one and phase two right Mr Po there was no one just want to give a side comment so I'm like I said still in the same place but something to think about is the comment being made superintendent has said this as a board like well it's come from superintendent so the Broward County Public School Board has stated that there's no school closings in 2526 yep that statement was made so again as a board that's something to think about right we we have to start thinking about these things again trust is lost because we always oky do with the community so now saying that then all of a sudden now cuz my phone's going to be blowing up in the car from Commissioners and mayor it's going to happen wait a second you guys said so I understand that's coming so again now it's just a tough place like but like I said I think it's um yeah this is just okay we are going to move forward this is yeah the next item up for what did we move forward on I'm so sorry okay I this third time I think I've been saying it Dr heern actually what is your takeaway cuz I know what I've said twice already or three times I stepped out for about yeah five minutes and I came in and I guess it was the most important five but first I I I want to talk about um phase one um are we good to go to bring that back in June what Dr Haren bring everything back to the workshop May 29th May 29th and then we'll give you direction from there okay all right and then uh two plans I heard two plans one for uh possible closures for 25 26 one for possible closures for 26 27 both involving uh Community conversations with all stakeholders and financial impact and financial impact gotcha criteria and criteria got it can I just make a point um are we done with item one the discussion for it one I would like to be yes um I'm I'm suggesting we kick item two to the next Workshop chair it is there's a lot of detail in this chart it's brand new it's 10:00 at night uh I would be more cachent in my remarks to to bring it to the 29th is that okay chair thank you ma'am okay so we're going Dr wanza please so um thank you Dr Zan for the conversation for the recommendation the orc chart needs to be approved at the May 21st school board meeting so that whatever is approved re uh reappointments can come to the June 18th meeting and the the workshop is May 29th I I revised my recommendation to doing this as an item on the 21st and uh postponing this Workshop discussion at this time of night it's just too late to be having a conversation we'll just have to make it an item I would suggest chair and if it takes an hour to get our points off that's great I'd also suggest to my colleague that if you have any suggestions on the orc chart we can bring them in written format if they're just Corrections or ideas and get them in uh on that item on the 21st it might allow us to get through in an hour rather than take 3 hours to read them to each other okay maybe also you can um meet with Dr heern and have some you know you're if you have any comments or concerns and then maybe that would help to better make your decision on May 21st is everybody okay with that Mr Alon yes so two things I also suggest because I can hear it um you know we didn't do a workshop before quote unquote having this item on the agenda so if we have a Time certain that we put out tomorrow right whatever that is on this item so it's very clear send it to every committee known to man and woman um so it's clear um that time and you know perspective for folks to get feedback that's Point number one second point is here is my fear I actually am ready to because you know I think we all are to have some dialogue um but we have to vote on this it's a whole lot to vote on um there are a series of big changes that you're recommending um if you meet with every board member between now and next Tuesday clearly you can't uh get consensus and do anything anything different because you've already put something out so I appreciate the recommendation of meeting so you know what's coming but we still have to have the long hard conversations on all the recommendations so while it will help you to know where nine people are it's not going to reduce the the time of the board meeting uh Dr Zan that's that's the only fear so I agree with you I agree with just for the record that was the chair's idea not Z but I'll take credit for Zan's idea was we bring written changes to the meeting so we can just submit them and if they're just technical changes or things like that we can get through them much faster and we can share them with each other rather than people try and come and read it cuz often times when we want to read a whole orc chart we spend a lot of time flipping a page go to this page all that if we bring a list in you know here's some things I'd like to talk about on the orc chart we'll we'll accelerate the time by by 2x we'll get done in half the amount of time that's all I'm suggesting yeah either way we're uh dead tonight so right it's helpful if I think what you're saying is if you have a motion if you put it in writing and then there we go it helps to make things I will commit to Bringing mine and i' I've got about a dozen I'm on the spot okay so we are going to uh move that item to a vote on May 21st and it will be time certain and we will let the community know so at this time do any of my colleagues have anything to bring to the board or student successes to share Mr Alon I do and I was waiting uh because I could not have have a this I guess my only time to have a public conversation with you Council um I know that uh we had an item that was supposed to be on today but I think we pushed that back for whatever reason um are we on track to have Madam chair and counsel uh both contracts for our prior superintendent of schools Dr LCA and our current superintendent of schools Dr Hepburn will we have both contracts on Tuesday's agenda Miss Pista so the idea is or the the goal is to have both contracts on the agenda um unfortunately it's not completely up to me because right now I don't have a contract to work on I have sent the contract to Dr Lara's um attorney and I have not um seen the revisions back yet so that's that's where I'm at just to be very candid sure um he said he would uh send them to me tomorrow um at which time I will look at them and I cannot tell you that I would accept them so there could be another set of revisions um Dr heber's contract is ready um and he will be mean it it can be on the agenda because it is it is ready to go got it so let me speak for me um Madam chair I'm sorry councel weing a public meeting uh I believe that both contracts uh for uh Dr hurn and Dr Lata need to be on the same agenda Point number one point number two uh because both are two different contracts I can I understand that point um but because both contracts talk about the superintendent of schools that position and their implications they both need to come together for two different votes um Point number three uh I am very concerned about the state of where we are Madam chair um discussions have taken place uh for a while uh I'm also aware of us not having in my view uh the appropriate safeguards since the prior board meeting um of our prior immediately separated superintendent of schools I think I got that right from the motion um I don't know if uh that individual is still getting paid I assume the answer is yes I don't know if that individual still has access to the building I assume that answer is yes I don't know actually I do know um that there are different series of meetings that are occurring and this board did not put on safeguards um about what this transition period looks like we were very clear I thought as a board we were unified that we have one superintendent of schools so I think that has been very clear um however there have been a series of things I think that have occurred occurred since that meeting that has sent the wrong message operationally um and publicly to various stakeholders in the community so I'm speaking to you two um about the health of the district um the fiduciary responsibility of the board and to protect this organization um because we are exposed um and because we are now approaching 30 something days of a transition period that was mutually accepted um there are comments around a retirement there are implications of a termination with or without cause there are implications of a retirement and there were statements mutually made both on the deis in the presence of both parties the board and the prior superintendent uh as well as the prior superintendent making his own separate comments uh when I know in the uh in law uh I think we accept those as generally accepted comments when there is an agreement or contract with two different parties so I'm very concerned I'm raising it uh because if we don't bring this to a close within days then I will have to take some additional action so I'm hoping Madam counsel uh that you bring this to a close and that we do have both contracts on the agenda next Tuesday um because if we don't I fear uh different implications and things that I've heard since the prior board meeting all the way up until today so I'll going be very clear about that so thank you so the first thing that I was I will say is that the goal was today to have a special school board meeting with both contracts for this board to vote on however only Dr heer's contract was ready to go today so that is why I cancell the special school board meeting because both contracts were not ready to go today and I wanted them both to come together well at the same meeting for the board to vote on each of the different contracts so the goal would be that at our next meeting that both contracts will be prepared and ready to go for the board to vote on Madam chair yeah I'm hoping it's the 21st I want to be clear about next Tuesday I very clear and explicit um because I do know the number of days that have passed I know the financial implications that continue to occur um I know the uh none safeguards that this board has not uh created in this interim period I'll be very clear about that um the last point is because of that uh if you believe Madam chair and I'll ask the council to do this uh maybe late Thursday if you could give the board an update if the intent is to have an item or not to have an item I'd like to know that close a business late Thursday if that's appropriate yes thank you Mrs Sorry Miss Batista so very uh very quickly just so that um so that you know there is um a there is an employment agreement for Dr heurn there will be a separation agreement uh for Dr Lata and a Consulting agreement for Dr Lara so there will be two agreements that will be coming to the board on Tuesday for um two different periods of time that were negotiated um so just so that you know so because everybody keeps saying separation agreement is not just one agreement there there will be two agreements that come to the board uh related to Dr L all right so uh I'm not going to discuss the details because I think we all publicly saw or received your updated member the summary correct um and what the board voted on I thought was for the chair to negotiate uh both contracts and bring back that Mutual separation agreement uh I have no idea what you're referring to about a Consulting agreement I think that is a part of the separation conversation so yes I'm also hoping that a part of that conversation because days have passed and I don't know what you're presenting times have passed um and I also heard the board be very clear um about the well I think we weren't clear collectively but the number of days or the time of additional compensation since the prior board meeting I don't think there was uniform consent actually I know there was not five people who agreed on what that is okay so I am hopeful that whatever back and forth or last conversations there are um takes all that into account with the motion that passed right there was a clear Mutual resignation there was a clear IAL date for a resignation it was mutually agreed upon in a public forum by both parties and parties I'm referring to the board and the prior superintendent there are implications that we have not put in terms of safeguards that have occurred since the prior meeting and today so whatever contract comes back that's fine um but I know that there are uh questions today about one us having a superintendent of schools Dr hurn and a prior superintendent of schools that this board has not been clear on what direction what path uh and what roles that individual have so I want to be very clear and I and I you know I know everyone can tap dance I don't tap dance um but that's just uh where we are and we have to face the facts and we need to have the hard conversations uh hopefully on Tuesday but if we don't have an update by Thursday i' like to know that um because I'll be ready to take some additional action thank you Mrs zon thank you I just wanted to um congratulate our students that were celebrated at the evening Among the Stars which was a celebration of attendance we had four students that spent 13 years with zero absences in their school Joyce duk Zoe tanksley Andrea nain I'm not saying that one right and Richard Yang what a what an awesome thing you can't learn if you're not there and you know was said there were 100 students that were being celebrated before that had 13 years of uh perfect attendance so congratulations to all those students thank you any other board member seeing none at this time the scheduled order of business for this school board Workshop of the school board of BR County Florida has been completed seeing no obligation I now join the meeting thank you [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] e