Updates on the Fight for Quality Public Education in Brevard County, FL

2020-06-16 - School Board Work Session, pt. 1

0:00 We’ll be right back.

29:29 Here’s the evidence.

29:59 We’ll be right back.

32:29 any of it what i didn’t want to do is change it mid-year last

32:15 year um i felt really strongly about

32:17 that about trying to implement a process midstream because we’re

32:21 constantly flooding policies and

32:24 procedures at our deans that are on the in the midst of

32:26 everything and so i felt really strongly

32:28 about not changing mid-year which is why when we went and worked

32:33 on the preliminary change

32:35 for this upcoming year we included that the board had mentioned

32:38 this desire and wanted

32:41 you all to decide for me i’m we’re already doing those we’re

32:45 already so none of that is extra work

32:48 for us none of that is work that i don’t think is important so

32:53 we are already willing to meet and

32:55 discuss and modify within the scope of policy of course because

32:59 then there’s a point that we can’t

33:02 prior to them getting to you which is why a lot of them cancel

33:06 even though they’re scheduled because

33:08 we continue to work with the families right up until the day of

33:12 the hearing so it’s no more work on our

33:15 part because we’re doing it already um it’s just a matter of how

33:19 formally do we want to write it into

33:21 policy that this is a like required exact step um that’s okay

33:26 too that’s really up to you guys because

33:28 it’s your policy that would last for hopefully we don’t have to

33:32 change it next year so that’s really

33:35 up to you in terms of practice i’ll do whatever um it’s not more

33:40 work for us i i believe the parent

33:42 should be able to talk to me and meet with me and lena and the

33:45 principals many times they want so we’re

33:48 really comfortable with any of it it’s really your your policy

33:54 your plan or if if in practice

33:56 we try it before we put in policy i’m okay with that too

34:00 honestly it’s it’s not a hindrance on me

34:03 it’s a new practice for you guys can i jump in here a minute so

34:07 i think it’s a good idea only because

34:11 as a neutral person you may not need to meet as often if we join

34:17 one time um but i am concerned

34:20 that it would be the person who’s the chair which would be miss

34:25 belford or mr susan because typically

34:28 the three of us don’t share those expulsion meetings so i’m

34:31 wondering if we want to look at

34:33 it in a different way just for if we agree to go that way the

34:36 rotation yeah that’s what i’m thinking

34:39 or if it’s i don’t know what you think mr gibbs if it’s a

34:42 student if it’s one of our schools of course

34:44 it could that could be a problem too so i was just wondering if

34:48 if it was in our district if we wanted

34:50 to to be the person in that appeals i just throwing things out

34:54 but anyhow i don’t think it’s a bad idea

34:57 i think it could alleviate some of those um intense meetings

35:02 that we end up in miss belford the only

35:04 thing i would say to the one that coming out of your district is

35:07 you might get a conflict

35:08 okay okay more more frequently if it’s coming out of your

35:11 district you know the parents i’ve already

35:12 contacted us before that’s true well or it’s your friend and you

35:16 know those people you know the groups

35:18 they’re going to bring in you know the like when they go to

35:21 bring witness testimonies they’re doing

35:23 that on purpose to bend you right so i think that i absolutely

35:27 agree with you that that that we should

35:29 almost be removed if the person’s inside of our district from

35:32 being that person i would just say you

35:35 know if you want to give it a test run you don’t have to add it

35:38 to policy now you can always add

35:40 it to your orders or your letters saying you know let’s go this

35:43 way you’ll be scheduled for a pre-hearing

35:46 conference prior to the actual hearing date then it’s not in

35:49 policy and if you try it out for a couple

35:52 and it’s like hey it’s not really working they’re still going to

35:55 hearing and you we’re just going

35:57 to take it out and let them do whatever they’ve been doing

35:59 trying to resolve them that makes sense

36:02 miss belford i just you know just thinking through the kinds of

36:05 hearings that we have we usually have

36:08 i mean there are a few times that we have um parents disputing

36:12 the facts of the case you know or whatever

36:14 but that’s that’s usually a smaller portion of the ones that i’ve

36:18 served on or been aware of um seems

36:20 like a lot of them are wanting a more leniency in the um you

36:26 know the discipline but then there’s

36:28 sometimes people who don’t actually question either one they’re

36:31 just upset with the how it went which

36:33 actually can’t really get resolved but they want to be heard i

36:36 think that’s where something like this

36:38 could be helpful because you know we just want to be heard we

36:40 felt like we were mistreated or whatever

36:42 but you know there’s been some of those so in that case you know

36:47 if it’s just an opportunity for you

36:49 know because if they want to be heard they want to keep moving

36:52 up the chain right and the board is

36:54 the next um place up the chain so i um to have someone there i

36:58 just as long as it’s you know the board

37:02 member is not making any decisions there’s the only result that

37:04 could come out of that as far as

37:05 resolution is a resolution with you know what you guys have

37:09 talked about usually we walk out of there

37:11 and it’s just a hey a renewed explanation of the alternative

37:15 school process or what their options

37:18 are when i know you guys have fully presented them before but

37:20 sometimes there’s that mental block

37:22 they’re not ready to go there yet um so i you know but i i like

37:27 the idea of maybe not putting it in

37:29 policy yet thoughts um dr sullivan and miss moore if i certainly

37:36 am in favor of that just but it again

37:40 it’s your policy and however you want to generate the policy um

37:42 we would certainly be happy to uh give

37:46 it a go um just from a procedural standpoint um so either

37:54 honestly we’ll make anything work um just to help facilitate you’re

37:57 all’s comfort in those tough

37:59 decisions if i may suggest my my only fear with not putting

38:04 anything in policy is if we request a

38:08 pretrial hearing and they look at policy and say there’s nothing

38:11 in policy that says that i must

38:13 participate in a pretrial hearing so might i suggest that we put

38:18 into policy that the board may request or the

38:23 district may request a pretrial hearing and that way it’s it’s

38:27 documented but it’s not a we have to

38:30 would that mr kibbs that’s fine you can make it a permissive i

38:36 mean if you know hey my kid didn’t do this

38:38 and it’s adamant and administration is saying hey the parents

38:41 are fighting it tooth and nail all the way

38:44 then it might not be something that you want to go to uh you

38:48 know if they’ve lawyered up and they have attorneys coming to

38:51 represent their kid

38:52 and they might not so would the board be comfortable with that

38:58 maybe maybe the language any party may

39:00 request is that that’s fine and then i like the idea of rotating

39:05 the chair has a lot to do already all

39:08 the time and so i really do like the idea of everyone getting

39:11 the experience of of chairing that if if you

39:15 all are i mean it can always be if you didn’t want someone who

39:19 is going to sit on that panel one of the

39:21 other two will sit on that pre-hearing that way that’s a really

39:26 good idea is not going to be sitting

39:28 in judgment so they really are neutral they’re not going to come

39:32 in there and hear any facts prior to

39:34 the thing they’re just going to try their main motivation is

39:37 going to be hey what do we need to do to

39:39 try and resolve it and if if there’s a way of making sure it’s i

39:43 don’t know if it matters necessarily if

39:46 they’re in our district and we don’t know them but it i think

39:48 that always is better if it’s not our district

39:54 so i think it’s an amazing policy and i appreciate your

39:57 knowledge on this in process for marion county

39:59 it’ll it already says that it’ll reduce our expulsions um it

40:04 also says that reduce our staff

40:07 time look if we can avoid having the sro the principal the

40:11 assistant principal the teacher out

40:14 of the school for half the day because when that happens we pull

40:17 people from other schools to cover

40:19 them that alone is worthless policy um this is a streamlined

40:23 process the other thing that drives me

40:25 crazy during these is that they bring non-qualified witnesses

40:29 those are not if you read the quasi-judicial

40:32 process inside the administrative law books there’s a qualified

40:36 list you are not supposed to be a

40:38 witness unless you are a qualified witness and you have a

40:41 persistence that reduces the the pontification

40:44 over these things like it it i love that streamlined process of

40:48 presenting your evidence are you when

40:50 you say qualified are you referring to the representative not

40:53 the witness no the witnesses

40:54 a witness is just a witness i mean anyone can be a witness there

40:59 is a process for qualifying as a

41:00 representative they’re supposed to apply specific topic yeah

41:04 well just to be a representative there’s a

41:06 qualifying process in the in the administrative code for

41:10 qualifying as a representative so that is a

41:13 separate process so what you’re saying is if they wanted to

41:16 bring five people to talk about

41:17 what a wonderful you know kid that is in background something

41:20 like a character witness

41:22 type thing they can bring as many of those as they’d like they

41:24 can’t be redundant so i mean there is

41:26 prohibitions of being redundant so if they have five people that

41:29 are going to come in and say the same

41:30 thing it would be hey you’ve got you know until they start testifying

41:35 you don’t prohibit them it would be

41:38 once they start hey this is you know redundant evidence you know

41:42 can we move on to something that’s

41:44 not and in other cases where they say that this is an expert

41:47 witness and we’ve seen in many cases

41:49 inside of it that it’s a friend that has some kind of connection

41:52 to something those aren’t expert

41:54 witnesses so we should not be hearing the testimony from that

41:57 person as an expert witness

41:59 so and then the other thing is is that i love it because it’s a

42:02 common practice in law to have

42:04 pre-trial um mediation in everywhere we go every single process

42:08 that you have you have pre-trial

42:10 mediation and this is part of the process that we have so i like

42:13 it um i would actually say that

42:15 we put it into policy because uh i’m afraid that if we’re saying

42:19 that we can request they can request

42:21 that it might lead to a discrimination or an argument that the

42:24 what do you think about that like if if we

42:26 leave it that way and all of a sudden there’s one time that we

42:29 don’t accept it does that create a

42:31 discrimination that we did to somebody else does that make sense

42:35 to you i mean it’s really if you’re

42:38 doing it based on just i mean you could open yourself up to a

42:42 little bit of a claim but i think it

42:44 would be more on you could easily show it was the facts of the

42:48 situation um if the board’s wanting

42:49 options just to kind of test it out i think that would be one

42:53 thing for leaving it permissive if it

42:55 really works then it’s cutting things down and they’re resolving

42:59 at these hearings the board might

43:00 want to say we’re just going to make it mandatory when you know

43:03 the next year or something and then but

43:06 it does leave it so that you don’t have to do it right now that

43:10 was my only concern is that it leads

43:12 us open for one of these lawyers to say that you didn’t hear and

43:15 you did hear and give a little

43:16 bit of hook that’s all that due process that due process speech

43:19 that we keep getting smacked with

43:21 if we include what miss deskovich said so that either party can

43:24 request yeah the school board or

43:26 either party may request a free hearing yeah but if you say they’ve

43:32 got a lawyer they’ve got this so we’re

43:35 just not going to request it and then another family goes and

43:38 gets a lawyer later and says well

43:40 the main premise why is it that you decided not to take the pre-trial

43:44 why didn’t you do that well

43:46 because they had a lawyer well that’s discrimination why would

43:48 we if someone requested it why would we

43:50 what would we read the reason behind it would be why we wouldn’t

43:54 why would we not and if those

43:55 processes can be seen as discrimination then i that’s where my

43:58 issue with it is that’s all

44:04 i wouldn’t be overly concerned i would like i said my

44:07 recommendation is to hold them so i mean my

44:09 intent would be why wouldn’t you sit down with them but if you

44:13 don’t want it to be mandatory for

44:15 whatever reason you can always leave it permissive yeah

44:17 suggested on the request is not that we would

44:20 they would request it and we’d say no but they would request it

44:22 if they want one if they don’t request

44:24 it and then we don’t have one not on their part what i meant was

44:27 on our part yeah if we’re requesting it

44:29 of everybody but people with lawyers is what he’s arguing but i

44:33 would say bring them all in that’s

44:35 what that’s why i was saying if we’re going to do that anyway

44:37 then it might be worth it

44:38 i think the reason to not make it mandatory in the policy is if

44:42 after a year we think or even six

44:44 months it’s not making a difference we can back off from it

44:47 without having to go through a whole

44:48 policy change not so for me it wasn’t so much that we’re going

44:51 to pick and choose who we’re going to

44:53 no and i and i agree with you my thing is is that no matter what

44:56 we would have to go through a policy

44:57 change so if we make it a policy change now we would have to

45:00 make it a policy change to remove

45:02 if we didn’t make it a policy change now we would have to make

45:05 it a policy change to add so not if

45:07 not if it’s option not if it’s you can request and in our

45:11 procedure just we stop requesting on our part

45:13 it still means they could request but we’re not gonna so the

45:16 policy would remain forever that both sides

45:18 can until we needed to change it again for something else i

45:21 think that’s the point of making it flexible

45:23 i’m not hard nosed on that mr susan i’m just no no no i’m okay

45:27 with it i just i just want to capture

45:30 some of your thoughts so because we’re going to wrap some

45:33 language around this um it’s going to be

45:35 titled pre-hearing conference uh what i’ve just heard is either

45:38 party may request a pre-hearing

45:40 conference and it’s within the 14 days prior to the hearing that

45:44 the that a board member will chair

45:47 will um and it that board member will be whoever is not presiding

45:51 in the hearing itself um that

45:55 one of the two that are not going to sit on the panel yeah i’ll

45:59 work on the language but that was

46:01 my understanding um and preferably not from the area that the

46:05 student is residing in themselves

46:07 um that the purpose of the hearing is to determine if what is

46:12 being challenged is discipline or facts

46:15 and that um there could be mediation as an outcome but that a

46:19 board member will not render judgment at

46:22 that pre-conference hearing did i miss something i don’t i don’t

46:25 think you missed anything but

46:27 i think it’s maybe we should not have in policy that it has to

46:32 be someone that’s not on the i just foresee

46:36 i think that should be our practice and we should try to do the

46:39 things that have to do with who’s

46:40 serving where i just foresee someone out of town someone’s sick

46:43 now there’s three and we’re going

46:45 to get ourselves violating our own policy okay we’ll get some

46:48 language and the next time you see this

46:51 it’ll be something for you to look at yeah yeah thank you i’m

46:54 sorry if i could ask one more clarifying

46:56 question um so this pre-hearing conference would include myself

47:02 the relevant board member mr gibbs

47:06 and students and a member of the school i just want to make sure

47:12 no no it really it could be you or like miss weibel if you

47:15 wanted miss weibel to sit in it could be the

47:18 parent only it doesn’t have to be the student there it could be

47:20 there if they have a lawyer it could

47:22 just be their lawyer that shows up with the parent are we

47:25 recommending school administration no they

47:28 don’t need to be there yet you’re recommending them not yeah the

47:31 only people that need to be there is

47:32 like just a representative like you or who you want to show up

47:37 on behalf of the district the parent or or

47:40 their representative along with the parent and then the board

47:43 whoever whatever board member is going

47:45 to be there and then i would be there to advise the board member

47:48 okay thank you

47:49 may want to stay near the door all right we’re good to move on

47:59 from uh that section of g any other

48:04 questions on g um number oh nevermind that was it oh i did have

48:12 does this policy need to say something um

48:16 have something about only three board members um sitting on the

48:23 expulsion hearing or

48:27 it doesn’t include that anywhere but i mean and if it’s not

48:30 necessary you know no reason to add it

48:32 back um that will sit on the the expulsion hearing yeah the neola

48:38 language was super specific but it’s

48:41 not how we hold hearings so i’ll leave that to um mr gibbs to

48:45 say whether or not we have to include that

48:48 into this policy specifically actually i think this is h sorry h1

48:52 all expulsion hearings will be conducted by

48:54 members of the school board yeah which is fine because it doesn’t

48:58 say and then um no the other one was

49:03 related to suspensions i had a question about something uh that’s

49:07 back up so if we want to wait

49:08 or if we can go back now i don’t yeah whatever i’m fine going

49:12 back um so i because this situation has come

49:17 up before um and sorry i should have jumped i didn’t really i

49:20 forgot that this was suspension suspensions and not

49:22 expulsions but in our suspension policy or procedures or

49:26 somewhere do we have something that is allowing

49:29 principals to delay a suspension you know the policy as i read

49:34 it said you know unless they’re an you

49:38 know a serious threat at the time need to be removed from campus

49:41 immediately um the suspension will start

49:43 the following morning right the following school day um the

49:47 reason why i ask is because

49:50 i believe there have been times when a suspension has been

49:54 delayed so that a student can participate

49:56 in an athletic event or extracurricular event and let’s say that

50:00 track meet or whatever is on a

50:02 tuesday they get suspended on a monday we’re going to start your

50:05 suspension on wednesday so that you can

50:07 participate in the track meet is there something in our policy

50:10 that would prohibit that or that allows it or

50:14 speaks to it in any way and if i can add to that it may not just

50:18 be an athletic event it could be finals

50:21 week or something of that nature or fsa week sat week right

50:25 there’s you know academic reasons too and

50:27 that’s why i don’t know that it needs to say one way there

50:29 because there could be times when right you’ve

50:31 got testing going on or whatever but i don’t necessarily i’m not

50:35 particularly fond of the idea of

50:36 dealing a suspension so a star athlete can participate in the

50:40 track meet it is i will tell you that it is

50:42 it is in our practice to start the suspension the next day

50:45 unless there’s reason to start it the day

50:48 of the event and that happens um there’s nothing in here that

50:52 specifically says it has to because it’s

50:54 left up to you know principal judgment um we can work on some

50:58 language and bring it back and see if it

51:00 captures the we don’t want them suspended for sat but we uh we

51:05 also don’t want them playing at you

51:07 know in the basketball game that night or football game that

51:10 night um so i work on some language to

51:14 wrap around that and see if you like it yeah i i hate to make it

51:17 super complicated but to be completely

51:19 honest it it very poorly reflects on our schools and it’s unfair

51:23 to the other students to say hey i just

51:25 saw them in a fight and they got suspended and here they are you

51:29 know at this activity um

51:30 i don’t you know it just and i don’t think it um makes our staff

51:35 our teachers and um feel good about

51:38 it either so um yes if you could yeah i i will and certainly if

51:43 there is an occasion to let us know

51:46 that that happens um that shouldn’t be happening and we’ll be

51:49 happy to address that okay um i

51:51 i can’t say i can tell you that never happens but i can say i

51:56 think it’s

51:58 a very small exception right so yeah we’ll work on that language

52:02 i have concerns about paul putting

52:03 that in taking away authority from a school i obviously don’t

52:06 want that to happen either miss

52:08 campbell but i just think we need to maybe think about that or

52:11 have some more discussion about that

52:12 with maybe a few principals or you know you all dr sullivan are

52:17 there is there going to be are we

52:18 going to put something hard-nosed in a policy now that the

52:21 principal’s hands are tied when they’re you

52:23 know now someone is grandma’s died you know that’s not in there

52:26 it’s not clear we have to i just want

52:28 to make sure we’re not taking away authority that a principal

52:31 may have yeah while still making sure

52:34 that’s my that’s my concern also i don’t want to um tie the

52:40 principals i’m assuming that they make the

52:44 best decision and they know the students and that the the

52:47 discipline fits the um infraction so i get

52:52 concerned when we put something like that in policy it may

52:55 already be covered in the there we added an

52:59 item under suspension that talks about um suspension of extracurricular

53:03 activities

53:05 but if we can we’ll we’ll take a step back we’ll look at

53:09 language that allows principal autonomy but also

53:13 says you know you can’t delay a suspension based on an athletic

53:16 event we’ll we’ll bring you something

53:19 that tries to balance out what you guys are saying thank you

53:22 appreciate that yeah it does i did notice

53:24 there was the line that said my understanding of that particular

53:28 line was i’m trying to find it um

53:32 that it was that that wasn’t necessarily part of the suspension

53:35 time but let’s say a student you know

53:37 that say from from now until the end of the semester you’re not

53:40 allowed to participate in let’s say

53:42 student dances or that that’s the yeah that’s the purpose of it

53:46 okay but it’s it’s there so we can

53:48 try to figure out what the language has to be to to balance the

53:51 you know principal has to be able to

53:53 make judgment based on what’s in front of them and the best

53:56 needs of their school and students right but

53:58 um you know shouldn’t be basing the judgment on their win-loss

54:01 record so we’ll we’ll work on some

54:03 language to thank you yeah mr gibbs do you have a concern about

54:09 the 14 days prior no because it kind of

54:14 extends back in okay okay that’s all i have all right i’m moving

54:23 on to h guys uh the expulsion hearing

54:26 itself um we did add that whole section that whole section came

54:31 from neola language with the exception

54:34 of number five which was at the request of the board um so if we

54:38 take a look at number five that’s about

54:41 appropriate behavior in the board hearing itself by all parties

54:46 and we used the language of uh from the

54:49 board meetings and we added that should somebody have to be

54:53 removed it does not stop the hearing the

54:55 hearing goes on to its conclusion um because we didn’t want

54:58 anybody to think that we would stop and

55:00 reschedule based on bad behavior so any questions about h the

55:04 expulsion hearing

55:10 i and j were just the conversation about whether what is being

55:14 disputed in the hearing again that’s

55:16 straight neola language is it uh an item of disputed fact

55:19 meaning is it you know the facts of the case

55:22 or is it discipline or emotion um but that should be covered in

55:26 the pre um hearing conference and i may

55:31 be moving i and j under that section as a one and two because

55:34 that’s what should come out from the pre

55:36 hearing conference um k and l were added their neola policy this

55:42 has always been in statute so we wanted

55:46 to make sure that we put in there the board action the final

55:49 order and a parent’s right to still appeal

55:51 after the board action and starts talking about earned return

55:58 this section was added it was always in

56:02 there in part but earned return has always been at the principal’s

56:08 decision of whether to offer it or

56:11 not offer it for certain offenses um leading and learning

56:15 monitored that and if it wasn’t offered they

56:18 always called and said why didn’t you offer this for this

56:21 offense or that offense we decided to go ahead

56:25 and put in these will definitely be offered and these will

56:29 definitely be not offered earned return

56:32 and the reason that we did that is to ensure that principals

56:36 knew that some situations are not judgment

56:39 don’t send it up to leading and learning because they’re just

56:42 going to call you back and say

56:44 why didn’t you offer earned return just do it right this first

56:47 time so those items were alcohol possession

56:50 sale use uh oops i just found a mistake it is not for

56:55 distribution of drugs it should be just sale

56:59 possession uh should be just possession and use is that correct

57:03 stephanie yeah should be just possession

57:05 and use sale and distribution belong on the not earned return

57:10 list bus transportation uh procedure violation

57:13 major chronic misconduct classroom disruption cyber stalking uh

57:18 drug use possession excluding alcohol

57:20 failure to report criminal offenses uh fighting um as opposed to

57:25 battery larceny uh 750 greater network

57:31 internet misuse and vandalism will all be offered earned return

57:35 the following offenses will not be offered

57:38 earned return and they’re eligible under statute the following

57:41 will not be offered earned return arson

57:43 battery with more serious injury drug sale or distribution false

57:48 accusation against a staff member

57:50 homicide kidnapping sexual battery threatened intimidation or

57:54 weapons possession what you see between those two two

57:58 and what you see between those two two of those two of those two

58:02 are there’s there’s um there’s a line between those

58:13 many of those two um and in addition to that there are some that

58:17 are still going to be judgment uh it’s going

58:21 going to require the principal and um leading and learning to

58:25 have a conversation case by case what are the

58:28 situations surrounding it give us more information before they

58:31 decide whether or not they earn they offer earned return

58:35 questions about that

58:44 uh the earned return policy uh in in general is the same as it

58:49 was um we’ve added a little bit of language

58:52 about drug testing because we used to give three drug uh three

58:57 drug tests um

58:59 now we give one prior to them leaving and one within three weeks

59:06 of them being in their home school

59:09 um if they test positive on either of those drug tests their

59:18 earned return um is taken away um

59:18 any questions about earned return

59:24 when a student i’m sorry on letter d when a student if we have a

59:32 student who just can’t we’ll make sure

59:34 your mic is on there i’m sorry i think i left on it wasn’t close

59:37 enough sorry um thank you um in letter d

59:41 when it comes to a student the parent legal guardian if we have

59:44 a student that is doesn’t necessarily

59:47 have that person in place do we have a option for family therapy

59:51 is there something just i mean we do

59:53 have some students that are on their own um um yeah our students

59:58 will get um i’m gonna i’m not gonna say

1:00:01 i think i know what happens but i’m gonna double check and i’m

1:00:04 gonna get back to you guys on that

1:00:06 um typically we don’t let a student who’s under 18 go to a

1:00:08 hearing by themselves we offer them uh

1:00:11 like a guardian adelaide representation but let me get more

1:00:14 specific and i’ll get you that answer

1:00:16 what the therapy sessions might look like for a student in that

1:00:18 situation thank you that’s not

1:00:20 a policy question just wondered what we do in that situation

1:00:22 miss moore yes on the drug testing so does this mean we will not

1:00:28 test them at all while

1:00:30 they’re at the alc they get tested they don’t get tested when

1:00:33 they first arrive we spent a lot of

1:00:35 money testing kids when they first arrive which doesn’t make

1:00:38 much sense if we just caught them

1:00:40 using drugs that’s exactly right that’s exactly right so it was

1:00:43 no big surprise to us how many positive

1:00:45 tests we got when they first arrived so we test them at the end

1:00:49 um this is this could be anywhere an

1:00:51 earned return could be anywhere between like four and a half

1:00:53 weeks and nine weeks so um you know are we

1:00:56 doing i i know previously we would test periodically so my my

1:01:02 kids are smart right if they know the drug

1:01:04 test is in three weeks so we’re not i feel like i know people

1:01:10 are listening but even if we’re not

1:01:13 going to test we shouldn’t tell them we’re not going to test

1:01:16 bold and clear in our policies so that

1:01:20 maybe they’ll stay clean anybody we can assume they don’t read

1:01:25 policy and just tell them you’re going

1:01:27 to be tested at some point well why would we put in policy

1:01:32 exactly when the tests are coming that’s

1:01:35 i guess my question can’t that be more of a procedural thing and

1:01:39 in policy we just say you will be tested

1:01:42 i don’t think it says the time does it oh within within the

1:01:46 within three weeks of returning so if

1:01:48 you’re six months at the alc you could be drug using the whole

1:01:52 time you’re at the alc and well they

1:01:55 wouldn’t be eligible for earned return if they’re there for six

1:01:57 months that’s that’s a whole different

1:01:59 category of kid earned return is you’re basically back in your

1:02:02 school between four and a half weeks

1:02:04 and nine weeks the semester yeah or quarter the quarter even

1:02:07 quarter the quarter so i can take

1:02:11 out kind of some of the defining language and just say you will

1:02:13 be drug tested during this time both at

1:02:16 the alc and at the home school and leave it open this is just

1:02:20 our policy this is there’s no statute

1:02:22 language regarding there is uh i don’t believe that is in

1:02:26 statute language i believe that is our policy

1:02:28 but i’ll double check that too thank you miss moore i’m going to

1:02:36 interrupt very briefly before we um

1:02:39 continue to move through the policy our board meeting is

1:02:42 scheduled to start at 9 30 and we are quickly

1:02:45 approaching that um with the okay of the board i would like to

1:02:48 at least finish discussion on this policy

1:02:51 and then we can adjourn the policy session go to our board

1:02:54 meeting come back to our policy session

1:02:58 that’s our work for you guys okay thank you miss moore go ahead

1:03:01 sure um finally anything to do with out

1:03:05 of state conduct um that is just straight neola language we had

1:03:09 language in there it wasn’t neola

1:03:10 neola says basically the same thing but if a student comes from

1:03:14 out of state and is under an expulsion we

1:03:16 have the right to upheld that expulsion and or have a hearing

1:03:19 and that’s uh basically what that language

1:03:22 says is there any questions about that all right any questions

1:03:29 in general

1:03:30 go ahead i have one quick question and it’s not really specific

1:03:36 to policy but more to process going

1:03:39 forward um mr gibbs we had spoken previously when we were

1:03:42 talking about the changes to the expulsion

1:03:44 process about some changes to our forms as well that may help to

1:03:48 yes streamline have you had an

1:03:49 opportunity to work with dr sullivan on that i’ve gotten the

1:03:52 samples that i will share with dr sullivan

1:03:54 to work on those forms okay super thank you all right uh if we

1:04:00 could uh we are going to recess our

1:04:03 policy session for about uh well we’re recessing the policy

1:04:06 session we’re going to take about a five

1:04:08 minute break um and then we will come back and convene our board

1:04:12 meeting so uh we will be back at 9 35.

1:04:19 Thank you.