##VIDEO ID:mPU_avRgvvI## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e [Music] [Music] [Music] good morning and happy New Year I now call the January 9th 2025 administrative briefing and work session of the Maring County School Board to order at 900 a.m. please silence your electronic devices to avoid disturbing others miring and model in how our students begin each day I ask that you please pause for a moment of silence thank you good morning board member thrower would you read our commitment statement please absolutely we are the Maran 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 the legacy of success thank you all right so Dr gullet would would you mind reading our statement for us would you like me to read attorney Powers yes please please ma'am thank you absolutely this work session is a public meeting as defined in Florida Sunshine Law the board is dedicated to full transparency in its meetings and its work in compliance with 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 the superintendent have completed their discussion on a particular agenda item the board clerk will call speakers names in the order that they are received each speaker will have three minutes as required by the Sunshine Law the board must maintain orderly conduct and proper decorum throughout the 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 privacies of others privacy rights of others especially students and their family members by mentioning their names or other identifying information and thank you for paying attention to these very important rules thank you Dr gullet as I ask you to slide in and and read that very quickly so thank you for that you do so good morning Miss Martinez good morning the notice for the January 9th 2025 work session was published in the Okala Gazette on December 27th 2024 proof of publication has been attached to board dos under proof of publication thank you uh we will now begin the work session with the superintendent's administrative briefing good morning again Dr gullet good morning again Madame chair members of the board great to see you and happy New Year to everyone I know board we had a chance to be together yesterday and happy New Year to uh members of my staff and the public um I want to start just very briefly with a couple of good morning attorney pow um of just a couple housekeeping items first of all I want to say thank you um on behalf of the district for hosting us here to the uh Maran County administrative staff their team has been phenomenal in hosting us uh thank you to the county administrators and especially to the County Commissioners we really appreciate your graciousness and allowing us to be here in this in this beautiful space we we appreciate you very much and board U just as a reminder and to say publicly uh I know you were invited to uh join bus garage tour uh which is scheduled to be January 22nd at 1 pm for those of you who can make it that we're doing that because that will come ahead of the uh work session topic that is scheduled for February 6th of our bus fleet so we thought it would be nice to be able to come out spend time with our team out there in the bus garage and again that will precede the work session topic on February 6th um of transportation and that that's concludes my administrative briefing if you ready for me to move forward I know we have a full agenda today we do yes we are ready to move forward Wonder okay so without further delay I'm pleased to bring forward the next component of our strategic plan today we're going to be presenting goal four and the update of goal four and where we are with that and want to thank the team for being here again as a reminder each of these goals are not just solely sitting in one Department bless you but they come from different departments in a collaborative effort to to meet the goals that we're trying to achieve in Maran County so I'm pleased to have Miss Boston Ellis kick that off for us this morning thank you good morning good morning and happy New Year same to you chair Conrad board members superintendent Dr gullet these are very nice we could get used to this right we could so achieve 2026 goal for fiscal and operational efficiency we know that our strategic plan is a living document ever changing and that's what we have learned over the past few years but it's used to communicate our organizational goals the priorities needed to achieve those goals and metrics used to measure our Pro progress on these goals today we will provide updates to goal four goal four as Dr gullet says covers several different areas ranging from technology Transportation facilities food and nutrition services purchasing Grant and federal programs budgeting and risk management we're all different departments but definitely intertwined and that's one of the things that we had discovered as you can see there is there's eight of us that are going to provide updates today and uh we will go in the order um as listed not on the presenter but uh as listed on the particular uh slides our objective um is to ensure operational Effectiveness and efficiency of the resources that are aligned with our strategic priorities and the outcome metrics is the specific data that you collect that we collect to assess the extent to which expected outcomes changes in behaviors or knowledge have been achieved Baseline data was set in most instances and each department will discuss the outcome metrics and where we are in meeting the goals of achieved 2026 you will notice that we are making progress in some metrics you will notice that we have added deleted and met some goals we are constantly making adjustments and reassessing our metrics in some areas as well we are excited right team to share with you today we will begin uh go for with Mr Richard Ben vudi our director of technology and we will follow uh with Mr Eric OIC supervisor of Transportation Mrs Ivon bmach the director of facilities uh Lynn Mrs Lyn Taylor who is the executive director of Business Services she will be standing in for risk management um Mrs Ramona uh beler who is the supervisor of food and nutrition Mr Rick Collins uh he is the purchasing specialist and Dr Stacy Barner she is our director of Grants and federal programs and I'll uh intertwine in between some of these presentations as well so here we go good morning board chair Conrad Vice chair Cummings and uh board members and superintendent Dr go morning good morning I'm pleased to provide an update on go four of the mdcp sorry mcps there you go strategy 4 focuses on enhancing operational effectiveness and aligning the efficiency of our Resources with our strategic priorities having successfully achieved having successfully achieved our previous outcome metric we've adopted a new outcome metric that better reflects the district's evolving technology needs the new metric centers on maintaining Network availability during school hours to ensure consistent and and reliable access to digit resources for both students and staff additionally to support the new outcome we've introduced five new key indicators designed to help provide secure uninterrupted access to our network access to classroom Technologies and provide security these are all essential components that support the technology used for instruction and business operations we've made significant strides in advancing both our infrastructure and educational resources this year currently 2,381 classrooms are equipped with interactive flat panels these Advanced tools enable Dynamic engaging instructions as these panels seamlessly integrate multimedia interactive elements Foster collaborative and immersive learning experiences for our students additionally we ALS we are also in the process of replacing all of our teacher desktops ensuring that every teacher has the most current access to technology in addition to our latest device refresh the district currently has 54,6 20116 active Chromebooks in use bringing us closer to achieving Equitable technological access for all students this is vital for fostering digital literacy and preparing students for success in their academic and career our work extends Beyond devices to support these tools and ensure Network stability we've made significant upgrades we're in the process of replacing critical Network switches to improve speed reliability and security we've also placed a strong emphasis on cyber security to safeguard our systems and data our ongoing and planned projects are focused on strengthening security and include multiactor authentication fishing awareness campaigns updat user access controls these initiatives are vital for protecting the privacy and security of all of our students and staff's data while ensuring secure access to digital resources they rely on in our ongoing efforts to improve functionality and accessibility we are transitioning to SharePoint online this change will streamline collaboration and communication across the district providing a more cohesive digital environment additionally we've refreshed our websites to offer our families and communities easier access to important information helping to enhance transparency and engagement looking ahead we're focusing on several key initiatives we're developing a comprehensive standard operating procedure for evaluating and approving digital tools this process will ensure all tools are aligned with our instructional and business goals while meeting strict security and compliance standards we're exploring innovative solutions including a device checkout program for sixth grade students at selected schools to expand technology access both at school and at home providing teacher laptops and pilot schools to enhance mobility and flexibility in classroom instruction testing digital classroom management software to help teachers effectively Monitor and engage students in digital learning environments these pilot projects will provide valuable insights to inform future districtwide decisions professional learning continues to be our Cornerstone of our strategy through a combination of in-person sessions virtual and On Demand resources and our digital impact teacher cohorts we're equipping our Educators with the skills they need to maximize the potential of these technological Tools in enhancing teaching and learning with these advancements Maring County Public Schools is adapting to the rapid changes of a technology driven World ensuring our students are fully prepared for success in the 21st century thank you and then I'm goingon be followed by Mr board would you like to break here do we have any questions that would be great okay yes thank you thank you Mr Beni for the overview and it's become very clear that having a very very reliable technology department across the board is is critical to Our Success everyone depends on it now um I'm looking at Key activity at slide four the only one you had it uh 4.8.2 and just the part about ensuring all classrooms are equipped with Innovative Tech and my question is and this is probably in partnership with es I'm thinking about our self-contained classrooms where kids are non-verbal and limited verbal and um any updates that you may have about directing resources um to those students because it's a game Cher for them in terms of their communication and ability to access their academics so on on on that statement we are making sure that any of the resources that we provide to our standard populations are available to those classrooms and we're always constantly looking at new technology that becomes available to bring into those classrooms um for example we adapt to specific classrooms I'm just going to use an example our interactive panels um we when the younger grades we have them so that they can slide up and down so they adapt to the size of the students so we're always looking for ways to adapt a technology to the students who are in those classrooms so we're definitely always looking to find new technologies that can support to teachers that's fantastic and and I know it's expensive and you may know this right off the top of your head but just for the public I'm interested to know what the overall budget is for technology and and and computers and all of that these days because it wasn't something that was a line item many years ago people are always asking why is education so expensive now um well I'd have to get you get back with you on the the total amount because that that budget is usually spread out between multiple departments but it is it's significant um there's for example um Esser just rolled by we used a lot of that money for our refresh and so I could say we spent about $5 million just on the refresh of mobile devices so as we continue and mobile devices I'm sorry and desktops yes as we continue we're GNA have to find ways to of course fund those those Technologies to keep them fresh for the school district but yes there is a there is a cost it is not a one and done unfortunately and is a continual cost for us to refresh absolutely thank you I really appreciate it no problem um Mr Ben vui would you mind elaborating a little bit on um the pilot projects on this last slide that you talked about sure so we are right now working with three schools um we're developing um a process for these schools to be able to check out devices to students we're we're going to learn from these three schools as we hand out these devices to students learn processes like repairs how do we repair them how teachers will be using in the classrooms we're testing digital classroom Technologies for how to manage these devices as part of instruction so they're really not a replacement of like a textbook or anything they're going to be integrated in what the teachers are using to provide instruction to those students so the pilot is there to try to really hone Us in in our processes and understand ings of how they would be used in our classrooms here in Maran and then what we would do is we would expand it we're looking to expand that checkout program to a district program and it may not be housed at the schools it may be managed by the district depending on what we learn so do you um the teacher laptops um I was fortunate at the school I worked out we always we always had a teacher laptop that we were able to take home so that's not common practice not right now okay but we are that's why we we're we're bringing it into these three schools to see how what kind of effect it will have in the classroom for us how teachers take advantage of it and how useful they are to them because it is going to be a large expense so we want to make sure expense that it is something that will enhance our our technology use in the classroom okay thank you I'll be interested to see I I think that will be very um at least from from my board I think that will be very beneficial I know I personally I took my room every day I used it every day so um thank you for that I appreciate the presentation board any other questions yes Dr um I was reminded of my conversation that you walked um yesterday when we were leaving the legislative um delegation um Mr crel I think is how you say his last name he caught me and we were chatting about um broadband and things that are Way Beyond the complexities of what my brain can understand for technology but what he and we can talk about this later board but I wanted to just share he's interested in um having a board member come on to their um committee is that what you would call yeah it's a it's a committee when we meet monthly to discuss what the Broadband situation is for the county yes and so we work with isps or providers of uh internet and we work to ensure that areas are getting served and so it's we also provide trainings for the community and so I think they really want participation from the school district to be able to provide some of those trainings so we can talk about that in comments later potentially of like because we've already had our committee conversation but I wanted to just mention that he was highly complimentary of Mr benanti and and and wants to grow and Foster an even stronger relationship with the school system because I think if we were able to not only advocate for our constituents of like needs they have in their particular communities and we can bring that to the table in those conversations and share you know people way out in the forest are struggling to get connectivity and we're putting hotpots out there um there's value in doing that and then also they're interested in coming to family engagement nights and talking to our families um at our Title One family engagement nights too so you just reminded me of that when this came up so I wanted to share that thank you Dr James all right thank you Mr Beni thank you good morning good morning morning um I'm here to obviously talk about transportation and how we're meeting our goals um with the Strategic plan uh we have strategy 4B which is provide reliable and safe bus transportation and everything we do tries to Encompass um that goal and that strategy uh to try to improve and I think we're seeing with our numbers how we are improving in that range um all we have gone over in the last five weeks we've been over 90% am on time arrival every a recorded week for the past five weeks um and so that that numberers continued to climb um in the past year and a half two years right able to switch switch the slide there um but as far as providing that reliable safe bus transport ation um the the activities that we're using to try to do that are exploring ways to obviously retain our drivers and and keep them and and provide them with the tools that they need to be able to perform their jobs um there's four ways to increase the daily bus driver attendance um and and make sure that everyone's uh getting here you know being able to arrive and be here on time and and be able to provide the service for our students uh increasing the school efficiency of unloading and um feeding students and that's something that I think we've been working with Miss beler on um we don't have to do that quite as much anymore um that we've moved away from um the pandemic we're seeing that our ontime arrivals are better so we don't that service isn't needed as much but we it is still provided um at a few schools um and then maximize our Fleet usage to improve the timely delivery of students uh to school and home which that's we're continue to do that and talk about our leet and and how and how we can uh make sure that our our students are served in the best possible manner if you look here the morning on time arrival graph the line graph we have here you'll see that we're increasing between about three and 6% a week um compared to last year's totals um that 3 to 6% if you say take a 5% overall total that's 1100 kids a day um when you transport 22,000 students um so that that's a that's a large increase when you you think about that when kids get 1100 students getting to school on time on a daily basis um our PM uh on time arrivals that's a little different the way it's judged because it's judged by the way our our current software works it's judged by when the bus arrives to the school in the afternoon so if they're not there at least five minutes before the Bell it's going to show that they're late um so that's why you see that percentage is a little bit lower um and then so because there's no way for us with our current technology to judge when each kid gets dropped off at their stop in the afternoon it's easy to judge with am the bus pulls in on time you know what time they drop off at the school well when you're running you know thousands of stops a day in the afternoon that is kind of impossible to get that that uh percentage that's why we use what time the bus actually arrives to the school in the afternoon to uh to make that determination that's interesting I'm glad you clarified that because I did not know that that's what that meant at all I thought it meant that's how many kids get to their house sometimes no ma'am it's it's what time our buses are getting to the school in the afternoon so I apologize if there was any confusion on that but we have we just haven't been able to develop a way to determine if the kids getting dropped off you know because there's so many stops which ones are getting dropped off in time so we have to go with that percentage there does here comes the bus sorry does here comes the bus it says though when the bus gets to the stop right correct so the technology might exist within here comes the bus it's a matter of develop or or figuring out how to pull that data okay yes ma'am because the the parent can see what time their kid presumably got off the bus with correct because te technically the way it works after like the the first stop could be on time but if the second stop if we get caught in traffic could be late you know where and then the third you know so it's there's a lot of variables there for the PM okay time delivery to stop okay thank you you're welcome here we have the provide the um the average daily attendance for our drivers we're we're averaging 95% for if you take out FMLA um for our driver attendance which is which is very good that but you also when you have you know roughly 200 we'll say 250 but we're not quite there I think we're 248 or around there or um driver 245 in that range when you take out that number that's where you get your 12 to 13 absences a day so that's your 5% um then our uh arrival reports shared weekly for our uh for review and tracking which we try to keep that uh get that information out to everybody so we can kind of get a good gauge of of how we're doing are we making progress or you know are we kind of at a plateau or are there areas that we need to improve now this is just a chart here has shows our driver attendance if you look at it um we we have taken a little bit of a dip this year not much I mean a very small you're you're the percentage that we're looking at you're you're you're really looking at maybe one two drivers more that are out at per day on average um but we're working to increase that you know some of the ways that we're working to increase that obviously are providing the um make make it trying to make the life of the driver and our employees as uh um work friendly as possible when it comes to giving them to Pro the proper equipment that's needed to to be able to uh do their job and part of that equipment we're talking about is a routing software and we've up updated to transversa um that's a large undertaking for our routing Department um which we have four routers we have a mapping specialist um and then uh we have uh Miss uh Miss Howard who who who overseeing that aspect of it um there are um we we meet at least two to three times a week U with the transversal company uh going over um kind of the the the crossover from the current um uh routing software that we're using now uh transferring over to transversa which that the good thing about that is it provides kind of unlimited users and things like that whereas the service that we have now you have licenses that only so many people can use the software and those kind of things so there's there's a lot of good things that are coming out of that um maximizing the fleet usage uh by multi- teering as many routes as possible I think that's a horse that we have Beat to Death already so I'm going to skip over past that we're we're we we've we're working very hard to that adding new Wi-Fi enabled camera systems that's something we're working with technology uh we to try to get that implemented um and that that's goes to the Testament of the crossover between Departments of trying to get things done um that with our it Department they're doing a good job of trying to get that implemented for us um and then the update of bus tablets to include turn-by-turn directions that's something that we're we're looking at we're trying to uh get Incorporated um that particular system has a lot of really um neat features they have Dynamic run capability what that is is if you have have um say four students are left at a school and we don't they got we need a bus to pick go get those students and Driver doesn't know where they're at the driver can go there put in their names and it and and do a little bit of magic and the system will spit out okay this is the best way to take those four students home um is that the ideal way to do it obviously not um but it does give us that capability um it provides unlimited users uh seating charts are electronic uh on this system uh online pre-trip inspections um are available through this system um online check for drivers right now our drivers clock in and we check but this provides us a online uh way to pull up and say okay all these routes are covered if you have a say a no call noow it's you're going to be able to pull it up and see right there um so it's just another um kind of a safety feature um drivers can search any run in the database so if we have have someone driver gets sick and has to go and can't finish their run we send someone else there they can pull up the new run in that database and it's right there with turn by turn for them um it shows pictures of students to help with safety and identification and also it shows the students um have drop off restrictions um so there there's a lot of interesting stuff there obviously it's like everything else you know we just got to find the find the money um yes partner there's an estimate on what that costs uh there is and what to make sure that I'm correct what I'll do is is when we um when you guys come over when we meet and I give the update um on February 6 and or when we come to the uh to walk through the the garage I can give that estimate that way I'm I'm correct and not just giving it off the top of my head we'll just go with a lot for today well I guess it depends on who if we're elog musk maybe it's not as much can pay for [Laughter] it okay well thank you guys very much that that's uh Transportation updates um you have questions I will stay if not I Believe Miss bomach is is next I just had oh I'm sorry go ahead I just had a recommendation there I saw um a little negative thing on Facebook today about a bus stop on 301 and it's dangerous and a lot of times I I find that people are just Mis Mis aware have misinformation about where stops have to go how you're supposed to stop on a divided highway and so I know we put out that social information at the beginning of the school year but I would love to see us and this is not necessarily your department but I would love to see us monthly be putting out communication about where bus stops go how close they can be I know you and know I've had this conversations about how close they can be to your doorstep what kids we do pick up and just more information based public facing information so that when people maybe get upset about I guess the bus was stopped at the top of the hill and or the bottom of the I don't know but either way the bus I'm sure is stopping there because that's the closest to the students house and etc etc and so I would love as a constituent to be able to say here look at this post from earlier this month where we talked about proper where West placement has to be and yes some kids live on a major highway that's just how that cookie crumbles um so just going forward I would love to see more proactive communication on our social medias about about that kind of stuff so that we can say our narrative about why we transport the way we do and ETA and even like how far we travel and how many kids we transport and just making sure people understand like you know we don't get enough money to cover transporting students across the state of Rhode Island and so painting that picture for people so they understand thank you Dr James I I love that I love that idea Reverend Cummings thank you um Mr stonic question I know that um we had some legislation that came out about the cameras that pop out stuff to keep people from going around do we have that capability on all of our buses we do not have that capability at this time we've looked into it the the the issue there is we've kind of allowed other districts to to see see how it's going to go there is a very very large cost right and every company wants a piece of that pie that that has part of that cost so when we've Mr mcfat and myself have met with a few companies on it when when you look at what it costs it's not there's it's going to cost us money to do it because there they say oh you know we'll just if you don't make enough money this month it'll roll over to next month and it it's just there it doesn't see seem like it's fiscally responsible now when I say that understand that the the good part of it is if we could get it on just a few buses and then we could maybe rotate them through then then that may be something that that could work but if you try to put it on all the buses the the cost is going to I think weigh out way you know what what it's going to do for us and I I asked that question because um often times we get these mandates Bassy concerning safety issues and such and those are unfunded mandates that people don't understand there's a huge astronomical cost that goes along with it so I want that to be out to the public because they need to understand when we're asking for things when we're saying that we need to do these things there's a cost how many buses do we have in the we have over 300 buses in our Fleet now all of those are not active buses some are in the graveyard some are buses that are just for Parks um but right now we currently have 2 49 routes so that's 249 buses running every day and then you have you have another uh uh 3 540 that are actually active that we're using as as spares the cost would be to outlit let's say roughly 250 buses with that type of Technology it would be really really possible yes sir and there's not going to be a a return on the investment now when I say that monetarily obviously please don't understand I'm not talking about safety of children because you can't put a monetary value on that right um but just from the actual cost of the monetary cost of thank you Dr James I thought I had a conversation with you and Mr mcfaden and I thought we had them on like 23 buses or something or was that just like the quote we had gotten and I don't know where Mr mcfaden is oh said yes didn't we talk about that Mr mcfaden and there was because I had somebody ask me about it and I we um it was and maybe it was just a quote but this bus drivers were doing a survey about we do a survey um yearly that we're required to do by the state and it shows us how many um illegal passings there are when the stop arm is out if they pass on the left if they pass on the right and that's done throughout the state and submitted um so we get that data that we have that we that we supply to the state it's a it's a it's a you pick one day within the time frame and and all our drivers fill out that survey and complete the form and turn it in yeah I guess I I mean I remember this conversation and we were maybe it wasn't with you maybe it was with Mr mcfaden and we were picking like the top 25 most violated um runs or bus routes or whatever and we were going to put it on just those first ones but maybe I'm I know I've discussed it but I don't remember discussing it with you so I apologize if we did I do not remember but it has been in in discussions um but it's just it comes down to um the fiscal responsibility of it is it is it going to you know give us a return on the investment okay yes have a just piggybacking on what the other board members were sharing on these stop arm cameras when when a picture is taken of a car that is passing illegally does It capture the license plate and then they automatically get a fine how does it work you have the way it's set up you have to um and you have to get with the the the the Sheriff's Office OPD and they they would have to actually run the be responsible for part of it we get the pictures it goes to the company whoever whatever company we were to choose that data then goes to the Sheriff's office or or whichever they process the information and send it out and I believe it it starts as a civil penalty correct um so they so it would be a civil penalty or whatever the CH fine is and they would be required to pay it or they could challenge it and go before a judge and and and do that um there is there's a there's a lot lot more intricacies to it um and maybe uh what I could write down on here is maybe I can try to have a little bit more of that information to provide so I so I don't missp speake or anything like that um for when you guys come over especially in a district of our size you know we're talking scaling up if we were ever to do this and I was trying to figure out in my mind how we could recapture you know some of the money and it wouldn't be it be great to use technology to where it takes picture the license plate and that $500 ticket goes directly to the owner of that car you know that would be the way I would but it's it's it's not a 500 I think it's usually 150 or something like that I think 500 would be a great start on the ticket and and and you know it it once that word gets out that's there and say you you send out 10 15 20 tickets you you capture that money the word's out that it's there it stopped happening now you're still paying the the the the monthly fee on every one of those cameras you're not recouping any money toys and you could have them shut off but we but most most of the companies have like a three-year contract that you're signing with them to do it right right well interesting conversation um anything we can do to make it safer obviously you know um worthy I have a question about the Vans um we how many Vans did we say that we approved several Vans s was it seven we we current we currently have two that that are that are with us that we're using I matter of fact Mr or thank you very much because you help us in the afternoon sometimes with a couple of those students in one of the vans that um that we run from oala Springs the reason why I was asking um is because like you made the example of maybe four kids at a school that need a ride home I was just wondering if they've been helpful in in things like that too for the in the moment things so that a a bus wouldn't have to then impact a bunch of families you know versus getting the the van if there's someone available to drive driveing to come and grabb them we're we're seeing more of that now as we um get more drivers in seats our office staff are not driving buses and they're they're in the office so when we're when we have that the two buses we current or two Vans we currently have were able to use in that capacity um I can tell you from at the beginning of the year we had a route that we couldn't cover it was two kids that lived out in Orange Springs and they and they they went to Wy minina Park um I would leave the van Park parked at at um northb High School go jump in a van in the morning leave my just leave my truck there drive the van to Orange Springs pick them up take them and drop them off yina Park and then in the afternoons um we were able to have someone else do it and then we could get the van parked and I would just drive home from from North Korean high so that part of having the Vans is getting them in strategic locations um for for um for us the the new the ones that were U I believe we have have on order then we'll be able to place one at each Zone so now you have one there because right you know currently if you have two and you have seven different areas that you're you're working out of um can't you can't cover all the bases are more vans on order if we budgeted for seven we order I I slept since then so I'm going to have to look back I I I know I know we were in conversation I can't remember if it got approved or not so I I'll have to go back and look okay all right because it does seem like a great option option um again to free up our drivers to continue to drive the buses and maybe some retired drivers are willing to drive a few kids in a van versus a whole bus bus and and that type of thing my last question is about the compression allocation board I think we're all pretty familiar with that and that the state has recognized you know that county is the size of ours with the transportation needs that we have and they've tried to provide you know some support for that but I think the last conversation I had with Teresa was we're probably four million um I don't even know oh there's is that about right four million that that we have to use out of General funds or maybe even more to support Transportation so I think our conversations were that our allocations are 13 14 million but the actual cost of the transportation department including the bus garage is about twice that yeah thank you for that and it isn't something that hit our legislative priority list this year but it certainly can be something that can come up in conversation as we continue to thank them for the compression funds absolutely and it yes it can actually be something that hits our Central Florida public Schoolboard Coalition agenda that we're going to be talking about on Monday Jessica Janice whatz is our speaker and we're going to be talking about priorities just for Central Florida because we're not the only District that has the challenge Hulk is larger than we are and they're rural in many parts as well so some of our Central Florida districts hopefully we can put together our own platform and that can be something we can talk very specifically about we don't have the benefit of public transportation like a Miami date or other infrastructure that might be available in even Orange County to some degree um so hopefully that will be something we can not make our specific platform but something we can gather with others in Central Florida to do fantastic because bus drivers keeps saying you know it's it's money and student Behavior you know that that kind of alternates between the top one and two and we're having to divert all this money just to keep the flow going and there's not there's only so much to go around anyway thank you appreciate it I just have one question and really um it might be a conversation for another day when we talk about um attendance for drivers we had some discussion um in one of our meetings about and Teresa we we met and talked about this also for their um bonus their attendance bonus that happens quarterly it it happens uh sem every semester and think where you're going with us is we talked about maybe trying to see if we could split that up into a monthly bonus so if you miss out that first month you still have a chance to second one correct any further discussion on that as it I can at this point point no man we haven't moved forward with that but that's something that we've discussing okay I just think that's a very valid um move incentive wise because if I mess up my bonus the first week of the quarter I lose my incentive for the rest of that quarter well I've already lost it so why put in that extra effort you know to be at work at F on Friday or Monday and so I really would like to have further conversation about um what that would look like I can't see Miss Boston Ellis cuz she's directly behind you she don't know if she's making a face at me or not new year I guess I should start dieting yes um so anyway I just um I really do think that um could move the needle some and so I am interested in furthering that conversation and and before we let you go I just want to say thank you for the work that you and your team are doing um this conversation improving Transportation has been going on since I came on the board so two years um and it's been slow and steady but we're really starting to see some good numbers and I'm just really thankful for the work that you and your team do every morning and every afternoon to get our kids to school on time so thank you well thank you we appreciate the support that you guys provide for us right thank you so much good morning chair good morning Vice chair comings board members I'm here to talk about the strategy 4C um and that uh is to ensure facilities are healthy and safe physical environments for working and learning um as you can see on this slide there are some um activities that have been completed um activity 4c2 was to develop a system for tracking maintenance requests we have since then implemented that new system fmx it is to track maintenance requests um it's no more paper work orders um they are put in in into the system and um everything is electronically that system will be maintained and will keep moving forward with with that system it's working really well um Activity 4 C3 was to explore alternative Revenue source um because we had a lot of unfunded projects in our five-year Improvement plan since then we have received the S3 funding which um helped us with a lot of projects we received the impact fees um the sales tax has passed since then and we also received that certificate of participation um which helped us starting on some new construction of new schools which is really exciting um key activity for 4 C4 is air quality enhancements with the I believe the sr3 money we um bought the UVC lights um they have been installed at all campuses where where there was no dedicated fresh air units um we installed them in all those units there's two parts to it an high intensity light uh and a coil light and going forward now um all new construction all new hvsc equipment that we are installing we require those UVC lights to be put in since we completed some of those Key activities we have established a new outcome metric to our objective um as you can see on the slide we want to reduce the established critical infrastructure replacement needs for school facilities by 20% each year for the next 5 years at the moment we are working on establishing a Baseline and our goal is to achieve 100% in 5 years um the Baseline will be based on that um Miss Dobbins has met with you and showed you the needs at each school and they were all colorcoded and you talked about your priority list this um database will be our Baseline um and to um to to ensure that we reach this goal we are developed four New Key activities and um I will explain them in a little bit um the first key activity is to transfer that assessment that that database we have into a new software Data Bank um to house and maintain the collection of that data which would make it much more user friendly easier to update and for you to check on the status at each school um goal or activity number two would be to partner with a consultant firm um to help us um find a uh um a system where we can input that data and also to um partner with them to evaluate what we have found what we are thinking um that it is that it does align with industry standards just to have another opinion and input um key activity number three is to maintain and evaluate that uh assessment Data Bank annually to make sure we are really updating it and addressing needs that coming up during the year and activity number four is to implement and assess the assessment data and the capital fiveyear plan um to strategically address the project needs and then to work with Finance to really allocate the funding to the most critical needs on on that um on the next five years so the the goal with these new activities is to assess the major infrastructure elements um we looking at the age of the buildings the hvbc the roof the electrical system Plumbing fire alarm going all the way into finishes the flooring the doors the Windows the ceilings lighting also in the in the on the side the pavement and the parking lots um we will provide an overall description for each school facility condition and the way we we have seen it in other districts um we found a really nice um system another out of state um um school district is using they they have on their main website each School listed and you can see colorcoded for each of these systems green yellow or red and you can right there see oh you know we need to address um the roof at school X in the next two three years it's turn it's turned yellow but electrical is good so it's it's a really easy userfriendly system that's what we would like to accomplish here as well and we need to update that annually and then we can understand those needs um much easier and strategically address them and hopefully stretch the useful life of um the buildings much further um so the conditions need to be um assigned a relative index like a numerical scale and that scale will then be translated in the color code so green would be all the school or that system only needs preventative maintenance um yellow then goes back back into minor repairs maybe one or two significant repairs um red then um indicates um major rep players or replacement of one system or multiple systems that's uh all I have if you have any questions all right thank you yes sure so I'll I have two questions but I'll go with the first one based on what you were just talking about so is the intention that we would create a public facing document similar to the one that Miss Dobbins has shown us but the intention is not to do that until after we've reached some level of positivity that's my question because my concern in the choice district and the State of Florida choices that have now uh become so evident is that any family would look at some of the school buildings negating all of the wonderful things happening inside that building and the wonderful people there doing all the good work but the family would look at what this public facing chart would be and they'll make a decision based solely on that to not put their child in that school my concern with that thought process is that if we don't we we know that we know we have problems we we know we do that's why we have impact fees and sales tax now we know what our strategic goals are to try TR to make changes to that but my hope is as we're considering making that a public facing document or public facing page of some sort is that we start making that progress give us at least a year or two before we make that really public and so I don't know what your timeline is on that could you share what your timeline is on yes so right now I'm just researching several companies I reached out to couple had already conversation how their system would uh incorporate what we are looking for so we haven't made a final decision on the system yet and uh then it will take some time to in input all the data we have and then work with the consultant to make sure it aligns uh with what they are seeing um so it it will take some time and then when when we incorporate it all we can present it back to you to show you where we are and then maybe make that decision together is it an internal tool that we using um just to develop our five here plan or are we ready to present it to the public and have it publicly show certainly well we know every document that's created even miss Dobbins one that she has right now is a is a a public piece of work so anybody asking for it certainly could receive it but there's something different than asking for a public records request than us publicly posting something and for the world to see so I Bard I just I encourage us certainly to continue the work of what we're trying to do with this internal information but at least give us a year or so to try to really make a dent in that because this goal now is to the the outcome metric is to reduce by 20% each year over the next five years we we I mean that would be great if we at least would get to that level then maybe we make it public but we're nowhere near that right now we know that I mean we know that and so we haven't had Capital funding which which is another reason why that made our legislative platform even though we received impact fees and sales tax I believe we still need to continue to explore alternative Revenue sources with fundraising options and what that looks like from a capital building plan and how you actually get private gifts and that that's not something this board's everever done before it's not something this District's ever done before so I mean there's there's ways to continue to do that but that would be my hope board as we continue to consider that I'll leave that topic and move on to my other question um my other question is based on the electronic work orders so I know that uh 4c2 was to develop that system for tracking maintenance requests we've done that so now what so here's my questions that go with that so are we increasing efficiency have we determined how long certain jobs take and or should take and is that if if we're tracking them and we now know what that looks like are are we also uh reducing mileage because we know where somebody is and then a work order comes in that's urgent and we just go ahead and send them to the school that's closest to where they already are like the paperwork orders part of that wasn't just the fact that they were having paperwork orders and coffee stains and stuck in a truck and whatever might have happened but it was because they had to drive somewhere to get that work order to then drive back out so if they were in Bellevue and they at Belleview high school and they got a a work order where they needed to go to bellw elementary school they had to physically come in town to get it to go back now that we have it all electronic are we saving on mileage are we saving on efficiency it's not just that we have the system it's like how is it helping us um so each of the foren on and the workers they have um iPads so the the foremans are getting those work orders um on their iPads is electronically and then they can communicate they know exactly where their staff is and then they can coordinate I believe uh the efficiency is definitely increased um tracking on how fast we can uh work on a work order it really depends on on the kind of work is it a quick fix uh the minor maintenance person on on site can fix or is it a larger piece of equipment that needs to be replaced that still takes longer time um so that that is still there um but the efficiency of communication um has increased also for the staff at the school to to check where is my work order I haven't seen anybody come in yet they can go in the system they can see the status is it assigned to a person um and then they can see also if the work order is closed so they don't just have to call they can check in the system right away uh on the status of the work order and so with that we're also able to track those folks that are out in the field doing whatever that my my only thought and I I have heard anecdotally so we'll share anecdotally that at certain times there might be an employee that would be on a campus and after they've completed their job then they are sitting in the parking lot for an extended period of time and people at the school know that and and so maybe that's a break time that we've worked in somehow but they're I I just want to make sure across departments that that we have increased efficiency because this was a a cost Initiative for us to go electronic but if we haven't actually seen the offici icy increase why not and that's my question because I mean that's the Beyond just all of the logic of going electronic from paper behind that beyond that there there has to be increased efficiency I mean that that's part of it so okay that's my question thank you board any other questions or concerns oh yes thanks and and and thank you for this update it's evident that um there's a lot of initiative to professionalize and and organize and be very aware of of what's being done how it's being done and how it's coming along and and when I was when you were talking about the uh new uh data bank and and I was thinking maybe they'll use red yellow and green that's so easy to understand and then you said red yellow and green I'm like all right um so I also wanted to thank uh Miss Dobbins because that was a exhaustive amount of data that you shared with each board member and I can only imagine how much time that took to put it together so if there is there's software available and here we go with technology again um to to make that much faster and more efficient um we have so many facilities across such a vast amount of landmass that to Wrangle all that and make it very understandable to the public which I think is is important I also have to say that when you first mentioned it um similar to what board member Campbell was thinking it's like okay you know we do want to be a little careful with that maybe start by saying you know all of our buildings are completely safe for occupancy you know before we talk about how old the wiring is and and that type of thing um but but I think it's important the more transparent uh we can can be um on these Key activities throughout this presentation it would be great because I feel like I keep thinking in my mind okay this sounds great but how much you know maybe just in the future we can look at moving having you know just anticipated cost estimated cost with each activity I think that's not only helpful to me as a board member but also to the public again I keep circling around to people asking why is education so expensive well here we are look at what we've already talked about this morning which are all really important for the success of our district little dollar sign or two attached to each so just something that's just a all right thank you thank you for everything you do chair yes I'll just add um I don't I don't necessarily agree I think part of our commitment statement says we're transparent and so if we're going to get the information we should be transparent about publicly explaining it and I think it helps support the narrative that we have a lot of work to do and this is why we've asked for these funding sources um school choice is only choice for parents who have the opportunity and privilege to transport their child so I don't actually think it's going to impact school choice very much at all because the only parents that are able to participate in school choice are those that have the time to tr take their child or find other accommodations for their child to get to school so um in the spirit of transparency which is what we say in our commitment statement I think we should put it all out there and let's have the very clear confident conversation of these are our downfalls and then this is what we're transparently doing to close the gaps so since two other people talked about it I figure I would add my two sets thank you okay just 30 seconds that is completely accurate on school choice until legislation changes it and so there is a very active plan right now in other states to to provide transportation to increase school choice options so that's all I'm going to say all right thank you very much Miss bomach thank you appreciate you see you good morning good morning CH conad Vice CH Cummings board members and superintendent Dr gallet this morning um I'm going to be talking about a strategy 4C which is to ensure facilities a healthy and safe physical environment for working and learning and with strategy 4C we have added a new outcome metrics which is to reduce the number of workplace and visitor accidents relating to facilities we see these numbers here these numbers refer to CL CL s starting in 2022 we had 33 claims F uh filed so we decided to use that as the Baseline and you can see if the moving to 23 and 24 the number is fluctuating but the goal is to reach a target of zero where we have no claims meaning no accidents where claims are filed on uh for Dish and one of the ways that we will do this is we have a safety compliance meeting that is held monthly at the schools um the purpose of these meetings is to discuss issues that are happening and of course put in the work orders to make sure that they are taken care of um and the way we ensure compliance is um or safe or risk inspector actually attend these meeting at least one school for the year and for the ones that are not attended we or I should say she gets the notes um do reviews in terms of walkthroughs with the school to make sure that work orders are being completed on time and this is how we uh expect to reduce the number of accidents in school to promote this healthy and safe environment and that will be it for me and we would just move on to um Miss R Ramona Belcher thank you foring happy New Year good morning good morning both for outcome metrics indicate a rise in meal participation with 5.3 million lunches served in the 2223 school year 5.8 million meals served in the 2324 school year so I'm pleased to report that food nutrition services has achieved our goal of 80% participation we are currently feeding over 34,000 lunches daily and sometimes it goes up to 35,000 which puts us on target to exceed this goal for this school year key indicator three which aims to boost student participation through nutrition software and Hardware selecting for selecting healthy meals has also been completed meal meal viewer provides parents and students easy access to menu and nutrition information through our online platform and mobile app users can view detailed nutritional data and calculate their meal selections by clicking the added up link the platform also allows students to select their preferred menu items which we can analyze through meal viewers analytics to help us improve our offerings based on student preferences we promote healthier eating by expanding nutrition and marketing through various channels such as our healthy bites newsletter our Facebook marketing and promotions and the fresh fruit and vegetable program you're familiar that the vegetable program is a grant initiative that provides a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables for students who may not otherwise have access to them this year 18 schools are participating which is a 50% increase from the previous year this is allowing us to educate an additional 11,000 students this year we launched the fresh fruit and vegetable program in partnership with Edible Arrangements to surprise over 600 classrooms with fresh fruit and vegetable Arrangements featuring cantaloupe honeydew pineapple and strawberries students also receive a fresh fruit and vegetable snack twice a week which includes educational information about the item that they are consuming food nutrition services aimed to actively involve students in their learning and promote healthy eating choices this slide and the next slide will work hand inand together to show you how we engage our students new this year is a partnership with Dick and Janes snack educational snacks to create our first digital magazine featuring our industry Partners including Dairy Farmers the fans program School Gardens and local farms this magazine is accessible to parents on our meal viewer and printed copies have been distributed to school's main office and we've made it available through Peach jar the next Edition is already in the works October proved to be an eventful month as we navigated through challenges posed by hurricanes while celebrating Farm to school month and national school lunch week which was themed find your treasure during national school lunch week students enjoyed prizes trinkets fun menu items and some elementary schools even had a visit from a real Captain J Who emphasized the significance of eating healthy School meals additionally our menu featured some different vegetables like roasted tricolored cauliflower and Brussels sprouts emphasizing the enjoyable Taste of healthy food we also provided fun facts about each new vegetable with signage on all of the serving lines the farm to school program effectively delivers locally sourced produce directly to our lunch trays in honor of farm to school month we had the pleasure of Hosting farmer Kevin Gwyn from Crohn's cradle conserve Mr gwy demonstrated to students the process of making Roselle cranberry sauce a taste testing was event was conducted at several schools where students sampled over 2,000 Servants of the delightful and tangy Florida of cranberry sauce participants gained insight to the cultivation of the Roselle plant and they all received recipe cards to take home we continue to grow our partnership with the hospital district and the fans program to bring in and serve produce grown in our student Gardens during the 23 24 school year we purchased a variety of vegetables such as broccoli cabbage cauliflower cucumbers collar green kale lettuce Mini Peppers red potatoes and cherry tomatoes all from our school Gardens which is pretty impressive in total over $2,000 of the produce was purchased to support the horiculture classrooms this is a 90 193% increase from the previous year the proceeds from the purchases are directly allocated back to the classroom and the programs to help offset operating cost we value this partnership because it benefits students and promotes healthy eating habit habits not only in the cafeterias but in the classrooms we engage students across the county by hosting taste testing events giving them a voice in their menu selections last year we hosted eight taste testing events which led to the addition of new menu items based on the feedback that we collected food and nutrition services supports the educational mission and vision of the Maring County School Board and together with Community Partners we're committed to providing nutritious and delicious meals that promote lifelong eating behaviors thank you and if you don't have if you have any questions um yes I just wanted to make a comment um my middle daughter who started kindergarten this year is uh obsessed with the cheeseburgers cheeseburger was available yesterday for lunch I believe so um highly recommend uh hi she comes highly recommending all of the food in the lunch line um so I just wanted to say it's great I pack her lunch every day and most days there's nothing eaten because she just wants to eat school lunch so I just wanted to share that positive thought U we have some five star reviews from my house that's awesome very good yes yes I just wanted to to thank you because this is such an important initiative that just never used to be around I mean we went for the french fries and that was about it and I think about you know years ago the promotion of super siiz mean and and just what we were all faced with and I think it's become much more common knowledge now that there's been a lot of chemicals put into foods and factory farms and all this crazy stuff and for kids to be getting taught at a very young age to to be equipped with how to make better food choices and being introduced to all these different kinds of foods is really important for their health and it's such a great partnership with the hospital district and and fans and and us to be able to bring this and I've learned something I had no idea what a dragon fruit was I will admit that I don't think I really knew what Cole Robbie was and I ate some of that at Maple Elementary School so it it's it's really a cool initiative and and it's doing a lot for our kids well-being and the adults too thank you for the information you bring each time you come up you're welcome there's nothing else I will introduce our next speaker Rick Collins our purchasing specialist good morning everyone how are youall doing um okay so I'll be providing an update on strategy 4E uh which is increase efficiency in the procurement of goods and services uh key Activity one um of 4E was to explore a web- based bid software uh to streamline the bid process and to increase some efficiencies and reduce airs um I'm happy to say that we've been utilizing vendor link now and we have been uh quite pleased with vendor link um as noted on this slide um didn't change slides sorry not good at that um we've seen uh an increase in the number of bids that we're receiving for each bid process which is always is a great thing um less vendor errors are being made with the way we um post our bids on vendor link um it's a lot uh clearer um as to what the required forms are um so that's a good thing um uh it's made it super easy to address vendor questions as they come in uh in a bid process we can immediately answer them right on the spot and they get their answer back immediately um and it's uh viewable for all of the vendors that are participating to easily see um so there's no more having to create a document upload it post it all that good stuff um it's shortened the time it takes to do our tabulations especially on our big Warehouse bids which are monstrous um We Can Vendor link will tabulate them for us and all we have to do is then and go Factor um the uh FL of preference which is a lot lot quicker um for us to do that uh as noted in this key activity U because it's completed we'll be removing this from the Strategic plan moving forward uh key Activity three uh was created to establish ways to increase procurement training uh as noted we surveyed the stakeholders uh involved to help us determine what uh the most important uh trainings would be and happy to report that after creating the training materials uh this past summer we uh began our trainings and we conducted several small group trainings uh and they were very well attended um we received positive feedback regarding the training that we provided and we plan on continuing to do this training at least once a year um hopefully more and anytime new staff is hired that will be involved in the purchasing process we're going to uh bring them in and U provide them that training as well um as noted because uh this activity has been completed we're going to remove it from the plan moving forward the Activity 4 um was created to expand piggyback contracts where appropriate to optimize savings um looking for solid piggyback opportunities is something that uh purchasing staff uh constantly does on a daily basis and we review many piggyback opportuni unities to see if they would be beneficial for us to to utilize oops I'm sorry where am I there we go I apologize um a lot of times a piggyback is needed when a purchase is uh needed quickly um and if we can find one to help accommodate the end users to to to get what they need quickly um that's what we try to do uh as noted in bullet 3 um because this isn't really a measurable type uh activity um we're going to take it off the Strategic plan but we are going to continue to do that and we do that constantly um make that anal analization and key Activity 2 um was created to revise the Contracting process to R time for completion um this activity will continue um on constantly as we strive to create efficiencies in this area uh in conjunction with the legal department um we work with legal almost on a daily basis probably a daily basis um regarding contracts and uh we've been making a a more consorted effort to uh try to provide a better explanation to the end user um that may not understand all the parameters involved as to why we're saying a contract's needed or what the reason behind you know we're saying you need a contract um because they don't they don't understand all the nuances involved and so we're trying to almost use it as like a teaching U process um for them to know that we're not just trying to hold their their process up we're trying to protect the district and at you know at the same time so that that's all that I have for you so that completes my update and I believe okay mystery so we we'll follow me up you have any questions thank you very much and like to say thank you too this is a very nice facility isn't it so nice I know your taxpayer dollars it work welcome back Miss Boston Ellis thank you uh this will be a really quick one but I will be back um this outcome metric is an example of what we had to do to change you may recall that our original Target was 12% uh for unassigned fund balance but due to uh additional funding needs uh based on the ending of Esser uh we have uh put that back B the uh ending fund balance back down to the 6% so this represents a change to the outcome metrics but what we have included and which you provided approval of was a new policy and it is creating a fund called committed and the objective is to get to that 12% but it won't be as aggressive as we had uh in the original policy so we were going to set aside 2% every year but again because of the pressures on the budget that would change and we still have the objective to get to 12 but we won't be doing 2% every year in that uh particular fund balance uh we know that that is important uh because of the years that I have been here we see es and flows of Revenue so it's so so very important that we are putting money aside for uh rainy days or stormy days and uh we're you know looking at this every year but we uh did change it back down to 6% we'll move on and and talk about key Activity 4 F2 and that will be presented by Dr Varner happy New Year and good morning everyone good morning strategy 4f ensures financial resources are dedicated to the district's highest priority strategies funding from the selected grants are devoted to our District's highest priorities to support student achievement all departments collaborate for financial needs to ensure Equity is distributed throughout our district resources are monitored through the data efficiency of return on investment as well as regular Financial reviews with Grant managers to ensure we are physical we are being physically responsible with our spending implementing these strategies will help ensure that our financial resources are consistently aligned with our District's most important initiatives maximizing both the impact and sustainabilities are there any question thank you very much Dr far very good presentation excellent that because it was short and sweet we love them let's see okay continuing on uh with strategy 4f ensuring Financial stability sound financial management and operational efficiency uh key Activity 4 F3 calls for us to plan develop and monitor the district budgets and provide relevant financial information to the decision makers and the community including training for District staff and school leaders um all funds utilized in the Strategic budget plan have the requirement of being aligned with student achievement so when all the budgets are submitted uh we require that the particular Department provide uh the particular goal that aligns with the funding requests uh we have a budget development process that has begun for the 2526 year we've started on that already um and also uh we look at Staffing ratios and what's new this year for the 2526 is that we are piloting a program for for schools school-based budgeting uh South Okala East Maran Fort King and Lake were high will all be a part of this uh school-based budgeting project uh and all the other uh schools will be added uh allocated funding uh based on the estimated FTE or the our normal way of allocating funds the budget department has enhanced training theyve provided training for secretaries uh particularly new secretaries new principals department heads and they've actually gone out and visited uh departments and schools uh to ensure that they understand their budget and that that they are actually looking at their budget um the budgets are monitored monthly including the grants to ascertain level of spending and if it is in line with timeline so we just ended the month of December we'll be looking at Grants that started in July with the anticipation that they are about halfway done with their spending and if they are not uh providing to us an explanation of what they plan on doing for the rest of the year so that just keeps all of us um in line with what's going on um new last summer uh because of Esser going away I spent a lot of time with curriculums and we were looking at uh we were looking at all of our spending a and identifying if Grant funds were either being maximized to supplement the programs uh that are being funded in general fund uh the transparency part of our budgeting uh Publications such as our trifle document are available on the website and hard copies are provided with the tenative through the F uh final budget documents in addition to our uh efforts to tell our story as Dr gullet reminds us that we need to tell our story uh because uh finance and budgeting is a very complex field and most people don't understand that uh how we get money and and really what we're doing with the funds we're basically a corporation if you think about it because we provide um food to our community we provide uh transportation and we take care of Transportation uh we're our own custodial staff we maintain all of our businesses so a lot of times people uh do not know that and we have found that out by attending and participating in different type of organizations such as the quanas club making presentations to them the Maran County uh Board of County Commissioners their alumni academy uh Maran County Children's Alliance and of course our our iicot committee uh we used to do something called an aspiring Administration Academy where we actually talked to uh uh folks who were interested in being the administration and then also uh our most famous and latest is the leadership mcps uh and what we have found is these are individuals who are very much interested in the workings of the um school district and they're very much ATT tuned to what is going on and they are definitely advocates for our school district and I saw one of the members of the class that we just recently finished uh we we know that there is a lot of more work to be done um in this area of transparency and providing information to our community uh but I believe that we are um well on our way to doing that we have some technology needs as well Mr good morning again good morning so I'm here to update you on key Activity 4 F4 which is to share with you the annual savings for the self-funded health plan versus the fully insured Health Plan moving to a fully moving from a fully insured uh health plan to with self-insure plan was actually a really great decision we continue to see that costs are contained and if we look at a prior two years it demonstrates that we were able to save uh quite a significant money on our going on on on a self-funded uh 2023 2223 we see that we were able to save $5.4 million the cost there was less than if we were actually in a fully funded insurance program uh in 2024 again another $5 million in savings and 2025 which is this current year the reason why you see it's a little dip is because we are enhancing our current benefit offerings however we still have and still expect to maintain at least 5.1 million in Saving on our self-insured plan and this is all towards our goal of being fiscally responsive and to the community to the board um as we continue to um achieve our goals and I believe this is our end if there are any comments from the superintendent thank you so much Miss Taylor um and board before you take public comic I just want to thank the team again the representatives that you see here today but all of the staff that are behind the scenes that are doing this great work um as you see the continuing theme of revising the revision um looking transparently at how we can continue to improve I'll go back to uh first year when I was here talking about building building a learning organization which is foundational and business on continuing to strive to do better um we have a responsibility to our taxpayers and I'm just incredibly proud of of all the team and their constant commitment to doing that so really appreciate that and thank you board thank you any final comments or questions yes um Miss Boston Ellis walked away too quickly for me to say thank you on the site based budgeting uh you know that's been the drum I've been banging for the last four years I know it's taken us a while to get the pilots going but now that we have them um and also thank you in advance for the hard work that will potentially be coming as that budget book that I handed off to you board several of you saw it at the uh conference in December that from Martin County um was just an example of how they have it broken down by each school and the number of employees and how much each School actually costs and all of the costs that are built into that um that's not the way I know that we've been doing it and I I think as the state is pushing us even more to really unfortunately the way it is every single student we have has a dollar sign associated with them and the whole reason we have money to even have fiscal operational management is because we have students and we know we've had three years if not more of growth when I became a board member there were 38,000 students so we've grown and we know it's 45 46,000 now and potentially even continuing to grow as we become that in migration hub for all of the State of Florida uh but I I'm just grateful for your vision and interest in thinking differently and how we do this because we have to think differently and and how we've done it and whenever kids move school to school what does that look like what's that impact Staffing wise what's that impact on every trickle down transportation technology every trickle down from there and so the more we get to that site-based budgeting model based on student attendance based on other factors we'll just be better and better at fiscally um managing and operating how we do it so thank you m Johnson is up to the task I'm certain that he our director of budgeting and um as fully engaged in and we've had a couple of meetings with our staff as well as um I believe P County and they're in their third year and they they did the same thing that we're attempting to do just a pilot for a couple of years and then this year I think they're doing everybody on so we will be watching how they handle it as well we're excited about it but it's it's a little scary too yeah and it is very very tedious but um they're excited very good they'll get it done Dr James thank you I just wanted to um and we don't have to talk about it now but there was when we were talking about technology at the beginning of the conversation there's a component to what we what is in our plan for technology that is we have not yet captured because of a budget deficit and so the board didn't really have the conversation when we were talking about facilities in our last meeting and our priorities but I would like the board to have a conversation about where we find the $3 million or so that's needed to complete the facility project for um the the data center because without building the data center we can't offline a site and so when we offline a site we're going to net I don't know a million something right and so we're not really even going to spend as much money as it's going to take theoretically if we're talking big picture and so I would like to figure out how we have the conversation um when talking I don't know when the facility plan is coming back before us I know in my private meetings I asked Miss Boston Ellis when we have the conversation again to include how much like 10-year Outlook net savings each of these projects is going to produce because putting children in a wing instead of a portable is ideal but if we're actually going to save more money in 10 years by replacing a facility then as this board member I would be a bigger advocate for that looking at our overall budget but with that being said I think it's like three million Ivon or Miss Dobbins maybe could like not or not but I think we had know how much more how much was it morning thanks for question so if you remember we absorbed that money back into funding the projects that were ongoing okay so we would have to then fund the whole project which was estimated around 12 million at the time okay so I I think that the Board needs to at least have a conversation about it um and and what if if it's a part of a priority because it allows us to offline a site and create Revenue um and it also is a a really significant need and the way I understand it some of our infrastructure is a delicate dance and we're kind of playing with fire and if we lose our infrastructure and Technology we're going to be at a really huge loss so at some point in the near future I would like to bring that back up so we can at least talk about it as a priority and if the board doesn't want to prioritize it as a majority then that's fine but I just feel like I would we kind of didn't really talk about it when we talked about the facility thing and I would like for it since we had this conversation today I would like for it to be included in a future conversation that's all all right thank you Dr James yes board member thrower thank you I I agree wholeheartedly with um Dr James when it comes to the data center every threaded throughout this whole presentation has been technology and um I think I stated earlier too at one point it kind of fell off the list um because of funding and and then we were there was concern about well we put it out there and that wasn't on there and that was sort of my hesitation about putting too much out you know subject to change we we have to be flexible and and as the need continues to be magnified of what it takes to keep this District going with technology I 100% agree that that the data center does need to be prioritized as as far as the the the wings Go versus a new school design um I would be hopeful that the wings would be designed in mind with future School building because with all the school choice and things that are happening at the state and National level we don't know what's going to happen so but we also want to be as prepared and flexible I guess that's my point is that let's focus time being really flexible because the landscape changes quickly these days and let's let's get the kids that we do have now into good spaces to learn and the staff and then with an eye towards well you know if we have to make it bigger we can incorporate that um into the new design would be my coming on that um my my last comment on today's presentations which were all awesome and uplifting in a great way to start the new year is I wish that this comes with a self-funded plan that we're very proud of because because if we could find more opportunities to save $5 million every year and increase services and direct that money to our hardworking employees I would be a solid yes on that so maybe that can be our challenge for this year is how can we find ways to save another five million and increase services not decreased Services that's all I thank you board member drower all right with that do we have any public comment okay seeing none we'll move on to our next item Dr gullet would you like to introduce our topic on Staffing ratios absolutely happy to thank you madam chair so again thank you to the team and the team coming forward another devoted group of uh staff members and today you're going to hear Miss Morant kick off the uh School uh Staffing ratio presentation and proposal for thank you ma'am 2025 2026 school year thank you thank you e good morning Miss Mar it looks like we're having a little bit of technical difficulty for all right thank you and good morning Dr gullet um good morning chair Conrad and board members as mentioned I'll be sharing draft Staffing plan ratios for the 2025 2026 school year our goal today is to get the board's consensus on the 2025 2026 Staffing plan ratios so we're able to make any necessary changes in preparation for the January 14th board meeting the approval of the 2025 2026 Staffing plan ratios we'll ensure we remain on schedule with the Staffing timeline as the ratios Drive other processes within the district per request you each have received a notebook that contains the current Staffing plan of each of our schools like years past a committee was formed and met several times prior to break to develop the draft that's presented before you the recommended changes came from our school principls that served on the committee you will notice that the requested changes include decreasing the ratios in ESC for ASD mod and prek disability it also includes adding a testing facilitator to each of our traditional campuses and decreasing the ratios of instructional support which would lead to an additional instructional support team member at the majority of our schools the estimated additional cost for the proposed changes would be approximately $6.4 million with an additional $2.7 million for additional Staffing at schools W and X this is a total of $9.1 million the principles on the committee identifi the addition of the testing facilitator at each of our schools as their priority request the estimated additional cost if we only add the testing facilitator and allowed the ratios for instructional support to remain the same would be approximately $3.9 million we realize that one size does not fit all and that schools may have additional needs not addressed by the ratios principles through their principal leader still will will still have the opportunity to request additional units based on the individual needs of their school at this time I'll turn it back to you Dr gullet for additional comments and or questions thank you Miss Morant uh so board you have the notebook in front of you and we just open this up for any questions you may have of our team thank you okay yes so yes before you walk away please give those numbers I I wrote down the 3.9 million if went with testing facilitator only but give the other you said 9 million was a so okay unless they're written somewhere on this page I can tell you thank you no you're welcome so 6.4 million would be the additional cost to the Staffing plan the 2.7 million is the additional Staffing that we'll have at schools W andx that is the total that's the 9.1 million 3.9 million would be if we just did the testing facility ators and then of course adding 2.7 million for WX no matter what we would have those sorry about I did read that kind of p and we don't have it written anywhere that we can reference so that was okay so 2.7 million W unitex regardless of what we do right okay which is why it's so important we alls ready to have that conversation when you are Dr James I'm ready girlfriend okay okay Miss Maran are you going to go through we we can this document the elementary um so elementary middle and high school they they look the same so it's again decreasing the um the ratios or I call it that band um to match what was put in place for the school counselors I think maybe two years ago um so that would result in the majority of schools they would re receive an additional support and then adding the testing facilitator at each school can I ask a um and I guess maybe I should have done this before but when we got briefed individually you had lots of other numbers um like there was a number of how many counselors we would be added what's that so this this we wouldn't know specifically the counselors because it's a instructional support that's what I mean instructional supp so how many instruction because like remember I like kind of inter when I read it off the cuff I didn't read it the way that you it was intended and so do you have that number so yes so every so will'll be 52 testing facilitators and then it would be tell you 52 - 8 so it would be 46 46 in additional instructional support now I will preface that by saying these are estimated so this is based on the 60-day count the real projections that we use would be based on the official projections of 80-day count but I wouldn't anticipate that number being too far off but just so for the sake of conversation but to be clear that's a 100 more instructional support units which directly takes teachers out of classrooms I will so yes so the majority all of that I've seen when we add instructional support they usually are classroom teachers that move into those roles so what this board member will say is I I'm the biggest believer in schools but I am not going to support any plan that adjusts our staffing plan to remove more teachers from classrooms when we have a rolling 100 plus instructional vacancy all year every year since I've been a board member and before so this board member is not going to support support adding those units to schools because we all know that it will remove instructional Personnel from the classroom so that's my position on the Staffing plan and my recommendation would be to move forward without making those two changes yes I completely concur uh with what Dr James said on that but I do want to express hearing what the recommendation out of committee was that they want to add testing facilitator testing facilitators I told you guys having individual briefings on this was a little bit awkward I'll just have to admit because when we had them I I know that you can't gather that information and then put it all together because then that would be like polling board members I understand it so giving us a heads up and letting us see it and digest it that was good but my first thoughts were very similar to Dr James in addition to if we were to add a testing facilitator then we have to change our AG P ratios so think about that for just a moment currently testing falls on our APS of curriculum in most cases at the elementary level it does not fall at at the secondary level it falls directly on the apis okay well an AP it's it's AP in general so if we are adding a testing facilitator to each school campus then we have to change our AP ratios because that's the equivalent I mean certainly our APS in different levels do different things but that's a huge portion of what that job currently entails and so that's the only way I could get behind adding a testing facilitator is if we changed our AP ratios at all levels and the only issue with that is that APS do evaluations and testing coordinators don't so you are going to completely condense the um the the well you're condensing the um administrators available to do evaluations and so most School principles if given the option can you want to keep your AP or do you want to get a testing I can't imagine a principal who's going to choose a testing coordinator over a assistant principal because the assistant principal role is so much greater than just the testing so I I agree with you and from a budgetary perspective testing coordinators are cheaper so it actually would save us money but that is not going to support schools in getting evaluations done and all of the other tasks and roles and responsibilities and I completely concur with all of that so as we're having Dialogue on this specific thing that makes it nearly impossible to add what is being recommended here because this comes at a significant cost that we had not considered and as Dr James said on the front end I also am not going to be in support of anything that's taking teachers out of classrooms that are moving into other positions within their own school what that does to school culture in school climate within that staff is I I hear it I'm sure you all do as well that that why is that person always doing that when they could be teaching in this classroom that always has a sub well because they aren't in the classroom because they have a different position as support and so whatever we can do as a board as a district to get those 100 plus teacher vacancies filled filled is the direction I always want to go and what we see here is not going to help us get there question uh do we not have testing facilitators facilitators at the high schools already we have some testing facilitators but there's not one that's assigned specifically to each school like so there are opportunities that they could trade out or purchase their instructional support but it wasn't an allocation that was yeah I mean I have friends and their their job title was testing facilitator and so um um I agree with everything that's been shared this morning I I want to talk about um the challenge of this board member doesn't want to have to have a testing facilitator I don't I don't want there to be so much testing in our schools that we have one person on every campus that's having to manage that and Dr goet and I were just at a meeting Monday morning where every single teacher in the room expressed that's their number one top concern and priority and so um you know this this is the struggle is real um schools are struggling with managing all of the assessment pieces I I don't want to deny that at all because I know that that is a real challenge um our schools are facing um but I'd like to take a look at solving that in a different way how can we minimize and streamline the testing that is being done so that we do not need a testing facilitator at every school Mr oh I'm sorry worri um so progress monitoring is required now and I think at the school level they see that as more testing you know more prep More Everything more data analysis all of it believe that's required so that takes care of that um I don't know what other testing could be minimized but what I'm thinking is that the effort to reduce testing rate and then what is really required of a testing coordinator can we rethink that I mean if they're supposed to be speci specializing in understanding the testing process and privacy and the security things like that why couldn't we look at maybe even thinking about Outsourcing that you know um rather than pulling teachers why do they have to have a teacher skill set or do they you know um they have to have knowledge for accommodations I think that you scheduling and making accom the hundreds of accommodations that have to be made for students is is the challenge right right but I guess what I'm thinking is maybe a little opportunity to think outside the box so that we aren't that we look at minimizing testing and increasing instructional time that's the% yes but since we can't get away from testing how can we rethink that testing coordinator's position to where it would be more available to more people than pulling teachers they don't want to pull teachers either I mean no none of us do I don't think so I don't know are any other districts doing things like that you know refining that testing coordinator position so they can be trained to do that stuff I don't know the answer to that Miss Mor do you I no I don't know what other districts are doing with their Tes well we can maybe we can be the first I don't know Dr garet have you heard any or ideas of districts that are sharing different ways to manage all the assessment pieces I think I think we'll have to take a look at that I mean I I think to the point the board discussion is is very appropriate and and the reality is it looks different from District to district and as you said earlier somebody's called testing coordinator may not be that in writing but every school's finding a different way to solve that need well and and I I just want to say this um the discussion about our APS I I just want to publicly say they have a very heavy lift it would be a God send to them to have a testing coordinator because they are working right now they have one of the hardest jobs in the districts in my humble opinion um because this all of this testing and now the challenge of everybody has a different schedule for testing you know has been placed it's it's an addition to the job and Dr James shared some of those responsibilities that has been an addition of the job that they already had and I think we're seeing that in the loss of several of our APS I mean the burden is getting too big um so I do think we have a situation uh of providing support for our APS um I don't think the solution to that is pulling teachers um that are doing a great job in the classroom uh you know to a more administrative position um yes well I I when it was presented I had the the idea that if this was I've always thought this well a couple things we don't test every day all year so testing coordinator is not a full-time job it is not I did it as an API and we didn't have pm23 but I did it and did all my evaluations I was supposed to do and everything else at a high school so a testing coordinator is not a full-time job I'm never going to get behind it being a full-time job it's just not they would have to have a change job description and we talked about this that had shared responsibilities and roles with other things because it it is not something do every day also not every school needs a testing coordinator I'm never ever ever going to understand why a school with 300 and 400 students even really needs an AP I don't actually even think they need an AP but they certainly don't need a testing coordinator if they have an AP not every school needs exactly the same and so putting a testing coordinator on a staffing plan where every single school is going to get one is a luxury that we can't afford and so if our cup runneth over and we were just looking at ways to spend money that sounds like a wonderful plan but it's not it is not a necessity it is just not a necessity so um and you're right some Westport I think does have a testing coordinator but that's because she has so many units she has switched out an instructional support for a testing coordinator because that principal decided that was the best use of her units and that makes sense for her but not every school either has that robust amount of units to be able to do that with and so it's it's an AP responsibility but Reverend Cummings mam chair um thank you Miss Mor for bringing this forward from my understanding um and I don't think any of us want to pull teachers let me say that off the top however um I did look at this plan from the front there were Elementary principles that made this recommendation to you yes the committee did consist of elementary middle and high school Carter and um Elis corre so obviously this is something the principles are asking for so something we need to have a real conversation to see why they feel that there's a need for these positions because obviously if the principal saying this is what they need to be in their schools we we need to take that in consider if if this was just coming from the floor and principles had no input I'm I I could say that but we need to what princi so I'll I'll share some of the and Miss Kinder and her she she may can add additional information but in the committee meetings some of what was shared and we we shared that with you all it came back to the aps being pulled to do um lots of things with the threat assessments and so that's kind of how the Genesis of that conversation and that it was pulling away from that testing piece and they did speak a lot about the accommodations and some of those are individualized and that that would help with the um that additional load that the the aps have um so that's what was shared in the committee meeting with some of the reasons why they that thank you madam chair uh Miss Kinder is actually here this morning because she sat on the committee um as one of the principal supervisors and uh Vice chair cumming's point I think if you would ow Miss kinder to share some insight as well since she's supervising schools and she was on the committee um it might be helpful it might be helpful very quick Sor to interrupt you I just very quickly I just want to make a statement for the public because what testing looks like now is very different than when any of us grew up right and so testing years ago your teacher came in she passed out the test you know even if it was a state test and you took it for a day or two and you were done and testing looks very different now and the accommodations and the scheduling and all of those pieces have become very challenging um for our staff and our our students and their families so I just wanted to make that clarifying Point real quick because I don't know that the general public understands what testing in public school looks like these days so miss ker thank you um for allowing me me to insert that and good morning good morning um so I definitely participated in the committee um and there were seven principles three Elementary two middle and two high that were represented at the committee um and not only being on the committee but also being in our schools every day um one of the beauties of this current Year's Staffing ratio plan which would continue in 2526 Staffing plan is to have that instructional support um in there for numbers and the teacher the principles are able to have the autonomy in how they want to utilize that instruction support um they have their unit exchange request form that they turn into us as principal supervisors and if they want to turn it into a testing facilitator that's why you have been to many schools all of you are in our schools um and you know that some of our schools have turned that instructional support position into the testing facilitator um some principles have um seen the need with the threat management um paperwork and all of the data that we are now doing with threat management that is certainly a very real concern in our schools um for the time aspect that that does take um members of the administrative team APS are typically one of the aps is involved in um heavily in that process um so some principles have changed an instructional support team member to a student service manager a second student service manager um I think listening to the principles in the schools and then the principles that were represented on this committee um they wanted the those ratio student numbers for the instruction support reduced you can see that those numbers are reduced um that helps give them uh in most cases in most of the schools it was 44 schools um an additional support member and so that the principal could then have the autonomy to be able to utilize that position in how they would need it whether it's a testing facilitator or that second student service manager um in order to help with that threat service paperwork um some instances in some of our tier three schools it was to provide um a second or maybe even a third content area specialist because we have a very um real um issue that we deal with with of course our out of field teachers and our brand new teachers to the school system so um in many cases principes want to have the autonomy to turn that into an instructional coach um or Cas position um and so I I as a principal supervisor and being in teachers classrooms every day um I I would be remiss if I didn't if I didn't advocate for that piece of it however um when we look at our students as well it it it certainly is is on my heart heavily that many of these positions would be filled by possibly by classroom teachers um and so um that is certainly something that you know we have to take into consideration when we're doing what's what's best for our students as well thank you Miss kard yes um board member thrower thank you chair and you know we're all in agreement that that I think that we testing coordinators the ability to have that flexible opportunity is is important it's just where they come from no yeah they're going to come from the classroom that's where they're going to come from do they really have to is my question you can't put a restriction to say we're not hiring from the classroom can't she's advocating for outsourcing I think I'm I'm advocating for a solution and what I hear right now is a lot of passion about it and no solution I don't think we can afford to Outsource it and Outsourcing is more expensive than insourcing always and our budget can't support adding add regardless of taking from classrooms we cannot afford it we cannot afford to add more instructional support units to schools the budget clearly dictates that so Outsourcing it would just cost more than it would be to do it in in sourcing a circular argument um um Miss Morant uh one of the things I discussed when I was with you is um I know that the threat assessments are causing a strain on the aps who are helping with testing and so one of the ideas I shared with you is not having someone um assigned to each school but maybe having a team of people that um were experienced in completing threat assessments and if that team was had flexibility by area or um by Elementary secondary because I believe that would be um look different to provide support to our schools in a different manner something that would so so I'll use a lot less staff I don't know if he's still here but I don't I think from the like each school has to have one I don't think that we will be able to do that but there's difficult well maybe we don't want to have the conversation now so I'll get with you private if I may Madam chair to your point of concern we're having those conversations because we we know what schools are faced with and and I'll speak on behalf of Mr mcfan who's here that that's statute driven driven yes um from the state for schools so I don't want anybody to think that we're working through that and some solutions to try to help Provide support okay yes yeah um kind of thinking along those same lines could there be a group of a committee of people that could possibly do the the uh testing versus each School having I think the challenge with that like the high schools all there are testing is at the same time or close to the same timeing so you know if you have a geometry T Test or you have it it's very close to timeline is very close um as far as getting from school to school to assist with all of that may I offer um a consideration and to your point earlier um chair when you mentioned that the conversation we had with the golden apple teachers that I I do um each work day at 7 AM um those meetings um those committees have been formed they've been scheduled they popped up on my calendar today so we'll be having an element and this is really for the rest of the board and the whole public um be having an opportunity for teachers to meet with with District staff to look at the elementary assessments and then separately with second there's a possibility with this conversation the board is having today to think about what does this look like um if we extend that conversation a bit and providing support perhaps I mean that was a distinct different conversation but they're absolutely related yes they right so I'm just I just offer that as as a possible solution because they're meeting as you know I asked that they meet this month to to address that as quickly as possible so that may be a may be a possibility um them to to brainstorm with um within that framework of discussing how do we address Assessments in the need to support them very good point yes Dr Campbell is it possible that one of the reasons that they're asking for this instructional support ratio to change I'm looking specifically at elementary because potentially when w and X open we won't have any elementary schools with a thousand students in them those will okay Mo's may be the only one right now based on our numbers Hammet Bowen has 1,042 students I'm looking at 0day count uh Mar Oaks is at 1210 saddle Woods a little more than a thousand and sunrise is at 1411 so so based on the projections that we have um Mar and Oaks would be the only school that would be over 1,000 um College Park would be close but this again um and also W Highlands but this again is based on that 60-day count in those projections so again is it possible that the ratio is because right now there would only be an opportunity for one instructional support for every Elementary School with the exception of another one and so they're asking I I would actually like to see us get into having W andx worked into our plan with the 2.7 million that we can't not take on and then consider this in a future time because changing ratios right now when we honestly don't know what it's going to look like in a year like we think we know but we really don't know how many folks are going to be moving there in the next six months I mean we we don't know what all that's going going to look like it's a really I'm again looking solely at elementary it's a really tough time for me to be changing ratios I think testing facilitator we can't afford it and I am all for figuring out another way to explore how we can make that work part time volunteer sack committee figure like I I don't care who figures it out I mean we know there's a challenge but coming up with a 50 plus thousand salary plus benefits for all of our schools that's a non-starter for me because I told you what I would do is I would reduce our AP pool and I understand that that's not an option because of all the other things the aps have to do so like we have to find the money somewhere if we're adding we have to find the money what are we taking away because nothing in this is taking anything away it's all adding and we've been very purposeful under Dr gullet and this board's leadership that we have added so much support to schools we have taken away program Specialists that used to have Offices Downtown are now School based like there have been a very significant focus on adding more support to schools students are because we have money we I said that previously but I am really not comfortable with even messing with these ratios if we were going to mess with them I would go one to 749 I wouldn't go one to 4.99 I wouldn't at all because the impact is so great I was looking we have I I first did we have 30 Elementary School school I was looking at that are traditional elementary schools and third of them at least are under those numbers um so I that's where I am on this yes and there's always um situations behind the numbers because some schools have an incredibly High number a high ESC population that requires a lot of accommodations you know different testing environments extended time all of those things so the numbers are part of it but but not all of it and I guess you know this maybe there's some schools that are just fine you know I don't know um we have four members up here that have kids at school and um maybe you know those schools don't need them um or could live without them and and be okay but what are we here for you know we're we're we're here to help students succeed and you help students succeed by having the right people right places for the right reasons and if it's not a full-time job then we well that's great helps us save some money um but not every job and I understand you know classroom teachers have aspirations too sometimes you know they they want to Aspire and and get into positions so we don't want to make them feel like they have no uh room for for growth I mean what company does that to so so it's a balance and that's where I got the idea of you know just thinking differently I I I said Outsourcing but that's just one idea you know um whoever comes up with all these tests and does a training on it maybe there's folks from those Arenas that could do this I'm not sure you know retired teachers something J thank you yes I would encourage principles who have need on their campus to submit a unit uh not unit exchange a unit allocation form make their strong case for why they need the unit allocation and it will go to Executive cabinet and the members who review it and I would say more frequently than not those units are awarded to the schools that need them so we do we don't need to make a blanket decision for every school the principles who have a need need to fill out the unit allocation form ahead of next school year so that they can get that allocation for next school year and that's still around and we're still able to do that and I just want to kind of Ensure I'm leaving with Clarity um looking at the head nods and the comments I think where we landed that we won't make any changes to the current 2425 Staffing plan we will keep it the same but then that will give time for X andw to be on border and then next year when we pull the committee together we'll be able to have a clear focus of where we're at in any additional needs I just want to make sure I have that understanding that we will keep it status quo okay ma'am we're good with that um Miss morand I do want to say thank you um for to you and your team and Miss kard uh for listening to the needs of our staff and bringing them forward I know there was a lot of work that went into um preparing this so thank you um for being the ear and bringing the needs forward yes do have one clarifying question that is you know the school year that we're in if there are schools that are feeling pretty desperate about this situation I believe there's opportunity always right to submit yes that's that um that unit allegation we meet every single Wednesday okay for that so yeah that that's an option that's continues to be ongoing okay because there's a onew punch if the same person is doing testing coordination on or off paper is also doing threat assessments onor off paper and is overwhelmed and then may you know remain overwhelmed and leave that cost us money too that would just be thank you for always bringing everything back around thank you and let me ask a question too so with this with the uh allocation that they can ask for what's kind of give me a quick um how that process works because from my understanding this principal submitted to who they submit it to their principal supervisor so either their senior executive director or area superintendent and then they discuss it get the justification look at the numbers verify the numbers and then that is submitted to our director of talent management and it comes to the unit um unit request committee or the unit control committee and then the area superintendent is on that committee as well representing their school we talk through it and I can't remember who said it but I would say in rough math 95 probably 9 5 97% they they are awarded for Miss Boston Ellis but yes they are usually awarded that unit because they they've had the conversation with their principal supervisor they come in and they have those justifications and we did um there's one thing that's actually being put in place this year with Dr brockson where we will sit down every March and actually review those requests because we have seen in all transparency that something may get added to the Staffing plan and then it's there year after year and they may not have that need any longer or a different need but um yes that and and I ask that process U Miss Mor because I I don't I don't want to see um a a system where people just they ask and then it's automatically no I I don't want it to be an automatic no I need to I want that principle to be able to come and advocate for that position if they really really need that position and and have the justification for it I don't want us to just look at the numbers and say well the numbers say you don't deserve this position every school has extenuated circumstances and and and different causes for why they may need that position so I just wanted to be a judicious yes so there there's a form and it's actually recently gone online that they fill out the information the funding information um and if depending if sometimes it's a different staff member that needs to be involved so there's times we have to bring Dr Varner because it may be Grant funded yes there there is a clear clean process that's done I would say equally as important if something is denied and explanation is given as to why we are unable to meet that at this time yes and that does have because the the principal supervisor is on the call and so because they're representing that school and that principal so that information they're part of the the robust robust conversation um so they are aware and then when we send the information back there is a followup after each unit control with this was the request and this was the outcome and here are the next steps thank you and and I will say most of the times if there is a no it a lot of times it's like a not now or let's try this let's exchange or let's see you know if something happens you know the next few months because sometimes we may know things that are coming down the pipe that could potentially benefit them and and erase some of that need all right thank you for that explanation yes um the only thing that I I didn't see here that I want want to make sure we have a brief conversation on that we talked about in The Briefing when I was with you is the instructional support positions just in general that there has been stipulations on what that would look like and I think the request was that those parameters would be reduced or taken away right so we added a note and we should have highlighted it so I apologize but as def finded in the mea Collective baring agreement so it would be all of those instructional support position versus just the four or five that were previously there so that would be the only thing that I would recommend that we go ahead and make that and I agree with that I mean I because while you're walking away with this if we said we don't want to make any changes I want to make sure that we cover that because that's something I would be in full support of at least giving them the flexibility if they're allocated one two three instructional support that we don't put guard rails on who those people are I support that and we'll make that update as well all right thank you all thank you Miss Mor is there any public comment right seeing none um board I think we'll take a recess and take lunch uh it's 11:21 come back in 30 minutes or so and we'll be ready for our com conversation on student discipline okay see you all all in 30 minutes e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e good afternoon uh welcome back from our recess it is 11:57 so it's almost afternoon um Dr gallet would you like to introduce our next presenter as we go over student discipline absolutely thank you madam chair happy to do so a board um G to present Dr henbrook to kick off the conversation much discussed already a board at previous meetings on student discipline thank you good afternoon chair Conrad board members and Dr gullet today we have a team prepared to share some information related to student discipline presenters today are myself and attorney Blackman and we're going to tag team on various slides um so that we're sure to share uh specific information for you and we'll also take some time to hear from Mr Jones who's as you know is the principal of the Alternative Learning Program at MTI at a at a November special school board meeting um regarding student discipline some members of the board requested that a work session um be held to have a public conversation regarding student discipline but especially the recommendation for expulsions of students and so that is the purpose of the work session here today to provide that opportunity as requested so we wanted to start with sharing with you the overall process for recommendations for expulsion so that you really understood all of the intricate details that go forward um and the public understands that as well of the steps involved in the recommendation for expulsions so we're going to take time to go through each of these steps together we're going to outline and highlight um and provide Clarity for each of the steps and but also we'll talk about um where that starts it starts with the beginning of an infraction of that a student um might exhibit at a school setting um we're going to take all the way through that final decision and then through that process we're going to also help clarify um roles and responsibilities of those that are involved so the first um Step begins with um the school level is investigating a behavior infraction and so this begins when um a student haspl displayed some type of behavior the school staff um conducts their investigation into the behavior infraction and through this process they collect witness statements um they watch video if applicable or if available they review any physical evidence if there's uh evidence that's presented and they may also conduct a search if required if a search is required um the schools use a search checklist and they follow protocol that they've been trained on when conducting a search once they have the evidence and an understanding of of what exactly happened and then who was involved the school then refers to the code of student conduct to see which code that the behavior appropriately matches the infraction and do they have evidence to support that behavior infraction a school may also at times also call the student discipline office to brainstorm and discuss which codes might be the most appropriate for the given infraction and then the evidence that they have to support that we and during these conversations we always refer to the code of student conduct as specifically the definitions that are in our board approved code of student conduct um for these infractions um depending on the infraction a threat assessment may also be required and this is is it's very important to identify if needed any supports that a particular student might have but it's also important to conduct the threat assessment because some of our codes in the code of student conduct um the the outcome of the level of threat assessment plays a role in deciding between certain levels of some of our codes in our code of student conduct so at this point uh the school at this point May dis um start to consider possible consequences that they want to assign for a particular student but before they can even get to this step they have to then look to see if this student is part of the exceptional student education program or if the student has a 504 if either of those is true then the school first has to call a a manifestation determination meeting we often call that an MDR and the MDR team um meets to discuss uh the particular infraction and they review the students disability in their IEP um or their bip they look to see which services are provided in their individualized education program or their bip and they look to see was the behavior related to the students disability or uh they also look to see was the IEP fully implemented Ed was the bip fully implemented and that team at the school level makes the determination if the behavior that the student exhibited was related to the student disability or if the IEP or bip was not fully implemented they also look at that as well if the um Team decides that the student Behavior was not uh related to the student's disability then the school can at that point move forward to assigning consequences for that student's behavior um as mentioned earlier the school staff uh uses the code of student conduct to identify that specific code and infraction but they also use the code of student conduct to look at allowable consequences um by level so our code of student conduct has a list of allowable consequences for each level in of infraction and the schools use that as part of their decision-making Matrix we also have available for schools a progressive discipline Matrix for elementary and secondary students that schools also use uh when determining which consequences to assign to a student um we also have a progressive discipline Matrix for bus consequences as well so schools like I said use that Progressive discipline Matrix to help make their decision in the consequences and then how they want to move forward um ultim ultimately they take all of this into consideration uh the behavior infractions they consider the age of the student the situation previous history um the code and then they they may also again at that point reach out for additional guidance to the the school um discipline department or their principal supervisor and again anytime they they reach out we always reference them back to the code of student conduct and we take them back through that and make sure that everything is is aligned um in our current Board of uh approved code of student conduct all level four infractions and then some level three egregious codes have possible consequences of a recommendation for expulsion um a list of egregious offenses was created in the 2223 school year that we use as a guide so the second step is uh where the school submits a recommendation for an expulsion if that's their their decision to move forward with that so um the recommendation from a school to submit a recommendation for expulsion to the superintendent is in alignment with Florida statute uh 1000 6.09 this statute outlines the School principal's authority to recommend to the superintendent for the expulsion of any student who commits a serious breach of conduct so schools complete the packet for recommendation for expulsion and during this step uh the parent or Guardian is notified by the school that the school is making this recommendation the parent or Guardian receives a letter from the school principal stating that their student uh violated Schoolboard policy 5500 which is student conduct the letter outlines the violation or the behavior infraction code and then the consequences that the student is being given and then it also notifies the parent or Guardian that the school is pursuing a recommendation for exposion the E recommendation for exposion packet includes this letter to the parent and also it includes the letter from the school principal that's written to the superintendent or design making the recommendation for exposion uh again in this letter to the superintendent it again outlines that the student viol ated Schoolboard policy 5500 and it lists the infraction code also in the packet are several other documents uh that are included and I wanted to just share what schools might include and then the purpose of each document as well sorry how do I go back sorry so the recommendation for expulsion cover page is the first page of the packet and this just has some basic information regarding the student the infraction and then all the evidence that's included in the packet the next document is the placement recommendation form which includes additional details about the student including any other behavior infractions that the that might have occurred that particular school year and then also the principal's recommendation uh for uh placement which is today's conversation for recommendation for expulsion the next document in the packet is the executive summary document which summarizes the offense the incident date um and it and the details of that offense um also lists uh the witnesses that might have been present a copy of the referral of the infraction is included in the packet the schools include all the witness statements in the packet from all students and adults and through this process the schools verify that these witness statements are thoroughly completed and signed by the individuals um that either wrote the uh the statement or witnessed the student writing that statement if the student is an ESC student or has a 504 that MDR paperwork that I also spoke about is also included in this packet um and uh let's see so all of what I me mentioned is all in there there are additional supplemental materials that might also be included um it just depends on a given infraction or situation so um other potential supplemental documents might be photographs of evidence or screenshots of of of text messages uh screenshots of pictures um also might what might be included is maybe some drug screening paperwork or drug screening results and then if a threat assessment was included this might be a supplemental uh document as well so once the school compiles that expulsion uh the recommendation for exposion packet um the school sends all of those to the student discipline department and then the student discipline Department reviews that packet in its entirety to make sure that all of the required components and information is present in there the school discipline Department May request at times corrections to the packet which might be grammatical or might be missing some evidences or signatures and the purpose of this is to really make sure that all recommendations for packets um for recom recommendations for expulsions are clear and and they're complete uh for for this process the next step is the expulsion Review Committee so once a packet is complete the recommendation for expulsion is submitted to the expulsion Review Committee or what we call the ERC this committee has a standing meeting once a week and they review all recommendations of expulsions the ERC consists of members of the student discipline department members from mental health and wellness members from the exceptional student education depart personnel and also the District staff attorney is on that committee as well the committee reviews the infraction and ensures ures that the packet has evidence to support that infraction then they also refer back to the code of student conduct to make sure that the infraction that's listed meets the definition that is in our board approved code of student conduct they read all the witness statements the threat assessment paperwork if if submitted they read the executive summary they read the MDR and any other documents and evidence that are provided if uh if available they might even watch a video just to make sure that what was actually seen is what's being represented in the packet this team of people throughout this whole process uses the code of student conduct and the evidence presented to then decide if the packet the recommendation for expulsion should move forward we say that's approved or denied but we do know that the school board is the ultimate Authority in approving an expulsion but this Committee just looks to make sure does this particular packet and the evidence meet the code of student conduct so if the uh ERC decides that a recommendation for exposion meets that criteria then it moves to the next step of the process which is then the student discipline Department uses the decision-making Matrix so we take all the approved cases from the ERC and use that Des decision-making Matrix to determine if Educational Services should be provided this is where we use the term expulsions with or without services in addition to the decision-making Matrix the student discipline Department also uses recent decisions that Schoolboard members have made on other expulsion cases to determine if a student should receive um services or no services this school year we created this decision-making Matrix that we would be you that would be used um for students in determining whether a recommendation for exposion should be with or without Services these are the criteria that the team felt that these infractions were significant enough to pose a risk to students safety and learning at any school thus the focus here was to support all schools in establishing a safe learning environment for all students this information was shared with School principles in September and then another focus group was held in October school board members were briefed in early September that some cases um would be recommendations for expulsions without services and then in October we had the opportunity to share with Schoolboard members this specific criteria as well we've been using this decision-making Matrix since late August however as I mentioned recent recommendations for expulsions that have been changed um or adapted based on Schoolboard decisions we've you taken that into consideration as well for all future cases um that we were bringing forward um I want to just point out that the criteria on here does have that word egregious which again I mentioned that we do have a chart that was created in the past of of what cons what's considered egregious so we use that as a guide as well so the next step is um once we determined with or out services using that decision-making Matrix now the student discipline office communicates with schools and families the school uh discipline Department informs the school of the decision made by the ERC in this communication an email is sent to the school principal the APD and the IPC regarding the school's next steps in this process the email highlights that the student has not yet been expelled but the recommendation for expulsion will be going before the school board and in that email communication we include the date of that specific Schoolboard meeting where that recommendation for exposion will be heard we also um and ask the schools to notify the guardian at this point that the recommendation for expulsion will be moving forward to the school board meeting if the student is being recommended for exposion with services we immediately assign the student to the Alternative Learning Program at MTI the bay school is asked to go ahead and withdraw the student and enroll them in MTI we ask the student to notify the parent to um also report to MTI and then the Alternative Learning Program at MTI is also included in this email communication and we ask them to reach out to the guardian to schedule the intake meeting for that particular student to get them started in the Alternative Learning Program so that happens with this email communication um we also share with the base School in that email communication that virtual school is always an option and we include the phone number in that email communication uh for virtual school if the parent should ask when the school contacts the the guardian and notifies them that the expulsion is moving forward um so that they have that r available if the recommendation for exposion is without Services we send a similar email to the base school again we ask the school to notify the guardian that the student is being recommended for exposion to the school board and we provide again that specific meeting date in this email we tell the schools not to withdraw the student because the student is not officially expelled until the school board hears that case and makes a a ruling on that we also ask the school to continue to send work to the student so he or she can work from home and again that virtual school information is always an option and so we include that in that email as well so then the student discipline Department also uh does some additional communication with the family so we generate a letter to the parent or Guardian regarding that recommendation for exposion and in this this letter it contains information regarding the date the time the address where the school board uh will review and take action on the recommendation for expulsion we also include in that letter the educational placement during the expulsion we include uh if they're assigned to the Alternative Learning Program we include the address for MTI and the phone number um for and then the letter outlines to the parent that they have three options uh the three options uh includes one of those includes that there's no action so if the family doesn't plan on disputing the recommendation for expulsion that's included in there we include information about how to file due process if they want to dispute the facts of the case and they we also include how to file due process if they want to dispute the consequences and attorney blackmist is going to go into detail on all of that in just a little bit um in this letter as an attachment we include blank copies of the due process paperwork um and then there's also a summary that we create of the specific timelines that families have to meet regarding this whole process and in that summary of timeline it includes their deadline for um filing that due process paperwork so we send that letter to families using the address that's in Skyward and we send a copy certified mail we also send a second copy us uh Postal Service mail and then this letter um is also becomes part of that expulsion uh the recommendation for expulsion packet that we submit to the the board and so now we're going to take a little bit of time to understand that process for dispute thank you so as Dr henbrook just mentioned the parents have three options uh once they've been informed about the expulsion we'll start off with the the quickest and easiest option to explain which is they can do nothing if they do nothing the item comes before the board and the board votes on pretty simple they also have another option which is if they do want to contest it they have a decision to make whether they're going to contest the facts the consequences and that's the first decision that parent will need to make now you may be familiar with the consequences action a little more than the fact let's look at the consequences once a parent decides they want to dispute the consequences the item is heard by the board and the board votes on exposion so I want to go into a little more detail about this process and disputing the consequences In This Moment the board is sitting in its quasi judicial capacity I know it's a term you all are very familiar with and you've heard it many times before or for the sake of just reviewing it this is when you're sitting as a judge um think of the classic example of three branches of government uh the superintendent is executive the board handles a Judicial and legislative there's times when you're legislative rule there's times when you're in your judicial rule this is a Judicial rule the with judicial rule includes all the rules of court and this is why it's important we try to convey to the parents that even though it may not look like a courtroom the rules still apply including items like expart communication we cannot communicate with the board on what we intend on presenting uh if we communicate with the board at all about upcoming cases we of course have to include or we should include the whole board but Additionally the other party the parent must also be included in all communication and that of course goes the same with the parents if they communicate with the board they have to include operations as well in that communication additionally uh one of the things that may be a bit different in a quity Judicial setting is the judges have to rely on the evidence presented by the litigants by the parties uh more legislative capacity you can do your own research you can investigate these cause judicial capacities they tend to be a bit more limiting you have to rely on the evidence as presented now of course the board's heard this many times before but the parties are not able to contest the facts they've agreed by going this route they've agreed the facts are the facts and they don't want to disc they don't want to debate those they're only they're only arguing about the consequences and the board will decide in light of the facts in light of the um student phot conduct is the consequence appropriate and what we've noticed in some rulings by the board is that each one of you kind of used maybe a certain way that you decide what's appropriate or not appropriate for adjusting the consequence and you've articulated each one of you some of you different times have articulated what you look to in making these determinations and that's one of the reasons why we're here today as well you you kind of want to try to get your guidance now it's a bit of a preview we're going to have that discussion in a bit but I like like deci of um preview things before we get to them now as you can see one of the questions that will be presented to the board is does the board want to provide written guidance on what it looks for when a parent disputes its consequences and of course if you do we'll make sure the parents have it we'll have it as well and we'll both be on the same page but that's something currently the board uses kind of its own guiding think principles uh which is completely appropriate nothing wrong with that but the board could also choose to go a different route and Present written um items on what they're looking for as well either one's appropriate but we just kind of want to get some clarity on that in a little bit that's disputing the consequence and now I want to talk about the most complicated one of the bunch the one you're probably a little bit less familiar with which is when a case goes to DOA when a parent decides to dispute facts when they dispute the facts I'll go over a quick overview then I'll go into more detail is a case is referred to do the division Administrative Hearings they will then make determinations then either party either the parent or the superintendent can bring before the board a disagree with the judge's uh decision and the board once again will need to vote on that matter so let's talk about that in a little more detail as I said DOA is a division of administrative hearings and they will hear the case and whenever someone asks what is DOA that's a common question you get asked I always explain it's cored it's regular court it's Court just as you would see it on TV except it might be virtual but there's pre or there's litigation um motions uh there may be depositions there may be interrogatories there's many things that could happen during this time that can be a very time-consuming process so just as you would have in court uh this uh many things that may occur as far as figuring out what's allowed to come in what's not and all the things that happen with court that happens with DOA as well it's a very timec consuming process now DOA will make two types of findings and this is kind of important to understand when they make their decisions they're going to have factual findings and they're going to make legal findings as well and it's important because depending on what findings they make will depend on how it comes back to you when the judge makes factual findings those findings are supposed to be given difference you're supposed to kind of give those things the benefit of the doubt so to speak and at that point uh those items if someone complains about the facts I'll give you an example the facts might be um Johnny had a vape and he shared it with his friends the judge can find that Johnny had a vape and shared it with his friends if the parent disagrees with that and comes back before the board you're supposed to give those facts a lot of difference and say well the judge heard the facts we got to kind of let him or her make that decision in certain circumstances you can overturn facts but we won't get into that today now they also make legal conclusions and recommendations yes Johnny had the Vape and shared it with his friends that' be the facts the the legal conclusions would be this violates the student code of conduct and I believe expulsion is appropriate those second things are legal conclusions and when those get brought back to the board the board is free to accept or ignore the judges rulings on those items because those are uniquely held within the board's purview and so those items if either the parent or um or the operation disagrees with the judge's ruling can bring those back for the uh board to make a final decision on and you'll end up in a very similar style hearing as you may have had under the consequence Hearing in what you're very familiar with and so that would be when we dispute the facts now what you can see here I'm sorry the facts or and or legal conclusions and recommendations and as you can see no matter how we go through this process they all end up back with the board for a final vote it's always the board has the final Authority and the final uh ability uh it's vested with the board to make a decision on expulsions uh some ways are get there a little quicker than others but they all end up back here and and that it back over to Dr so the student discipline Department conducted a review of the code of student conduct of neighboring school districts just to give you a little bit of background about what our neighbors do um the districts that we um were able to review their code of student conduct and in some cases we were able to make contact with individuals in within the districts those um those districts are represented on the slide here here for you so we wanted to talk about how these school districts make decisions on the consequences assigned to students and we also looked at how they how they make recommendations for expulsions and then um on whether or not those students receive services so all the school districts um provide for discretion to schools when determining consequences and so the consequences vary um it could be in school suspension it could be remove removal from a program it could be um out of school suspension it could be removal from an athletic team um all all of those are possible consequences but again in the code of student conducts that we reviewed the schools have the discretion to choose from those possible consequences um they also are in in the code of student conducts that we reviewed uh principles are encouraged um to consider a variety of factors when determining um which consequence that they assign so that could be the age the back the uh the background of um referrals or behavior infractions it could be the specific um evidence or situation um acha Levy Sumpter and Lake in their student in their codes of student conducts they have discipline levels that are outlined just like we do um all districts have definitions of the behavior infraction and those are either in the co within the code of student conduct or it's a separate glossery um there's no District except us that outlines the specific codes um so for instance in our code of student conduct um we have specific disciplinary codes for each level um you could find those on pages 35 and 38 of our code of student conduct Alachua Levy Sumter and Lake they have an outline of levels of behaviors and then under that they just have a list of potential behaviors that might fall under this um in some examples of the codes of student conducts that we were that we reviewed there are some behavior infractions that might fall under a level four and a level three or under a level one and a level two it just depends on the varying level of degree of that particular infraction um so for example disrespect that's on under multiple levels right it just depends on the level of disrespect same thing with um I think threats was another one that I found it depend on the degree and the level of threat that you might find that under separate levels the other thing we wanted to make sure that we brought forward to you just so you know is um the conversation about the um the drug in distribution versus intent to sell and just for your information the other districts that we reviewed do not separate those two um for so in other other words their code of student conduct has drug distribution as in as distribution or intent to sell so this chart just kind of tried to summarize how they move forward with recommendations for expulsions and what do they do so I'm going to go um line by line obviously we know ours so I'll we'll just move on to alacha here so um the big thing with the laua is um their level ones are our level fours so just keep that in mind they're they're the only District that does that one differently so their most egregious offenses are the level ones um so um uh all of the origination for recommendations for expulsions for all of these districts including alacha comes from the school and I I believe that that's because of that statute that I referenced that statute gives the school the authority to make that recommendation for expulsion um a level one violence in lachua against School personnel the principal will recommend expulsions um they do have um an opportunity for with or without Services they also have an alternative learning site where they might alternatively place or in some cases a certain expulsion uh a certain student that's recommended for expulsion might also go to that alternative site this decision is made by a district team so they evaluate each case and they look at all of the crit criteria um and then they consider those recommendations for expulsions and whether or not they would assign services or no Services the time frame of their exposion is um up to one full Academic Year um Citrus again that recommendation still does come from the school um it this is a they do more of a a case by casee um review as well so they have a district person that reviews reviews all of those recommendation for expulsions to determine if a if a student would receive services or no Services um the second expellable Offense for citrus is without Services um I was able to find that information out as well uh Lake County uh again the school principals recommend that expulsion um there's also again a district team or assistant superintendent is involved in that to review each of those cases um to determine if they assign services or no services on the chart you'll see for Lake it says with Services um they actually have 50 seats um in their virtual program that are reserved for expulsion so um they don't necessarily use the terms with or without Services although in their code of student conduct you can see that it says with continuing or without continuing Educational Services but what they do is um all of their their their language says that all students receive services but some students are not allowed and brick-and mortar and those those particular students are put um online for for for Lake um all of their level fours I'm sorry their level fours are the only um infractions that can be recommended for expulsion um and then um all of their any student that is arrested for a particular infraction they are immediately placed online for during that recommendation for expulsion um Levy has um uh so all of their so their level four offenses um can be a recommendation for expulsion for all students except kindergarten through third grade um again schools can can choose a variety of discipline consequences in their code of student conduct um while uh the recommendation for expulsion is going forward in Levy County the school places that student in an oncampus separate location during that whole process um and then um schools May in Levy according to their code of student conduct recommend a student be expelled for some level three offenses as well and in sump uh the recommendations um if if the ACT is egregious enough to Warrant a recommendation for expulsion um those are typically level two level fours and some level three offenses in in Sumpter as well if it's an if it has an arrest it can be an expellable offense a level four offense without an arrest um in Sumpter is placed in an alternative setting and then some level 3es with an arrest are also placed in their um uh in their alternative placement setting so as we know principal Jones has incorporated Alternative Learning at Maran Technical Institute and he works really hard to establish uh strong routines and procedures um and the climate necessary for students in the Alternative Learning to be successful and so we wanted to have an opportunity for him to share with you um what that looks like for Alternative Learning at Marian um Technical Institute so I'm going to turn this over now principal Jones good afternoon good afternoon Mr Jones I wanted to take an opportunity since we're here in the second um semester to let's talk about what we did first semester at Maring Tech Institute um the first quarter we started up setting up a framework and procedures to put in place for the students uh we continue in our staffing um and and increased our staffing making sure that we have the proper Personnel on file which is continuing and ongoing we had our U Learning experiences just like any new program we had some items that we had to adjust and we learned on the Fly example we changed our cell phone policy where we went to no cell phone polic um no cell phone at all on campus uh we changed our dismissal procedures we change our transition but that's all part of the growing process as a new school and new alternative program to Maran County so we make our judgments as we went along we're here in the second um second semester so we want to go further in our program we need to talk to the students and have different programs where the students can learn how to deal with some of the um issues they brought there their social skills being able to have better decision making skills so we have partner with some community members um sub notable um of mayor marianao uh Rondo and the Army neighbor recruiters to bring on our campus to have those conversations with the students who're going to continue partnering with Community making sure that we give the students access to give them the opportunity to show that they can be um they they know how to do the right thing and if we don't give them that exposure or give them the opportunity to show that they can do the right thing then um it's it's we're just there and we're not um really being um productive for the students one of the things that we are not compromising on is academics we have to make sure those students continue with their academics because they're eventually going to go back to their base school and we need those students to graduate so of all the things that we have one of the things that we do not compromise the MTI academics every student should have the ability to come to school and get an education no matter what site they're at including MTI so with that being said students that do not come to MTI and focus on academics we do have consequences that we give them and unfortunately um it's our society we will have some students that just will not do what they're supposed to be doing and then we have to go um do some other things for those students however we should not have a student who really wants to um concentrate on their academics make amends for the decision that they made suffer because other students not want to focus onics so that's some of the things that we are um are definitely not compromising on we're making sure that we are giving everyone the opportunity to do better giving everyone the skills to make sure that um we're helping them do better because if we don't you know we're in education so far we have to educate them how to make better decisions so those are some of the things that we have implemented here um at MTI we're looking to have some um different opportunities um the first um semester we've sent a lot of students back to their Bas school and I am proud to say that we sent a lot of students back in their base school with their credits we got a lot of the 8.5 students call 8.5 but um those students are now going to high school you know so now we we got them enough high school so we are trying to make sure that academic stay in the Forefront but also teaching the kids that um improve how to improve on their um their skills and I also want to go ahead and publicly thank the community who has supported us and come out and and help us to try to take our program to the next level and give students the different opportunities to improve on their uh problem solving skills decision making and S thank you thank you principal Jones so at this time we want to begin the discussion portion but before I do I want to let you know that um I I know in a previous special school board meeting I believe it was that that we were looking for the online code of student conduct we have the interactive one which is ADA Compliant um we are we've been working with technology to make sure that the pdf version can also be ADA Compliant it is now online for you so if you want to use that during your discussion you're you're you're available to do that it's under the parents tab for you um it's it it's not a PDF um but for the future we'll make our PDF uh ad ad compliant but this time we just had to convert it which is why we it took a little while to get it up there we had we had been working with technology on that though so it's not a PDF but it is on there for you and it is searchable so um so as I mentioned we want to begin our discussion um we welcome your feedback and input about how to make decisions on recommendations for expulsions with or without Services we want to ensure that we are all on the same page regarding this topic and that we are making recommendations um that Schoolboard members can support additionally we want to make sure that all decisions are in alignment and um with our current uh board approved code of student conduct and we also want to make sure that whatever decisions we make are always in the best interest of all students on school campuses um and so as I mentioned we're we're ready to move forward in that uh discussion but we have we have three questions that we wanted to share with you to start off that conversation um on on the screen we posed uh a few questions that might help uh beginning this discussion but essentially these are questions that we would really like to get consensus from the school board so that we can move forward together um we'd like to get consensus and Clarity so the first question that we have is um does the school board want to expel with or without Services um if so then we we ask you to have conversations today um on the next two questions if if the board decides that we don't want to move forward without Services then the next two questions are are really irrelevant but if the board does decide that in some cases um expelling students without Services is appropriate then what we would ask is that um if if that's the case what criteria should be applied to determine without services does the board um want to consider the infractions or the level of infractions um Are there specific mitigating factors that you uh want considered sorry may I interrupt Madam chair I was asking if we could get the there we go questions back up so we could could follow sorry I missed that c no no no you didn't miss anything I was looking at the team thank you so now the questions are in front of you I think on on the slide yes okay thank you sorry Dr h no that's okay so essentially these are the the questions that we would really like to get answered today um um and so as I as I said if the school board decides that in some cases um some students would be expelled without Services then we would like to know what is that criteria that you would like us to apply that decision towards um are there mitigating factors cons age uh the situation um academic progress what are those mitigating factors that you would like us to consider in making those uh decisions um and then the next question will be who would you like to decide if a student should be expelled with or without services does the board want to hear each case and then as a Judicial party make that determination with or without Services um and that could be where each case is presented to the Schoolboard members um and then you all would make that determination um or does the board want to go ahead and leave this uh with the the school district team um as it's currently operating um to help make that recommendation with or without services so these are three of the important questions um that we'd like uh to know so that we can move forward um with making these recommendations and there's one additional question that I'm going to go ahead and let attorney Blackman elaborate on but I think he gave you a preview got a little preview on this one but um so the first three three questions are about services or without Services the last question is really about what do you want to look what what what are you looking for when it comes to deciding if a consequence should be adjusted so we have situations where uh we have recommended exposion and come before the board are there certain things is it code based is it um age-based is it what what are the things you're looking for once again you don't have to provide that but if you do want to provide some written guidance that can be provided to the other parties as well so they gr all on the same page and we come before the board um otherwise we can keep doing what we are doing which I do believe is completely appropriate but at sometimes it can be difficult for us to know what exactly the board is look so that's the final question thank you um very very quickly um Dr henbrook if you wouldn't mind restating I know you stated at the beginning if you will restate um when we say without services for the Public's public to know um what that means because it was for a while confusing even to the board so if you would just restate that for the public so without Services means that they cannot attend a brick-and mortar one of our Maring County Public Schools however Virtual School uh Maran Virtual School Florida Virtual School home school is still an option um at times a private school might accept a student as well thank you I appreciate that at this time I'd like to go let give each board member the opportunity um to provide input uh would anyone like to kick us off I don't okay so please lead us Dr James um okay I have a few different notes but I guess maybe I'll start with slide eight which is the um the acts that the recommendation The Matrix so slide nine sorry I was looking at the top of the page not the bottom slide nine is the decision making Matrix for exps without Services yes this board member is not going to feel comfortable with this decision Mak Matrix until it is directly tied to the code of conduct codes so right now we say egregious acts which results in a major class campus disruption what code is that in the code of conduct and so until the code of conduct for this board member until it says this code gets you with expulsion without services and then egregious act which staff or students are injured so we if that means we have to add an additional code to um injuries or fight and we and we add that additionally then that's what we need to do but egregious is we're we are deciding what is egregious and what is not egregious it's very thank you that was the word I was looking for it is subjective and I and the reason I have not voted on these since probably after the first meeting and I will continue to not vote is I do believe we are putting ourselves in a legal liability and that is my personal belief that I've had with multiple lawyers so until we have it crystal clear so that our subjectivity is not a part of the decision making and it is in policy based on our code of conduct I will continue to feel uncomfortable so my first request would be that this decision-making Matrix is is written in the code of conduct that each of these that are egregious has code attached to it and that code is the code that is put on the discipline offense um I can stop there and we can talk about that if you want shair or I can go through what what would you prefer um does anybody have any comment in addition to that particular topic go ahead so I agree that we need to get to the point perhaps we make without Services level fives in our 25 26 code of student conduct perhaps so I agree with the thought process of making that be future policy for the board if we so agree today that we are going to continue at all without services so I would I would agree with that however I also understand that the purpose of this work session is to determine if we even want to go in this direction and there have been plenty of other things that this board has done on just a consensus basis in a work session that doesn't require us to actually change written policy but can become policy of the Day based on consensus so I agree moving forward 2526 yes let's write it let's get it in there if we're moving forward in that direction but I also can agree if we come to consensus today on whatever this looks like that I'm okay with today being the Line in the Sand we move forward from today on um understanding that as we go into code of student conduct review and approval it will then become actual written policy as well yes thank you I I think we first need to go back to question one is do we want to do this or not and get consensus from the board on that sure I mean that's most best use of our time certainly board want to expel without service there I'm there um while there are some situations that I feel that warrant a kid not be back on um we had one a few weeks ago they should not be back on campus I don't think that you just write a kid off and say no Services meaning you don't offer anything whether that be virtual or something I think that there has to be some we're in the education business and so when we put these kids out especially we put them out in their Elementary we're saying no Services what are they what are they going to get we're basically writing this kid off and saying that they don't have any there there was nothing that we can do nothing that we can offer that's going to help them academic so I I'm not for without Services just shutting the door I don't agree with that can I can I make the observation that I've heard the board ask on a few occasions this come up um because there's some confusion regard about regarding with or without Services um and from what I'm gathering Mr coming saying right now um there may be a further distinction to be made so I'll just throw it out there let you discuss off-campus versus on campus right what what um was referred to earlier as brick and mortar versus not so someone can certainly be provided with services without being on a brick and mortar campus and without setting foot on Maring County Schools property so those may be valid distinctions that you want to explore and may not it's up to you and then your perview as a board to discuss with operations today well and and to that point I I think that there are instances definitely where I do not want those students to be around other students for a period of time and I realize and understand that without Services means they could still choose a plethora of options but then if that is the case and they can choose marry virtual why are we expelling them without Services why are we not keeping them to ensure that they are doing what they need to do academically to get because they're going to come back to us unless they're 17 and decide to drop out they're going to come back to us and they're going to just be in a bigger hole than they were when they started so I don't know why it is not with services online or with services on campus and on campus is at MTI and off- campus is on Maran virtual um I I do think there are instances that don't need face- to-face interaction absolutely but I don't I I I mean they're completely writing a child off is is hard for me yes so in response to that I completely agree with needing to provide a virtual option for students that we would consider needing to be expelled in off-campus capacity Maran virtual school is not set up for us to be able to put a student in there in October correct and we can't just automatically enroll them in uh what's the platform we use for credit recovery uity Edgenuity thank you if that's the option and we could put them in an online atome Edgenuity then that would be an option but the way Maran virtual is set up it is not set up for us to be able to put a kid in there it is semester based and even Florida virtual is a little better but it's still not there's quarter base correct there's qu have to finish the work you got to start over right so um I don't maybe she has a respond to that so if I can share now um uh late breaking news right before the winter break we were able to secure signatures on an addendum to the scope of work with imagine learning and we can do online Edgenuity at home with a certified teacher we we're working on that scope of work it took some time but we got it done so the certified teacher would essentially be operating like a Mari and virtual teacher where they're um overseeing the work being done but still the student is at home and never talking or never actually being in the presence of the teacher cannot be on campus yes okay that's that's what I we're both we're both leaning forward sorry and go so um thank you attorney P um Madam chair members of the board I just want to be careful not to mix language um into different models I heard marry and virtual just there's an online option that we've been working on it's not marry and virtual school so I just don't want to cause any confusion as we Define this together today and so and if I may add I'm sorry turn that that's that that's point if I if I may add they still have to be enrolled in an in a school code entity in order for us to online enroll them which we can do that through Mt the Alternative Learning Program and use the MTI entity code so and then their schedule reflect reflects the online platform so yes so there'll be a they'll we'll do a review a review of their courses and so forth if they're already in Credit Recovery let's say at Bas school then we'll that just kind of transfers over which is nice and easy for them so technically so then technically there would not be an exposion without Services there would be an exposion with services without being campus services on campus and what services not on campus yes if I may I I I I'm hearing the same questions and I think it goes back to how you ever you want to Define it it's the Nuance of how you define with or without Services how Dr hrg I heard defin it earlier was without Services outside of brick and mortar and I hear the board still leaning on the services so I think we're saying the same thing it's just the Nuance of how you're defining with or without services so I think we Define that I think that's the important part today I disagree with yeah what do you disagree with I think when we say without Services we are very blatantly extending the parent an opportunity to do a whole plethora of things that are not at Maring County Public Schools now parents always have choice they could do home school they could do a variety of things but when we do without Services we're we're like cutting those ties that is 100% the perception and so if it was an exposion with services off campus or online then we are still taking full responsibility for that child that is the perception in my opinion that we haven't released control mhm of what when they enter I see what you're saying they back into school we have had some say in their coursework while they have been not on a king why they've not been on correct correct and there's still our student and they will be when they come back they will be I know Miss Thor went weigh in but I have a recommend th has been waiting thank you board member thrower thank you um BR you reference Lake County they had alternative placement alternative site online platform which that in itself is a tiny bit confusing because does that mean that their alternative site is at home online no no ma'am they have an alternative school where for some level 3es and some level fours they would assign a student to that Alternative Program very similar to to what we have right um but there are certain cases or um certain infractions that they feel that the student should not be physically brick and mortar or uh the way that was explained to me when I spoke to the representative from Lake if you have two students in involved in the same altercation um they might decide that one goes in the online platform and one comes brick and mortar but their online platform is they Reserve 50 seats of their virtual school for this purpose so regardless they they are in brick and mortar somewhere some of them yes are any of them at home doing the online platform yes okay depends on the instance and the the district team determines that okay and maybe this is just how I think of it to me an expulsion means you're gone so I think that an alternative placement with virtual instruction at home or some other definition I think that once once a parent hears that their students been expell expelled it becomes very muddy to say well you're expelled but not really because you can now wait what if you finish well I'm just trying to think through you know what this really is I I 100% agree that expelling a student to me the only a pure expulsion would be because a kid went to to jail and and we can't reach them anyway and I guess they' be getting education there right but they're incarcerated and their attendance is 100% so hopefully they're learning something um our concern is is that we're letting them out into the Wilderness and even though they could go online they're not and and nobody's following that right so are we kind of in agreement as a board that we want to offer this uh virtual instruction um as as part as you know Ingenuity and just have it their their location is going to be at home right yeah wherever they would like to tag on to that so I wanted you to finish your thought process but here's what I wrote down instead of us even having a vote to expel with Services which has always been the language we've used ever since I've been a board member it's expelled with services for this number of time and whatever which it's also interesting to me that several of these are not for the length of time that we are so that that's also interesting to me we can talk about that at another time but what I wrote down is instead of doing with or without services that we would begin to start saying ex expulsion to oncampus Alternative Learning or expulsion to Virtual Alternative Learning so we that that that's an option exposion to Virtual learning though we'd have to clarify because we wouldn't want to say that it's Mar and virtual no I didn't say that so we what what about um something like expulsion with administrative placement but that still doesn't about supported virtual instru no it's okay it's let's just name the uity program what's it called virtual Alternative Learning is what it is so it's uity but we also offer uity uh at the Alternative Learning Program at MTI but what I'm saying is if we are going to enroll Expo expel students into this uity platform and their schedule because the only difference and this I'm just putting on my administrator hat and maybe Mr Jones wants to come up and provide his intake but the only difference is going to be their schedule instead of in person changing classes is going to be that it's virtual those students are going to be under the MTI School number and they are going to be enrolled students at MTI the only difference is their schedule is completely online and there would be some Behavior contract and or stipulation of their expulsion that indicates that they're not allowed to come on campus but the home that they're living in is MTI uh Mar and what we call m whatever alternative alternative Lear right alternative Lear is what I just said correct because the nuances of their schedule is where so we could do expulsion with altern virtual Alternative Learning which is exactly what I said sorry I'm it's okay I think you said a couple I I missed that one Dr even even with that though Dr Campbell we need to specifically say off campus no exactly so I'll read again what I what I said expulsion to oncampus Alternative Learning okay or expulsion to Virtual Alternative Learning if you add off campus to that second one I'd be okay okay so off campus virtual alternative L okay it's very clear very clear yeah cuz then there's no ambiguity with that is if we're talking about including this in the code of student conduct parents are supposed to be reading they should be able to understand it right right what the implications really are very clearly I think that was pretty clear I still think if well if we'd like to are we all in agreement on that language choice or three of us in agreement at least on that language Choice yes go from without services to these two options yes but I still think we then need to I still go back to my first statement which isre the code needs to dictate the virtual or the inperson Alternative Learning because the code it's it's still very subjective and so until the code is reflected for instance one of the egregious items on slide eight is sale or distribution of a legal substance so let's just talk a hypothetical that some of us may not know may know is not hypothetical if a fifth grader sells a pot brownie to another fifth grader are they getting uh expelled to Virtual learning only or whatever we're calling it so uity is only six through 12 so any K5 and I should have prefered that and I apologize K5 this isn't an option for K5 that sounds wonderful for me because I am in complete disagreement with a Elementary age student not receiving face-to-face Services because if I'm being honest if a theoretical fifth grader brought a pop brownie to school their parents should be the ones getting a consequence and going to jail for that not the student because they are in fifth grade so this board member would be in complete disalignment with doing anything without face-to-face services for elementary age students and if that means they need to be in the most restrictive of environments and we need to create a more restrictive environment to ensure everyone's safety then that's what we need to create but I do not want to see K5 students not receiving face Toof face Services Dr Dr James if if a fifth grader fourth grader brings a gun to school they need to be they don't need to be on campus agreed there are special circumstan there are some circumstances that I would not want that kid especially depending on where they come from their background there there are some instances well then the Board needs to have a discussion about what that looks like because this plan we just created would not be available because it's only available for 612 cuz in the instance if if that were to happen and number one that kid would get arrested pretty much am I right attorney yes so they would they would be under the penal the criminal so if they went to DJJ they would be getting services in DJJ yes we'd still be providing them we be them but there's no there's no guarantee though that they become like incarcerated within and I'm using those air quotes within DJJ if they or is there I mean is that an automatic I'm I'm asking you from your law enforcement piece of what you used to do from the court system but is that an automatic if it if Elementary School student did something like that that they would no no it's not so then there's still an opportun there may be an arrest there may or may might not be charges which are further pursued right um but generally there would be some sort of alternative um placement there would usually be a res residential program or something of that nature but that would be extremely Case by case right even within the Juvenile Justice System that's quite young right what they do right now is when a student is arrested they um they do an intake form and look at a variety of different criteria mitigating factors and they determine that students's level of risk and some students are released to their parents some are released with monitoring devices some are staying um that's that's the process that they currently take so we wouldn't know for sure well then we would if Mr refer cumming's desire is warranted by the board then we need to have a third option there has to be another option for I would be comfortable it it would be my hope that it's not now in in the past we had two um we had a Elementary and a uh and a secondary code of student conduct two separate packs of policies now my understanding is now that they've been coales that there there's still two because the statute requires us but they're they're identical right um not to NE unnecessarily create work but there is a you know there is always uh the possib of reepa those out as to that particular item so that you could have a Elementary code of conduct which was treated entirely differently than a secondary student code of conduct well and I I mean I brought up sale and distribution of illegal substances but that just that item alone that entire umbrella to me has has varying depths and I don't think that every sale should require an expulsion without I'm just going to go back to the old language just for the purposes of the conversation if that's okay I don't think they should all be expulsion without Services there's there's a one on the packet for next Tuesday it was it was simply sharing a vape and so um I don't I don't think a I don't think exchanging a vape with THC in it should be an exposion without Services if there's no prior drug offense um that and that's maybe just my personal feeling on it but to take a child who made one p choice now if we've seen others that are big big baggies full stuff entrepreneurial efforts that's a different that in my brain that's a totally different bucket than I handed my friend a vape that had THC in it and so this sale and distribution of a legal substance to me is not clear for to be in both to be only in exclusively one bucket exposion without services or for only virtual learning like and and until the code reflects a variety of different types of language and is clear I'm not going to be able to to say that that's where I want it to land and one of those factors for me is firsttime offense so when you asked us about you know what where do we draw the line it's very difficult for me as a board member when they have not made one mistake in 14 or 15 years in their educational career and they have passed a vape or whatever that is that that to me allows consideration that that's one of the the factors that's a dis let me just clarify that didn't mean no punishment there's not any punishment you're saying take in consideration dis just means not exposion without Services yes something that um it seems like we hear from families over and over again is it moves into the discussion about for how long they're okay with their child being punished but it's the amount of time you know the rest of the school year in the first and second quarter and we've done a really good job of encouraging and you guys have done a really good job of sharing about um early re-entry um as an option um getting back to the The Vape situation uh I think about things like that you know I'll say it again you know fentel is the game changer you hand some a kid of eight and they think they're hitting THC and then they drop right there it becomes a whole another ball game and if the kid survives um should they be expelled you know and with without services and if so you know for for how long um if it's just ends up being THC and everybody's fine this is where the Quai judicial thing comes in because I would be for saying in the code of student conduct level three or level four offense we could add a level five I guess that would just be like a gun or something you know that that you are at risk you're at risk in the quaza judicial capacity of the board of earning yourself some significant time out of school no matter how old you are what are our teachers and our schools complaining about Behavior what are the stakes now it's not like the old days where somebody hand somebody a joint more than likely that's what it is now you're talking life and death and I just don't want to give the perception to the public that we want to get rid of these kids completely but there has to be something that the parent knows about ahead of time that this could really happen and to me that's one of the hardest things about sitting on this school board we I think according to what I know chapter 112 turning Powers you know we are required to vote every single one of us we can't just say we don't like this so we're not going to vote so I am all for trying to continue to tighten this up because compared to what I've seen in the past you know we've come a long way and you guys are doing a y's job and I think what my struggle is is that I don't want to see any kid go so and I especially don't want to see a kid go for so long I would rather hit him hard give them some services off campus with a yes with a component of how to do it better next time you know and get them back into their instruction support attorney point I was going to bring up one additional Point as you're thinking about um the student code of conduct and obviously we have the Committees that are Comm week soon is a statute requires us to have the student code of conduct be written in a language that's easy to and so that's one thing not saying it's becoming too complicated but I do want to caution that if we start adding a bunch of extra layers and extra things there it begins perhaps to make it more difficult for people to understand it's already a pretty long document as it is I think as you're all aware we all use contr f to navigate around it um but that's something important to remember as you're considering these things when a parent picks it up and they read it do they really understand what's happening thank you any further comment from the board I mean yeah I don't feel Campell yeah just just as a comment to that two things I wrote down early in this presentation that are not related to what we were talking about right now with our questions the school level decision and I'm I'm not I'm just making statements at this point I believe we all would agree or if not I'm the only one who feels this way some packets come before US based on tolerance level of administrations at certain schools yes so when we have school-based decisions being made what training is being provided and or leveling the playing field requirements being done at the district level to say the district has this tolerance level and it doesn't matter how you feel or what your relationship is with that student's family or whatever the reason that the tolerance level is being adjusted based on the school that if we're having an overall disciplined discussion that continues to be something that I struggle with because we all know that certain schools send things differently than other schools and it's just based on the tolerance level of the school Andor Administration so at some point that needs to be be addressed and I don't know if that's an attorney Blackman thing or I we are trying to do the best we can to ensure that we set forth the expectations within the code of student conduct for sure and there are things that I mean we had to write into the code this past year I'm gonna look at Dr hurg she knows we to write into the code because what would have been completely unacceptable at one school was kind of given a slap on the wrist by another that actually was the one that was putting it before us so we had to write it into the code because of that level of Tolerance that should have there's there's just a anyway that continues to be an issue I struggle with because then are we putting people in positions where they're making subjective decisions that frankly should be before us way more often than we're even seeing them or those that we are seeing a lot and we're sitting here going yeah that's the first offense why is that coming for us so that that's something I continue to struggle with and since you kind of said something attorney Blackman it just triggered my very first thing I wrote down on and Dr caml Madam chair I'm with you Dr Campell on that because what I see and I've said it before schools should have some discretion I've said it over and over again however I don't want that uh I I've always viewed that once it got to the district the district the Department discipline Department should be the reviewing Authority and they should determine whether or not we need to move this on or we need to send it back to the school what I've been seeing is not that I've seen that they're saying well since the principal sent it we're going to car at forward that's not a reviewing Authority that's just passing it pass it on because the principal say so if if the district level is going to be the true reviewing Authority then there has to be consistency all the way across the board period that's what you're saying it is in addition to some schools will send something forth right that another school wouldn't wouldn't and so I think there's potentially even some things out there that mirror what we see there has to be a training there has to be training right so there there are potentially other schools seeing the same offenses that some schools are putting those students in Alternative Learning Andor expulsion but another school has a tolerance level that they're not even sending those forth to the district and that's in addition to what you said we see both sides of that that the district is is sending them on to us for consideration uh even when we might not think that they should be and or some schools not even submitting them yes this is age- old you know we've been we're working with with humans and as much as we want to try to be as Fair as possible I think that all of us sitting up here remember uh babysitters teachers principes oh this one doesn't play you know in kids language these days you know she don't play and others you get away with more you know so there's some reality here that we have to confront with that my biggest concern is making sure that we're very clear on on what we will and will not tolerate and the risks that that students are running and families are running by engaging in these behaviors because it's become so rampant and and dangerous the stakes are so high we have a 12-year-old sitting in jail still I believe from a very terrible thing that happened a couple of years ago so I I wish that we could say okay well for every code this this is what's going to happen but there's also circumstances within that code every case even within the same in even within the same event um is individualized in a lot of way so to try to bring it to some level I I again I feel like forewarned is forearmed that if they're from what I've listened to in the review views of other counties it sounds to me like level three and level four it could happen to you depending on the rest of the circumstances so at the very least I would think that the board would be wanting to consider writing that into the Cod let's make it as real as possible as to to what could possibly happen you know um something but but not limited to if it's a first offense okay you know that might be a different different different decision for the board it's just a consideration yeah but then where is that Matrix because that Matrix should be embedded in the code of conduct we have multiple decision tree matrixes in the code of conduct we have one for uh drug offenses right and so and by the way I don't know where the code of conduct is but I can't find it it says interactive it's not here so I don't know PDF is it's not a PDF it's a single long page that's I was trying to says interact it's not it's not the word is it's under the parents Tab and then it's phrased interactive it's in the eyes not in the C's and rather than being a single document I believe it's now a bunch of hyperlinks based on based on individual like if you know the section you can't just search we should have it one single long section last I looked and I didn't look today and this is why I know I even if it's there if I can't find it a parent who's overwhelmed working three jobs and her kid might just be getting expelled there's no way she's finding it and so it's it should not be this complicated to find this document um because I feel like I'm pretty with it and I can't find it so um so my point is in the code of conduct there is a drug offense Matrix and it says first offense second offense third offense it is very crystal clear and then it's basically that's for possession and then sale you don't get the Matrix you just get expulsion sale and distribution yes sale and distribution so the Matrix already exists for drug possession um and I what I hear the rest of the board asking is for a decision tree Matrix to be added for other similar offenses so that when it is the first time offense it is clear what the consequence is versus second offense or third offense Etc and for drugs it's not just the first offense in their whole life in Skyward it's their first drug offense and so I think we need to be clear about that that drug decision tree is based on prior drug offenses not any offense um which is maybe not exactly what you were thinking chair Conrad so I want to make sure that what your thought is is captured because are you saying first offense ever in history or first first like offense well I I only have what's an example for what's come before us and there really is a a big split we either get something comes before us and they have 161 referrals before they've come to us with this if it's a drug offense or whatever or they have none and so for me it would depend you know you're going to reach a certain level and of the offense and you can't in my opinion that can't your first offense is not going to be not have impact but for all the other things it would and I'd have to well mam chair yes can I can I interject on that one we' had one just a few weeks ago that was the first offense um however we all stated that he did not need to be on campus because his entrepreneurial was a first offense and it was of Maran County because they came from a different yes County so I think when we look at these we we we can't just say First Defense right and that's what I'm saying too there's there's got when you reach the highest you know the higher levels that which goes back to egregious right it does go back to which goes back to slide eight which is egregious and so then let's define what entrepreneurship looks like I guess that's our code word for it let's define what that looks like and attach it to a code and the code is attached to a consequence because if we all are in agreement that major entrepreneurship on our campuses is a non-starter for returning to an on-site place then there should be a code that clearly defines what that is so that regardless of first offense second offense third offense we have predetermined that this is this is what that is this amount this many grams this whatever paraphernalia and it's all encompassed and it's very clear that's what I'm trying to get to and I found the chart and sorry U but I found the chart and so I I believe that if we were able to separate providing and distributing from selling and intent to sell that would be part of it because right now that's all one category so similar to what you were saying about one we have coming before us on Tuesday night we're including passing a vape with the same person who has a pile of cash and a bag of whatever and a list everything else and a list list of clients which I'm not okay with no I'm not either and so we have to I'm just looking again at our current code of student conduct the interactive one the the chart here the offense first offense second offense that we have providing selling intent to sell and distributing all classified in the same category and we are this board has proven that we do not believe those four things are the same and the board will need to give direction on that because for even within the world of Drug law law in the criminal justice system um there is not a distinction made except for as to how severe the consequence might be for example intent to sell can be evinced in a number of ways it can be because there are multiple small baggies or multiple small individual packages of it or an amount or any number of things um and sale is usually also referred to as just distribution or providing and the reason is because sometimes it's not as clear as say it was you know $20 for this amount of substance instead was something of value exchanged even if that was I'm paying you back for lunch money from last week or I'm trying to get some kind of consideration you know so and and is there something of value exchange sometimes that's a very it gets into situations where it's very difficult to clearly put your finger on that why that way the transfer cuz ultimately I think what the board has expressed also and the superintendent I I know has expressed this as well is that ultimately providing another student with a controlled substance is the larger offense than whether or not you did it for free or did it for uh some entrepreneurial investment or something like that it's the it's the the safety issue and the and the issue of potential damage is the transfer of that substance from you to another student not whether you intended to make money off of it or or not so those are things which without a clear expression from the board as to an exact strategy of how to balance those factors which will be difficult I mean judges struggle with this in their courtrooms as well without without a clear way to balance that um it it becomes very uh difficult to separate between a the each of those levels whether it's intent to distribute it's distribution it's providing or it's selling so just going to leave that for for discussion as well every it's the law of unintended consequences every time you try to do something well in your code of student conduct you have to think of the 40 ways that it could possibly also create problems for you down the road and you all are experienced enough to aware of that because you you've all seen it and it there's there difficulties that's why it's important for us to talk about it here yes board member thank you attorney powers that that helps because wouldn't it be nice if there was just a matrix or decision tree that we could file and be like oh okay input data here's the outcome rubber stamp next you know uh I just don't think that we can get around are quaz judicial C capacity and this is where principal discretion I think really is important because we don't know the kid you know and and principles hopefully because of good training and good ethics are nine times out of 10 going to be sending things forward that after you've screen them you know we are going to be valid for us to consider in our quaza judicial capacity what has been frustrating at different times through our years on the board um and also the collectively because there's have been situations where I think each of us feeling well how did this come through right you know and but and those have been anomalies uh so that to me it's it's the the tightening up of of those processes um continuing that and making sure that the parents are are well versed with the code of student conduct at Le you know we can't force them to read it but we can certainly provide those bold warnings I don't want to get stuck not being able to give a consequence where in my equ at judicial capacity like oh no I want to respond just briefly or add on I should say to what attorney Powers is saying about um when there's involving drug sales we're trying to distinguish between whether or not something of value and this is not to say you can't do it that way I just want to be clear about what the consequence would be unattended consequence would be uh if we have to show that something a value is exchanged whether it's money or or paying back for something that is going to create an additional burden on our uh staff to try to make that determination and if they can't make that determination then we're unable to reach that like we know it happened but the kid won't admit it that puts us in a position where it's harder and harder to get that consequence now once again it's not saying that we can't do it that way I'm just showing perhaps an unintended consequence that may occur when that might happen and then uh going back kind of I think to what you were just saying about when when it when it goes from the principles the principles have to be the ones with the discretion because the statute requires it we can remove that discretion by making things zero tolerance and we could tell them we have that in certain items Zero Tolerance on certain things but as the board has seen as well even when you have zero tolerance on things that appear to be very obviously Zero Tolerance items there's still those outside cases that you probably see where discretion makes sense and that's kind of the issue too is we can so so that's one option what we can do is you can say well I want the district to have certain items be more forcefully tackled well we can make those Zero Tolerance if this happens you must BR these forward but understand consequence of that what happens when you do that and it's once again nothing wrong with it there's just different ways of B balancing things different ways of of um a judgment and value of what you're looking for but that would be the natural consequence when that happens and then the last thing I want to say too is since it's a principal's discretion to make this recommendation when it comes to the student discipline office or to me and my role is the the the Review Committee is we're not there to say that the principal is wrong as far as that we don't like they did this we are merely there to determine whether or not it fits the student code of conduct and as I told the board before in the past you don't know the ones we've sent back uh I just had a meeting uh yesterday and out of seven we sent back two um so just as an example I'm going to start tracking that by the way in a couple months you can ask me what we're looking how many there are but my guess is it's roughly around that percentage probably you finding those more for grammatical errors or no not it get to our level when get to me it's not grammatical errors at that point that would be you mentioned that earlier so it was kind of a that would be the the the role before it gets to me that would be more Dr H Brook and her staff uh when it gets to the Review Committee we're looking strictly does this need the facts and not so much who we think it's a good idea because that's really the principal call because the stat says it's a princi so since we've been on drugs if I can just kind of excuse me we've been on the topic of drugs um the word pass so when I pass something to someone else that means sale distribution there sale distribution intent to sell are all three together uh because we kind of the reason why and I don't want to wax poetic too long in this but you know sales obvious with money distribution just handing it out to someone else intent to sell is maybe you haven't done it yet but we caught you with so much in baggies and scales and lists of names we can say you going to distribute it understood that's why those three kind of go together and then Dr Campbell since you had it up what is the other language what was the other side of that so under illegal drugs there's possession purchase under the influence and those are beginning First Defense would be a level three but under the providing selling intent to sell Distributing First Defense is a level four MH and part of the reason that we're I believe we're having this discussion right now is because of slide nine in your presentation which I need to make sure I'm I've tried to open it two different places um because of the very last one is sale distribution of illegal substance was in your presentation as being an expulsion without Services which now we're classifying as expulsion to off-campus Virtual Alternative Learning and if that were to be the case I still believe that sell intent to sell would land in that category and providing or distribution where we we haven't seen money Changing Hands we don't see entrepreneurial efforts that are legitimately like there's no gain from one person to the other that that passing it to someone else or you use the word pass would fall under under expulsion to oncampus Alternative Learning I see those as being the two variations in the level four infraction that this if we as a district cannot we have them that are so blatant sell so blatant intent to sell we and we see them so much more frequently than but we also see two kids doing it in a bathroom like a passing it back and forth and that's or there was like the grape juice scenario like I mean we've been through like a couple different nuances and I think they happen more often in Middle School than in high school and we're seeing these instances where we're like passing something to someone else with no other intention than like being curious and it's their first drug offense and I don't want to see that student not get face tof face learning um now when they're selling and there's obviously sale I don't want them to go to Mr Jones's campus and then just continue their entrepreneurial efforts um right and I I I get that and I think and the other piece to this that we haven't discussed is what's the step up or down depending on how you're looking at the pyramid from Mr Jones's campus so if I am given the opportunity for with face-to-face services at MTI for the period of time and then I do another level three or level four offense am I but it is is not traditionally an expellable without Services offense like um possession like let's say call with THC vape again but it's only on my body that wouldn't normally get me virtual learning as my consequence but if I'm already at mti's campus does that then get me virtual learning and I think that it should that I agree I agree there there should be a step up like if I'm on already alternatively placed at our Alternative Learning site face Toof face and I do another offense that is expellable of any capacity I now lose the opportunity and privilege for face Toof face instruction yes just just to be clear and make sure I heard you right it would be they're already at MTI and they've they've committed then another offense but it would in the real world be expellable with Services again but they're already getting services so yeah any and really it would be any expellable offence at that point because they're already receiving the face Toof face instruction so any offense that is not um really even in encompassing an alternative placement because an alternative placement would also put that MTI so um because there are some level 3es that are alternative placements for 45 days potentially that are not necessarily an expulsion but if I'm already at MTI and I commit an offense that is going to land me back at MTI then I should lose the privilege to be at MTI is my personal take on it I agree yes scenario level three maybe there there's a scuffle of some kind and then the principal with discretion says you know I don't want this kid off my campus he's been doing so well want to keep them you know then I think that you creatively use the code and you find the correct code that's a level two instead of a level three and you code the discipline consequence correctly to to reflect the consequence have I may provide an example yes um when we have a fight involves three individuals automatically so let's say it could be a four depending but it's it's at least a three if you have let's say two kids are in a fight and then one kid comes by and gets one punch on the shoulder right as the fight's breaking up and that's it that's technically a three for the kid that joining right there's no way you can call it a two there there's not now maybe the kid is entitled to being expelled at that point um for the reason stated but understand that's kind of the issue that we deal with as well if that came to me and they said you know Mr Black what is what is that that is a three there's no way you can call it anything else but the principal could have discretion to say I know it's a three however I'm not moving forward with that because I've been working with them for all the reasons that principles might have discretion or understanding what I guess though what I'm trying to say is I'm not trying to limit Mr Jones's discretion to keep them I'm trying to strengthen his discretion to get rid of them is what I'm I'm not trying to say you can't keep that kid if that kid made a poor choice and just did one shoulder punch at the end of a fight if Mr Jones says says I want that child to continue to receive Services then that's the discretion that he makes but what I'm saying is on the opposite side of that he has every right to then say this this this opportunity has now earned you virtual virtual and your clock starts over so I I think that based on this conversation right now that if you are expelled on the MTI campus and you commit a level four while there you're automatically in this but if you commit a level three we leave it to Mr Jones as the discretion to say yep we're good or no you're gone because we're we're classifying threes and fours together but I think if we're actually putting something in writing that you're already an expelled student and it's a four I I mean and do a four on that campus the other thing I want to kind of ask because we're using terms all together and I want to make sure we're all on the same page there's definitely a difference in the students at MTI that are alternatively placed that are there for short periods of time as opposed to those we send for a full year plus so if you are alternatively placed you might be there because of a level three infraction and then you jump into a fight or something on that campus and your level three was possession or whatever and and then you're there because you you're siblings for whatever reason somebody was talking bad about your sibling and you jump into that fight with the sibling all that because we have another one coming up on Tuesday I continue to say there has to be something about siblings maybe it's additional training but um for those kids but um it if that happens on that campus I still think that's different don't think that's an automatically moving to off-campus Virtual Alternative Learning if you've been alternatively placed and then have a level three or level four four on the MTI campus I'm kind of looking to Mr Jones I don't know if he agrees with that but I see a difference in those students that we haven't expelled out of the gate and we've chosen to put them at MTI for alternative placement which we don't actually see those packets so I have to say that again we don't see the alternative placement packets we don't have any idea what those offenses look like those come to us as a list of names and y'all have made that decision and we don't vote on that we've received the packet but I want to thank you for the conversation because I was um thinking of some scenarios we have a lot of students that are on our campus for fights and therefore they got into a fight now under a couple of the scenarios now they have um a THC is that exposure Services because they're already there and it's there definition between are they doing the same events uh if they have a fight level three then come back have another fight then we'll move to level four or is it alternative example off campus service because amount of fights so there's a lot of um different scenarios that we would have to work through in order to make that part of it work but the one thing like we said from the beginning um we're trying to make sure that the students are there for education and so we need to make sure that the students that aren't there for Education there's a difference between a student who has 144 referrals and yes he got there for a fight but he's doing other things and so we need to be a to um at least have some consideration for that part also because you know it's I say it all the time in principles it's easy to get rid of someone when they have a vape or something on their campus but that student have been doing a whole lot more that was not expellable they got 98 referrals but because they had the VAP now we can get rid of so there's a lot there's a big difference between those two scenarios so we need to be able to at least look at the history of the student and I think that's where the principal disc so while you're there Mr Jones again um if we are making this decision I certainly want to give you the ability to say you're on our campus you've been expelled you commit an expellable offense on that campus we can put you in an off-campus virtual we want to give you that ability to do that for sure and I I think we all are in agreeance that we need agreement that we need to make sure that that's written into the code if it's consensus today whatever that looks like because I think that we are all in agreement that if of all the opportunities that we could put kids in an virtual off-campus it's the kids that we've already sent in an oncampus alternative learning that continue to commit offenses but the differentiation I do want to ask though is between the students that are alternatively placed there for the short period of Time Versus those that have been expelled and is there a delineation there that you would like for us to consider or if you're alternatively placed and you're on the MTI campus and you create you do an expellable offense then you can be expelled off campus I think if they're on campus especially if they're on or the alternative placement we do need to have the um right now we have the availability to me not to S back to their Bas school um for discipline academics or um attend so I think keeping that in place would really help because simple fact is um those are things that because you're there and we're giving you an opportunity we make sure that you're earning back so having that personal discression to be able to say that yes we're going to keep you here until this happens thank you recap the questions asked yes Dr henbrook do you want to look through your list and see what you need clarification on I just did get a notification um that they do need this room in just a little bit so I promised them that we would try to wrap up if that means boor that we have to continue this conversation another time um what time do they they did not give me a definite time um just that they need to get up to set up for a workshop um do you want uh to give us three o' is what I'm saying is when you need it or that's when the workshop is okay half hour 40 minutes before so we need to be out of here by 2:15 by 2:15 right that gives us 30 minutes thank you okay so on uh on one of the questions was does the board want to expel without Services I think where we landed was that there were some students that um if it's a recommendation for exposion will come to Alternative Learning at MTI brick and mortar but then the others um would be expulsion to an off-campus virtual learning yes yes and what I heard chair Conrad say was that she still wants something for a child who makes a very very very very dangerous poort choice that is an elementary school I think that's important to have it as an option and so I I think if we do away with explosion without Services then we are eliminating the opportunity for what chair Conrad asked I appreciate that yes I agree I think there extreme circumstances that that may need to be the case okay so I would need to do some work and okay figure out what that might look like okay uh for a K5 student and I'd have to come back to you with that what is the zero what is a zero tolerance what are our zero tolerances the firearm uh weapon on a campus um it's the big three yeah yeah um drugs assault uh it's homicide sexual battery threat and a weapon on campus those are I I believe those the zero tolerance ones is weapon or firearm firearm firearm sorry firearm weapon weapon includes even pocket knife pocket knife yeah so firearm it it I think it's certain weapons there's a a weapon category I can't remember it off the top of my head but any weapons that fall under that specific category and Firearm is one of them um I'll read it bring it firearm or weapon as defined to school at any function or onto any school sponsor Transportation or possessing a firearm at school making a threat or false report defined in the statute respectively involving school or School Personnel properties Transportation School sponsor activities even threats or false reports made in just or exaggeration may be treated as serious assault or battery on any elected official or employee of a school district and hazing as defined that is zero tolerance so well I just want to do you want is is your desire that any zero tolerance for an elementary student then is an exposion without Services is that what you're trying no I got I have to think about okay I need a little more time to go over that that was a fast read of the list and there was a lot more on it than I thought okay to give that's just my honest answer and I wouldn't want to commit to that because that's a severe punishment for yes Sharon I I'm almost with you on that especially because the expulsions are for such a long period of time and for a very young child that that commits a really bad offense I personally think they should not be on campus for at least a decent chunk of time while they're getting virtual instruction that may look that would need to look differently you know obviously than the middle and high but also with the opportunity to come back sooner because they're that much younger you know I mean think about how long it took for us to get to a birthday now it's like they come every two days you so then we're I think think we agree on the first two and then we basically are in a holding pattern as to what to do if an elementary age student did a basically a z a tolerance act the board You' need to bring it before the board for us to figure out what we want to do correct okay I'm I'm comfortable with that okay because those happen so so infrequently frequently thank God and the last uh for for me the the last Clarity is um when we when we were talking about having specific codes related to expellable offenses then we got into a conversation about principal discretion and I think it was a great conversation and I think we all value the the principles and and what they're doing at their school but I'm not sure that I UND that I I know exactly moving forward I know we're moving forward to the 2526 um and we are starting that process now but if we make any changes to our current St of student code of conduct I need to know what that what that ask is um but I believe that also is still subject to rulemaking development which is another process um so that's my next clarifying question to you personally I've had the same concern all school years so at this point with I don't know 68 school days left or something like that I don't necessarily we don't need to by the time we did the rul making the code of conduct would be adjusted in barely time for the school year to be over so I don't think that it there is enough you know enough there to change the code of conduct for this school year but I maintain all of the things that I've previously said in agreement with that it the I will share that the the principal input is very important to me um really what I took out of that conversation is just that um in our trainings we keep hitting home what our expectation is because that was the basis of that conversation is the difference and what's brought forward from each school so that we continue to express what our expectations are and how we want them to be follow so I'm if we're going down the line sorry um so I'm looking to Tuesday night uh because we already have another recommendation from the agenda this group of students is with services this group of students is without services do we make the decision now upon the chairs approval to change the wording in the agenda to say those without services are expulsion to Virtual Al excuse me expulsion to off-campus Virtual Alternative Learning and I would be okay with that certainly if the rest of the board was so we're not actually even using the terminology without Services any longer um but then that also I in looking at these three that are coming before us I can see that a couple of them I based on all of our conversation today potentially are fine to be voted on in that capacity there is still one of those that I'm glad that we have it in discussion and can vote on them individually so let me be clear you're you're indicating not changing our procedure or policy so to speak essentially noting instead that the title of what we're calling the uh agenda items for those will be more clarifying and the consequence because the consequence right now is without Services go figure it out parents and instead it would be with say say your statement for me off-campus virtual Alternative Learning where they in some capacity show up to a virtual meeting with the counselor at MTI so that they can get scheduled in to their virtual Ingenuity uity classes like those are two in my opinion those are two very different next steps after a board meeting so for my purposes to avoid the necessity of saying you can't do that because of rulemaking and development I'm clarifying that the thing that's changing for Tuesday is essentially what we're calling something that was what we were going to do anyway we're calling it correct we're calling it by a more apt descriptor correct that's all correct and the code of student conduct currently says that these are expellable offenses and we're voting on The expulsion it's how the learning is ised delivered post expulsion so that part of the code of student conduct while we will get really transparent on how we're writing that in the future currently we've just been saying with or without Services well now we're not going to have a without Services option it'll all be with Services we'll just have virtual or on off campus or on campus and so again in the rul making part of it we'll get real concrete and transparent in the future but essentially what we're doing and saying and voting upon isn't going to impact the current rule in my opinion because I'm not a lawyer on TV I agree with that statement I think though that it's still not going to change the nuances of like for instance there are three items in the the they're all in one bucket by Tuesday night they're not all going to be in one bucket they're going to be separated because I know I'm going to pull at least one of them out from the bucket to somewhere else because I still don't agree with the consequence for that one so I'm not sure that until we get to a new code of conduct we're going to be able to avoid the nuances that we have been going through for the last few months because myself as a board member is not going to be able because I I still don't think that one instance of of a pass equals the same thing as entrepreneurship and so those should not be in the same place and so until the code of conic gets updated and and completely adopted we're still going to have to we're still going to have to go through this personally that's just my thought if I could just and then we sorry I'm and and I I would tend to agree with that because the only thing that I would like to have seen while this item is listed under discussion because these are three individually different cases I would have liked to have seen them as three different agenda items so we're not as the chair is not reading the script and lumping three or four different students that we might want to vote on differently and so that's that's the only but I think we can do it if if if um yeah I'm gonna pull it Dr James is going to pull the one that I know I'm concerned about as well well I don't know if it's the same one I'm assuming it is based based on everything we've talked about today so are there any other any other clarification yes I just want a clarification that when we meet at the next time we meet at 7:30 and then again at 7 that the full board is going to be voting on explosions well we're not calling an exposion without services for starters well they're still going to come to us there's still going to be people that our families that are going to come and want to dispute consequences absolutely and so if the expulsion is an expulsion with virtual whatever virtual Le off campus virtual decision to make and I'm and and so I'm still going to maintain and I'm not going to be pressed to make a decision today but I'm still going to maintain that until the code of conduct is clear as to what gets you virtual and what doesn't get you virtual I'm going to have the same issue now my issue will be probably less because everyone is receiving a service from Maran County Public Schools so I will feel more confident in the decision we're making but until the code of conduct is clear and reflective of of how someone lands somewhere I'm not comfortable with it I understand and and that's been clear um as a previous chair and as a chair now I will say that sometimes not every board member is here and then you have less board members to vote and we're all tasked with the same responsibility so I'm just I can be done with this any final comments board Dr h so what I what I'm I'm taking away is we're not making any changes to our current code of student conduct but we're going to let the code of student conduct committee members process that is starting now along with we'll we'll bring your input and feedback and what we heard you today we'll have we'll go through that process with our 2526 code of student conduct that's where I landed with that okay and then I'm not sure Tuesday night language if we're changing anything on agenda item that's my last question it sounded like what I heard the board to say is that the titles of the expulsion instead of saying expulsion without services or expulsion with Services we're going to be titling them in the different ways that you Dr henbrook and Dr Campbell discussed earlier as to the um I I don't have the exact language but the family's already got the packet so I mean that can't be CH understand I'm just I'm just saying for the purposes of what goes on the caption for for what's going to be there so that the the valuable conversation that we had today is carried forward and we don't have confusion over with and without Services because it's taken us hours today to understand what language works for everybody so that we can get as superintendent indicate that that Nuance that tells us what we're all talking about we're all on the same page right so we we had come to agreement I think on two or the board had come to consensus on two um names for the with without Services um and I would just say that based on what I'm hearing from the board what you're asking is that that item title be changed to reflect those two is that correct is that accurate summary that is correct that's my understand and the script the naming resolution right and the script and motion so whenever that is done so that the motion is going to be not with or without Services the motion will actually be okay and I'll have um I'll have Ms Martinez also get with Dr henbrook for that for script purposes well and the students haven't those students though have not been attending Niti a student who is pending an expulsion without Services is at home getting their coursework maybe or maybe not delivered to them so those students are not sitting on Mr Jones's campus attending this meeting they have been home for some of them multiple months waiting for this meeting so I I we can change the language but it's not goingon to change the fact that the student has been home and will need to report to MTI the next day theoretically to get their schedule for their online learning some some kind of system has to be created so that the student knows that they're now not doing picking up packet work from Forest High School or whatever and they're doing uity so if they're being expelled they're not allowed on an m on campus and that would include the Alternative Learning Program at MTI and so we would do that virtually with them now uh through electronic Communication email and phone and so we will reach out to those I think it's three um and uh checked with attorney Blackman right now we're just offering another service so we'll go ahead and move them into that online platform or offer that as a service again they can choose other options but we can do that I just can't come on campus yes that's register or anything else they're already registered be well some of them are I think talk about the on right we can take care of that though electronically that was a very Val anything else you need from us today Dr H um no I don't think so I think I've got everything I appreciate the conversation yes thank you is there any public comment okay being none I will go to um board and committee reports um and concerns there's a school board meeting scheduled for January 14th 20125 at 5:30 p.m. board meetings and work sessions will be held at the board of County Commissioners Auditorium which we thank them greatly for allowing us to use uh the next administrative briefing and work session is scheduled for January 23rd 2025 at 99 a.m. there's a school board meeting scheduled for January 28th 2025 at 5: :30 p.m. and with that we'll have um board comments Miss Martinez no attorney Powers nothing for legal from legal um Dr gullet nothing additional thank you Miss thrower just say quickly welcome back everyone here's to 2025 and um ready to vacate the premises so that they can get set up for their next meeting Dr Campbell I just had three super quick things and we can follow up on them on Tuesday I was curious to know when our work session is on the school schools that we represent I know we said we would do that at the first of the year and so I was just curious as to when that would be I also wanted to find out when we need to have our recommendations for the sales tax Review Committee I know we had a work session on that before uh but just curious just to know when we need to have those recommendations and to whom we send them and at what point that occurs and I also wanted to just have a thought process and we can continue to marinate on it we have at least 30 plus um individuals who will become a part of what I'm calling the leadership mcps alumni we haven't really done anything with what those people are out there the class one class two class three is currently uh underway and I was curious about having a conversation about possibly creating an advocacy committee as your advocacy liaison uh maybe that would be something we could consider in the future but if those all three need to be future work session agenda items that's what I had thank you thank you Dr James um uh couple questions that I've received from the community the wyomina Park Elementary 2526 calendar is nowhere to be found so um we have next year's school calendar posted on our website for the regular all of the regular schools but WHYY Amina Park Elementary is not online and I really don't know if we board approved it or not I don't have a memory just for your information there's a survey that went out Tuesday evening to yamina park families and employees asking them to vote for one of two calendars that were created by the calendar committee that will be brought forward to you for approval I Believe by Mr Frasier that survey remains open through the 16th wonderful so in the month of February probably we'll see that calendar for board approval thank you that was my question because I got it from community members um North Maran High School windows and doors update um if you recall we had a change order um back in the fall because they wanted to extend the deadline the deadline was December 27th the work is still not complete so I would like for the board to get an update either in email or publicly about where we are with the north Maran high school project that was supposed to be done before school started and it's now the middle of January um I sent an email about a the Radiology program at MTC back on the 18th of December um it didn't receive a response but we did receive communication on the 7th that there is going to be work going forward for the as program I think uh in radiology at MTC um this board member would like to have a work session on what what is that um what is this as program what is it encompassing what is the timeline for us to back into August if that's when we're going to be able to start um my email from the 18th asked for that work session agenda item and I maintained that same request I would like to understand what is this program um because if I'm a I I think I'm aware we don't offer an AA or an as program as it exists right now for any other trade and so I this would be something um that we're not currently doing and I want to understand it better um and then finally board I want to just touch base on an email we received on the 20th about um the owner direct purchase so the board received an email from Miss Boom boach that had a spreadsheet attached and that spreadsheet um in her words included all posos that were issued from July 1st 2020 to November 2024 so I want to back into that for a second on November 6th I submitted an email to miss Dobbins Miss Boston Ellis attorney powers and the superintendent requesting more information about all of our posos for essentially four and a half years to understand what have we done with ODP and there were five questions on that email and I asked for to get all of the information and on the 8th of November two days later miss dobins acknowledged the email and said she was working on it and then on November 13th Miss um bomach essentially said we got everything we need from finance and we're going to work on it and you should have it in about a month so on the 20th we received it but what we received was not a completed task by any means the the final question of my email said I want to know how much ODP we did not capture over that course of poos also miss boombox's email that we received included something like 120 POS but there were north of 600 that were actually processed during that time so this board member formally is requesting um I elected as one of the five people to review our our finances and to ensure that we're doing our job as the elected officials and representing our constituents who just overwhelmingly are supporting us with a sales tax we need to make sure that every penny that we possibly can save as being saved and historically it hasn't and I want to understand exactly what that looks like so that we can ensure that going forward we are proving to the taxpayer that we are representing them in the best possible way so this board member wants to receive not only miss Boston Ellis's spreadsheet that had all of the information that Miss Boom boach said she received on 1113 but I want to see all of the POS so I can understand from my own lens how much ODP could have been captured and was not and if staff wants to work on that on their own that's absolutely fine but personally uh I feel like six weeks was more than enough time to complete the task ask that I feel like I was very clear with and I do believe that uh that piece to the puzzle was intentionally not done and I'm not comfortable with continuing to move forward with only allowing staff to come back and have a second crack at it um if they want to again that's fine but this board member wants to receive all the information and I want that to be given to all board members so um that concludes my comments but my my expectation is that information is is to all the board members by the end of the day tomorrow as Miss Boston Ellis clearly sent it in an email around 11:13 so thank you thank you um I I'll just add on to that a little bit too I was disappointed um with uh the information that we received and uh thank you Miss Boston Ellis for responding to me so quickly um yesterday I appreciate that and if we'll just make sure that all board members receive um further information as we move forward it would be greatly appreciated um we wrap up here today I just want to say thank you again um to the board of County Commissioners and all their staff we have several that have been sitting with us all day um we really appreciate you um it was a really a blessing to be here today and so thank you very much for your time and uh your services and with that board no further business we'll adjourn our work session at 2:10 p.m We Beat It by five minutes [Music]