e [Music] everybody to the uh Thursday May 2nd 202 4 independent citizens referendum oversight committee and as the new board chair I'd like to uh let everybody know that I actually know what ioc means now on the fly without ever looking at a piece of paper it took two meetings to get there but I'm there uh I think uh ARA says we start with the Pledge of Allegiance so let's start let's everyone stand 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 liberty and justice for all is so uh I would like to welcome uh all the members of the board and our guests uh superintendent uh Dr Diane gullet uh Miss Nancy throw chair of school board and all other board members and District Personnel that are with us today thank you very much for being here and for that uh next Miss Diana Williams would you please call the role Jane Morley present Melanie ler present Floyd magwood present Kenneth osley present Maryanne Collins present Sarah warer Richard Howard pres Julie roken she's Jennifer Hatchet all right excellent uh next is the acceptance of the minutes from the last meeting throw I do believe do we have a small adjustment to them yes we do um I missed uh Neil McDonald as an attendant so if we can make that change and okay so I else yeah is there any other uh changes or to the to to the minutes if not I would accept a motion to accept the minutes with that one change noted so move second there's a motion a second any other discussion all in favor say I any opposed all right motion carries all right next on our agenda is the District overview by our superintendent Dr Diane gullet good afternoon and welcome thank you Mr chair and members of the committee it's always a pleasure to be here with you it's a very busy time for all of us as you know in in the school district and we're really excited for our students and the work and the learning that they're demonstrating every day so last time I left with um something in my mind and I said I need to come back and share some numbers with you I'm I'm very passionate about data and as we work to continue to strive for our students being successful our vision as you know is helping every student succeed outcomes are how we measure how successful we are so as it pertains to the referendum I'm bringing some numbers and some outcomes to you today and this is going to be a broad sweep um there's certain categories I'm focusing on more than others because you're going to hear some presentations this afternoon with some additional outcomes so thought you might be interested in some of these these are some celebrations for us because of the referendum over 700 students from 25 elementary schools participated in the 10th Annual Charlie Dixon Festival on March 7th some of you think we're there and so when we have 700 students participating and showing their talent that's something to celebrate 97 students from 19 elementary schools participated in the 2024 Elementary Honor Choir at the Riley Arts Center in a wonderful venue 119 Marian County students represented our schools in the district 19 representing three different counties in all district bands and they we had so many um accolades there we had uh 32 students ranked in high levels of performance high school jazz bands ranked number one and two and so we're really really proud of their efforts 31 schools that's all of our elementary schools plus Hillcrest School have a full-time certified library media specialist on their site each and every day and again I'm a big believer that our our library media center is the heartbeat of the school and engages learning for all students St I just H hosted the superintendent art show at the beautiful Appleton Museum of Art and we celebrated um 33 Elementary School pieces 10 Middle School pieces and 13 High School pieces and I hope you watch my weekly video because I'm going to do a little plug that that one's coming out tomorrow is going to be an interview that I had with one of our amazingly talented students right here in Maran County public school so please watch that tomorrow when it comes out the young and art EX exhibition was on display at the Appleton also and we we were able to Showcase 330 pieces of student artwork representing kindergarten through 12th graders we also had uh 2 we have 22 certified physical education teachers 26 technicians with 150 minutes of highquality physical education and that serves 21,000 students because of the referendum dollars to make sure that we're meeting their needs and I'm going to share a piece about our CTE component and again you're going to hear more tonight but because of the equin program that we put in place at North Maran High School one of our students um was just announced as the Florida FFA state state farmer finalist for the state level and a vice presidential CA candidate for Florida FFA and thanks to those programs we're putting in place they're not only providing much needed curriculum and Pathways but also providing leadership and I think that's something we don't talk enough about and that's again a life skill a job skill and so we're incredibly passionate about the work that we're doing to help serve our students every day and Incredibly grateful to our community for supporting this is just the tip of the iceberg but all of the dollars going to support our students and finding and finding their voice and finding their path so I really thank you all for your service and for the the support of our community thank you thank you Dr gullet um next is review of our current budget income and expenditures details school funding referendum with CFO uh Teresa Boston Ellis good afternoon along with me there's about seven other folks that will be presenting tonight and these are what I call the subject area experts and you'll find that on uh slide one but let's get started this is our third quarter review of the expenditures as well as the programs that are funded by the referendum just as a review this is based on a one mill advolum property tax this was uh approved on November 8th 2022 for four additional years so the effective date is July 1 2023 and it goes through June 30 2027 this is a 4-year referendum and this has been our second renewal the revised budget for the current year is 33 .4 million and the revised budget for expenditures is 38.7 million what we have received to date and as a reminder uh the taxes that are associated with this referendum start coming in in November and it goes through uh June of that fiscal year year so we've received to date $3.3 billion and that's about 90% of what we have budgeted as far as expenditures we have spent to date about 24.2 million and that represents about 62% of the budgeted expenditures this is just a pictorial look at our budgeted expenditure as you can see the majority of the funds are in the category of class size and we will go through each one of these in detail this is a view of actual expenditures from previous years as well as the current year and our actual expenditures to date for the current fiscal year it's 24.2 million and this this also again provides prior years actual expenditures we began the fiscal year with a fund balance of 12.7 million you may recall that any funds that are left over from a prior year are restricted and they belong to the referendum for the next year so we ended up with a fund balance of $12.7 million our budgeted Revenue at 33.4 million and our budgeted expenditures at 38.6 million so we are projecting to end the year with a budgeted fund balance of $7.5 million and as I always share with you this is important because the tax proceeds don't start coming in until November so uh we live off the fund balance from July to uh when we begin to receive the proceeds for the referendum what we will do uh a little bit different tonight is I will focus in on the general fund expenditures for referendum for the district only and then I will share with you these dollars that are associated with the charter schools but first we'll go through um the general fund referendum as it excludes the charter schools so you can see what is going on in the Maran County School District always keeping our mind and our eyes on who is benefiting from these uh funds that we are so grateful for and these are the children of Maran County Public Schools so the first category class size reduction funds 157 teachers and 150 for par uh par professionals excuse me that represents 63. 36% of the budget and that is salary and benefits only and that is through the month of March I do have a question um the 157 teachers that are funded through the referendum how is that determined um compared to the general School District bus budget how how is that number the if I'm understanding the question correctly we look at the number of teachers who were in the system under the class size from the prior year we look at the general fund Staffing from the prior year and if there are any new or additional teachers based on ratios or um new schools then those are added to the class size for the referendum so it's additional staff uh next we will have Miss charity Cornelius who is our coordinator of physical education thank you good afternoon thank you all for having me here as as always I'm excited to share with the community just just a few highlights from what our elementary physical education programs are doing around the county as you know the referendum makes it possible to fully staff all of our schools with certified PE professionals that provide a very important component to a well-rounded education Dr gullet mentioned earlier it's roughly 21,000 students in grades K through five that are impacted by these funds daily our physical education teachers not only provide standards based instruction daily they serve as ambassadors of Health to the faculty and staff on their campuses and at parent events throughout the year you'll notice in some of these photos specifically um the one on the bottom right the bottom left and then directly above that one where the cardio drums are those are most recent photos from the Family Focus event that was held at at dellan high school a few weeks ago down in the bottom center you'll notice that's bellw Santos Elementary and those are the physical education teachers the one in the direct Center and the one with the dice in the back they are both physical education teachers there at Belleview Santos this was an event that they ran after hours just to motivate staff and faculty to promote positive fitness and health within the staff it was called a role in the New Year challenge you may have seen it on social media I try I blow it up all the time many schools also take advantage of events that provide opportunities for students to compete against other schools in our area most recently the elementary track meet just before spring break at Forest High School elementary athletes from 12 Maran County schools and student volunteers from vanguard's future teacher Academy as well as Forest High School enjoyed a day of fitness and fun with their families before leaving before spring break the dedication of our physical educators to promoting sportsmanship and teamwork was on display as our schools competed in this exciting event don't really see a picture of the stands there but it was it was a lot of fun and it always is we always do it the last day before spring break and in the stands behind all the students there's probably about 300 parents in attendance in addition to we had 12 elementary schools participate this year with roughly 24 25 students per team and it really gives those Elementary students an opportunity to get a taste of what an actual meat would look like we run it with a scoring company and everything so it's run just like a middle school or High School meet would be run uh last but not least I want to share with you a little Hometown hero in my eyes anyway our physical Educators work hard every day to foster a love of movement and desire to build healthy bodies for a lifetime one example of this dedication to our community is marrying County's own Adrien hope Mr hope is Marian County born and raised and was a standout football player at Vanguard High School and Ferman University and an all Southern Conference athlete he has returned to Marian County Public Schools and is teaching in the very Elementary School where it all began the support of this referendum makes this and so much more possible for our mcps Learners thank you I have a question yes the photos that we were looking at are these students representing just one school or it's a combination of schools no ma'am it's actually all over for example this last page right here that's Harbor View Elementary um if you look on the previous one that was from the track meet so you'll see several students from and coaches from different schools and then on the first page see if I can help you out um top left that's um Margarita Posada um that's Sunrise Elementary uh Stanton we's is on the top right and I feel like that sunrise in the middle I tried to I met all the schools multiple times throughout the week and I try to collect as many various uh examples of different schools as possible thank you no problem so let's talk about what all of these programs cost for the physical education we we have 22 PE teachers and 22 PE technicians again you will hear me say um often that we're about where we need to be uh based on this time of year so we've spent about 62.8 n% of a budget of $2.8 million uh in addition to the cost of the teachers and the PE text as well as the benefits this uh referendum also funds about $2 per student for each individual schools uh for the things that were spent from physical education include things like subscriptions uh uh balls also uh any supplies or uh materials that the programs may require next Katherine AI who is our coordinator of CTE will discuss the vocational programs good afternoon as she said my name is Katherine aie I'm the cordinator for our vocational and CTE programs in Maring County we're fortunate to have CTE pro programs at all of our high schools and middle schools we have over 40 different CTE Pathways that students can take with over 14,000 students enrolled in those programs this year through the referendum funds we were able to complete a couple of large updates in some of our programs that really needed it one of them pictured here is the dellan high school welding lab students were actually having to weld outside due to a lot of ventilation issues so thanks to referendum we were able to purchase self-ventilating welding machines and they were just completed installations with our facilities department so you can see the students here in front of the new welding Labs we were also Al able to do a full Lab refresh in one of our digital video programs at lakee high school we were able to install all new updated computers and purchase some equipment and cameras for their Studios so those are the pictures there on the left we were also able to provide Westport HIgh School agriculture program with a new livestock trailer this program recently expanded to two teachers which was a wonderful thing we were able to do for them and thanks to referendum we've been able to keep that program and all their equipment up to date students here are weighing in their steers at the southeast Eastern Youth Fair and now I'm very excited to share we recently had students travel to both the State Health occupations the HOSA competition as well as the state skills USA competition at the HOSA competition we had 21 students that qualified to attend the international competition which will take place this summer in Texas and at the skills USA competition we had four students that qualified for the national event this summer in Atlanta and thanks to reference them we were able to pay for their transportation to those competitions that they just went to our vocational programs continue to grow every year and having referendum gives us the opportunity to ensure these programs are state-of-the-art and that our students are prepared for their Futures thanks the referendum supports 18 vocational teachers as well as uh as she mentioned uh trip tickets for fuel and uh field trips subscriptions books consumables and I think she also mentioned uh the trailer and also a shed this budget is $2.3 million and again it funds 18 vocational teachers and the needed supplies next we will go on to library and media uh this will be discussed by Kelly Brower who is our coordinator of instruction materials special programs and Media Services good afternoon so I am Kelly Brower I'm cordinator of instructional materials which that part of my job is to ensure that every student has every textbook that they need on the first day of school and also I oversee all textbook adoptions um in addition I supervise all the media centers So currently we have 50 soon we'll have 52 as in January we'll start planning for our two new schools so thank you for having me here today to share the great things that are happening in our media centers at each of our schools our media centers play such a critical role in building a strong reading culture in our schools our media Specialists work tirelessly to ensure that the library collections are kept current and that there are titles to support student research as well well as maintain a collection of titles that students wish to read for pleasure year to date our students have checked out over 500,000 titles our media Specialists also support beanstack which is a program that's used throughout the district to support the school Community reading culture the program allows us to keep growing our students love of reading our media Specialists maintain accurate records they host special events at the media center which is what you see happening in this collage of pictures they also ensure that all of our students in K through five get their Internet safety so the benefits associated with a good library programs are strongest for the most vulnerable and atrisk learners but a growing body of research known as the school library impact studies has consistently shown positive correlations between highquality library programs and student achievement so here we see a collage of our different some of our media centers and I just want to highlight that some of the spaces found in our media centers are really vibrant they use a lot of flexible seating we like to call it where the students can find a nice cozy place to either do some research or read their book or work on something that their teacher has asked them to work on and our media uh Specialists are always creating a literacy Rich environment so I want to say thank you for these referendum dollars because we are able to have a certified media specialist at each of our school sites and we are extremely grateful thank you for library media again 16 media Specialists and this budget is about $1.4 million and again these students uh are afforded additional books uh book covers book racks all those things that uh support the program and elementary schools are allocated again $2 per student um for each school now we will have Fine Arts first the visual arts and then um the music and that will be shared with us from Brook Hutto who is the coordinator of Fine Arts good afternoon uh thank you as always for being here and for giving of your time to this committee um every time I get to present to you I feel like a very proud mama um I love getting to share what it is that our programs are doing and they are doing some truly incredible things and we are so thankful that the referendum allows us to continue to do those incredible programs um in the visual arts our students and teachers have been working hard in their classrooms creating projects for upcoming art shows both districtwide in their um community and on the campuses you will see they on we've got some black lights that our students have been using to create blackl art projects and clay creations from our elementary students that they've been working on um over in the third picture from the top left um our Westport High School senior art class uh part of the mecca program they actually took over the Brick City Center for the Arts for the entire month of March as their senior project uh they curated the show they advertised for the show on social media they did all of the setup they were every single student was required to come and bring their own piece to set up inside the brick and they even catered their own reception um it was an incredible experience for these students and we are so proud of them um and also thank you to the Marian cultural Alliance for their support in allowing us to use Brick City Center for the Arts for this event um you'll also see some images from The Young and art art show that Dr gullet spoke about earlier um this was held at the Appleton Museum from March 19th through April 21st every art teacher in our district um selected six pieces to represent their school program um and it was on display at the Appleton during that time um in addition on April 24th we had our annual superintendent art show which featured one student artist from each program in the district for Performing Arts over spring break we had this incredible opportunity the marching bands from lakew high school and Forest High School actually traveled to New York City and they marched in the St Patrick's Day Parade they had an incredible time they got to take in Broadway shows and get to experience what New York City life was like um and they represented Maran County incredibly well in February our Winter Guard color programs uh Color Guard programs from across the district had their performance assessments and then to celebrate music in our schools month we had the 10th Annual Charlie Dixon Elementary Music Festival which was held at First Baptist Church um with over 700 students from 25 schools performing on the stage and it was a pretty incredible experience and thank you to those of you who were able to attend that night I just would like to interject that was so enjoyable and I really do appreciate being invited and I would love to receive invitations to other events that maybe slip under our radar a little bit I I love going and seeing and the kids enjoying themsel and learning and just things outside of the classroom so I just definely make sure we include you yeah I just am open to every invitation yep and we are actually uh we're at MC PS Fine Arts on Instagram so if you would like to follow us I post every school stuff anybody that sends things to me um their their things end up on there I'll post programs that are coming up uh special features of different artists uh different teachers programs special things that they have coming up at their schools all that kind of stuff um so in our last slide um in late February we had our five school dance programs they held their third annual Spring Dance showcase actually here in the MTI Auditorium it featured ballet tap and modern dance our secondary Maran all count Honor Choir had their concert at the end of March performing with 175 middle and high school students from the coral programs across the county this was our middle schools and high schools represented any school that has a choir program um they usually nominate their students and they get to come out and they rehearse at the CF campus for two days prior to the performance um with renowned vocal clinicians from across the state two of our theater programs Horizon Academy and Westport participated in the state thespians competition and their District thespians competition and received top recognition Horizon Academy received one Critics Choice Award for their large group musical 23 Superior and excellent ratings and their one act received an excellent rating Westport High School's group received 39 Superior and excellent ratings three students received top honors as best in their category and two of their seniors auditioned at the state festival for scholarships which only the top 50 applicants in the entire State of Florida are allowed to move forward to that their main stage show also received a superior rating and two of those students were selected as Allstar cast and crew and then finally in April our high school all count band held their concert at the Riley art center we had 106 students representing our seven high schools they were actually conducted another Hometown Hero by Mr Steve Stevens Who currently teaches in North Carolina but is a product of maring County Public Schools and a lake wear high school School alum as you can see our Fine Arts Educators and students are working incredibly hard and this referendum allows us to continue to provide our students with these incredible opportunities to shine and to Showcase their amazing talents we are looking forward to wrapping up this year with some school-based performances school-based art shows and showcases and to get ready to begin again in the fall thank you again wow so we'll go back a little and look at what we have categorized as the art program the art program funded by referendum supports point5 of a coordinator 16.5 art teachers seven pair professionals that support classrooms um and again for the art program the elementary schools receive $2 per student which allows them to purchase consumables and some um equipment as well as paying for some dues or memberships the other side of the Fine Arts is music and again 0 five of a coordinator 17.5 music teachers and eight par professionals which is a total of 26 uh staff in addition uh to the staff there is also an allocation that is provided to the secondary schools middle and high uh in addition to their general fund allocation of of 121,000 we're still at 62. uh 54% of expenditures again right in line where we would be at a 3/4 of the year um the salaries total about 1.1 million and the remaining expenditures again support field trips um music books and music equipment now I'd like to introduce you to someone who is uh new to the central office um Miss twiler hazer I hope I pronounced that correctly she is a program specialist in the district good evening everyone thank you for being here with us today to go over the latest updates on the mentor and induction program for the 2023 2024 cohort reviewing the snapshot in time there's been an increase in the number of new novice Educators hired a novice educator is defined as anybody with less than one year of service in the classroom overall the majority of our novice Educators have stayed and made it to the through the program from August until April April there is a slight change in the secondary level some of it is due to teachers just completing the program because they were midyear hires last year and you're only in this part of the program for a year and some of it is due to having to move or um things of that nature overall we are doing very well with the program and it's being received well by our novice Educators next slide oh sorry I'm a little nervous sorry you're doing fine all right the one significant adjustment in our current budgeting is the addition of five new mentors due to five hires coming on and requiring that support that will result the payout increase in $5,500 there have been no changes in the lead allocation a lead is a person that works on the School site to support both novice Educators and mentors in developing their skills and building capacity and efficacy the majority of these funds will be paid out at the end of the program which is now it is ending now in April thank you for your continued support and building efficacy in our new teachers I'm sorry I just have I'm that's okay I'm apologizing ahead of time um I what is the reasoning for waiting until the end of the program for your lead teachers and your instructional Talent de developers why do they have to go the full year before they get paid currently they offer 30 hours of support meaning that they meet with those mentors once a week so they have a contract and then sometimes um it will change mentors and leads can change so the contracts get paid out at the end of the year um it's because the program La oops sorry last an entire year okay so to come to completion that's when okay thank you thank you and welcome aboard again reiterating that at the uh teachers mentors uh leads are paid at the end of the program so at the end of March there are no expenditures Associated uh with this particular program that has a budget of $627,500 our last uh program is a safe schools and this discussion will be led by uh Mr Dennis mcfaden good afternoon and I just told the young lady that we're all nervous when we come here so if she's not then she's better than most of us we're all nervous but good afternoon and thank you and thanks for your willingness to be part of this oversight committee the district has an unwavering commitment to keep our students staff and visitors safe however with every new legislative session new mandates are placed on school districts that often times does not come with additional funding and many many cases these may appear to be small or minor requirements but when added up over 50 plus schools for an indefinite amount of time it can become labor intensive and very costly in addition to the cost of Sr cameras and door buzzers other security measures have been implemented to keep our schools safe as you can see on this picture on the left push bars have been added to some doors to better secure areas of the camp campus during an emergency this was once a standard door that has been retrofitted with the p push bar Hardware to enhance security inside of a school building the next picture shows a picture of a key cylinder lock they have been installed in the security gates with panic Hardware these key cylinder locks allow for quick and easy access to different parts of the campus by our staff and SRO when they are outside of the fenced area other security measures such as nox boxes have been approved for purchase and should arrive within the next few weeks and will be installed on every campus the nox boxes will be installed at the main entrance 6 feet off the ground 2 feet to the left for consistency these knock boxes will give our local law enforcement and fire departments access to a school campus during an emergency the use of knoxbox will eliminate the need for front office staff to physically open doors for responding First Responders during an emergency radio frequency testing was also completed district-wise this testing determined that radio frequency levels mandate mandated by the state is not sufficient at some of our schools however by partnering with County officials we are able to use technology that allows multiple avenues for radio communications to enhance first respond to Communications inside of a structure that will help us to meet or exceed the minimum radio frequency requirements so basically um in the situation in Parkland we've explained it before law enforcement was inside of the school building and every time they keyed up their radio they got this a loud sound which means that the radio communication wasn't getting out so laws have been passed that requires us to make sure that that radio now is able to be utilized in the event of an emergency so we' done this testing and we've been working with the county and the county is doing a big huge investment and we are now on the 800 megahertz radio system along with other County uh agencies we just got on it and what this allows us to do when the law enforcement uh First Responders come on the scene we're using three different types of Technologies for the radio to basically um grab whichever is the best technology that is going to enhance the radio capability Wi-Fi LTE and there's the name for another but once they get on the campus the radio will automatically without doing anything without the officer or fire department doing anything will automatically look for the strongest signal and use that signal to amplify their response or their communication to the com Center as always physical security is only part of the solution we must all work together to find creative and costeffective ways to keep our schools safe from internal and external threats again we thank you for your commitment to student safety Mr mcfaden before we leave um your comments at the beginning about being nervous and all of you you're all doing a great job by the way we're nervous too we're just citizens trying to do a good job and we don't want to screw anything up so we're all on the same boat together we appreciate you guys time thank you and I I have uh oh go ahead go on you go ahead first in regards to the Panic um hardware and in in the items that you just discussed do we have these as of now at all schools or you're in the process of getting them into all schools so the Panic hardware for the mo for the most part that they were already at all of our schools but there are some schools the older schools that were built and the way they the schools were designed it was just a push door similar to what we see back here and that door is not able to be locked or secured so with adding this Hardware to it is able to be locked and secured in a manner to where you have to have a key to come in from the outside but also from the inside you're able to respond and get out if there's a fire or some other type of emergency other than like an active salor trying to figure out how to how to ask this question um so let me know if you don't understand U what I'm asking um we know you know thank you for doing this too uh by the way uh we know it's very important to keep our our kids um safe uh as far as the different projects and uh installations and different things you're doing with the schools uh is this like a ongoing type process with expenses or is there like a set checklist here are things we want to do and then we'll take care of the maintenance as we as we go along that's a little bit of everything okay it's definitely going to always this is something that is going to be an ongoing um reoccurring continuous uh Improvement because school you can never get it 100% right right um but what my department what this District tries to do and in end if you you go off to conferences these vendors are like they're they're like buzzers they come out and they just want to Feast on you and they try to sell you stuff and so each and every just about every day I'm getting emails from somebody trying to sell me stuff I'm not about buying stuff when we make these decisions we're making decisions that are directly impacting and has a great effect or the greatest effect on school security it's not about we just don't want to put something in front of you that's a perception what we put in front of you is a real situation where we have experienced something Based on data based on what we've seen based on the unique needs of this District or maybe an example from another District that we absolutely think is the best way to protect students staff and visitors so we want to be fiscally responsible when we purchase things not to just purchase stuff just for for black or better work just for show we don't purchase things for sure we show purchase Things based on the the the need Or the critical need based on what our district is facing thank you great answer the reason why I was asking that because I was curious to see if I know in the beginning when you started installing all of the security uh type products um that you know it's going to be a lot more money spent in the beginning but I didn't know if it would stay at that level or there's a time where it kind of decreases a little bit and I know if you see something else that maybe a better Pro you know something that you need to have that's going to protect our kids um you'll go for that and it fluctuates because right now um we it was a a high demand for fences yeah and now that we pretty much got fences on every campus is now just a matter of going back and adding a few layers here and there to better improve on the security of the school so whereas we may have spent several million doll in one year on fences that cost is now not as high but we use it to cover other areas that's needed to help improve the safety of the school gotcha thank you yes sir any other questions all right so what I would add is safe schools is an increasing cost and it is for the most part hard unfunded mandates that are required by statutes and uh things that um as Mr MC faten said that we see that are needed in our school district most of the the items are recurring costs such as cameras door buzzers there will always be um maintenance and then we're always looking for ways to enhance as he said uh the expenditures and um the reason I said that is we started out with safe schools a few years ago and it wasn't a lot of money allocated uh when Dr gullet came uh we had many discussions about where we where we are where we should be and you have seen in the last few years that safe schools dollars have increased based on the needs of the school so this budget is $8.1 million uh we do pay for Guardians at some schools as well as a portion of the SRO cost um there are is equipment that's a purchase that we've talked about it the um different maintenance of of equipment uh radios and uh can't forget our Rapture system that we use for uh volunteers so again they've spent about 60% of their budget and uh well on our way um to uh meeting that budget and there's always uh room to uh uh purchase additional things we also uh purchased some safe School items out of the general fund as well and that sometimes uh people don't remember that but our allocation uh from the Department of Education which is uh based on a lot of different criterias there is an apportion um to all schools and they look at not only the number of students but also the crime ratio uh in your school district so we're right about 35 million in the um in the general fund so you can see how the referendum does supplement the expenditures that are required uh for safety in our schools M Boston Alice um could you clarify what a guardian is Mr mcfat okay I was just curious between what the difference was between a guardian and an S SRO yes ma'am great question um so the State of Florida now has they require every school to have what they call a safe school officer on every campus and the state has allowed us to meet that mandate by four different ways a school resource officer who is someone that's employed by the local sheriff of police department a school who safety officer someone is who is hired by a local Schoolboard Police Department a guardian which is someone who could be hired um by the school district and it could either be an existing employee like an assistant principal a principal a counselor front office staff a custodian um and they are considered Guardians and then the final or the fourth option is to hire a security firm like whatever security firm out there the District could hire them to meet that mandate but those are the four options we here in Maring county has Sr RS on every campus that's hired by the Sheriff's Office okel police department and BW police department and in addition to those we have paid staff who are Guardians at certain schools what qualifies them as a guardian meaning what is that how is that different than an SRO so they have no uh law enforcement no arrest Authority they cannot arrest their main it's not their primary function because they like could say they're hired by the the the district to be whatever their role is but as a guardian they are required to respond to an active as salent or active threat that's on the campus so they take off one hat and then immediately if something is happening they put on that roll of a garden which is to engage or protect uh the school school and staff during an emergency are they armed they are armed uh they are armed but not open carry um so we can't identify who they are but they are out there on our campuses are they TR and they are trained uh by by the Sheriff's Office the state statute requires that they go through 132 144 hours of training that is put on by the Sheriff's Office and those Guardians are are pretty much um they have a schedule that the Sheriff's Office brings them in we as a district as a department we vet each and every one of them before we assign them it's a vol it's on a volunteer basis they come to us and and tell us that they have an interest in doing it again we vet them um to make sure that they meet our qualifications our standards and then they do a complete background check at the sheriff's office um they go through that process which is a basically a hiring process they go through the whole hiring process background check fingerprint psychological exam all of that and then the Sheriff's Office take them through ex intensive 132 144 hours of training which is a lot of it is on the Range shooting and qualifying how many Guardians do we have if I may ask we just um we don't really have we we have account but we for purposes of security we don't disclose the number of Guardians that we have because of the just security reasons so but how is it being determined how many Guardians goes to a school is based on the student population or no ma'am but because we got like I said we got a um law enforcement a sworn law enforcement on every campus two of them at all of our high schools except for one High School uh the Guardians are just determined by again just a lot of different things um the response time their location the willingness of people at that certain school to do to do this cuz it's not something that's mandated it's people who are willing to do it yeah it's an added deterrent um it's just another it's just another layer of protection yes uh because we know that as um we see what bad guys bring to these schools when they do try to commit harm and so we this is an extra layer of uh defending and protecting our students and staff Goa I I will add uh on a personal note um somehow ended up on a reference list for a guardian for a school and um I can tell you it is a thorough process I was called I was asked a lot of questions about this potential Guardian who was who was being background checked to see if they could be a part of the program it was pretty intense so um I think it's a great thing that they're doing and they're doing it the right way yes sir thank you so if there are normal questions um related to Maring County Public Schools uh excluding the charter schools I'll move on to the Charter Schools I do um have a question going to the the class size yes um me as a person that work in the corporation of private world we know how hard it is to hire people so I know it's very difficult to find you know great quality teachers uh in order to start meeting the class size criteria so I know that's real tough but I'm looking at um some of the numbers here I'm assuming this it's your goals where you're not quite hitting those those numbers that you want to hit and um and Maron county is is uh is growing we know everybody want to move here I wish they would kind of don't come here get too big I like it way it is but it's growing right um my question is do you see that goal increasing in order to um as of right now do you think that goal is adequate to uh keep the class size whereas uh following the the the State of Florida law concerning that um based on my knowledge and I try to stay in my Lane of we we are anticipating another um thousand students next year that is the estim the estimate for the Maring County Public Schools so I would say that number will continue to grow uh as we grow and we shift uh you may be aware that we are opening uh two elementary schools 2025 um also a high school in in 2026 and we're also looking at wings for some of our middle schools so I would say we are growing the projection is that we will uh continue to grow can just sort of drive around ellaa in some areas it's it's unbelievable um the growth and the speed of the growth and Dr gullet I don't know if you want to add anything to that piggy backing on that um how is it determined for example the budget for class side reduction out of the referendum money is $18.2 million compared to what for the general fund how is it determined what is funded which way so again all the new hires are um charged to the class size funding so if you think about last year we had class size and we had general fund and it is specific for those core classes so where we are supposed to be at class size so we look at last year's numbers we look look at individual schools uh say a school had 100 teachers last year of which 15 uh were new teachers the 15 would have been charged to class size and then the following year say they had to hire five more teachers the additional five would be charged to class size so uh but basically we're looking to fill positions for the core classes and not just um any of the classes are considered uh extra-curriculum so basically they do one year in the in the fund and then they move into the general fund as being staffed no okay NOP it is again if I can rephrase that explanation so just say last year we had a 100 general fund teachers and we had um 20 class siid meaning there were brand new teachers that were put in the uh core classrooms at a particular school the next year that school needed additional teachers those additional teachers including the new teachers from the last year would be charged to class sites thank you so much for clarifying I'd like to piggy bank Piggy Bank off of that too it seems that we're perpetuating a shortage then in our general budget in fact it's not improving it would be getting progressively worse because we're adding all the new ones onto the referendum um not not really sure I follow that but I think the whole idea behind class size was because we were out of the class siiz Amendment parameters and the referendum allowed us to meet that uh uh you may recall I don't know eight nine years ago uh the decision was made by our school board to pay the penalty for class size because we could not afford hiring the teachers so the additional teachers are uh that we have hired are charged to the referendum because they help reduce the class size but but I do understand what you're saying because this is a uh 4-year referendum and we have to come back before uh our public to ask again and again it's this was a second renewal uh but uh I think I think as we grow as a community uh we will see additional units that need to be hired uh but hopefully the the offset to that is that we will earn additional funds our base student allocation a lot of times what happens with that is the funding we receive doesn't keep up with the expenditures you hear us talking about a lot about unfunded mandates and those are the things that we're dealing with with safety you heard me say our allocation was about $3.8 million but we're spending in excess of that and we're thankful for the referendum to help us meet those unfunded mandates but you're exactly right um the cost of everything continues to grow but our funding though we are very very thankful for it is not keeping up with our expenditure let me interject really quick um and I do appreciate that and I think I feel like we're maybe moving into a conversation about General budget items and stuff I I want to just remind our committee we have a very narrow responsibility here and that narrow responsibility is we are overseeing that these funds are spent on the things that they're supposed to be spent on and though I know we're all concerned about the broader thing we it probably just behooves us to stick very tightly to what we're resp responsible for um because I'm sure you didn't come prepared to talk about the general budget anyway so that that that's something just I know we all care about it but we we probably should stick to our responsibilities as far as just narrowly making sure that the funds that are being spent are being spent on the things and then we are entrusting you know you to allocate those things in ways that are necessary to to make your budget work and then explain to us you know those things so does that make sense it makes a lot of sense and I appreciate that comment I guess my main concern is that when it comes up for a vote again and if it doesn't pass then we're all in deep water yeah those are the things that keep them up at night for sure so we as a community need to make sure we're doing everything we can do to to help them in that so thank you so for the current year fiscal year our Charter Schools were added to the referendum and this is a requirement by Florida statute so we have worked with them closely and I can provide some level of detail to you but as with all Charter School expenditures they provide the information to us and then at the end of the year they are audited uh by a private firm just like we are to determine that they have uh fault the Florida stat States and the rules so I'll go through the charter schools quickly just to provide you an overview of how they are spending their portion of the of the referendum uh the total budget for the referendum for our Charter Schools is $1.7 million and you may wonder how that's allocated we look at the unweighted FTE of the Char School versus the total weighted FTE of the school district including the charter school and then it's just simple math multiplying that times what we've been allocated in total so that's how we come up with their allocation they provided to us how they have budgeted those dollars and their budget is in alignment uh with the referendum so you can see that uh they are using the same categories that we have um the majority of their funds are spent on professional development and school safety they don't necessarily have to do it the same way we do they just have to use uh the same categories that were approved in the referendum this particular slide presents to you what they have actually spent and this is about $1.6 million of their $1.7 million have been actually spent and that covers Maran Charter um Macintosh Area School uh the Ina colon also um oakal uh Charter for the middle as well as the high school again to just go through in a level of detail for class sies they have spent about um 88,000 of their $19,000 budget for physical education they've spent about 83.9% of their budget uh this include salary and some purchase services and materials and supplies under the category of library media they spent about 75% of their budget and it is mostly salaries and benefits and some consumable materials and supplies in the area of art their budget of 55,000 has been uh spent on salary and benefits as well as consumable supplies and that represents 84% of their budget uh music is about the same 84% of their budget has been spent on salary benefits materials and supplies and their total budget is $13,000 under professional development they've spent almost all of their funds that have been allocated a budget of 288,000 and they've spent uh 583 th000 and in safe schools 91% of their budget has been spent on salary and benefits um their total budget was $579,000 we're ready for any additional questions or comments I'll turn it back into the hands of Mr osley any other questions what is the population of all the charter schools that were def funding with this presuming there's I would have to guess on that but I'm thinking maybe 6 to 700 students um I know colon probably is the larg well I know they are the largest um so I'm thinking it's about that more seven or 800 but I can certainly add that to the the next time we um have the presentation thank you all right if there are any other questions and thank you by the way for being you know for engaging in this and asking great questions and and being thoughtful I really appreciate the board doing that um other matters um we have talked about future visits I think we have a date um for uh looking at maybe doing two visits in the fall thought that that trying to maybe Jam one in here at the end of the school year for those of you who are in education you know how crazy the end of the school year is and we thought it would be better to maybe push it back so right now tentatively uh September Friday September 13th um and I don't know if that did that go out to the whole board as far as an invite um if it hasn't it will and uh I think that date we're we're planning to look at a couple of the high school programs and then we are looking for a date uh later in this semester to go look at some of the elementary school programs so we wanted to get those out early so that you can plan around them to to try to be there I think it'll be a really great experience for this board to kind of see in person and you say that went out uh it if if it went out it went out right before this meeting oh okay okay yeah so if it didn't go out it it I landed in my inbox uh but that was right before I came here okay so if it's not we'll make sure that you get that invite uh in your inbox tomorrow and for the 13th Friday uh the 13th September 13th do you have the second date we do not yet have the second date we're working on that okay yep sub and um date for our fourth meeting I can't remember what was our uh did we did we set that yet I August 22nd that be yeah that's what I have okay that is would that be our third meeting on August yes yeah so so we need to we'll work on getting that date for the fourth meeting then and getting that out to everybody very quickly and sticking with the regular schedule okay any other matters or concerns for the board um I do have a question uh so we talked about our job duties um I was wondering is there something in written that's in writing talking about our position description um just because I don't want to overstep but I also want to do our due diligence so if maybe I had a little bit of a guidance by that yes I have in my hand the uh ioc um oversight committee bylaws and I will send we will send those out as well following this meeting so everyone has those they're they're pretty they're not lengthy so they're pretty easy to read and our responsibilities are outlined pretty clearly in just one of the paragraphs so it's it's it kind of clearly defines it for us so we'll send those out for sure it's a great question actually anything else if not I'll entertain a motion to adjourn so move all right we're adjourned thank you very much thank you [Music] --------- the Schoolboard work session begins in 2 minutes please take your seats again the Schoolboard work session begins in 2 minutes e the Schoolboard work session begins in 1 minute please take your seats again the Schoolboard work session begins in 1 minute e [Music] good Thursday morning everyone I now call the May 2nd 2024 administrative briefing and work session of the Marian County School Board to order at 9:00 a.m. please silence your electronic devices to avoid disturbing others I'll Now read our board commitment statement we are the Marian County School District leadership team when we come together to work we are efficient effective and productive our three most important characteristics are dedicated transparent and individually responsible to work well together we must demonstrate respect confront reality and be accountable we will always put students first and we will leave a legacy of success mirroring and modeling how our students begin each day I ask that you please pause with us for a moment of silence thank you thank you all I now ask the board School Board attorney to explain the rules for this public work session good morning attorney Powers good morning this work session is a public meeting as defined in Florida's Sunshine Law the board is dedicated to full transparency in its meetings and its work in compliance with the Sunshine Law the board has adopted uniform meeting procedures including the right for citizens to participate the board will allow public comment regarding any work session item listed on today's agenda at the appropriate time speakers must fill out a request form located in the lobby and hand it to the board clerk after the board and superintendent have completed their discussion on a particular agenda item the board clerk will call the speaker's name in the order received each speaker will have three minutes as required by the Sunshine Law the board must maintain orderly conduct and proper decorum throughout this meeting speakers May criticize subject matter and decisions in a respectful manner but not people finally speakers must be very careful not to violate the Privacy rights of others especially students and their family members by mentioning their names or other identifying information thank you for your attention to these important thank you attorney Powers good morning Miss Martinez would you please provide the proof of publication for today's meeting the notice for the May 2nd 20124 work session was published in the Okala Gazette on April 19th 2024 proof of publication has been attached to bardocks under proof of publication thank you and we will now begin the work session with the superintendent administrative briefing good morning Dr G it always good to see you good morning Madam chair members of the board always good to see you as well um just going to do a couple quick reminders and I and I hesitate to even say this publicly because it always sounds like we're recognizing people only on a certain day but yesterday as you know was um School principal's day and so we really appreciate the work they do not just yesterday but every day so um and I know there's a lot going on right now in schools with our with our assessment window for our students so really appreciate their leadership in our schools and also next week is a national teacher appreciation week so I know you're know that's coming up there are so many um so many things happening um special days awareness month and all of that but I just want to highlight those two and just say it's not just about the week or the day but it's about our entire team and what they do every day for our students so want to want to appreciate them and uh that's it for the briefing um Madam chair so we're ready to move forward when you're ready let's Jump Right In okay perfect so our first item today I'm going to bring Dr living good forward and she is going to introduce and provide an update on our student progression plan and the work that the team has done on this thank you good morning good morning board chair thrower board members and superintendent Dr gullet with guidance from our Deputy superintendent Dr tabbert Irving we are here today to provide you with part one of our recommendations for the revisions to the 2024 2025 student progression plan the committee included representatives from the academic Services team such as mental health school choice Career Technical education and student Pathways and assessments administrators teachers and parents were also included in the work I have the privilege of working and W welcoming Mr Mark Ingram to the podium he is the curriculum coordinator for K12 he will present the committee's work to you and at the end of this presentation the elementary director senior executive direct director of Elementary um Miss Deborah rle and I will be available for questions thank you morning Mr Ingram thank you good morning thank you Dr living good so I'm here to present our revisions to the 2425 student progression plan uh under the directives of Dr living good and miss rle and I'm Mark Ingram uh K12 curriculum coordinator the purpose of the progression plan um is from the Florida legislature requires each School District to uh establish a comprehensive plan for the progression of students as outlined uh for parents and staff as a guide to what students must know and be able to do to progress through each grade level toward graduation the revision process is based on annual legislation and technical assistance from the doe it is understood that current and future board statutes as well as board policies or Florida Statutes and board policies take precedence over the items in the plan so if something changes at a legislative level or a board level between now and and when the plan is approved or or revised that takes precedence still but we try to keep it as up to date as possible and we had a team including parents teachers counselors administrators and dist District staff suggest revisions before we came up with this document a couple of structural changes I'll get right into the changes this year we added uh a purpose statement similar to what I just shared how um why the the the doe requires us to create a progression plan and what the purpose of it is and how we really want this to be a guidance a guiding document on that pathway to graduation for our students we also and this was suggested by a parent Mr Johnson um we also added our district vision and Mission to highlight the alignment with aggression plan because obviously as a district we want our students moving and progressing through this plan so our vision of helping every student succeed and then our our mission we believe in high expect or I'm sorry our belief of high expectations trusting relationships transparent Communications responsibility accountability continuous Improvement acceleration Innovation are the foundations for our success we just thought that was really important to start the document out with our focus on our students and our our future again we uh we added this uh like I had in my introduction here to the ual progression plan the Precedence of Florida statute any required change made to this progression plan between the annual revisions will be communicated to the appropriate staff the example I'll give is sometimes the State updates concordance scores throughout the year or scale scores throughout the year and we have to communicate that and it's not like we get to fall back in an old progression plan we have to use the most up-to-date scores for our student progression we had a couple notes on Athletics and extracurriculars we just added a statement where we previously said that a student could contact or a parent could contact the FHSAA office they could also start that contract with the base School athletic director uh just so that that students know they can also go through their school that they don't have to go to fhsa website or find someone there for for needs such as their interest in participating in extracurriculars we also added the clarification we uh this was in practice but had been missing that nth graders are eligible for extracurricular activities even if they have an established high school GPA through eighth grade courses they are eligible their their first term ninth grade for grading we had this statement as a legacy but it's no longer in practice um we had uh the no credit that could be marked on a student transcript if they didn't earn anything we do not award partial or anything like this on a student transcript we include a grade if they complete the course we don't override or cancel out the transcript is a complete record of what the student did in the course this is an added clarification for test preparation that's in State Statute you'll see it takes two slides because it's pretty verbose um this is what the state mentions as prohibited activities um basically you can't suspend the regular Academic Program for test prep but then there are some allowed things that align with what we already do but we just want to make sure we're in line with Statute in here uh you can distribute sample assessment books you can provide individualized instruction on assessment taking strategies for students who are not proficient you can provide individualized instruction in content and Knowledge and Skills assessed uh as long as you're not suspending the regular program of curricula and some of these things we embed in the regular program of curricula um and you can o administer practice assessment so that students are uh familiar and comfortable with the the test layout these are the uh the allowed activities for test preparation we removed the statement notwithstanding FLIR a statute a parent or Guardian May request that his or her K5 public school student be retained for the school year in the grade level to which the student was assigned um this was actually added for 2122 for parents who wanted to retain their students because of the instruction during you know the 2020 school year uh but at this point parents can still have this conversation with the school but it's no longer a statutory requirement that we allow it this was this was a state where REM moved to clear up a misconception um in EOC courses such as biology or algebra students do take an end of year course that does count toward the their overall grade and the state statute uh lays that out for us but is not required that the student earn a passing grade on the EOC to pass the course uh this fit under Middle School promotion but this actually our focus on resiliency education we just updated our former mental health requirements with our uh with our new state provided resiliency education Civic and uh character education requirements and those are all laid out here things like strategies to uh specific demonstrating resiliency through adversity strategies to develop healthy characteristics that reinforce positive core values self-awareness mentorship and citizenship uh prevention of of suicide supporting peers prevention of abuse and addiction um but we just want to make sure we were up to date on all this language similarly we updated our our numbers in our elective course requirements and our graduation requirements so that um it's clear what our freshmen beginning this year are required to do as far as that personal finance and money management basically shifts the number of of electives requirements because that's not technically a social studies course but that's how it'll be implemented we added the option for our CTE diploma requirement that there is a requirement of one and a half credits and electives are work-based learning programs and now students can earn credit for participation in Career and Technical education experiences we don't have all the rule on this yet but our CD department is working on the documentation the requirements and that will go to the schools we also updated our IB diploma requirements to be as specific as possible really outline outl uh laying out what subjects need to be taken what courses need to be passed and how that all works together um this is this is actually one place where the progression plan has a lot of detailed information but we really want want the students to be in conversation with their school and their counselor too to make sure they're they're meeting their RB diploma requirements we removed a statement this is a big long statement here in red on the left we removed it because there used to be a course limit uh credit hours you could take in dual enrollment through CF but now that they're removing uh on campus dual enrollment we don't have to worry about that that's uh CFS to monitor um because they they're running the enrollment program through their campus similarly we updated all the test requirements that were in the progression plan what scores are required to be eligible for dual enrollment adding the digital sat and the CLT which we have cut scores for now uh in this statement Collegiate Academy we uh made this similar we added this to a statement about Maran virtual but students in the Collegiate Academy via CF will earn a Dey diploma from their base School upon completion uh and will be able to uh participate in graduation but will not be eligible for valedictorian and salutatorian this um is mostly because when they're not on campus we're not able to to track their GPA as well and to know who our validor latorian will be at the end of the year in time but this you know this um does not mean Collegiate Academy won't honor their graduates as far as their their valid s uh we added a line and this is the last one we added a line to our GED testing requirements to line up with um with what the state says any candidate that isn't enrolled in a K12 program and has scored in the likely to pass range is able to take the GED but to score on that preest the likely to pass range to to jump right into the GED it has to be um an approved course and it has to be in a proctored environment that's important so you can't just come with a practice test that you've taken maybe with the ability to look up answers um and this way we know they can be successful on the final test uh these are our next step dates we have an additional work session at the end of this month of needed and then our final public hearing is June 11th okay all righty thank you very much it's a great overview of the re of the revisions and associated rationals Dr fellet I just want to thank thank you madam CH just want to thank the team I know a lot of work goes into this a lot of reviewing of the statutes current language and all that so thank you for all of your work and for those team members that are not here and we're just open for questions thank you great yes we'll open it up to the board who wants to lead us off I will all right by sh conad a couple of uh clarifying questions I want to thank you and your team lots of work you quickly went through this but I was fortunate enough to sit in on one of the zoom meetings you had and there was great participation um getting feedback from all those involved and so several of my questions are just clarifying points that I was unsure of yeah and I'm going to apologize because I MA as I made notes I was going through the redline master um so that's that's how I've got it lined up on page 39 B1 do we still um give out report cards in writing yes okay so everybody elementary through High School still gets a report card in print yes okay I just wanted to make sure since everything is online there's been a lot of discussion about that availability and resources okay thank you um that's great to know page 48 number five um there was a strike I'm sorry I keep losing I've got I have it pulled up here and then I lose it on my laptop so I'm G I apologize I've got to go back and load this again I have a marked but okay oh so I was racking my brain as to why we removed that statement but it actually it's just because it appears elsewhere in the document the the refusal of remediation is that the question okay I'm sorry could you say that again I couldn't hear you let me let me find the line I might have to pick on M bra for that it was the parents refusal for remediation yeah so that was just a duplicate statement it is on page find it I have it's on page 48 section five in my notes I'm having is it is it 47 yeah Vice chair Conrad yes I agree on on the docu on the um presentation piece it's 48 on the document itself it shows us page 47 especially for those following in print it says page 47 of and I found it too so print document 47 Str so I think I have it here and really I was just concerned my concern is really is for our our teachers um you know if if our teachers and teams have identified a student as needing remediation um can a parent override that to say no they're not participating in remediation so it's a statutory requirement that we do provide that teachers provide remediation to any student with a reading or math deficiency so they are required to provide it perfect that makes me very happy yes but the parent can refuse right but the can the parent refuse remediation can't refuse we have to offer correct we I've not had a parent refuse use Remediation in reading or math before um ever so it's a statutory requirement that we provided and we have to provide notices to parents um throughout the mtss process um letting parents know that their child does have a reading or math deficiency so they do get multiple notices and updates um I have not heard of a parent refusing uh reading or math intervention because we are required to provide that so even in middle school they haven't refused so and so here's what I am thinking in my teacher brain um you know a Middle School Parent a parent of a middle schooler says I don't want my kiss kid to miss whatever it is if it's an elective or something else and so they refuse or decline the um assistance they get in reading or math so it was just so we we have had Parents on on a secondary level refuse and we generally at the school have them signed something saying that the school is required to provide it and as a parent uh my refusal to uh uh receive these Services could impact my students graduation status my students um success in the the state assessments okay how does that resp does that reflect on their bam score like if the parent refuses to have their child be remediated and then come assessment time they've not participated in any of the mtss strategies or remediation courses secondary interventions are scheduled and so the students like um the reading students if a student refus that particular class we see that sometimes when students move into the State of Florida and they don't have a previous test score and so we use we try to use different me metrics to place a student and determine their proficiency but if a parent at that time just says please give us a chance and then the student will prove to you that they are proficient readers we then allow that student not to be placed in that reading class and so they would be in an English class so that reading teacher would not have that student in that class did that answer your question Miss Conrad I'm not sure I think if I can I think what she's saying is for the English teachers van because the reading teacher is supposed to be supporting collectively the reading skills that would be reflective on the English test and so I don't mean to speak for you but I think what she's saying is if the parent refuses to participate in the reading support class then does that English teacher get some relief on their vam score because the parent is electively deciding to not participate in the the mtss process that we've created no ma'am so they there's no exception correct okay I'm just stating I don't agree with that it is very unfair it is a rare situation though when we are able when the administrator is really able to speak with that parent and have a productive conversation to go over the graduation requirements and to show um how important this assessment is and then to show the value of the Intensive reading classrooms which is the remediation we have very few um parents that are adamant about removing that student from the class okay all right thank you for that and I just I ask because I've experienced situations like that and it's detrimental um you know to the learning process and um if we can't do it at school and we're not getting much assistance at home then that puts us in a challenging position so and that doesn't support the teacher either no they're not going to support the teacher okay thank you very much um I think Dr might have had sorry well I I think it was covered but to your point Vice chair Conrad I I agree I mean we we are responsible for their academic learning I am a huge proponent of a parental choice but we are responsible for their learning and it does have direct impact on our ability to provide the resources and support that we deem necessary statutorily and just ethically it's what we need to do so um I just wanted to reiterate what Dr living good said about I think that's really up to the team to to have to communicate and share have a sit down conversation with the families to help um help them understand why we're why these programs are offered and it's not just because it's it's in statute because these are resources we have to help their child be successful so I think it's the investment of the time in my experience most in actually in all the cases I can think of um it led to a better understanding of what we're trying to do the difficulty is in secondary when it does not allow for those elective courses and those courses of choice and that I think is what you're getting to that is why we're trying to offer as many programs and offerings we need to intervene earlier uh we need to work on those foundational courses we talk about all the time everybody outside calls it the basics and we all also need to offer more offerings so that when they have to take those classes they still have the opportunity to take High interest classes as well that's what we're committed to doing so I just wanted to put that out there thank you Dr and I will say Miss Conrad this was the page I was looking for page 24 of the red line we still have that statement that parents may not refuse remedial intervention services that's statutorily based what happened is I redlined that out just because it was redundant to have it twice all right thank you very much but again that's still a conversation if a parent wants to refuse we' we'd gladly have that conversation to talk through what our what our interventions do for the students and we do regular data reviews to make sure that they are servicing our students as how they need it okay thank you um my next is a clarifying question and this is on um it's under mathematics I've got page 50 and so under each subject area it says each Middle School student must earn three units of ela must earn three units of social studies and for science too but under math it says they should earn and I just wondered if there was an exception there or if that was just um missed there's not yeah it was an oversight we had in the committee it will be three for every subject for all core subjects okay one second I'm sorry this is not more fluid okay I just wondered if you could um clarify for me students with disabilities who are exempt from testing what does that look like and I I just asked that from a point of clarification that all the accommodations um that I've seen on the classroom end what type of severity are we looking at or what accommodations um so yeah I have exempt a student from being tested I have a statement from statute here and what I what I probably will do is is I'll take that spot and make sure we directly reference the statute but here's a statement um for purposes of this chapter the term student with disability means students who uh documented with an intellectual disability a hearing impairment including deafness a speech or language impairment a visual impairment including blindness and emotional or behavioral disability an orthopedic or other health impairment an ISM Spectrum Disorder a traumatic brain injury or a specified learning disability including but not limited to dyslexia dcalculated determines what accommodations are allowed and that's a regular conversation between our school admin and the state and our district admin and the state okay do you know approximately and and you can get back to I'm not trying to put you on the spot I'm just trying to wrap my brain about what what this looks like how many students we have that are exempt from testing I don't know if the okay I'm just curious totally assessed yeah we'll get back with you with the number of of exempt and students areed leaks that would be wonderful thank you and I have I do have a a few more um I think on the slideshow it was nine and 10 I have it in my notes is 54 um as you're finding that uh Vice chair Conrad I I'm remembering that I believe the cut off is supposed to be 1% that we should not have more than 1% of students be on an alternate assessment path um I could be wrong but the intention is for students to be working towards a regular diploma starting from when they're very young and to be very selective about putting kids on an alternate assessment path yeah I can't speak to the percentage but yeah that's absolutely we we attempt to have every student possible in our regular course of study best okay yeah all right um my next question is just really an explanation for the change in language which I don't know that that you can provide but on slide nine um when it says prohibited activities a district school board shall prohibit each Public School from suspending a regular program or curricul why is that do you do you know why that's placed under the school board um that's a school board decision yeah this was updated in the recent uh best best assessment fast assessment roll out it previously was just like a blanket statement you shouldn't stop instruction to uh test prep this actually gives us a lot more Avenues to be able to do it and integrate it within our course of study but that's directly from the statute okay because I don't know if you can elaborate on um I'm trying to look what was the word they use Cas you the test books one second sorry I'm so sorry this one I suggestion on that would be to maybe add the statute number it might be in the document it might be um I'm just looking on the it's 1 okay suspending what do what does that look like if we say we're suspending instruction what does that look like for a teacher what qualifies as suspending so they don't give clarification what suspending is the the way I've read it we've interpreted is that means you're essentially stopping your instructional day and doing Standalone test prep things potentially pulling students out of the classroom for specifically test prep now this does allow for skills prep which sounds you know uh sounds like you're splitting hairs there but skills prep are there are things we know that are tested that our skills and our benchmarks which we are saying our students are learning in the class you can still do those and you can still base it on diagnostic assessment or fast assessment but what you can't do is stop the student day of learning for just specific test skills uh and here it even says unless they are non-proficient so if they scored a one or a two on the previous test then you can pull them and and suspend learning for test skills but it can't be for the entire student body it does not say anything about embedding those skills or that instruction into your instruction just says you can't suspend instruction for it okay I'm I'm just going to State my opinion here um I don't I don't like this at all coming from a teacher standpoint um testing is not like it was when we were kids and teaching some test strategies is extremely important in my opinion and also the test practice because the testing questions are written so specifically um that there is a lot of review at least in I would think think in most grade levels but in elementary schools where they we worked through practice Tex test questions during class time if I was reviewing for my ELA test in fact I believe the district provided practiced tests and so we would review them they would have time to work on them at home and then we they would bring them back and we would go over them together so we could identify where our mistakes were but that was during class time yeah and I think if you think of it as uh for elementary a 90-minute reading block um and it's two weeks before State Testing um you wouldn't necessarily give up a 90minut block of reading three four five days in a row to just do test prep so you would do test prep in the context of the content that you're teaching so if you're teaching a lesson on central idea you can absolutely have um test item type practice that go along with that Benchmark so it just wouldn't be necessarily in isolation because how many 90-minute reading blocks uh can we afford to give up we really can't so we have to do it along with our instruction so it's not we're not abandoning test prep we would do it within our instruction without um suspending normal reading instruction because we simply can't afford to do that but we could do both simultaneously or a teacher in small group um could do something with item types that was aligned to The Benchmark they were teaching so we're not abandoning test prep altogether because kids absolutely have to have that practice before we put a test in front of them um it's just uh mainly stating we can't just suspend our normal instruction to solely do test prep um there just has to be a balance with that and I'm not trying to split hairs with you I'm just trying to be honest and have honest conversation about what it takes to get a third or a fourth grader ready for State you know assessment test and it's very challenging and particularly the math piece of review is very overwhelming um to go over and review a Year's worth of instruction you know before before their test and so it may not take the hour but it may take 30 minutes and it may take 30 minutes for a week and so so um you know this is just challenging uh for me to accept because in my opinion that that review is good teaching um it's part of being a good facilitator um for your students and so I'm just struggling this with this piece and I know um that we have to move on but I'm just letting you know this is something I struggle with as an educator um and and I think it does a disservice to our students Vice chair uh on that note if it's okay I just have a clarifying question are we then not making every kid take the practice test on the platform oh that's still allowed in the statute too oh so we're allowed to do their practice test we're just not allowed to stop instruction to do other practice items yeah I mean got it so that okay I just wanted to make sure I was I understood what was being said so the state just so we're all on the same page the state is totally okay with us stopping instruction to do their practice test which we have to document that we have given to every student but they are not okay with us stopping instruction to do your own approach to make sure that you're meeting students individual needs in your classroom we non-proficient students got it okay I just I was like I wonder if the state's still making us stop instruction to do their practice test got it okay and they even say uh the first thing you're allowed to do is distribute sample assessment books which I don't know if those still exist in most subjects anymore because it's all un on line yeah it's it's state things can be distributed but of course understood thank you for that point of clarification okay I'm almost I'm getting close um GPA of 2.0 I know that the board has discuss that or it's staying um for the for the student progression plan it would stay because that's a state um that again is determined by the state but we um are working with Dr gullin Dr T on our the athletic Cod of conduct and that's where we have discussed the increasing the GPA but that would not be a part of the student progression plan okay perfect thank you so much um it was page 63 in the red line makeup work and I would like a definition for reasonable time limit I and I'm going to just share I'm going to tell you where I'm coming from again I'm sorry I didn't mean to interrupt you um I get a lot of parent phone calls and the parent phone calls are upset because their children are not allowed to make up work or they're given half credit so when I read this it really jumped out to me and like hm okay if I was a teacher whenever the child came back if they were sick or on vacation whatever that looked like I would say a week depending on what was going on but what does that look like um that gives and I want our teachers to have discretion I don't want to micromanage them but I also feel like what is that look like in reality what is your vision for that reasonable time limit so yeah depends teacher by teacher because if a student is out for two weeks that could be a longer time period than if they missed one thing um we we thought about taking the word reasonable out and just saying a time period uh at the teachers or a time period as determined by the teacher but we don't have anything on on the the contract side that says this is the amount of time allowed so is that procedural by school like does each School decide how long it can be not every school has a policy with that I think it is it in the code of conduct I thought it was day you were out plus one wasn't that isn't that what it is for sick and really I just want to make sure our te all teachers are providing an opportunity to turn in missed work so that's really what I'm what I want to get to get to yeah because that that was the word reasonable could be taken a lot of different ways so I think maybe what Dr James has shared as a good idea to give an example of you know if you're out five days you get the five days plus whatever I I just feel like there's needs to be something more concrete because I feel like we have people or who are abusing this reasonable time yeah and we'll check and and make sure it's aligned with what's in the code of student conduct as well okay but some clarification would be great there and I'll just weigh in on this a little bit um I see it from the other side where older students have had ample opportunity and um then when it's go time right there at the end of the quarter they want to make up all of their work and and get all of the credit so I agree that some parameter around what's considered reasonable uh the definition of reasonable is important I mean after all we're trying to mirror what they're going to be facing in society and building those habits and the code does say within one day for each absent like Dr James said so so yeah that's that's language we can borrow and make sure it's clear in both places good and I agree and I think having that will help our our teachers on that end because I've also experienced that where somebody comes in at the last day you know and they have things from you know six weeks ago that you're trying to hurry and gr so I get that in in support of our staff um on in that instance um uh red on red line page 112 this is a little um in the weeds um but I felt like this topic had not come up and so it fit here um Mr Ram it won't be it's not really something for you to answer but I did want to bring attention to it so it talked about um on that page or talking about Title One and the support um for our staff and Dr G I just wanted to share with you when I visit um schools this is a number one complaint from our staff members is the communication between the title one Department um getting answers to emails and phone calls about amendments um finances and um it's really disheartening uh because they have money they need to use and they want it to go to their students and that they're not getting good communication and even if that communication is I'm sorry I don't I haven't heard from the state yet I will get back to you but right now I I have staff members that have pulled up strings of email and there is no response from that department and so I really would like to see an improvement in the communication from our Title One Department thank you Vice chair Conrad and I've heard the same I've had a a conversation with um Dr Talbert Irving to to look at that and address that yes thank you for that it's an expectation that even if you don't have any information here's where we are here's the status and here's when you can expect that correct because the expectation of a teacher is you respond to a parent in 24 hours the expectation of an administrator is you respond to your teachers and your parents in 24 hours and so I would certainly hope unless there's extenuating circumstances that our staff would get back to our administrators within 24 hours so I appreciate um that help and my last and final thing the FI the last page on page 113 that first link did not work for me it says it takes you does not exist or whatever it says I'll make sure it's updated okay all right Mr Ingram thank you very much for your work um in preparing this and presenting it to us and thank you for helping me with my concerns I appreciate you I appreciate the feedback thank you thank you any other comments for member James just have two um on slide 15 we discussed the additional financial literacy and money management courses and you mentioned that they were taking the place of the social studies at the high school level the only blank in social studies at the high school level is freshman year so I'm just led to assume then that we're going to be delivering this instruction freshman year is that correct no we we had we actually had a long discussion with this with our school principls and they would still like to if you look at the contents of the course it's very practical money management stuff and it it goes like this with freshmen a lot of them that was my concern so that's why I brought this up so yeah it's it's going to we didn't say as a district we're going to do it all 11th or 12th grade but is something our counselors are going to know to check on transcripts but it's it's it's going to be 11th or 12th grade primarily and and because it's an extra half credit it's going to have to be kind of squeezed in with an elective okay so we're going to be taking away a half credit elective for our Juniors or seniors to be able to make this happen potentially yeah okay and then is there not a way then to load up something differently in the freshman year to move that load off of Juniors and seniors like is there not a way to shift I mean I know like for instance econ and government are a senior elective right now or I mean a senior social studies and it's two semesters is there not a way to shift everything down one so that freshman gets world history sophomores get American history and then we do US government and junior year so then we could do this money management in senior year we haven't made a district call on that but the the schools are are at least going to attempt some of those things it just depends on if if their teachers course is more geared to Juniors and seniors they may not necessarily want to do that with freshmen uh because that does create a big shift but but we haven't even made necessarily those decisions for next year because it just applies to this year's freshman going forward okay yes I mean I from my seat and having been at the high school level I would love to see just an entire shift especially if this is taking the void of that social studies we have that only three social studies credits basically so for me I would love to see this take place for a a stakeholder and not take away from an elect of opportunity for our upper classmen um who may very well be super engaged in what their technical education path is going to look like and then we're potentially taking away a half Credit Opportunity for that technical education engagement because they need to fulfill this requirement when there was a whole void they basically get three electives freshman year when they presumably have no idea what they want to do so I would love to see a social studies shift forward so that that that doesn't take away from that elective opportunity um senior year yeah I'll add to that we're seeing more and more of our students also change that hope from a face-to-face course to an online so that does allow for extra classes so like that world history that you're referring to could be moved to 9th grade and so Mr Ingram met um he had a huge committee and they met with the principles to really work through all of these different progressions because as you know our Advanced students um and our um some of our IB and Cambridge students they are ready do world history in ninth grade and so this is it it's an easy shift um but it's also working itself out because of our hope students taking a lot of this online through our 8ighth grade summer school options that we have and um through the summer their ninth grade year okay cool I just wanted to share those thoughts as we plan forward um the progression is definitely changing um EV every year because students are taking more and more rigorous courses earlier and um so we're keeping Pace with that so those are good points so then my my only other point is on slide 21 where we talk about the collegia academy and dual enrollment students so um we changed the value for GPA starting with this year's sixth graders right and so as it exists right now a dual enrollment a is valued at five right a dual enrollment a is valued at a full point four oh I'm sorry yes yes yes at a five five a five point scale yeah and then for the sixth graders as they rise forward what will a dual enrollment um full full weight a b is it six or to five and a half it it is still going to be five it's just that um a an advanced course that's not at a college level is got to be a0 five a 4.5 yes okay so this is my question uh and I'm I mean I was a high school AA student so I'm just going to be honest this is a personal thing um I was ranked number 10 when I graduated and I had a high school AA degree and I was not an all a um College AA student but I had a lot of A's and those A's carried an Orange County and a carried a 6.0 weight at at um un at Community College AP I or I don't know that Ace was around then but I think that not allowing those students and I was not a v candidate my sister was because she got all a all of the time and she was a high school AA student too I think that not allowing High School AA students to be candidates for Val Sal discredits the work that they are doing which one could argue while maybe is not as challenging is more work than the IB or Ace loaded courses because they have taken more and completed more cours workk at Community College than the AP IB a track and so I don't agree with discrediting their ability to be a vow C completer their guidance counsel is still able to get their grades from Community College they still can get their transcripts all of those things can still occur so I'm um not in agreement with discrediting them the opportunity to be Vel yes it it's not about the AA diplom it's not the AA course it's the um and this is a conversation we had with um CF at at the beginning of this implementation it's about the students not being on campus and that has always been um our position that any student that is a Val and sou candidate they need to represent their student body class so they need to be part of that student body um group and that's the reason that they're not candidates it's not their the AA courses because we have plenty of students um that if they were on campus full-time they would be eligible for that with an AA so so then your so I think then there's a clarifying word that's needed in here because I certainly read it not in that fashion okay so how many periods a day do I need to be on my high school campus to be a valal candidate so that that is that's a that's a good point and that's we've always wrestled with that um because in the past if a student had four periods let's say on a traditional six period day if the student had four periods at the Bas school and then they went to CF for two classes that would still be a representation of the base school so that student would still be eligible because they were a part of the school day so when we look at um participation I I think the rule of thumb is half of your day needs to be um taking courses if they're available at your B school so I think that needs to be put in here because the vagueness of that I am not okay with and it being left to the interpretation of the guidance counselor or the APC at that school site deciding what presence on your campus means is not CU I went I mean my senior year I still went to a popka high school three or four periods a day and then I had OJT and I left and I went into dual enrollment so I still was very present on my campus but I also did the others I wasn't I totally agree with if you are a full-time dual enrollment student and you are not stepping foot on your campus sure you can walk across the stage but you are not a representation of of your school campus so having a middle ground I'm totally on board with but that needs to be articulated in my opinion in black and white so that there is not room for certain people to interpret it certain ways we'll make we'll make that clarification sir yeah we'll make that clarification and because that Collegiate Academy is its own special program they will be completers within that and be recogn Iz within that too um as a separate program from their normal school but if I can be a if I'm a collegate Academy participant am I not coming to my base school at all uh generally no you're going to be full-time dual enrolled okay I think that then there needs to be a definition for collegate Academy because because collegate Academy is like full-time dual enrollment which is not and this is a newer term for our community but dual enrollment and collegia Academy are potentially two separate Pathways forward to doing the same thing because you can become a high school AA student without being a full-time dual enrollment student dual enrollment course by course dual enrollment yeah yes because you can do summer and all of the things and so I just think this is really like muddy and I would prefer it to be a little bit more clear about what each piece is and what each piece will get you because I don't want I don't want someone to have a um a confusion about what they're going to be eligible for and representation on that stage because for some being Val Andel is a very important thing and I wouldn't want a student to be confused and then come to us and we're looking at something and it's not very clear and it's harder for us to support the work of Staff because it's not really very clear yes um Dr henbrook and I just worked with CF to to complete their articulation the articulation agreement with CF and we um were real purposeful on how we defined the difference between traditional dual enrollment and the collegia academy so we'll make sure that this language is in alignment with the articulation agreement um language for sure thank you for that feedback okay those were just my only two questions so thank you for that that's all I got thank you remember Jam thank you I just to reiterate great points thank you for the feedback agree Academy is new and it's distinctly different than the other program offerings I think that we need to be clear on what that looks like and it's still a work in progress right now right as you just describe the articulation agreement but we'll make sure that that's very clear because we and I also want to go back to something you said about not stepping foot on campus to clarify that that's junior senior year not not their first two years at all right so I I didn't hear that I just want to make sure that we're clear about it doesn't mean that they're not there their entirety of their high school program it's those last two years so I didn't hear that I just want to make sure that's also very unique and different the last two years are different thank you thank you um any other comments from the board you good good I yeah I don't have any additional comments I'm just grateful for uh the work that you all have put in this is one of two I guess is that correct that you all if we need it okay so as we see those things cleaned up that have been discussed today then I'm I don't know if we actually have to have another work session about them unless you just uh want to bring just a couple of those handful of items um but thank you for the work and thanks to board members who this is your subject area of expertise I'm grateful for you as well same awesome yes you can bring it back in a in an update whatever format it works best thank you madam chair I was going to ask that too just for clarification as we have a lot of these you know items that are one of two perhaps um if needed so if if I don't hear from the board I'm hearing that we don't need to bring it back we'll just provide some updates in some form or fashion of of what has been shared today is that acceptable yes that would be my hope I do have a couple things um okay quickly all about this Val cell I'm I'm thinking that again Hearing in the end it's the school board members that hear it right before graduation and we want to avoid that and I'm almost thinking in terms of a flow chart that a parent would get early if you're on this path valel not valel you know and I don't know how direct we could make it but the more direct the better probably um for families and then as far as the personal finance and and money management I really hope that there are ways that we can be threading that in very early I would love to see it start getting threaded in in Middle School honestly um there are two-year-olds saying to their parents well can't you use your credit card that's the reality of today's kids and they do need to start learning from a very young age about personal finance and money management and I know there's just not enough hours in a day but that is the traditional um you know I still hear from a lot of citizens are we still teaching kids how to balance a checkbook and I'm like yeah we are plus debit cards and and all of those things um so it is something that the community is is asking about and that's something we're working on yeah okay all right very good I really appreciate that yes thank you for bringing that up about because I I just pulled the validator and salutatorian section of this so thank you for bringing that up about like the flowchart or what have you because I remember even my own child going in the guidance counsel is saying well if they take their foreign language through Mar and virtual then they're not a candidate that's not in here anywhere and so it's through implication essentially um you you earn bonus points through taking Advanced courses or Collegiate courses essentially um and if you're taking Mar and virtual you're taking the non-advanced version of Spanish so it's not removing your candidacy it's just when your peers are taking the advanced version and you're taking the traditional version you're not going to keep up as far as the bonus points and so again a Flo chart might be helpful because that was a face-to-face verbal conversation that not all parents may know as their student comes in as a freshman because they may be thinking well we can get your language out of the way you can actually be taking X number of classes extra and not understanding that it actually will harm them in the end anyway that to your point I think even Beyond a flowchart if it was an if then if you do this then you're going to get this kind of deal and that probably some I'm sure one of our amazing high school guance counselors has something like this but I think if there was some kind of like if then progression based on people who would like to accelerate just so they understand the implications of that I think that that might be helpful because she's she's not wrong like some parents are like let's just do your you know Spanish one online this summer so you can get ahead well then you're going to have to take another full weighted course to get the number of points you need to be a a vow candidate so and it's yeah our high school counsels are ahead a lot ahead of a lot of these things yeah that doesn't mean we couldn't create a guiding document so that parents can have that too well or just duplicate what one of the guidance counselors already has so that everyone is using the same document yeah yeah yeah well and and to that point though that parents potentially are doing that without guidance counselor involvement and input so the more parents can also be empowered in figuring some of that out as helpful as it could be be so thank you I always recommend a thermographic heat map you know that but you know well is there a this makes me think is there a like how to become a valid dictorian handout level not that I know so I would say that like it would be almost handy for sixth grade because that's now the year that we're basically starting the attc of aoran which I per I personally am completely in disagreement with I wholeheart L disagree with this acceleration and like sixth graders taking geometry basically but here we are so if there was like a handout that advanced sixth graders who are in those because it's basically that Math course right that sixth grade math course they're scheduled for which puts them on that track they could be on the track to take algebra one and geometry before the end of Middle School yes as soon as they start as soon as anybody starts taking any high school credits they're technically building their resume for valin sou so what I would what I guess maybe I'm asking for is like a how to become valid dictorian like little flow chart if then statement that would be given to Middle School parents of kids enrolled in cours work so that we are we know that we are effectively communicating what they have to do to become a valid atorian yeah and we could create that and just distribute it to all students in a high school course and middle school yes that's what I mean every student who their first time they're enrolled in a high school course gets this flowchart of sorts of how to get to this how to get to say the speech on the last day but that would be a kid that's moving from fifth grade to sixth grade correct so the earliest you can start a high school no well no it's seventh grade the seventh grade well no it's sixth grade we have a fourth grader right now that just completed two Spanish um High School courses through virtual school so it's it's earlier and earlier but um our guidance counselors have to approve the marrying virtual courses even if a parent has assisted the child in registering so we'll make sure that we do create a document and we'll make sure our counselors are aware of that when they are approving these um incredibly eager students taking the RoR and I'm not trying to create more work for you guys but I think the calls we get is like well I didn't know and it's always easier for me to say well my understanding is you should have received a document upon your first you know and I realize we're going to kind of start from the beginning now and work forward because there's a lots of lots of horses out of the gate already because we have tons of students who have already accelerated but but it would it would give me peace of mind to know that we are communicating very effectively what what the progression would look like and I agree with that Dr James I think that potentially when that document should be distributed would be fifth graders touring their middle school because if a student arrives in sixth grade and they don't have the calend the schedule that puts them in advanced math yet they have the F you know whatever I mean there could be whatever reason that that schedule did not meet what that progression plan says then the parent can come first week of school and say time out we got this Val sou thing we're starting this pathway and then that gets the schedule fixed and and all the things that can happen in the first week of school of their sixth grade year because if that's essentially when we're starting the seventh grade acceleration math that then puts them in algebra that then puts it and whatever else they want to take because they can be taking English one you know their their eighth grade year and so all the things they need to have that sit down with guidance counselor but if if that document is distributed when they're doing their tours of the middle school as a fifth grader I think that's most appropriate because there are families that are planning and the better prepared we can give them the documentation on how they actually can make that work go for it more power to them I'm glad I [Laughter] wasn't Dr G thank you I feel they need to add a little context um I don't disagree with anything that's been said but everything's not just about valedictorian salutatorian and I think that context of information provided is not Incorrect and I think it's important however the other part of that story is helping students understand what are your goals if you want to seek a top 20 school if you want to go you know on a different pathway what it is you need to reach that because in some schools it's not just about the Vel it's about ranking it's about the rigorous courses it's about all the those other components that's highly complicated and our I agree our families don't always know that don't know how to navigate that so I just want to provide some a little bit broader context to what is it what are your goals where do you want to go and then how do I help you get there if your goal is as valedictorian and I've supported a student who that's that's her goal how do I help you get there and another student is that's not my goal but here's where I want to go and and these are my choices we want to help them to navigate the context of their decision making early I agree with that fortunately or unfortunately it starts very early so that they can seek the pathway of those programs if they want to go into engineering and they want to get through all of those classes that does start early and a lot of times our families and our students don't know that but just again I want to step out and back and just broader context to all those pieces need to come together to help them navigate the ability to Choose Wisely and have access to the those courses and programs and support that they need so and thank you to the team I know you guys are already working on so many of these pieces that we're navigating that have been added to the curriculum and then helping our students have the information that they need to be successful great umbrella Point Dr gullet and and I what I just wrote down was defining the pathways you know we we got into big conversation about you know valorian and solor because that's what we hear about but but you're absolutely right you know we are creating so many Pathways as part of our strategic plan and it is incredible to think that we have to start defining that as early as late Elementary School um for a variety of of goals that a student may have that are just encompassed within some of the points we've been talking about so yes it's uh it's big stuff and big work and thank youth it it's a great problem to have it is it is what are we going to do with all these smart kits and motivating kids and and then kids that just want to do all kinds of things so and just helping them Define it and help the parents understand it uh we're on a great path forward for that anything else from the board all right I think we've done it should we take a quick break before we roll into code of student conduct public com five oh yes we'll do the public comment too um is there any public comment all right hearing none uh let's be realistic I don't that we can do it in 5 minutes but we'll take 10 okay we will take a quick break and we're recessing at 10:05 thank you all right cuz this won't be long too e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e we are back in 10:15 and moving on to our next item in our work session Dr gullet thank you again Madam chair actually Dr hurg is going to come forward and she's going to kick off the presentation and then discussion on board with the uh recommendations for revisions to the code of student conduct so thank you Dr HR good morning chair thrower board members and superintendent gullet every year the student discipline department works collaboratively with various stakeholders to review and if necessary propose revisions to the code of student conduct today our department will share the process that we took as well as the committee representation and suggestions for the 2425 code of student conduct I'm honored to introduce Misty Gwyn the coordinator of student discipline who will provide you with the overview and information thank you morning again miss Quin good morning thank you Dr henbrook I have worked under the leadership of Dr HR with our committee to present to you this morning the recommended revision for the 2425 code of student conduct I will start um with sharing some information about our committee the code of student conduct Review Committee met both virtually and in person to review each section of the code of student conduct the committee included board member James Dr James from District 5 community members school-based and District representatives from mental health and wellness exceptional student education and student discipline and we worked alongside the Maring educ ation Association and parent Representatives the goal of the committee was to allow the opportunity for stakeholders to provide input into the review of policies and the update of procedures while enhancing the alignment of violations by further clarifying infractions and definitions within the glossery I'm going to uh start by reviewing some revisions to incident codes the pages that are mentioned on the PowerPoint are um from the Redline copy that was also provided to you currently the level one dress code violation outlines specific details about saggy pants these details were added into our code of student conduct after a city ordinance was passed that issued fines for the violation this ordinance has since been repealed the um the the state statute ensures that we adopt a policy that prohibits students from wearing clothes that exposes underwear which is already detailed within our code of student conduct we are suggesting the removal of the specific Progressive discipline outlined for saggy pants as each dress code violation um should be enforced and progressed the same next the level one infraction code for over-the-counter medication there is a Florida State statue now allow students to possess and use medication to relieve headaches while at school without a doctor's order or prescription as long as the medication is regulated by the FDA we are working with staff attorney to determine if we can require parents to complete an authorization form as a committee our goal is to ensure that students fully understand the appropriate methods the frequency of use the responsibility of not sharing that medication and the consequences of misuse we have added the words excluding headache medication to the code descriptor next a new level two incident code is needed to address inappropriate exposure that is not of a sexual nature the current code of student conduct outlines exposure as an automatic level three sexual offense the addition of this level two offense will allow for an opportunity of intervention and Progressive discipline prior to receiving a level three sexual offense infraction we current ly have two level four drug offenses one of the level four drug offenses outlines repeated drug offenses and students that provide drugs to other students this infraction coding is currently for E an additional level four offense that we currently have is for the sell or the intent to sell drugs and this infraction code is 4E we are proposing that the first code be reserved for repeated drug offenses only while this second level four drug offense be utilized for providing selling or the intent to sell this would allow for more Progressive discipline approach for those that are providing or selling drugs on our campuses and allow the disaggregation of data to know how many of our drug offenses are repeated offenses versus how many of our drug offenses are providing or selling I'm I'm going to move now into the revisions of definitions within our code of conduct these are located in the glossery of the red line Behavior contracts have not shown as an effective intervention for changing Behavior a contract must be layered with intervention replacement behaviors and parent notification and involvement the glossery will include the requirements for both a school based contract and a district be uh sorry a district-based behavior contract the school-based contract will serve as a progressive step prior to initiating a district Behavior contract when appropriate violation of a district contract would result in a level three infraction the definitions of both of those are outlined in the glossery district Behavior contract examples might be an early re-entry um a removal of bus rider privileges out of area repeated misconduct or supportive enforcement the level two infraction um for Contraband currently covers possession use and distribution of Contraband items the update would allow our base schools to intervene when students are selling items on campus that are not typically considered contraband the goal is to eliminate the sell of any items on campus due to the increased number of items that appear to be harmless but contain THC we currently have two level four codes that address both false accusations and providing false information on an mcps employee we are requesting to remove one of the level four definitions the level four false accusation code and we are going to add the word accusation into the other level four code the definition would read um providing false information or an accusation against an employee combining the two offenses while including both terms are sufficient and cover the needs of both the the level the difference between the level three and the level four um providing false information on an mcps employee would be determined by it involving a school-based investigation versus a district or law enforcement investigation continuing on with updates to definitions currently possession of adult or sexually explicit printed materials and pictures is provided as an example of a level one offense under inappropriate language gestures and materials these materials are addressed within the definitions of level two and sexually explicit materials are not appropriate as a level one offense and we are requesting that example be removed we currently have a level two and a level three physical attack incident some specific indicators are needed to discern between the two levels and to ensure the calibration of coding of these infractions a level two physical attack is a one-sided Act of physical aggression that causes no injury while a level three physical attack is a one-sided intentional targeted Act of physical aggression causing no injury or or choking and strangulation that creates a risk to health or safety by adding the terminology intentional and targeted to the level three definition it would raise the physical attack from the level two to the level three furthermore we're up asking to update the coding indicator for level three physical attack currently it says strangulation SL choking SL physical attack that verbiage is included within the definition and doesn't need to be included on the descriptor we are asking to change that incident code to just say physical attack level three within the fighting definitions on page 56 of the red line a clause about intervention has been added to discourage the use of student intervention during a fight and outlines the prohibited actions if a student does choose to intervene for example intervention cannot include violent actions this section also mentions referencing the definition of self-defense which you will see an updated definition too on the next Slide the level two fighting definition is going to remove the words or more so that level two fight is reserved for only a one-on-one fight we will now look at the fighting level three and four definitions the committee has discussed the need for clarifying indicators between level three and level four the definitions will outline more specific indicators of a fight as it relates to the significance of an injury that occurred the culpability and origin or violence of the fight the need for either verbal or physical intervention from staff um a student continuing to fight after the other combatant has surrendered or joining a fight already in progress these clarifying indicators will allow for more standardized coding of incidents across schools while providing more details that will be used to teach students and stakeholders about each specific infraction moving on to the definition of self-defense the selfdefense definition was new in our code of conduct this year and it has provided our base schools the ability to review each situation individually when determining if an action was in self-defense adding details about the duty to retreat include that if given the opportunity a student has the responsibility to leave any situation prior to the physical aggression for it to be considered self-defense additionally the updated definition explains that if a student must use self-defense it is their responsibility to only use the force necessary and leave the situation once it is safe to do so there has been an increase in threats made against students staff members and campuses due to the F the vast difference in threats that are happening it's important to capture the specific details of each threat when determining the coding level the Florida threat assessment captures important details that should be used when determining the egregiousness of a threat by adding the words typically resulting in a medium or high level threat it encourages the use of the information from the threat assessment for base schools to determine the coding of a threat the added wording would still allow for a zero tolerance policy to be utilized when needing to alternatively place or expel a student duee to a threat of harm our last definitions the level four sexual offense currently uses the terminology consensual sexual activity due to underage students not being able to provide consent the verbiage would best be considered as mutual and last for definitions the level three violation of school and safety procedure definitions needs to add an updated example of allowing access to any person onto campus through any means other than the single point entry this happens when our students are popping Gates and allowing students to enter campus through a side gate and not checking in through the front office and that creates a safety risk for an entire campus we have had several situations of that this school year and lastly a couple of additions that we are adding starting with felony transfer we currently have um a six-step process outlined in our code of conduct this would add an additional two steps the first step would put the responsibility on the parent or the student to provide us any documentation of a charge that has been dropped or downgraded that could result in the student returning to base um and this also adds the last proced procedure of a committee that is going to review all of our felony transfer students on a regular basis and determining when it is appropriate for them to return to school lastly the last addition outlines the right for parents to review campus video of an incident in which their child has been accused of a violation of the code of student conduct and would be located within the student and parent rights and responsibilities section three the procedure details the need to schedule an appointment with the Bas School sets a time limit from the day of the incident and only allows the parent the right to review footage that is in question could you say that again the H part I didn't hear it the last the last one um that it's that they can only review footage that is in question that is the last of the things that I have for you thank you so much thank you both um and to the team again for everyone who's been involved in this process and so board we're uh we look forward to your comments and questions thank you Dr gullet um would you like to lead us off Dr Campbell sure why not uh the slide that I would like to reference is slide seven so trying to decide how much I want to ask about this so I I see that the inappropriate langu anguage gestures and materials was a level one and we removed the possession of adult or sexually explicit printed materials or pictures out of out of page 56 and we moved or essentially we saying it's being covered under 58 here's my concern I this is an opinion so bear with me as I as I go down this pathway a bit I would believe that gestures and language and that sort of thing should be considered separately from distribution of materials and I'm I'm actually going to use AI right now with how smart our students are and I had an actual email received I'm not sure if it was from someone in the district or with or outside of the district referencing a case recently in New York where students used AI to put student faces on pornographic images and distributed them and if we are lumping language Pro profane obscene and abusive language and gestures in the same category as material distribution I completely disagree with that being a level two offense and I would recommend that we pull out sexual material distribution because that's different than cyber bullying because if they don't actually send it to the person they're creating this image of then you know we might not necessarily have cyber bully buling happen happening but to consider that as just being a level two offense I this board member would say distribution of sexually explicit material that potentially even has our student Andor employee faces on it absolutely is an expellable offense and right now I don't see that covered anywhere else here and maybe I'm wrong and I think if we look at the red line on page 54 um it it's kind of indicated under the electronic telecommunication device misuse I think we could expand that definition a little bit that would cover those topics that you're discussing we have had instances of that um happen this year and it was coded under that electronic telecommunication device misuse could I'm what page are you referring to 54 on the red line thank you is it cyber electron electron okay which level then would that be that be level three and and I I understand that I honestly think that it should be its own separate offense okay this is an opinion certainly and that's kind of what we're sharing right now as board members I I think there's um a a bit of a difference in electronic device misuse I understand it's unauthorized audio video or photographs but again when we're talking AI it may not be a real photograph and so how are we interpreting that and how is the parent going to interpret that if it's a created image versus something that's real and so I I I think that we need to get real careful on how we I I don't see that personally as a level three even I I see this and the potential for this especially with the shame disgraceful nature of what that even potentially is other students involved other faculty involved whatever that looks like that's an expellable offense and shouldn't just result in removal of the student for temporary reasons I I agree with you completely um I mean if someone created a created a Prof uh a pornographic picture of my daughter and distributed it they should be expelled from school and or as a teacher if they if they created a pornographic image of myself and distributed it as an educator I would say I fully support them being expelled from school so if that's not reflective in here which it's kind of vague I would agree it's kind of vague for this electronic I'm completely on board with Dr Campbell I am too um and this is you know we're now confronting uh Ai and navigating with it and personally I I think we need to consider having that exact those two letters Ai and thread it in here now because it is just so the the potential for it is amazing in so many ways and the potential for damage in our business is horrendous I agree there there is also and I I'm hearing that we should have an additional code and I'm I'm not in disagreeance there is a level four of that same electronic telecommunication that involves unclothed private parts all the things um so I think I can combine some things but create our own code to address those topics right thank you for thank you board for for hearing me out on that I I do even with our electronic communication device misuse I oftentimes people equate that to being a phone and that's potentially I know you're smiling because you and I both know what the scenario I'm talking about but I think it's up to this board to actually put real specific language about this is profane obscene imagery that should be a level for offense separate and apart from how it's distributed yes ma'am because it's possible that it was created and then they printed it okay then it doesn't fall under electronic anymore and so maybe it's being actual prints that are handed out who knows how and again that could be AI generated that we have prints and it doesn't fall under this any longer so you can just add the language image likeness or representation instead of photograph did you say that again you can just add the language image likeness or representation got it n if you chose you could say audio or visual representation but that's just a suggestion do is there a legal way to also actually put in the words AI so that it is definite generated I doesn't it doesn't well the the distinction I would want to make is AI is really no different from what if a student decides they're going to visually they're going to draw out a cartoon or they're going to draw an art piece or an image that has a pornographic representation or just cut out the face from a picture and glue it on I mean so by regardless of the means whether it's cut and paste or whether it's a physical digital on a computer or whether it's you know drawing those are all I mean I don't think there needs to be an exception carved out for for AI we can simply go with any uh image likeness or representation you can say electronic or otherwise yeah and and I don't disagree with that at all it's just that AI is really coming to the Forefront now and again I just don't want there to be any confusion of of where we stand with that so I'm that's my concern maybe just can we say like I.E use of AI like just put a little example because I I'm not I don't disagree with chair thrower that like sometimes being the most explicit gives us the most leverage because then we have covered all of our bases and we're not leaving room for when you express one thing though you do create a category so you have to make sure to say U but including but not limited to because otherwise it's only things that are within a particular category right yep Madam chair if I may just relatedly listening to the conversation about artificial intelligence um our school and District team are working very hard on bringing some language for a proposal to the board because this is something that is some it's an issue that we're all going to have to address and so they're working on some language as a possible proposed policy that for consideration but they're working on that right now you're reading my mind Dr glet and that was going to be my next ask as a step further you know um they're they're already on it yeah they've been on it getting to work on it because there's just so many benefits to it but again so many horrendous implications chair the only other comment that I had and I'm grateful for a lot of things here that feel like we are you know some of these additions that we put in last year and we're clarifying them even further and so there has been a lot of of good work here I I find it interesting but also appropriate that we are now adding sell of drink and food in the Contraband category u i there's actually even a commercial I saw just the other day like cafeteria workers limiting the amount of ketchup that you have so then there's like this ring of students passing hindes ketchup packets under the table because they're so it's actually even being promoted so I I find that to be interesting and unique and appropriate as well so I'm certain that it's happening very prevalently across our campuses that would be one that I think students will need an education on not just quickly passing through your first day of school here's your little snippet you know because half the time they're not paying attention to all of this but that's one that I could see a lot of students get in trouble for that they don't even realize we're about to make it wrong so yes and we've we've had more situations come up where a student buys Sour Patch Kids from another students thinking it's candy it ends up being THC they're then under the influence so selling and getting items from other students just needs to be prohibited thank you that's all I had thank you board member Campbell it was great um any other comments questions sure I'll go go ahead um I just have a couple things most of my notes are um I'm just really thankful for the time and energy and effort that went into um specifying a lot of these different things when we see you early in the morning at 7 a lot of these were splitting hairs and trying to find exactly where the offense fits in and so there was a lot of work done to get very specific so thank you very much I know there was a lot of time that went into it um I just have a quick question question on page 35 on the substance abuse consequences and actually it's I think it's on a few other Pages all and I'm guessing it's just for clean up but mandatory is struck out on all of the consequences is is that just to clean it up and I I just asked CU When I read it mandatory explosion seems just more firm unwavering and so I just wondered what the discussion was on that yes there there's always situations that arise with particular students that or or situations where um a recommendation for alt placement or expulsion is just not the appropriate consequence um and ultimately the base school principle has the ability to decide what infractions or or what situation they would recommend alt placement or expulsion for so removing that mandatory word um there will be a discipline Matrix that is created that there will be some offenses that do require um for example um sexual battery will always be a mandatory placement all right thank you for that y um my other question was there was some discussion earlier on about this is not distributed in print anymore is that still the case um that is currently the case we have had lots of discussion with um appropriate ways of getting this information out um and I'm not sure printing is the way to go but the current way I don't feel was sufficient and we are working with our committee to see exactly how we're going to address that okay and I ask because think going through some of just some of the things that you went through um like with the gummies the food you know the food I just think some of these things are conversations we we should have in class you know with your home room teacher um self-defense that was another one that I think oh you just read over but until there is a conversation and examples you know given what what does that look like for an eighth grade boy we are we are currently working my team has um paired with Belleview high school and we're working on creating near pods that will be distributed that cover all of these Hot Topics include videos and examples and pictures at both the elementary and secondary level um and that will be for beginning of the year introduction it will be for students that are returning to base it will be winter break return all of those things will be covered within those near pods okay and so can you explain that a little bit to me I'm not super familiar yeah um it's a platform that the students will have access to that will review these topics and it can be either synchronous or asynchronous where the teacher is going through it or the students can go through it um alone so our hope would be teachers are facilitating it first but then it can be reviewed as frequently as needed for individual students okay I I would love to see kind of some um some topics highlighted per grade you know per elementary school middle school or high school which of course some of them will overlap but I would love for us to give a highly suggested you know we in elementary school would like you to hit these six all together you know in class so every single student sees it has eyes on it you know in middle school we have these seven things you know maybe it's something we incorporate in the in the half day program um I don't know I just I would really like to see is when we look at what's coming before us the issues that are making it making it to the board um are a lot of what you've covered today and so I would just like to make sure that we're helping our students make good decision as decisions as best we can so thank you again for your your work on this it's phenomenal Madam chairman i' jump in on that thank you um Vice chair Conrad that just prompted something I think that's a a terrific idea and and great feedback because if we can provide some guidance it could be aligned with the data that we see and sometimes people that are you know just working so hard every day they don't see the bigger picture and don't know the data points and the patterns that we see and talk about every single week of of of the the increases in fighting and language and and those kinds of things and Drug alcohol issues so I I think that can mirror hear the patterns and Trends and then hear some guidance to help to prevent the these things from curring because I have this conversation with the team all the time and including Mr mcfaden who I know is here about prevention and people just don't know and I think so many of our students just don't know those choices and the absolute impact and consequences that can result um and things are different now so we have to really be proactive and and trying to mitigate that but addressing that with the patterns with guidance may be helpful for our our teachers and our stud thank you for that suggestion yes I'd like to share on that um quickly too I I I love the idea and and near pod great I'm also thinking about um you know we've seen the value of student voice up here on the day is uh we know that kids tend to listen to other kids and it would be pretty interesting um you know I know elementary schools have morning shows and and high schools are doing all kinds of creative things with their with kids but like a a top three five you know three to five things you know Snippets from the code of student conduct this is self-defense not self-defense um you know in a WWE clip or something I don't know but you know make it engaging and and and kids telling the the stories same thing with the candy my team is smiling because I've brought this up so many times Mr Christian and I identified even in the the student media Festival there's one we can use right there and asked for um the team to put together students need to hear from students they and for some that have learned um sometimes the hard way but student voice I agree chair thrower is so important so that's already underway um there are already videos that have been made that are out there um I've been asking for I I need to see the data on how often they're being shown so and then also the creation of additional videos we we did identify what just recently in the student media Festival um and then some other of trying to provide students to be in front of the students and not just our high schools my ask is not just high schools so our other levels and and maybe I even floated maybe there's a nice little competition that students can engage we have very talented students so let let them let them get out of their way just let them let them um come up with some new products and and get out of their way thank you I know there's consent you know issues and all of that but you know some of these things could be texted to even to parents and then can show them to their kids you know all of those mediums of how do we really reach because kids do tend to glaze over you know when the announcements come on TV so it's G to they're going to have to be captured and realize oh this is actually something engaging um it'd be interesting again to hear from students what's the best way to get this information to you well and I when I go to schools I I try to always speak to the students like how can how how will you listen to us and they say we want to hear from our peers I mean overall that's what they're saying cool all right any other comments suggestions feedback from the board thank you thank you for the print copy I appreciate it yes is helpful I do um thank you for this I do have I do have um questions I'm I'm looking at the one about self-defense and those of who who know where I've been on this this one has been for a while when I read this definition I I need to ask and I guess this is probably legal too um does our definition line up with the legal definition of what self-defense is um because when I see this it says a student who is physically attack may act in self-defense without consequences without consequences if the student is unable to leave the area of a pending attack period so if I get hit if a kid just walks down the hallway and hit me I can't defend myself according to this definition am I reading that right you are um essentially it's it's it's the removal of that doctrine that as long as you have a legal right to to be there you don't have to retreat so uh however that is used in in Florida criminal law um there's a standard uh there's different standards for civil law and in this case an administrative type rule that we be putting into place so essentially the the what this in would codify is that um any uh level of self-defense that included something other than a retreat was not permissible so if if Retreat is it does make it duty to retreat so if Retreat is possible the student has to retreat if the if Retreat is not possible then the student may defend that would be what this sets up now as whether it's in keeping with the law criminal law in state of Florida says if you're in in a place where you have a legal right to be you can use equal and opposite Force to defend yourself so that's not really what's required here because that's called the castle doctrine by the way it used to be just with the home and then in Florida came anywhere you have a legal right to be and and the scenario I'm thinking of guys is is if a kid gets hit so they have to they can't hit back got have to retreat if if they get hit they have to retreat I don't agree with that I don't agree with that because because because that hit could be something or or there could be another hit falling behind that kid that hit that puts that kid in detriment of the losing her life so you're saying I just got to take this lick and keep going no you can absolutely hit back and there is a consequence for hitting back there shouldn't be a consequence if I didn't initiate it you are opening yourself up to a coming from the seat of a former High School administrator if you if we allow students to hit back we will we will become an unhinged Wild West it's already that no I disagree I wholeheartedly disagree it is not the Wild West it's already that because you're telling a kid they they have to basically ball up and get that get the crap beat out of them and they can't do anything that's what this is basically they're in a situation unless they can run and if there's no way for them to run they just got to take it and let me be clear I'm not saying that's what the state that that's what the law says that's what I'm saying this this policy says it and we would be permitted to this policy that's what that's what this statement says as you define it there right if a student is in a situation where they're being hit and there is no way to get out they are absolutely allowed to to defend themselves okay but how do you know how you know if they're defending themselves or if this it's a fight because this doesn't this doesn't really clarify that look at it read it cuz this this doesn't this says when I read it when I read this is if you walk up on the scene and this person is defending themselves according to your definition that could be viewed as a f i feel like we have defined it to like you are allowed to then def in that instance where you are backed into a corner you are allowed to aggress back until you are able to escape no it says you can use the same amount of force it says you can use the same amount of force that's being coming at you and if you if I get hit and I come back with a hit then that then someone walk up on it now that's a fight so I'm going to I was defending myself but now you're saying it's a fight no you're allowed to hit back and then when you have said we could hit back if you are backed into a corner and I'm this is I'm going off my experience on the committee if you're backed into a corner and there's nowhere for you to go you're so I'm in a classroom in the corner of the building and I'm stuck right there and someone comes up and hits me I can use Force to retaliate equ equal force to retaliate until I am able to escape the locked corner and then I must stop the retaliation so for instance you hit me I'm in the corner I hit you back and you stumble backwards enough that I'm allowed to I can skirt away and go get help that is self-defense that is correct what is not self-defense is I'm standing at the Bus Loop you come up and hit me and I hit hit you back why wouldn't it be because I have so many other things to do at the Bus Loop besides hit back I could turn around I could go find the adult I could I I could I could run there's lots of things I could do besides hit you back because when I hit you back I'm engaging in a fight is that legal yes the duty to retreat would be uh it the duty to retreat would be um secondary to the ability to the well the ability to retreat so you have to you'd have to retreat unless Retreat were not possible um now I will say that is not the current legal standard for criminal law in Florida but it may be in in civil cases and depending upon the situation that certainly could be applicable and this could be something that we would be um within our rights to enact so if that happens and then the parents of one of these kids says my kid had the right to defend themselves and they call the police and it goes to that defense where are we at that as a district kid kid had a right to defend himself what do you mean because he got hit by another student yes right they have a right to defend themselves there is a consequence for that right but then we've said this kid was fighting when this kid actually was defending himself I think through the due process investigation it would be determined whether that student was fighting or defending themselves and if he was defending themselves he would not be receiving disciplinary consequences from the school how often does that happen how how often does what happen how often do we say that it was self-defense it it has we we have we have reviewed cases where students did not receive disciplinary consequences because it was self-defense I think of a specific incident on a bus where a student was between the window and the aisle and could not get out and fought their way out and we considered it self-defense this is one I have a real issue with because as a as as a person you have a right to defend yourself period whether you're in school wherever you're at you're saying that I have to re treat I understand that we're in a school setting there should be some control but if you get cold  you're saying I got to run and I and I don't know what's going to happen next that's what you guys are saying correct if if you can Retreat if you can who determines if I can the investigation and I would just say that that's that is that is within the the power of the board in setting its policy to do one or the other can you repeat that attorney powers in setting its board policy and code of student conduct becomes board policy um upon enactment or upon adoption um at that point the board is free to accept within its code of student conduct which is generated by the committee and operations but this language that the board is going to adopt as its policy May state that the right to self-defense is subject to immediate Retreat if immediate Retreat is available like like it does now or to say that or to establish a different definition for self-defense that does include and I would specifically not include the term retaliation because a retaliatory strike is still is not no longer self defense so you know it's not evening up if he pops me I get to pop him it's more a matter of if the only course of action is to is a retreat is not available and the only course of action is to engage you can write a definition that includes that or you can leave that undefined which is not wise which leaves that big gray area which is the problem that I hear all the time it's a gray area you guys are Educators y'all have been in the school system I'm coming from a different perspective I'm coming from the perspective of folk that come to me and say hey hey my kid what what is my kid going to do if they're coming at me and they're coming at my kid there has to be some some something that they can do and and I and I'm tending to go that way where you're talking about attorney pow because we need to we need to we need to help the kid that's not that's the victim the advantage that what they've what COTA student conduct committee is is is setting out there the advantage of that there may be disadvantages the Vantage is that that is a bright line rule right at that point it was just like when we said multiple multiple students involved in in one fight that was the bright line room rule the take-home message then to everyone was do not pile on in a fight because then everybody's getting expelled um likewise this is a b bright line rule you got hit okay we're not going to get into a bunch of discussion about whether or not you had a right to hit back or anything else you got hit did you walk away and go seek alternative action go tell someone get out of the area or something or did you not because if the answer is did you that you didn't instead you fought back then at that point um you're no longer under the protection of the sort of self-defense unless it was impossible for you to retreat so the advantage is it establishes a bright line rule where it's did you hit back and if so you you have a lot of splaining to do or um you can establish a rule that's not quite as bright line as that but then does take into account a lot of individual factors the problem is then that becomes a very fact fact a very fact specific scenario and every fact has to be judged every scenario has to be judged individually that way by the people on who are going to be writing up the uh referrals and the discipline procedures and then that's always going to be a vague factual determination when it goes in front of DOA for example did I I mean because do is going to look at what our policy says and is our policy a bright line rule makes it very easy for us is our policy one which involves a a lot of judgment about how someone was or was not defending just like in the criminal justice system that becomes an issue in every case so that's you can you can do it either way you want to but uh there's advantages and disadvantage of St I I would just hope that we would look at this just a little bit more further look at it a little closer um I understand where everybody is on this but I think we just need to look at it and make sure that the victim the person that's being victimized and because if it's a self-defense that means there's a victim and we need to make sure that we're not just excluding the rights of a victim and saying that they have to always run and and that they cannot basically you're saying they can defend themselves if they have a way out or if they don't have a way out if they don't have a way out if you're in if you're in and maybe y'all never been in a fight before when you're in when you're in a fight if if someone hits you you're in defense mode you're not looking you're looking to defend yourself why does it have to be that I have to find a way out if I'm being attacked that doesn't make sense to me that doesn't make sense to me that I've work in the prison system and the in the criminal justice system that doesn't even work in that system if it has to be that a person can do just enough which is which you have in here enough to get away from the situation or to to to somebody get there to help or stop it but we we see these fights all I don't know if you guys see I see a lot of videos of fights where kids are just getting cold coock and and and and then they they retaliate by or I want to say retaliate they they fat back because they don't know where the next lick is coming from if it's your kid you're going to tell your kid you better run no but that's I think the whole premise is you can hit back and there is a consequence for that all Behavior has a consequence positive or negative so no one is saying that you can't hit back no if you want to hit back hit back but there's going to be a consequence for the said actions I'm just going to ask that y'all please look at that some more because I think there there's some work that could be done on that one um from the perspective what I'm talking about the factor that you're bringing up is the the primary aggressor phenomenon you want to look at um who the primary aggressor is in a situation um and that's in in policies and procedures that I've seen written that were um trying to address similar issues that is frequently a determination that is made somewhere along the investigation at the school as to who was a primary aggressor but then how you incorporate that into what happens if someone's PR primary aggressor and did someone else then turn the tables and now become the primary aggressor because one kid slapped a kid in the back of the head so the other kid went in and pummeled his face you know so is there a swap of the per of the primary aggressor not just the initial aggressor right so those are all the kinds of discussions we'd have in a in in determining whether something was self-defense in any particular uh case because I think what I think is I think we tend to just go with it say hey the kid swung back it's a fight and we tend to go with that when often times that's not always the case that's all I'm saying that's not always the case and sometimes the investigation if if a teacher or staff member walks up on it and they see a kid swinging back they automatically say that kid is fighting that could could just could have been just defending themselves and there was no they didn't see a way out if I'm fighting I'm I'm I'm I'm fighting I'm trying to keep my eyes on what's going on in front of me I may not see a a route out my my route out is to defend myself to fight so I'm just asking that you please look at that again um because there I think there's some things that can kind of help clarify that well and in a fight or in self-defense scenarios um the primary aggressor or the initial aggressor is not necessarily always judged by the person who actually won right so if someone someone can legitimately to be defending themselves and inflict worse you know uh in response so again those are all factual deter ation that have to be made by the school officials at the time and then are of course subject to review and one of our indicators within the fighting definitions um include the culpability of the origin and the violence of the fight where a student can be held to a higher standard if they were the originator of the fight or the more violent fighter in the situation and that goes back to what he was just saying Madam chair may ask a question for clarity um so is it the will of the board then for language to be considered and and and if so in this category uh attorney Powers I believe you said on the committee correct do you yes yes okay when is the committee reconvening we will re we we don't have a date but we will reconvene after this meeting okay is that the will of the board then to consider changes to this section not my will that's the request by this board member to at least go back and look at it and take consideration the things that I'm saying you may not change it but I still would like for this committee to go back and look at that and consider what I'm saying because that is legitimate what I'm bringing forth I will review this specific definition with the committee we have to make sure still other board members that want to weigh in go ahead board member which board member sits on the code of student okay we've already I mean the reason I have such a strong opinion about it is because I know that we've already talked about it at extreme in depth as a committee um we've already talked about it on multiple occasions in multiple sessions and so that's why I feel so strongly that like everything that you're saying we have talked about at depth but I mean I just don't think that the committee is going to bring forth any new light um to something that we've already talked about even in this session this this review of it this year so thank you Dr James so with with that Clarity and and that was going to be my primary question so if the committee has already convened and has already discussed this specific topic and every concern that has been brought to light today with utmost scrutiny and that committee apart from creating an entirely separate committee to review this the committee has made the recommendation to keep this language or have this language the way it is with that being I mean I don't want to waste anybody's time time so that that's where I am prior to hearing what you just said I was going to say hey I'm fine with them reviewing it again and if they still come to the same conclusion so be it but understanding that they've already gone to Great Lengths to analyze this partic this specific area and maybe you have something else to add I'm seeing some movement I don't know um Dr H Brooks looks like she wants to say something come forward Dr Ham we just wanted to reiterate the what we're striking out in that definition and what we're adding and so we actually think it provides um the the the chance for students to to defend themselves a little bit more so if you see that in our original definition from last year we wrote that retaliating by striking or hitting for example punching slapping kicking a person back or choosing not to leave will not be considered self-defense but now what we're saying is that a student should only use the amount of Force necessary so again if they are on the ground or in a corner they can push kick punch to get out of the situation but then they do have the duty to retreat so I just wanted to make sure that we saw the difference between what was in the original definition and the definition that the committee um is proposing thank you Dr HR um I'll say that that what you just said is very helpful to me because what we get as board members is you know why should my child have to ball themselves up and take it so to speak and and that's not what I heard in your statement um I'll also say let's think about what the major complaints are about schools these days it is violence it is fighting it is disrespect it is situations that end up escalating because of the quick triggers that so many people seem to have these days um and it would be my um goal you know we're to be very definite to uh board member cumming's concerns and points we need to be very definite and what I just heard you say Dr hambrook son pretty definite to me which is reassuring because in some cases we're having to delineate for kids that in a school setting what we're asking of them and their behaviors and their responses to things needs to be different than the way they may be responding in the community which could save their life you know we have to be able to draw that distinction that and make sure that we're being true to it the schools are safer places and schools are an oasis of peace and Sanity and Tranquility you know where we have our eyes on the ball of of learning um and those types of reactions we better be able to back it up you know and I know that sometimes we get accused of having too many admin ministrators you know too much staff around well if someone can and we know how loud kids can yell when they've got something to say um and I've experienced this myself at secondary level where a kid will say you know you better back off you know because I don't want to have to hit you you know I don't want to have to hit you back I kids have to learn that they have a lot at stake by the choices that they make so I I want to I want to honor your concerns um board member Cummings and based on what Dr henr just shared are you seeing a a different picture because I'll tell you why when I read this next statement it says self- dispense may include asking an adult for help restraining or blocking the attacker shielding oneself or others from being hit or pushing to get away from the attacker doesn't say that I can strike back it says I can push I can can hold someone I can do all those things but you're telling me that I got to get hit and take the hit and and God knows what else is coming behind that head are y'all not saying the same thing I'm saying because it's clear when it says the self defense may include asking for adults for help restraining blocking an attacker shielding oneself or others from being hit if someone's hitting you fighting you you're telling me they can't swing back they have to find a way to retreat that doesn't make sense to me nowhere in the world does that make sense to me I I don't get it and then this kid that kid that does Swang back is now going to be have a consequence because they swung back because they didn't push because when the investigation done you say well they should have they should have held them or they should have pushed them or whatever if you're in a if maybe y'all have never been engaged in some type of altercation but you're not thinking oh I'm going to when they swing when they hit me I'm going to hold them I'm going to push them away you're trying to defend yourself that's the that's the that's the thought I want to defend myself I want do whatever I need to do to get this over with hopefully somebody's going to get there soon enough and stop it all right so maybe I shouldn't be admitting this [Laughter] but I got attacked on the playground by somebody I got a good look at hit him in the stomach they bent over uh it was just a good hit knock the wind out of them and they're bent over and I wasn't quite sure what to do um it it just ended that fast so I backed up and then the teacher this was in elementary school so I've grown up saying that and then the the teacher was under the overhang and and then came out so it was over at that point what I wanted to do was pound that person on the back till they fell on the ground but they but I didn't do that I guess because I was so shocked I got that good one I don't know but see this is these are the nuances of things and and you know yes you have to we have to allow kids to protect themselves but then I don't know look at the extrem look at the extreme in society today people carry it on they carry it on there's I saw specifically I'm thinking about when I keep jumping out of my mind I happened at one of our middle schools I won't say the name of the school but they these kid these girls girl fight they pull these girls out and they they they like they were friends with this little girl and then they circled her and then they went to pummeling on this little girl and when this little and now she's circled tell me where was to retreat when she's circled so she fought back and she got suspended those are the types of incidents that I'm talking about and I think this policy as they propose that might actually help in that situation if school officials looked at the fact that she had an opportunity or didn't have an opportunity to retreat that's whole different so that that could be the when it was brought to their attention she still got correct because the language they're proposing is not included right now I think if I can hear what Reverend  is saying I think what he's asking is the word strike to be added to and correct me if I'm wrong but in the statement that says self-defense is an action taken that's necessary to protect oneself it may include asking an adult for help restraining or blocking the attacker shielding oneself or others from being hit or pushing to get away from the attacker pushing or striking to get away from the attract that would help that would help that would truly help because right now you're saying I can't strike back that's exactly where I was going it's it's what it takes to get that person off of you ex exactly and and but once they're off you got to back up I agree with that I I if I'm not saying kids you you start puming the kid you keep puming the kid because you gotten the best of that goes into what attorney power is saying but if if it takes a strike for me to get this person off of me I need to get them off me so I if can all be on the same page because I think I'm hearing what you're saying is push or strike to get away from the attacker with the end of that sentence being the most valuable part that I am striking to get away from the attacker and then I am removing myself and getting away from the attack I can as long as I can be able to do whatever I need to do deescalate or retreat but if I cannot do what I need to do to deescalate or Retreat that's that's not fair to the kid and if I could Madam chair I'd ask for attorney powers to weigh in I don't think there I don't have any problem half of operation side as long as attorney Powers finds that that that would be fine from the legal Department's perspective but again it's something that the committee and operations and and then the board ultimately votes on so what what I would say is anything any language that we use which which does not avoid a complete bright line and instead does set it up for offensive Behavior versus defensive Behavior because every one of these things that we're going to have to do every case in which it's a strike is utilized the question is going to be is was a strike offensive or was a strike defensive and to some degree it's always easier to say in a strike is the fight might have been over but then that strike and so that that's going to be the the point that is going to probably confuse situations and well and look it's a messy process figuring out exactly what happened I don't mean a lot of times there's video lot of times there's video you can watch because I would argue that if you're strong you can shove somebody they can go backwards and hit their head and God forbid but it wasn't that you were trying to kill them you were just trying to get them off of you so to me a push is just as justifiable as a strike is just as justifiable as a as a push if it truly is defense and that's again where a lot of videos come in and and I think to to play devil's advocate for Miss Ginn in the discipline Department the the number of times that a single strike or one or two strikes is delivered and then stopped and the child Retreats is very very very very low so we're talking about we are splitting hairs here I can hear what Reverend Cummings is requesting and I can get on board with it but I think it's important for the record to note that the likelihood that a single or very few strikes are delivered to alleviate and give an opportunity to get away is few few few and far between so we probably are not going to see this come forward but I think I'm personally as the Committee Member on the on the to conduct fine let's add strike remembering that it's strike to get away from the attacker right which which buys time for hopefully a staff member that's around to them begin to intervene because yes again I I y'all just don't know how many videos I've seen videos again Middle School these are some of these are Middle School where the person is on top of them beating the beating beating them and both get a fight I I don't get it when someone grabs you by your hair snatchs you down to the ground gets on top of you and start beating you and you're on the bottom and you're trying to fight your way out but you you get suspended for fighting again at that point though I would argue didn't have the ability to retreat right they did have a b treat so this new language is going to be helpful and that's why it's being added but currently under the current code of student conduct that isn't present even even with that even with this new language this person that's on the bottom if they're striking back they're going to still be suspended based on this no they're striking back until they get away they're pushing to get away from the attacker I would say that if a student is on top of another and they are being pummeled and the student on the bottom hits even 1 two 3 four five times until they are able to get up from underneath and Retreat from the situation they that would be defined as self-defense would you guys from the discipline Department agre with that depending on how it started see yeah yes well because of course it depends on how it started I just gave you a great scenario kid walks down the hall they grab her by her hair snatch her down to the ground that would be self-defense absolutely yes 100% you're the new definition absolutely which is the purpose of this with Clarity and training of our staff and with the overarching goal that again we're looking to minimize this you know kids are going to fight we know that that's been going on since time began but but this extreme aggression that that goes in from the community into the schools and really turns into something horribly violent with lethal consequences is relatively new in the last 20 years you're muted you're muted sorry um I'm just gonna I feel like we're walking a very dangerous line and I know that that the students in Marian County are told from the time that they enter kindergarten I can't speak for prek they are taught at school keep your hands to yourself from the age of five use your words use your words um that being said I Circle back to the piece of education and teaching our students what is self-defense and what does it look like because we had a an example this morning that was they the fa they felt that it was self-defense by what we're talking about here that is not selfdefense and so we all as a school Community have to be on the same page this is what selfdefense looks like and we have to teach our children what that looks like and it will benefit them as they step out of outside of school so I I just want to reiterate how important um some of these pieces that we've discussed today specifically self-defense are that we're not just flipping through a slideshow here's slide 39 you may defend yourself but you can only throw one punch whatever that ends up looking like or hit um no that's not what it looked like and that we really are spending time talking about what that is and strategies for how to get out of that and how to avoid being in a bad situation how to never get in it yes yes yes in the first place don't be at the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people you can feel it coming yeah so anyway I just I just want to say that again because I really would like to do some prevention on this the family that was before us today they they didn't want their kid to be expelled it's just not knowing you know they think that their kids can fight back um with whatever Force they deem acceptable and that's not the case so defining what acceptable is and what you can do as a student to protect yourself and what that looks like so that's all I have for M C thank you so completely agree with the education component don't want to add just one more thing to our teachers that they have to do so that says to me to the team as i' I've talked to Dr goet about this before about word problems we're creating or reading assignments we're creating where a student is actually reading scenario based information and they're choosing the main idea they're choosing the antagonist the protagonist they're seeing it in real world language as early as Elementary on and we're actually putting our own code of student conduct into academic setting and so it's not just us teaching them something with a video but they're actually reading and they're participating in understanding and so I know that's just one more thing to add to the uh professional leadership and learning team and the curriculum Builders and all of that but that's how I see this being most effective from an education standpoint as opposed to just showing another video and slide whatever or even saying okay teachers you've got to do this today add this into your already busy day let's start being a little more creative in how we're also Meeting those learning objectives while we're teaching them things that are specific to our district and we can we can transfer that to all kinds of things as we're doing uh African-American history can we talk about specific to Maran County and have lessons about Dr NH Jones and how you know can we same thing with uh teaching our students math problems and and how we can get them to start understanding what a weekly salary actually looks like in a word problem I mean there's there's ways that we can start embedding real life into curriculum that also meets learning objectives and this would be another great example of that so that's all I have on thank you um I just I just really don't wholly agree with that um Dr Campbell I I feel like in these extreme situations our kids need to role play we need to talk about what it looks like to get bumped in the hall or for somebody to say something smart to you or do a joke against your mom whatever it is this instigation piece or this I'm going to take immediate action and there needs to be you they have to learn how to react or not react and I don't think and I hate to say this because I would love for the problem to be able to be solved by reading and just talking about it when you're doing the main idea whatever that looks like um but I'm just going to be honest I don't think that's going to help I think that it has to be real life practice and I think um as Dr gullet mentioned earlier when we Target and look at data where these issues are extreme where we're having more fights specific schools you know maybe we look at pulling a small group I know and I hate to say this because I know there's not enough hours in the day enough minutes in the day but if we're really looking at changing beh behavior and helping our students be successful citizens they do have to learn that and so you know if we've got a middle school group and we know that we've got this group of students that are struggling to problem solve or or how they're reacting then we pull and do a little you know Ro playing for a couple a couple of different days and and let's remember too that we've got our um our next presentation you know which is the mental health assistance and we're talking about tier two and tier three and tier one and the expectations that we have for you know for all of these coping skills and and what we're trying to do and you know we're just really struggling against what seems to be what seems to have become normalized and tolerable in society that you know it's but again and I know you're probably tired of hearing it but I keep circling back to our lowest functioning students learn to discriminate environments that's not how we do it here you know yes kids are going to fight but this this escalating of each other and just these quick to triggers nobody really wants to live like that and I just think that we need to be strong but we also need to make sure the kids know that they can protect themselves um and what that looks like and what that looks like and that we have a lot of dedicated staff that are ready and willing and if there's something that doesn't seem right and we get a phone call then then we go through the channels to make sure that it's made right um sure that's and we can continue to belabor this but I think we've got we need a wrap up here soon about what the direction is for this group last thing I'll say is on uh the elements of persuasion science of persuasion it's not just one tool so while I understand exactly what you're saying I don't think that my recommendation should be negated because it's multiple steps of persuasion that are needed to get students to understand what actually needs to be done and so incorporating it into something they're already doing is also a good idea it's all I'll say how do we connect what they're learning to the real world you know um anything else Dr gullet so I'm gonna ask again sorry board for clarity before we move on to the next topic what is the will of the board for for this item um that has been discussed did we get to consensus on adding strike did we get to consens I'm okay with that yes with instruction okay I'll so I'll look to my team do we have any questions other than the addition of the word strike to that definition' good okay sometimes it's such great conversation and then we have to make sure that we come back to the end and clarify work so will there be one more meeting of these because there were some other things the separation of the visual imagery and all or it's just going to be so we won't have another briefing on what that looks like that's fine does the does the board need an another topic of this no I think you could just send us an email with just just some of the updates correct sure yeah it's okay okay thank you all right thank you wow thank you thank you very much I think it's important to all of us to just make things better and get things right appreciate your time any public comment oh I'm sorry listen guys I'm passionate about this but I'm I'm passionate about it for a reason because is you're right there's too much violence in those schools but often times I see the victims of these things unjustly get um a consequence when they're just trying to just trying to go to school and we we we need to take those things in consideration sure so that's why I'm I'm I'm on that one but I appreciate you guys listening and I thank you um for bringing forth these student Cod conduct I think you guys do a tremendous job on what you do with it every year but that's been one thing that I've always been harping on for the last few years so thank at least it it has some better clarity to it um I think by adding that to it thank you very much thank you is there any public comment all right hearing none is the board ready to roll into the mental health assistance allocation which will solve all our [Laughter] problems yes okay and and Madam Sher if I may introduce this this this is the last topic for today so uh Miss Delo doll is coming forward and and she team have been waiting and uh ready to present the mental health assistance allocation which you've seen as a reminder each year you see an update on on the plan and um how it's expected to roll forward so thank you no pressure on fixing all the problems no pressure we believe in you good morning chair thrower superintendent Dr gullet and board members this morning as in your past we will be reviewing the Maran County Public Schools Comprehensive Mental Health Plan all Florida school districts are required to create and Implement a mental health plan that outlines the management and the utilization of the annual mental health assistance allocation funds that we receive our team routinely reviews the components of the plan to ensure we continue to improve upon current practices adjust to me to meet any new needs and challenges and maximize our impact most importantly we want to ensure that we remain committed to the foundational goals that we set forth in the development of the plan in 2018 Miss Amanda stman is here with me this morning to provide an overview of the framework that we created and have supported over the past 5 Years miss stechman holds the role of mental health coordinator our required component of the mental health plan as mandated by the state Miss techman oversees the implementation of the mental health plan framework and the allocation of its resources she has held this role since 2020 giving her in-depth knowledge and familiarity with the components of the plan at this time I would like to invite Miss dechman to provide the additional information that we have provided for you today thank you and good morning morning morning all right uh the margorie stowman Douglas High School public safety act was enacted in 2018 as Miss Delo doll had U mentioned to support school safety and student engagement in Florida schools this law funds our safe schools requirements for physical school safety as well as the mental health and behavioral prevention and intervention requirements of the mental health assistance allocation which we're re reviewing today this plan outlines five goals each meeting the requirements provided to us by the state goal number one provides and increases access to mental health and Behavioral Services for our students goal number two provides those Services utilizing a multi-tiered system of support framework goal number three provides professional development to staff on how to identify and support students in with mental health challenges goal number four explains how we work with our Community Partners to connect students and families to Mental Health Resources both within Marian County Public Schools and the community and goal number five engages our families by building relationships and assisting them with service navigation looking at our first goal the Florida Department of Education requires the use of our mental health assistance allocation to fund additional school-based mental health providers in order to reduce the student to provider ratio and increase direct mental health support to students we will plan to fund two additional school counselor positions five additional School psychologists and 10 additional School social worker positions for the 2425 school year under this plan by reducing ratios for our school-based Mental Health Providers these professionals will have more time to provide direct intervention and support to our students to address those mental health and behavioral concerns um i' like to mention that the size alike districts that we compared ourselves to are Lake County Manatee Sarasota St John's and St Lucy and another way to provide access to students is to identify those youth who are in need of intervention and support we accomplish this at the elementary level by providing a behavior observation rating tool for teachers to complete this rating tool is used to measure externalizing behaviors so for example does the student have poor self-control and Inter in I'm sorry internalizing behaviors such as does the student worry often results are provided back to the school teams for the review and I'd like to mention that this is just one data point to be considered with other sources of information by the team other sources could include office discipline referrals uh and also staff and parent input at the secondary level we depend on staff and parent referral to identify students in need of further intervention the behavior observation tool is then administered to the student to complete and provide additional information to that school team at this time we do not utilize the behavior observation tool as a universal screener at the secondary level due to it being a student completed screening tool however you'll see secondary student data on your screen from Fort McCoy middle the middle school side of Fort McCoy school and Horizon Academy who are participating in a pilot program this school year utilizing the tool as a universal screening instrument meaning the students are able to take the scale and we're able to see based on self-report externalizing behaviors such as I have poor self-control and internalizing behaviors such as I worry often again here we see the results of these two pilot schools and you'll notice as a self-report behavior screener we have identified a higher percentage of students to be considered by those school teams to support this in addition to the school base Mental Health Providers at these schools we have also um our contracted Mental Health Counselors assigned to those two School sites as well as additional coaching to those school-based teams to know how to offer supports to those students who have been identifi identified by the screening instrument school teams obtain staff and parent input by utilizing the multi-disciplinary team referral form this provides additional key information to the school-based team for consideration of further support and intervention for students again this is information this information is to be paired with the behavior observation tool results and also revie reviewed with other data sources it is important for teams to look at multiple sources of data to make good decisions in regards to what supports would be most appropriate to put in place for students school-based teams are also comprised of stakeholders from vary varying backgrounds to Ure all perspectives are considered school-based team members include School administrators School coun School psychologists School social workers student services managers and our school resource officers our second goal is to Pro is to provide mental health and behavioral supports utilizing a multi-tiered system of support approach tier one supports are provided to all students in the classroom setting these programs teach student resiliency skills and how to get along with others which we just discussed our continued Focus for the upcoming school year is to increase the Knowledge and Skills to implement these resources in the classrooms effectively tier 2 supports are provided to groups of students by the multidisiplinary team members to meet the students identified needs interventions are matched to the areas of concern identified by the multi-disciplinary team and they're also monitored to see whether or not those interventions are effective for the students receiving that and additional instruction tier three supports are provided to students in which tier one and tier 2 supports have been unsuccessful those interventions are intensified and individualized to provide the highest level of care for those students as we continue to see our student population grow we have seen an increase in student need across Maring County Schools the number of students referred for assistance to our multi-disciplinary teams has increased by 1,83 referrals within the past two years our teams are responding appropriately as we see an increase in in students being identified for services and by proactively addressing these student needs we we are beginning to see positive outcomes for students such as a reduction in our school-based bakera numbers which we'll see or which we will discuss in a later slide as we review the suicide assessment and threat assessment numbers historically we can see an overall trend of the number of suicide assessments staying consistent across time however threat assessment numbers have fluctuated within the last 5 years for the 2020 2021 school year which we deem our covid year we had a reduction of students on campus and less peer interaction which we believe led to the significant drop in those threat assessments ment numbers this school year we saw an increase of 57 threat assessments up to the month of April however our team believes this increase is due to the new threat assessment procedures adopted by the state which resulted in teams considering additional factors contributing to the initiation of a threat assessment as well as the increase of student population and interactions on school campuses starting into 2018 the state has required all staff employed by the school district to be trained in youth Mental Health First Aid this training provides information regarding early signs and symptoms of Youth experiencing mental health challenges as well as those that are in crisis participants learn to appropriately respond to these identified Youth and how to refer students to professional mental health supports in 2022 an additional requirement for for school districts was to annually verify that 80% of all elementary middle and high school Personnel have been trained in this youth mental health awareness certification Maring County continues to lead the state and the number of employees meeting this requirement we attribute our success to the fact that we we have never stopped our training plan from when we first began in 2018 including our time of distance learning during Co at that time we switched over to a state approved virtual platform to ensure employees continue to have access to our nationally certified youth Mental Health First Aid instructors so they could meet this requirement as you can see we are currently exceeding the 80% requirement for the 2324 school year and we do have additional offerings um and opportunities for employees through May Maring County Public Schools works with public and state agencies to identify and problem solve barriers to students families receiving mental health and behavioral support this has led to our Continuum of me school Mental Health Services meetings we meet as a community team once every other month to provide updates on our current available resources and discuss Trends in our respective agencies this has led to many different benefits including the creation of a service navigation tool to assist families with navigating the resources available both in Maring County Public Schools and the community in addition local review team meetings provide an opportunity for various agencies involved with a student and their family to communicate and work together to support that youth these Community collaborations are imperative to the success that we see with our students as we review our Baker Act data it's important to note this data is reflective of each Baker Act incident therefore multiple incidents may be attributed to one student our teams work to provide interventions and safety plans to those students identified with this need as mentioned previously our school-based multidisiplinary teams have been able to provide consistent mental health support to our students through Intervention which we believe has contributed to the decrease in the number of repeated Baker Act incidents with students additionally we partner with our local Baker Act facilities to provide training and support to our school teams on deescalation Strat iies and how to support those students in crisis but keep in mind that our school-based team members are not able to make the determination of whether or not Baker Act criteria has been met only law enforcement is able to make that determination on our school campuses finally our last goal which is family engagement school work uh schools work with families to assist with accessing Mental Health Services and support their children we have multiple ways in which we provide information to families for example finding creative ways to connect parents and students to our mental health and wellness web page by creating posters as you can see on the slide which have been printed for school campuses to display for individuals to access via QR code this web web page provides an opportunity for students to connect to their school-based mental health provider it guides families on how to access mental health support within the school system and provides information on how to navigate Mental Health Resources in the community we have also had the opportunity to present at Family Focus events explaining this information to families in person finally as school teams work with students they also take the time to schedule conferences with parents and provide resources such as the Maring County Counseling Services availabilities list which is a list of community- based agencies and services addressing mental health and Behavioral needs that are available right here in Maring County our plan for the mental health assistance allocation is to continue what we've always done and that's to support uh providing Direct Services to students by funding school-based and contracted Mental Health Providers therefore 90% of the budget will be allocated to funding mental health staff which includes 18 additional school-based Mental Health Providers such as school counselors psychologists and social workers then four mental health staff will provide District level support to implement the mental health allocation which includes coaching and professional development for school staff as well as data manage the data management associated with the reporting requirements of the allocation and with that I'll turn it over to Dr gullet thank you very much again there's a lot of information that goes behind the scenes in putting this presentation together but uh board we look forward to your uh questions comments thank you thank you Dr gullet would like to lead us off sure I'll go all right pleas your Conrad thank you ladies for all the information you shared with us I just have a couple of questions really some of them uh just falling after the conversation we just had on slide four I'm just double checking slide four um the information you shared on highly elevated elevated and normal levels of intervention we get that per school we collect that per school yes okay then do we at any point compare it to our discipline data do our students that are getting into fights um high levels of disrespect those sort of things are they do does it correlate do they all into that highly elevated um classification yes so um it is one data point so I just want to make sure to reemphasize that so the within a week of the close of the window They will receive the results via spreadsheet and with that they're also able to include their discipline data so as they see students for example that are highly elevated say in externalizing behaviors and then they also see various office discipline refer referrals that's really good information to now now we're starting to put the puzzle pieces together to say okay we can really Target the area of concern and address it appropriately good that's fantastic fantastic news um slide slide eight um when we look at the increase in referrals um I just want to go back to that education piece with our students you know helping them understand what certain offenses look like um how to manage help them manage their mental health and make better decisions um and being proactive you know and helping decrease that number I just I think and I know it's it's a huge challenge again with the hours and minutes that we have in the day and many times our students that are struggling with their m Health are also struggling academically and so they're already being pulled you know in several different ways to get those accommodations but I I will say it's I believe it's also the result of we have a strong part partnership with our student discipline department and as they're working with students that have received referrals have received alternative placements and they're returning to base a lot of times it's a referral back to the multidisiplinary team because we're not just just wanting to provide consequences we want to provide intervention and teach those students to your point so they may be um placed in like a conflict resolution program um so to that fact I think it's a lot of this has to do with just we've got really great teaming and discussion about how do we get those students in earlier or even retach the skill after there's been an incident so what does that look like that piece that you're talking about like um that they're part of a conflict resolution is that online is that a small group what does that look like sure um and I'll say I'll start with it's almost counterintuitive to look at this data and think we really want to decrease those numbers and to us when we see them increasing that means we have more staff that are identifying when a student has a need and then we're providing those interventions um so that's good data to us um and when we have those those groups we have groups that we have on campus if we need to refer them to outside agencies as well it all depends on that team thinking about what exactly is the underlying cause if we can identify that what's the level of need that the student has is it something that we can provide on campus and then how best can we allocate our resources to be able to do that so many times we do have groups sometimes we have one-on-one um kind of interventions that we put in place if that's most appropriate for the student and most appropriate for the staff um and what we have on campus that we can do okay thank you I'm happy to hear that we have so much um in person um on slide 12 and I'm just going to give a disclaimer when I'm when I'm asking you um about the situation I'm actually thinking of a particular situation of someone that called in so really I just need a little help understanding the process so when a child is Baker acted what does that process look like so we'll start from maybe the teacher has identified some behaviors or they've said something that they're very worried about so what happens then um so our school counselors are the main point of contact on each school campus because they are our full-time mental health provider there um and so those individuals have been trained to complete what we call a suicide assessment um with the suicide assessment the counselor is asking very specific questions they're asking are you thinking about suicide or are you thinking about um dying and then from there they're asking additional follow-up questions um specific to how far into the planning process they are to carry out that suicide attempt if it is a low level if they determine it's low level then you're conferencing with this with a student they may be referred to that multi-disciplinary team to provide intervention and you're also conferencing with the parent and having that conversation um if they determine it's high level um after utilizing deescalation techniques and the student is still adamant in making um statements that they do want to die by Suicide then we start looking at well are they potentially meeting that Baker Act criteria that's when we actually bring the school resource officer um into the conversation and they're the ones that it's making that determination if they do make that determination then the school team must contact the parent prior to that student being removed from campus uh to notify them that they're being removed for the purpose of a Baker Act okay that's kind that's where this particular I just want to clarify this is a very particular situation um the student was already under psychiatric care and I can't recall the other thing um and the parent wasn't reached so I wondered is there a procedure um in that process when you're contacting parents do you call the first two on the contact list you call the first three or if it's listed that it's all family members do you go down further and the concern was because she was already receiving pretty deep Services there was a a large expense to the family when she was Baker acted and they were already swimming and struggling Financial with these the mental health pieces that they were doing at home and so it appears that that would be the job when they're with the guidance counselor and I just wanted to ensure that if it was allowable I didn't know um you know that we go through at least several contacts before they're released from campus uh we do and we have documentation we have a form that's actually required by the state of Florida to document all of our attempts to contact the parent and we are um given the leeway to contact others outside of the uh parent or Guardian um to try to get a hold of them not give going into detail as to why we're contacting uh the parent but that it is an emergency and they need to call the school so that's the procedure the process for parent notification um for students that are already involved with a high level of care that goes back to that determination from the school resource officer because when you're talking about meeting Baker Act criteria that means that they have no other means to meet safety um that it's an immediate danger and the school resource officer does not believe that there's any other alternative and and I understand that I know again it's a very it can be a very tricky you know line to walk so um and in this particular inst in situation the parent was grateful you know that the school was so in tune and and checking on her child but they had this other you know piece of the puzzle they were struggling with so thank you for explaining that to me I appreciate it and helps me when I speak with parents better understand the process and how it goes and my last question goes it fits in with um slide 14 as we look at um all of our all of the ways that we're meeting the needs of our students in their mental health are we going to move chaplain in to this particular role in helping it any way or will there be training do you have you anticipated what that will look like any discussion going on can you repeat uh so the governor has said that can have chaplain on campus to visit talk with they're not guidance counselors um you know but parents can opt in to having their child speak with a chaplain if they feel I mean it could be didn't pass a test you know it could be anything um do we have a plan for that is it being discussed is it something that we're thinking about doing um it has not been discussed yet but that's something that we can explore um I will mention that as part of the allocation we do have a requirement for specific mental health staff to be hired to reduce ratio so those are school counselors School psychologists and school social workers so they are named specifically as individuals that they would want to increase funding for um to reduce those ratios for direct mental health support so this would really if we considered it it would kind of be a bonus like it would just be an extra almost like a volunteer spot correct okay for our suicide risk assessment procedures again the state mandates that it's those specific uh mental health professionals that are the ones that are involved in the D escalation okay I would just be interested if that conversation does move forward I'd like to know how it's How It unfolds all right thank you ladies thank you Vice shair Conrad board member Campbell sure thank you and thank you ladies for your presentation to follow up on um what Vice chair Conrad had said the chapy bill has just been signed into law so it not even effective until July 1 but I believe uh Dr James did request that we move forward with working on policy and so the hope is that the board can even have potential policy rolled out ahead of the upcoming school year and the way that statute reads is the chapy certainly I guess you can pay them but I think the intention is that they would be volunteers kind of supplemental to whatever plans we have in place for whatever purpose um so um moving on to a couple of quick questions that I had my first one is in the self-reporting tool for the middle school students um that's Slide Five So based on these numbers that do seem a little high but honestly for middle school students that's okay I'm assuming this was not Anonymous no okay so this is um they are actually logging in with their student number and so we're able to provide and that's how we know how to Target intervention is by the student responses and that's included in that team discussion sure okay so I mean having 20 to 45% of our students in some level uh and this is all understanding just two schools but this is a middle school population but they are essentially self-reporting that they are concerned about their own behaviors and their own mental health that's those are good and bad statistics I know how you're saying you know it's good that they are self-reporting it's not great that they're having struggles but that's why we're putting teams in place to help them okay great so that answered my question the only other I'm going to go in a line of thought here slide 13 so I love the fact that you have these new posters with a QR code that gets to your web page so then I'm sitting here and I go to your web page so allow me to uh opine for just a moment I appreciate that your department has a vision vision and a mission statement personally as a public relations professional seeing that the school district has a vision and mission statement I'm not certain that I'm comfortable with your department having something separate from that this is just again speaking as a public relations professional um potentially if it's our commitment to you is or our focus is and so your department has ideas that support the district vision and Mission so that that's my first comment on that I Dr goet I don't this I'm just again allow me to opine for just a moment my my other thoughts we have a category there for homeless and needy services and I know we are shifting gears on how we speak about that specifically so as that is updated districtwide I think that will be helpful I I'm not certain that students would go to that section and that's kind of the overarching comment that I want to make to wrap up on this I love the idea that we have posters we're putting in front of students but this page I go to it doesn't say to me how I'm going to find anything if I'm a student trying to seek anything out it it shows I understand this is your web page for your department your leadership team Your Health Service and perhaps there is a different web page that this QR code goes to that I'm missing and if that's the case terrific um but if there isn't and this is where it takes you then I'm not certain that we're achieving what we're trying to achieve G to go first and then I'm perfect thank you so the QR code actually does take you directly to the page that offers mental health support so on there U students have the ability to do a quick check-in and request support services from school-based Mental Health Providers um it also has uh emergency contact information so if they are for example um have suicide ideation then there's safe numbers and resources that they can go to it also provides um information on how to access Mental Health Services with Maring County Public Schools as well as how to access services and resources in the community okay and I'm I'm reading that now so thank you for for directing me to the correct page that this QR QR code takes them to I recommend potentially that the team gets some students involved in what this needs to look like because right now it's very clinical and it's very black and white I'm reading student wellness check-in surveys below our links sted da students in crisis is a student going to say I'm in crisis maybe not and so I I think I know that we had a group I think Westport HIgh School was working on getting certifications that they might be so having a student group actually I love this again I think this is wonderful having them on the back of bathroom doors like all the things but if when they get there it actually gets them to something that's colorful engaging whatever I think it will be way more impactful than what we currently have that I'm looking at yeah so if I may and my brain is going in all sorts of directions but lightning round answer is we're on it perfect because um we've had some conversations and our information and technology department is fantastic I have to say that because they get lots of calls from me um and so we've been working with them on not just one main web page but do we have something that's going to be dedicated to mckin vento something that's going to be dedicated to attendance something that's going to be where they can go for all of that information our parents as well as our staff um I think those are some great suggestions for students we've been looking into doing some focus groups with our students specifically maybe our safe promise clubs our HOSA teams those kinds of students that could come and give us some real good feedback um what we've been told is as we're moving our web pages into a more web model they're making lots of different um changes to the school websites we're next on the list so they've got me written down we've got all the ideas and then they're going to help us kind of work through that okay perfect I think that wraps up everything I appreciate it thank you so much thank you uh board member James just one point of clarification and it may tie in Dr Living Goods knowledge so um on slide three talk about the ratios and school counselors is the first item and for high schools we see the highest ratio my question to you is does that school counselor include magnet coordinators who are certified in School counseling and are serving in the role of a counselor to magnet students and I think the answer is no but that ratio would be less so not every magnet coordinator at the high school level is certified in counseling but I reflect back to the magnet coordinator when I was at Bellevue who was certified uh in School counseling and he was essentially a fifth counselor to Bellevue High School and so this ratio would actually be lower if we included the individuals serving in a counselor um role or a like counselor role who are certified in counseling and so I don't know if we are allowed to do that legislatively but I do think the data would be more reflective of the work we're doing if we included that and to your point so I will confirm it does not include those individuals um and the reason being is because is for the 24 25 school year we can't predict who's going to who specifically would be in those roles and that particular position is open up to your point to other individuals that would not be certified um so that's why we did not include it in those numbers if you bring these numbers back before us at some point during the school year I would just make the recommendation just to make y'all look better because it really is reflective of the work we're doing to include individuals serving in like counselor positions who are certified in in count mental health coun counseling because they do exist and it it would better acknowledge the work that's being done and make that ratio look more reflective of um of of the effort we're giving onto our campuses so that would be my just recommendation everything else looks great I'm proud of the work you guys are doing and continue to do um this has been an evolution covid obviously made a huge shift in the work we do and and the trauma that students have and so I'm I'm grateful for the work y'all are doing and in the direction we're going so thank you board member James any more comments from the board okay I I'll just say you know thank you um as always for everything that that you do both uh proactively and in terms of the reactive strategies my eye was drawn to slide 12 which was um the um on campus student Baker Act counts by incident and you know they're I think we're starting to get there with the the proactive interventions because I see the number of Baker Acts were going down um and I know that sometimes in order to get kids that are so intense the services they need you have to have Baker a on record so sometimes that's part of the process I think it's also really important to reiterate to the community as well that it isn't any of our staff that Baker acts kids you know that has to come from law enforcement in in the school setting and maybe a board certified behavior analyst but while that may be allowed I don't think we do that and and if we did it would be in conjunction with that law enforcement officer too um so thank you and look forward to continuing you know the partnership to help every student succeed thank you all right there's nothing further we'll ask to see if there's any public comment all right hearing none Dr scet any wrap up comments should we just nothing nothing additional thank you all for your feedback today thank you all right we will uh move on to uh our typical comments and concerns attorney Powers anything from legal yes ma'am I just as a note I wanted to let everyone know that I recently was um working with uh streamlining functions and avoiding duplication of efforts uh for work session recordkeeping our standard is is going to be just like we have with uh board meetings which is that it's not directly transcribed summaries of the comments are are not available it's going to be that the um audiovisual record is the record um there's no vote needed to uh record so the board board clerk doesn't have to really record anything specific um the board may choose to include notes or specific board consensus for um uh with within it a summary at a work session but otherwise that's not required uh it's uh we could put something like that in there for indexing for example if the board achieved consensus on something during a work session could be a note otherwise statutorily the agenda itself uh accounts for the agenda and then supplementally also the audio and video that is recorded um are the actual record of the work session and we already do that for board meetings as well and of course the summaries that you saw today uh all of these are posted on board docs long term so all the information presented to the board is also then posted on board docs so we have at least three different ways of making sure that all of our uh all of our records regarding those items are public and archived and archived correct all right great thank you and I think that includes everything that I had from legal today so thanks all right thank you Dr gullet thank you nothing additional thank you okay board member Campbell sure just it's a busy time of year and looking forward to upcoming events that we have in multiple locations multiple departments multiple schools graduations all the things happening and I'll just say last night's takestock and children graduation was wonderful and seeing one of the students that was a dual enrollment student um from Westport HIgh School who was in my class at CF this whole semester was one of our takestock and children graduates and he actually did his informative speech on takestock and children earlier this year so it was just kind of a full circle moment for me as a as an adjunct college professor as well as serving as a Schoolboard member and a takest and children Mentor just all the things last night it was it was a wonderful event in addition to all the other places we've all been lately just looking forward to a great graduation season that's all I got awesome thank you Miss Martinez uh yes board um I wanted to let you guys know that I did attend a conference last week and one of the takeaways once the governor does sign will be that will impact us will be publications of ads and just so that you know moving forward they will not need to be placed in the Okala Gazette moving forward we will only need to place ads on rule making and Rule development and attorney client sessions um so I don't know how that will look on board docs I will have to get with technology to see what proof they can give me because all of those will be placed on the website all work sessions all special board meetings all board meetings will be placed on board docs on the website so that you can see them so that the public can see them so there will be no need for any um ads and that will definitely save the district quite a bit of money with ads so just those few ads will be only ads that will be placed so if you don't see them in the Okala Gazette after July 1st you'll know the governor has signed it and we're moving forward with that process sounds good deregulation in our favor time wise and financially all right board member James um thank you so uh I have two things I want to bring back up um I think maybe in the last time we did comments and we talked about it a little bit today regarding the next time we're going to talk about policy I'm still looking for legal to bring forward potential dates time frames that we're going to discuss policy next so that we can at least have a frame of reference for that um and then I I have made a request and I didn't have as many numbers as I have right now and so if you'll just bear with me I want to paint a picture for you guys to try and um highlight the importance of the request I have I don't know which meeting but of recent meetings I made the remark that I believe we need to build at least the farther south Elementary School with the wing attached to it that building it for 860 student stations is not going to meet the need um that we are looking to accomplish and before I go forward let me highlight what I believe our need to accomplish is I believe that we're building new schools to eliminate the use of Portables on our school sites the purpose of a new school is to eliminate students having to get their education delivered to them in a portable so um if you are not aligned with that then maybe you will not be aligned with what I'm about to say but my belief is that a new school should eliminate that delivery model for students they should no longer have to receive that education from a portable because data supports that education in a brick and morar setting is is more effective so when I I've done a little numbers and I want to just provide some numbers for you guys when I look at the attendance report from August 10th the first day of school our membership report from August 10th and I look at the two primary schools we would potentially be looking to rezone to the farther south School the school that's right off 484 on Marion Oaks Manor we're looking at Sunrise and Moe those are the two schools that are within 5 miles basically of that school now we know that sunrise and Moe both get an influx of students after Labor Day but I'm going to look at I'm GNA I'm just going to paint the picture from August 10th to today August 10th Sunrise had 1,51 students and as of yesterday they had 1,418 students which is an increase of 3 67 students since August Moe's had 901 students on August 10th and now has 1,110 students which is an increase of 209 students if I take those two numbers and add them together I see a collective increase in enrollment of 576 students to date this school year when I look at the fish report that excludes portables for most and for Sunrise because again my goal personally is that a student doesn't have to have their education delivered in a portable a new school should eliminate that possibility if I if I because the fish number on the attendance report includes Portables that are can be included in fish so if I look at the brick and mortar capacity of Sunrise it's 872 and the brick and mortar capacity for Moe is 98 7 so we are looking at a difference today of 546 students at Sunrise and 123 students at Moe over what the brick and mortar capacity is which is a total of 669 so today if all we did was take all of the students that are that are beyond the brick and mortar capacity at Sunrise and modes we would be at 669 we are building that school for 86 student stations if we even assume that 576 more students will join those two schools next year we are going to be looking at 1,245 students at the end of next school year that would be needing to go to relief to get sunrise and mo back to Brick and Mortar capacity which means there is no way in God's green earth we can open that farther south school with 860 student stations now I've had conversation in the community with um the contractors who are building those schools and at this point in the game it is impossible to open that school with the wing that is needed because we're too late in the game and I'll be honest six months ago I didn't understand the severity of this but I today cannot put my head on my pillow and know that this is not going to be an issue so we can do what we did at forest and basically a little bit later start the pad and build it so that by Christmas that Wing would be finished my plea to the board and to Dr gullet is that that the facilities Department makes every effort to at a minimum this 484 school and I don't know if it's School XYZ I can't keep them all straight so you all know which one I'm talking about not the winding Oak site the one that's in Marion Oaks I need I'm pleading that that school open with a wing being built and that Wing that opens as closely after August of 25 as possible because there is if my student has been getting education in a portable for the last three years at Sunrise Elementary and I have been promised this new school your baby's goingon to go to a new school and then you move my baby to a new school and then my baby has to get education in a portable I will be so mad and I for once want to be a board that's people are like man they really thought that through they looked at that and they saw that they looked at the long term and they realized the picture and again six months ago I didn't I didn't I didn't understand the severity of this when we opened Moe with 900 students huh no big deal this school year when it started 900 okay well we've added 29 students this school year so I understand that that cost money and I understand that it is a plus negative and something's going to have to go and if that means that in this moment we put the wing at Moe which is already built into the the the loan if we put the wing at Mo on the back burner because we are going to be making sure we're addressing the capacity at Mo and we move that Wing essentially from Moe over to the new school we it's not quite perfect money it's probably actually less expensive to do it the first time at the new school than it is to do it as an addition to Moe I as a board member can Proclaim that I will prioritize finding funding for Moses Wing when the time comes for it to need a a wing again but but what I know is that what if we open that school at 860 we're going to have I would put money we're going to have 400 students in Portables based on the way this growth is projecting and I or we're going to keep students in Portables at Sunrise and Moe which I'm not okay with if the whole purpose is to open the school I do not want to keep students imp Portables so my plea to the board um is if you guys are even remotely in agreement with this I want to see the facilities Department provide a plan to us as to how we will move that money and prioritize the wing at the farther south 484 site so I'm going to put that to the board hopefully for a bit of a discussion this this afternoon I want to understand if you guys are in agreement with me and and how we can make sure that we're doing what I think the community needs to see thank you boy member James it's compelling for sure I would be interested in seeing the plan yes because every time I write out there I I don't have as solid data as you do Dr James but every time I ride out there and visit with those administrators the kids are just coming and coming and coming every day and as we see in our attendance report they're coming every day and so it would be nice for once for Marian County to be ahead of the game or at least on the game we just continual to be reactive and in this instance we could have the opportunity to be proactive mam chair thank you Vice Shar go ahead and I I I'm sure a few weeks ago I kind of mentioned this not to the extent that Dr James did but I did mention this that when we open those schools we're going to open those schools at capacity and we should not be opening new schools at capacity there should be some breathing room there should be no kids in Portables that should happen um I would love to hear to see what we can do to make that happen because um what's the purpose of building all these schools and kids are stealing Portables that are actually um outdated and we know that so I would love to see what come forward from this thank you board member Cummings board member Campbell sure so I received similar data but for a different reasons so I I had recent data on Sunrise and Maran Oak since the beginning of the school year mine was just January February numbers but more than 500 students had had been enrolled since August in in both of those two schools and looking at the fish report as well I can fully get behind taking a look at it but while we're looking at it I also recommend looking at College Park Saddlewood and what we're doing in Winding Oaks because they've had 350 students between those two schools so if we're really talking about relieving pressure which is all the whole purpose and like you said this costs money I completely I know we're adding a wing at Hammet like we're we're doing this but it's all Southwest pressure and the number of students that we have had that have enrolled in Maran County Public Schools just since August is 6,979 students now we've had some that have gone away for sure but I ask for the data specifically because I was curious to know how many are coming from other parts of Florida how many are coming from outside of Florida and how many are coming from other countries and so that's part of what I was asking for but also to see which volume which school was taking on the most volume and then a lot of that falls on one particular employee so some schools may have two new registrations in the entire year and that's one employes job and then another school has 350 one person's job so that's why I was asking for the data um so I I but I do have very similar data I completely concur with what your thought process is there I like the concept of saying we're not just alleviate or relieving pressure we're actually alleviating a situation and that includes getting kids out of Portables I I can fully support that and if I might add I I want to just put my little Aster that says I fully understand that just because going the zoning process and the capacity are two separate things so when I give the number 576 over their brick and morar capacity I understand that that's not pure to zoning and I want to acknowledge that but I do think that the department that Mr airs runs is capable of getting those schools very close to back to their brick-and mortar capacity if we have planned accordingly on the other side and so I as a board member am prepared to make the hard decision if that means that ham um H um hammock Bowen and Mo's Wings have to get placehold because we are taking them back to their brick and mortar capacity to be able to move the money from that to the loan um well to the new schools all via the loan because all of that money was approved via our loan and I have talked briefly with Miss boson Ellis about this because when we drafted the loan we did say how we were going to spend it so she was looking into how we would navigate basically adjusting how we requested the money but I do believe we have more than enough data to support what is happening and I can get on board with the winding Oak School as well when we tore prototypes and we go to a school we tore prototype Middle School prototypes like three weeks ago West Boon Beach which is West Boon Middle School which is the protot type that the team U Mr Jacob specifically liked the most was at a third of their capacity and they are growing into complete capacity over three years what a concept right now they've had a sales Tex and all the things for so long and so they've had the money to be able to plan there and I pray that in 20 years as a district we are set have set we have set ourselves up so that we can be that um that abundant that we can do that but at a minimum I don't want someone's kid to go in a portable in a brand new school I just can't even get behind how to I couldn't even I don't know what I would say to a parent if that's what we had to do and so if there's even an opportunity for us to engage in a problem solving approach to this I I am just pleading with the board that we engage in it because I want to say we've looked at all the options and this is just the best we've got so um I guess my request it seems like the board is in a agreement my request to Dr gullet would be that Miss Dobbins and the facilities Department bring to the board some options for finances if that is what the board um agrees on you yeah um what I'm thinking as well is that as far as the loan is concerned it was for wings and if we've determined that the wings are better and most urgently needed somewhere else it's still building Wings yeah it's not like we're building an administrative building or you know something like that that's way outside um so I hopefully that wouldn't be our biggest obstacle um I am thinking about and I and I don't disagree with any of this I'll just say that I'm also thinking about Maplewood W Highlands you know that have had Perpetual portable cities you know and what is our response to them like there you know it's a whole new school going in down there and and then here we linger you know when is our turn so I just kind of wanted to throw it to Dr gullet and you've heard a lot here you've heard General consensus for sure just wondering your thoughts sure um I'll start with um since I'm a person who appreciates Simplicity of response um the answer is certainly we can bring it to the board so and I think many of the things that I would mention to you have already been mentioned we have rezoning underway already that process has begun you know we we had a session here recently to obtain Community input and looking at the totality of all the schools the populations that you all have brought up today are already um in place the other consideration is regarding the loan that was referenced um yes uh how that is um addressed and whether or not we have the ability under those provisions of the loan to change that we will have to um bring we will have to seek answers to that and bring back to the board um and agree completely that um there's a lot of growth and so if those of us who have lived in areas of high growth there's always the the complex nature of what we can see in in buildings being approved but also you can't always know exactly numbers I think to Dr Campbell's point of people moving in and the rate at which they move in and where they're moving from is constantly changing and and I think I say this all the time it is my opinion and my observation it's really happening in Maring County where it's happened elsewhere in the state now Maran county is experiencing a lot of other areas that it's it's happening faster than you expect it's happening from different places you expect and um we are trying to keep up with that like many do in the State of Florida but um we will be happy to bring back to the board I can't promise it won't cost us money can't promise that the loan has provided for those changes but we'll certainly take a look at it and bring the pieces back together to see what our options are okay thank you thank you that concludes my comments um it's just really been on my heart and I have told myself that if something is keeping me up at night and I don't feel comfortable with it I'm going to at least try my best to solve that problem so that I can feel at peace with how we're proceeding so I'm grateful for you guys willing to engage in it and um and try and be um proactive and problem solving I want to be the board that people say they really thought that through they there were space left to grow into and I know that we don't have extreme luxuries with our finances but if we can if we can even try to do it um I would love to be able to be the board that makes that happen and if I may add to board member James comment that would be a great place for us to go in the future for us to be able to forecast in and build into and that's not been a luxury that we've been able to have ever I don't I don't think and that's something that always bugged me because it was presented to me anyway that um the state would only pay for a certain number of of seats and yet like Saddlewood is a great example what the day that Saddlewood opened they were Portables there you know that never made sense to me and the state's not even paying for it anymore right so so the whole thing's been convoluted for a really long time yes so that that concludes my comments thank you for um hearing me out appreciate it thank you uh Bor M Cummings thank you um thank you for bringing that forward to Dr James like I said I kind of mentioned that a couple weeks ago because um I don't think we should be opening schools and they're at capacity that just doesn't make sense to me there should be a way to kind of forecast that um my comments will be very brief we are about to go into our our um graduations and back aord season and I want to thank uh Dr living good for send out the information to schedule um I do have a ask and I think I asked it last year as well um of some of us all of us many of us try to attend all of the graduations and there once again we we it happened last year for the first time where there's a conflict with uh dellan and late we being at the same time and Bel and Westport or B and Forest it's and Westport I think no B and forest forest okay sorry there's some conflicts but not only with the graduation um but there's even conflicts with some of the back and and as a parent very Sly you see me say this as a parent I I need to be at my son's graduation but I need to be other places to support those schools so I'm just asking that they would consider looking at a corporately looking at those schedules because again some of us go to all of them and we want to support all those schools they're not just Sarah Schools they're not just Lori schools or NY or Allison's they're all of our schools and they're all of our students and we want to support those students and be there to walk them across the stage and shake their hands so I just ask that that we try as best as possible and I know we're at different locations the livestock Pavilion some at their schools and some at worldly question I get it but I think that the conversations could put them where we can all be at the places we need to be um so I'm looking forward to the graduations I know that um you guys are as well um I'm looking to see this this this group of kids go across the stage and start the next chapter we got some a lot of things going on District I do want to say this and I I'll close with this um parents we you have a very um diverse board but this board is about doing the right thing for kids and parents when you when your kids are on buses and they're not acting right there are consequences to that um so you may you're going to see some of us on buses you're going to see some of us showing up at bus stops and and and the fact of the matter is if if your kids can't handle those bus rides and and are disruptive and are creating harmful dangerous situations there are consequences for those and we have to as a district we have to try to make sure those buses get home safely you know we're going to fight to make sure the buses are on time we're going to fight to make sure that buses get the kids to school on time but parents we need your help to make sure that they while the buses aren't on time or getting them to school that the kid are acting appropriately on the bus and not putting our drivers and other students interpreting so um that concludes my comments I just pray that everyone is really hearing what we're saying about this we're at the end of the year we don't need any accidents we don't need any drama on buses so chair thank you you may me think of something that I had mentioned and I wanted to say I know that this is a big ask Dr gullet but when when things are scheduled on board meeting nights it not only means that none of us can go because obviously Our obligation to our elector is to be here but also all of your staff that is here can't be there and so while we were sitting here today I was invited to a banquet for North Maran high school and it's on Tuesday the 14th and I had to say regretfully I'm going to be unable to make it and I I if it was just us I'd still feel this way but I could understand a little bit more but if it's it's a board meeting night it's beyond just us it's it's Dr living good it's all of the individuals that are here and so if there's a way we can procedurally say that that unless it is like the literal only day in the calendar that board meeting nights are not scheduled for events I would really really really gratefully appreciate that because it makes it really it's hard for me to say especially things that are because some of us have things that are really on our heart and causes that we're really aligned to that we're just unable to be at because we have to be here um we get to be here and so I I want to be able to get to be everywhere so saying what you said made me remember that and I just wanted to ask that it it has thank you um Dr James it's been requested um before because that's come up I I agree and I can't attend either and it and it it it hurts my heart that I can't be as many things as I can be or would like to be um and so we will take that back again Ure that again thank you it's a great problem to have you know so many good things going on and and now that we're back from you know the dark days of the pandemic and where nobody was gathering for anything and and now it's just like I don't know if there's more than there was before that or if it's just we just had nothing going on you know other than the basics for so long so yeah that would definitely be my request too it's it's it is hard um and and I think it's just an awareness thing it's one more thing for the school to have to think oh yeah is that a board meeting night and but we want them to think that we because we do care and we do want to all try to be there if we can and staff which was another great Point all right anything else you're you're good board member Cummings good okay all right Vice shair Conrad good afternoon real quick I just a couple of brief things I want to share and celebrate um thank you again to the our teams that presented and staff that presented this morning there was a lot of great information and a lot of great conversation um that we were able to have so thank you all for that um I want to just um was able to participate in a few things the last few days and I just want to give a shout out Oola had a Shrek the Musical performance uh in their Auditorium um it was very fun a lot lot of great um music uh and students to celebrate the superintendent art show I hadn't had the pleasure of attending that before was really phenomenal it was just so well done um and I I just love being able to see and participate in all the way that we celebrate our Student Success not just academically not just athletically but also art music you know all the areas so I just wanted to say if you haven't had the opportunity to go it really is a great experience um you could see a lot of great artwork it really was amazing um the Tak talk for graduation ceremony um thank you to the public Ed Foundation they also hosted backin black bowling event um last week that was outside of the teacher of the year Gala it was phenomenal I believe they had over 30 schools participate and it was a great way for everybody across the district to connect many administrators came many teachers came and it was just a great time to be together in Fellowship outside of school and so I was really particularly thankful for the for the opportunity that that presented to our staff um also Forest hosted the intern signing um the other morning and it was a great way to celebrate our new and upcoming teachers and so just want to thank them for having us and Miss Morant all of that took to put that together as very um sweet way to celebrate our new teachers and that really is all I have I just thankful for a great morning thank you chair absolutely thank you and yes it's definitely been another robust morning of passionate conversation and and problem solving and and ideas to just continue to move our district forward I think um Miss Martinez you were out of town for fads during um Administrative Assistant acknowledgement day so just wanted to thank you all over again for for all that you do to keep us going in the right direction um yes I I've been getting really good feedback on the on the fast testing at schools they really like how quickly they're getting results it's that just makes a world of difference and it's been fun to go around to schools and see everything that they're doing to support the students and and support the the staff that is supporting the students and and instead of having it be so like high intensity it's like come on let's just do our best you know more of a of a cheering on and and having some of the lower grades uh cheering on the the students that are going to be testing really NE Oak Crust was an example of of that and um so that was something that been really good to to witness um the the chapy you know once I mean that has been signed and the new school year will be honest before we know it I don't know if it has to be enshrined in in policy or or procedure to to get started I'll just be interested to see how many people are going to be interested in in helping us you know with that and I know that there's processes uh procedurally that are going to have to be put into place to you know for the consent so it I think it I heard from the rest of the board too that we really want to see this be able to begin happening um at the beginning of this school year even if it's a few at a time um so I I do Echo I'm getting some updates regular updates now as we continue on and and begin to look at embedding them you know into our school communities as another resource of of motivation and and support um for for for everyone really uh yes teachers too and and I guess I'll just uh close by by sharing that uh I think the code of student conduct was just another great example today that we are so committed to updating our practices we're so committed to looking at our policies we're so committed to making sure that we are doing things at the highest level possible that helps move us forward in in our mission and you know I think about the years that I've been on the school board what the PRI the the huge and tremendous priorities of of the year have been and and how they have shifted and and what we're moving into now and so as as we move along with this it's going to be really um interesting and I know in the end gratifying that we will have continued commitment to just adjusting putting practices in place updating practices it comes to mind with all those paper work orders you know where we were then compared to you know where we are going and as we identify these things and opportunities you know to refine and enhance and better our practices uh that's exactly what we're committed to doing so continue to rock on I I'm excited for all these seniors that are getting to the to the tail end and everyone that is cheering them on and supporting them so stay safe be good on the bus and we'll see you next time um if there's nothing else for the good of the cause and we'll go ahead and look at closing this work session at 12:43 p.m. all right have a great afternoon [Music] everyone for