e e e e e e we are going to call this Workshop of the Martin County School Board to order if you would all please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the UN states of the Miss Falls will you please call the role Mrs Roberts Mrs Powers here sorry Mrs Brit here Mrs Russell here thank you please let the record show that Mr dley is not here today at this time we will have open to the public citizen input is V 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 they are heard with any less intensity or concern where appropriate the superintendent 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 3 minutes letters or statements 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 record straight and authentic our policy does not permit you to read the statements of others into the record first up Katherine Rogers afternoon superintendent and board members thank you for allowing us to stay at the pool through the next calendar year I'm concerned about what the rent will be in July Sailfish Splash has been unable to accommodate the Martin County High School swimming team with the other teams and sports currently practicing there our high school swim team is majority made up of female athletes Title 9 gives women athletes the right to equal opportunity in sports educational institutions that receive fendal funds we need this Martin County High School pool to include the women athletes that currently swim there as well as all of the middle school and Elementary females that will swim there in the future I'm here today to ask for assistance from District dille administrators about building a community outreach program to bring Martin County School District students to the pool on Saturdays to teach them the swim in researching what is needed in our area I learned that many parents are also in need of swimming lessons could we work on hosting an event at the pool to talk about safety tips around the water and demonstrate how to be safe in the water our country is in need of lifeguards could I work with the Career Technical education program to bring a lifeguard certification class to Martin County High School this way we could open the pool up to a high school as a classroom and allow students to become lifeguards that could potentially give them a job in our country finally I would like to schedule monthly meetings with you and Coach Danny Hartley to ensure that the Martin County High School can reach its full potential as a classroom that would promote Wellness safety and future careers there's so much potential with the Martin County High School pool thank you for your time thank you Audrey Menace hi Dr M and Schoolboard thank you very much for giving me the time I'm here to do a happy dance because you have taken the time to listen to us trying to save our pool thank you very very much Mrs Roberts thank you for responding to my letter this is the second time I've actually gotten up here and talked but it is absolutely essential that we keep the pool it is there as this swimmer just mentioned there's we need it we absolutely need it and as you know an old Red Cross water safety instructor there are many of us that will volunteer our time to get others trained once we get the Red Cross certification so that we can train others anyway thank you very much for at least considering um giving us time to work out the details and being able to save our pool and set your alarm for 4:00 so you can be there at 4:30 tomorrow morning Danny starts the um you get 15 minutes to warm up and then he starts his workout at quarter to five so come for the fun thank you again for giving us the time to present our case thank you very much thank you Dr John mle good evening board chair superintendent Maine members of the board nice to see you in this great facility uh I'm here today just because quite simply being a proud citizen of Martin County uh Florida here having worked in this school district for many years and all the things that you read in the papers uh the school staff the families the students just don't get thank quite enough and I'm here uh I've read about the great success from the great plans were put in place this past several years I'm just proud of the fruit of the labor of the hardworking principles the hardworking families the students and when I was thinking about that I was taking a walk down memory lane and I was thinking about how uh just what a treasure it was to be superintendent of the school district and some of the success that we had here uh mainly I was looking how we navigated that pandemic I'm so glad that's behind us the work we made with the district PTA I was so proud of the Outreach that we had with them the comprehensive tutoring and the enrichment that we had for our members the opening of the two brand new schools Palm City parents Jensen Beach parents I know you're so proud of the new schools that you have in South Fork is just coming soon so so proud of that work I was so H proud of how the district rallied around to make sure Sr dollars and ARP dollars were spent wisely we added Career and Technical education courses and more certifications for kids so proud again of the staff and the decisions that were made on that super proud of the focus we did several years ago we focused on those bottom 25 percentile students and made a huge difference uh Kudos Mr M for the work that you're doing and the work of those principles to keep improving uh and I appreciate the school board's work behind that uh the work it's paying off I can see with the leadership and development the Maxwell strengths uh that I see happening throughout the district the work through CV's principles of seven habits I see them in action uh it was so nice looking back and reflecting the work the conversations with the community members thankful and grateful for the support of the Chambers of Commerce from Palm City to hobes sound and Jupiter to Indian town and Port solerno uh Stewart chamber just want to I don't think they've always gotten thanked enough uh proud of some of the work that's happened to move this District forward on a comprehensive reading a math program that's gotten that was passed so again proud of all that the work that's been done in transportation the work's been done and accolades on the pools uh that which still has work to be done but the sports programs proud of that as well proud of the way the district and the students are reading more with the Accelerated Reader but um first and foremost I just want to share that I'm proud of the hardworking staff the teachers the families that make this District great so thank you thank you that concludes our public comment we will now be moving on to our district presentation on Indian town bus compound good afternoon Madam chair superintendent Main and board members Mr Harden and I are happy to be here to share a little bit more information and answer any questions and hopefully receive direction from the board concerning the concept of the Indiantown bus depot moving forward for the opening of the next school year so you have before you a the idea of the collocation we spoke about a month or so ago about the collocation of the Indiantown bus and and Indiantown bus depot with the Indiantown adult education center and for anyone not familiar with that location it is very close to Indiantown Middle School and the proposal is really to relocate six buses that we already own that are at the Stewart Depot down the road and to move those six buses out to Indiantown which would be at no additional cost to the district those are already buses in our Fleet we would look to potentially fill a coordinator of Transportation if possible but certainly would need a safety specialist position to help manage and maintain the Indian Town Depot and the coordinator really was part of a succession planning that we were talking about separate and apart from the bus depot So that obviously is something for discussion as well we would like to request If This Were to go through to save pay for the drivers for one year for the current Indiantown drivers who remain driving Indian toown routes because their routes time will change and so the way bus driver salaries are calculated is based upon their their time on the bus their drive time and their prep time and we are looking to seal the parking lot we do have a lot right now that would be used for the buses and it just needs a little bit of attention in terms of Paving and sealing that particular piece of property so that the buses would be safely tucked away in that Depot in Indiantown and to purchase and install a 500 gallon diesel tank above ground for and a pump that would be in the former location where the pump used to be when we had a Depot in Indiantown prior so in a nutshell this is the proposal that we're looking at and the reason that we have proposed these particular items right now there are no buses staged or permanently located in Indiantown so in case of an emergency we all know that Indiantown is several miles from our current bus depot and is in a more Western location than the vast majority of our schools so in an effort to make sure that we have buses available in event of an emergency or breakdown that's the rationale for having buses out there on a full-time basis Additionally the travel time to Indian town from our bus depot is about 45 minutes so if we were need to get if we needed to get a bus out there now it takes approximately that amount of drive time to have a bus reach their destination in Indiantown at either Indiantown middle or Warfield Elementary a supervisor and safety expert would be part of this Transportation team to ensure the safety supervision and having multiple drivers these people are also CDL license holders so in the event of an emergency the six buses however many licensed um CDL Drivers we have in the depot would be able to immediately leave that Indian Town location and deploy to the area that needed buses on campus the drivers who currently have routes in Indian town have an hour and a half per day added to their route time to account for driving to and from Indiantown if the drivers were stationed at the Indian Town Compound the schedules would be reduced to the minimum of six hours due to the actual Drive times they would be reducing that amount of time driving the bus it actually also reduces the wear and tear on our buses because they're driving fewer miles per day since they're already in Indiantown we do know that the Indiantown adult education center has space available it's in close proximity to the bus parking lot that we spoke about and is also available during evening hours as the bus drivers come back later in the evening after their final route the only diesel fuel in Indiantown at the moment other than the gas stations that are out there is at the fire station and they have about a thousand gallon tank which they shared is too small to share if there's an event of an emergency forest fire any kind of thing that would happen in Indian Town the county would need access to the amount of fuel that they have so that's the reason for us to look to put our own tank and pump there in Indiantown the two local gas stations were approached to assist us with providing diesel fuel out there they each offered a 5cent discount per gallon off of their pump prices but as you know we do Source diesel fuel to provide fuel at the Stewart location and when we put this together we paid 336 a gallon for our last delivery and that would be a savings of 76 cents per gallon over the offered red reded price at the regular gas station so that's the rationale for having our own tanks out there we would in just um a few miles a few months would be able to recover the cost with the cost differential between providing our own fuel at the cost the district is able to Source compared to buying it from the vendors in Indiantown and then of course we do have mileage and fuel cost savings we've given some information about the three buses it's important to note that each of those three buses drives three routes per day they have the elementary route the high school route and the middle school route and so you can see there that having a bus depot in Indiantown would provide for approximately 400 fewer miles per day and over the course of time that's about 50,000 miles annually and at the fuel savings the projected annual fuel cost for those Indian town bus routes would be about $21,000 and additionally they're could be savings would be Savings in reduced amount of wear and tear on our buses tires re um brake fix all those kinds of things that would maintenance that would need to be done on our buses and so we present this to you with an opportunity to ask questions we have our resident expert here Mr Tom Harden our director of transportation and we are happy to entertain discussion comments questions and potential direction for the April board board meeting if the board is in fact interested in moving forward are there any questions from the board M Roberts um yeah so when you brought this to us before on February 13th you were talking about using the portable is this still using the portable or is this a different plan uh after looking at the portable and looking at what it would take to bring it up to usable uh we reached out to the uh any Town Learning Center and they had office space available Wills to let us you know partner with them at no cost would not be the portable it would not be the portable would would be at the any Town learning Adult Learning Center which is right in yeah so um so the initial Mr Morrison the initial piece that said something about Capital was 72416 which I don't believe was all capital some of that was operating so I don't know do we have a new estimate on what the besides the um the fuel tank and the parking lot resurfacing do we have any other right now the fuel tank uh they gave me an estimate of $5,000 for the pump and the tank and then for the uh selling and resurfacing of the compound parking lot of approximately 15,000 and only other uh would be the uh safety specialist with with benefits around 34,000 a year okay so all of this other bathroom repair remodel office Furnishing that's that's not computers supplies all that that all goes away yeah the Adult Learning Center has computers everything we need is there and then I I would assume Mr Morrison that if we were moving forward with this this would be in the 5year capital plan and it would be listed in the ad that we do yes that would be correct Madam correct thank you so anyone else have any questions Miss Powers so I just want to say thank you to Dr Miller Mr Harden and um superintendent Maine for bringing this forward and really prioritizing the safety of the students in Indian town it's um before Miss thalma Waters passed away she um this was something that was really near and dear to her um her daughter wishes that she could be here today she lives out in Indiantown and I thank you all and I thank my fellow board members for supporting it um Thelma was quite a force for children in Indiantown and this was one of the things when she passed away that she tasked me with and I'm so happy to be able to deliver it to the students of Indiantown um and the families because they deserve the same level of Safety and Security as the rest of the county so thank you all very very much Miss Pet do you have anything just that I got to see uh Thelma's daughter at a recent event and she was just gleeful that this was even being discussed so it's going to be nice to like you said actually have it come to fruition thank you so I'm hearing that we would like to move forward the cons of the board this recommendation and if I could just ask for clarification the April board official board meeting where action can be taken would include the components of the diesel fuel tank the sealing of the parking lot the potential of for drivers for Save pay the those outlined on slide two and then the safety specialist is their interest in also the coordinator of transportation that was part of session planning what was what's the pleasure of the board around the Staffing component M Roberts so I don't know where Carter went um so I haven't seen an updated oh there you are I haven't seen an updated um org chart and I don't know what I know that in our budget presentation we have some staffing pieces in there so I'm not sure how that's being handled I guess I'm asking Mr Morrison thank you uh Madame chair board member superintendent um we would have to update the and amend the 2425 Capital plan for the capital pieces that we need to do and on the Staffing piece the recommendation would be coming through the superintendent for the staffing pieces um as of today for today's presentation that is not included because of course we did not know know whether or not the consensus would be to move forward or not thank you so I guess I'm asking the superintendent what is Mrs Roberts I would be prepared to bring the org chart forward uh with the rest of the reorg uh recommendations to the board at the May um meeting I I I think it needs to be included as a total package at the next meeting with all the org chart recommendations and recommendations for reorg um to be included in in my ask of the board thank you okay thank you we have clear Direction I appreciate that and then just wanted to let the board know we have not forgotten the additional ask of considering staging of buses in additional location so this is something that if board members have additional comments feedback thoughts I have reached out to our partners in Safety and Security risk management and we've been looking at that as well and in addition we are also o prioritizing the look for property on the west side of the tracks because right now our buses have to cross multiple times a day and Tom can tell you how many times a day our buses cross that becoming very busy railroad crossing so we are looking for the potential of property that would be able to move the bus depot M Powers so I I appreciate that I think that we should continue the long-term look at how we stage our buses for safety reasons but I also think this might be a really great topic of conversation at our joint meeting with the city and the county to talk about if we do need to do something given bright line and the trains and all the new things that we're dealing with with traffic if um we would have that as a topic of conversation maybe there are shared properties that we could collocate um to save those dollars instead of trying to build a whole new compound of our own but also share our compound if we're moving some of our buses from the property that we currently own and reciprocate that way so that that could be an option as well thank you I have that written down for the joint meeting M Roberts yeah so that's where I was going with that is I think that it should be discussed at the Joint meeting and I didn't want um anybody including the public to get any idea that we're running out looking to buy um Acres of property to park buses on so thank you anyone else Miss Bret do you have anything thank you all right thank you so much our next presentation is an investment policy update Mr Morrison would you like to come forward thank you madam chair board members superintendent members of the public um with us today is Mr Richard pengi he is the managing director of uh pfm Public Finance um asset management and he will be taking you today uh through his presentation regarding the investment policy and the recommendations for its update thank you I turn it over to Richard all right thank you uh thank you board um so as Carter said I will be um walking you through uh a review that we have done of the uh school board's investment policy um yeah yeah yeah um so um the the review included a a couple things uh one was uh reviewing against some standard Frameworks that govern uh policies for school districts in Florida um and uh local governments nationally um the second was looking at uh what the landscape looks like uh for investors like uh you all as a Florida local government and as a as a a school district uh and then last was uh sort of just some cleanup items uh in in the policy uh and seeing if there's anything that um we may want to uh simplify or or clarify um when we're reviewing policies there's three uh Frameworks that we look at um uh first and foro foremost uh Florida Statutes uh 218 415 um specifies what a local government needs to have in an investment policy so uh the first thing that we do is we go through and check and make sure that uh the policy in line with uh any uh changes that may have occurred uh to the statutes um for the most part from year to year uh you don't see too many changes um in uh in in the statutes however we did have a change uh in in the past year um so that was something that we'll we we'll sort of touch on here um the second framework that we apply uh is we look at the association of public treasurers of the US and Canada's um model policy uh framework um this is an organization it's made up of uh local governments all across the country and they have uh a little bit more robust uh framework uh for looking at local government government investment policy so we uh look at that second secondly uh and then the last thing is to look at uh the uh gfoa government Finance Officers Association uh and look at their best practices for local government investment policies and we kind of go through in a checklist uh format which I'll I'll sort of show here in a second um on each of these so um the uh no surprise School District's policy uh actually met all of the uh requirements under 28415 which is what we would have expected um we did uh make some small tweaks uh to the language in a couple sections um and that's what's highlighted there um we also highlighted the listing of authorized Investments um we are going to make some recommendations for adding uh some new sectors to the policy so that's why that one was highlighted but um just on it fa in its face with no changes uh the policy meets the requirements of 28415 um there was uh a change uh the um legislature put in place a um uh a set of different uh new uh laws um it's been referred to as hb3 uh from from last year um and as it relates to 28415 there's a uh new section that was added um it doesn't create a requirement to be added into the policy but it does say and specify that investment decision making uh must must be based on pecuniary factors um the law also describes and defines uh what pecuniary factors are um which generally means that it's um just taking into account uh you know Financial factors uh without sort of having ideological factors uh being brought into it um specifically uh within the investment industry there was a uh method of investing or style of investing called uh ESG environmental social governance um so uh this particular requirement would um uh uh impact the ability to have that kind of or that type of investing in investment policy um very few local governments in uh Florida have an ESG type policy uh governing their uh excess funds um the uh School District did not have that in their policy so it doesn't necessitate making any changes or modifications to to the policy but we did want to highlight that since it was a change in uh in the code or in the statutes rather um under uh a USNC uh the um policy again met uh uh pretty much all of the requirements in the initial drafting of the policy uh we used this uh this this framework was was part of the drafting so we didn't really expect there'd be much changes there are some tweaks and updates again some clarifications uh and that's why you do see some highlights on a couple of uh the points there uh and then uh GFA best practices uh again the uh policy uh really met all the requirements there uh but some of the same uh recommendations that we're going to give uh are what are highlighted for example we're we're uh adding or recommending adding to the list of authorized Investments um so uh the next slide here we uh showed a comparison of the existing uh policy um our recommendations and then um you know Everyone likes to know what what their peers are doing so we show a selection of other uh school districts and show what the uh sectors are and um allocation limits uh that they allow and these are maximum limits isn't necessarily what's actually being used in their portfolios uh for for comparison um and we highlighted a group of sectors that are being used in other uh School District policies uh and are being used by other local governments that are other highquality sectors that uh you know we think can be added to um uh to the school district's policy uh and and really it's adding credit it's adding credit sectors in uh what do we mean by that um essentially uh anything that's not a government type of obligation a government uh type investment whether it's treasuries or agencies if you're investing in something like a corporate uh or even maybe a a a Municipal debt like the debt that you would issue uh that is what we call Credit meaning that you have to do a little more work in in understanding you know the type of credit that you're taking on um so um you know these are other high quality sectors that are used in uh in in other local governments in Florida um the uh specifications that we've written into your policy require them to be um you know investment grade um investment grade goes from AAA double a single a to to Triple B uh our requirements would have it be uh a or better so you're you know kind of in a higher a little bit higher tier within the investment grade uh sector um we would uh use uh these Investments to um uh add some yield to the portfolio but also to create more diversification in the portfolio and and I'll kind of give you an example why we might want to do that um after the global financial crisis uh 0809 um the uh government agencies which is one of the sectors that's in your policy uh were mandated to wind down uh their um sort of uh retained portfolios and so they've been issuing a lot less debt before the financial crisis high quality portfolios like yours really had a lot of agency Securities and now it's much harder to really Source those it's been much harder for uh you know more than a decade to Source those and so we you know started looking at using a highquality corporate uh as an offset to that so that we could diversify portfolios uh and a little add a little more yield to the portfolios um so again taking together we're recommending uh adding allocations and allowing uh for those to be added into the portfolio um if you do uh implement this policy then we would come back with um sort of a in-depth sort of liquidity analysis um and then we'd sort of make recommendations for how to actually implement uh these sectors in in the portfolio as the uh as the next step and that's a process that we've gone through in the past to structure the portfolio and and uh decide how we're going to allocate funds to it um so the next couple slides sort of go into a little more detail um I'll sort of uh end here you know as I said at the beginning generally the uh recommendations after going through kind of the checklist um uh looking at the the the landscape and where the district's current portfolio is um you know we think the new policy uh expands the envelope to invest in a more Diversified portfolio um and if the policy was implemented we would then come back and and sort of look to take advantage of those so I'll pause there for questions are there any questions from the board anyone down here Miss Roberts go ahead um um so I have a couple comments sure so my first I know that you're expanding our window to five and a half years is there anything to prevent us from expanding to seven years because I know that um just to pick up more yield I mean I know the yield is down I mean it's we're in the two to threeyear period now but I mean as that expands um would we have is there anything by law that is preventing us to go to seven that's question number one absolutely not and it's really just more more convention um I would say most school districts um that are using anything beyond just a local government pool uh or or their bank accounts uh prob use a 1 to3 type Benchmark which is your current Benchmark um we um some school districts for their self Insurance funds I'm thinking maybe Broward School as an example also has a one to five so they actually have two uh benchmarks that uh that they use um I can't think of anyone that goes out to to that maturity uh on their operating funds but there's nothing that would stop you from doing that and I'm just thinking I mean for the board members edification there's nothing when we buy a seven-year that says we need to hold it for the seven years I mean obviously we can sell it any time in between but if you can pick up some yield by going to seven I mean I think that that's something that we should look at that was comment number one I don't know how everybody thinks about that but comment number two is um I see that in commercial paper I know that and it kind of um I guess I didn't really notice I know that it's 270 days which is the norm but there is commercial paper that pushes itself with the higher um thresholds of review that pushes itself out to the one-ear mark the 364 day paper so I would be interested in changing the requirement that you have on whatever page it is that's defining the commercial paper as a limit of 270 days to Define it as the the one-ear period just so that we would have the flexibility to do that that was number two okay yep um number three is in talking about your actual percentage pieces um I appreciate that you have the safeguards put in as far as rating changes go as far as the diversity parameters as far as your sector limitations but um quite frankly I am more interested in changing both the commercial paper and the Florida Prime up from 25% up to 50% okay just to be able to um get some additional yield out of that and the same thing with corporate bonds I would be interested in um since we're adding that is to add that at you already have a sector limitation on that to begin with so I think with the sector limitation on that if we could get something that was higher than that I would be interested in moving that up to um say like 50% which bravard and Broward both have I mean I think if we did those um so that was my three pieces and then my other comment was about the agency mortgage back security so I know that when you're defining those you're talking about an average maturity instead of an overall maturity um and those kind of make me a little bit nervous because obviously mortgages are typically going on for a longer time period than whether it's five years or 7even years and when you're using an average period um that kind of um I I feel like there's too much volatility there I know right now as far as agency uh mortgage back Securities we have 0% I would prefer to keep it at 0% just because I think that that's and I'm asking you in your professional opinion as to the volatility with those because as you see the prime interest rate or something change those are the ones that you see the huge fluctuations with and I wouldn't want to be in a position from my perspective of when we're having to liquidate something to get our hands on cash that we're looking at that is you know we've got a loss on that we're waiting for interest rates so I'm I'm interested in what you think about that piece so so um well my my comment would be that uh 50% corporates is is where we we'd want you to be um so I especially with that change um that's probably going to be uh have more of an impact on the portfolio than um you know 20 or 25% allocation to the MBS um um you know others have Express sort of concerns about uh the volatility they are very interest rate sensitive uh instruments um something with a three-year average life you know as you kind of noted might have a 10 15E final maturity um uh we wouldn't expect it to extend out you know that that long given just the general nature of how folks pay mortgages and how those pools work um but you know completely understand uh sort of that you know that that concern I I think the biggest you know um benefit is really coming from taking on credit exposure where you have definitive uh duration and maturity limits so um that that's a a good suggestion I think yeah I mean so so my concern is you know I mean I know that I realize if I'm looking at us as a at a a bundle of mortgage back Securities I've got maturities all over the place but my concern is that when the interest when an interest rate goes up that you that some of those are getting hit really hard and you see a lot of volatility in that instrument itself that you wouldn't see somewhere else because they're not looking at you know I mean other people who are looking at the the market value of those if you're looking at a market value of something else that's five or seven years you know that if you wait a couple years you're now down into really short term but with those you're really not I mean you're really kind of extended out there no it is and you know they you know their monthly pay structures compared to a semiannual pay structure rure from a corporate bond or something like that so that's attractive uh when you know you're you know kind of in a stable or declining rate environment um you know but you're exactly right they're very interest rate sensitive and in a rising rate environment uh especially a rapidly Rising interest rate environment which we just went through um you you could see that duration move out in the portfolios we tend not to carry a big amount of them in the portfolio which means that they have not quite as much impact and like I said if you know if you're willing to go up on the credit allocations um I see no reason why leaving the MBS out wouldn't be you know fine so I ask my fellow board members what you all think Miss pritet can you um identify any risks or disadvantages to um extending it out to 7 years and the 364 day I just want to know if there's any risk to The District in doing that um so on the you know allowing longer maturities in the portfolio will allow us to put higher yield instruments um but the overall uh interest rate risk of the portfolio is capped at three years um so that is the kind of the overall risk measurement of the portfolio that would remain in place um it would just mean that you know as we're looking to buy treasury Securities or agen Securities or corporates we could uh go a little further out um uh in in the current yield environment that may not help you quite quite as much uh but um in a typically upward sloping yield yield environment where shorter term rates are lower than longer term rates it can be particularly beneficial um uh as we move through the course of the Year this year it could be beneficial in that it could also allow you to lock in more of this interest rate environment um for the future when we potentially go lower you know the FED right now is um uh you know once it gets ready um going to try and drive interest rates uh back down to something like two or three% right that's what they have forecasted and projected and where they think rate interest rate should be um which is you know two or three uh percent lower from where interest rates are now so you you you would have the Ben benefit of having these uh you know better yields locked into portions of your portfolio but it is more risk so there's more sensitivity on those instruments to uh Rising interest rates um but again since the overall portfolio limit is going to be capped at uh you know 3% and uh depending on the Benchmark that we put in um uh you know that would really Drive kind of the overall sensitivity of the portfolio this powers do you have any anything no I was just going to say um thank you for all that your comments Miss Roberts um before I would make want to have any sort of consensus I would like you all to digest it and bring it back to us with the recommendations and the comments that Miss Roberts made and if that is tolerable risk for us to take then um you know I I'm okay but I want to be sure that that's the recommendation of the professionals and that we're getting all the best information and giving you time to put that together for us yeah so we we'll we'll incorporate those modifications in the policy uh but you know as I kind of stated here and as you can see from the kind of the table showing where you are with the other uh sort of school districts um um we we're very comfortable with with all of those recommendations so does everyone want them to go back and get everything and then bring it back to us so will this will come back to us as an action item at the next meeting or are we are we good with that is that is that the plan I just didn't know if this was a time sensitive something that we need to take action on okay so however much time we'll bring it we'll bring it back forward so let's shoot for May if that's so so you don't think it's so your your yield horizon or your interest rate calculations aren't making it time sensitive at all well I find that you know the more the more you've sort of delayed and wait waited this year the better it's gotten right yeah um so you know we started the year the market was absolutely certain we'd have a recession at the end of the year uh that yields would be down you know 1 and a half% um and here we are the probability of the First Rate cut happening in June has gone from 70% to more like 55% um you know some some folks are saying maybe rates will just stay the same maybe we even see you know something go up from here so um so so I'm just seeing the threeyear rates I mean I'm just seeing threeyear maturities eroding I mean I don't know whether you're seeing that or not but well I guess I don't know where the three year is today but I know the the twoyear is has been up yeah okay thank you okay thank you Mr Morrison if you are ready for the budget Workshop you can proceed thank you madam chair um superintendent members of the public um before I get started just a few minor corrections to your um hard copy if you may have one before you today is budget Workshop number two as opposed to number three that was published um on the um cover page and on page three that we talk about the budget process it's really the 24th 25 budget process as opposed to the 23 24 that got missed in review so to take us to through today's um budget Workshop uh we'll talk a little bit about the budget development cycle 2425 FTE projections we'll talk about the legislative session that just ended and walk you through the agenda regarding some ARP positions um what we're we have some PR we've done some preliminary work on on them um at the February 13th Workshop we talked about the impact fees and also uh property insurance renewal uh has we have had a meeting of the scrm board and kind of give you of kind of where we are at this point in time and then um I will turn it over to Dr Adrien to discuss and have some dialogue with the board with respect to districtwide printing so if you on your presently on your screen the red arrow is where we are in the budget cycle we're having obviously Schoolboard budget workshops discussing various issues for the next year's budget um then the next step will be um discretionary and categorical funds will be allocated to the schools based on their projected FTE for next year and then you can see the cycle then sort of begins on July 1 um the legislative session as I mentioned ended on March March 8th uh we received an update from um Mr Black 1957 bills were filed 2196 amendments filed 3,051 votes taken and busy session with 325 bills passed and we ended up with a$ 28.4 billion ffp budget presently on your screen is just a screenshot of the 2425 FTE projection that we submitted to the state um in Orange in the orange uh rectangle we showed the feses are commonly known as the vouchers we combined the traditional with the virtual and Charters are in blue that we circled um in this model we picked as um model number one as model number one um has the tendency to give us the highest um of the the um vouchers or scholarships on the next slide slide number six again again as we're tracking our surveys from February 2021 through October of um 2023 with your actuals and looking at your projections for 2425 um we will break that down for you um on the next U couple of slides what that means in terms of monies um pretty much for the traditional it shows pretty much flat funding or a small loss um Charters um at 1625 do show some growth um and then scholarships of course you can see the 68.5 or 10% increase in the um in in scholarships looking at the legis final legislative conference report that came out on March the 5th as a result of the legislative session when we're looking at the 3D 2023 third calculation and I just want to pause there for a moment as is customary um you will see this third ffp calculation being compared to the conference report but when we get to July and the property appraiser certifies what the property the tax role will be then they will switch to the February count which is the fourth ffb calculation so the numbers will vary when when we bring that back but for right now I also wanted to point out that the in in the 2425 line the unweighted FTE is at 177 19 731 whereas before on slide six I showed you 19753 that will be also adjusted once we get to the the fourth ffp calculation once they Infuse into the budget the district's projection in its whole entirety so comparing year over-ear we we always show you these big numbers which is looking at your 2324 third calculation your October count of students the ffp district required local e tax was $108.9 Million for 2425 is $113.9 million or $4.9 million do in increase your 748 discretionary tax is at 25.5 million this year as opposed to 26.8 million next year or an increase of $1.3 million so local Revenue um in the budget has gone up by approximately 6.2 um almost $6.3 million whereas State revenues have remained pretty much flat funded from $ 28.1 million um in the current fiscal year to next year this is the second year in a row that we've seen that shift um in state policy where State dollars have been pretty much decreased and local dollars have um increased now what that does um if I can pause for a moment is that in terms of our cash flow um when we look at getting our State dollars we get one 12th of that pretty much for the entire year if the state then reduces our our cash flow coming in from the ffp and we're relying more on our local dollars which we do not get till November then we're currently doing an analysis inh house to make sure that we can make sure we can cover our C our expenses through when we get our cash in November so I will come back to you to determine whether or not we would have to issue a tax anticipation note not because of Miss management of funds but simply because of the timing of when we get our monies from the state versus when we get our monies from um the the tax collection in November so when you look at the split um total local Revenue percentage is about 83% whereas State revenues at least for Martin County School District is around 177% and per unwe dollars per unweighted FTE um is 85 8,562 and dollars per weighted FTE have increased about $35 at $762 moving on to slide nine as I mentioned we see these big numbers but I'm going to break down for you and show you how a $6 million increase could probably actually be a $1 million decrease so when you take the total funding increase from the previous slide of $6.2 million we then have to deduct the charter school prata share now what we've done is we've taken what we call the charter school Revenue estimating worksheet which pretty much is the Holy Grail uh for Charter School in estimating how much they earn in FTE on a prata basis so we take their projections and we run it through this formula so in the current year we're looking at $15.9 million going to about $6.6 million for the charter schools for their share of of course we have some prior adjustments which are IMM material at about $86,000 and then the family empowerment scholarships um in the budget go from $13.9 million to approximately $18.6 million in the conference report or an increase of about $4.7 million now in my conversations with the fdoe what they're saying is that in particular this year we were affected by the change in the policy of the state where they removed the income caps from the um FES program so whereas in the prior year people uh who may have wanted to take a voucher and go to private school or or or exercise that option now they can they don't have that income limitation anymore so in the budget at least the conference report shows $18.6 million so I have to deduct that out because that's we consider that as a withholding from our our funds until those payments are made and reconciled so right off the top of my $6.2 million increase I have to take off 5.3 almost $5.4 million just for those those items alone between the charter schools and the family empowerment scholarship that brings me down to about $918,000 now in the 2223 legisl legislative session certain categoricals were eliminated out of the budget and then put into the base funding that then left on the school schol District the opportunity to decide how much money we were going to spend out of the base funding for certain items so the teacher salary increases the first line the current allocation is $6.69 million in 2324 and for next year is approximately $7.9 million or an increase of about $1.2 million if you to the if you look on the left side of your screen you will see a little note that page 21 of 41 of the conference report shows .6 million for maintaining prior year increases so as we've gone on probably four years now if not yeah about four years now um and we have given those raises included in the budget is funding to maintain those raises that we've given in the past over the past years then the provisor language then requires us to provide an additional 1.07% or that 1.27 two million for current teacher raises um going into next year and if I may editorialize a little bit uh we would want to start negotiating with our um MCA Union as soon as possible so we can get those funds negotiated prior to the October deadline um so our superintendent does not have to go to Tallahassee and explain why we have not reached an agreement as yet um the second item I highlighted in yellow because uh we're asking um this year year for approximately $2.5 million which is more than we've actually ever allocated for instructional materials except in the years that we have had ARP and Esser funds to do a full adoption so for next year the request has commanded for $2 and A5 million for a K12 districtwide science adoption and so we're working with um Mr labarbara and Dr Kennedy and his office um to look at how we can best strategically um craft a budget in in a way that we can um adopt a full K12 um science adoption for next year the reading allocation uh we reduced that down to $857,000 based on what they're spending currently and an estimate for next year U as you can see in the 2324 the the reading allocation was about 1.1 million and we looked at their expenditures and reduced that down to about $857,000 and then the teacher classroom Supply assistance funds we put a round number to it as I call it about $400,000 or $42,000 increase again that's just an estimate um because those categoricals that you're looking at um are now considered part of the base funding that we have to subtract away from the base funding so from my $918,000 increase I now dropped down to um approximately 962 th000 in a in a deficit I'll pause at this point if there's any questions if not I'll just keep going any questions okay thank you so as I do every year uh we look ahead and see okay what are the items that are new to the budget that will um cause an impact to the budget for next year and this is not an all-inclusive list at this point but these are the things that as we work through our departments as we work with our um exterior partners ERS Etc that we can identify that we are going to have an impact to the budget so line item number one is obviously the carry forward from the from the from the previous slide um we also have to reserve um FTE the 140 increase in the charter schools that if they don't show up then we have the money we can easily send that back to um to the um to the doe so we reserving that $1.3 million we don't hand out that FTE until the 10day count that we know that they're in our seats and for Charter Schools we keep that that unless they make their FTE projections the second the third item is funding for non K12 science materials um we're estimating that we need about 300,000 now in the current budget I worked with Dr Kennedy and Mr larara as well um to set aside funds under the current year budget after material instructional materials were bought so we can save that for next year and add it to this $300,000 um to set aside for the workbooks and quote unquote free materials that you get with with your textbook orders that we have to pay for the shipping and other um torn materials and tattered books and stuff like that so we have set aside about 300 thou 300,000 plus what we're reserving in the budget out of this year's budget to roll forward um I do realize that I have two number threes my apology um the next item is the impact of Florida statute 43512 the re fingerprinting of all employees beginning January of 2025 and I'm working with um uh Mr franela the chief of our security and I'm going to try my best to explain this that the state um wants all fingerprints in the Clearing House and the clearing house currently Works through DCF and early learning which primarily houses extended day and your prek folks um the FDLE has other employees and apparently the statute uh requires all employees to be housed in the um Clearing House so obviously The Logical question is well why can't I just go ahead and move them over from the FDLE over into the clearing house and apparently uh there are some barriers to making that happen so so uh we have put that in there as an unfunded mandate um and the estimate is about $70 as I recall per employee and we have to start that uh beginning in um January of 2025 Mr franela is here if you have any questions um I'm sure he'll be able he'll be um more than happy to answer them for you do you have any questions for Mr frangella Roberts so do we have anybody in the clearing house now or is everybody in the FL Doe so right now we have just um anybody who's working in prek and early learning so anybody that's in um extended day so they all go through the clearing house now so how many is that that are in the Clearing House as opposed to how many do we have to move so I I don't have the exact numbers but starting January 1st of 2025 we have to start doing the entire District so every single person in the entire State of Florida and every school district has to go into the clearing house starting the 2025 school um January 1st now they do give us some time frames so anybody who's hired prior to January uh 1st June 30th of 2021 will have to be printed by January by June 30th of 2025 and then they give you some timelines for the remaining people that were hired from 2021 to present so in order instead of just putting a number of 300,000 on that can you get something that shows us I mean obviously if we redid everybody at the same time that's going to be a a Manpower issue too so but if we can get some kind of spread to know how that 300,000 is going to be utilized whether that's all in this fiscal year Carter or whether some of that laps over into the next one how many um are in extended day that we don't need to do but how many that do you understand what I'm asking you so yeah extended day and our um people that are in prek we don't have to print them again once you're in that system you're there and we don't have to do it over again this is only for the other staff members that were actually in the FDLE um holding of the backgrounds the reason they're going to this is once you get into the Clearing House it's easier for you to move from agency to agency so now once you're in the Clearing House Frank FR Angelo goes to another District they could just request it you keep the same print you don't have to go through the system again and that's why the the state is doing this yeah I think what I'm asking Carter is if you can figure out how many is this fiscal year and how many is next fiscal year based on the parameters that he's saying if you're done by a certain time um you have dead you have staggered deadlines depending on when your fingerprints are done so even though you're saying at $70 a person it's 300,000 I'm I'm just want to have some assurance that we really think we're going to be doing 300,000 in one year or whether we think that's going to be spread out over two fiscal years okay correct did you have anything no I was just going to say about the Clearing House they do have to be redone every five years still like it's not you're in and you're in forever thank you to respond to board member uh Roberts's question or request we I will work with Mr frangela to give you that spread to see how much we need to do this year and the staggered schedule as you requested so one other thing that you were talking about where you did the reserve for the charter school FTE um so I need you to try to help me understand the 1.3 million so we're given money so let's say I think I have a hundred students um at a charter school and we're given that money for those students and now only half of those 50 of those show up so now I owe the 9,000 for those extra 50 but they gave me the money I'm sending back so correct so why is it costing me 1.3 because it's included in the income that I got that I'm then giving back is it a cash flow issue is it I mean essentially they're funding you based on projections and in the third ffp calculation in October when we do the actual count if they're not there so let's say again in your hypothetical I'm projecting a 100 but I only 50 show up then they're the state will then start prating our budget down so it does become a cash flow but it's also a budgetary issue because at the end of the fiscal year you will only be paid for the 50 that you have in house so this extra that this is up and above their projection that we're reserving okay and I I still don't understand that I don't understand why if I if I think I'm getting a th000 charter school kids right and I get funded for a th000 charter school kids right and they give me the money for a th000 MH and then only 700 of them show up right I've gotten the money for the Thousand right so now I have the money for 300 to send back correct correct so why do I need 1.3 million to set aside in order to give the money back because I already have that money so the the 1.3 represents what in your hypothetical would would represent the 300 that you don't that you probably won't have because what we do is that we have the projection that we sent to the state based on the model but we also have the projection that the charter school actually gives us so the difference between those two you multiply that by the total funds per student and that's how you get the 1.3 million let me try one more time sure so I think I have a th000 students the charter school projects I'm going to have a th000 students So based on the thousand students and let's just call it $9,000 okay sure So based on the charter school projection of um a thousand students I get X number of dollars from the state right correct yes if the charter school doesn't have all those students show up right I owe the state back for the money so let's say only half of them show up right okay half of them show up I owe the the state has given me money for a th000 students mhm I now need to give them back money for 500 students that didn't show up right they gave me the money I'm giving the money back I think so why do I need to set aside 1.3 million additional money as a budget impactor I I think the key there is from day one we don't fund them for the full $99,000 in your hypothetical so we only fund them in this in your hypothetical when you said that we projected a thousand and we funded them for a th000 well the state based on the model that we picked would be funding us for let's say 1,200 so that difference is what we're setting aside we fund them for what they project but in the model that number is higher so in order for us not to what we could do is fund them everything we could fund them all of it from day one the trouble is that when they get to October and they don't have those students then now we're cutting their budget back significantly so the reserve is for the difference between what they actually projected and what the state is actually funding in your projection and I'm I'm sure I could there's a better way of explaining that but in the hypothetical what you're saying is the difference between what they projected and what the state is funding because those are two different numbers am I the only one who doesn't get this is does everybody else understand this and it's just me okay all right they understand I'm come talk to you privately because I don't understand why why when they're giving us money we need to set aside money that they've given us to give back to them I don't he's set setting aside the extra just in case up and above if he gives it to them and they spend it then sure I I understand that instead of giving it to him he's setting it aside and not giving all of it to him he's only given him that 300 can I or the whole bit that he needs that way we're only working on the number of FTE we have so why are we never mind they all get it so guess we'll all be happy thank you okay um moving through the slides um I believe I was at the second number three and again I apologize for that estimate um again for number four we just put in a a round number right now at this point for estimated overhead costs due to to due to inflationary impact uh we typically at the end of the year to look at our supply budget year-over-year and kind of apply uh a percentage to that and that's kind of how we come up with that number um the next one number five just wanted to pause and talk a little bit about that one as you may be aware that Florida Statutes allow the auditor general to audit US every year unless your population exceeds $150,000 and you are a low-risk auditee at that point the auditor general has the option of skipping the audit auditing the school district for two years and come back on the third year on the rotation so as you may recall the board went through an auditor selection process a couple years ago and they selected Cherry beckard as the Auditors for um our um for our district so we're coming up on the 2324 operational financial and and federal single audit for this year and we've put a round number in there about 150,000 it was close to that when we took the bid rates and implemented that um based on the board selection but I need to discuss with you um having conversations with cherry Becker is that what they would recommend if we're doing if we're going to do an operational audit which an operational audit checks to make sure that there's a certain statute for example that requires us to put Financial transparency information on our website they will go and they will check to make sure that we've done that those are the types of things that an operational audit does however instead of just pretty much looking at the same same thing year over year um what they're recommending to us is that they do a risk based um operational audit which would cost less so for example um if I were to say I'm doing a financial audit and say okay I got a million dollars in cash on my balance sheet well they would test that assertion they want to see my bank wrect they want to see the statements they want to see all the supporting documents whereas for example maybe not a good example but a risky um portion or uh operation um in your uh Department in your operation would be say for example payroll you got the size given the size of our payroll um that would be an area that they may want to look at um looking at federal dollars ARP that might be something that they want to look at specifically as opposed to just checking things that have always been checked and passed so what I was um saying to you is that I'd like to bring back to you um at the next session that we have together uh a delineation that would show here's how much it would be for an operational audit a risk Bas risk-based assessment audit the financial audit and of course our um we we call it the Aker which is the annual comprehensive financial report known as our cfer um and bring that back to you for some discussion on what you would like to do because you do have the option of skipping the operational audit or doing an operational audit but something more um laser focused in a risk ba risk-based approach okay um the next one on number item number six I'd like to turn that over to the superintendent to just discuss a little bit about the kindergart garden ambassadors program we were able to pay for that program out of Esser dollars this year so um there's a recommendation coming forward or discussion about potentially paying that out of the general fund yes thank you Mr Morrison so the kindergarten ambassadors program has been highly successful the last couple of years um we have been able to really assist our future kindergarten parents with the opportunity to go to our our all of our schools uh to really promote the kindergarten blast off um ahead of time to make sure that all of our as many of our VPK students are entering our kindergarten classrooms and as well as uh students throughout the community that didn't otherwise go to a VPK program but are looking to start kindergarten for the the first time so this is something that as Carter mentioned we have funded through srarp over the last couple of years this would be the first year that we would take it over in the general and so I wanted to bring it forward as a possible consideration for the budget because I do not think that it's something that we can just uh pull away from now that we've started we certainly could look uh at that 119,000 and find ways that we could decrease the the amount in what we're specifically spending but the 19400 is what has been been funding over the last two years so we brought forward the full amount I certainly can work with with staff the pleasure of the board to decrease where we can decrease uh but that is um the request is on the table for that Miss Powers I just asked can we get a breakdown do they get us teachers get a stien or how's what are we spending $119,000 so if we when we bring that item back if we could kind of see what where the dollars are going absolutely we do have that anyone else have any more questions this particular item when we bring that item back to Mrs pow point I will go ahead and highlight the areas that I think in my discussion with staff we can eliminate and do without and those items that we need to uh to fund fully thank you um item number seven um pretty much every year when I stand before you and lay this out as the budget impactors that's one of the top ones that we have um that that imp impose cost on us that have to deduct from the budget this year the um f FRS um the regular rate went from 13.57% to 13.63% which is 0.06 percentage points so a marginal increase this year um over the prior year so at this point of uh we have done some preliminary analysis looking at positions for next year increased the rate to about 13.63% which the that regular rate is covers most of our employee base so it's within about $100,000 and of course I'll come back with a um an accurate more accurate number once we we roll over everybody in the system and take out the retirees Etc um item number eight is new teacher budget support um as you may recall uh Mr Raymond um did a presentation late last year with you discussing um teachers in the zero through four range that we were losing not because of salary purposes but um due to I guess I said other personal reasons which more had to do with I'm a new teacher and I need support in the classroom um from that we've been having the teacher retention input committee meetings and of course we we wanted to bring this forward as a supplement to your Martin Mentor program um which is to support um and Mentor new teachers to Aid in our retention and Mr Raymond if if you would like to add a word or so with with the board's permission and superintendent's permission we can do that mrman sure that's very loud um so back um the premise of these dollars would be to really look at during the day mentoring opportunities so the Martin mentors are full-time teachers who offer support typically after the school day um when we meet with our teachers in the teacher retention input committee um the number one ask is for support during the day so to miss Po's point where would these dollars go it's under review with superintendent Maine but one very plausible plan would be to allow um a School site to request a substitute teacher during the day um so that mentoring could happen from a senior teacher during the day and support those teachers um when they need it most um when students are present in the classroom versus after school when it's more Theory and things of that nature so this would be an addition to the Martin mentors program Miss Bridget to to that explanation I had a a detailed conversation with a senior employee of the district who was very much interested in actually participating in what you're talking about and has been approached by younger newer teachers could you help us and I think it's a great um little slot to fill so thank you for bringing that up thank you for your consideration any other questions item number nine is the um I contacted the county with respect to what we can expect from them for their contribution um through um the the fees collected when someone gets a ticket that comes to us to us and we use that funding as a part of the um D slosburg um driver's ed program um unfortunately the county indicated that our allocation for next year at this point looks like it's going to be a flat $65,000 and we did approve the board did approve the the contract for next year so there is an increase in our share of that program of about [Music] $27,500 and I'd like to again turn over to the superintendent item number 11 where we're expanding The Odyssey of the Mind um to middle schools for an impact of about $1,425 superintendent yeah thank you Mr Morrison so this year we had um offered the Odyssey theine to all 12 of our elementary schools I'm happy to report that nine of our elementary schools to keep in um with the whole stem idea nine of our elementary schools participated two of our schools made it to States Jensen Beach Elementary and Palm City Elementary uh I'm also happy to report that state competition was this past uh Easter weekend and Palm City Elementary came in third place at the state level there's a request for most of these students that make up the teams are in fifth grade and they would like to continue the Odyssey of the Mind competition into sixth grade at their respective schools um the coaches had a had a wonderful conversation with me and I had an opportunity to zoom with the teams and this is something that the community the parents and the students are very very excited about and hopefully will end up feeding the spam program down the road because many of those students are interested in robotics and Hands-On engineering and arts programs and so at this point uh to move it uh into the middle school for that to continue would be the cost of the 10,000 and that's mostly for registration fees um the cost of the uh stiens for the coaches to be able to coach the Odyssey of the mind which fits into the the approved category already and um be able to pay for their costs for their teams thank you yeah any question Miss bridet not a question just we got a nice email today from a parent who whose child um was a participant and was at it was just so nice to read it and learn more about it so I think it it's definitely something that we should consider we are uh going to present uh a little recognition for both of those teams that made it to the state World competition only required I mean it required a first place so for Palm City in their first first year to come in third out of 18 teams at the state level uh in Orlando was was incredible and we we got a lot of Kudos from the state director of Odyssey of the mind that Martin County has increased the number of schools that have participated in a number of years so thank you okay moving on to slide 11 the carry forward decrease is about $3.7 million at this point and line items number 13 14 and 15 kind of go together um where I've put a little note at the bottom right that we have a potential to pay for the HSA contribution as we have in the past we'll try to get that out of the door before our SRP funds um expire I will work with the grants Management Department to see if we can um capitalize on some of those ARP dollars with respect to the HSA contribution for the high deductible plan um the buy down of the premium increase for the the 30,000 for the um High deductible plan what you don't see on here which is what I'm trying to calculate at this point is um it looks like we would have a savings from the prior to July 1 2020 group that typically costs about half a million dollars I think it came down to like 336 so that some of that may offset um what we're looking at here so I just wanted an opportunity um to do that final calculation and bring that forward but I wanted to put this on the slide so that you are aware of it um item number 16 we'll go we'll talk about that on the other slides coming up but the just to let you know at this juncture that the superintendent and leadership team uh we're examining our budgets and allocations in order to address that deficit coming forward um it's a little bit higher than it was last year at about this time however we do have a lot going on and we will will work as hard as possible to bring that deficit under protected deficit under control so moving on to um the next slide which is the update on positions funded through the ARP um as we discussed on February 13 These funds will be expiring um in September of this year and we have done some preliminary work this is not a final um final recommendation but we do have if you would like I can walk you through each individual slot but we do have an ESC behavioral tech for example number one um the estimated cost was about $45,000 that has that FTE has been transferred to the idea Grant um the clerk which was a um part of a fit program which is the families in transition program that has been transferred to Title One the coordinator of Extended Learning position TBD at this point um the graduation specialist those two have been added to the general fund at the district level the grant administrator of federal funds um has been transferred over to the title one rooll forward and written into the grant the head the Three Head Start Educators have been absorbed into the Head Start VPK Grant the two instructional coaches have been transferred to the general fund um to implement the co- te model at middle schools the junior Network um engineer we discussed the last time that though that cost is reimbursable from the capital funds um the multimedia journalist um has been included in the board's strategic plan and approved the two nurses are reimbursed through our contract with the health department the two power professional um basic positions have been moved to vacant positions that are in the general fund the two prevention intervention Specialists um they have been moved to general fund one um for title one and we're actually eliminating another one which is um an update that I received late this afternoon so I will have to change that um on the slide coming forward I do show that under other funds but one will be moved to Title One and we're going to eliminate the other one um the school counselor alternative school those two um riverband eliminated and traded two general fund positions in order to accommodate one so one will be eliminated and one has been traded the school psychologist has been moved to the general fund in a vacant position the school so the school Social Services worker has been eliminated that position has been vacant all year the student support technician the 18 at this point are TBD um this is not the the student the ET student text that uh Dr Adrien has um in his budget so these are separate and apart from that um we have seven CTE High School um those were moved to the general fund allocations the teacher Elementary School the four those were eliminated there were two critical thinking positions at Port Sala and two at Warfield and if you if I may point out that um Warfield is spell incorrectly if you could just make a note of that and the six High School teachers um we have reduced the school within a school we've done recomend the recommendation at least at this point is one per high school so that would go down to approximately um one per high school so actually that number needs to be updated I'll fix that when I come back so at this point that's some preliminary work that we have done um to address the upcoming expiration at this point if you were to add up everything that went into the general fund some of them mostly went into vacant positions it's a about $900,000 so as we work with our allocations um looking at the allocations and our projections for next year um we are working to make sure that they we're not adding anything to the general fund that is not warranted any questions on the slide so far any questions um next steps on slide 14 um we're currently working with our departments um reviewing their budgets um just remind everyone that the superintendent has directed that most if not all departments roll back their budgets to the 2223 expenditure levels uh we will continue to review our allocations working with my office and the deputy superintendent's office uh with respect to their schools side allocations also looking at um the superintendent reorganization um that and again I put Pete TBD and he has talked about coming forward in in May with that and the next budget Workshop um will be on June the 4th 2024 at which time I do have some deliverables that I need to bring forward to you based on our conversation today on slide number 15 just a followup in the February 13th budget Workshop uh we discussed the board the board me board member Powers I believe asked a question that if students are zoned to the West CSA and attend South Fork High School for example could that benefit not travel with that student to that zone um it is very complicated to be honest with you there are several statutes that we are actually looking at primarily um statute Florida statute 16331 3180 31801 and we also have a copy of the interlocal agreement for school for school planning facilities planning and citing that we're reviewing um preliminarily we've reached out to um the consultant with the information that you see listed there um what we're Gathering is that many of her school district clients are still using post 2019 funds on a districtwide basis they have established what they have called benefit zones which are separate and apart from the CSA which stands for concurrency service areas um the interlocal agreement that we have with the county that was approved well this one is stamped on March 25th 20 2008 establishes those um concurrency service zones but with the district's ability to reone and especially in the face of choice then uh we're what I'm being told is that it it is more than likely that that benefit will be able to travel with that student however we need something conclusive um so I will bring that back to you when we get to the next budget workshop and that's where we are at this point that issue any questions okay uh the next update that I have for you is on the 2425 property insurance uh renewal on March 26 relations Insurance presented to the scrp management pool the preliminary 2425 budget for the pool's property insurance renewal uh I believe as we speak Mr McCreary um is in London negotiating with our carriers but on the preliminary draft you see in front of you Martin County School District um would see a a marginal decrease in our property premium for next year the total insured value of the pool is approximately $3.9 95 billion the corridor is somewhere between 7580 Mill $85 million now with an option to go to potentially $100 million in coverage for an additional premium um in this scenario as I mentioned that we would see uh a marginal decrease in our property renewal and pursuant to Florida statute 10171 uh we do pay for our property we are authorized to pay for our property premium out of local Capital Improvement funds for this cost so with that Madam chair U Mr superintendent I would like to now turn it over to Dr Adrien who would like to give a presentation on District wide printing thank you thank you Mr Morrison thank you Carter good afternoon Madam chair members of the board superintendent Maine I'm here to provide an update on the manag print solutions that have been in place since 2013 and with that we're also asking for your your the board's input on how to proceed on the information that's provided on these next few presentation slides in 2013 the school district implemented a print managed solution and with that U the solution included adding multi-function printers and classroom printers and those multifunction printers are capable of printing copying scanning both in black and white and in color the classroom printers were provided for teachers in the classroom additionally we also purchased a paper cut solution which is a software that helps us manage our print solutions for being able to um monitor progress and tracking the print usage the solution was to address Shadow it which is also um prevents people from bringing their own printers on site and schools purchasing their printers outside of this managed printer uh solution and also in addition to that we use the Reprographics department for larger print jobs and this goal is to provide a common solution for all School sites and the District staff I want to bring your attention to the next slide which shows the January 2023 print report and as you can see the total amount of print jobs were printed Pages were 1, 4,228 print jobs I are printed pages I do want to point out though that this did include classroom teacher printers multi-function printers both at school sites and the district office and the Reprographics Department fast forward a year to January of 2024 and you can see that the print job has gone up quite a bit from one million up to 1,115 printed pages so with that uh you can see an increase in 47,7 31 printed pages on classroom printers compared to 2023 and then the common area printers an increase of 8,581 printed pages so our current vendor has a recommendation of the the printers uh in terms of the multifunction printers being um uh purchased of ensuring that when you look at the age span of the device we look at the amount of printed pages and then of course the years the printer's been in service and with that we've been told that after 500,000 Pages or 10 years of use that it's time to replace the printers uh had a report run recently that shows 42 of the 93 multifunction printers have printed over 500,000 pages in The Last 11 years and being that they are 11 years old it does exceed the recommendation by the manufacturer the common area mfps have not been sold for the last three years so the printers that we have been purchasing over the years to uh for the schools those devices are no longer or those types of printers are no longer in service to be sold and now just like we've been told with some of the white feet Vehicles finding parts for these printers are is also a challenge to obtain and um you know as they break down and and being able to service those is going to become a challenge another issue we've had is related to uh security enhancements that have been brought up through Microsoft uh currently ET does have a temporary solution in place but eventually the ability to print or to scan to email or scan to a network folder will uh be a challenge due to security requirements with this dated Hardware so as we look at the current printer Solutions in place uh it's broken down by elementary middle and high school and district office to show the multi-function printers in place which total is 93 and then the teacher printers at the various levels uh obviously the district office does not have uh teacher classroom printers but you can see there that there's 1,358 printers in circulation so this is where we are seeking the board's um Vision as far as how we want to proceed here the multifunction printers um are to replace them I did get some information regarding bulk pricing if we were to purchase it in bulk pricing would cost $96,400 per device and then the classroom printers the totals would be $427,500 11 years currently out of the classroom printers uh is is definitely a a good value when we purchase those and and long-term use uh but as I did mention parts are becoming difficult to obtain and then replacing those is going to be a challenge uh but the pros are that teachers would get a new printer that could last up to 10 years and it only be $315 per printer uh at the bulk price rate teacher flexibility to print at their own convenience and of course the equity issue with teachers all having their own printer would be addressed by purchasing new printer in terms of cons we're looking at well the that is a con relating to replacing the classroom printers as the excessive printing um so now looking at the pros and cons of not replacing classroom printers so if we decided not to replace them and just kind of phased out what we had now obviously the pro would be there's no con I'm sorry no price associated with that uh and then that would also lead to a potential uh a decrease in the amount of print jobs uh coming from the classrooms however the cons associated with that is that we would need to purchase additional multi-function printers and and place them throughout the schools um there could be issues related to teacher satisfaction it lacks the equity in the classrooms for Teacher printers so if we phase out the teachers printers and you know Carter has a printer that's working fine and um I don't I'm not going to have mine replaced but Carter would be able to print from his for until it it breaks down and then of course there could be um a potential impact for um instruction for the students so at this point I'd like to turn it over to back to Mr Morrison and the board for any dialogue or questions that may be present thank you are there any questions from the board Miss Roberts so is this the 427 and your other numbers are they included in your overall technology budget and capital or is this addition in addition to what that number is this would be an addition M Roberts this was a uh we do have a printer budget um but that's about 900 I'm sorry 93,000 per year uh for for various products that we're purchasing and some of the software the renewal of the um paper cut software is about 13,000 I believe and then Mr Morrison and I did discuss the potential of um looking at this from other funds because this was a when when this was purchased in 2013 it was just an outright purchase for the entire District so it it's not something that would be easy easily phased in and phased out so at some point you're going to be giving us your is this being taken out of sequence from your overall capital budget for the ET budget so I mean it it's you know one of the things that we've discussed as a board before is um taking things not looking at them holistically as the entire item and it appear since this is part of your ET budget that um we don't have a current ET budget from you is so if I may respond to that Mrs Roberts that depending upon which option on which direct which direction that the board and superintendent um receive then we would amend our 2425 plan accordingly so it's in it's planning for the 2425 school year and bringing this issue to the front so that we can make some financial decisions one way or the other so you're asking for the board to determine whether they want to make this and then um at some other point we're going to see the ET budget correct is that what we're doing the ET budget um pretty much for the five years um has been set except for once we get the tax roll number then we would make whatever Revenue adjustments Etc to that um uh this would be additional to whatever the allocation would be for 2425 depending upon which way we go so your your plan for et um is to take the the four years the four the last four years of last year's 5-year capital budget and just use those is that what our plan is no ma'am so what whatever again whatever this is a new cost to no no I don't mean for this piece I mean we would be adding this onto whatever year two three four and five is from before yes we don't have I don't think we're asking for that full amount in one year is it could be a phased approach it could be it definitely would be uh the gets back to the pricing structure too for the bulk rate so purchasing at the bulk price rate would be significantly uh a significant savings and I can get you uh Carter I can look at some quotes for that but the other thing too is we need to be mindful of the fact that the mind the multifunction printers that we're asking for initially um there are security issues that we've come across that ET has fixed related to scanning of documents um that would be able to send scan and send to an email and scan and send to a network share uh and that right now there's um a security update coming from Microsoft that this the hardware cannot support that so we we're up against that as well right so I'm only one of five but um personally I think that we should be looking at the entire ET budget and not pulling pieces out here and just adding to the budget but I leave it to my fellow board members Miss Powers I agree Miss Bridget I have a question regarding um so right now when a printer fails for whatever reason are we retiring it or repairing it and what do that cost right now we're repairing that and that's part of our our contract uh with our vendor uh but the vendor has expressed to us that getting the parts is the challenge now because eventually we're going to not be able to find the parts and then the printer would just not work thank you yes well I would like to know the difference what it would be like to buy it in bulk versus peace mealing it um we get that number that would be great any other questions from the board Madam chair this concludes um budget Workshop number two thank you very much for your time and for the input thank you thank you all right next will be our code of student conduct conduct presentation Dr Estes would you like to come forward that's [Music] loud you can go ahead good evening Madam chair members of the board superintendent main can hear me can you hear me a little better try that one again better a little bit I got to bring it closer sir I want to make sure that I'm able to keep the the binder on on here as well is that better for you that's better okay I'll raise my voice so good evening Madame chair members of the board superintendent mean I'm Lisa Estes I'm the assistant superintendent of student support services and this evening we have Dr Vanessa mudo is here with us and we also have Mrs quintina Harris both of which who have been very integral in our community feedback with our student code of conduct you have a binder in front of you correct and so what I'm going to ask you to do to make it a little bit easier to navigate is to take out the presentation because we will be referring to some some pages or if you want to just look at the presentation that would be fine as well okay I don't have the presentation printed yes you do your binder is it in the binder yes so your binder is T with the student code of conduct here you go okay and then you have Workshop presentation and then you have decision tree and you have the policy section all right I don't do you think it' be better let's see you'll let me know if this is better is that good yes it's much better thank you thank you is it going to buzz he's going to fix that okay so just would like to start by explaining that the Cod of student coni feedback sessions was there was three sessions it doesn't sound he's going to cut it is he cutting good go ahead does that work work can we take a quick break is that better yes you want to take a break we're going to take a quick recess so we get this figure resume in just a moment we'll get to sort it out thank you of course e e e e e e e evening Madam chair we will resume this Workshop it's okay good evening Madam chair members of the board superintendent main I'm Lisa Estes the assistant superintendent of student support services this evening also here we have Dr Vanessa mudo Who is the coordinator of student services and we have Miss quintina Harris who is the manager of mental health all of us have been involved in the preparation for this evening discussion about components of the student code of conduct so just for a little bit of a background uh we held the student code of conduct feedback a little bit different this year than it has been done in past years there were three feedback sessions and a fourth one we had to had because we needed to vote on what was bringing forward to you all this evening so the committee was comprised of community members site-based administrators teachers students and actually had some parents that also were a part of it so the members of the committee were assigned to one of five groups and they were each to address attendance dress code tobacco bullying and wireless communication devices please note that some of the feedback that was that was given was already included in our already current policy or in our procedure but we wanted to ensure that the committee members voices were shared and that's why you'll hear some things that we may already have in our policy but we want to make sure that we're pointing out where it is in the book so question for the for for the board what is the board's pleasure as we navigate these five areas what would be the best option moving forward to stop after each area to discuss or to get through the entire presentation and then go back and ask questions I think we should do it by section yes okay after I'm just curious if you could also provide to us the members of the committee and their role so if they were a parent if they were a school administrator or School principal like how that how the makeup is you don't necessarily have to give us their names but I can so I can give you actually the entire information don't have it with me but as far as we had so Elementary and Elementary representative cbase like a a assistant principal there was mostly assistant principles at the secondary level high school middle school and Elementary there also were some other community members and parents that were part of the the cond of the sessions and we had some teachers from different School sites and there was some students who that they were initially part of the student feedback sessions that were done prior to the community uh feedback sessions and they were invited to come as well but we can provide you with a list of of the makeup of the committee in detail after the board meeting if you'd like thank you okay you're welcome okay so the first the first area that we're going to be discussing is um in policy 5511 which was the student dress code uh there was some recommendations to remove some language that restricts Middle School Footwear if you don't mind please look at your tab on the side of the binder and please turn that to page 46 in in the student code of conduct in your binder so if you look you will see that under number four under the procedures there's a section that talks about the the shoes and the the footware one of the recommendations that came from the from the group was that they wanted to change the current language and they wanted to be able to remove and allow for middle school students to wear Crocs without the backstraps okay as you can see the current language expresses that for safety reasons that element El students may not wear sandals or open toe shoes and then it goes into elementary and middle school students are not permitted to wear flip-flops or shoes without a back so that would be one of the first suggestions and recommendations for consideration by the board the next section is ID badges if you would mind please turn your page to in the code of conduct to page 14 currently the definition in the student code of conduct actually talks about failure to visibly wear your ID badge in in your front upper torso the recommendation from the group was to remove wearing the ID badge on the front upper torso and they wanted to allow the ID badge to be worn on their person and the examples that were given would be in their pocket or in the backpack so there was some conversation back and forth with the team members about if it's in a backpack if it's in the pocket if it's not visible how can it be worn by being visible and would this be a safety concern and as you can see in the code of conduct a level one offense was ID violation and that is number six where they want it on the upper torso so that was the recommendations brought forward for dress code is there any discussion that the board would be interested in having about that Miss po so I'm just curious on the remove wearing it on the front upper torso um it kind of defeats the purpose of the ID um I I can tell you there was a lot of discussion when the ID badges were talked about in reviewing the margorie Stoneman Douglas tragedy um and the point is is that when someone is on your campus that you immediately are able to see their ID and know that they belong on your campus um I know that it's become an issue like kids were putting gift cards in it and you know I've heard all of those things things happening so it's not 100% fullprof but it's even harder to know if they don't have a lanyard or even a card I mean I don't know if this is that's a good idea or and it kind of takes us back prior to the recommendations of the MSD commission and I guess I would like our Safety and Security staff to weigh in on that as well Mr frel would you like to come forward so I go I agree with what Mrs power said um having it displayed serves a couple of things so yes what was just mentioned about being able to quickly identify who's supposed to be on campus every single person either has to have a a student ID a staff ID um a visitor badge or um the um contractor badge so the second thing is even for our administrators and teachers they could identify a student very quickly if they needed to to if they have to address the student so there are a couple of things that it we would be going backwards we use it for our reunification we use it for our bus transportation for um for lunch we use the badge for a lot of different reasons and I think having it displayed is the right way to go and we will absolutely be going backwards if if we allow them to keep it in their bag thank you I completely agree anyone else have any questions or think comments um this p with reference to the Croc issue um if a middle school student can wear open toe shoes with a back strap I don't see an issue with the Croc as long as the back strap is on it saying without the backstrap defeats the rest of the code with regard to they have to wear open toeoe with a backstrap but a Croc without so I think we need to be consistent one way or the other I'm not certain how I feel about backstraps to begin with but I certainly don't think you do one and then do something else with a different type of shoe we're not in the fashion industry here so I think we need to determine backstrap versus no backstrap as opposed to Open Toe with Croc without that's my my uh opinion on it m Roberts did you have something so did you discuss this with Mr Calderone as far as safety goes for the backstrap for the the shoe safety piece no I have not because I'm just bringing forward the the feedback from the sessions to just bring back to the board members so no haven't had a opportunity to discuss because not sure if what changes would or would not be made so not at this time I had not oh okay thank you you're welcome and also please let's note and remember to there were some students obviously that are were part of the discussion and and some some of those comments and suggestions have came from some of the students but again that's their voice and we want to make sure that that we give voice to everybody who was on the committee so we're just sharing some of those ideas than Roberts so when you're sharing these ideas are these ideas that are coming singularly from one person or are these ideas that the committee has kind of agreed to so for instance when you're talking about whether it's backstraps whether it's name badges whether whatever is this a singular idea say from two students or does this have the approval and the the Buy in from Administration and the representatives from schools that are there how was this how are these recommendations coming to us so when the Committees they were assigned so the committee members were assigned to groups so you got to go to attendance you got to go to bullying and then you sat in a group and what we did was they scribed and was able to write down some of their recommendations and suggestions and that's where we sat we came back to the district and put all the information down about what they may have said or what they have asked for and that's how we derived at what we were bringing forward there wasn't a lot of discussion about dress code outside of these two areas that we were bringing forward to you okay so I guess my question was if it went to the dress code group was this a consensus from the dress code group or is this one of the things that was mentioned by the dress group dress code group so for instance if the six of us if the six of us were in the dress code group is the suggestions that we're seeing coming as a result of discussions from the group or is is it Diane Falls one of the six saying I think XYZ it could have been one of one of the six or two of the six that brought it up and they had discussion and was fine with moving forward and bringing it to the board as a recommendation okay thank you okay thank you um any other further discussion about the dress code portion no so we're going to move on the next section was the tobacco free environment so this was another conversation that we had noted that it was mentioned that the offense for tobacco should be included in in school suspension and so we in blue we indicated that that already does exist we also had a recommendation for THC as an infraction to be ISS and we have in your binder the decision that talks about tobacco infractions and vaping and you can clearly see tobacco is a level three infraction it is currently in the student code of conduct and it was just something that was asked and we did explain to the group members or to particular group that had mentioned it that THC is an infraction it is a level three infection and that um it is currently in our student code of conduct and that is under your tobacco your TBC tab so in in that respect um that was just what was asked and thought the um the other thing was supervised community service within the school was something that was brought up by that tobacco in um tobacco group and they said that they felt it would be good to add Community Service as a consequence under level two respons and sanctions which can be found we would be adding it if it was the pleasure of the board to page 19 so on 19 you see that there are level two responses and sanctions and in there would be community service would be one of the things that we would add there the other thing was some of the group felt like it should be included in school sponsored events that we should make sure that during school sponsored events that we should be holding to our tobacco policy we also did explain that it already is in our policy 5512 which you will have you have in the back of your binder under policies we've highlighted it to show that um that we Doo have it in our general statement policy for the tobacco okay another comment that came up and discussion was about parent and guardian involvement and and I think sometimes what may happen is that there's a possibility that outside community members parents or students might not know that that we do involve the parent from the beginning when an infraction has occurred and a student is going to get a referral for T TBC which is tobacco this is our current process we already do that and so we would just it's more about educating and having people maybe have better education of the student code of conduct and and where it falls within our student code of conduct that that's the tobacco section so I turn it over to board members for input please and discussion are there any questions on the section miss pritchet this is a a general question um was it the group's sentiment that the infractions were not appropriately handled at every school in other words the it's in there the policy is there it's very clear but that not all the schools were complying with the policies set forth I would have to say yes that there was agreement among the group that things were handled differently at some of our school sites and that consequences and and discipline sanctions um was would change or would different depending on what school you went to thank you you're welcome any other questions thank you so what are we what's our resolution on this I just am curious obviously I think that I think there should be a mandatory parent meeting at the school not parent involvement should be required it shall be required and that there be a mandatory meeting and we can look to include yeah and if both parents regardless of the circumstance should have to attend I mean obviously that might not be possible always but you know they should have to attend the meeting they should have to understand the consequences and if we're going to are we going to do a supervised community service within the school because because I mean I would like to know what our principles think of that and if there is is it going to create more of a burden for them to be doing that during the school day um or if they do that while they're an in school suspension for the infraction so I would want to understand more about how that works so also let me share with you something that we have been working on as a district team um Mr DelVal who works for the Police Athletic League for Martin County School District actually he will be hopefully coming forward to the the next board meeting because there is a program he when a student gets an infraction for tobacco and they get a citation from one of our deputies um that goes to the judge and so at this point they would like to bring forward with another layer of a consequence that makes the parent have to do another program on top of what we have with our tobacco prevention program on top of that and at in the evenings so they would have to comply with some of of what we do for our infractions and then also um comply with the I guess it was the judge who one of the judges had mentioned to us that we we met with her and she says I I can put some teeth into this if I'm able to have the student come forward and give this as an option so if that can be a second layer that would be something that we would be looking at doing and it is the second part of this after this is the feedback from the community there are a host of changes that the student services team as well as I plan on meeting with Mr franel that we are going to be bringing to you as well because we do and also the administrators um Dr mudo has sent out an email and act to all administrators for them to provide their input as to what are some things that they would like to see changed and kind of pointing them into our top areas we know vaping is a big issue in the district and we know that we have the bullying and so these are the top areas that we're looking for input from all stakeholders this just happened to be like the first piece of it and we hope to be coming forward to you all to discuss all those other intimate changes that need to be done with that any other questions comments okay so the next area was about wireless communication devices and there was a lot of discussion at the table about specifying a designated area for the devices during instructional time if I can just have you turn to page 14 and the student code of conduct you'll see in page 14 number 12 under the technology infraction it clearly indicates that a teacher shall designate an area for wireless communication devices during instructional time and so we and also it does appear on page 44 as well in the code of conduct under the student use of wireless communication devices it repeats the same sentence so a lot of in having conversation and dialogue and pulling out policy to show them that this is already in effect the other two bullet points were just discussion about blocked sites and how students use some that are blocked for legitimate educational purposes and they felt like they were being blocked not sure that that would be something that would reside in the student code of conduct as well as um saying that so other that able to get access to other areas so that was kind of the focus of the wireless device conversation it wasn't too much dialogue from like the notes that we have um other than these things and asking questions about block sites which would be some further conversation with Mr Adrian if we needed to to have that discussion with him any questions on wireless communication any questions okay we might get more feedback back from when administrators so I this whole a teacher shall designate an area for wireless communication devices um my personal opinion is that we have to curb cell phone use is that's where the bullying and so there's like a a domino effect with bullying so if we're oneto one on our devices I don't I mean is there a need for students to even have their phones out I get the safety and parents want to know that their children have their cell phone at school with them but is there an educational reason why they would need to have a wireless communication device like a cell phone out during the school day unless they were using it with the permission of a teacher in an emergency to call their parents or let them know to pick them up late or pick them up early whatever it is um I just it's like this impact with the wireless devices and the phones and snapping photos and inappropriate videos being taken to people without their consent during the school day it's the the things that they're doing go on and on so I'm of the opinion that they shouldn't have their cell phones out um during the school day unless there is an educational purpose and I think if if we were to talk about the instructional piece then I would of course look to Mr labarber to tell me some of the practices that right now and what are some of the reasons that cell phones would be used during instructional time my opinion if we are going to one toone devices like we are right now there is no reason to be using a cell phone during class if they have a computer at their desk I Concur and I agree with you 100% if we're going to stick to standards based instruction and they should not be using anything else that point and all the things that can be done on the phone can be done on this device that I sit right here with and I think we'd also have to further look at the house bill 379 saying and and kind of make sure that that we're following the house bill make sure that we're in alignment with that so that's something we we can definitely um throw the look into Miss P so when I read this a teacher shall designate an area for Wireless Communications devices during instructional time I looked at it as okay you're entering the classroom drop your phone here that was my impression of what that meant is that the intention I don't believe so Mrs Pritchett and actually I've was part of some of the focus groups with the students and there is inconsistencies among some of our staff and teachers as well because for some teachers there's a a parking space for the phones for others they don't want to have that liability of of holding or having the phones in a certain location then there's also some teachers that would say we're take out your device and we're going to xyn Z I don't that has been kid incumbent upon the district then to inform the teachers that the cell phone doesn't come out during because I like the phrase here but I think its meaning when I first read it it has a different meaning than you're telling me so if we're going to in our code say that phones are not allowable during instructional time it's incumbent upon the teachers to follow that and not to be inconsistent such as with infractions for it it seems to be an issue of the teachers not understanding what the policy is and and what we're trying to do here so the kids are only going to do what the teacher allows them to do thank you welcome so would you like to come back with some other language for how this would be written in as a level one infraction in the student code of conduct yes please we'll look at that why level one if we're taking it seriously I was just honestly thinking you know uh I think it has to be Progressive as well like you you get a warning in the first time and then the consequences get more serious as you move on because if it's just a level one every single time there is no incentive not to continue that behavior um because I don't know that it's strong enough yeah then just golly G I'm sorry yeah golly G I'm sorry golly G I'm sorry and I think every single time the parent has to be involved and at this the second one it's a mandatory meeting at the third one it's like in school suspension the fourth out of school suspense like we need some Progressive and and what you said Mrs pars I agree with because the code of conduct is supposed to be Progressive discipline so if we get a warning that first time and we get that first referral at a level one and then again you have a repeated incidence of of this same behavior and we then go to our level two and we look it may come to a point where it becomes a Defiance or an insubordination so there's there's a way to Le to layer on the discipline and so I hear you're saying a more Standard Process like we have the decision tree for the V the tobacco for the communication as far as this first then this then this then that and I'm fine as Miss Roberts recommended having a more serious consequence as the first consequence because we're we're never going to combat this if we don't make the consequences um enough to deter okay okay so moving on attendance so this is a section that if you would please turn to page nine and the in the student code of conduct we'll be looking at that also on the left hand side of your binder there's something called attendance action steps for the 24 25 school year and that's on the left side of your binder and it's very very light but it says draft in the background so they were looking at drafting and making some changes during the feedback session that group was very very very busy and so there if you look to the attendance action steps you see that we've highlighted bullet number three where it talks about the student being absent for two or more days and it says that the teacher will contact the parent and the Guardians okay so the conversation at the table with some of the participants in our feedback session stated that they actually preferred it to be the Principal or a design to make that contact and call home as opposed to the teacher doing the initial two days after two days of consecutive absences and so we wanted to bring that forward to you as well there was also an additional recommendation to add that if a student is suspended if you look at actually the policy and you see B is highlighted that's what we're going to be talking about right now if a student is um suspended or has an unexcused absence they will not be permitted to attend any after school activities on that day actually that's for board discussion we'll address this after so that was the second part to the teacher not wanting to call they said that it's difficult for the teacher to call after two consecutive days and that if a student is absent and has an unexcused absence they're not going to be permitted to attend a school activity on that day that would be for board discussion as well I'll actually take you back to B right now so if you turn your page um we have policy 5200 as you know know talks about the teachers's responsibility to take attendance on a daily basis and in secondary they do a period by period so on page nine that is covered under that section B where it says teachers shall record absentees each period and you can see that they're highlighted one of the recommendations by the by the group was to add at the ends where it says as required by School they wanted to add to the designated attendance Clerk that was one of the pieces of feedback that they everything would stay the same but that they would report that to the designated attendance clerk so isn't that done through Focus attendance and so teachers are reporting it in real time so when they take attendance at the beginning of a period we know how how are how because I have heard stories from people that kids have gone have been absent for 30 days and didn't realize that they weren't attending for that amount of time until um until the uh October count like that's just alarming to me that that's happening so how what is the process for then this the attendance clerk who is now going to to be responsible for so I look at a twofold too because at elementary school they're with the same teacher all day long and if you know that that student is absent being a classroom teacher your student was out for two days usually you're the first person in the line of defense to pick up the phone and to call and to call the parent and find out why the child is absent we shouldn't be getting to a point where there's like you said 30 days out without somebody knowing secondary becomes period by period that becomes more challenging for us to monitor because you may have some staff that takes the attendance or does not take the attendance and so the way the system rolls it rolls to if you have been in session for one class or two class out of say three four five classes it rolls and automatically rolls to present so there's a lot of of I guess you can say um responsibility on the teachers to know their kids know if they're in the classroom or not and so the group was really saying that it was too much for a teacher to be responsible for that attendance clerks or registrars at the secondary level would be the ones that would follow would start the ball rolling in that direction so that would be for board discussion whether it I I couldn't tell you whether it would be something that would fix the issue or not um we would really have to look a little bit deeper into some of the attendance about taking attendance on a daily basis and period by period all right Miss pget so some of this makes sense to me because what is the purpose of an attendance clerk by virtue of the name they're responsible for keeping attendance in order so to speak so for the teacher to have to do it doesn't make as much sense to me as an attendance clerk secondary elementary and I don't want to make different rules for different groups but I think Elementary is more um it's easier because the teacher with the student all day long but I do see I do see the rationale for for the attendance clerk taking it over after 2 days I think that makes some sense I don't know if it makes sense at the elementary level just my two cents there I had spent some time at that that table listening to some of the conversation uh when when I was when I participated with them and you have there's a little bit of a dichotomy between say administrators and and say teachers where the administrators Viewpoint is if a student is out for two days the first line of defense is the teacher the teacher is the one that's building relationships with the student with the parents with the family so they're calling they're making that initial contact and then as we start moving down into these areas of five plus days and then 10 and then 15 plus and sending out our letters that at that point we would we we need to be involving other people as you will notice when you have a chance to review this when you have your field officer and there was conversations about that as well like we have one field officer for the entire District we try to utilize the ssws to help with that and so yes I would have to say that it may be okay for after two days for the teacher to make that initial contact and then you're right the registra the data entry clerk they're the ones who see the the data on a daily basis but are they the ones that are going to be calling all of the parents so that's up for that was up for discussion yeah I think it's very complicated especially for middle and high school because a student could be um absent two consecutive days in first in their first period class but be there the rest of the day um they could be there absent five consecutive days in their last period class and be present the so it gets a little more complicated with schedules I mean elementary is simpler as Miss pritchet said but um I just don't want to put a burden because we got we have to think about the workload that we would be putting on one attendance person at a high school with 3,000 students is that is it even feasible for that person to handle that workload that was a lot of the discussion at the table if I can just chime in so uh I I agree with everything that has been said because they're all they're all great points but I think once the student code of conduct is established and the board has given Direction on what changes they want made in the attendance policy I think part of our problem is the the lack of consistency in in follow through at various sites so what I'd like to offer is that at the secondary level while I don't think it's the sole responsibility of a teacher to monitor all of that attendance for the purposes that you just mentioned and I think that was very well articulated there needs to be extra layers built in by way of the guidance counselor the the grad coach there's the the assistant principal of student services should be running early warning reports every four weeks that is specific to attendance and that they're they're meeting as a team to discuss treny among students that are popping within certain periods that have high higher absenteeism the frequent flyers if you will if they're having discussions as a team about those students through their early warning system that they set up now then they begin to look at grades they begin to look at Behavior there's a whole s of other things that should be set into motion purely based on the fact that they've identified students that have a higher absenteeism rate by period um and and surely while I don't want to add additional burden to teachers there is a certain amount of responsibility during their common planning that they have as teachers to say hey Johnny's constantly absent in fifth period have you seen him show up to your third period class and if that communication and dialogue is happening the way it needs to now we're a team approach to make sure that we're contacting parent getting the right people involved getting the truancy office involved student services and that forth so I think the Board needs to set the the policy the strict parameters that you are are moving to adopt which I think is the right thing to do and then my team with the new director of student services needs to work on on solidifying consistent processes that are followed at every school and holding administrators accountable as well as our our school-based teams to making sure that those policies are are followed with consistency because you are seeing inconsistencies and that is a direct result of us not properly providing the training on a consistent basis and holding those individuals accountable for that so you all have very great points but I think it's a multifaceted kind of approach and everybody needs to be looking at it not just one or two people that needs to be a a team process that we put in place that is followed at every School site yeah I almost think four weeks is too long you know I'm thinking oh my goodness what if a student is absent for you know Eight Days by or they could be literally absent 20 days before we would look at catching it agreed four weeks was just kind of a I just want to make for for the record we absolutely would be early warning system would say three consecutive days and you would be you would be on top of but but also to Mr me's point in our school board policy it it does expressly say if a student is absent five days right whether it's excused or unexcused they are supposed to be referred to the mtss team the multi-tiered system of support team in which that whole problem solving piece needs to that starts to evolve parents are invited to every mtss meeting and so it would it's getting Gran really into figuring out how are we assuring I and we know behavior is a big issue and academic so if a kid is struggling academically if a kid is struggling behaviorally we usually jump on it like in two second flat and then when you're like okay this kid is absent but he's doing okay academically and he's doing okay b sometimes that might not get the attention that it deserves but that is correct those early warning systems says at two unexcused days that the teacher is kind of having that conversation but then after that somebody's referring that student and should be to the mtss team every school has an mtss team so why are parents just invited why isn't it mandatory that they attend the mtss meeting at least initially I I mean they need to understand what their role is and maybe they need support maybe there's supports in the community that could help them outside of school we we just can't know what their circumstance is at home and for us to better understand that we can help the parents with their children another very good point that you're making because we also if you look at it geographically culturally and you look at some of these pieces you will see that we do have some categories of students that that may not whether it's migrant students that they're not here for certain periods of time whether it is that we have students that are staying home and taking care of their siblings because the family has to go to work so you're right there's there's there's such there's so many layers to this attendance piece and yes when we get them in school we keep them in school they're going to perform better academically they're going to do better when they're here and so it's hard with having even the one field officer to cover the whole the whole District a challenge because we do have a lot of students that are out 10 plus days and that is concerning to all of us so as we navigate that in the attendance action steps to 2425 maybe that is a document that that the board would be able to keep and to look at because there's some color changes and items that were placed in there that would allow for some other monitoring and and about the roles of the field officer is some of the things that they were working on as a group Miss pdet did you have a question um does Focus have the ability to like flag like after two days do it can it run a report of yes does it currently I it would it depends on who would do it after five days Miss Harris is after five days would it would it would it be able to be programmed for after after two days that would be a conversation with Mr Adrian because then then the policy would match up with what focus is doing did you want to say yeah I was gonna say we currently have or some of the schools have um five day letters 10day letters and 15 day letters that go home so they have it scheduled to run that way but Dr Adrian is saying they could customize it however we need it to well then it I'm saying that because it would match what we have in our policy and after 2 days whether it's a phone call or whatever is determined Focus would be able to run that and it and it would be at every school but that means the user would have to put it into Focus okay thank you yeah the intendance policy as being pointed out by Mrs Harris is it starts with the the five-day piece the two-day piece is in the draft copy that that it was a recommendation by the committee so in the policy we start with the five day if we were to adopt that we could change it from five day to we could change it from five day to two day if that would be the pleasure of the board thank you so just so you know as we navigate the next the next page you'll see there are some highlight highed on on your there's some highlighted yellow pieces and you'll see the same thing that when a student is absent for no no reason for two or more days they wanted to replace that with data entry clerk at the elementary or attendance clerk at the secondary and if you bounce down to the second section that talks about five unexcused absences or just any absence the teacher shell they want the same thing added there they want it to be changed from the teacher shell report to the data entry clerk at elementary and to the attend or to the attendance clerk at secondary so just their they're following suit with what they were saying in the previous recommendation that it would not be on the onus of the teacher to report all to contact the parent M Roberts did you have a question I did um so we have one two three four five six slides that have to do with attendance and I would like to ask our superintendent to try to I mean some of them are contradicting each other there're like suggestions from all over the place but if the superintendent could meet with instruction and whoever and come back with something that's more concise because I feel like we've got it all over the place I mean I feel like what we're looking at is we're looking at this person has a suggestion here and this person has a suggestion there and I kind of feel like so so as we look at okay we can change five days to two days and then it becomes okay well is it the clerk is it the this and then is it can focus do this can and I I feel like we're just like the policy we're just going on unless you guys are interested in just going on so what I would like to propose I'm not interested in that I'm with you going on what I would what I would like to propose is that the next time we come back forward with the student uh code of conduct that we would have uh recommendations for the board with the red line and the blue additions just the way you're you're used to seeing it so that you have the opportunity to uh weigh in on saying yes or no to what we're recommending sure but we will take the we will take all of the committee's recommendations into account when we're putting our recommendations and I'm I'm specifically speaking about attendance because I think it's I think the professionals could kind of um dissect what the attendance piece needs to be and instead of us spinning our Wheels with that I kind of feel we could gotcha jump past off thank you so do you want me to so what you're looking at with the attendance that's on the slides is actually some of the work the draft work that you have in your left side pocket so it's pretty much there's no changes there was nothing that that you see changed on the PowerPoint slide that talks about administrative responsibilities and there was no no input on the second page of administrative responsibilities and the third page and also the student services field officer so those pages don't have any any changes on them but as as stated the information from those slides came from the draft work that they were working on during the feedback session okay so the next area was bullying and one of the first identified areas of the group was that a lot of the constituents felt that they we needed to identify more adults to report bullying in the back of the book you have also the policy 551 17.01 it says B&H for bullying and harassment and it does explicitly say and we highlighted it for you on page four there are a few paragraphs paragraph one and two That explicit recently states that the administrator um can take the allegation for a report that they must report to the principal any allegation of bullying and any staff can accept a report from a student or a parent and I believe that our community members may not have known that or understood that that was a process and so that's why we provided them with the policy there was also discussion that the principal must be the person to carry out the investigation once a report had been made and that all reports have to go to the principal and they felt like there was not enough staff on site to take these claims and handle the process for bullying and on page four under procedure for investigation in our policy it talks about um that the principal can designate an individual that is trained in those investigative procedures so it doesn't have to only be the Principal but I believe that the the thought out there is when a parent has a concern and their child is is being bullied or wants to file a bullying complaint that the only person that they can go to for an investigation is the principal and that that is that is not the case is there any any questions about the The Bullying piece so um I do have some just observations I kind of I I agree that there should be more than one person that can conduct a bullying investigation and it doesn't always necessarily have to be a School site administrator but what does have to happen is they have to be properly trained train and the the training has to be consistent and the reporting has to be consistent across all um schools so that's that's really important and you know I think depending on where the allegations of bullying are coming from Who's involved would determine who conducts the investigation obviously um so the Anon Anonymous um reporting piece I know that that can be something that is there's so much in here that I'm yeah I think the Hope Scholarship piece of it is also very misused because I hear parents that will say their child is being bullied and it's at the point that it's substantiated is when you are offered hey you can take the Hope Scholarship and what I hear the most from parents is why does my child have to move why does my child the victim have to change schools why doesn't why is there not a consequence for the bully because why is does my child um why do I have to not allow my child to ride the bus because there's a bully that's allowed to ride the bus and it's substantiated so we have to come up with some sort of solution that we're not punishing the victim and that's the probably the biggest complaint I hear from parents um then the bully is going to continue doing what he's doing to another child right removed one but not all some of the the work that we've been doing at the district level with the student services team is because we've been having to handle some of the bullying cases when the parent there was one thing that was asked if there can be an appeals process for bullying is one of the things that came out of the group right now as you all know we have an an appeals process for disciplinary infractions and so the parent has to first go to the principal make their appeal and then if the principal upholds the discipline then it comes to our district appeal committee which if any of us were involved directly with the family or the student we remove ourselves but we find somebody three people and Mr franel is a part of that as well as the other administrators and student services in ESC and they're able to go through that process so that was brought up by a member of the committee saying can we have a bullying appeal committee and so I don't think that that would be a bad idea because what we do now at the district level when we have a parent that's really upset because they feel like how can you tell me that it's unsubstantiated we automatically ask for all the documentation and our practice is to give the bullying policy to the parent to read them the definition to explain to them because if it doesn't we explained that if it doesn't meet the parameters of bullying doesn't mean it didn't happen it could fall to harassment and so what we're doing is indiv we've been individually working with site based administrators on that process and explaining to the parent because yes as Mrs was mentioned they have to then give the Hope Scholarship documentation so that they're able to say if I want to use the Hope Scholarship correct the victim is not the one that needs to be moved so we have to also look at the classes that they're in and schedule changes in which yes the the victim should be the one to be looked at last not as the one that first moved we have had parents that say I want my child moved out of that class that's a different story and so um there there has been a lot of dialogue and discussion and conversation that group actually Miss Harris was a big part and and she stayed in that group for all three sessions um with the parents and the community members and and hearing all of those things which prompted us to start those focus groups at Hidden Oaks Middle School to go through that whole process with them and the layers that we have to um unfold with dealing with students opinion parents opinion staff opinion we actually have sent out an email to actually a survey we've had to send it out twice we're trying to get parents to come together for a focus group and we only had one person say that they wanted to be a part of that focus group but knowing the issue and addressing it we're able to make better and more effective determinations as to the process and what it is that we should be doing but we should remain consistent with following our policy following those procedures making sure the par understands their rights so this this is going to be a big piece of what we bring forward to you when we as District leaders get into the student code of conduct and what we want to add in there because even community service that was asked for when we were talking about tobacc free environments is something that we may be looking at what a form we're working closely with with Amber from um reach Autumn not Amber Autumn from reach because there are other things that they can sanctions that can be given to students outside of what we traditionally think that they can give and one is community service so we're we're navigating some of those um areas as well because they have a component for their funding that all students would have to be drug tested even if it's not a drug offense so we do have a lot of ideas for how we can deal with that head-on but um you'll look if you'll look at the questions and suggestions from the committee they um also that they wanted to know if there was investigation guidance that is allowed or followed by the school and that's when um we pointed them to policy our policy 557 and it does talk about on page four it talks about the process for investigation and how that investigation is supposed to go um they wanted to have the Hope Scholarship Link in the Cod of student conduct and we are definitely going to be adding it to it's hyperlink and they can access it immediately um another question was are other incidents regarding the bully taken into account or is each case individualized and again in policy 5517 on page four item C it's highlighted for you in the policy that incidents and continuing patterns of behaviors are noted and so yes I just think these are some of the things that our families and community members just might not be aware of because not everybody's pulling out a policy so um that and we talked about the request to develop an appeal and I had thought it would be good discussion if the board was interested in us putting something like that in place and again about the offender um the change in the class schedule we do have that as option under a level one infraction in the student code of conduct under responses and and sanctions and again I think it's more along the lines of having clear conversations and trainings with staff so that they understand where that falls um also the preventative measures for retaliation they didn't know if we had that is is that even an opt is that something and yes it is stated on page seven in the policy um that there are preventative measures that are put in place and we highlighted that for you as well they also wanted to add the link to the bullying and harassment policy which is of course an an easy fix these are the easy fixes one of the things I I did not mention was they had asked to have the bullying and the harassment policy separated and that would be for board discussion since you all are the policy makers for our Schoolboard policies that concludes the information that we wanted to share with you from our community F from our focus group and so if there's any other questions there any further questions so what I would like to see is um I would like to see how we're taking our current code of conduct and implementing the suggestions or comments and it's and then we have the comment to go along with it and say oh wait why here was my reason here was our reasoning for not um having allowing students to carry their badge in their pocket like this is why we this was a suggestion by the committee and we listened to that but here's why we believe you know what the language would be in the codal conduct because I feel like that would be the recommendation of the superintendent so what would that language look like and if you didn't take the recommendation we can explain that why under the question or the issue that was presented like the Crocs or the you know that type of thing I think you can get the gist of what the parents their concerns were or even the students and the teachers what their concerns were and we can come up with a modified code of conduct if we and then we can look at it as a board with the comments side by side as we're moving through to see oh wait was was that implemented or not was the suggestion of the parents that be a level three infraction for tobacco like how did how was that implemented kind of thing so that's just my suggestion I I like that suggestion we planned on doing that but what what we didn't want to do was that if we started marking up say the document we would have to find a way to maybe identify a color that would represent what that was from the community feedback piece because what we are soon to bring to you is going to be all a lot of other changes that would be more of the district and site-based administrators pieces as well so we can do that for you the next one can have all of this in there and maybe one color and the change you know that represents that and then all of the other in another color so we can differentiate what was discussed today versus moving forward well and you can also differentiate if you just say on the comment that or the suggestion made by the work groups implemented or um inserted into page nine of this section or whatever that way we know that you did that and then we can say well we don't really agree or we did want it stronger or you know we'll do any other questions Roberts anything I'm good thank you so much thank you yes we will at the end we'll give those back col all right moving on to our school board policies item number 4.01 policy number 2270 religion in the curriculum is the board okay with accepting the Neola recommendations are there any questions PR good okay moving on item number 4.02 policy number 2371 Hope Scholarship is the board okay with accepting the Neola recommendations are there any questions item number 4.03 policy number 2455 Dropout prevention and academic intervention programs this is a new policy is the board okay with accepting the Neola recommendations item number 4.04 policy number 2460 exceptional student education is the board okay with accepting the Neola recommendations any questions item number 4.05 policy number 2520 selection and Adoption of instructional materials is the board okay with accepting the Neola recommendations yes Miss Roberts so um on page two of five and page and then on the next policy on page two of 10 there's an inconsistency Diane if you can check with Neola one says by April 1st of each year and the other one says by March 31st of each year but can you just check which is the one that's supposed to be correct and then on page three under procedure it talks about second paragraph in considering possible new acquisitions the media specialist will consult reputable professionally recognized reviewing periodicals and school Community stakeholders do we have a procedure on how that works I'm asking the superintendent to yeah we will take a look at that because and if we don't uh we will put a procedure in place and bring it forward to be attached so that it references this section under the forms okay and then on page four of five um almost to the bottom equipment or instructional material vendors right above that um free school related instructional materials free instructional materials may be accepted for classroom and school purposes so long as they meet all requirements of board policy procedure and state law um but I just want to be sure that those books you know that you know what that is so it would have to go through the review process of the media specialist so that the the teacher could not accept those books and just immediately put them on her shelf in the classroom or if they were donated they would have to go through the review process with the media specialist approved and then placed on the Shelf um just so we're sure that that's in the procedure in whatever it is we're doing we had some we had an issue several years ago where I think it was um some Community individual donated some things to an elementary school and it was a Oh there's nothing wrong with this we can use this and it was it hadn't been looked at so just as long as the procedure everybody knows what the procedure is that's all I have that thank you anyone else item number 4.06 policy number 2521 instructional materials program is the board okay with accepting the niola recommendations are there any questions item number 4.07 policy number 2522 challenges to adoption of use of instructional library or reading list materials is the board okay with accepting the Neola recommendations are there any questions item number 4.08 policy number 2623 student assessment is the board okay with accepting the Neola recommendations or there any questions item number 4.09 policy number 5420 reporting student progress is the board okay with accepting the Neola recommendations or are there any questions item number 4.10 policy number 8420 Emergency Management emergency preparedness and emergency response agencies is the board okay with accepting the Neola recommendations or are there any questions item number 4.11 policy number 8600 Transportation on page five of seven the recommendation is to select option two is the board okay with accepting the Neola recommendations and the superintendent's recommendations yes Miss Roberts I had a couple things um on page six of seven um after the option two the second paragraph on six of seven talks about us entering into an interlocal agreement with one or more law enforcement agencies I I don't recall ever seeing that so we can check and see whether that's been done that's number one um and then we talk about signage on school buses that have an operational infraction detection system signage on school buses the things that are supposed to be on the back of the bus Mark do you know if that's it has stop when red lights flash do not pass when red lights flash camera enforced and a graphic depiction of a camera I'll have to check into that okay but if somebody can check on that that would be good and then on page 7 of seven the quarterly rep reporting to the Florida doe starting on October 1st of 2023 and quarterly thereafter um there's a report that's going Mrs Roberts if we can go back to the signage on school buses yeah um I I'm we will we will definitely check I I see Mr Harden stepped out but I do not believe any of our buses have that uh device detection we we purposefully did not order any of the new buses for that and we're not planning on installing because that would be an agreement with the sheriff's office that it would be enforced uh so if need be we can we probably can move to remove have this section removed unless want to keep it in the event that we ever did move in that direction uh but we will follow up so I think we I mean I don't have any problem keeping it it's just that when we're picking option two and we're saying that we're going to meet these specifications if we ever put those detection systems in I just want to be sure if we do them we have the pieces that are there um and then so we probably don't have any quarterly reporting to doe the last thing in that policy but if you can just verify that no um we don't that's all I have for those thank you any other questions that concludes our policies just a reminder that everyone will see these policies a couple more times as we bring them back to board meetings for approval we will now have open to the board Roberts do you have anything nope Powers no Mr Maine right this Workshop is now adjourned e