##VIDEO ID:OOkLxF7aksY## all right thank you on to welcome uh members and uh guests uh superintendent uh Dr Dian gullet is here with us um is Mrs uh chair thrower here did okay so I I saw Vice chair Conrad I was going to recognize Vice chair Conrad thank you guys uh and for all the rest uh who are going to be part of our meeting today thank you for taking the time to be here uh I wanted to start out uh we did have a resignation and we sent that out via email uh Neil McDonald uh had to resign from the board um and so I guess to make it official uh would entertain a motion to accept his resignation in a second so Move Motion approved motion is second all right any further discussion on that all right all in favor say I I all right and then his designated alternate is Angie Lester and Mrs Lester is with us today thank you for for being here and welcome so with that uh roll call of ioc members Stana Williams I don't seem to have a complete list but I'll go through the ones that I have Jane Morley pron Maryann Collins Melanie Lester present Diana Williams present Pastor Howard is absent Floyd magwood present Kenneth osley present and uh Angie Lester present we do have a quum all right excellent so uh next is acceptance of the minutes from the last meeting those were sent out uh via email if everyone has had a chance to look at those if there's not any corrections or changes uh I'll accept a motion to accept those uh minutes from the last meeting I make a motion to approve the minutes from the last meeting I second the motion right any further discussion all in favor say I I any opposed all right motion carries all right and next uh District overview uh Dr gullet good afternoon chair members of the iicot committee it's always a pleasure to be here and welcome you I I want to start by having Vice chair Conrad come forward she is here on behalf of our wonderful board tonight would like to bring some greetings good afternoon I committee um I just wanted to say thank you for the work that you're doing um we are so grateful Miss Boston Ellis has been going over the V budget with us the last several meetings and we recently were reviewing what all the ioc the funding from the referendum pays for as far as education and what that money does and that it reaches every single student in Marian County and so I don't take lightly the time and the energy that you give to um that you donate to be on this committee and I'm just really grateful for the work that you do to be our oversight and to make sure that it's being managed correctly so thank you again for your time and your efforts um that you put into making sure all of these funds are being used um as they are in meant to be so thank you thank you Vice chair Conrad very well said and so I am just pleased pleas to say that we are in our second week of school U it is we have while we have students in the summer it's never quite the same until we welcome all of our students back we are as you know are a month in with our year round model our pilot uh we are one of three districts in the state that engaged in a pilot of yearound schools at wyam Park Elementary so that's going very well and uh school is up and running for all the rest of our students and I I think I'm lacking three schools I've been to nearly 50 in the last two weeks just checking in um and it's just a delight to have our students back full-time with us we have had a really great start and appreciate all the support that that you all provide and uh our staff our community and just excited for a great year ahead I do want to mention that um we had some conversation as uh Vice chair Conrad mentioned last time about budgeting and forecasting and looking at that balanced budget and board members had public conversation about the referendum dollars and we don't have a report yet but there was a public conversation among board members about looking at what it funds and how we might fund it differently so I say that because there's more to come as the the finance team under Miss Boston Ellis's leadership is looking at what that would would that would entail bringing a balanced budget with again how do we use the dollars that our community has invested and trusted in us to do the best job to reach to continue to reach all the students in Marian County so a lot more to come but I did want to bring that to your attention and you will hear more about that and I'll just land on the fact that I'm so pleased to see the school visits are planned however we can help make those successful I am always very eager to have members of our community in our schools and I say see it for yourself ask the questions and see all the great work that's happening on behalf of students every day I appreciate my team appreciate my board and appreciate all of you and thank you so much thank you all right so next uh Mr tra Boston Ellis to talk about the the budget good evening it's not just me that I get by with a Little Help from My Friends behind me my adopted uh departments that help uh provide the information to you uh as it relates to the referendum but it's always a pleasure to be with you and to share what's going on in our schools and as I stated I have some folks up here with me um charity Cornelius she's a coordinator of physical education Katherine aie she's the coordinator of Career and Technical education Kelly Brower coordinator of instruction materials special programs and Media Services uh Brooke Hutto she's the coordinator of Fine Arts and she'll be talking about the art and music programs and Dr Tiffany coward Hughes she's a coordinator of professional leadership and learning and Dennis mcfat who is our director of safe schools so we we always start um talking about what we've collected and um the expenses associated with the referendum as you can see um since 2015 to 2016 all the way down to 2324 We have basically um finalized our financial statements for the 2324 year but we do have some adjusting entries uh to make so if any of this information changes we'll bring it back to you at our quarterly meeting I believe in October but just as a reminder um the referendum was approved and this was our second renewal November 8th 2022 and it is effective July 1 23 through June 30th 2027 and you you can see all the allowable uses of funds uh ranging from Reading physical education art music media our vocational programs um to uh meet class size retain State Certified teachers par professionals and school safety we have collected since 20156 a total of 1998. 6 million we have spent since 20156 a total of 86.9 million so that is um quite a a bit of funds that have been collected as well as spent on behalf of the referendum so the revenues for the 2324 year total $ 34.3 million um and also the expenditures for the 23 24 year were $ 35.3 million the total budget for referendum budgeted expenditures was right at 39 milon 38.8 million and you can see um the different programs that it supported from class SI which included teachers and Paras uh to physical education vocational programs and so forth um with our last category to the rights of school safety this slide just provides you with the actual expenditures again you'll note that the largest dollar amount was spent in class size um and the remaining uh categories uh which included physical education vocational and um last school safety so this gives you a picture of all the programs and all the dollars actually spent in those programs by year our beginning fund balance for referendum was $12.7 Million as you know that the fund balance is restricted so if we don't spend those dollars they roll over into the next year our actual revenue for 2324 was 34.3 Million actual expenditures for 2324 was 35.3 Million so our actual fund balance at the end of 2324 was 11.7 million and I always like to remind everyone that that is important because we do not receive tax proceeds until the end of November December so the fund balance is our cash flow if you would to cover us from the months of July through November um this is the first year that we have Incorporated charter schools so we've chosen to provide to you uh the picture of the traditional schools if you would um and then we'll also look at the charter schools our first category always keeping our mind B on who we are providing services for the children of maring County the first category is class size reduction that budget was 17.6 million we have spent to date in the 23 24 year 17 million and had um unspent of 580,000 this covered the costs for salary and benefits for 150 teachers and 153 par professionals so at the end of the 2324 year we had spent 96.71 per of the budget Mrs Boston Ellis I just want to clarify the $580,000 is that being used in this with the same mindset as the $1 million to help carry till November yes okay that will be rolled over into fund balance uh for the 2425 year and we've been in in budgeting and I have to really think about what year I'm in right now because we're straddling 2324 as well as the budget for 2425 but any funds that are unspent roll into fund balance and was that planned was that anticipated to have that roll over um it's not anticipated uh if you will look on that sheet the original budget for teachers was for 163 but we ended up with some vacancies so uh we only had 157 teachers so that's T typically what happens if the money isn't spent it's rolled over to the next year excellent question thank you for that quick question two please yes the are we putting all the new teachers and Par professionals through the referendum dollars only if it is a brand new teacher for class size and remember the par professionals are the kindergarten par professionals so that's that's the set of uh par professionals that are in the referendum the kindergarten pair professionals as far as the teachers it would be any teacher that or teaching position that is new so say if a school earned another teacher based on the number of students then that would be in the referendum thank you so I'll turn it over now to uh charity Cornelius who is our coordinator of physical education good afternoon how are all of you remind me to put this back down right right all right I'm very happy to be here and I appreciate the time that you take out of your day just to listen to us drone on about the things that we're really passionate about um in our specific areas and I know I can speak for everyone when I say we are extremely grateful for the opportunities that the referendum provides especially in my department because it provides jobs quite frankly for physical education teachers and in turn provides opportunities for learning physical education learning for every Elementary student in Mar County um our physical Educators spent the first days back on mcps campuses dodging a little bit of weather first of all and preparing for the new year part of their return was spent in high quality subject area specific professional learning in these sessions they not only were informed of the most recent curriculum updates but they were able to practice Hands-On lesson planning and collaboration with colleagues our dedicated coaches started the year with a stop stockpile of new learning tools for their professional toolbox I don't know if you're familiar with uh professional development for teachers but physical Educators don't often get the opportunity to get subject area specific professional learning a lot of times it is for the entire campus and is Loosely applicable to them but we were excited this year um to have so many of them participate in this back school learning that was just for them and Hands-On not only in the way that they learn but the way that they like to teach there we go the beginning of the year means introducing routines establishing daily procedures and building classroom communities structure and consistency is the key framework for a successful year of standards-based learning our physical Educators have a unique opportunity to positively impact every student on their campus and they recognize it starts with building positive relationships while the rest of Maran County element El schools were just getting started wyam Ina Park already had three weeks of learning under their belts they already hop skip and jump ahead of their back to school routines and they're rolling into their units of instruction we are looking forward to a fantastic year in mcps physical education thank you thank you so when we look at the program uh for physical education the year 2324 the cost of 22 PE teachers as well as 26 PE technicians that cost for salary and benefits was about $2.5 million their original budget was 2.7 million they've spent 2.6 million $170,000 was unspent and will be rolled into the fund balance for 2425 the additional expenditures include uh purchase Services materials and supplies such as balls bats and other uh materials that are used in um the physical education program um and also there was some additional equipment uh but all the things uh are used in that program so this particular program uh spent about 93.8% of the budget Miss Boston Ellis I'm sorry again um so seeing that it was uh the original budget as far as 26 PE teachers and 26 technicians was completely oop excuse me filled um um again the 170,000 how was that unspent um so what you're seeing is if if your question is about the the teachers salaries and the PE technicians uh there are times when there may be a vacancy um there there they could have started the year and did not end the year or we would have hired during the year so there's they in and outs so but what this is reflective of is the number of teachers and the number of PE techs that were there at the end of the year okay would that also uh reflect that uh the benefits maybe not all employees will you know will accept the benefits uh we do have those situations as well but we build our budget based on every employee starting the beginning of the year and that they're going to be there the entire entire year but you are correct some uh we we use an average for benefits but there are some people who do not have uh full benefits or uh they refuse the benefits so basically when we budget we're looking at the average of whether it's the board paid Health uh life workers comp uh and of course your Social Security and Medicaid okay and I have a question since wyomina Park is now a yearound school will there bring about uh an increase in their budget they should not all of the teachers are on a 196 day contract what is different about yyam media is they will get uh different breaks than the traditional school and I don't know if you need additional information uh Dr gulet could probably tell you so an example is they're getting ready to have a break uh I believe uh the 23rd through um through the first weekend in um September I believe so they will technically not be on contract during those two we breaks did anyone want to add to that no it's spread out yeah their schedule is spread out over the year but they have uh different breaks than their Traditional School thank you and I'll add in here as well um each school gets $2 per student in order to purchase whether it's equipment or supplies for the program and that's uh we'll get that in PE art music um those type programs get that so they can um add additional supplies and equipment uh to their regular budget that they receive from their principles uh next we'll have U Miss Audi to come up and talk about the vocational programs good afternoon today I'm going to share some of the activities are teachers participated in this summer to get them ready to kick off this school year and some of the program updates that are going to be happening due to referendum this year um we're excited pictured here is a fanic robot arm this will be coming to bellw High School's robotics Automation and design program this particular robot is what's called a collaborative robot which means it's designed to work with humans and has some built-in safety features it's the latest technology and Industry and our students will have the ability to both program and use the actual arm um in order for us to even order the arm their teacher Dale Tony had to attend a twoe summer training on the arm so now that he's attended that training they're building it for us and we should have it in a couple months for students to use in the classroom we also have some really exciting things happening in our construction Academy at lakee High School this year we will be starting Maring County's first pre-apprenticeship program this has been a little over a year in the making through a partner parnership with the Marin County building industry Association pictured here on the left you can see some of the members of the board that's going that will oversee that pre-apprenticeship program um we'll be working to register students in that pre-apprenticeship all throughout this month of September and hope to can continue to grow that Academy throughout the school year also pictured on the right are some of our business and it instructors earlier this month we were able to put them through an intensive two-day training to familiarize them with a new industry certif ification called WordPress um we'll be offering that certification to students this year so students attended that two-day course were're then given study time and then we actually tested them on the certification which is required before they can give it to students and I'm happy to share that every single one passed we offer CTE programs in all of the pathways listed to both middle and high school students referendum helps us to keep these programs up to dat with both industry needs and with cutting Ed technology the technology and future job outlook changes very very rapidly especially in the vocational programs so we're very fortunate to have this referendum funding to keep students prepared to be successful thank you as a supplement to our vocational programs there are 18 additional vocational teachers that support uh these programs of which 1.5 million is for salaries and employee benefits you will you'll notice that they get a little bit more than $2 per student and because the vocational programs uh are are fairly expensive they are allotted funds so that they can not only purchase um new equipment or equipment that is needed but also to replace uh existing equipment now we'll move on to library media with Miss Kelly Brower who is our coordinator of instructional materials good afternoon I'm excited to be here to tell you some of the things that occur in our library media centers throughout the year of course media Specialists will will continue to check out books building that Equity of making sure all children have books in their homes and are able to read with their families but today since our circulation numbers would be lackluster as we just opened schools and right now they're going through their orientations and doing some Internet safety I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight some of the other events that occur throughout the school year and our media centers so each and every year the Morning News show is produced in each of our our Elementary media centers so here we see the news crews from Saddlewood and Romeo and I would like to point out in the photo all the way to the left we see Mr lonza who is Florida's 2024 School related employee of the year so that's a great honor that we got to earn this year in Maran County oh I need to for it so our media Specialists work on the English language arts bench marks that is part of their weekly task this helps our uh English language arts teachers so here we see kids working on some characters and some character um development activities again to support our English language arts benchmarks in the middle we see our exceptional students getting some exceptional strategies if you've ever had the chance to visit the library at Hillcrest it is absolutely amazing all the things that are happening for our exceptional students and the way that that Media Center has been modified to meet all of the different needs it's quite remarkable and in the last picture we see that the celebration of the love of reading occurs very early so throughout all of our elementary schools we celebrate all of our very youngest readers to make sure we're developing a very deep love of reading so here's a mirage of pictures but we have we have um on the left we see our media Specialists work to develop Community Partnerships so the pictures here are from Maplewood and one is of the Okala Civic Theater and another is of the Maran County Humane Society so our Community Partners come into our media centers and offer um all types of education programs in the middle we see some middle school students um engaging in their Media Center on the computers and working on projects but also they can sit down in comfortable furniture and talk about books and often work on some book reviews together and then of course on our last side to the right we see those bright little happy faces as they stand in line to check out books I got to tell you the bottom right if I'm ever having a bad day I bring up his precious little face my whole day is better so something else our K5 media specialist work on is the student media Festival so this year they're already hard at work assisting students producing videos for this year's upcoming student media Festival however I just wanted to highlight that last year's student media Festival we did have 232 entries from 20 different schools and in March last March nearly three dozen industry experts judge the online entries in 12 categories and four age groups so so today I just really wanted to share why we love to circulate books our media Specialists are definitely adding a whole lot more to their school community on to the the general Community thank you thank you if you've never been to the media Festival you should try it for one at least once it's uh very exciting and it's amazing at the talents that our students have as with the other categories uh There are 16 media Specialists uh that are that were paid out of referendum um to the tune of $1.3 million for salary and benefits uh the remaining are purchase services and materials and supplies uh for the programs at the elementary schools with a budget of 1.3 million and they've spent 23 uh the 22 23 year 23 24 year uh $1.3 million with a remaining unspent amount of $47,000 now we will go on to Fine Arts uh with Brooke Hutto she's a coordinator of Fine Arts and she'll talk about the Arts and you can go ahead and Skip To The Music as well and I'll come back with the numbers miss hudo here we go raise it up a little sorry um good evening um I am always very excited to share with you what is going on in the world of Visual and Performing Arts um and as always thank you all for being here and contributing your time for this group um in our final quarter of the 23 24 school year the visual arts program had a variety of different school-based art shows that put their artistic Pursuits on display for their families and communities in our first slide you can see photos from the Hillcrest annual art showcase our students at Hillcrest School displayed their Creations from the year in the school's gymnasium where this year's theme was under the sea the students worked the event as greeters they ran the games and the concessions and they were even dressed as pirates for walking the plank both 2D and 3D artworks were created including a black light room and a gift shop many of their pieces were available for purchase I myself purchased about three or four pieces that are now getting to hang in my office um and the proceeds actually go directly to the students themselves and so it was a really exciting event it is open to the public so hopefully this year you will be able to attend on our next slide you will see some artwork that was put on display for the Memorial Day ceremony that was held at Veterans Memorial Park we had students from Belleview Middle School Sunrise Elementary and Madison Street Academy they created patriotic artwork to fit the theme of passion of patriotism for this event and the artwork went on display inside one of the um the Gazebo areas and then it also was on display for the main event that Monday to celebrate U Memorial Day as far as our Performing Arts programs go um at the end of last school year they had their culminating performances concerts and musicals the top left is the Forest High School Musical Theater program and they performed All Shook Up at the CF Auditorium we also had a production on the top right that was of Legally Blonde Jr that was held at Horizon Academy at the bottom left we have the Shady Hill Elementary Harmony and they were selected to perform at Disney Springs back in May so the the entire Harmony got to go out and perform for all of the students and and just barely beat the weather that was coming in so they had a really awesome time and then they got to go to Epcot for the remainder of the day and then finally at the bottom right you see we have students from our dance program at bellw high school they were practicing for their Spring Showcase and then their end of the year assessment piece and as you can see the referendum funding that is provided by our taxpayers helps to keep Fine Arts alive and thriving in Maran County as we kick off the 2425 school year I invite you all to join us at our district events I will definitely send you a copy of our schedule so hopefully you will get to come visit and see some of the things that our students are doing and uh see the passion and talent that our students and teachers have so thank you again for your efforts on this committee and have a wonderful evening thank you so we'll start with art art supports uh point5 of a coordinator also 16.5 art teachers and seven PA professionals um they spent right at 92.2 4% of their budget uh 1.5 million for salaries and benefits and uh that total budget was $1.8 million and they spent 1.6 million with unspent left remaining of $139,000 in terms of Music uh the other half of the coordinator 05 coordinator um also 17 music teachers and eight PA Professionals in addition to those um units or or staff uh we also provide the secondary uh schools with an allocation for their music programs um and that was to the tune of $121,000 um for this particular program 94% was spent of the budget and the budget was $1.9 million and um 1.7 million of that uh predominantly all that was spent uh was uh toward salary and benefits uh the remaining on purchase services and it says utilities but what that is is fuel uh for Transportation that's how it's recorded in our general ledger next we will go on to professional leadership and learning um Dr could I ask a quick question about that so that was helpful on the utilities part could you just give us an example like in purchase Services materials and materials and supplies are pretty self-explanatory but like capital outlay or purchase Services what a typical expense would be in those so for the purchase Services uh there was some music play online subscriptions uh there was a combo kit uh I think it was called the Frozen princes convenient combo kit uh print and download subscriptions um and also music lesson books um for let's see Capital outlay uh that was a drum major Podium was one um that was an example of what was purchased and then in the dues and fees that is um fees that were paid uh for school and student fees um also FMEA membership dues for the teachers as well as um there was uh also some fees for all of the elementary schools sometimes that's confusing because of the way we have to categorize uh different items based on what we call the red book and that's the Department of Education telling us what type of supplies and equipments go into a particular what they call this an object and so that's to ensure that all school districts across the State of Florida are using consistent accounting no that that was helpful and I don't know I know from we the fact that you so quickly answered that question with specific examples the level of detail you must have to deal with on a day-to-day basis I don't even want to think about but uh that's great and that you know I think for us just as a committee to understand some of those things and the fact that you have those on hand so if anybody ever has any questions I appreciate that thank you thank you so Dr Hughes down just a bit a good afternoon Mr chairman and board thank you all for being here today I am very excited to be here today to share with you some of the supports that we are providing to our novice and early career Educators and the mentors that support them as you know the referendum dollars allow us to offer onsite and I'm sorry off-site induction and mentoring on every single campus new to the induction mentoring program this school year our monthly professional learning opportunities for our mentors and leads both in person and virtually the monthly meetings are designed to enhance the skills of our leads and our mentors these meetings provide a platform for sharing best practices discussing challenges analyzing data to create support systems and receiving training on effectively working with adults the new teacher Academy provides monthly learning opportunities aligned with the Florida education accomplished practices are FEPS to assist teachers in honing their skills and elevating student achievement we have also implemented new accountability systems through monthly surveys for all participants which will provide valuable insights into how well things are going and identify changes that can improve the experience for everyone Additionally the induction and mentoring program has created a handbook and a quick guide which was provided to each school back in July we've also developed canvas courses with resources for our mentors and our lead mentors for monthly meetings and new teacher Academy courses referendum funds provided to the professional leadership and learning Department are used to support induction and mentoring the tiered structures we have in place allow us to provide support for teachers within their first three years of their educational Journey our goal is to make sure that every educator feels valued supported and equipped to help their students learn and succeed we want to create a smooth transition into teaching in the into the teaching profession help develop effective teaching techniques and encourage ongoing professional growth for our early career Educators most of these funds are paid out toward the end of the fiscal schol school year because they are earmarked specifically for mentor and Lead induction supplements hours are documented through the year and leads and mentors receive their supplement payment in May or June of each year all teachers identified as novice Which is less than six six months of teaching experience receive a onetoone mentor who supports their growth in the feets we currently have 170 teachers who fall into this category and they have all been assigned a qualified Mentor as positions are filled and applicants are cleared this number will increase mentors dedicate 30 hours of support which amounts to approximately 1 hour per per week to Growing our new talent and targeting areas where they have opportunities to develop their craft completing the full 30 hours of mentee support allows a mentor to be compensated for the full supplement amount of $1,100 lead mentors are selected by the school administrator at all School sites to work with our early career Educators early career Educators have taught for two or 3 years lead mentors facilitate the monthly school-based induction meetings driven from the needs of specific early career Educators and FEPS participants in these monthly professional leadership sessions are early career Educators lead mentors earn a supplement of $2,200 paid out at the end of the year providing 60 hours of support to the campus school-based induction participants on our last slide you will see that we conducted our Great Beginnings event on July 30th and 31st all new Educators were invited to participate in a two-day workshop that included breakout sessions guest speakers and much more 99% of our participants reported that the event helped them feel prepared preped for their roles as new teachers on the first day we had workshops and we also had District departments that hosted informational booths and guest speakers on the second day participants participated in workshops as well as a panel discussion from our golden apple teachers additionally we have hosted mentor and and Lead preparation courses over the summer to help build their skills and prepare them for the in for their incoming mentees participants shared that they were excited to start the new year and look forward to embracing the new additions to the program thank you for your time and thank you for your service on this committee I do have a question there is an aster yes on um slide 28 I was looking for an explanation for that so that 170 the Little Star represents the fact that the numbers will continue to go up so just as of today I believe we're already at 195 oh okay great I have a question also does the induction and mentoring program that you've just discussed includes MTI and MTC yes ma'am it does does yes ma'am every school thank you any other questions thank you very much you're welcome thank you so for professional development um they spent about 46% of their budget at the end of as of the end of the year 525,000 were for salary and benefits which were those um supplements uh that Dr uh Hughes mentioned uh the REM remaining dollars wor $6,250 uh dollarars were spent on materials and supplies for um teachers and mentors the total budget was $1.2 million and the the spent was 531 and 621,000 was unspent and will be rolled over into the um New Year Mrs Boston Ellis um that's a very large amount of the section that has not been spent um I know the other ones are in the 90s and this is this is almost half what is the the reasoning behind that um my guess is that it depends on who finishes the program we also may have paid out uh additional teachers in the month of July and we have to acrew it back to the month of June so once our our um budget and our uh accounting financial statements are finalized then we'll see what was actually paid out okay and my other question is the salaries um I did the I quickly did the math on the lead cost and the lead cost and the projected Mentor cost um but that is not does not add up to the $429 um, so the salaries are referring to or who collects those salaries um those are not full-time salaries if that's what you're asking those are uh we have to record uh the supplements as a salary amount because they are um our employees the instructional employees um I think what is on this and I may need to be corrected by Dr Hughes is they're looking at going forward to 2425 and what I'm talking about are the expend expenditures for 23 24 okay is that correct that is correct okay so I did notice that in our discussion uh some of this discussion it was a 2425 uh but what we talking about in terms of dollars is what we spent for the prior year thank you they're just excited about what's happening now I have a quick question too yes when I look at what was um put towards professional development this year 1.1 million and last year it was less than a half a million were there that many more um teachers in the program or why why is it twice as much so are you comparing 2223 versus 2324 yeah is that what you're saying um I mean that would be my assumption I don't know if if Dr Hughes wants to come back up paid twice as much I think I think we have um I know there was over 200 um new teachers I don't know if they were novice teachers or uh teachers that came from other other districts and he I have a lot of experience um but if you're looking for us to reconcile that we like I said they uh on those numbers they're talking about the what's going forward in 2425 whereas my expenditures are related to the prior year so I don't I don't know if someone wants to come up and talk a little bit about that does that lend itself to a greater need because I do I do understand what you're saying it does um it does almost double well actually over doubles okay um definitely is something where we'll look into the amount that we had but what we do and hello my name is Miss Hughes not Dr Hughes um so good afternoon um and I'm the director of professional leadership and learning so last year we had an amount um and what we just do from the amount that is allocated is we look at our incoming teachers as far as our early and novice career and they will pay out from that um amount that we have of course the 1100 and the 2200 that was previously discussed and so that's how we look at it there's another portion that is allocated for our charter schools for them to do their induction and mentoring so there is a portion that is allocated to them within that fixed sum as well and and we're paying a stiens aren't we yes is that what the charter schools are doing too or are they paying the whole salary they'll have their induction um mentoring program and just what it would look like at their charter school and what that support will look like on their campuses I have a question the charter Charter Schools were not I'm sorry I can't hear you I thought the Charter School uh was not included in this uh slide in these slides we provided them with additional funds wa for that's included in that money as well yes I I have have a a quick question um the and you may have answered this already or I'm this may have been answered a long time ago the professional leadership and learning from a uh a ballot standpoint does that fall under the kind of um retaining State Certified teachers and Par professionals is that is that kind of the the bucket that falls in yes okay all right excellent thank you thank you I do want to express that I am very glad that there is continual feedback amongst us so it can be adjusted or you know looking at how effective that money is that's being spent um I did that did raise a question with me as far as is something similar done in the other the other sections as far as like PE and art and music and that type of things um as far as how the money is being spent a lot of times you know we get great information from the boots on the ground and insight so I was just curious if that was being tapped at all if the professional leadership and learning funds are being used for other areas such as physical education no no no no um she mentioned that they get feedback throughout the process from the um the mentees and I was curious if there was some sort of feedback Back available to the other Educators and staff members from PE and music and those types of things too um it's just good to know that it's not it's from the bottom up is all on board with how the money is being spent does anybody want to speak to that I can run in heels too so I can't speak for all the Departments but most of us in in library media for sure we do have a monthly meeting where we are checking in with our media Specialists 27 of my media Specialists are paid for referendum and so we are constantly Gathering feedback from them and of course we go out and visit the schools I would think the same is true for Miss hudo and also um Miss cornelis because we are out visiting talking chatting all the time our emails our different surveys that we send out so I think we do a very good job of getting the feedback and reacting to it thank you you're welcome I think when we when we look at um the detail of expenditures uh by the different departments also U we've noticed that even in the funds that um the district has been provided uh you will see some level of funding or some level of help to the charter schools so it's not unusual to see where we're spending money on behalf of them I believe you'll find out in safe schools there are some things that we've done to support them in addition to the allocation that they've been provided just because they have a small clientele so we'll turn it over to Mr MC faten our director of safe schools okay good afternoon good evening good afternoon still afternoon um as always I'm last but um we're good with that and just a follow what Miss Boston Ellis was talking about with uh the charter schools we do we see every student in Marian County regard of their school location as ours although we may not provide for instance funds of any sort to our private schools if they call us and reach out to us for anything whether that is advice or security recommendations anything they ask us for we meet with them we discuss things over the phone we share our ideas and our policies and procedures with them because we feel as though every child in Marian County deserves to be in a safe learning working environment so um as we continue to prepare for this 2425 school year I'm excited about where we're at with our security projects several of these projects uh with the help of the referendum funding help us to meet the mandates for the new house bill 1473 although House Bill 1473 posed some unique challenges were focused on continuing to provide the most robust level of safe learning and working environment for our schools as we continue to install door buzzers and cameras we also uh continue to use referenda funds to purchase printers for our visitor and volunteer Management Programs uh the Raptor program ensures that we meet the requirements of the Jessica Lunsford act by ensuring we protect potential victims and identify sex offenders before they can cause harm to our students so as you can see here on the board the door buzzers and cameras are are constantly being installed if there's ever opportunity for us to add extra cameras extra door buzzers for Unique purposes we do that uh the 800 megahertz this is just kind of a wrap up of what we've done uh the 800 MHz radios have been installed in our school buses we also have them installed in the um new vehicles that we have uh the replacement locks and key cylinders again providing that those extra layers of security and I don't know if you have this here you may have this here but providing that extra level of security with this new mandate with all the mandates of locking doors and Gates and access control it is a a little bit of a challenge which forces us sometimes to add key cylinders make keys and new locks so that we can meet the Mandate um KNX boxes uh for the um providing rapid access to our First Responders in the event of an act a sailing or after hours event law enforcement can just respond to the school and we got all of these nox boxes that are located on the same same location at every campus which is the main entrance uh to the left of the door 6 feet up 2 feet over and once they have access to that um KNX box they're able to get keys out of it and gain access to the to the school campus to every classroom and that keeps our staff doing an active as salent event from getting up going to the door opening door for for the law enforcement officials um again we're school resource officers uh we we referendum do fund some of our school resource office program uh weather radios um we do we talk a lot about active as salant but here in the State of Florida we have a lot of weather emergencies tornadoes so we purchase weather radios listen at that right on Q right on Q I didn't plan that I don't have that kind of connection um but we we purchased weather radios because we we know here in the State of Florida where we're living at there's emergencies like this here just pop up at any time so we want to provide an extra layer of of protection and advanced notice to our schools with that uh fortifi Florida posters uh again the state mandate requires that we have these fortifi Florida posters which is anonymous um uh app that students and the parents or anybody can um identify Anon anonymously report any type of concerns that they may have we're required by State Statute to put posters around the district we're required to have fortified Florida on all of our uh District owned devices and we're we're pushing that out to students so that they'll have a a better way of and understanding of being able to notify us when something is happening and they and they're doing it anonymous um and finally vehicles that was used that was purchased to help support the the team responding to and from any type of emergencies so we we're just constantly using referendum funds to beef up and provide a level of security for our staff and our students so this is how the Panic um uh we're talking about panic heartware and ke cylinders but this is a picture of our printers this is what we put in our schools we had to purchase these printers for every school because the old ones was obsolete so we're in the process of purchasing these printers through the Raptor technology that prints out the badges the visitor badges for our our visitors and finally the reunification exercise um we really had a great team put together our reunification exercise it was something that um Dr gullet when she she told us we needed to do this and we realized as a district we have been talking about reunification we have a document we got a plan but we had never actually done a full scale exercise so over the summer um we actually used a mebrook church to uh have a full scale exercise where we use our District staff principles as well as some of our students to simulate a school being evacuated uh during an emergency responding to the church and parents actually coming and picking old students up uh as we were aware with the forest incident uh we implemented the reunification plan and although it went well we've realized that we could have been uh we could have done some things better we we had some challenges but the reason we do these exercises so we can beat those challenges and better prepare ourselves in the event of a real life emergency so the reunification exercise was funded by the referendum again allowing us to prepare ourselves for any type of emergency situation if one ever arises thank you any questions I I have a question but I think it might be more for Miss Boston Ellis about the D more than doubling in the expense again and I was just wondering if we're playing catchup with the charter schools maybe since that's been a more recent occurrence plus is it going also towards the new schools are we putting things in ahead of time rather than having to go back and put in all that safety equipment after for the the new schools that are coming up uh what we're calling Elementary W and X is that what you're talking about when when we uh build a new school it be it comes uh fully equipped with safe safety items I believe uh Mr MC faten and others have worked with uh with the construction companies to determine what needs to be in those schools so they will come fully equipped with cameras and all the other things that are required by Marjorie stowman but that that's an excellent question that is the beauty of building a new school you get to put all of all of the needed um functions and equipment in that school as well um I I want to also add to his discussion uh a lot of the things that he mentioned um they're either um not totally funded so these are mandates that are not fully funded uh we receive in what's called a categorical for this 2425 year it's about $4 million um that really doesn't even cover um a portion of the needs that safe schools has so referendum plays a pivotal part um in ensuring that we meet all of those requirements um and I I think that's important for you to know and and our community uh you there's always things that have to be replenished I mean cameras only last so many years and the door buzzers uh we did receive a a grant uh for the security fences and it started out with a a substantial dollar amount but every year that amount um got lower and lower so uh we are again trying to meet the needs of that mandate but that mandate is not fully funded let me if I could add um just as a from the other side the private side um all of school design now since active shooting started happening in a number of years ago um the the design and construction industry has revamped how they design schools and how they build them so all of them now are designed and built first and foremost around single points of Entry barriers the entire uh School design and construction business it's first priority so you you won't see a new school going up anywhere that doesn't incorporate all the best known ideas as far as school safety that's just how they're done now thank you for that and I do want to point out um I believe the question was about again from 2223 to 2324 uh doubling and I'm sure that's playing catchup and uh you you mentioned unfunded um mandates uh what do we anticipate for next year will that continue to rise I it would depend on the mandates um when Dr gullet got here there were a lot of things that we had not done so we took an aggressive position about ketchup I think that is the perfect word um did a lot of ketchup and um because of the referendum we were able to do that and it's it's a balancing act because um there's needs and um like now there's a couple of new ones that I I'm not real sure how we're going to meet them but we're we're going to meet them and um those kinds of items are expensive and again they're recurring costs in some instances um also um our three-year contract with the county and the city for SRO we have to negotiate that for the 25 26 year so we anticipate that you know realistically it's going to go up um but so you may see you may continue to see those those uh budgets as well as expenditures uh continue to to to rise over the next few years so my concern is is obviously that is a very important part of um you know our community keeping our students safe but as that rises you all have to make hard decisions about how the other categories may suffer for that and so um that process I don't envy you for um at all but I do thank you for doing that but I just I do I do because I'm very much uh want to understand all the behind the scenes so how do those choices get made on how much goes to each one of these allocated sections for currently the in the 23 24 year um there the um the staff is is basically set so class size is based on new teachers again uh the PA professionals those are the kindergarten par professionals um the other ones are based on when we had the recession and we cut those units in half so I believe those are set as well but we will experience challenges going forward and that's what Dr gullet alluded to the the board had a very detailed discussion about uh how do we you know maintain what we're doing staying within the parameters of of the referendum um but trying to balance the needs of not only our students but also safety you may recall safety was added the first first renewal um so we didn't start out with safety being a part of referendum uh but it has change you also have to keep in mind things like salary increases and the costs of benefits those increase every year as well so we will be doing a balancing act and I I believe that's what Dr gullet and uh Mrs Conrad were referring to that uh they've charged us with going back and doing analysis of uh what's in referendum and looking at uh the staff that's included in the general fund as well and providing some information to them to make those kinds of decisions so thank you so much for your explanation oh you've got somebody sneaking up do you mind if I jump in please I I think Miss Boston always always does a phenomenal job of explaining um I'm going to categorize your phenomenal questions as wants and needs and I think sometimes it's hard to talk about the elephant in the room is these are all needs they're really not wants um and I'll start with the safety and yes I've pressed the team pretty hard since I've been here about accelerating the pace and we've talked about that publicly for for safety that is not that's non-negotiable right every one of our our students our staff our visitors our community deserves that none of us can afford not to have safe schools even if your child or grandchild or family member is not sitting in a school we can't afford that in this community and I've talked about my visit to Parkland I've I've talked about spending time with people who were there and have experienced that and my takeaway and my role is what do I need to know and what do I need to do now to prevent that it to the best of our ability right but when you look at even the the the programs of support the investment in to the chair's point in our current staff professional learning leadership we can't afford not to do that because these are the folks that are in front of our students and teaching them to ensure they have a bright future and so all of these programs reaching every student is about having the art and music and the and the physical education so that they're healthy and well and thriving so I just felt like it was important to come in and just jump in with sometimes that's part of the work we need to do a better job of of explaining what we're doing and why and they're not just they're not frivolous they're not extra things they're foundational to everything that we do for our students and I think that our students deserve that and their families deserve that and so as the unfunded mandates continue to come I think the intention around them is always the right thing safe environments our our our CTE our vocational programs we have in invested heavily in that we've re we've revamped that over the last few years and we now have Pathways from the elementary schools forward and that are aligned and with our Workforce and we're seeing huge increases those aren't wants those are needs and they're not all funded in our state formula that comes to schools not to the extent that is needed does that make sense yes so we are really incredibly appreciative of of our community which I think our community recognizes that and I'm really proud that our community recognizes that we're all in to do whatever it takes thank you thank you Dr gullet I mean I these are great questions uh and I really appreciate the board's engagement today this has been really really good um I think maybe this runs through other people's minds and I I I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this question but I wanted to to ask it out loud like obviously there's this many needs and there's budget for this but I'm I'm almost positive that your answer to this question would be like obviously there's no corners being cut on the safety part right like all the things that really matter are being taken care of and it's just a matter of can we add this or that to enhance but is is that yes and my concern is for the other programs I mean at some point there's going to have to be some given take so that's that's where that question was when it comes to making those difficult decisions how do you choose which one of those other programs have to give a little bit so that we do have that safe learning environment yes and so I'll go back to sorry I went off on a whole different rant about wants and needs but um passionate about serving our students obviously um foundationally the simple answer is we can't afford not to have safe schools um I am I'm an instructional leader have always been instructional leader so obviously the instruction and support of our teachers and that work but if you don't have a safe environment for working and learning you can't do the next step so if if absolutely that is a that is the top priority quite simply that is the top priority everything else surrounds that but if you don't have that you can't do the other pieces right you just simply can't do the other pieces so that's why I've pushed so hard to accelerate and there's a lot of things we can't talk publicly about for safety reasons obviously about what we're doing behind the scenes to ensure that it's not just about hardening schools so a lot of work and a lot of commitment has been um around that absolutely that is the top priority that's one of the reason why I don't understand why there are why there are unfunded mandates when it comes to safety of schools that's absolutely not acceptable yeah is there any part of the school district that negotiate with legislatures in in regards to the unfunded mandates is there any Outreach is there anything that you know people can do or the school district is doing to discuss and to alleviate the unfunded mandates the simple answer is yes absolutely uh board my board has had very public conversation about legislative priorities we've talked about that uh I sit on the board for the state superintendent group we've had a lot of conversation and advocacy U at the state level as well um and so all the groups that I know of everybody is working hard to to share our commitment to safety and how important it is to all of us in our communities but we also need assistance and and it's very public about um Manning the gates that is that is a public conversation and so we are all committed to doing whatever we need to do but it takes time and it takes resources and funding that we don't all have some locations may have it but but most of us do not sorry I was sidebarr um this is something that is not uncommon for the state to do uh as far as unfunded mandates they they tend to do that so this isn't the only Avenue in which this is occurring yeah right and and I'm we're appreciative we have a great working relationship we are really appreciative of our our legislators that really support Maran County and and our governor and the work that's happening at the state level but I think the continued partnership we understand the intent um so we just need support and and fulfilling the expectation because we're all committed to doing the right thing great thank you thank you thank you so uh as chair can I was uh I was told by some other board members that 5:30 was a a deadline because of something and I actually uh have um uh something as well can we push the this conversation about the charter stuff to the next meeting would that be okay is the board okay with that yes if we if we I'm good with absolutely okay and uh if that's the case then I would just like to uh quickly wrap up some other matters everyone got their invites from the school visits yes all right and they kind of tell you where to be and at what time and I just want to make sure we're understanding those correctly um there's an 8:30 and a 9:30 so are those uh you you'd be at Reddit CER for a 45 minutes or so and then off to another are those two options we can choose yes on it email yes good evening hi I'm Deb breel um senior executive director of acceleration and Innovation um yes that is correct you would attend both schools so we will meet at the first school at 8:30 um we would stay probably in time for half a class period maybe we might be able to see a class change and see a little bit of both classes uh at Reddit Coler and then we would all head off sort of in a caravan to the next school so you would visit both excellent thank you welcome all right so everybody has that information uh for the 9913 and 927 um and then I know we had talked about waiting for the school year to get going a little bit and get our feet underneath us to to look at maybe some of the I think it was the high school programs middle and high school so I'll wait to hear from the district on that what what those best options are um also meetings uh for next year we we are mandated to do four meetings uh we've kind of been trying to do them the third Thursday I guess of the first month of the quarter um though I did notice uh we did didn't we do April this year instead so does January May July and October work for the School System calendar for us to do that or do we need to tweak that uh January April July and October the third Thursday of those we can tentatively look at it and then you can give us feedback is that okay if we send those tenative dates out and you give us feedback if we need to tweak one we can tweak it to to better accommodate your schedule okay great and then one of our responsibilities is a written report I remember a brief discussion about that it's an an annual report is that a typical calendar year annual or a school year annual it's calendar year or school I think it's a school year so are we do a written report then produce one is the Chairman's responsibility oh boy I remember when I was asked to take the chair somebody said something about helping me with this does anybody remember I'm going back to the minutes it was not me I was not here but I did notice that in the job duties and I did have that circled as a question um for an annual report to the school board I was just curious what that was and how that was going to happen yeah so I will look into that and I'm going to go back and find those meeting oh actually this is all recorded right Kevin so I can go back and find the exact conversation that happened and then I will um an example okay I will take responsibility Gonzalez had put together to make sure that we get that report going great yes I'll send over the last report and we can take it okay up from there okay so yeah if you'll send me that then we'll start on that excellent um and one last thing um Miss Boston Ellis if I just thought about this because of some of the questions and you obviously have all the detail and I don't think it's necessary that we get that level of detail but what I thought was maybe you could take one of these categories per meeting um obviously class size reduction wouldn't be in it because it's it's all Personnel but and and just for one of these categories each meeting give us maybe the top two or three expenditures in each of those categories like purchase Services materials and supplies and capital outlay just in one that way the the Committees putting their eyeballs on it and familiar with it and then we can just do a different one each each time we meet would that would that be okay all right excellent is that okay with the board all right yes it is um next meeting October 24th 4 p.m. here at MTI and hopefully we'll have a report by that point is there any other matters for this board I just want to reiterate that I would love love love to be out for some of these events and if um you know Hillcrest art show was mentioned and I would have loved to attend that if I knew exactly when that was um so I would just you know invite the staff to share those events with us to get out in the schools and you know just see the work yeah if if anything is open to the public and it's within these Scopes um if if an invite could be sent out to this to this oversight committee that would be great yes okay anything else I would just like to jump in and say thank you for your passion in your department it comes out when you're talking about the pictures when you're talking about the students and the events and that's really really cool thank you yeah and I know you probably all been working all day too so thank you for this extra time uh if that's it I'll entertain a motion for adjournment to adjourn second all in favor I all right we are adjourned thank [Music] you e e e