##VIDEO ID:VWIFPdwjzP0## Brave reviews for their recent Winter concert too many concerts at the Coco carols event at moose Haven and at backup vocas for the Kelts Christmas show at Thrasher horn today they're delighted to share with you some of the music they shared with those audiences the greatest season and I feel like FAL la la la both by Teresa Jennings and Shalom hav havar which is a traditional Hebrew folk song that expresses well- wishes and peace for farewells arranged by Carol hitsman ladies and gentlemen of the Clay County School Board please enjoy the TBE chorus directed by music teacher Miss Jennifer basset [Applause] [Music] [Music] on our getting ready for Christmas Day [Music] to [Music] on [Music] the [Music] see [Music] w [Music] Happy New Year [Applause] [Music] Happ Happ Happ Happ Happ [Music] Jo [Music] glor glor glor glor glor GL like like like la la [Music] Joy [Music] glor glor glor glor [Music] la [Applause] sh [Music] my [Music] I h [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] spe e it's always so sad to see Christmas go so that was actually enjoyable to hear from it post Christmas as well thank you Thunderbolt Elementary School Scholars and miss Quinn for sharing your incredible artwork this evening The Collection displayed was created by artists in kindergarten through 6th grade their work highlights various techniques utilizing a variety of mediums artists have created Works using watercolor and wax resist uh print making and collage paper weaving oil pastel temper paint and paper noens their hard work and creativity shine through in every project and it's been inspiring to see the hard work you've put in keep up the amazing efforts at this time I'm going to have Reverend Don Kean from Green Cove Methodist Baptist Church lead us in our invocation and Pledge of Allegiance please please go with me to God In Prayer Heavenly Father we are thankful and grateful for every day that you give us for the ability to plan the future the future of of of who we are as your people and as we sit and we talk and we plan just let the Holy Spirit move please be with us and bring us your wisdom and your knowledge and let us not live and work and serve of our own and we are just grateful for this time together just please fill this room and let this conversation be what you wanted to be in your will and your way and not our own we ask all these things in your name amen please play say the Pledge of Allegiance with me I pledge allegiance to the flag of United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all at this time I call to order the meeting for January 9th welcome citizens of Clay County I want to take this opportunity to thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to attend tonight's school board meeting this meeting is our opportunity as your elected representatives to collaborate openly and make decisions that will decide the future direction of our public schools and the education of our children here in Clay County if you wish to address the board on an agenda item there will be an opportunity to speak for 3 minutes please fill out a card located in the side entry door indicating the specific item number or topic you wish to speak about and turn it in promptly to one of our officers if you have items that you would like to present the school board or superintendent please hand them to the officer who will distribute them accordingly speakers who wish to address specific agenda items will be heard following the recognition and awards portion of the meeting speakers wishing to address non-agenda items will be heard following board member comments no no additional cards will be I think we Chang that though we're moving it back to our um original spot so will be after the consent agenda correct no additional cards will be accepted once the board moves to the public comment section under the presentation from the audience your participation is welcomed and appreciated first up uh we have recognitions of academic team champions Khloe Dupri academic team coach good evening ladies and gentlemen and board members um treasure picket everybody has my uh address on file so we're good on that but we're here tonight to recognize the the junior high the JV and the varsity District academic Champions and we often talk about grade point average and celebrate grade point average um up here with all our students but I would be willing to bet that this group of people probably ranks right up at the top of their class and their GPA these are students that um are willing to participate and put themselves out there for academic matches that they have we have a season um it's about a six to seven week season um Mr Pitman was nice enough to allow us to use um the testing center um for our matches this year so we wanted to thank him for that um and we just appreciate um your support board and Mr brosi for allowing the um Academic Teams to participate and then supporting we'll have a group of all County members that will be going to the state tournament so your support of that um is greatly appreciated um I'd also like to start by thanking the uh students that are willing to participate um I normally bring questions but it's a little different tonight so we we changed it up but if you've ever been to an academic team match um it it's tough it puts you in your place as far as uh your wisdom and knowledge uh I think most of the time I'm good for one or two answers I mean the questions that are asked of these students are so difficult and it's amazing the answers that they have so students we want to thank you first of all for um being willing to participate um parents we want to thank you we know that that's extra practices after school many times you're the one um driving them to the matches so we want to thank you um for your support principles we want to thank you for your support um and then again um just the the board and Mr brosi so when we tragically lost Mr Martin um a few few weeks before the season ended um someone named Chloe reached out to me and said I would like to take over for Mr Martin and I didn't know Chloe although she was a student when I was the principal at oaklea high school um I didn't recognize her and so I was talking to her and I said Chloe I said tell me why why do you want to why do you want to take over this position for Mr Martin and she told me such a beautiful story that I asked her if she would share that story tonight um and she's going to try to um she said she's practiced it over and over and over and just tonight is has gotten a little difficult so but by telling this story we just want to show what a legacy that um Mr Martin had left and his impact that he has had on the Academic Teams and his leadership um for the for the past few years and his passion so um at this time I'm going to turn it over to our new District academic coach Khloe dpri so if you'll just cross your fingers and say a little prayer for thank you hello everyone if you can't tell I'm a crier um my name is Cloe dpri and I'm the Oakleaf High School and Clay County academic team coach I was lucky enough to have Mr Martin as both a teacher and academic team coach in in high school and he made it a priority for students to feel wanted and accepted and welcomed and it's a philosophy I hope carries into my own coaching um it was actually excuse me sorry Mr Martin who helped me figure out my passion for education and encourage me to become a teacher and Coach myself and when I was a senior at Oakleaf I had a hard time feeling like I deserved to be on the academic team I definitely was not very heavy-handed on the buzzer by any means um but instead of letting me quit Mr Martin offered for me to coach the JV team and to scorekeep and this experience is what really ignited my passion for teaching and helped me realize my potential as an educator and so when I moved back to Clay County after graduating and I was hired for my position at oaklea Mr Martin was the first person I called to share the news and immediately he invited me to celebratory trivia where he asked me to help him Coach the JV team and assist with District tasks Mr Martin had extremely high hopes for the county team this year and I knew I needed to step up with the what would Greg do philosophy in mind and although I know Mr Martin can never ever be replaced I am so proud to be the successor of this academic team I can only hope to impact my students the way Greg was able to impact students like myself I'm forever grateful to the mentorship he offered and I know his legacy will live on through the academic team program good job thank you thank you that took a lot okay so what we'll do is go ahead and start with Junior High so if the uh if you want to announce the junior high winners and if the coach will come up we'll allow the coach to hand out the certificates okay we're actually going to swap it so I'm going to hand out the certificates and she's going to say the names just to make sure everything's correct um so this is Miss Paige iob from Orange Park Junior High and she is here to announce her winners and they were so they were the junior high winners for this season yes for the entire season they won the entire season thank you it's an honor to be here okay do you have the okay um first I would like to announce our Captain James kamsky our co- Captain Ezra Lind Tyler Howard Sadie weissinger Miguel Sanchez Samuel Marisol who couldn't be here today Jordana rmore Francesca Kendig Dean Deo Ivy Carroll and last but not least Blair De Carlo congratulations to Orange par Junior High we are so excited for them we'll get one couple of pictures here yes you can be in it sure you should be all right y'all squeeze in a little bit students she just has to Center you I think all right that's a good-look team miss auste all right thank y'all all right and now I'm going to go ahead and call up Mr Brian Gardner from Fleming Island High School to announce his team I just want to point out this is JV and varsity winners so this is is pretty pretty big stuff here all right good evening uh first for the JV team I have Shayla Abus come on down Lincoln [Applause] Bailey Sophia xang Evan Hanner Olivia Jen Sophia jaah Naomi heiken Shrea metla and this is the JV team they represent Fleming Island High School this year [Applause] thank you that's a good-looking group all right thank you very [Applause] much all right and now for the academic team Varsity winners uh number one Victor agular come on down they're not all here this evening a lot of them have homework but we've got a few that represent the team David rafalski [Applause] Nathan Alcudia Kylie Bailey Katherine mcneel and Daniel [Applause] frat for all right and then we have one more uh set of recognitions but before we do that and before we end I just want to say I'm so proud to work in a county where um our homegrown are just willing to step up for people and Khloe did that and I just Chloe I want to thank you for stepping up and you know just just makes me proud to be in Clay County so what chlo's going to do is another responsibility is to take these students to State and it's a little difficult because she doesn't know them even Mr Martin because this is a culmination of all students so what they do is they come take a test and those that are interested take the test and those that score the highest on the test then are eligible to be on the um all count team and that will go to state so Chloe will be taking these students to state for a few days and spend the night down in Orlando so we're going to have a lot of conversations about that trip in preparation but um she's going to go ahead and announce those students now at while we're we're uh discussing the academic team and again Chloe thank you awesome so when I say top of the top this is what I mean okay so I'm going to go ahead and just go in an order Nathan Alcudia Kylie Bailey Benjamin Banger Dylan Collins Tyler Collins Ted kman Katherine mcneel David rafalski [Applause] Kon Wilkerson and then one that's near and dear to my heart my Oakleaf my Oakleaf kiddo Matthew [Applause] Summers and Victor agular [Applause] well they're not quite in order so don't all right thank [Applause] you all right next up we have recognition of the 2024 2025 School related employee of the year and teacher of the year finalist with Miss Brenda trotman assistant superintendent for human resources all right good evening superintendent broni Madame chair and board members we're really celebrating the top of the tops tonight with our students and now with our teacher of the year and school related employee of the year so a great way to start the school year but I'm excited and we're going to celebrate them through a short video but these are the top 10 finalists so they are the top of the top and these are teachers and school related employees that are dedicated and support the students of Clay County in so many ways we can't even begin to say unless you were privileged to read their packets which is to those who read thank you very much you'll never understand how much these 10 employees and all of them that celebrate all the schools it's so difficult to bring it down to 10 five out of each group group but these are the top and their passion through the community their classroom how they pitch in and help in all different ways is something truly to celebrate and two weeks from tonight at 6 o'clock at The Thrasher horn we find out who is number one out of both groups so don't forget to come two Thursday nights at The Thrasher horn at 6:00 but let's celebrate these top five teacher of the year and top five School related employee the year finalist [Music] hey [Music] oh he [Music] all right up next we have high school graduation rates superintendent Mr Brasi okay I could tell you one thing about uh you know School itself the main purpose is of course for students to get all those skills they need in order to be successful in life you know and as a high school principal as a high school principal a couple times got a couple of t-shirts in the closet a whole closet full of t-shirts but I would say this you know one thing I always remember talking to students about and you're G to some of you going to find this unbelievable sometimes the people that work at the school want them to graduate more than they want to graduate so I can remember so many times saying to a young man or young woman why is it that I want this more than you want it and we're not going to let you give up right and as a result of that we have some really great folks that uh that have done amazing work this year year so when you look at it you've heard me say this a thousand times after school you only got three options in life you're either going to enroll in some form of other schooling you're going to get a job you're going to get employed or you're going to enlist right but graduation is the key I always called it the Super Bowl of high school I always referred to it that way it's it's the Super Bowl right it's the whole purpose a lot of times young people though some young people don't realize that that diploma is their ticket to bigger and better things and sometimes they don't realize it and the adults at the school have to take the mantle even when the student and sometimes the parent don't want it as much as we want it and so we have a great tradition in Clay County of doing just that uh we measure how we do that each and every year and our schools our high schools our seven traditionals high schools plus CVA have done Fant fantastic I think the state just released it um today like at 4:00 I did a little bit of anticipatory data diving you before this meeting to get us to the point where we could announce those but I also wanted to point out just how difficult this is so let me give you a couple of scenarios this is a high school principal in high school principal mode right sometimes students show up they don't all show up as ninth graders so imagine somebody showing up as an 11th grader with eight credits right takes 24 to graduate so start doing a little math in your head and you as a principal you're thinking okay now what you know what are we going to do here so not everybody shows up in ninth grade comes from a perfect situation at home and does well in school in fact you know our overall graduation rate of 9 5% is is extremely extremely high right when you take a look at how this is done the folks that aren't in the top in that both if you're if you have a special diploma a GED a certificate of completion those are all non-counting in the formula Florida has the toughest National graduation rate in the whole nation the way that we calculate it is the toughest most strict right so that makes it even more special and just as a high school principal an old high school principal I'm so appreciative of the work I see the compassion that they have for people and wanting students to be successful nationally was uh 87% Florida 8 87% although they just released 89 today was the number that they put on their press release at 4:00ish around there 95 % for all of our schools every school every one of our schools either went went up or has a high so a High graduation rate sometimes when you reach a certain ceiling it's hard to go up more right if you're at 97% it's kind of like okay so just imagine what happens right do students come and students go right so what happens when a student when the when the button is hit on Synergy and you're entered as a student you count right and nobody knows that more than a high school principal as soon day one they're your student so what if that student just decides to leave or their parents just decide to leave well you better track them down and figure it out because if not you're going to be held accountable for that student So High School principles are held accountable for a lot of things that may be out of their control when it comes to the ISS of how this data is collected so I'm trying to give the the explanation as to why or how this is so impressive right I felt as a former principal myself I should kind of educate people as to how it actually works so with that in mind so proud of our of our high schools and the work that they do with our students I'm going to read a little bit about each one I got the high school principal here if you come up we're going to take one group group photo Fleming Island High School 97% graduation rate that's a fantastic Tommy Pitman come on [Applause] up it's 97.05 we we get even more precise it's fantastic thank you Tommy for the work get I'm organized Terry Orange Park High School Ivan Gund 90 91.2 that's an increase of a full percentage point from the year before Keystone Heights High School I saw Miss Burke n 93% that's an increase of 2.14 from the previous year [Applause] Clay High School 93% graduation rate that's up 1.45 from the year before thank you Dr [Applause] halter middleberg High School 96. 39 96.4 that's up 3.14 from the previous year Martin afuk middleberg High School and backto back a schools at middleberg high school never been done before ridw high school 96% graduation rate up 1.8 Miss Murphy does a great job a lot of different programs at at at redw high school and you have to be good at all of them and she is so thank you so much [Applause] be near and dear to my heart Oakleaf High School Justin fluent 98% graduation rate the highest graduation rate play County okay now we should maybe invited boak to this since he was the principal when when that happened 98 it's it's tough you get 98% it's tough to go anywhere from there but fantastic fantastic job Oakleaf High School and and CVA uh Miss stillo 97% of those students graduate that's up 177% from the day the time before Cherry if you get them all organized while I brag on them a little more I just wanted to take the time to say what an amazing statistic that is and these folks do a wonderful job our High School principles being a high school principal by the way is like being a mayor of a small City and not everybody's happy with the mayor by the way you know when you get to be a high school principal remember all kinds of things students driving to school there's all kinds of things Athletics it's all happening there so fantastic leaders we appreciate all of them [Applause] next up we're going to do the School showcase Thunderbolt Elementary with uh miss or the principal Amy ba BST I say that wrong every time sorry no it's okay it's Bathurst good evening superintendent brosi school board members and guests my name is Amy Baur and I'm the proud principal of Thunderbolt Elementary I don't serve alone and I'm so thankful to work with two amazing assistant principles Tracy Finley and Carly Pacho our admin team has a combined total of 63 years serving the school district and Mrs is a proud Clay High graduate if you didn't know we got our name because the land around Thunderbolt Elementary was once a naval outer Landing field established by Nas Jack around 1942 by the late 60s and early 70s the abandoned airst strip was used for drag racing and named the Thunderbolt Raceway due to to the large number of p47 Thunderbolt warplanes that used the Airfield I find it very fitting that 25 years ago this year the Clay County district schools named our school Thunderbolt in honor of that Landing field is who could have predicted we would eventually have two full-time military life counselors supporting Scholars with active duty parents or Guardians in my 5-year tenure at Thunderbolt we have had approximately two dozen families leave for deployment and then return and reenroll at Thunderbolt Elementary isn't that a very wonderful testiment to the high expectations and strong instruction we constantly strive for at Thunderbolt Elementary our 106 teachers and support staff supports 770 diverse Scholars throughout the school year currently we have 125 Scholars with an active duty parent we are an area school for Scholars with intellectual disabilities and 41% of our Scholars receive free or reduced meals 25% of our Scholars have challenges that affect their learning which can include additional services for reading math speech occupation ation or physical therapies Vision or hearing services 15% of our Scholars are in a robust gifted program and we also support 50 English language Learners who speak a total of 17 languages some of these languages include Spanish Portuguese Albanian Chinese Japanese Russian and French I didn't include all all of the names because I didn't want to um be disrespectful and mispronounce because some of them I have never heard of before but we're doing it we have lots to celebrate at Thunderbolt Elementary during the 2223 school year we knew we needed to do more or we could do more to support our students especially our students with learning disabilities after much preparation and planning which included our school-based leadership team we created sore time because of course all Jets sore every morning 835 to 9:05 our first through fifth grade Scholars get targeted instruction in their academic focus in their academic subject with a focus on reading during sore time children are either receiving small group targeted instruction and reading or math or they receive onra Ong grade level instruction which rotates between reading math or science children who are above grade level receive instruction to enrich and extend their learning due to scheduling our sixth graders receive sore time later in the academic day our teams utilize every piece of data to ensure progress is monitored so as gaps are filled and benchmarks mastered our sore groups change right our Scholars continue to receive targeted small group instruction throughout their academic day but this 30 minute sore time is an additional opportunity to fill gaps or provide additional enrichment the sore time has enriched our plc's and quarterly data chats as each grade level is invested in all of the children on that grade level and not just the students in their classroom it makes me smile when I hear children tell their parents or siblings or their friends that's my swore teacher that's her or him that's my swore teacher they they love it they love switching the classes and and getting that extra enrichment we also have much to celebrate in our primary grades too you can see how hard our kindergarten first and second grade Scholars work check out that math proficiency from first grade at the end of last year it made me think when miss when Miss where's Miss picket When Miss picket was speaking about um and Mr brosy was speaking about those rates and having to do even better when you've got first grade math proficiency at 99% um you know you're you're doing teachers are doing the right work the good work and we're very proud so if you're wondering our kindergarten Scholars receive everything they need in their classrooms we firm L believe that our kindergarteners do better with fewer transitions we were thrilled to celebrate with everyone at the beginning of this school year the most overall growth in the history of Thunderbolt since in 25 years so we have worked hard to continue and improve upon our sore time this school year also we were very proud to be recognized as a school of excellence during this past November Schoolboard meeting we have lots and lots of activities that children can participate in at Thunderbolt of course we have a robust RunWalk program chorus you heard the chorus earlier they were phenomenal we have math team track team we have patrols Girls on the Run Battle of the books is getting going right now as I speak we have robotics our art Club teacher that was featured earlier does Art Club six week Art Club lessons on our own time um all throughout the school year we have chess club we have Garden Club and new this year is Jet's Leadership Academy at sixth grade only so a member of our school-based leadership team came up with the idea to create a Leadership Academy for our sixth grade Scholars the goal of the academy is to Mentor our students through team building activities how to be a positive role model model conflict resolution and perseverance our long-term goal is that these Scholars will take active roles in junior high and Senior High School honor societies participate in all the many different clubs and activities and continue to work on their leadership skills we we felt like they needed more support um and and to learn the tools um so we thought that was a great idea and our uh spt unanimously approved it so we're very excited to see how those kids soar we have an amazing Thunderbolt PFA they're very supportive they work extremely hard throughout the year actually they work all year they meet with the admin team in the summer they map out all the activities that they have planned they plann them ahead of time um and they work hard to fundraise and support our school with all of the extras our PFA is led by 12 board members with very active input from all of the PFA members teacher liaison teachers and of course the administrative team so those are just some of the activities um well it's a lot of activities that they support and sponsor throughout the school year and that picture is of um our president and our Co co-chairs Vice PR these are our local business sponsors that we're very proud to work with of course our PFA did all this work we know and we know we're better because of this community involvement every year our PFA cultivates Partnerships with families teachers support staff and these local businesses our PFA also trains and organizes all of our volunteers both adults and teens especially for the teens this provides our Junior High and high school scholar the opportunity to serve others and we also have many former Scholars coming back to help as well as our invaluable volunteer hours which will be used for Bright Futures and other scholarship opportunities we have a lot of community involvement we do a lot with the community at Thunderbolt we love the jump rope for heart we do that every single year I work with the American Heart Association our PE teachers and our Scholars do an amazing job with that we raise a lot of money for the American Heart Association we do a Goodwill schoolwide donation day that it's the children's responsibility to bring in their items you know that's what we request with the parents to have the children go through their things their gently love things and donate them um we also have the Green Cove Junior's uh chorus and symphonic band come and perform which is a lot of fun we see we recognize on stage our former students Fleming all in high school every year the band comes over and they lead us on a March through our school and campus for our character Book C parade and idiom parade and then after we get all the kids in the back of the campus they perform a special performance for our sixth grade Scholars to try and boost their program in later years the kids love it um we also have fingland high school role model athletes read to Scholars and they also come over a few mornings throughout the year and welcome Scholars to school the kids the kids love the big kids you know I remember that love seeing those big kids we also have our PFA sponsors along with our um business partners a free trivia night for families it's a lot of fun we do a lot of activities with the Jacksonville Striders anybody listening tonight please go to Saturday there is a fun run at the best bet 9:30 say you're from Thunderbolt we we'll get a little money for that um we also had some of the TB chorus members perform at the Celtic Christmas show that was awesome breakfast with Santa every year um you can come and get a free picture with Santa and if you want to eat you can pay a little extra it's a it's a very small amount um but our cafeteria and school is packed with families coming up for that and it's a lot of fun one thing that's near and dear to my heart is the annual Giving Tree for TB families in need um you know a lot of our faculty and staff and parents help out with that and then if we need to post something on social media people come in off the street and ask what can they do to help with the families in need um so that's that's a wonderful thing every year I got to deliver some of the uh presence this year with Miss PCO that was a lot of fun we also do an annual food drive for families in need we do a d d s of course this was earlier in the year take your child to school we had a lot of parents come for that Mom's Muffin breakfast is coming up um we also had grandparents take your child to school earlier in the year we we do a volunteer recognition luncheon and then in the future I can't remember what month it is though please pardon the Elementary art show will be at the Thrasher horn and Miss mcquain tries to get as many children's art posted as possible we also have a paint night that is something our PFA also sponsors and all the funds from that go towards our art program for all those extras they also help out with sixth grade promotion activities and then the the biggest most fun for the kids especially is the Senior Walk flemingon High School seniors come over um if some of our students former students have gone to other high schools they come over as well well and they're in their caping gowns all dressed up and they March through the school all the children are cheering them on and um we love it it's very exciting I know they look forward to you know can't wait till they get to high school and they can do it too so our academic goals for the 2425 school year are to increase our overall reading proficiency to 80% our lower cortile reading proficiency to 65% increase our third grade reading proficiency to 83% the fifth grade science proficiency to 78% and to maintain an increase all those amazing math proficiencies as I mentioned earlier we have continued our morning sore time and are always working to improve targeted intentional teaching strategies this takes place through weekly plc's data chats team meetings ongoing professional development support from our District academic coaches and our ES site specialist our district coaches and our ESC site Specialists are incredibly helpful not only for our new and newer out of field teachers but also our experienced teachers is every day can and will bring new challenges when it comes to meeting the needs of all of our Scholars we value a team approach thank you all so much for allowing me to showcase the wonderful learning to taking place at Thunderbolt Elementary TBE is a great place to be thank you so much and um Miss Finley and Miss Pacho we're celebrating our 25th anniversary so we have Lael pens to share with you thank you so much Thunderbolt has a lot of history I was uh a little little shocked when I got to go visit and sit down to hear all about it you you hear things as you're growing up and living in the community but to know the extent of it um there's a lot of history there and that that's pretty cool and you guys do a great job out there uh next or last call for comment cards there's any more this is the last call um seeing none for the consent agenda we are going to move on to um to the consent agenda there is no special action for um Human Resources so with that we'll go to the adoption can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved got a motion from Miss gilen can I get a second I'll second I got a second from Miss Clark any discussion see none all in favor say I I any opposed vote carries 5 and now uh we will take comments from the audience Miss Torres you are up please remember to state your name and address Mr fredman you're on Deck my name is she lores my address is on file um once again I'm going to talk about accountability one of the things that I have noticed in the past couple of months or whatever certain books in the particular Library if we ourself are worried about our kids when it comes to opio drug use um mental health some of these books literally need to be removed from the school cuz they glorify self Haring they glorify usage of opioids and this is stuff that me as a mom I'm extremely um how can I say I'm extremely worried about because if my kids take out certain books out the library and they glorifying this certain type of behavior how is my kid going to understand how harmful it is because what it is going to what start happening is that when we got kids talking about oh yeah this book talk about self Haring let's create a book and you know they create a group and they start self harming well how many times did you cut yourself how many times did you do this to the point being that a kid could end up in a hospital so I need you guys to look into this book not just dismiss it because you know it's some person just saying oh self harm and all drugs is not a big deal whether you have a kid in school or not it is a big deal cuz these kids are our future I left New York because guess what they have drugs all over the place the school is glorifying certain types of behavior by allowing these particular books inside the school the education system went to the crap hole you know not to say nothing funny or whatever but it's not where it's supposed to be at our kids don't know how to read they don't know how to write whatever the case might be they are selling drugs they are committing crime because some of these book that they have access to and this to me is very dangerous and my whole thing is that who in the school is allowing these books to be ordered and that person itself should be accountable as well as the overseers now not for nothing as a superintendent I know that you have a lot of stuff going on or whatever the case might be but at the end of the day these books have to be screened before they are allowed to be purchased and put into our schools one thing is that these kids have access to certain books outside of it another thing is for these kids to have these access to these books within the school these the the school should think twice before just allowing just anybody to make a list order these books and have them in these schools because kindergarten is very impressionable junior high school high school middle school all these kids are very impressionable that's why by psychologist standard their minds are not developed to the age of 25 so therefore we are the parents and I am requesting for you the guys to look into these books and start removing them from the school [Applause] system thank you Miss Torres uh Mr fredman welcome back happy New Year Bruce Freedman address on file last two months I've read 125 of some of those Dreadful books that Sheila was referencing you received all of those challenges except for one I'll have that to you by the end of the week with another name on top because that's the way you like things I'm delivering One Challenge as per your policy and procedure this author Meg cabbit got on my radar okay like I did with Stephen King I found every book in your District our district by Meg cabin and there are many this one is in Clay Hill Elementary School going to skip the bad words just deal with the ones that concern me as far as elementary schools this book contains the words pot Ridin ecstasy cocaine junkie weed dealers drugs narc C High pills Valium kill sucks chees is used in vain four times screwed kiss Crush friends with benefits and open relationship there's a couple of references to suicide and similar ideations in there and somehow squeezed in the middle of all that chaos is the phrase less a fair in no way is that offensive to me but any body reviewing this book would see that it doesn't belong in an elementary school for a hundred reasons but there it is and I found it because you're not looking I've referenced the fact that you need to revisit your guideline your rubric your policy your procedure I understand niola is part of that that's uh software to Aid you in revising such things so we've been waiting for Neola like waiting for gdau I'm done waiting I'm cleaning up the mesh that you won't attend to to because you won't attend to it yes it's going to be difficult embarrassing maybe accused of grandstanding or spreading misinformation I'll take my chances your libraries are polluted you've done not enough in the last two and a half years to fix the problem your libraries are still polluted it's time to step up there's 190,000 books that I won't live long enough to read in your libraries shouldn't be ordering any more under any circumstances until the old mess is cleaned up that's on you I'm dropping off my one challenge please get that book out of the elementary schools for starters have a beautiful night next up we have Miss Kidwell with a CCA update good evening um Vicki Kidwell ccea president happy New Year this is the time when many of us make those New Year's resolutions I did myself like like I do every year it's a chance to reflect on our choices the direction of our lives our health and our future knowing that there is always room for growth many of us will make changes to bring us closer to our goals for self career family and our community recently CCA conducted a climate survey of clay Educators these suggestions are shared in the spirit of growth we all know that Clay County District school is a top 10 rated school district and there is much that we are doing well but in all things there is room for improvement and the first step in that journey is recognizing where growth is needed the CCA job climate survey invited all instructional Personnel to respond to two questions one what are the most two most pressing issues impacting your job satisfaction and two how can we work together to improve the future of our profession in Clay County survey results showed four common areas that teachers felt impacted their job satisfaction the most tonight I'm sharing the top two stressors for job satisfaction expressed by Educators in our survey it might not be a surprise that those top two were inadequate salary and excessive workload while the stressor most often CED was low salary workload was a very close second many connected both factors as major contributors to job dissatisfaction a wise administrator once said to me during my 25 5 years in the classroom I try not to add any more to any teachers's burden without first seeing what I can remove however respondents reported feeling overwhelmed by paperwork additional responsibilities mtss added non-teaching tasks and shrinking planning and prep time Educators shared that they needed to put in added unpaid hours of overtime to keep up with ever demanding ever expanding demands they felt great stress at never finding enough time to catch up stress over their increasing workload was often related to disat dissatisfaction with their salary they felt that such a demanding professional responsibility such demanding professional responsibilities should be better compensated when expressing their concerns about salary Educators mentioned inflation cost of living salary compression and beginning teacher salaries that rivaled those of 20-year veterans they lamented the need for second jobs and the add toll that took on their family time many shared the difficulty of being single and trying to live on a salary that was has not kept up with inflation some worried and expressed though in the survey that they might have to leave the profession that they loved some encourag Union to go to impass rather than settle without making significant gains in veteran teacher pay but many believed that teacher retention and satisfaction would improve greatly with regularly scheduled salary increases they could look forward to ones that would reward career Educators I hope that you will spend time reflecting on this educator feedback and make a plan to take action Improvement is never an easy thing but it must begin with honest honest reflection yes Clay County district schools is a top 10 rated School District in Florida but there is room for improvement and the first step in that journey is recognizing where change is needed your Educators have given you honest feedback thank you for taking the time to listen with an open heart and an open mind and I made you those little word clouds so that you could see some of the many words they used thank you is zesa here for an update all right superintendent brosi I I'm excited to give this update it's only 57 slides no it's very short uh first of all happy New Year to everybody uh and hope everybody's off to to a great start we've got several items going to talk a little bit about schools of the month students of the month prepaid Florida scholarships that we're actually giving out to as a district uh the new District websites something exciting there brand new coming out in a couple weeks 25 26 believe it or not we already start the planning process for that like now we start controlled open enrollment plus additional um events so schools of the month this month for January is readers or leaders okay the deadline is January 22nd thank you to Community First for being a good Community partner and sponsoring that event students of the month let me tell you this is my favorite part of what I do this is Hazel uh Hazel outstanding student um at SBJ fantastic you should see them I I tell them that I'm going to drive by their house and make sure that sign is out now I've never actually done that but they don't know so I tell them hey I'm going to stop by your house and make sure you put the sign out proudly and they just kind of laugh Landon from Lake Asbury Jr what what a bright light wouldn't you say Miss Miss W I mean just he came up to me and basically said hey if you need any help Mr BR you just let me know and and I was like and and uh and kind of gave me a hug which is unusual when you get to Junior High age by the way and that's not cool so I thought that was pretty cool and then uh Nathan also fantastic fantastic student so great great seeing great students out there Florida Prepaid we give out two Florida Prepaid uh scholarships totaling uh $88,000 it's an essay contest all you got to do is go to the website by February 14th somebody has to win it uh folks out there it's free it's free money if you can write an essay for that let me also kind of put a plugin for Florida Prepaid uh uh two children and both of them we had Florida Prepaid for that my my reason for doing that of course I was a teacher in the classroom I started at 183 was my salary to start 183 it was a lot of a lot of spaghetti and a lot of Beanie Weenies uh in the brasy house uh you know starting off with the family and I looked at it this way I was trying to inflation proof my child's uh potential education when they graduate uated from from high school and so uh how many people think a college education is going to go down like it's going to cost less in the future right it's not it's going to go up so this would be the opportunity to pay at the current rate rather than what it's going to cost when your child does graduate from school so in my opinion was well worth it did it for both both of my children that's my advertisement for tonight uh new District school websites you're going to notice a new website the launch date is January 27th working behind the scenes some of the things you'll notice the URL is the same so you get there the same way so you so there's no change for how to get there whatnot you know as part of the conversion over to aptg I applaud the board uh for recognizing that refreshing our website was a was a good idea and you'll see um some of the social media posts and how they translate there so this is a more streamlined way to communicate with parents in the community it's a it's it's a great uh tool in order to ensure I think one of the things that we heard both from parents and teachers were way too many forms of communication like there's like sometimes teachers want their own individual thing and then as a parent you're trying to deal with four or five different things going on right so it's streamlining it for the parent and guess what the teachers said the same darn thing they said hey they want us to communicate and so so many different ways can we kind of streamline the process so we're excited about this project the website portion of it January 27th future portions of that like direct communication all that training occurs later on over the summertime with a launch for next year so it's kind of a phased in approach to make that happen so I applaud the board for for that Pur purchase again one foot in 2425 uh 20 2425 foot in 2526 what do we mean for parents you know that we start the enrollment plans for uh upcoming programs for high schools for example keep your eyes on those dates on your school's website as to when those nighttime meetings are in order to help your child with decision with scheduling for next year because we start that whole process right now school choice week is Feb is January 25th through fe uh through February 1st I I'm so proud of the choices that people have within Klay County district schools you can see all of the career programs like Aerospace criminal justice there's a whole list of them I think I put the chart you can't really see the chart as well as you probably should but you could see up there 30 different programs that we have 11,000 students participate in CTE programs over 2,000 asally recognized industry certifications uh have occurred in in our school so fantastic Now's the Time parents where we're starting to plan for next year what classes are you taking next year all of those things are are starting right now so at the junior high for our accelerated options there's Cambridge preas and steam and then at the high schools you have Ace IB dual enrollment AP and early college program so we've expanded those programs to provide more access particularly the Ace Program is now at all of our high schools so so you know great work is kind of happened behind the scenes when it comes to accelerated options as well as the great work that they do within CTE for those students that maybe don't see themselves on a college track so again accelerated programs for Rising seventh graders and ninth graders so deadlines there check because the meetings occur at each School differently I would simply check your your website to ensure that you have that usually acceptance letters for those programs go out in March just to kind of get everybody the heads up and start to think for next year controlled open enrollment you know that we do that uh each year every 12 weeks that's that's done here are current schools that have open school seats uh and some some uh some ones that weren't traditionally on the list previously are up there you could see uh Patterson Montclair Fleming Island High School Thunderbolt uh Fleming Island Elementary and Lakeside Junior High uh we'll we'll update it again February 24th as people are making their choices and their options usually June 3rd is the deadline for when we're accepting those for the next school year once we get to the end of this school year upcoming events so many things you heard about the Apple Awards on the 23rd all count band concert I never missed that January 30th secondary uh chorus concerts the 27th celebrate literacy week I know you all received invitation I know Wilkinson Elementary School they like to to NAB everybody early she really you know promotes it and goes goes aggressively early on everybody so I know you all received that email uh Klay County theater showcase which is which is uh on the 31st allc count Elementary chorus school choice week again at that time so uh just a another couple quick comments when it comes to um you know I saw some things related to school calendars and what happens is when a school calendar is approved by the board and then is revised it goes onto the website the revised and current calendar does but it doesn't enable us to take it off the internet right so I don't know if any of you have ever done this but I've I've actually read articles in news feeds and as I'm reading it I'm thinking to myself this just doesn't seem current and then you look and the article was like from two years ago and you're like oh like why did this pop up in my news feed two years later right so that happens with information from the district too so the the um the best source of information is the website which would have the most current version approved by the board of calendars just one comment about library books you know one of the things that I applaud the board and um the way that that situation was handled is it put the uh responsibility or the the acceptance on parents parents get to choose what books they want and they have access to the books that they want them to and and so that's kind of been the um the theme behind uh the policy that you wisely put in place was hey obviously anything that's a violation of the law we get rid of anything that's that's not well parents should make the decision as to what they want their child to read or not so thank you so much I appreciate everybody hope everybody has a great uh 2025 thank you Mr Broski School Board attorney remarks right School Board member remarks start with Miss gilen today sorry I'll be short and sweet um I attended my first meeting for the clay Education Foundation um actually just last night and they've asked that um I give a board report to them um at their monthly meeting so if you guys have anything that um is of importance to you that you want to make sure I communicate to them please let me know um and you know I just kind of kept it simple this last time and kind of just introduced our initiative as a board for this coming year is really to address our policies and that we'll be working on all of them and you know obviously invited any feedback that they might have on any of our policies as we're taking them up that's it thank you Miss Galen Mr [Music] Alo I just want to wish everybody Happy New Year Miss Clark I'd like to go back to high school all the amazing opportunities that we didn't have it just you know and to think in another 10 years where we're going to be and the opportunities it's just amazing and we've got students obviously that take very good good advantage of those gifts basically so not much in life is free but that's a that's a blessing um went to Bannerman graduation this week I think it was and uh we had 56 graduates I think 24 walked and another 32 if my math is Right will be walking with their high school so that's a pretty hefty number and uh I think sometimes we need to address thoughts about certain schools and recognize that that is a wonderful school with a wonderful Administration and uh whenever we have a chance to to share the truth about the hard work that they put in and the students many of them don't have the same opportunities that are other students have so we need to to recognize the hard work that they put in um and of course the end of the month is going to be very full with lots of activities so looking forward to that um I think the only thing else that I wanted oh I know we're doing policies and I think HR is first so we'll try not to be too too rough but don't count on it so um last thing I would like this is something that's been on my heart for some time I would like to see if the board would consider doing a proclamation regarding anti-Semitism I think some of our students don't even understand what that means and for those of us who witnessed what we saw on the national news last May I think it's a good time to truly educate our children and see what we can do by coming up with a proclamation to at least acknowledge this and I thought it was nice that our chorus this evening started out with one song in Hebrew so that was very nice um I I don't know if you guys remember there's a teacher I want to say at Orange Park High School that does a special um education night on the Holocaust Y and I wasn't sure what month and maybe we could um kind of coordinate that to be all at the same time y perfect so that's all I have that's it Mr brosy you want to take a note for that okay thank you good evening everybody um so this board I was really proud of us we had a bunch of very diverse personalities When Miss Skipper and I came aboard and we went through the masterboard training and we did a really great job um setting up our protocols supporting each other and figuring out where our commonalities were and what we wanted to do over those years um I recently learned as of today that that because we have a new member we're no longer certified however I would like to indulge the board in that if we do participate there is a 7-hour reinstatement training I'm hoping we do that and it will help bring Mr Alo up and give us an opportunity to go through our protocols with Mr Alo and make sure that we're all still on that same sheet of music I don't know guys how you feel about that it's just one sour training to get us reinstated what do you think yeah the board we it's a 17h hour training Miss onora um her and I talked about it she has the paperwork it would require approval for the funding and then our signatures so can I get board consensus before you move any further I think that's a great idea Mr Al I agree Miss Clark Mr brosi do we want to look into that thank you and last but not least I guess um when Miss Kidwell was talking I was thinking about my daughter it was her birthday today and she was so excited because she had this great project she was doing and the kids gave her I mean it was a blessing it was like one of her most wonderful days was today at middleberg high school and it made me start thinking about when we talk about this teacher pay I don't know where everybody was when I worked for 10 years without a raise I don't know I don't know where we were but I can tell you this I have never I went back through all of my files since I started working here 21 years ago never seen a board more zeroed in on teacher pay than the board that I'm serving with at this time when I left teaching and I it's not that long ago I think two three years ago it was exactly be three years ago November how time flies the top of the retirement pay was $50,500 that's what I retired at $50,500 that was the best you could do because of this board over the last two years and someone could correct me if I'm wrong but I believe we have raised that retirement back to $57,000 a year in two short years that this bir board has been zeroed in on money this year we also gave $2 million towards the health benefits during inflation to help our Educators and our staff have an easier time of it what disappoints me the most is that I need the right message to get to our Educators and that message is that we have produced more raises in a short twoyear period of time I believe I'm going to try to be Mr rosi than we have in the entire time as a district that is the message we need that is the message that we need to understand they need to know that this board works for them every single day there is not a moment that goes by that I don't know when I visit schools that teachers suffer when it comes to being completely overwhelmed in your job I was an English teacher you can't that won't get passed on me because it's absolutely true but know that this board cares deeply about that and we fight for these teachers every day and I would appreciate that that message is what we start to spread the last two years of Hope and the next two four years of where we're heading because this board actually has a plan to knock it out of the ballpark thank you thank you Miss Hansen and I just want to kind of piggy back on what you just said about teacher pay I um I too am very passionate about that especially our veteran teachers um I grew up on uh hot dogs one night a week uh spaghetti dinners another night a week I grew up on it was a privilege to get a steak and if we did um I I don't even know what kind of stake it was ever being an artist okay cubed very chewy cubed um yeah cubed Sloppy Joe's so when I tell you I may not be a teacher but I have family members who are teachers and I felt it growing up as a child um coming from a home from a um a blue collar father who worked his butt off and then a mom who is a teacher so I say all of that not to get personable but to let you guys know that if anything I know several board members have screamed for for veteran teacher pay um I mean and that is the the the without getting in trouble without going any further I can tell you we have advocated for veteran teacher pay so I don't know what comes out of those meetings I don't know what happens in those meetings um after that but we as this board have have screamed that um but that being said um and I'm trying not to get on a soap box tonight but I I just I sometimes get frustrated because the last two years this board has worked their butts off um I would say well I wouldn't give us that much credit but I say we match the state in moving uh legislation we matched the state in um of things that we've done um and I'm going to tell you this someone said this evening that um these the Neola is a delay in policy and or a delay in in getting things done um I've talked to Mr brosi about this and he said in his 35 years he has never seen a policy reform that um has ever done especially to this magnitude right so so we are looking at policies that have not been changed since the 80s we're looking at policies that there's a lot going on in legislation in Tallahassee I don't know if if many people have paid attention to that but education has been the focus for like the last two years I believe uh maybe three years now and it is a blessing because I know for so many years people have have yelled for for educators to be heard and now that they have there's a lot to be done on on a district level legal level um and so we are we are updating policies we are getting new policies to catch us up on legislation um yes we got 700 pages in Times New Roman 8 font Courier to our homes yes and that's just the the first section or the well the second section I would say that we're on so although it is a long painful process to some know that it is a process that is moving very quickly I would I might add um but note too that it's going to be um very efficient but paid attention to um we are going to read everything and um I talked to Mr brosi we will get the changes versus the uh or the changes that the district made versus the original policy that we will see side by side um corg yes he's going to try to have it to us this week so that we are prepared for our Workshop because we are going through these um if not I felt as as a board member it would be a waste of of everyone's time if we didn't have those differences um because I know if we go and look at other districts let's just say the visitor policy they've conformed and changed it to what their District needs are so um and each district is different we're not all the same our needs are different so I just wanted to add that um but your board has worked so hard and I think my goals we're talking about goals and and um what are these called what do you do when the New Year resolutions for the new year um as your board chair is to let you know what we're doing to let you know our plans to message that out um I think that that has been a downfall and I'm not talking negatively I just think that we've done so much and nobody knows they just they don't get to see it all the time and nobody's watching 2hour meetings right every month uh so I think I've come up with some ideas that I'll discuss at the workshop to maybe Workshop some things out especially uh when we're talking about messaging I know that that was an um a topic that came up at the last Workshop but I want our staff to know what we're doing I want our parents to know what we're doing I want our our kids to know what we're doing doing because everything that we have done and we've done a lot of work in the last two years has been to benefit them and I truly believe there might be some in this room that completely disagrees but with parental involvement with good policy with with positive changes especially the changes over the last two years you were going to see remarkable numbers with with those who are working hard like graduation rates like uh improved reading scores um testing scores overall performance it it all goes hand inand and there's articles and documentation to support all that especially the parental involvement portion so um I want to thank the district for everything that they've done I want to thank our parents for being patient with us I want to thank our teachers our administrators all those who have to um learn new things have to implement policy that they don't necessarily want to implement like dress code and cell phones I know it's hard I know it's frustrating but that also goes hand inand with studies um that have been proven so thank you all for all you've done um and I look forward to um this new year and the positive changes that are to come this meeting is adjourned