e e I yes that sounds a little fishy is everyone ready we are going to call this regular meeting of the Martin County School Board to order we will now have Reverend Anil Singh from TR Trinity United Methodist Church of Jensen Beach say an opening prayer followed by the Pledge of Allegiance looks like he's not here yet so we will have a moment of silence ladies and Gentlemen please welcome the Felix A Williams Elementary sailfish singers under the expert guidance of Mrs Colleen dhy the sailfish singers will be singing the Felix A Williams school song and they will follow up with the patriotic song your a Grand Old Flag written by George MCM Cohen then conclude with a preview of the 2024 music in our school's concert with better when I'm dancing the Megan Trainer version from the Peanuts movie just one thing I wanted to say about the school song it was composed by Jacqueline and Sarah ansen um about 10 years ago and then Peter Jones created the piano accompaniment a our our [Applause] the FL and [Applause] [Music] don't you to [Music] [Music] yeah [Music] o [Music] [Applause] better [Applause] thank you Mrs dhy and the Felix A Williams sail fish singers you did an amazing job Mrs Falls will you please call the role Mr derer lizing here Mrs Roberts Mrs Powers here Mrs pritchet here Mrs Russell here okay pastor Singh did make it um we would like for you to go ahead and come forward and we'll have you say a prayer thank you for coming go ahead yes good afternoon everybody thank you for inviting me please uh join me as I uh offer an invocation for our meeting let's draw it together in mind heart and spirit creator of our world author of all life thank you for breathing life into us thank you for the life we share and especially we thank you for the students of Martin County loving one as we gathered here today remind us that our students represent our future in just a few short years our young people will serve as officials and administrators doctors lawyers scientists business people Bankers police officers firefighters paramedics authors journalists artists musicians restaurant tours oh yes and teachers and parents and caretakers the possibilities for the future are endless but the path to our greater future begins today with us grant us the wisdom strength ideals and unity of purpose to offer all our students the knowledge they will need to Fashion a bright future for themselves and all of us amen am amen do I have a motion to approve the agenda with the following items added 7.04 and 15.15 items updated 3.03 18.03 18.05 items removed 17.01 17.02 14.01 14.02 14.03 and 15.07 motion second I have a motion by Miss pritchet and a second by Mr D all those in favor I any opposed motion carries unanimously do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved second I have a motion by Mr dtii and a second by Miss Roberts all those in favor I any opposed motion carries unanimously do I have any board member discussion at this time seeing none we will move on to our recognitions we have our 2024 Martin Arts chalk mural competition winners Mr call would you like to come forward good afternoon Madam chair members of the board superintendent Maine members of the Martin County Community I'm Mark CS coordinator of art music physical education social studies and World languages it's pleasure to be here tonight before we get to our guests um I I think you picked up on it our Elementary music teachers are a little bit competitive and I mean props choreography is so that was kind of a step up and I think Crystal Lake Palm City you're not I see Palm City right here um hopefully not we won't tell Mr Coco but they'll probably bring pyrotechnics or something next who knows so just keep that on the down low for now um we live in an amazing community and we we all know that sitting in this room right now and we are so um blessed to have great Community Partners to with us today we have uh Martin Arts um we have Michelle Michelle foglio and Jennifer Hearn and I'll bring them up shortly um our great Community is always offering opportunities for our student involvement Martin Arts partnered with our Middle School teachers and chalk artist Duda rosch child to provide education about chalk art students then submitted and presented their artwork at the first ever chalk mural competition at the 2024 Martin Arts Festival thank you to our middle school art teachers Tanya Goa Jennifer foglia Melissa Nelson Shiloh Griffin Stephanie Moreno and Cheryl adza for encouraging your students and working with Martin arts on this event and if you're here could you please stand to be re recognized what we're going to do is we're going to have Jennifer Hearn be up there for the students that were able to make it we understand middle school schedules sometimes the conflict it getting here is a little difficult so if you are here when your name is announced please meet Jennifer up there to accept your certificate and your award and at this time please welcome Michelle fno to announce this year's winning participants [Applause] hi everyone thank you for having us um artsfest is a program for Martin Arts we're proud to host our first chalk walk as Mark mentioned it was a competition for Middle School age students during the weekend of February 10th and 11th we were able to place chalk artist Duda Roth's child in all five middle schools for a 20-hour resid in each location the um chalk art was funded uh it was uh put together due to a grant that we received from the state of Florida Department of State Division of arts and culture the theme was a landscape of Hope which gave students a chance to express their dreams that they have for the future of our community this theme was chosen by the League of Women Voters as a way to increase community dialogues and along in their future efforts to create a better and more engaged citizenry in our community through their imagin democracy initiatives students Works were judged by artist Mark walar uh he is the Ceramics and sculpture director at the mar at the um excuse me uh Armory art center and he selected first second and third an honorable mention Awards based on the connection to the theme craftsmanship balance and use of color Martin County Arts in public places continued their support of artsfest to provide a People's Choice Award for the competition and it was very competitive the kids were their own spokesperson and um they did a really good job advocating for their artwork so the winners for people Cho People's Choice as collected by Art and public places is first place team is the Fishbowl Indiantown Middle School artists Emily chelene and Sophia Angeles they here and I'm sorry I might be mispronouncing their name so hopefully they uh if they're here they'll come up um Second Place team is Art assault Murray Middle School artist Jake alt third place team is Stuart Middle School artist Ethan oh here's Jake go ahe yeah you have to go to jck get your award great um third place team is Stuart Middle School artist Ethan McGee and honorable mention team is team Draco uh Murray Middle School artist Elizabeth Lewis great all winners are receiving a gift p uh basket courtesy of art in public places for Martin [Applause] County and the judges Choice recipients are first place team the Fishbowl Indiantown Middle School artists Emily chelene and Sophia Angeles will be receiving a Visa gift card congratulations to both ladies second place team is team Finn Stewart Middle School artists Finn frolly and Miles Cree they have won their classroom $150 and third place team is Team D Diana Indian middle school and artist Diana Perez has won her classroom $75 thank you to everyone who participated all our student artists and for all of the amazing Stuart Middle uh Middle School Martin County Middle School art teachers thank you so much and to mark thank you so much absolutely yes I'm good I'm good congratulations to all of our winners we would love Well's see moving on we have our student representative Austin Connelly thank you um I'm going to start with the Jensen Beach High School so the drama Department successfully concluded an amazing run of their musical of The Adams Family our jubilate choir and band all performed phenomenally well at their mpas earning the highest possible score of superior the band also recently returned from an amazing and educational trip to Atlanta Georgia our afjrotc has been diligently working with the staff and students at SMS to help them prepare for life in high school next year as well as recruit for potential members of this wonderful program our Key Club and Leadership students are actively preparing to head to fa awe upon return from spring break to educate the students on financial responsibility through the Junior Achievement program our NHS conducted a very successful Superbowl canned food drive collecting donations for local food banks the Falcon football and sailing team had a successful signing day on Friday as family and friends got to watch multiple talented athletes sign with their future programs MCHS students from The Academy of Computer Science enjoyed the experience attending Florida's first ever Statewide High School cyber security competition cyber launch Kanye char KAS and Sebastian received hands-on experience in the capture the flag CTF challenges attended comp Tia's breakout sessions and visited different vendors like the EC Council the MCHS Academy of culinary arts participated in the 23rd annual Florida Pro culinary team competitions as a school our students took second place took second place overall additionally several students were recognized for their individual and team accomplishments culinary team third place Michael dezra Zack Walker Kayla caves Sarah doodle and Isabella qu quido sorry if I'm pronouncing these wrong restaurant management team third place Victoria Garcia Rosemary Hernandez Selena Hartley and Jennifer Lopez for the edible centerpiece second place was Brian Stony um for the waiters relay top eight finish Taylor cotin podo and Davis Scott for the hospitality Excellence award Victoria Garcia MCHS speech and debate team competed at the Harvard University National Tournament in February and Ashley Crosby was a quarterfinalist finishing in the top 100 competitors in the country the MCHS chapter of the National Honor Society NHS kicked off their senior kicked off their senior NHS member scholarship fundraiser utiliz ing snap raise as the platform as of Wednesday 36 NHS raised $2,277 with 18 days remaining for the campaign NHS anticipates the awarding of $24 $11,000 scholarships to qualifying NHS seniors MCHS Deca attended state competition in Orlando with over 2600 students from across the state placing in the top 50% the the results are as follows travel in tourism team decision- making 26 in the state Brook Belding in McKenzie Den Nicola Hospitality service team decision- making 15th in the state Kellen Ferrero and Alexis kukas entrepreneurialship team decision making 28th in the state Morgan Williams and Hutch Hutchinson Miss Leia lawrens was also a recipient of the Professional Service award for 15 years of service with Deca the MCHS qual Department competed in the District vocal music performance assessment MPA in Combined ladies received all Superior ratings from the three judges for their stage performance and a superior in sight reading combined men received all excellent ratings from the three judges for their stage performance and a superior in sight reading Opus received all Superior ratings from the judges for their stage performance and a superior Insight reading on Thursday March 7th the Martin County symphonic band and wind emble performed at the Florida band master Association District 13 concert music performance assessment at ver Beach High School symphonic band received an overall excellent rating while earning a superior rating and site reading Winden Syble earned a unanimous Superior rating and received a grade of a in every caption of injuction additionally students Ashley Crosby and Lewis Medina participated in the student conductor assessment and both earned a superior rating South Fork High School a lot of wonderful things have been going on in the coral Department earlier in February we had seven students qualify for states with their solos additionally students Logan Jacobs and Natalie carolo were also selected to represent the State of Florida in the southern state Honor Choir they sang beautifully during our week in Louisville Kentucky and represented South Fork very well recently South Fork had its musical performance assessment for the choir's mpa this year we brought Carolyn top choir our Advanced treble and our full panel of and our full program concert Coral to be assessed each choir performs two pieces for a panel of three judges and then moves to the site reading room where they are given a new piece of music and they are asked to perform site unseen this year I am pleased to announce that both Caroland and advanced treble received the highest score of Superior and our concert Coral received an excellent the advanced treble received a perfect score Straight A's both of these Superior rated choirs qualified for stage which will take place in April the wind emble and concert band traveled to Vero Beach High School to perform at the annual FBA concert band music performance assessment MPA um the Winden s will receive straight Superior ratings and a perfect score this is the first time in five years that a band from South Fork High School has received straight Superior ratings at concert MPA the Winden semble will be traveling to States in April to qualify a group must receive an overall Superior rating at the district level thank you thank you Austin now we will have our district update with Jennifer disazo good afternoon Madam chair members of the board it's my pleasure to bring you this month's School District update all local families who are not currently enrolled in the Martin County School District are being invited to embark on a journey to academic Excellence through controlled open enrollment this statutorily required process allows Florida families to take full ownership of their children's learning and enroll them in any school in the state if that school has open seats during the February board meeting it was determined that all Martin County school district schools would be eligible for controlled open enrollment and we are happy to report that so far the district has received more than 250 applications from out of County residents surpassing last year's total of roughly 200 the application window for controlled open enrollment will remain open through March 31st let's take a look at a recent story WPTV did to highlight the process 1,000 students in EN um that all three of the of the high schools are able to have their own program they help these types of programs and help pull scho districts while with most schools not at full capacity you know as time goes on we're starting to see a little bit decreased enrollment too major but um you know every student is associated with an amount of funding from the state uh so it's very important that we have those kids in our St and then we students like haly L who participates in multiple special pram support the IDE of [Music] from Z forol continue students accepted into one of our schools via the controlled open enrollment process must have their own mode of transportation to and from school once accepted the student is permitted to continue attending the school through the highest grade level offered on the campus without having to resubmit their application annually and as the Martin County School District is approaching its Centennial anniversary Yes you heard that correctly it's Centennial anniversary of cultivating legendary growth in Student Success we invite all families to celebrate the opportunities we have available to engage our students in their learning complete details are available on our website we're excited to announce that we will soon be expanding our career in technical education programs like the one you saw in the previous video the district has been selected as one of 19 winners of the work work force development Grant from the state of Florida and we will receive approximately $1 m7500 to help expand programs designed to meet the evolving needs of our local job market the grants funding will primarily be used to expand our applied information technology criminal justice and medical and Allied Health programming each of our CTE programs provides students with Hands-On training and Real World Experience through clinicals lab settings job shadowing and various internship opportunities students can also earn industry recognized certifications and college credits in many cases for completing the programs we'll be excited to share details about the program expansion with the community as these updates get underway students who attend who attended prek programs in Martin County are outperforming those in all neighboring counties according to the latest Florida assessment of student thinking also known as fast results state law requires that kindergarteners administered a Statewide screening test within the first 30 days of school here's a breakdown of the fast results for kindergarteners in Martin County as reflected in August of 2023 59% of Martin County students who entered kindergarten in August scored ready for kindergarten compared to the state average of 51 and 70% of Martin County kindergarten students who completed a voluntary pre kindergarten or VPK program scored ready for kindergarten compared to the state average of 64% the Early Childhood community of Martin County has been working diligently to increase the Readiness of all VPK students and the collaborative fruit of these efforts is demonstrated in our Readiness scores let's give a round of applause to our students and our early childhood education teammates who contribute to our students foundation for academic [Applause] success and as Austin shared um we had Martin County High School's culinary students competing in the Florida proart culinary team competition they took home second place overall taking on students from 42 other programs across the state in a variety of culinary and Hospitality categories in addition to taking home SE Second Place several students were recognized individually for their accomplishments all members of The Culinary and management teams received scholarships from various institutions such as The Culinary Institute of America Johnson and Wales University Nicholls State University Culinary Institute of Virginia Kaiser University the Rosen School of hospitality at the University of Central Florida and the chaplain School of hospitality and tourism management at Florida International univiversity congratulations to these students and their teachers till next time you can find us wherever you scroll thank you Jen Mr Maine would you please share your superintendent update ma'am thank thank you madam chair I want to uh ask everybody to give one more round of applause to our FY sailfish singers course they did a fantastic job and to all of our students with the Martin Arts chalk mural winners congratulations always great to be able to highlight and celebrate our students very proud of you um yeah well we can we can give that a round of applause I'm good with that lots of student celebrations and that's what we're here for so I'm proud to also announce that I'll be joining several of our District staff members in hosting our third Town Hall event that is scheduled for Tuesday March 26th at 6:00 p.m. this uh Town Hall will be held at Indiantown middle school so we encourage all of you to come out and join that town hall setting we have had two successful Town Halls prior to this one and we look forward to having and hosting all of those families that are out in the Indian toown Community uh prior to the event on the 26 we ask that community members who are planning to attend please complete a linked Sur on our website and any questions that you would like to see answered during the town hall and as always and as we did at the last town hall meeting and it worked very well we will do a true Town Hall fashion meeting where there will be a question and answer session with a panel of our district office staff and we will stay as long as needed to answer the community's questions so we thank you and encourage you to attend college and career Readiness as uh much as we focus on the learning and growth of our students while they're enrolled in our po our schools we are equally as passionate about making sure that they're prepared for postsecondary Pursuits the Martin County School District recently held a College and Career Fair in this room and juniors and seniors were bust in from their high schools where they were able to meet face Toof face with dozens of our postsecondary institutions and local employers then later that night families were invited back and their children uh were able to participate all of the parents uh Guardians and their children were able to participate in the fair as well so let's take a look [Music] count School dist Coler for student their fure [Music] 25es indry profs setri students don't [Music] [Music] I after all locales Andries parpa students andure a lot of experience and way opportunities and making sure that our students are aware of what's out there so they can tap into them and many of them are right here in our backyard and we want them to stay locally as much as possible to join our Workforce so it was a great evening elementary middle and high school students in Martin County recently competed in the Martin County Regional science and engineering Fair the elementary portion featured nearly 200 students from 90 classrooms Port cero Elementary was awarded the best performing School award Talis Brin from from Palm City Elementary was awarded the Florida Association of science teachers stem fair award and at the secondary level for middle and high school students more than 80 students participated 16 students from The Martin County School District earned a spot at the upcoming state finals in April and will represent us well so please join me in congratulating the following students Sophia Gaspar laka Alexis Lloyd and Mia hoistad from Stewart Middle School Brian Wang from hidden Middle School Alana lavat from Stewart Middle School Jack sa sarav Murray Middle School Hannah Robbins Hidden Oaks Middle Ethan Timmer and Matthew Jerell from Stuart Middle School Molly Moore Stewart Middle School Claire Rawlings Murray mateline Tuma hid Oaks Nina goyal Martin County High School vun Singh South Fork High School and aan aana Southfork high school and NRA Al Martin County High School great job congrat congratulations well deserved and in response to several questions that we've received from teachers and community over the past few months I've asked that our assistant superintendent of Finance Mr Carter Morrison to speak this evening on our teachers salaries transparency and a commitment to Excellence are two of my core values so I want to ensure that our faculty staff and Community are well aware of the proactive and diligent stance our school board has taken to ensure that our salaries not only remain competitive in the Treasure Coast region but frequently outpace many of our neighboring districts at this time I'd like to introduce you to Mr Carter Morris thank you thank you superintendent board members um members of the community um just I've been asked to provide uh a bit of an update to everyone regarding um our ongoing negotiations with our teachers union Martin County Education Association sorry about that um chapter 447 of Florida Statutes under that statute um wages are one of the mandatory subjects of bargaining on an annual basis and what I'm about to show you is information that we passed across the table on on February 27th at our bargaining session where the district proposed two options to the um mcea option one was a pay for performance um proposed proposal where annual contract teachers who scored and as highly effective on their valuation receive $1,200 annual contract teachers who are effective would SC that score effective on their evaluation to receive $900 Professional Services teachers would receive if they're scored highly effective $900 and Professional Services teachers who are effective at that time we proposed $800 however statutorily that number needed to be 75% of the effective amount which was 900 which was $675 so the estimated cost at that time was 1.28 Million however with the revision would be about 1.27 7 million option part of that package was the American Rescue plan um everyone knows that these funds were provided in response to the covid crisis and those funds are expiring and based Bas on the available funds that are in the um American Rescue plan and the flexibility that we have in consideration for all groups we proposed a one-time non-recurring bonus of $790 um other districts depending upon where they are in their expenditures and their programming could offer more could offer less it depends on where they are estimated cost of that was about a million 21,000 next slide please so we wanted to kind of take a look at what that would mean or what that would look like with respect to the potential impact of that wage offer as I mentioned before it is predicated on the scoring or evaluation final evaluation score of that member of the bargaining unit so which is why I highlighted that little box there in red and we just picked a couple samp a samp a couple teachers with years of experience 5 10 15 20 25 and 30 years and you see their um contract status in the next column beside it we we've been tracking through 2223 actually a little bit before that what their salary has been adjusted over time to start off the 20 through 24 fiscal year what their beginning salary was we've um settled and agreed and paid out what we call the teacher salary increase allocation which was provided to us by the state and dependent upon again where you scored you could either receive $1,200 um 14 or as low as $400 depending upon where where you were on the the schedule so after the TSI was added today um the salaries that are reflected is the total annual with the tsia I'd like to emphasize that negotiation is a is a process it's an ongoing process there's back and forth an exchange of proposals so the current proposal that we have on the table for performance pay as I mentioned in option one is reflected in that column we are $1,200 um all the way well because these are highly effective it only shows the $900 which will then get added to the new base so as you can see that five-year teacher would receive um roughly between the tsia and the performance pay about $2,400 to add up to a new base of 536 and so forth which represents around a 5% increase in in the salary from the beginning of the year um members of the public may also be aware that um in 2018 and renewed in 202022 um the voters of Martin County School Martin County approved a 0.5 millage with language um reflected in there that we could go lower than 0.5 depending at the board's discretion in that total millage column you will see depending again once upon the agreements that we have made that the millage amount were paid out um with the first tranch of payments in September and then the true up which is to exhaust all the funds were made in December of 2023 with mbus receiving somewhere between 2300 depending upon where you where you would have been on the schedule and pration to 30 years that shows almost 13 thou little over $113,000 the American Rescue plan bonus again is under negotiation and we have proposed a $790 again once based on and what's available in that fund so the total compensation following that teacher at five years of experience would be 56740 76 and the total compensation increase would be approximately $5,000 or an 11% increase we have also tracking if you will and comparing as as the superintendent mentioned how competitive are we Base to Base when we look at our surrounding districts primarily up the Treasure Coast in St Lucy and Indian River and so you can see the base um adjustment when you compare our new base to the current base um in St Louis County in this particular instance this teacher would be $5,600 better when compared to Indian River would be 4,600 better with the addition of the millage would be $5,950 76 cents better and versus Indian River that does not give a millage to its teachers $6,950 76 cents that is the red arrow at the very Corner um of your off the sheet and it follows throughout the sheet however each each proposal is not without its pros and its cons the pros in in um option one is that it's aligned to Florida statute 1012 which gives salary adjustments or increases based on the teacher final evaluative score in this proposal we budgeted approximately $1.3 million for this program the pros are that it Awards teacher salary increases based on their performance it aligns with the Florida Statutes however it does not address a problem that we've had over the last couple of years not endemic to us uh but throughout the State of Florida where because of the way the um increases were awarded in the TSA it compressed the schedule so this proposal unfortunately did not address that it also Awards a lower amount to over 200 plus Professional Services teacher contract contract teachers and as a result of that it sort of produces what I call an uneven experience placement schedule with ranges because it depends upon where everybody is scoring next slide please next option two here we go the next option that we proposed um actually lowers the pay for performance amounts whereby annual contract teachers re who are high scored highly effective receive $100 annual contract teachers that are effective are 75 Professional Services teacher that scored highly effective are 75 and Professional Services teachers receive $50 for a cost of 100,000 $5,760 what we're doing or what we have proposed is to um recognize teachers for the years of experience in a years of experience salary increase adjustment as an example all in this proposal excuse me all mbus will receive $85 per year of verified experience capped at $3,000 for years 31 and above that cost is about 1.4 million because the board um added about $200,000 to the proposal in order to the com to address the compression item C is again the repeat of the American Rescue plan which we are proposing $790 based on the amount of money that we have left over you'll see item D there that talks about option two wage offer is contingent on ratification by the last day for students is that we the board's intent is to make sure that we try to get these These funds in the of the teachers um by the end of the fiscal year hopefully we can get this wrapped up before everybody leaves for the for the summer break so looking at the potential impact of option two in the red squares if you will you can see that instead of based on performance you can see that we do receive teachers do receive a component of performance pay which does align with Florida Statutes but it gives more weight to the years of experience that a teacher May particularly have verified so as an example only at the very last one the teacher with the 30 years of experience would receive a salary increase of over $2,550 just based off their years of experience again their beginning annual salary would be 575 they've already received the tsia of $400 in this instance so today they're at 57,98811 which if agreed upon the fa performance and the years of um experiened salary adjustment would put their new base at 6,525 th000 $525 if you cast your eyes to the right on your screen to the column that has the yellow above it comparing to St Lucy County and Indian River you can see that those two are more than what the base- to- base comparison would be with St Lucy County were're higher than them by $2,065 and Indian River County $4,525 with the addition of the millage again um comparing to what St Lucy offers versus what we have agreed upon as well the vase base versus millage is also higher in every instance with ranging from 4,726 to a high of almost 85,000 for St Lucy County and of course with any that does not offer a millage um it's it's even higher option two again does have its BR pros and cons the pros art Awards teacher salary increases based on their performance some component of it but more weighted towards years of experience it aligns with Florida Statutes and it does address the compression in the schedule it produces an even more even experience placement schedule however obviously it does provide lower pay for performance amounts to teachers with lesser years of experience our data indicates this at this point that prior to the infusion or where we are today that the old the the current average teacher salary is about 5238 after if we come to an agreement and I have to be careful because this is ongoing process our data suggests that that average would go to $3,448 in closing we wanted members of the board and the community to understand that there are also other opportunities for teachers to earn additional income in the school district such as and we just picked a couple random random teachers you can see this teacher had a beginning annual salary of 62,200 received the tsia dollars for $400 puts them at 62,6 again the pay for performance and the the years of experience salary adjustment are under negotiation bringing that new projected base to $ 65,67 however the items that are shaded in the salmon color I'm not too good at colors um indicates other areas in which teachers do are a to have the opportunity to earn additional income such as an advanced degree um amount so for example in this instance this individual has an advanced master's degree Title One supplement if you're working in a tile one school you receive an approximate $500 a western Zone supplement of $3,100 for I believe this individual is in Indian town so they receive that supplement this individual does not receive an athletic supplement and there's other supplements in the amount of $627 which comprise of a crial critical shortage critical teacher shortage supplement a team leader and also a yearbook sponsor and the second item the athletic supplement this individual receives supplements for coaching football weightlifting golf Etc so there are opportunities for teachers to receive additional income not only just through the base salary on what we negotiate but what we have already agreed to that is in our collective bargaining agreement so just to close out again Advanced degree supplements supplements for working at Title One School Western Zone supplements supplements for coaching Athletics and team leader supplements are just a few examples in the gray SK in the gray shaded area to the extreme right on your screen we also put the total amount of all of those components of their compensation that are eligible for a board FRS contribution which is around 3% as as everyone knows so for example of the total compensation of this individual of $90,000 projected 89,000 of that would be eligible for f FRS contribution so Madam chair board members members of the community I thank you for Mr superintendent I thank you for allowing me the opportunity to present this information and once again our negotiations are ongoing and we hope to come to a successful conclusion thank you thank you thank you Carter uh I appreciate the board allowing me the time to have Carter give that presentation again we want to be factual we want to provide the facts and we will put our salary schedules up against St Lucy and Indian Rivers salary schedules and I can say with with very accurately that we are very competitive and in many cases you saw on the screen almost every case ahead of uh Indian River and St Lucy the there will be a salary calculator that's just about done that we're ready to push out that all teachers will be able to input their individual salary and individual situations based on the supplements that they receive and we will have in that salary calculator Indian River County and St Lucy County's salary base salary in there so you can see that if you were contemplating leaving to Martin County to go to St Lucy or Indian River what that dollar amount would impact whether it would be a negative impact or a positive impact and by how much so we want our employees to be able to make the very best decision and we are confident that they will make the decision to stay here in Martin County after they see those numbers thank you thank you are there any questions from the board for any other information only reports seeing none would anyone like to speak during our board member information share for anything Miss Roberts um so I don't know I one that was added one of the information only reports that was added was the clinic presentation I don't know if the board has any interest in hearing that or not I haven't read it yet since we just got it I don't know anybody okay okay yeah all right so i' be interested but I'd like to read it first okay okay thank you a we will move forward to public comment due to the amount of public comment we have this evening we ask that you limit your speech to two minutes we thank you for your understanding citizen input is vital to the Improvement of our district most times your remarks may be listened to without comment from the board members or superintendent this does not mean that they are heard with any less intensity or concern where appropriate the super intendent and staff will investigate your comments and report back to you and the board with an answer we thank you for taking the time and having the concern to make our district better your presentation to the board should not exceed two minutes letters or statements from the from others not present can be given to our clerk who will be sure that each School Board member and the superintendent receive a copy to keep our records straight and authentic our policy does not permit you to read the statements of others into the record first up Tom mcnicholas start the clock yet good afternoon Madam chair board members superintendant Maine uh leadership staff appreciate it we're just coming back to update you on a couple items we were here several weeks ago on Hidden Oaks Middle School but first and foremost I want to introduce the owner of kaloa Creek in the ranch who today you uh agreed on consent agenda I know as a public affairs expert we're supposed to get our votes on consent agenda and hit the door and get out of here but these Partnerships are too important and your staff has worked effortless you know tirelessly on these so we want to mention them and thank you for that the partnership between kaloa Creek the ranch and South Fork High School I want to first introduce Ken Bax who's here in the third row he's been unavailable until today to make it to one of these meetings and I want to thank Ken for the partnership that he's contributed to the school district I also want to point out Britney Bearden from our office who created this partnership and she is a graduate of South Fork High School so Britney thank you for that she's the lovely lady in the blue dress when we talked about this partnership Ken said it's okay that we're going to put a significant amount of money towards this to improve the property improve the golf course and improve improve the facilities but what's most important to him is the on the job training and proof is in the pudding in in a frier head in New York they've had the on the job training for 22 years and it's been successful with hundreds of students coming through that program I'm going to point one of them out to my right Megan kios who went through that on job training for 5 years survived it went on to University of Florida graduated and then with her culmination she joined our firm two years ago and she's been doing fantastic she's actually doing Outreach in Indian Town in hob sound a lot of you may have seen her 22 seconds now I'm going to shift to Hidden Oaks Middle School Ken thank you very much for your contributions in the partnership with South Fork those on the job training by the way one last thing will begin in 2024 hitno Middle School all three phases that that you all agreed to and approved will be done within the next 6 weeks we have full funding a lot of that has been led by Community Partners like Ken back who is also now beyond that PUD contributing $50,000 to that project I'll stop there thank you board members thank you Ken B thank you next up Charlotte nebeling thank you good afternoon board members my name is Charlotte nebling and I'm a junior at Martin County High School I am an active swimmer at the Martin on the Martin County high school team and on the Martin County swimming club I've been swimming for about seven years and have accomplished swimming at senior championships and have learned life lessons the the life lessons I have learned is self-confidence time management and hard work and strength only a feud to list as a rising senior at the end of the school year I would like love to finish out my swim career where it all started the Martin County High School swim pool but enough about me this pool has brought many community members together and has brought students together as your goal State you are making stu students College and Career ready this pool has made me College and Career ready and so many others please consider the effect that you are causing to this community be by taking away this a Maran County staple thank you Charlotte neelain thank you next up Julia Murphy hello everyone I'm Julie Murphy smmer of Martin County Aquatics going on seven years now I'm not here today to only talk about the how vital the pool is to our community but also to stand beside my teammates my swim family to prove how much this facility means to every single one of us I started swimming in elementary school when I first moved to Martin County making friends after this change was extremely difficult to me and as soon as I started to come to practice I quickly realized ized what it meant to be a teammate and a friend to all of my peers I took a break from swimming in middle school and I suffered with the same situation of not bonding with anybody at school but after a year I joined Martin County swimming again I found myself watching the clock every day for 4:30 when I would be able to see my teammates and dive into the pool the best part of my day is when I get to walk into the pool deck and have the refreshing feeling of home against my skin I know what that I speak for everyone a part of the Martin County swimming team athletes parents and coaches included when I say that this pool holds more than just chlorine it holds passion it holds potential and above all it holds the foundation of Martin County swimming high school team and Club taking away our pool is a greater loss than just Financial issues it is where your future Generations collect scholarships for their hard work where USA swimming Masters show up at 5 o' in the morning to stay healthy and where our families laugh cry and cheer together for our athletes this is also where kids of our County learn to take their first Strokes so please listen to all of the swimmers talking today and don't take our home thank you thank you Manuel Gonzalez name Manuel gonzale good after good afternoon superintendents and board members 7,48 88 hours that is the number of hours that I have swim at the Martin County High School pool that is twice a day 6 hours a week all year round for the last eight years to me swimming is more than just a sport pride of joining the swim team I had hard time hard time focusing in school sitting still and being able to compete my schoolwork I was called a behavior problem and told I was falling behind as soon as I joined the swim team my grades behaviors and understanding for the content instantly increased I have not had the problem since I have tried other aards but nothing gave me the confidence swim he has coach Barbara was an essential part of of this growth some of my achievements of extra curricular since I began swimming includes a 4.66 g weighted GPA 4.0 unweighted I am the Ace in the Ace cogram I'm working on my Eagle Scout project to conserve our Waters I'm a junior lifeguard and have my boers and scuba license a relationship I have gained from the pool is with my coach Daniel Harley Coach Danny is the person who I go to gain a racing strategy talk to me off the ledge when I'm nervous who I wake up at 5:00 a.m. for to go to his practices who has all my times memorized and who I go to for any problems swim or not related because of Coach Danny and Coach Barbara I just swam at a meet in which I got an Allstars in sectionalist Cut making me one step closer to my goal of swimming in college hopefully at A1 school I choiced the Martin County school in order to swim for this steam I have put in so much commitment time and energy for the pool and while the program keeps me healthy in shape it is not the only benefit of the program I've gained coaches who have taught me and helped me so much and a family a group of people I am with every single day for this program thank you thank you Addison Messer Addison nesser if you can please hold your applause so that they can hear their names being called I really would appreciate it hello my name is Addison Kess I'm 17 years old and I'm a junior at Martin County high school and I'm in the senior group for Club swimming I've been swimming at this pool for six years years now and I wouldn't want to be swimming anywhere else I've accomplished many of my goals including my long-term goal of getting my senior Championship cut in the 200 backstroke and have now reset set my goal for joining some of my teammates at States next year during High School season in the 100 backstroke but I don't want to keep talking about myself because that's not why I'm here we are here for a bigger reason that is beyond each other's individual wants and needs but the wants and needs of a community and family that has been here for each other for over 50 years achieving goals together as a team the Martin County High School pool is not just a pool that can come and go it is a rock and a foundation for hundreds of people not only this but is a place of Education being a swimmer and swimming at this pool has taught me and will continue to teach generations of swimmers valuable life lessons that will carry into their educational career it teaches time management responsibility good work ethic as well as loyalty to teammates friends and people around you all this is carried with these swimmers into classroom and workplace settings for the rest of their lives by removing the pool you are sacrificing the opportunity for kids and teens to learn these skills and accomplish their long-term and short-term goals for a new building that won't spark anything inside these kids in closing I want you to take a look around really look at the faces of the people who are here to speak out for our pool from the young kids who are taking swim lessons teens swimming competitively Masters who wake up early every morning to work out parents who cheer on their kids and drive us everywhere and to the coaches who make it all possible for our wonderful Community to do what we love every day you about to take away our why our reason we wake up every morning and are able to put our feet on the ground with a smile this decision is not about selfish reasons and what will benefit the small minority but about how it will affect a hardworking and very large and long-existing family so please save our pool thank you David schaer David Schaefer once again if you can please hold your applause because it's very hard for everyone to hear and here good evening Madam chair members of the board superintendent Maine and everyone else here this evening with us my name is David Schaefer I'm the principal or assistant principal at portor elementary school and I have the honor of coordinating the Russell hallay track meet for our school district where we have over 600 students who participate every year in this meet where our coaches help to coach them meet with them every day after school work through the hand offs of the batons help them through all these different events so I want to speak to them for just a few moments so I stand before you today to talk about our dedicated Educators who consistently go above and beyond their contractual obligations while I'm currently speaking of our PE coaches in the track meet we have teachers all across this District who do similar things outside of our classrooms for example our annual music and our schools event that's occurring this Thursday evening as we navigate through the complexities of our contract negotiations it's crucial to recognize the extraordinary commitment our teachers make to the success of our students many of our coaches start their track practices in running clubs early in the fall for a meet that usually occurs on a Saturday at the end of January spending months leading practices motivating and coaching our students their willingness to contribute extra hours for practice to support our athletes exemplifies the spirit of Education here in Martin County this commitment has a profound impact not only on the performance of our students but also their overall well-being and their resiliency as we consider the terms of the new contract let us Ensure that it reflects the respect and support our teachers deserve let's work together to create an environment where such dedication is acknowledged and encouraged and fosters a future where educators are valued for their pivotal role they play in shaping our leaders of tomorrow thank you for your time and your continued support of our Educators thank you Melissa [Applause] Burke good afternoon I would like to piggyback on the CTE video from tonight and say thank you for continuing your CTE program in Martin County um it was a great presentation by Mr McNichols I'm looking forward to the collaboration with Southfork to see what it brings to this day I don't believe there's a functioning sprinkler system at South Fork which means your turf management program is not working to its maximum ability that's shameful also received an email today from your EG science teacher at Murray middle that she's quit so I'm really concerned about how your feeder school for egg science doesn't have an EG science teacher for the next for August how you're going to fulfill all those commitments to your contract your your relationship with the South Fork Turf and and golf course so really hope that nursing program keeps your CTE going because I'm concerned about where South Fork's at with their other programs and I've been here before to bring up these concerns to you so it's not the first time um you also use your related arts teachers to really brag about your District you did it again today with fall with Mrs doerty she did a fabulous job singing here today with her students pay her she's sitting on 40 hours of comp time you don't pay her respect your teachers when you negotiate you send people to negotiation on your behalf the five of you elected people you have political Consultants that you have that we pay for you to have political Consultants to go back to Tallahassee start start caring about the people in your community stop using our tax money for wasteful things be responsible with the contracts and advocate for us at the state level so you don't have to use these mandates as an excuse for where we're at as a district thank you Daniel Hartley Daniel heartley good afternoon board members my name is Daniel heartley born and raised in M County graduated of JBE Stuart Middle and jensy Beach High School I'm the co-head coach mon County swimming and small business owner this isn't my first time speaking here about saving the pool nor my second but my third once when I was 10 then I was 17 now as a grown adult it amazes me that every time that people want to close such a vital piece of our community countless lives have been changed from this pool growing up I started swimming at this pool at the age of four became a lifeguard worked my whole life through this and now a coach there the pool do not only does not only teach kids and adults how to swim but saves lives and also changes lives for the better I and many other would not be where I am today if not were for the pool and the lessons swimming teaches you such as discipline dedication and work ethic there was a quote put together that it would take over a million dollars to fix the pool that is completely ludicrous independent contractors have quoted us at under 500,000 also if you and measure the square footage of the pool you can see that whatever you want to put in its place can easily fit in the back of the school behind the football fields on the Open Fields if you close this pool there's absolutely no room at sellfish for any other groups as we as I have and other parents have been asking for months and directly from your assistant facility director Todd fa they are not accepting any of the groups at this time because there is no space this town has exploded since I was a kid closing the pool would be a catastrophe also in a workshop meeting recently it was said that the last time the pool was resurfaced with liner in 2008 that we simply went over to Sailfish that couldn't be further from the truth as there was no Sailfish in 2008 if you close this pool they are not only hurting children which matter the most but also the community groups that have used the pool for training or simply to have a good time include the Police Department fire rescue Special Olympics Roc PE classes local D dive shops boys and girl clubs and extended days without drowning uh last thing uh real quick thank you thank you Carol Collins Carol Collins good afternoon I'm coming here today as a parent step parent former foster parent and grandparent in the area and uh with one question really for the school board but it might become more as a result of the recent settlement regarding uh State hb1 1557 I would respectfully like to ask our superintendent and our school board members are we ready to stop robbing our children now and the handful of school school board meetings I've been to in the last year since the Washington Post article that sort of made a mockery of Martin County for the uh last count as of last September 98 Books banned via removal here in Martin County um I made the lofty goal of trying to read everything that you have uh that that you have had removed uh all of the objections didn't make it because you guys are ahead of me but out of 20 some uh books 6,500 Pages I've read not only did none of them uh have more than a single paragraph where they discussed body parts of any type in any function uh taking these books out of the schools robbed our children of the rest of the 200 odd pages in everyone stories about what do you do it if your parents have a divorce if there's substance of abuse in your family if a child dies uh if you if there is teen suicide and what are red flags you can look at that can help you uh that can help you save someone who is maybe in that condition and all along in the year I've been here the school board has said they didn't have the resources to reconsider any of these books now this there has been resources however thank you uh thank thank you thank you next Alec [Applause] McIntyre uh good evening dear Madam chair school board members superintendent Maine uh thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening um I'm here on behalf of my fellow teachers and colleagues my name is Alec McIntyre and um I'm here to support colleagues throughout the district and at the amazing and awesome school of Jensen Beach High School um I've been a professional educator for 20 years 18 in the district I was honored to be a teacher of the year in the district 2015 uh education is a calling and it is a challenge those who can teach those who believe in raising the education of the Next Generation and preparing the future of our country teach uh a lot of people struggle to teach one or a handful of kids in their own household so I've got 150 um so there's almost always an audience at work um it's not just about presenting material and preparing for assessments and things uh we also have to entertain and then we have to adjust on the Fly for all the curved balls and unforeseen things that happen to us um I believe that the school board partially supports us uh we need a school board that supports us 100% from day one I witnessed some of the negotiations and um it seems like it's just a series of delay tactics um and to help offset Rising costs of insurance some other school district have discussed the stipend and they did offer $790 however the initial offer your initial offer was zero I would like to thank the voters of Martin County for the millage however uh my actual base salary um is just barely more than a new teacher so if your goal is to force quality teachers out of the district please be careful it just might work thank you thank you Carrie McIntyre Carrie McIntyre okay hi all right Madame chair members of the board and superintendent Maine thank you for the opportunity to speak with you my name is Carrie McIntyre and I'm here as an advocate for our teachers the public school system and I have the honor of teaching at Jensen Beach Elementary School I have had the privilege to teach in Montana Alaska St Lucy County and as well as Martin County I have been honored as a teacher of year I'm highly educated with an ESC degree Elementary masters of curriculum instructions with literacy I'm an SLP assistant and reading an esol endorsed this is my first experience where I feel like the board does not fully support our teachers I was once given this puzzle box um with a treasure inside and it's a symbolic reminder and appreciation for how hard we work in education each student that enters our classroom is a puzzle that we have to help discover the treasures that are inside each student that walks through our class room doors bring different challenges and we have to overcome those obstacles by being consistent working hard for every single child with full dedication we are professionals that produce the next president the next plumber the next teacher the next physical therapist and our profession deserves respect and it deserves honor we should not be worried about how to make our next mortgage payment not after 20 years of experience and a master's degree in one of the most important professions in our country should I need to worry about how I'm going to pay for my groceries afford my health insurance for my family as I was leaving for here I had a colleague stop and say thank you because she's living off of insurance of a family member that died because she can't afford to work in Martin County I believe in Martin County I believe in the dedication thank you thank you please hold your applause meline busum good evening superintendent main members of the school board my name is mine busam a student of the Martin County High School school district currently attending Martin County high school today I'll will be speaking upon the topic of our pool I've been sing for almost 10 years now and I can say that this pool needs to stay open first as many have mentioned or are yet to mention there's just simply not enough space Martin County's population has risen substantially over the years with its current number of residents rising from 28,000 in 1970 to 160,000 in 2021 of which 177,000 are living in Stewart alone attending practices and seeing the capacity of the pool I don't believe that we will hold be able to hold two teams successfully because I practice at sailfish currently Jensen Beach High School South Fork High School and the Pine School all practice there during High School season filling all 20 lanes and when we are not in high school season the water park host Treasure Coast Aquatics water polo scuba lesson synchronized swimming open swim in Pat toner swim school so I will ask you why would it make sense to shut down one of our pools now while you are still pondering about how there's not enough space let me continue on to tell you why we need this space drowning is the leading cause of death among children AG is 1 to 5 years old according to the Florida Department of Health annually there are enough children under five lost to drowning to fill three or four preschool classrooms furthermore it goes on to State the exact numbers of children lost being 50 in 2019 60 in 2020 and 75 in 2021 if we take a look at those numbers it becomes increasingly more evident that drowning is and will continue to be a problem however with pools such as the dick Wells Training Center we could help mitigate the overall effects of this issue on the Martin County swimming website it is noted this is not a learned a swim program swimmers must be comfortable in the water and prepared to swim multiple lengths of the pool age practice this just further proves the point that the pool has so much potential if we allowed it to having swim lessons at the pool would be saving lives continuing on this issue of drowning is not limited to young children only according to the CDC Florida is rank third in the US for drowning ages 0 to 17 so as I begin to close shutting down the pool is something that I believe cannot be taken lightly it's one of the only sources that could help us prevent these debts thank you thank you Savannah [Applause] Hill good evening members of the board my name is Savannah Hill I'm a sophomore in Martin County High School and I've been a part of Martin County swimming for about a year and a half I'm speaking on behalf of saving Miss pool not only has this pool provided me a place to practice my sport but it has also been a major piece of my high school experience thus far my family could have moved anywhere and come to Florida ultimately we decided on this area with this I had the opportunity to choose between three different high schools to attend but Martin County High School stood out as being the only one offering a pool as a swimmer and making my decision I knew that the convenience of the pool at Martin County High School would allow me to work towards my goals in this Sport and improve my performance without the e extra step of traveling to the nearest facility and so far my expectations for this pool have been far exceeded I have had the best high school and Club Seasons at this pool making countless friendships and memories I hope to continue to be part of my team at our pool for years to come thank you thank you Chad Fair good evening Madame chair rest of the board Mr main thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening um and I want to commend the students who were brave enough to step up here for something they believe in and thank you for your willing just to step up and speak I'm actually here to speak about House Bill 1069 which is going through the Florida the Florida House and Senate um it's volunteer chaplain in place of Mental Health Counselors um oddly enough um as a pastor I find myself against this practice um perhaps because I'm married to a mental health counselor U and saw the training that she went through um and the training required to get that degree in mental health counseling um my master's degree four years one year internship three years in a classroom I had exactly two classes in pastoral care that in no way provide no way um may be capable of providing mental health counseling to students or anyone else for that matter so I commend you I I really implore you to look at this bill um should it pass you have the ability to actually not follow that um everybody thinks oh this is a great idea when they Envision their pass being the one that's in the schools if it's not their Pastor are they so happy um and just real quickly um having been someone who has attended the negotiating sessions I'm not sure that the teachers would agree with how competitive um that pay is especially with up to 60% increases in insurance cost which makes it nearly impossible to make ends meet in Martin County if you continue to put a system under stress a system under tension and not give it the support the system will fail we can't afford for our education system to fail but if we keep T if we keep putting it under stress and under tension it will what do we do with a less educated population we need our teachers thank you Christina fiori in 2017 as a single mother to a third grader I scraped together everything I had to purchase a home I knew that I could buy more house for my money and pay less taxes in another County but I also knew that my son would have more opportunities in Martin County and that is where I wanted him to be six years ago I made show made sure to show up for a midterm election because on the ballot was a proposed half cent sales tax for education I was there for that 50 cents for every $100 I spend goes to more opportunities for the kids abs absolutely signed me up for that put it on the ballot again what I didn't know back then was that it had also recently been proposed to close the pool at Martin County High School earlier that Year my son and father took part in the cardboard boat race at that pool when my son was in seventh grade A Friend introduced us to the swim team then in eighth grade he thought he may want to go to a different high school for a particular CTE program but he wouldn't be able to be on the swim team in another Pool there was no way I would be able to get him to practice at sailfish every day at 3:30 so we chose the Ace Program and the swim team at Martin County now he's a freshman with aspirations of swimming in college he looks up to the seniors that are leaving for college next year with swimming scholarships he hopes to do the same in a school with over 2,000 students not everyone can be on the football team or the basketball team swimming is one of the few sports that will include anyone on the team as long as they can get to to practice and as long as the pool is a few steps outside of their classroom anyone can get to practice there are a 100 kids on that club team does sailfish have the capacity to take in those new swimmers with the only other pool in the county becoming overcrowded how long will it be before we realize we need another Pool we have a unique asset here for our kids they're putting in some hard work on their end we owe it to them to keep this pool open please preserve what we have thank you Victoria [Applause] deener good evening a settlement agreement was reached with the Florida Department of Education and equality Florida that puts an end to some of the most dangerous impacts of the don't say gay legislation several critical protections and clarifications include students and teachers can now speak and write freely about sexual orientation and gender identity in classroom participation and assignments the settlement reinforces safeguards against bullying based on sexual orientation and gender identity gsas are protected providing students with essential support and advocacy spaces this law cannot prohibit references to lgbtq plus individuals relationships families or topics in any educational extracurricular context targeting lgbtq couples families or issues under the guise of this law is explicitly forbidden lgbtq plus teachers and students can openly draw or display pictures of their partners and families the law does not prohibit participation and expression by lgbtq plus persons EX in extracurricular events like school dances or the wearing of clothing that is affiliated with lgbtq persons the law does not apply to library books so long as those books are not being used in the classroom to instruct on the subjects of sexual orientation and gender identity it does not prohibit Book Fairs that include lgbtq plus focused books musicals or plays with references or characters the settlement promotes a much needed culture of empathy compassion acceptance and inclusivity as Educators and school board members Your Role is to ensure the success of every student and in order to do this children and teachers must feel safe valued and respected so it's critical that this information is shared in a timely manner the Florida Board of Education was required to send agreement to every school district what has the Martin County School District done to communicate to all employees parents and students the protections and clarifications of this settlement and when was this action completed thank you Kathleen [Applause] Wyatt good evening Martin County School Board and Community I'm Kathleen Wyatt this is my son Jackson Wyatt as a proud alumni of Martin County High School and a former swimmer I stand before you today not only as a member of this community but also as a parent who son currently swims from Martin County High School I'm here to highlight the importance of our maintaining our school swimming pool not just for the benefit of our athletes but the entire Community the pool at Martin County High School is a symbol of dedication perseverance and Community Spirit those experiences shaped me into the person I am today now as a parent I have the privilege of witnessing my own son follow in my footsteps tradition it's why so many of us chose to raise families in the community that we were raised in closing down this pool would not only deprive our students of valuable opportunities for physical activity and personal growth but it would also sever an essential Lifeline for our community I've listened to the last month's school board meeting and while I understand those budgets and numbers make it pretty easy to make a decision inevitably to close the pool um I urge you to humanize those numbers and recognize that immeasurable value that our pool brings to Martin County there were comments made about how simple it would be to send swimmers to Sailfish but I've had the experience as a parent um at those clubs and I can tell you they're pretty much at capacity um my son as well has been a lifeguard at Sailfish Splash and he can contest to how crazy that pool gets um you know in Martin County we have multiple Parks why can't we have two pools so let's ensure that future Generations have the same opportunities that myself and my son have had to learn and grow and thrive in the water thank you for your time and consideration thank thank you Lincoln and I'm not quite sure the last name sols are and if you can please spell your last name that we can have a record clear s a l a z a r perfect thank you hello my name is Lincoln Salazar and I've been swimming for the Martin County Club and team and high school team for 3 years now and I've been able to compete at multiple state championships that I couldn't have qualified for without this pool I practically grew up on this pool deck as both my brother and sister SW before me and during these memorable and remarkable years I've met lifelong friends and I've made countless memories that will resonate with me forever because of this pool and the people I've met through it I've become more disciplined and overall a better person and it is unfair to take these opportunities to meet such great people away from the future of Martin County swimming thank you thank you cutter should [Applause] hello I'm cutter Shipman senior and swimmer here at Martin County High School I stand for the survival of the pool as with my fellow swimmers and coaches my teammates and I have trained here for many years striving for our goals many of us practicing multiple times per day to achieve them as of recently I was honored to be able to represent the Martin County High School at the state championships along with competing for the Martin County tiger sharks at a national level this pool along with the coaching and support from friends and family have allowed me to commit for a division one college through a swim scholarship I want others to be able to get the same chance I got and our pool is essential for that thank you thank you Colleen dhy good evening Madam chair members of the board and Mr main my name is Colleen doerty and I'm the proud product of the Martin County Schools I grew up here and wanted nothing more than to raise my own family here I have a junior at Jensen Beach High School sixth grader at Stewart Middle School and my husband is a band director at Jensen Beach High School I taught my first eight years um of Elementary music at Port Sero and this is my 10th year teaching music at Felix A Williams I absolutely love providing music enrichment and special performance opportunities for the students at my school these are some of the most precious memories and experience some of these children will ever have and absolutely some of my Fondest Memories as well it becomes harder and harder each year to continue to put my heart soul and personal time into these enrichment opportunities when I'm not compensated quite honestly when I feel also like my time and talent isn't valued or respected here's the reality the comp time doesn't pay the grocery bills or make up from the time away from my own family as you may have seen on the school district Facebook and YouTube the foe selfish singers performed the snowbiz musical this past December for this musical alone I earned 30 hours of comp time for the rehearsals with students after my contract hours and this doesn't include any of the hours that were spent planning or coordinating all the late nights and late um days after school another example is our music and our schools concert on Thursday it's the 49th annual concert one that I've personally performed in many times as a Martin County student did you know that the Elementary music teachers are the only music teachers that are not compensated for our time and the rehearsals or that evening concert the secondary band and chorus teachers in our district receive an annual supplement and this concert is one of their requirements each Elementary School is expected to have 20 students representing their school yet we are provided no compensation the last thing I want to quickly mention is the need for retention this year out of our 12 elementary schools we had five openings in music and when I started here almost 20 years ago there was never a position open someone had to die or retire for there to be an opening I ask that you consider approving the Elementary music Club sponsor supplement so we can feel appreciated and valued for our time talent and efforts for these amazing students thank you thank you Katherine Rogers Katherine Rogers good evening superintendent and board members my name is Katherine Rogers and I'm I'm a sophomore at Martin County high school today I came to talk to you about what this pool is and swim program has brought to me and how it is more than actual swimming in seventh grade I had to go to the doctor's office a lot and got a diagnosis that I'll have to address for the rest of my life I now go to the Children's Hospital in Philadelphia every 3 months for care I was virtual all of that year when I was diagnosed I hardly saw anyone that year when I went back to school in sports not many adults had much interest or were willing to help and accommodate me while I had to go out of state for a appointments that is not something I can say about Coach Dany from the second Coach Danny knew about my medical situation he would always check in on me and genuinely cared about my well-being along with the mental aspect of this pool and coaching it has kept me in shape mentally and physically while it provides a great cardio workout swimming has kept the extreme effects of my diagnosis significantly reduced without swim practice I have no clue how that would impact my health short or long term I do know though that without being able to swim my life would be impacted for the worst last year when I was on the flag football team to be able to get to games in practice I would swim with Coach Danny before school and at the first home flag football game Coach Danny was one of the ones in the stand cheering for us just as he would do at swim meets unfortunately at flag football I broke my collar bone and while I was in recovery Coach Danny cared the whole time and is still helping me today there all the coaches at this pool are great listeners and humans that I learned so much from this program brings so much more than just the exercise the most memorable part of swimming is the relationships and support that I now have and out of the pool by saving the pool you will help so many students now and in the future please don't close the pool thank you for your time thank you Monty [Applause] cania Madam chair superintendent Maine members of the board thank you for the opportunity to speak today my name is Monty canilla and I have been the music teacher at Palm City Elementary for the past 20 years I'm also honored to be PC's teacher of the year when intervie interviewing for my position at pce I was asked if I could direct the School chorus in tone chime group I was told these programs are already a part of pce and there would be no supplement for the added workload outside of comp time I have never in 20 years received any compensation for directing our chorus in addition to directing the chorus in tone shine group I was asked if I was interested in leading the band since I had previous experienced teaching at an elementary performing arts school I was eager to have such an opportunity to hear in Martin County I was pleased to know that I would be compensated for this added after school activity once established our music Pro program grew and prospered and became much more than just a club when the co pandemic arrived it was understandable why these funded programs were discontinued it was my assumption that all Elementary programs and clubs would be suspended until they could safely resume given the impact and benefit they provided I was certain that that these programs would be supported and allowed to continue once we could safely do so that never happened School returned but the programs didn't I was told that the music programs were discontinued due to a conflict of interest I feel our programs are not a conflict of interest but a common interest retain and retention when I was hired in 2004 I remember principal Nancy Maron telling me that there were over 100 applicants for the PC music job I thought she was just being gracious Nancy was correct fast forward to 2023 we've had unprecedented turnover in music education Community we even had a a position open at hob sound for an entire year what does that tell you why would't that position be filled immediately nearly half our Elementary music teachers are teaching their first year in this County if I was a young music educator given the salary structure and lack of supplemental opportunity I would think of taking an additional on taking on this additional Pro uh school programs thank you sorry around time Unice B good afternoon superintendent Main and members of the school board my name is Unice busam and I have three kids that are on the Martin County tiger sharks swim team that swim at um the high school pool uh this past weekend one of our uh kids coaches Coach Danny uh was promoted to be um the head coach there at the club team and I believe you all received an email from one of our Swim Club parents recently with parent testimonials about Coach Danny he simply's the best he told you all about growing up here and he spent Summers lifeguarding there and he's had a lot of opportunities um After High School graduation Coach Danny attended IRSC and Kaiser University where he also swam compe itively and very successfully a coaching opportunity after college brought Coach Danny to Colorado but he had in his heart to come back home um when the opportunity arose his opportunity came about two years ago with the retirement of Coach Gordon Lang Danny started with the club in July of 2022 and quickly became a favorite of all the squads he had the opportunity of coaching all you have to do is stop by the pool on any given afternoon after school to see coach Dany in action running from one end of the pool to the next starting the kids off the blocks with his bullhorn cheering his swimmers on when they maintain their times in hard sets and motivating them through his Mantra of this is where we get better when they want to quit and occasionally you'll see him take on a swimmer or two in a race when those teenage boys get too cocky and think they can beat him he puts them back in their places all this to say coach Dany could have stayed in Colorado and made his Mark there but he chose to come back home to Martin County to share his gift of coaching and motivating kids and bettering Our Community Coach Danny needs a pool to continue to work his magic when we heard his swimming parents that there's possibility that our pool is being shut down we took action to see if there was even space or lanes available at sailfish for our club to use we have not received favorable prospects that pool is fill filled already and Martin County is only growing not shrinking so please don't close the pool thanks Aubrey B hi my my name is Aubrey I have been with the Martin County swimming since I was eight and soon to be 11 the first day I moved to Florida I went to the Martin County swimming pool I remember our old Junior coach now coach L swinging his legs on the blocks as soon as I walked in I could tell my future would be here which is why I'm here today I started on the AG group Squad I could already see improvements in all my Strokes then a year later coach Lang our Junior coach retired then a new amazing Junior coach came who recently also became our head coach a few months later I moved up to the junior Squad after a few days of swimming I could see lots of improvements in all my Strokes especially my breast stroke which has led me to some pretty big meat this pool has helped me be as good as I am today which I'm trying to what I'm trying to say is that Martin County Pool has much to offer it has also greatly benefited many people's lives Martin County Pool should not be shut down thank you thank you Noel buff hello my name is Noel bsam and I been and I have been a swimmer on the Martin County tiger sharks for about 3 years now when I first came I was placed in the age group Squad which is the third highest Group after about four months on the age group Squad I was moved up to the junior Squad my coach was Gordon Lang for about one year before we retired one year go coaching's practices were challenging and during them I often gave up which led to me aimlessly swimming or skipping out on the things we did when he retired one year ago Coach Danny Harley took his place Coach Danny worked one-on-one with me during practice to try to improve the technique of my Strokes I used to think coach coach Lang's practices were hard coach Danny's were at a whole new level of hard for 11 months I worked extremely hard trying to qualify for the Junior Olympics suffering through 6100 butterfly 3050s and 21100 out practice Coach Danny was motivated though he he always says at least once in practice I know you're tired and everything hurts but this is where we get better he also says come on girl you're doing great one more 100 I qualified for the meet before J's where I was trying to get my J cut and my 50 fly I needed to get a 35.8 n to make Jos at PRS i w a 36.029456 I looked at Coach Danny as I stepped up on the Block he smiled at me and mouth you got this I do into the water and started swimming after my race I asked um my timer what my time was and she told me it was a 3588 I ran over to Coach Danny screaming my head off saying let's go because I got the cut he and my sisters were crying and he hugged me and said that he knew that I could do it and that all my hard work I paid off I made J's because of Coach Dandy there's no doubt in my mind that if he had not Cal I would not have made J's he needs a pool to inspire coach the kids at that pool is not sailfish or the YMC s is jam-packed already and throwing another team in there would just not be a sensible thing to do the YMCA is not designed for competitive swim teams to swim out since there is a pool since the pool is too shallow and there are no starting blocks we should maintain what is in use in our County the that pool is in Ed 6 days a week from 4:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Alana Beasley Alana Beasley good evening my name is Elena Beasley I'm the parent of three children who attend Martin County Public Schools and my oldest daughter is a swimmer with the Martin County tiger sharks as you all are aware Martin County's population is growing rapidly everywhere you look there are new housing developments and businesses being built with this grow growth comes in increased needs for students families and community members to have access to sports and recreation is not realistic to expect our entire County's population to be accommodated by one pool especially as more people move here and our Stu school student volumes grow multiple high school and Club teams use this the pool at sailfish and squeezing in another team will not only impact the children who swim competitively but also the community members who swim recreationally for health and exercise benefits there simp won't be enough space and time for all the swimmers now and certainly not in the future dick Wells Training Center is a unique asset to our community my daughter is a passionate swimmer loves her coaches and teammates and cherishes her time at dickw Wells Pool please keep the tradition of swimming alive at Martin County high school so that she her teammates and future swimmers can take pride in knowing that their Community Values their commitment and dedication to their sport as they represent Martin County at their home pool as tiger sh sharks thank you thank you Tara [Applause] Dietrich Tara [Music] Dietrich good evening as a former swimmer who grew up in North I find it absolutely appalling that um a high school in Florida cannot keep open one pool within our community for our children my daughter recently just started swimming at tiger sharks and I was like that's amazing because she's following my footsteps and now to hear that we are possibly closing the pool where I thought maybe she would eventually continue on all the way up through into high school and everything else I just find absolutely absurd as a taxpaying parent that we cannot keep one pool open for our kids and our community sail fish is not big enough and not able to accommodate everything thank you thank you Cindy Summers good evening members of the board and superintendent Maine my name is Cindy Summers good news for democracy moms for Liberty is slowly losing its political clout moms for Liberty endorsed candidates are losing School Board seats across the country moms for Liberty endorsed National po politicians are also losing seats anti-woke is dying Ronda santis ran for president on an anti-woke agenda and American voters weren't interested in this past legislative session five anti-woke GOP wishlist bills failed to pass the Senate approve approved a bill placing a cap of one book challenge per month for people who don't have students enrolled in the school district and in which in in the place in which they place the objection in the Escambia lawsuit the school board's motion to dismiss was denied judge weatherall determined that Library school books are not government speech as the school board had argued he expressed concern about one parent deciding for another what their child can read while explaining his decision he said that school books cannot be removed just because they don't align with someone's own moral beliefs Victoria covered the settlement so I won't go into it but I just want to say all in all I feel very very good that things are changing and the do democracy will prevail um I also want to say listen to these students for goodness sake keep this pull open thank you Joe Myers Joe Meyers next up Zach [Applause] SS good afternoon board my name is Zach SES the seventh grader at Anderson Middle School and planning to go to Martin County High School I am here today to fight for for our pool ever since I started swimming I've had a passion for it I would like to continue swimming throughout high school and even College this pool has helped many kids to reach their goals and exceed them it helps kids stay active and healthy while being a fun enjoyable team sport this pool is also a big opportunity for kids to get scholarships if we close this pool lots of kids will lose their chance to reach their swimming and physical goals thank you for your time thank you Callie melson Callie melonson hello my name is cie and I've swam for the Martin County tiger shark swim team for three years this team has brought all of us together in a positive manner encouraging us to be upstanding young citizens who are too busy to get into Mischief I have learned discipline discipline and work ethic because of this team closing the pool would be harmful to a lot of people because the pool is in a centralized location since it is at Martin County High School high schoolers just walk over after school this High School is the only High School in Martin County that has a pool on campus all the other teams practice at saish Splash so adding another team there would create overcrowding this pool is in use the majority of the time so it is not rational to shut it down as a rising high schooler I will not I will unfortunately be forced to quit quit the team if this pool closes my parents work schedule will not allow me to participate in the morning practices I need to attend swimming is also a live a lifelong sport adults practice at the Martin County High School pool on Monday Wednesday Friday and Saturday this is addition funds earned in addition to the club swimmers if the adults use another Pool for their source of exercise the tiger sharks will lose that income too this pool impacts the physical and mental health from adolescence to adulthood in our community thank you dick Landrum Vick Landrum good afternoon I'm here to talk about saving the coach dick Wells Training Center I've handed out um a history of the fundraising construction and operation of the Martin County Pool from 1972 to 1992 from the quanis club archives the quanas uh objective initially in 1974 was to Halt aquatic tragedies which have accounted for 48 deaths in this County in the past decade it is anticipated that every school child will learn to swim starting in the fourth grade and swimming competency will be a prerequisite for high school graduation the pool belongs to the residents of Martin County not to the school it was purchased by the residents the pool had the privilege of using the pool uh I'm sorry the school had the privilege of using the pool for the swim team and educational classes for this they pledged to maintain it the property belongs to Martin County they can choose not to fund it and turn it back to the county but they cannot decide to exclude Martin County residents who use it the school district finds um another or if they find another organization to take over the maintenance in operations just as the original agreement stated the organization should have a long-term lease on the property at no cost um as long as they maintain and operate the pool the school district work order presented at the February Workshop seems to have a large discrepancy in 2008 the pool liner was purchased and installed for about $64,000 the work order estimate places a cost at about $463,000 the current pool liner is not in bad shape it could easily last another four years we would like to have a formal workshop with all the interested parties to discuss the pool and to be able to use it to its fullest potential um with all the services that was originally intended to provide and we'd really like you all to agree to that to actually have this Workshop we'd appreciate it thank you thank you hi I'm Zoe SS I'm on the age group Martin County swim team this is my first year I'm really enjoying it and looking forward to a swim through High School the pool has became my home I look for after school school I would look forward and to going right to swim practice please don't take away my future thank you thank you Charles Wars well you guys are getting an earful tonight huh uh my name is Charles Lang I moved down here in 2006 um looked at every school from West Palm Beach to Port St Lucy got a job offer in West Palm and guess why I came here cuz it was what one of the top 10 schools in Florida that's slowly slipping but decisions like this is what's going to make it keep slipping in every County in Florida there's about 3.7 pools this has less than 0.1 per capita of what's here and taking away one and not adding one is just makes no sense I mean it just really makes no sense you guys got a ton of kids here you could see one of these kids on in the Olympics one day or you could not by making a bad decision you know let's do the right thing let's get together and work it out get some funds together and give these kids their their po yeah thank you heather Rogers as elected officials it's your paid job to listen to constituents the people in this room is why you all have jobs they deserve 3 minutes of your time as the seventh most expensive County in Florida with more money pouring in as people continue to move here our tax Bas is increasing not decreasing we need to start spending more money on our students and on our Educators no student is going to remember who the board members were when they were in our schools but the right teacher the right coach the right counselor may make all the difference in a child's life and future I have done my due diligence and reached out to the people at the county and Sailfish Splash to inquire about renting Lanes before and after school I have not received any indication of availability to rent Lanes at sailfish this tells me they don't have the space or time for more kids at Sailfish Splash they did share their 10-year plan which is lovely however the plan does nothing currently needed for the kids in this boardroom or in our middle and high schools we as a community um need to be building pools at every High School not closing them over spring break I had the opportunity to tour colleges and whether that college was private or public they both shared in having multiple pools on each campus as a district we are advertising to recruit students from other counties to increase our FTE dollars while our best teachers are going to those districts to make a livable wage students that are receiving free and reduced lunches are already at a disadvantage when it comes to seeking an education outside of their own ZIP code we have everything we need in Martin County we just need to make our children and our teachers a priority as board members you have been given multiple solutions to make the pool profitable open it to the public allow Daniel Hartley to teach the kids how to swim by bringing back our third graders to the pool consider integrating the CTE classes into learning how to care for the pool bump I encourage each and every one of you to come take a few laps under the instruction of Danny Danny Hartley it will be time well spent in discovering and what an asset at the Martin County High School has for this District thank you for your time thank you Olivia Oliver Olivia Oliver good evening I am Olivia Oliver before I address the issue at hand I'd like to share with you a little bit about myself and why is this is an important and personal topic to me I swam for the Martin County High School swim um Team this past season um I spent hours at the dick Wells facility qualified for regionals and was awarded the most valuable new swimmer of the year I am also a member of garden Synchro a nationally ranked artistic swimming team that practices at sailfish blash it's my 10th season with Gardens last season I ranked fifth in the nation in the event and my team came second our team consists of 60 athletes ranging from 6 to 18 years of age and 90% of our athletes are Martin County residents regarding the closing of the dickw wells facility I would like to the opportunity to outline the significant ramifications of this decision for your consideration first Sailfish Splash is unable to safely accommodate another High School swim team during the high school season every single Lane at sailfish is filled with four to five athletes on a typical day during the season if another High School were to join the other three that already practiced there Jensen southw and the Pine School the r full Lanes would become very cramped the folder the lane the more dangerous the practice is due to the due to the higher likelihood of a head-on collision second sailfish blash is unable to accommodate another club team during the week night there can be anywhere from three to five different programs practicing there including Treasure Coast Aquatics a large swim team that takes up 11 out of the 20 lanes available um Treasure Coast water polo and Atlantic diving team and US Garden Synchro who requires four lanes to be able to safely practice as we do complex acrobatics and very fast routines lastly if the dick walls facility were to stay open it could be used for so much good for our community um to put into perspective how desperate at least our team is for pool time we get about 10 and a half hours a week whereas our competitor like fellow competitors across the state and Country get anywhere from 19 to 25 and that's just us I'm sure if you ask the diving team the water polo team sailfish blash patrons they would say the same thing so we need more full space thank you Angelina [Applause] paron Angelina Peron hi my name is Angelina I have been swimming at the Martin County swim pool for almost 3 years years at first I thought swimming was just a sport for physical fitness but through the years swim has been an important part of my life coach Amy coach Barbara and Coach Danny have helped me greatly through my swim career through this pool I have learned life lessons such as goal setting the importance of nutrition and how to move on from failures and many others by taking other by taking our pool you're taking away something that swimmers look forward to like waking up at 4:45 in the morning to go to morning practice ractice being excited to go to an afternoon practice and feeling rewarded after a grueling practice of Coach Danny's taking our pool is like taking something you love or have a passion for away from you like your job family home Etc consider what you are taking away from children before it is too late to fix your doings swimmers lives matter too thank you thank you Bill [Applause] Smithson all right Madam chair school board members and superintendent Baine I thank you for the opportunity as always to address the Martin County School Board the first part of what I have to say is directed to Miss Russell and Mrs pret members we do not address board members by their name address them as the board thank you all right to all the board members MERS then um I want to bring to your attention a text message I receive over the holidays from one of the uh moms for Liberty uh members I won't mention her name because I think you know who I'm talking about and everyone in here probably knows who I'm talking about also all right I did not appreciate this person's invasion of my provacy how she got a hold of my cell number and sent me this text is beyond me all right so I um so the invasion of my prophecy and her feeble attempt at intimidation she challenged me to read an excerpt from Living Dead Girl at a school board meeting and testify why it shouldn't be removed she went on to enlighten me of all the Florida Statutes that justified the removal of objectional books from The Martin County School District media centers after some other disparaging and condescending remarks she concluded her text advising me to stop wasting the time of this school board and residents of Martin County because of my insistence in promoting a change in process to be inclusive of all Martin County residents and not exclusively moms for Liberty members by the way uh this person texted a number of other residents uh of this County who oppose book band so I'm not the only one that got these poison pen messages all right and it needs to stop and I'm asking those moms for Liberty to put a Cel her practice of uh these messages to us all right uh for a complete text and my resp response please refer to the January 21st issue of friends and neighbors it's an online local County publication let's not forget that most of the challenges came from the same person representing moms for Liberty let's not forget that this school board chose a more rigid thank you all right I'll continue next time Sydney [Applause] Thomas good evening Madam chair members of the board and superintendent main my name is Sydney Thomas I'm a parent former educator from the district uh yesterday I filed paperwork to run for the school board um and I wasn't going to speak tonight but I this is the culmination of so many issues that motivated me to want to run in the first place so I felt like I had to I do want to take a moment and thank uh superintendent Maine and Mrs Das shazo for attending the connected Martin monthly phone call and answering the questions it was extremely valuable we had really really positive feedback back um and thank you for taking the time to do that um there are three things well first of all the pool that's not what I was going to speak about at all but there has to be a way to save this pool and let's show these students that Civic engagement matters and I commend them so much for coming out here and speaking and then also for them to know that you have to keep speaking up just speaking about it one time is never enough the other issues that I wanted to address one was teacher pay we've heard a lot about how we compareed to the neighboring districts but what we haven't heard about is how our cost of living compared to those districts we have a far higher cost of living than those districts do and one comparable District that we've been bringing up is Charlotte County they're comparable in the amount of money they receive they're comparable in their student population and yet they pay so much higher than we do how and it's probably related to cost of living but that's something that is not being answered so if we want to get back to the times where people moved across the state so their kids could attend these schools we have we have to do better like way better in terms of cost of living and teacher pay the other thing is the settlement that people have been addressing I look forward to hearing those resolutions and the chaplain bill is 931 you're going to be faced with that decision soon I'm very concerned about it especially with the existing board members and this is a really inappropriate idea thank you Gil ooger good evening could I have all the swimmers past present and future stand with me please thank you I'm an alumni in Martin County I swam under dick Wells I want to say that I just heard about the the prospect ECT of closing the school and I I really feel it's a bad idea because I would not be the man that I am today I would not be the person who has who has followed the the principles that my coach did for me my uh my teammates some of my teammates are here tonight that I swam with and have a relationship with I I I applaud the young swimmers in the in the amount of work that they put in which far exceeds our mey 20,000 yards a day workouts that coach Wells made us do I will tell you that when we swam we were state champion we we became almost state champions District Champions Conference champions and a lot of the kids that were in our in my group went on to swim for major colleges I want to tell you that if you get rid of this pool which means so much to me and I don't even swim there anymore that means so much to me and what what it did from my life if you get rid of it I think it's a huge mistake mistake a huge mistake that pool was a place where I formed friendships where I formed a a work ethic when we got up our we had a we had a lane called the pain Lane and we went into that pain Lane and we got there early and we started our practices at 4:30 in the morning and we swam till 8:30 9:00 because we took classes for swimming and then we got back into pool at 12:00 and we swam till 6:00 let me tell you tell you swimming is the only sport that I know that is that does that and I I I just want to say one last thing Martin County school has great buildings let's do something about the pool thank you hi [Applause] dubben Clyde duban good evening members of the board thank you for taking making our public comment we really do appreciate you hearing us out um I swam right next to Gil uh many years ago um I've been a resident here of Martin County for 44 years uh like Gil we graduated from Martin County High School and uh it was a privilege to swim there at that time we had PE classes and I would encourage you to keep the pool if for no other reason but keep teaching children to swim we live in an aquatic Community we need to have children who can swim and not drown and I can remember Gary Shel dick Wells and numerous others teaching us swimming and as many of the the uh students here are on the swim team and encouraging them to grow and uh advance as Gil said um number number of people from our group and from that the time period of the shall I say the 80s uh went on to swim in college and I know a lot of students that came afterwards went on to swim in college also I will briefly say yes you have Sailfish Splash as an alternative but I would say you need both Sailfish Splash and Martin County High School pool when they built the pool uh the on the high school grounds the population was less than 60,000 maybe 50,000 in this County today we have well over 160,000 residents in Martin County so I think you do need two pools and I would encourage you I know you have difficult budget decisions people pulling in in every direction but I would encourage you to please keep the pool for the uh educational aspect of it and the swimming team thank you thank you Addison [Applause] O'Neal hi my name is Addison O'Neal and I've been swimming since I was eighty old and now I'm 12 years old this pool has been a major impact of My Life by helping me persevere and work hard for my goals I've made many lifelong friendships over the years because of this pool coach Barbara and Coach Jenny have helped me achieve my goals of many things including the Jos and helping other people achieve their achieve their goals by this pool by helping impact so many people's life so please keep this pool open and save our home thank you that concludes public comment and now we will um be taking a short recess about 10 minutes and then we'll resume our regular board meeting e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e okay paging Miss Roberts paging Miss Roberts yes exactly such mess he's a nice guy that's nice you're welcome you guys ready everyone ready okay we will now resume our regular board meeting of the Martin County School District we are going to move on to our agenda items our action items item number 18.01 School Board travel there is none at this time 18 uh 18 item number 18.02 Insurance committee recommendation of ancillary Insurance renewals for 2024 2025 employee benefits program Mr Calderone would you please come forward so that you can answer any questions that we may have thank you I'm going to open this up for discussion U are there any questions on this item this [Music] time well sort of hey good evening uh um Madame chair members of the board superintendent Maine Don Calderone director of risk management and employee benefits and alongside me is Dustin Kee our Senior Benefits consultant with the garant group um 18.02 is the action item for the ancillary Insurance renewal for the dental insurance and the employee assistance program happy to answer any questions you may have on that do you have this is this is EAP and an this is just anord dental and EAP anybody have any questions for this portion and just to note for the public there was a 5.1 in increase in the EAP coverage uh cost correct correct it was a a resulting um premium increase of $2,225 total $2,000 $2,000 increase total what you're saying total okay thank you thank you do I have a motion motion to second I have a motion by Miss pritchet a second by Mr dley all those in favor I any opposed motion carries unanimously item number 18.03 Insurance committee recommendation fully insured Group Medical and Pharmacy insurance benefits renewals for 2425 employees benefit program we do need to decide today on our plan option number 1 through 10 number seven has been recommended by the insurance committee we need to decide we want to grandfather the PO enrollment um grandfather prior to 7120 for family subsidy and HSA employer contributions are there any questions for Mr Calderone from the board Miss Roberts so I had a question so um when we when we look at these different op options the 10 options that you have given us hold on a minute let me find them and I see I know that one of the things that the board has been interested in or in the past at least has been interested in having for recruitment um benefits is to be able to say that we have an insurance policy that doesn't have any cost to our employees so that being said um do you can you I know I asked you thise at a time but to can you provide us the numbers that tell us that for instance if we take option number one um what the cost of that is I see now that right now um on whatever page this is that option number one which is no changes to the thing we have the high deductible policy where if you're an employee you don't have to pay anything for but with option one you would have to pay $10.96 for each pay period correct so and I'm I'm not so much interested in what how to make that high deductible premium zero for retirees I'm more interested as far as if we were having a new employee come in to be able to say that we have a plan that you wouldn't have to pay anything for what the cost on each of these options are you understand what my question is correctly yeah and um Dustin has a handout for um that based on all 10 uh plan design options um following the insurance committee meeting yesterday and as you stated board policy 6560 does allow the board to contribute a different amount towards active um Insurance compared to retire insurance so we have that here so can we have it here sure how many retirees do we have on the high deductible plan uh roughly 18 18 18 and those are retirees that have not reached that are not eligible for Medicare correct correct and these are retirees that um that are on the high deductible plan so let me see if I understand this correctly if I'm a retiree and I have not reached um Medicare age I get a subsidy from the state of Florida correct to help pay for insurance and I also get a subsidy from The Martin County School District with I think you probably have to come up there yes if you could come to the [Music] podium s eart is our senior benefit specialist who specializes in retire re insurance yes sir so so based on that based on what we're looking at then so there's two supplements that you get you can get as a retiree one from the state of Florida and one from the district that is correct um based on your years of service once you've reached the over 15 and so that the sheet that you're handing us now is showing us that um for the high deductible plan the middle section is talking about the 310 people who are um current employees so they would be employees that would be hit hit with the $10.96 in option one $10.96 per pay period and so if we picked that up for just the employee piece it ranges from anywhere from $81,000 down to $0 correct 0 being option nine and option seven coming in at 32 2000 correct and if we picked up everybody that was in that high deductible plan it means we would be looking at anywhere from 86,000 down to zero with option seven being 34 correct correct and there there are 18 retirees in the high deductible plan okay thank you any other questions are we going to go through the plans are we gonna go how how are we going to do this or are we just going to go straight to the one that I'd like to go over at least the one that the insurance committee recommended and then um I noticed in the PowerPoint presentation you had January and February's loss ratio but not uh March or the rolling 12 right well so we just received the February um claims yesterday right before the insurance committee so um we had Mrs Falls upload that an attachment um yester yesterday evening um the claims for February uh loss ratio were 109% which put the rolling 12mth loss ratio at 99% and what was our loss ratio last year it ended at a 88 it ended at a 88% and what was it when we were going through our renewal uh was that last year yeah at this same time because we always at this time of year for whatever reason we have a really high loss ratio and we're basing all of that information then by the end of the year it goes down significantly it's not as dramatic as oh my gosh it's 124% I look at I looked at last year's renewal um and obviously the PO was the big one let me just go to 23 and I I'm just I'm struggling with the the way that we go about this and the percentage increase when I know that this year is not out of the ordinary for us um as far as loss ratio goes um to see a 10.8% Inc or whatever 10% increase um the cost to our employees are going up in their co-pay so we've made plan adjustments every single year um getting a doctor in Martin County has only gotten harder because a Blue Cross Blue Shields reimbursement rate and their inability to recruit doctors we have very few dermatologists here um that take it so our all of our services are diminishing but their rate is going up every year every single year and until we threaten to oh we're going to go out to bid and then all of a sudden it we amazingly don't have an increase or we get a decrease and then soon after it goes up and what I know is that Blue Cross is not losing money on us um I think this rate increase is unacceptable I mean our services are going down we're making so many plan adjustments every single year they're out of pocket I I just I don't understand it I really don't so I expected them to be here tonight but I don't see them our usual person who's here um so I'm just I'm disappointed me Miss P yeah did you want to say something this is really hard because I feel like we're doing last year all over again um I thought that we were able to perhaps see what other companies are offering is that Mr George are we are we able to get other bids at this time are we not allowed to I just I feel like we're being um pushed into something that is just so uncomfortable for everyone it's a lot of money and I I don't know I I just feel like we're we're spinning our wheels and I I I don't know what the answer is so Madam chair so last year you'll recall that the district negotiated with Blue Cross and Blue Shield because of the RFP and the multiple offers that came in that was a three-year contract can you go out before a three-year contract there's a process for that we're in March enrollment would be in May or June I don't think you have the time but I would defer to staff whether that's true but you would have so I don't want to tell you you can not I think with the time available it's unlikely that you'd be able to get a plan in place by July 1st because I I worry about next year and the year after because if it's 8.3 this year what what are we looking at in the next two years I know I know it's a the elephant in the room and it's uncomfortable but it's just so much burden on everyone who has a health plan I that's all I want to say go ahead yeah if I may um just to provide some some history because I know every year we we come up here and it's um hard to remember the previous years but generally over the past 10 years or so your average increase has been about 5% a year um average Trend the nation has been about 10 to 11% a year um so you have been beating Trend um about half um in addition to that um last year as you remember Florida Blue dropped the premium 5.8% and they negotiated we help we negotiated with them a 10.9% rate cap for the renewal um this year where your renewal is this year with claims so your claims are at a 99% loss ratio meaning for every dollar you're giving Florida Blue 99 cents is going to pay claims providers and hospitals that leaves them a cent on the dollar and they need 5 cents to pay pooling so they're down 4 cents so with your current loss ratio based on your claims that would call for roughly a 25% increase just to give you that perspective so at 10.9 that's very much below uh where your loss ratio would typically call for so I just wanted to to give you that that background thank you they're not losing money on us they're just I mean I think we saw that last year when we got to the end and then all of a sudden they could come off a great sum of money even after they gave their baffo so to me that number that they we ended with should have been given as their baffo but it wasn't they held out so that was a disappointment for me last year and they know our hands are tied because we can't go out to bed because we have a three-year contract um and then when we do it just it's it's like we're on a hamster wheel every year and you know I get it Blue Cross Blue Shield is a big network but I feel it in my own work as well like the the our level of service is decreasing with Blue Cross and Blue Shield and out of pocket expenses even in the HMO have gone up significantly it I just had to change doctors and it's taking me until October to get an appointment with a doctor that takes the insurance and we've always always the the Dermatology is a huge issue I I don't the level of service that we're getting from them I'm just I don't think it's adequate I wish they were here to answer to that what they're doing what they're putting in place to make this better for their customers but I I guess they're not so what would you all like to do about choosing a plan you have any more questions for them before they go over and and choose plan so are we going to go to what the insurance company recommended or Insurance um committee recommended number seven so I can just speak to um the insurance commit committee's uh conversations yesterday um the I feel like the reason why they arrived at Option 7 was because there are no plan design changes for the HMO or the high deductible plan so we have about 75 78% enrollment in the HMO another 18 to 20 uh you know in the high deductible we have a very small amount in in the PO and so you know there there is some uh plan design changes um some drastic plan design changes for the PO um I know at previous board workshops we've had discussions about um freezing enrollment in the PO and allowing those that are currently in there to um to stay in there if they wish um and that's what those plan design changes in the PO reflect is a little bit higher cost uh to those employees in role um but the plan design change is not has not changed um for the HM are the high deductible for this proposed plan for the 2425 and I don't believe there was any changes for 2324 I have a question Miss so hypothetically we make a decision today to accept the committee's recommendation can we go out to bid next year I I would defer that to um Renee Hayes who's our director of purchasing hi Rene Hayes director of purchasing so as um Mr George had expressed there is language in a process that we'd have to go through I'd have to look at the termination I have any of the documents here right now a reason to um avoid the contract but just also keep in mind there have been other incentives besides the rate that we've already utilized that were part of the three-year contract um that Blue Cross has provided such as the wellness funds and things of that nature so um the recommendation from I guess I'm directing this to Miss Robert since you're on the insurance committee so the recommendation of option number seven that does not include we need to make a decision on whether we're going to freeze enrollment in the PO correct and we need to consider your recommendation which would be to kind of offset the cost of the increase to the high deductible plan so an employee is paying zero when they come in correct okay um and and I'd like to share that that um when we started the meeting yesterday at the insurance committee meeting we were looking at po at options 37 and nine um and they they have in the in the information they had um I think it's in here too they had Pro it was provided to them to them the amount of their from their bargaining group how many people they had in each plan you know so how many um let's say it's mcea how many since they're there representing mcea how many people are in each of the three plans so obviously um the most used plan is the HMO so then the feeling was well okay let's just look at the one that doesn't do any changes to the HMO and see what that looks like so that's when they discounted nine they did we did have an option 10 um which they really didn't even I guess I could say they didn't really have any interest in option 10 didn't make any significant difference if you look at the difference between option seven and option 10 um it was a difference in an 8.3 an 8.3 increase across the board in option 7 and in option 10 it was 88.1% increase across it was like 40 or 60 cents difference a paycheck and as Mrs Robert stated the insurance committee didn't feel like making plan design changes to the high deductible to save 40 cents a paycheck was really so if you sat there and you looked at it with no changes to the high deductible you were sitting there and saying okay if I made no changes to the high deductible in seven and I also made no changes to the HMO and I just made the changes to the pop right um that that would end up with a 88.3% increase keeping in mind that over the last last two years an employee has not had an increase over what it's actually the last three years the last three years corre an employee has not had any increase so when you're looking at an incre I mean we've picked up we found the money or Carter helped us identify money and the board voted to use money that was from srarp and those type of things um in order to pay those increases to take that burden off knowing that eventually that money was going to run out so when you figure it's over the last three years so now we're hitting the fourth year even if you said it was an 8% increase in my head I kind of look at that as like it was a 2% increase per year but three of the years somebody else paid it for me and now it's like it's slowly worked its way up so that that's where it is well that's that's assuming that's not taking into account any inflation any additional costs for or medications like two you're saying 2% a year they it's costing people more than 2% a year to go to the doctor then I'm just saying all I'm saying is you're average just for just for the premium piece I'm just saying as far as a premium piece goes because you look at it and you figure okay well if I was on Medicare if I was on something else there's changes always being made to the plan as you go along um what I my preference as an individual ual board member to look at is to look at both nine and look at seven and look at those two kind of side by side and see what you've got going with them I mean I look at so and I look at seven and correct me if I'm wrong my if my math is wrong um seven right now if I'm an employee only in the HMO I'm paying $46 per pay period it would push me up to $74 per pay period in option seven correct yes so I would have no plan changes and my cost of my premium would be um $28 per pay period which is like $560 more for the year correct correct so I would have no plan changes and I would be paying $560 more correct correct um and so what what I'm saying is if you look at that number that $560 number then also look over to the high deductible and figure that at the um increase of going from a zero payment for somebody in the high deductible them going to a $4.39 payment in the high deductible if we whether we take just the employees or whether we take the employees and the retirees um I'm interested in picking up that piece whether it's 326 or 346 and picking up that piece so that we can we can truly say we have a plan that um if you work for the district or if you're in the high deductible plan that you don't have to pay anything so are you looking at the plan design changes that are in nine as well like what tell me which one app those that's all in seven so that's in seven so in seven the cost if you had an HMO um you're an employee only in a in HMO your cost that you're going to have to pay is $560 more so and I'm kind of looking at that as you know as as you at the same time looking at okay well one of the things that we've done no plan changes but one of the things we've done is that $790 that we're saying we can free up I mean that's still under negotiation but you're looking at $790 saying that that's the art payment correct Carter that's the art payment that we we would be giving people so if you were on the insurance policy and you were on the HMO the cost to you is going up $560 but I've given you 790 to take care of that 560 um that that's the way I'm looking at that with no plan changes I'm looking at a PO person and saying okay if I'm in the PO obviously my increase is $34 right so $34 a pay period is like $680 right and I've got some plan changes and really so what I've got is I've still got the 790 that is coming from the art money to pay my 680 but in the PO we're doing the plan changes and I firmly believe that we need to do the plan changes in the PO to change the designed to change the richness of that plan I think all the plans that we offer are better than what our surrounding counties are offering so that our insurance coverage is richer than what other people have what they could get somewhere else and so try to drive people out of that PO and try to get them to where they really should be or where it it becomes well and we have to be careful obviously that we're not driving them to another plan and then we experience the increase in those other plans too right and I think I think you will have some of that you will have some plan migration but but at the same time I think that um I don't think that that's I mean when you're in the high deductible plan and you're picking up a large portion of it to begin with or you're in the HMO and just the way that the plan design is even with those changes I don't think you're going to see see the the loss piece that you see in the PO I mean the design of a PO makes it such that that we see the losses more than somebody else would I mean that's the that's the beauty of that plan but if you start making like if we start making too many plan design changes to like the high deductible plan it becomes less and less desirable even though they have you have the HSA I I would and I don't know how many people in the high deductible plan are actually meeting their dedu the deductible have that utilization chart right I I mean I think we have that as a appendex here they have it there but if you start increasing the deductible too high then it won't bealing for people to move because then it's like if they do have something catastrophic happen and then now they're out of pocket more plus their contribution to the HSA and that and that to me is we have to be careful and that to me is the beauty of plan seven so the only way we really get a whole lot less than plan seven right as far as an increase goes from plan seven is you've got plan five that is a 6.9% increase but that puts changes to the HMO right and then you've got I think that's the only one right and Nine and Nine and Nine and Nine has Chang changes to all of them um and I'm not I I would prefer to not make the changes to the high deductible I would rather buy PE buy our piece pay the $30,000 to buy our piece of the high deductible down to zero not make any plan changes so that there's some continuity in what that plan looks like personally I would go with seven also because I think that I would rather keep the HMO the same freeze the um enrollment in the PO um not do the changes in the other two plans explain it to people that you know hey okay this 560 increase that you're getting in the HMO you know there is a plan for how that looks right um so just a question while you're thinking go ahead I had one more question so if we know know that if we know that in the HMO if we or in the high deductible no in the HMO if we know that the cost of the HMO is 560 and I'm talking about the 790 that's coming from ARP that's going to one bargaining unit do we know out of and I guess we can just do the math for that right if I know that in the if I know that my total enrollment in the HMO is whatever it is 74 1,074 oh wait that's employee only it's 1398 is 1398 and I know if I take the retirees out of that how many of the HMO people are retirees 83 83 out of the retirees and now I'm down to 13 15 right yes and if I know out of the 135 how many of those are are teachers that are been that have a ability to get the 790 how many of them are teachers 672 672 are teachers which means that I'm left with 653 correct so follow this logic so I've got 653 people who were on the HMO who were not getting a $790 piece right don't have the potential to get 790 because they're retired no not because they're retired because they're in another bargaining unit they're not in mcea wait no the 790 is across the board it's to everyone oh it is okay that's right recommended across foret that whole thought process yes forget that whole process the money man has his hand up I think we should that's what he was going to say okay so then I so I go back to the you know if everybody gets the 790 so if you're on insurance you get 790 and you're on the HMO to8 you get 790 to pay your 850 increase for the year if I'm not on the insurance I still get the 790 so it's not like you're denying me something right but you know I still get something right um if you're on the PPO you can move yourself to the HMO or you can move yourself to the high deductible you know if you're not a retiree if you're over Medicare eligible but they can move themselves to a because if you're Medicare eligible you can't be in the HMO and you can't be in the high dedu with the HSA you can be in HSA or the HMO so Miss Roberts at the last meeting I uh asked uh Gio from Florida Blue about checking to see if the high deductible Health Plan was Medicare um where it would coordinate services with Medicare we found out that it does they cannot have an HSA so we can offer the high deductible health plan to retirees now well that's really good new yes um I don't know why we need that uh po then because are deductible for an individual equal if we adopted these plan design changes they're the same and the the calendar year deductible plus 10% and that they're plus 30 like why do why do we even need the PO Mrs Powers um especially with retirees that are still on the PO I think we're down to like 55 on the PO um the main difference between the PO and the high deductible really is that separate carve out for the prescription ion drug um deductible and you'll see that in red they they have their own calendar year deductible like in option seven um it would be it would move to $750 but with the high deductible Health Plan there is no separate carve out for prescription drugs so typically the the employees that you see on the high deductible Health Plan either one or two either they're mostly young healthy not a lot of claim don't go to the doctors the second one is those that are on prescription drugs um however they are either utilizing Florida Blue's condition krx program which offers 675 prescription drugs at no cost so they don't have to worry about that prescription drug piece of that high deductible plan but they can if they're not a retiree that's Medicare eligible they can contribute to the HSA up to six up to 6 if they're not Medicare eligible if they're an employee and they have this and the the calendar year deductible of $750 is the only reason they're on the PO I'm not saying it's the only reason I'm I'm just I'm talking anotic that that that is a big difference between the pp and the high deductible health plan right but what I'm saying is the difference in the cost of the plan itself plus the contribution to the HSA and I'm again not talking talking retirees I'm just talking employees and if we decide to make a contribution to the high deductible plan for employees I just don't even really see the big need for the PO and what will that mean to our to us if we did shift everybody to a high deductible so great question and we vetted this out I think a few years now in a row so if you do eliminate the pp Florida Blue will raise the HMO and the PO rates substantially because all of that enrollment goes into those plans and we know we have some high risk so they would need more premiums to support your claims so the better strategy and in my recommendation is to keep the plan grandfather it make plan design changes as as is seen here in option seven that way you're not adversely affecting the premium for the HMO and the high deductible does that make sense yeah yes it makes sense but what's to prevent once we reach a point where everybody's grandfathered out of the PO then then what like how how is that different than because we historically have high claims like some high claims um how is that different than just shifting everybody over to the high deductible plan now yeah other another good question so the reason Florida blue would raise the rates on the other two plans is because they don't know where that enrollment will go they know it has to go somewhere when you do a slow shift changes in grandfather and let that enrollment naturally shift out of there over the years they can see where the risk goes year by year it's slowly ripping the Bandit off versus you know tearing it off completely right St Lucy schools your neighbor does that as well so again this strategy grandfathering it does not adversely affect the rates and that's Florida Blue's underwriting policy not not ours does St Lucy County still have a uh something besides the high deductible plan they have four high deductibles one's grandfathered yeah so why don't we shift to another a different High deductible have multiple High deductible plans one that's higher for healthy people that's less expensive and one that is what we have now so my feeling is that I think that the strategy this year should be to freeze the is to freeze the PO um employes for for any for anybody no new enrollment you can't shift in between no new enrollment no new enrollment so and then make the plan changes that are in option seven so you're you're forcing so maybe you'll Force some people to pick a different plan maybe there'll be some plan migration maybe there won't maybe we haven't reached anybody's pain point Point yet so they're going to try to stay there a little bit longer but you know I mean do that um pay off the piece pay the 30s something thousand that would be the piece that would be the um buy down the high deductible piece forlo zero right um grandfather use the same grandfather numbers that you gave us in our chart right so that would cost us about 323,000 you're referring to the family subsidy for those prior to 7120 and then on the HSA piece change the HSA piece to either $500 or $750 because if you just did so don't so if we didn't do anything if we didn't pick up the 30,000 you got to figure if we grandfathered according to this for whatever your increase was last year that's your increase for this next year that's the proposal that you gave us that cost 330 323,000 if we gave $1,000 in the HSA that's costing $32,000 so that's like at $600,000 but if you did the 323 if you cut the HSA from1 down to 500 that gives you 151 then you add the 30 something you're at $500,000 cost which I think is reasonable or more does that make sense and then I think when we go out to bid we need to discuss as a board as as Renee is preparing the bid documentation if we want to say hey we just want High deductible this is what we want to do we want to change and we want to be more like somebody else and we want all high deductible plans and this is how we want to structure it um so we know what we're looking at you know well the PO is a high deductible plan now it's just that that benefit of the yeah the prescription drugs I mean I cannot see a huge big difference in the two except that so what would it mean if we didn't have that on the PO if we change the PO prescription plan is that your it's like everybody else and it's just um well it's just part of your deductible then you would see a deeper decrease in the PO premium there would be even deeper changes than than we're showing there you talked about a phase out like over time can you give us a ballpark of how many years this phase out would take hard to say but I I think we'd have a better answer for you after this enrollment if you were to make these changes because these are pretty drastic and I would argue most of your migration will happen now due to these plan changes and then we'd be able to see who still in there and from those who's still in there they're using it for prescription coverage um and we know that's why most of them are in there now because 50% of the claims in the PO are from prescription Benchmark is 30% so that means there's a huge outlier there they're using it for prescription you'd argue maybe some will stick maybe some will move to the high deductible so I think this is a good you know test to see see what happens after this do the grandfathering no new enrollment correct how long does the grandfathering go on up to you you can freeze it indefinitely until you change your mind that's a board decision thank you and I like the fact that the cuts like the cuts in seven are making the calendar year deductible the same as the high deductible so that you can kind of actually see and I know you guys do a really good job of educating people when you when they actually call you when you get to sit down with them but to explain to them what the difference between what they're in you know you're in the PO this is how much you're paying but did you realize that if you're in the high deductible plan you know you aren't paying that premium and you're never getting there anyway you know I mean I know they're in the pp people in the PO that are just paying the Poo piece just because it's habit I mean that's you know well it's fear it's fear of un the unknown I I get it I get it and there's also a stigma the changes in seven the PO is actually much higher deductible because you've got your your year current year deductible plus 30% under under nonhospital services and then you have uh 20 and 30% under Hospital Services um non- network is plus 30% in current year deductible plus 30 so under RX is rx plus $100 that's under nonpreferred brand names on prescription drugs so it's actually cost more cost effective for somebody in a PO to switch to a high deductible if they're not using a lot of prescription drugs well and that's why I don't think the calendar year deductible for the PO is high enough for the prescription drugs to really I mean I agree with the 30% and but it needs I think the deductible needs to be higher if we're going to get people out of and dependent on that plan well not only is the calendar year deductible higher in the PO according to plan design 7 but also the out of- pocket max too so so how long would it take um somebody to give us a quote we know what plan7 looks like at 8.3 if the only thing we wanted to change was that PP o calendar year deductible from 750 to 1,200 can how quickly can somebody give us that number um I would say uh probably uh five business days is the typical turnaround um but I will say and obviously we'll request it sooner but that's the the company line from Florida Blue I will say when we did um I believe we we were asked that question um a couple months ago and we did a test with Florida blue and it was minimal rate impact I think it was less than 05% at the time um I think I remember that vaguely just to give you an idea but we can certainly request that and and and push that up if if the board wishes we know it's going to go down um we know this is our highest what what what the amount that we're showing here is the highest that our employees are going to pay with the other changes and additions so we just need to set the rate and then they go with it at whatever it is it's not going up it's only going down so I would be fine approving seven with the with the um addition of the um dollars to cover the increase in the high deductible plan for employee only to so it's zero um I would support and then also include in the motion um the grandfathering of the PO 117 plan so no no new enrollments into that plan um as a July one and then um we just need to decide I would say a, um increasing the prescription calendar year deductible to $1,000 instead of 750 is that a motion yes I'll second that was yeah you covered that the only two things we have to cover after that is the um HSA number and the grandfathering of the traditional family okay right correct correct yes okay so you have option seven a motion in a second okay I have a motion by Miss Powers a second by Miss Roberts all those in favor I now let me clarify that real quick so when you're saying that it's a, what are you actually saying are we approving option seven option seven with ,000 for RX regardless what it comes out to regardless of as long as because we know it's going to be less it's going to be less so to me it doesn't we're approving it and if it's more if they do an increase then we'll go back to option seven at the 750 we'll be we'll be meeting again and Blue Cross Blue Shield show up if it's I mean I don't you think that if it's the same right or if it's if it goes down right right then we go to the $1,000 then the motion is for $1,000 if that if the overall rate goes down if it doesn't change then you're keeping it we're going to have a special meeting with Blue Cross Blue Shield here no because it better go down I don't know if it goes down 50 cents but it should go down it will go down thank you it will go down and so we so this whole thing is null and void if it doesn't go down so and I would I would think that with just that one little change it's not going to take them five days to come up with what that needs to be you're probably correct correct I mean I think that's yeah so he's probably watching okay I hope do we need to redo the motion or we it's good I think we're just I think we're good yeah okay all right well then motion carries unanimously okay so then we just need a motion on the the final two items which is family subsidy prior to 7120 and HSA employer contribution and so we have um a resource for you to review based on option seven um Dustin's going to pull up the option seven family subsidy do we have that in here in our package yes page 26 of the presentation page 27 20 27 option 8.3% yeah slide 27 number 26 we pulled it up on the screen so 20 26 is the page number under I don't know if that's working uh page 26 is is the page number listed so what you see here is four options to consider for the grandfathering of the families prior to 7120 option a option one obviously is no subsidy um option two is Blended tier increase this is H how you have gone about this for the past few years option C is the current subsidy so if you are aiming to spend the same amount of money you're currently spending based upon the current enrollment of 323,000 that's the uh per pay deductions for those individuals and then option four is absorbing the entire increase which would be roughly 525,000 okay so I'd like to direct your attention to the presentation you made to the insurance committee yesterday which was page 15 where we talked about the current Grant father family subsidy number and your total was 323 678 just a rounding so that's okay so that's a thousand that oh that's okay right that's what we're current would currently cost us what you've done in that one is you've done whatever we gave whatever the subsidy was so if I was an employee plus family in the HMO the subsidy that came from the school district was $182 a month and you last year and you're saying okay I'll do it the same thing again this year correct okay then I'm interested in option C I'm not interested in increasing it to anything else or absorbing the entire increase I'll second that okay I have a motion by Miss Roberts and a second by Miss Powers all those in favor I motion carries unanimously and then the last thing we have is the HSA um contribution yeah yeah that's on um that's either 302 if you kept it at a th000 and if you keep it at a th000 at the 302 I draw your attention to it we would be paying what 32 17 or yeah it's um slide 17 it's number number 16 but okay digital slide 17 um I'm interested in option two mainly because then I can hold this total cost that we're absorbing I've got the 323 678 I've got the 32 662 that I've already spent and if you give me option two that's $151 $151,000 which puts me right about half a million and figuring that even though I'm saying your HSA is 500 um remember that if you're getting the 790 wherever you are and whatever the 790 is paying for so I go back to that page for the 790 for option seven and say option seven for the 790 um if I was in the HMO the 790 is paying 560 towards that right which means I've got $230 left over from my 790 that's that's if you actually got 790 I mean I'm assuming that you're not going to get the full 790 it's going to be tax the tax all that where as the Thousand just went into the goes into the account it's not yeah there's nothing removed from it so I'm more inclined for option three okay I'll go with it's at a motion I'll second your motion yes I have a motion by Miss Powers a second by Miss Roberts all those in favor I any opposed motion carries unanimously okay okay that takes care of everything for 18.03 thank you both thank you thank you you thank you appreciate it so item number 18.04 is the sunset of the sales tax referendum i' would like to open this up for discussion before we vote would you like to extend the sales tax or are you okay with allowing it to Sunset what is the pleasure of the board um I'm I would move that we allow the sales tax to Sunset we were very clear when we went out and asked the voters um this was specifically to build two new schools Jensen Beach Elementary and Palm City Elementary and we did that and um you you know I think that we need to be true to our word and uh allow this to sunset in December uh 31225 I agree yeah and I I think that um before we would ever in my head before we would ever do a sales tax thing we would go through the same procedure that we went through seven years ago of actually identifying um that A and C list of safety enhancements that we needed we would identify the water intrusion piece and what the price tag on that was and we would be looking at the Deferred maintenance piece and seeing what the price tag on that was and then if there was a replacement school that was necessary so we would have all those things so we could be completely confident that we could create the list that we share with everybody that says here if this is your school this is what you're going to get out of this and this is what's coming to you based on this and it's not just a oh we want to we want to do this continue doing this because we want to collect some more money I mean I don't think that's I I think the reason I firmly believe that the reason that this passed in 2018 was our ability to do all that homework and specifically identify exactly what we were going to do with the money and I think we need to be able to show that yes we said we were going to do this we did what we said we were going to do um we let it go away and if we ever need to come back to you that's the level of expectation that you should be holding us to that we would go through that same exercise again and and it isn't just a matter of I mean the the referendums that happened years ago were all about very short little phrases of the for additional expenses I mean they they were like so vague it's not something that a voter in Martin County or a taxpayer in Martin County would ever um if they had any sense and most of them do would not ever go for so do I have a motion to Sunset so move I'll second that I have a motion by Mr D is second by Miss Roberts all those in favor I I any opposed I think we already had a motion in a second on the table but I think I seconded Marsh's motion okay that's okay should I go back and redo no it can just be Marsh and Mike that's fine okay all right motion carries unanimously item number 18.05 millage referendum resolution are there any questions or changes you would like to make to this resolution yes I have some changes I'd like to make okay Roberts um so I'd like to and I'll kind of go through so I appreciate the work you did on this and I think it looks good but there's some changes I would like to make to this document on the resolution so before the first paragraph that says whereas the electors of Martin County approved a similar referendum in August 23 of 2022 right before that paragraph I think we should be using the paragraph we used that talks about the 2018 referendum so it it doesn't appear so that it gives people a better sense that this has been done twice before that language was whereas the electors of Martin County approved a similar referendum on August 28 2018 allowing for an increase of 1 half m in the adval millage for school operating purposes for four years pursuant to section blah blah blah blah blah and it's pretty much the same but it's the language that was it was the first paragraph I like that good introduction that was one can't we just add it say similar though it should it's a timeline right so the first one shouldn't say similar of 2018 it should say a referendum was passed in 2018 not a similar one or why can't we just add it to the the paragraph do you want to um the reason I didn't add it I don't think we should add it to the paragraph is because this paragraph what we approved in 2022 was different language than what we approved in 2018 18 2018 didn't have the up to language and it didn't add the support staff um piece so there was some difference in language of what we had in the original referendum so I'm saying to take that paragraph the paragraph that we used in 2022 right where that paragraph in 2022 refers back to the 2018 referendum and says this is what you approved in 2018 okay then this referendum saying this is what you approve the second paragraph saying this is what you approved in 2022 so paragraph one is saying in 2018 you approve this second paragraph in 2022 you approve this so it's kind of a lead in if you've already approved this twice two separate paragraphs here's your language from what you approved the first time here's your language from what you approved the second time that's I'm okay it can't hurt yeah yeah it gives them that continuity then in the third existing paragraph where it says whereas Martin County property tax bills for and it's got the 2223 huh I said all of this language won't no no no this is just the resolution so that piece where it says whereas Martin County property tax bills for I think that should say 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 and 2023 because that's and take out the 24 and 25 because that's the actual period of time that we've collected it we've collected it on those six tax bills now right so that would clean up that piece okay well um more I guess for that paragraph where it says that it's been approved by the electors they approved all the way up through 25 even though we haven't collected wouldn't you put it through 25 property tax bills included an addition but it I'm using the past tense of included that's where I got the okay you know read me that paragraph again it's confusing whereas Martin County property tax bills for 18 19 20 21 22 and 23 included an additional up to one half M as approved by the electric and I'm okay with the up to because the first one even though it was set right at a half a m that's up to the half a m and then the next one but it since it's saying the bill included that we don't have the bills for 24 and 25 yet no those were projected I agree okay um then in the sixth paragraph about the oversight committee I think we should change that so it should say instead of saying 2022 put in the word voter and say whereas an oversight committee made up of Martin County Citizens met regularly to Monitor and review income and expenditures of the voter approved additional adval Orum millage since 2019 yeah I agree so then I'm not using the up to half a mill or anything else I'm just saying that that's what they did since 2019 on the second page the fourth one down whereas the Martin County School Board desires the flexibility to Implement I think it should say continue to implement less than a full 1 half M since they've already given it to us once and you have the 82.6 number right for that paragraph there um then I think after the after the section that says whereas section 1019 101. 719 author authorizes us to collect right if we added two more whereases in there one that says where section 101 1.73 paragraph 3 Florida statute specifies that voter referendums of this type must take place in a general election and then the next where with general elections occurring in 2024 and 2026 necessitates a voter referendum in the 2024 general election to not skip a property tax bill for 2026 because that's the whole real purpose of this that if we don't vote on it in 2024 if we waited and voted on it in 2026 it would be voted on in November of 2026 and there's no way it could be on the tax bill in November of 26 so we'd have to wait till 2 would skip a year so I think that language kind of captures the the skipped year piece and then the therefore be it resolved um I think the third line of one needs to say general election and have the November date the third line third line in conjunction with the it needs to be the general election of November I don't know the date of the November election what the November 4th no November first Tuesday of November gotta get there November uh 5th November 5 2024 and I think the resolution number this resolution is 2402 Diane or is it01 suppos to be1 so this should be too won't be voted on in the primary can't be voted part problem as to why we're having to go back the law changed and it now has to be that which is why we have to do it now get more voters yeah because otherwise we'll Skip and then um it doesn't matter to me one way or the other whether we use the B ballot language that you used that you created for us thank you Jennifer or if we just repeat the one that we did before okay the one that we did before that said shall the Martin County School District continue the existing Adora millage up to 1 half mil per year beginning July 1 2026 change the dates and ending June 30 2020 2030 for essential operating expenses parentheses School Safety and Security mental health programs recruiting and retaining qualified teachers and support staff common develop professional development academic initi IES providing Charter School funds proportionate to student enrollment as required by law with annual reporting to Citizens so which one would you all want to use the current one that's here or the one that was used last year I I don't I mean and the reason I'm looking at that is even though we know that part of what we're doing is for salaries for teachers there is a portion of the community that that that doesn't res with so by tying this so tightly to teacher salaries I think it it's good to have it recruiting and retaining qualified teachers and support staff but you've got some old people that um that would be offended by the raising the salaries of teachers kind of thing I'm old I resemble that no because I mean I mean I I can just see that it's leading us down a road of the well wait a minute what you know in a bargaining session what is raising mean are you really raising you know I mean I think it's a I mean last time that we did this that was the big push that was what I heard a lot was teacher salaries teacher salaries in the past over 60% so to me like that was something that was important to the voter so then putting I just um I just struggle with you know if we raise the money I mean we have another whole segment of our Workforce that is woefully underpaid as well like lowest paid employees I don't want it to tie our hands to not be able to reward them for their work because all of what they do supports teachers and their ability to do what they do because if cleaning their about Cal staff there's so many things that go into staff support staff I mean the one thing we have to keep in mind is we have to keep this ballot language at 75 words so that is you know if we start changing it we have to keep that in mind I I I I think one that we used before is just and we have to take out of the the one it wasn't on there so the ballot language before was shall the Martin County School District continue the exist existing Adora millage up to 1 half m per year beginning and it would say 2026 and ending 2030 for essential operating expenses and then in parentheses it said School Safety and Security mental health programs recruiting and retaining qualified teachers and support staff professional development academic initiatives and then it add the charter school language and the reporting language I don't problem that I just think it's I don't have any problem with that that was recommended by yeah if we don't have to it just recommended yeah but it it I mean so I look at all the people that we don't talk to that are just reading the language and try to make the language and they've seen this language they've seen and that was the language that they voted okay two to one for so that's fine just well what um are you good with these changes that's been spoken do I have a motion so I'm move the resolution with those changes second all right I have a motion by Miss Roberts and a second by Miss Powers all those in favor any opposed motion carries unanimously you got all this right Diane sure you'll be at her office first thing in the morning maybe tonight moving on item number 18.06 Workforce Development capitalization incentive program are there any questions from the board do I have a motion anyone do I have a motion for 18.06 I make a motion to approve 18.06 second I have a motion by Miss Powers and a second by miss pritchet all those in favor I I any opposed motion carries unanimously item number 18.07% any opposed motion carries unanimously item number 18.08.2012 1-11 EB cafeteria large equipment have a motion by Mr dley and a second by second is that Miss Powers yes second by Miss Powers all those in favor I any opposed motion carries unanimously item number [Music] impact fees so that we don't have to return them to parties that paid them just want to make sure that's all yes as we discussed at the February 13th budget Workshop uh we have um strategized the use of the impact fee so that does not happen thank you very much and have we gotten any um opinion on Mid County Yes actually the superintendent authorized me to contact a firm that um a county to the north uses for the impact fee challenges so I'm in contact with them with respect to those midcounty movements so we should have an um an answer for you by the April second budget Workshop so do we need to do we need to go in and make changes so that we don't have a midcounty anymore do we need to redraw the zones like what um once I have an opportunity to discuss that with the Consultants then they will have a recommendation for you okay thank you okay do I have a motion Mo approval I have a motion by Mr dley and a second by Miss Bridget all those in favor I any opposed motion carries unanimously item number 18.10 extended school year 2024 incentive pay for instructional positions mcea asme and Technical professional are there any questions from the board I move approval of 18.10 okay I have a motion by Miss Powers and a second by Miss all those in favor go ahead um so have they all signed off on this we have to approve it yeah because it looks like it's not signed so this one's going a little backwards uh mcea sent an email notification today that they will not um they will not do anything until the CBA has gone through ratification so this is putting you in a position to based on the language to either support or not support based on ratification by the union so so I don't understand so you have you have a summer school esy mou before you the reason for the timing of this and the reason why we were hoping mcea would have ratified and agreed to ratify is because the money that is being used to pay the 50 an hour is money that will could potentially go away that is Grant funded so so if we approve this and they never sign it nothing happens until they ratify so we could not have anybody working in the summer if we don't they will be receiving the regular hourly rate this was to bring them into an alignment with what we would pay our other nonc teachers at the $50 an hour rate let's just hope we can get things settled then I don't know like bullying I don't know that we should I don't know that we should hold anything up I mean we need to have I would want to pay these I would I think it's a great incentive $50 an hour and so we I think we I don't see a down is there a downside for us moving forward first um we would get it if it isn't ratified no no they will not nothing happens unless the union ratifies I think we wanted to bring this forward to the board because it puts you in a position to be able to say this is what we want to do for our teachers that are teaching ESC esy Summer School uh to give them the extra $50 an hour it's up to the union to ratify hypothetically if we do not ratify before the time that summer school starts they're not going to get it anyway no matter what we say correct that is correct they will go to they that is correct at least we are we approved it correct but then we will be in a position to give back money how much is this like if we if that will have to defer to to know what the difference is I mean I hope we're not put in that position but good evening Madam chair um members of the board and superintendent Maine the reason for um this request from the board is because I don't know if everyone recalls I was here last school year but all other summer school programs that are paid through ARP already have a ratified mou that says that they will receive $50 an hours this summer so every other summer school program is going to receive $50 an hour if you're teacher teaching in them except extended school year which is a mandated um program that we must provide for students with disabilities so it's already hard to retain ESC teachers over the summer but if we have a discrepancy in pay with the teachers that are getting paid through ARP to teach the rest of summer school we won't have any staff to teach the actual program that is mandated by law to teach so our request is from the ES Department if I we know we're waiting for ratification but our ESC teachers can see that the school board and the school district 100% know that they deserve the same amount of money as the rest of the teachers um and we're hoping that the union can ratify and support the rest of the teachers in their Union because one portion at this point will be making $50 an hour in the summer and at this point the teachers that are teaching in esy with our students that are most vulnerable are not receiving that pay as of today um if you do accept uh our proposal from the district at this point it's at mca's um pretty much for not through their bargaining to decide whether the rest of the teachers will make the $50 an hour when did they retract from agreeing to this today so we we received email notification from the union shortly before this board meeting commenced okay do you want to say something good evening I was just gonna say that when we were at can can when we were at negotiations at at that point it seemed as though they were going to put it forward and then I found out Mrs Sanchez found out today from Mr mean that they were pulling that back and as Miss Sanchez explained we have a tough time as it is getting ESC teachers to teach mandated extended school year as it is and if they don't have the same comparable salary as the teachers who are teaching say reading camp and other programs then we're going to be in a worse off position because this is federally the expectation this is on the students IEPs M Roberts and the sunset language in here the August 1st 2024 Sunset language puts us in a position where um so we know that it's coming from um srr money and so that if they don't and it also says that it's only prospective so those two things protect us from the point of view of we don't end out getting to September November or something rer are completely gone and now somebody says I taught in the summer oh now we're willing to sign this that your board ratified and now you owe us the money and go find it in your general fund correct I I do want to I'm sorry Mrs Roberts to express extended school year is paid out of the general fund it is an FTE generated um program for the summer the other summer school programs are not they're getting paid through ARP and the union last year already had agreed for two years for last school year and this school year the summer programs for teachers that are paid through ARP to receive $50 an hour esy was not part of thatou last year they did approve anou for esy and we would hope that the union would want the rest of the teachers to make the same amount ofone money I don't think they would want half of their bargaining unit to make $50 I would think and the other half to make the hourly rate um but extended school year is not Grant funded extended school year is From the general fund but it is FTE generated doesn't make sense why they wouldn't sign this maybe if if they if they choose not to then we don't we take it out of next year's raise PL the the only explanation was that they will wait to ratify along with all the other CBA with the rest of the cbaa whatever so Wilma just confused Me Maybe Carter can make it more confusing yeah Madam chair members of the board um the reason that the esy is paid for out of the general fund is because we have a federal requirement to maintain effort so what that means is the amount of money that you're spending on ESC this year has to be equal or more than what you've spent in the prior year so if we spend the um esy dollar out of the ARP Grant and when the auditor general reviews our financials and they realize that function 5200 which is where all our ERC costs are charged is less than what it was in the prior year then we could have a maintenance of effort finding with respect to that so we've we've made sure that we've paid for that out of the general fund so I'm reading the sentence in the description that said us with MCA and ask me were approved last school year for Grant funded summer school positions correct that was just a reminder of why we're requesting $50 so that it was a reminder that last school year there was an approval for ARP to fund the other summer school programs so it was just a reminder something for the board to look at in case I don't think you know in case you didn't memorize that from last year the other mou just a reminder that the other summer programs are getting paid $50 an hour through ARP thank you any other questions all right I already we have already done a motion in a second so we just need to vote all those in favor I any opposed motion carries unanimously item number do I have a motionr have a motion by Miss pritchet and a second by a second Miss Roberts all those in favor I I any opposed motion carries unanimously okay moving on we are going to our first review of Schoolboard policies and to approve the advertising is there anyone from the public that would like to speak on these items number 20 1 through 2012 seeing none we will move forward with our policies our first policy is item number 20.01 policy number 1242 and 3242 professional learning are there any questions from the board ad second I have a motion by Miss Roberts and a second by Miss Powers all those in favor any opposed motion carries unanimously item number 20.02 policy number 2120 School Improvement are there any questions from the board seeing none do I have a motion to approve the advertising have Mo a motion by Miss Roberts and a second by second Miss Powers all those in favor any opposed motion carries unanimously item number 20.0 3 policy number 51101 homeless students are there any questions from the board appr I have a motion by Miss Roberts and a second by y Miss Powers all those in favor any opposed motion carries unanimously item number 20.04 policy number 5410 student progression are there any questions from the board I'm move approval of 20.04 second I have a motion by Miss Powers and a second by Miss Bridget all those in favor any opposed motion carries unanimously item number 20.05 policy number 54101 promotion acceleration placement and retention are there any questions from the board I have one yes M Roberts on page can f that two see so three and four are coming out and then it's just going to continue on as D so is correct one two okay do I have a motion to approve the advertising for this policy so move I have a motion by Mr Dy a second by miss pet all those in favor I any opposed motion carries unanimously item number 20.06 policy number 5460 graduation requirements are there any questions from the board seeing none do I have a motion to approve the advertising Mo approval advertisement 20.06 I have a motion by Mr dley second and the second by Miss pritchet or Miss Miss Powers all those in favor any opposed motion carries unanimously item number 20.07% seeing none do I have a motion to approve the advertising I have I have a motion by Miss Roberts and a second by Mr dley all those in favor any opposed motion carries unanimously item number 20.08 policy number 5513 care of school property are there any questions from the board seeing none do I have a motion to approve the advertising for this policy Mo approval of the advertising of 20.08 I have a motion by Mr in a second by miss pitchet all those in favor any opposed motion carries unanimously item number 20.09.2011 by Mr derley a second by miss pitet all those in favor any opposed motion carries unanimously item number 20.10 policy number 5780 student parent rights are there any questions from the board seeing none do I have a motion oh you have a question go ahead yeah um with that settlement I know we just got a notice today from Mr shazo about um the changes with that settlement with the state regarding the uh the bill that was mentioned here earlier does this affect this um parent rights policy does not Mr shazo it does not um the majority of the things that came out of the settlement language were things that the Martin County School District already had in place and under legal guidance that was given to us back in August 2022 when House Bill 1557 passed we were already doing most of the things that were contested in the lawsuit correctly so there's not really anything that we're going to need to do differently as a result of the settlement agreement thank you very much move approval of 20 point 10 5780 student parental rights I have a motion by Mr dley I have a second by miss pritet all those in favor any opposed motion carries unanimously I item number 20.11 policy number 5782 parent Guardian notification and permission School sponsored events and activities are there any questions from the board seeing none do I have a motion to approve the advertising for this policy approve second I have a motion by Miss pritet and a second by Mr Dy all those in favor any opposed motion carries unanimously item number 20.12 policy number 84101 critical incident response are there any questions from the board seeing none do I have a motion to approve the advertising for this policy second was that was the second okay thank you I have a motion by Miss Roberts and a second by Miss Powers all those in favor I I any opposed motion carries unanimously all right we will now move on to open with the board or open to the board Mr Dy do you have anything this evening no thank you I'm good Miss Roberts um yeah just so that we're clear so the resolution that we passed mred correct the next step would be the Mrs Davis thank you all right Miss pret yeah um Mr shazo in light of Mr D Lizzy's question would you kindly tell the board and the public when we were notified of this uh legislative uh settlement and and how the district is proceeding I think the public should be aware of exactly the timeline that ensued sure so um when the settlement agreement was reached part of what was reported widely in the media was about the fact that the Florida Department of Education was going to send out um guidance to school districts you know pertaining to anything that they might need to do as a result of the settlement we received that information from the Florida Department of education's General councel yesterday it was sent to the superintendent um with an instruction and advisement that it should be shared with District personnel and School staff um our legal council uh took a look at the settlement agreement the information that came from doe and um the guidance that they had previously issued in August of 2022 covered most of the things that were listed in the settlement agreement um some of the um sticking points I guess you could call it of the what was proposed in the agreement has to do with um bringing up subjects in instruction versus conversation and the district already had clearly defined parameters that were given to schools that have been in place since August of 2022 about the difference between instructing students on these subjects and what's permissible to do in maybe the sense of counseling a student what steps to take um all of those things so there isn't really anything that the district is going to be doing differently than the guidance and that was communicated to all of our administrators including at the school level today with instructions that they take the guidance from 2022 that they already had and re go over that again with their staff with their faculty and make sure there's a clear understanding of what we're going to continue to do in the Martin County School District thank you you're welcome Miss Powers superintendent M yes ma'am thank you so a couple of just clarifying points uh the irrigation system at South Fork High School was stated that the irrigation system is not been working um the irrigation system at South Fork High School is fully operational uh what is not operational and has not been operational for the last several years is the golf course irrigation system but that is uh factored into the renovation that is planned for for the golf course and once the golf course has been fully renovated then there will be a brand new irrigation system to make sure that that's properly uh the turf is properly maintained uh there was some discussion about an a teacher that um is not no longer at Murray Middle School uh we received a text message during the meeting that the principal of Murray Middle School was unaware that that AG teacher was resigning um however since notification was given during tonight's board meeting uh we did did verify that that teacher is going to be submitting her letter of resignation and is going into uh a Taxidermy position outside of the school district or teaching profession alog together uh house bill and the settlement was clearly reviewed by Mr shazo thank you very much and we do not currently have five uh Elementary music teacher openings we anticipate one opening at the end of this school year at Jensen Beach Elementary due to retirement so that's all I have thank you thank You' thank you so I I had a question for you then so um so has Hope Sound Elementary been without a music teacher for the whole year Hope Sound Elementary teaching position has been filled it had it was open for quite a while yes that is true uh but the position has been filled and there's someone in that in that position thank you any other questions or comments all right this meeting is adjourned for