2021-07-29 - School Board Meeting

0:10 Brevard county is a community on the move as one of the fastest growing counties in the state. With increased business opportunities, a booming tourism industry, and a key role in the return to space. Living in Brevard county means being where the action is, and in the middle of that action is brevard public schools. Brevard Public Schools is a community leader actively working to shape young lives into individuals capable of making real world impact.

0:41 Accessibility is of high importance and as such, 84 schools are offered throughout the county spanning from Mims to Palm Bay. Proud to be an a district with a 90% graduation rate, Brevard ensures students have every opportunity to succeed. This can be seen in the 414 graduates who earned their associates degree while still in high school and the 47% of graduates who earn certificates in STEM and CTE courses, further showcasing national leadership in career and technical education.

1:17 Brevard students students dominate in science, with seven high schools ranked as America’s best for STEM. For those students interested in other areas of study, our schools offer 82 different industry certifications, a unique aviation, assembly and fabrication program, a top notch robotics program, and a maritime program that uses technology only found in one Florida high school. Right here in Brevard.

1:45 All of our CTE programs prepare students for college and the workforce, whether in automotive, tech, 911, public safety, or culinary. These programs strengthen the future of our children and Brevard county. Not just available to high school students, CTE programs are in middle school and yes, elementary schools, too.

2:07 When it comes to academics, our students using a robust AP program, dual enrollment Cambridge program, International Baccalaureate program, and National Honor Society. If you want the best educators in Florida, they are inside brevard classrooms. Experienced, energized teachers and staff are leading our kids from kindergarten to graduation at Brevard Public schools, the sky is not the limit we aim for.

2:37 Beyond Apollo elementary was built in 1966, right in the middle of the Apollo program, which brought the astronauts to the moon. This school has a special place in Titusville because of that, and I think it’s important for us to continue our relationship with Kennedy Space center and the space program. The best thing about the school, it’s an environment where students are nurtured, where they are given what they need, become global citizens, where everybody works together collaboratively so that they can be successful.

3:27 My favorite thing about Apollo is just the culture that it promotes. The teachers are kind and they work together and the students respond well to them. When you have everybody working together, it just makes a stronger school.

3:40 Just being such a tight knit community, we really want to work with those kids that maybe are struggling in an area we work a lot with the kids that maybe are excelling in academically. We have a lot of programs. We will make sure that every child is taken care of, no matter what the need is.

3:57 They know, no matter what, when they go home, that they’re loved. And we just want to see Apollo continue to succeed. It is really easy at Apollo to make friends, and I got lots of great friends here.

4:11 I really love how the teachers help me here at Apollo elementary. I actually want to be an astrophysicist when I grew up because of all the space type things we do here at Apollo. We actually have a moon tree.

4:26 They’re seeds that they took to space and took them back, and one of them is actually planted right in front of the school. It’s really great to walk through the school knowing that this school has a part of history that will forever live on in our lives. My favorite thing about astronaut high school are the students.

4:53 The students make everything that we do worthwhile. I think the most unique aspect about our school is that we serve a diverse population. We have outstanding, experienced educators who really put the students first and celebrate our ability to serve our students here at Astronaut High.

5:14 My favorite thing about astronaut high school is the community. The culture is about every student being successful. From the moment you step in here, it’s a different feeling.

5:22 There is no other school like astronaut high school. We are just here to support our students, support our community, because we are a family. There is something for everyone here at astronaut.

5:32 From accelerated academic programs like our AP academy, to our career and technical programs such as welding, construction, and nursing. We have great opportunities for all of our students. We have a group of teachers who feel like astronaut high school is home.

5:48 They’re truly invested in the students, and they want to see them succeed. The connection between our administration, it’s what makes this school work, and it’s what makes this such a special place. I feel like everyone’s really involved here.

6:01 It’s a really positive environment. Everyone here is like a family. Everyone’s here to support you and make sure that you succeed in everything that you do.

6:11 My favorite thing about astronaut high is just the experience and the friendships I have here at the school and the relationships I build here. There’s many things that you can do here at astronaut high school, and they give you so many opportunities. The teachers really do care about your future.

6:25 Astronaut just gives me that home feeling. If I could describe astronaut high school in one word, it would be passion, family, community, excellence, learning, special. It would definitely be pride.

6:47 Upon arriving to this campus. They’re going to arrive to an atmosphere of caring faculty. Teachers are energetic about what they do.

6:54 Their passion is undeniable. The reputation is undeniable throughout the county, and not just throughout the county, throughout the state of Florida. Whether the student has ambition to go to Harvard or Yale, or to be a machinist at the Cape or one of our local industries, those opportunities exist and they’re well rounded for any student, whether it’s in the classroom, the athletic department, our clubs and activities, our JROTC program, which is a very popular program here at Bayside High School, even our blast program, which is students that have graduated but have decided to continue on in their education.

7:32 They have real world experience in transitioning from school to independent living. I can’t say enough wonderful things about the CTE department and all of the variety of courses we offer, from machining to culinary, tv productions, drafting. Not only do we have world class instructors, but we have world class equipment.

7:53 There are a lot of academic opportunities here for kids at Bayside High School. The dual enrollment program and the Early Admissions program is where students can enroll in eastern Florida classes and if they complete the program, they can graduate with their AA degree and their high school diploma. We have a wide variety of AP courses here that they can take on campus and earn college credit for.

8:12 There’s something for everyone. The staff definitely does care about us here. I feel like they tailor us in a certain way so that we all feel comfortable learning certain things because not everyone’s the same.

8:22 They really try to make it beneficial and comfortable for everyone. At Bayside High School, I always feel like staff and faculty are putting an extra step forward when it comes to their student success. They’re very easy to reach out to and will always help you with anything academic related and non academic related.

8:37 The people you’ll meet here are just wonderful and they’re super easy to get along with. Community is just fantastic. In heritage High school you can find a lot of different cultures, diversity, and everybody respects each other and it’s kind of like a really, really big family.

9:09 We have very successful students that are striving for excellence in many different ways. We have Cambridge programs, we have dual enrollment, we have CTE programs, automotive programs, the Academy of Environmental, Water and Technology have a very strong athletic program. And then of course we have the best band in the business and our performing arts programs are very good also.

9:32 So all types of opportunities here at Heritage High School for a well rounded student that enjoys the performing arts, that enjoys athletics, but also has college and career in the back of their mind. My favorite thing honestly has to be our Cambridge program. The kids will have a chance of earning college credit while they’re right here on campus with us.

9:50 If the students earn their Cambridge diploma and also get 100 hours of community service, they qualify for bright future futures, which will pay for their college for up to a four year degree plus a book stipend. Our kids, they get along. Our teachers, they love them.

10:01 And we hear this back and forth from the kids. We have visitors that come onto campus and they make comment about how pleasant our kids are to interact with. We are inclusive, we are robust and your kids will feel welcomed here.

10:15 I feel like the staff here really does care about the students success and just their well being. We have great teachers here to get you prepared for the exams. Here at Heritage, you can do everything at once.

10:28 I can manage tv productions, live stream all the football games and earn my Cambridge diploma at the same time. I love being a student here because it’s so easy to meet new people. People aren’t segregated into their groups of band kids or athletes or this or that.

10:42 Everybody mixes together so you can really make a lot of different friends at once. Imperial is a fun place to be. The school is family and that’s what my classroom is.

11:02 You as a parent become part of the family. You work close with the teachers. The teachers know each student.

11:08 I have third graders that come to my door to wave at me and tell me good morning. So it’s just a family atmosphere. Your child’s coming to a school that they’re going to feel the love, they’re going to feel that we care about them and their growth.

11:24 We have a lot of teachers and staff members that put in the extra effort and time to get to know our kids and work with our kids. You come here because we do have quality educators and we thrive ourselves on getting better and doing our best with our students in the classroom and outside of it, we have some great programs, the robotics program. We have wonderful computerized programs where we’re dealing with technologies.

11:53 And we have a great art program where students can stay after school and, you know, work on their creativity. The students are able to help each other out. They’ve got a lot of spark.

12:04 Everyone’s helpful and friendly and like, if you don’t know something, if you just ask someone to lead you the right way, you can be yourself and no one will make fun of you. This is a special school that is always wondrous to come to in the morning. They’re really special because these teachers, they’ve taught you for years and they know you.

12:27 They know your family, they know all of you. Basically. We have the greatest kids, we have the greatest teachers, and we have an outstanding community.

12:44 We believe in every child’s ability to learn and we believe it’s our responsibility as educators to create access for them, to access the educational world and have the success that they deserve. We are an avid school. We’re one of the few avid elementary, she’s one of only two here in brevard schools.

13:02 And avid, I believe, really helps create the purpose for why students come to school. It helps them understand what elementary school is going to do for them in the future. We have a lot of great programs like our drone teams, our sea perch teams.

13:15 We have stem clubs and steam clubs. We have orchestra. They’ve been growing vegetables in the garden.

13:21 They’re learning and exploring. And I have no doubt that we’re cultivating the next generation of thinkers, innovators and creators. And I’m very excited for what our kids are doing.

13:30 At Pompeii elementary, we have quite a few programs that are unique. We’re a Special Olympics Unified Champion school, so we’re super proud of our large, exceptional education program. Part of that is our gifted student program.

13:42 Our kids are super involved in lots of different academic competitions and different community events. So we have a lot of opportunities for kids outside the classroom to participate in authentic learning. Palm Bay elementary is a special place to work and learn and grow.

13:59 Because of our sense of community and our commitment to our students, we give them the platform to practice their leadership skills. At Palm elementary, the teachers make you feel really welcoming and comfortable here. It feels like family.

14:14 The first day you came here, it feels like you’re automatically just a part of it. What’s awesome about Palm Bay elementary is where they always have something new. Every year or a month they offer new clubs or more hands on activities.

14:28 And I also like that you can make a lot of new friends in this school and have opportunities to learn new things in the school. We have really grown and really been able to offer some very unique learning opportunities for students. I fully believe that the school is one of the best kept secrets in South Brevard.

14:55 We have anything and everything you can imagine and you’re not going to find much like this in the district. We’re the only magnet high school in Brevard county where our focus is steam. We have so many opportunities within that.

15:08 Not only the rigorous courses such as dual enrollment and AP and honors, we have a pirate to Panther program where you can take college courses at fit while you’re in high school. It’s complimentary to our students. Avid stands for advancement via individual determination.

15:25 We provide leadership and community service opportunities. We have an avid tutoring center. Students volunteer during their lunch to help all students on campus, so everybody gets support.

15:36 We all have one goal in mind, and that’s for our students to succeed. Palm Bay Magnet High School is an emotionally safe environment. Its diversity is its strength.

15:46 And when I say diversity, I don’t just mean cultural or linguistic diversity. We have a wide range of academic abilities. We have a wide range of programs to meet every student at every level that they come to us and we have such knowledgeable faculty.

16:01 But they’re not just knowledgeable, they’re really genuinely caring. And they want to meet the students where they are and work to make the them come up to where we need them to be and to where they need themselves to be. It’s been amazing.

16:15 I’ve seen aspects both from in the classroom and in sports. We all support one another. The coaches are great.

16:22 They’re going to push you to be your best on and off the court. Our teammates are going to push each other. We know our strengths and weaknesses and we continue to strive for the better for all of us and not just individually.

16:31 One of the things you notice if you talk to any of the adults on is how much they genuinely care for the students here. The goal of Pompeii High is for everyone to feel included. The culture of Port Malabar can be summed up as positive, supportive.

16:56 Many of our teachers have their own kids enrolled here. Many of the teachers were students themselves here. So I’m very proud of that family oriented, family focused, very warm, welcoming feeling that we have here at Port Malabar.

17:08 Academics and social emotional growth will be the focal point, and we will take pride in making sure your child grows and progresses. Fort Malabar elementary is an incredibly unique place for your child to attend. We have several unique programs.

17:24 We have an exceptional gifted program. We focus on multiple intelligence such as art, music, stem, and the kids really shine. The teachers take such good care of the kids here.

17:36 Honestly, safety is first and after that, we just love your children so much. When you walk in, you can feel it. There’s love here, there’s caring.

17:45 We take good care of the kids and they want to come back every day. We also have five teachers that are bilinguals. We’re very proud of that.

17:52 We try to have one per grade level. So if your student is struggling with English, we can accommodate them. I like coming to school because the teachers care about me and like my own way.

18:13 My favorite thing at Port Malabar is recess because it’s the time where you make new friends and you get to spend time with them. I feel like our teachers really do care about us, and they comfort us when we may be having a bad day or something’s going on, either at school or at home. It does feel really special when we’re recognized for our hard work because of our pelican pride.

18:35 Awards prepared, respectful, improved, dependable and enthusiastic. I’ve had a really fun time here at Port Malabar, and I totally recommend it. Riviera is a very open school.

18:55 We’ll do almost anything for our students in order to make sure that they’re successful. We do believe in that village mentality where it takes a full village to raise a child. The thing that excites me the most is we’re not stagnant.

19:09 Every year, our expectations here for our students expand, and they get greater and greater. What gets me excited about coming to work each day are the kids seeing them learn. I enjoy greeting them in the morning, seeing their excitement for coming to school every day, and the positivity that they have, knowing that no matter what happens, we’re here to support them and they’re safe while they’re here doing it.

19:31 I’m really proud of the work that we’ve done at Riviera to make our core academics really strong, specifically in the areas of reading and math and science. I am very proud of the fact that we’re all a tight knit community, and we’re all working towards a common goal, which is for the students to be successful. We’re full of instructors and staff that reflect, and so our number one goal is to make every day better than the day before.

19:57 For me and my team, we love seeing the progression that the students have. The light bulb going off is basically why we do what we do. We work hard with these students five days a week.

20:09 So you’re sitting with that student and those students working hard, and to see them progress, see them understand something, it makes it all worth it for someone new. Coming to Riviera, you can expect kind people and people that can help you. They don’t just, like, say the answer.

20:28 They teach me how to get the answer. I like science because we get to do some experiments time to time. They provide kindness, respectfulness, and mostly fun.

20:52 I am a product of brevard public schools. I’ve been with brevard Public schools for approximately 18 years. South Lake is an amazing school.

21:02 And what makes it special is the collaboration between the teachers and the faculty. Well, students have different learning styles, and part of what we do in the smart lab is that choice if they’re interested in 3d printing or video or building engineering. And I think that giving students the opportunity to follow their passions in the smart lab helps with engagement, helps them find that success.

21:38 As students decide on the careers that they want to do, what they learn here is really going to help them. I love the fact that we honor, respect, and take ownership in all the diversity and the differences and uniquenesses of all of our teachers, staff and the students. Every aspect of South Lake is a teaching opportunity.

22:01 Be ready to be enriched. Get ready for the adventure of learning. And not just having one teacher, but having 50 teachers, not just having one friend, but having hundreds of friends, in my opinion.

22:14 I really liked PE and smite lab. You do things on the computer and things with robots, and I really like it. You can go into school and go like, oh, I wonder what is gonna happen today, because there’s just new things every day to try for me.

22:30 You can kind of, like, feel the friendliness about South Lake. You can wave at people and they’ll wave back like, you smile. And they smile.

22:37 I love Southlake because of stuff like that. When I talk to fellow people and I say, I’m at sunrise, they say, oh, I’ve heard of that school. Oh, I know that school.

22:54 It’s always for really amazing things. We are making the kids more responsible for their learning. Now, we are all here for the children and just holding them up to, I think, higher expectations.

23:10 Knowing that we will reach every child here on whatever level they need is why they should come to sunrise. Sunrise elementary is a school community where it just radiates joy and love and a super passion for learning. Sunrise is well known for academic success and helping every student shine.

23:32 Our teachers love what they do. They learn right along with the students, but they also also collaborate with one another to plan and execute amazing, fun and engaging lessons. And that’s what I want for the future of Sunrise elementary school.

23:46 I want our little sea turtles that come here to be able to come start when they’re young, grow up in our school, and we want to be able to help them meet their full potential and help them shine as they become young adults in the world. We came up with three standards that aligned with our core values, which is be safe, work hard, and be nice. And we run our day to day lives here at sunrise that way.

24:10 And we recognize students and staff and faculty that follow that mindset. You know, it’s just a great guideline of what you should be doing at all times. Every teacher’s classroom rules aligns with the sunrise standards.

24:22 You can ask any student and they’ll tell you what the sunrise standards are. We really work on having those kids take ownership of their behavior. All the teachers care about all the students, and all the students, like, look up to the teachers.

24:34 Everybody’s very kind. Everybody’s very nice and, like, it’s just a great place to be. All the teachers, they’re wonderful.

24:41 They don’t treat the students differently. They treat all the students the same. They never treat you because of how smart you are.

24:48 They treat you because of who you are. We are a hidden gem. Where else can you walk outside and see a rocket launch? Deep traditions in this school.

25:07 The spirit, the pride in this community is just unbelievable. You see it on this campus. You feel it as soon as you walk through the doors.

25:15 And there’s just so much pride in Titusville High school. You can’t not love it academically. Different pathways that we can lead our students.

25:26 One is through the AP coursework or the more advanced coursework. We have the dual enrollment path or we have the CTE path, which is the career technical education path. We definitely feel responsible for the child, the person, and then the academics on top of that.

25:43 We have so many things here at the school. We have great academics. We have all these amazing art programs.

25:48 We have amazing culinary program. We have an amazing auto program. We have a CNA 911 program.

25:54 That there is really something for every interest of every child at our school. And it makes it feel like a family. Instead of just where you come to do something, you have to do.

26:05 We have an actual community. It’s not just a school. It’s not just an institution.

26:08 It is a community in which people are willing to help each other. The students and their enthusiasm and their gusto for learning is unparalleled. The academics here are tremendous, as well as the caring of the faculty and the teachers we have here.

26:24 I love all the teachers here. They’re awesome. They make the day better, honestly, like, half of the school is the atmosphere that is given by the teachers and staff and administrators, and you can tell that they really care about their students.

26:35 It’s really fun to have people that are passionate about the school and want to participate, and it’s really good to have the whole school spirit at the level that we do. Inclusion is super important to us. At Titusville High School, everyone’s really friendly and, like, you can really talk to anybody and everyone’s here to help you.

26:52 I’m proud of the atmosphere. I’m proud of, like, the things we get to do. It’s a good environment, especially for you to join clubs and be involved in the school.

27:00 You’ll have a good time. I think one of the most common misconceptions about a virtual school is that a student sits behind a computer, doesn’t talk to other human beings. The computer is there and that’s the vehicle.

27:25 But it’s the vehicle for engaging with teachers and with their peers. We still have an amazing culture here at Brevard Virtual. We’re all local, we’re here in Brevard and that allows us to do those face to face activities.

27:38 Brevard Virtual is a great opportunity for parents to be able to have their kids with more flexibility. I have a travel nurse parent, and so she’s traveling and the daughter can travel with her, but she can still be getting her education and it’s more opportunities for them to be able to participate as a family and have flexibility. Did you on a field trip with her on the computer? Yes.

27:58 Where did you go? Remember where you saw lots of animals? Yeah, it was a zoo. I don’t remember where it was either. It was the Astra bs zoo.

28:09 Well, we started with BVS at a rough time in our lives when my oldest daughter was diagnosed with cancer and I pulled my son Kali from brick and mortar because I spent a lot of time at Nemours Children’s Hospital. He was a very, very. But Kalief was inducted into the National Junior Honor Society as well as the national honor Society.

28:31 When he started bvs, he was so quiet. And now, outside of our community, he is an activist for pediatric cancer. I like to call students just to say they’re doing great and that’s part of the monthly contact.

28:46 So when we call the parent or email the parent, we’re letting them know, not just the bad things, we’re letting them know, hey, they’re doing great. And so it’s just a way that we build the community even further with parents as partners with our teachers. At Westside, we are a family.

29:12 Every single day that my students come to school, they want to be here. They feel safe. They’re in an environment where they’re having fun and they can respect each other.

29:21 We make sure that all individual needs are met. We have educated generations of families here within our school community. Our school focuses on high academic expectations.

29:32 We have standards based instruction, writing programs, gifted programs, and support for our struggling readers. But in addition to that, we have a variety of enrichment programs to build the whole child. We have a very strong music program that involves orchestra and chorus and the only steel drum band here in Brevard county.

29:51 In our athletics, we have one of the largest running clubs, our elite running club that places multiple times in local races. We also have stem in science, and then we build good character traits in our kindness club and our happy hand sign language club. So students are becoming aware of inclusive children.

30:10 We develop a community in our school where students are feeling loved so that it’s okay to fail, and they feel that confidence and that belief that the staff has for them. Westside has a wonderful school family. We are able to implement a lot of different strategies with how diverse our population is here and being able to allow students to learn about one another and interact with one another regardless of their differences.

30:35 Everyone is so respectful here and that you can always be yourself here. And the teachers are so welcoming and that they will help you with your grades and they’ll make sure you’re doing okay. Everyone at school is very caring and that even though we’re different, everyone feels the same.

30:53 It’s very easy to make friends here. Brevard county is a community on the move as one of the fastest growing counties in the state. With increased business opportunities, a booming tourism industry, and a key role in the return to space, living in Brevard county means being where the action is, and in the middle of that action is Brevard Public School.

31:27 Brevard Public Schools is a community leader actively working to shape young lives into individuals capable of making real world impact. Accessibility is of high importance and as such, 84 schools are offered throughout the county spanning from Mims to Palm Bay. Proud to be an a district with a 90% graduation graduation rate, Brevard ensures students have every opportunity to succeed.

31:56 This can be seen in the 414 graduates who earn their associates degree while still in high school and the 47% of graduates who earn certificates in STEM and CTE courses. Further showcasing national leadership in career and technical education, Brevard students dominate in science, with seven high schools ranked as America’s best for STEM. For those students interested in other areas of study, our schools offer 82 different industry certifications, a unique aviation, assembly and fabrication program, a top notch robotics program, and a maritime program that uses technology only found in one Florida high school right here in Brevard.

32:42 Our CTE programs prepare students for college and the workforce, whether in automotive, tech, 911, public safety, or culinary. These programs strengthen the future of our children and Brevard county not just available to high school students. CTE programs are in middle school and yes, elementary schools, too.

33:03 When it comes to academics, our students shine using a robust API program, dual enrollment Cambridge program, International Baccalaureate program, and National Honor Society. If you want the best educators in Florida, they are. Inside brevard classrooms, experienced, energized teachers and staff are leading our kids from kindergarten to graduation.

33:27 At brevard Public schools, the sky is not the limit we aim for beyond. Apollo elementary was built in 1966, right in the middle of the Apollo program, which brought the astronauts to the moon. This school has a special place in Titusville because of that, and I think it’s important for us to continue our relationship with Kennedy Space center and the space program.

34:10 The best thing about the school, it’s an environment where students are nurtured, where they are, given what they need, become Globus citizens, where everybody works together collaboratively so that they can be successful. My favorite thing about Apollo is just the culture that it promotes. The teachers are kind and they work together, and the students respond well to them.

34:33 When you have everybody working together, it just makes a stronger school. Just being such a tight knit community. We really wanna work with those kids that maybe are struggling in an area.

34:44 We work a lot with the kids that maybe are excelling in academically. We have a lot of programs. We will make sure that every child is taken care of, no matter what the need is.

34:54 They know no matter what, when they go home, that they’re loved. And we just want to see Apollo continue to succeed. It is really easy at Apollo to make friends, and I got lots of great friends here.

35:07 I really love how the teachers help me here at Apollo Elementary. I actually want to be an astrophysicist when I grew up because of all the space type things we do here at Apollo. We actually have a moon tree.

35:22 They’re seeds that they took to space and took them back, and one of them is actually planted right in front of the school. It’s really great to walk through the school knowing that this school has a part of history that will forever live on in our lives. My favorite thing about astronaut High school are the students.

35:49 The students make everything that we do worthwhile. I think the most unique aspect about our school is that we serve a diverse population. We have outstanding, experienced educators who really put the students first and celebrate our ability to serve our students here at astronaut High.

36:10 My favorite thing about astronaut High school is the community. The culture is about every student being successful. From the moment you step in here, it’s a different feeling.

36:19 There is no other school like astronaut high school. We are just here to support our students, support our community, because we are a family. There is something for everyone here at astronaut.

36:28 From accelerated academic programs like our AP academy, to our career and technical programs such as welding, construction and nursing, we have great opportunities for all of our students. We have a group of teachers who feel like astronaut high school is home. They’re truly invested in the students and they want to see themselves succeed.

36:48 The connection between our administration, it’s what makes the school work and it’s what makes this such a special place. I feel like everyone’s really involved here and it’s a really positive environment. Everyone here is like a family.

37:02 Everyone’s here to support you and make sure that you succeed in everything that you do. My favorite thing about Ashton I High is just the experience and the friendships I have here at the school and the relationships I build here. There’s many things that you can do here at astronaut High School and they give you so many opportunities.

37:19 The teachers really do care about your future. Astronaut just gives me that home feeling. If I could describe astronaut High school in one word, it would be passion, family, community, excellence, learning, special.

37:31 It would definitely be pride. Upon arriving to this campus, they’re going to arrive to an atmosphere of caring faculty. Teachers are energetic about what they do.

37:51 Their passion is undeniable. Their reputation is undeniable throughout the county, and not just throughout the county, throughout the state of Florida. Whether the student has ambition to go to Harvard or Yale, or to be a machinist at the Cape or one of our local industries, those opportunities exist and they’re well rounded for any student, whether it’s in the classroom, the athletic department, our clubs and activities, our JROTC program, which is a very popular program here at Bayside High School.

38:23 Even our blast program, which is students that have graduated but have decided to continue on in their education, they have real world experience. Experience in transitioning from school to independent living. I can’t say enough wonderful things about the CTE department and all of the variety of courses we offer, from machining to culinary tv productions, drafting.

38:45 Not only do we have world class instructors, but we have world class equipment. There are a lot of academic opportunities here for kids at Bayside High School. The dual enrollment program and the Early Admissions program is where students can enroll in eastern Florida classes.

38:58 And if they complete the program, they can graduate with their aa degree and their high school diploma. We have a wide variety of AP courses here that they can take on campus and earn college credit for. There’s something for everyone.

39:10 The staff definitely does care about us here. I feel like they tailor us in a certain way so that we all feel comfortable learning certain things because not everyone’s the same. They really try to make it beneficial and comfortable.

39:21 Everyone at Bayside High School, I always feel like staff and faculty are putting an extra step forward when it comes to their student success. They’re very easy to reach out to and will always help you with anything academic related and non academic related. The people you’ll meet here are just wonderful and they’re super easy to get along with.

39:38 Community is just fantastic. In heritage high school you can find a lot of different cultures, diversity and everybody respect each other and it’s kind of like a really, really big family. We have very successful students that are striving for excellence in many different ways.

40:11 We have Cambridge programs, we have dual enrollment, we have CTE programs, automotive programs, the Academy of Environmental, Water and Technology have a very strong athletic program. And then of course we have the best band in the business and our performing arts programs are very good also. So all types of opportunities here at Heritage High School for a well rounded student that enjoys the performing arts, that enjoys athletics, but also has college and career in the back of my favorite thing, honestly, has to be our Cambridge program.

40:42 The kids love a chance of earning college credit while they’re right here on campus with us. If the students earn their Cambridge diploma and also get 100 hours of community service, they qualify for bright futures which will pay for their college for up to a four year degree plus a book stipend. Our kids, they get along.

40:56 Our teachers, they love them. And we hear this back and forth from the kids. We have visitors that come onto campus and they may comment about how pleasant our kids are to interact.

41:05 We are inclusive, we are robust and your kids will feel welcomed here. I feel like the staff here really does care about the students success and just their well being. We have great teachers here to get you prepared for the exams.

41:22 Here at Heritage you can do everything at once. I can manage tv productions, live stream all the football games and earn my Cambridge diploma at the same time. I love being a student here because it’s so easy to meet new people.

41:33 People aren’t segregated into their groups of band kids or athletes or this or that. Everybody mixes together so you can really make a lot of different friends at once. Imperial’s a fun place to be.

41:54 The school is family and that’s what my classroom is. You as a parent become part of the family you work close with the teachers. The teachers know each student.

42:04 I have third graders that come to my door to wave at me and tell me good morning. So it’s just a family atmosphere. Your child’s coming to a school that they’re going to feel the love, they’re going to feel that we care about them and their growth.

42:21 We have a lot of teachers and staff members that put in the extra effort and time to get to know our kids and work with our kids. You come here because we do have quality educators and we thrive ourselves on getting better and doing our best with our students in the classroom and outside of it. We have some great programs, the robotics program.

42:46 We have wonderful computerized programs where we’re dealing with technologies. We have a great art program where students can stay after school and, you know, work on their creativity. The students are able to help each other out.

42:58 They’ve got a lot of spark. Everyone’s helpful and friendly and like, if you don’t know something, if you just ask someone to lead you the right way, you can be yourself and no one will make fun of you. This is a special school that is always wondrous to come to in the morning.

43:16 They’re really special because these teachers, they’ve taught you for years and they know you. They know your family, they know all of you, basically. We have the greatest kids, we have the greatest teachers, and we have an outstanding community.

43:40 We believe in every child’s ability to learn and we believe it’s our responsibility as educators to create access for them, to access the educational world and have the success that they deserve. We are an avid school. We’re one of the few avid elementaries, one of only two here in Brevard schools.

43:59 And avid, I believe, really helps create the purpose for why students come to school. It helps them understand what elementary school is going to do for them in the future. We have a lot of great programs like our drone teams, our sea perch teams.

44:12 We have stem clubs and steam clubs. We have orchestra. They’ve been growing vegetables in the garden.

44:17 They’re learning and exploring. And I have no doubt that we’re cultivating the next generation of thinkers, innovators and creators. And I’m very excited for what our kids are doing.

44:27 At Pompeii elementary. We have quite a few programs that are unique. We’re a special Olympics unified champion school.

44:33 So we’re super proud of our large exceptional education program. Part of that is our gifted program. Our kids are super involved in lots of different academic competitions and different community events.

44:44 So we have a lot of opportunities for kids outside the classroom to participate in authentic learning. Palm Bay elementary is a special place to work and learn and grow. Because of our sense of community and our commitment to our students, we give them the platform to practice their leadership skills.

45:05 At Palm elementary, the teachers make you feel really welcoming and comfortable here. It feels like family. The first day you came here, it feels like you’re automatically just a part of it.

45:16 What’s awesome about Palm Bay elementary is where they always have something new. Every year or a month they offer new clubs or more hands on activities. And I also like that you can make a lot of new friends in this school and have opportunities to learn new things in this school.

45:40 We have really grown and really been able to offer some very unique learning opportunities for students. I fully believe that the school is one of the best kept secrets in South Brevard. We have anything and everything you can imagine and you’re not going to find much like this the district.

45:57 We’re the only magnet high school in Brevard county where our focus is steam. We have so many opportunities within that, not only the rigorous courses such as dual enrollment and AP and honors. We have a pirate to Panther program where you can take college courses at fit while you’re in high school.

46:16 It’s complimentary to our students. Avid stands for advancement via individual determination. We provide leadership and community service opportunities.

46:25 We have an avid tutoring center. Students volunteer during their lunch to help all students on campus. So everybody gets support.

46:32 We all have one goal in mind, and that’s for our students to succeed. Palm Bay Magnet High School is an emotionally safe environment. Its diversity is its strength.

46:43 And when I say diversity, I don’t just mean cultural or linguistic diversity. We have a wide range of academic abilities. We have a wide range of programs to meet every student at every level that they come to us.

46:54 And we have such knowledgeable faculty. But they’re not just knowledgeable, they’re really genuinely caring. And they want to meet the students where they are and work to make them come up to where we need them to be and to where they need themselves to be.

47:10 It’s been amazing. I’ve seen aspects both from in the classroom and in sports. We all support one another.

47:17 The coaches are great. They’re going to push you to be your best on and off the court. Our teammates are going to push each other.

47:22 We know our strengths and weaknesses and we continue to strive for the better for all of us and not just individually. One of the things you notice if you talk to any of the adults on campus is how much they genuinely care for the students here. The goal of Pompeii High is for everyone to feel included.

47:47 The culture of Port Malabar can be summed up as positive, supportive. Many of our teachers have their own kids enrolled here. Many of the teachers were students themselves here.

47:57 So I’m very proud of that family oriented, family focused, very warm, welcoming feeling that we have here. Here at Port Malabar, academics and social emotional growth will be the focal point, and we will take pride in making sure your child grows and progresses. Fort Malabar elementary is an incredibly unique place for your child to attend.

48:18 We have several unique programs. We have an exceptional gifted program. We focus on multiple intelligences, such as art, music, stem, and the kids really shine.

48:30 The teachers take such good care of the kids here. Honestly, safety is first, and after that, we just love your children so much. When you walk in, you can feel it.

48:40 There’s love here. There’s caring. We take good care of the kids, and they want to come back every day.

48:45 We also have five teachers that are bilinguals. We’re very proud of that. We try to have one per grade level, so if your student is struggling with English, we can accommodate them.

48:54 Te n Alumno I like coming to school because the teachers care about me and like my own way. My favorite thing at Art Malabar is recess because it’s the time where you make new friends and you get to spend time with them. I feel like our teachers really do care about, and they comfort us when we may be having a bad day or something’s going on, either at school or at home.

49:27 It does feel really special when we’re recognized for our hard work because of our pelican pride. Awards prepared. Respectful, improved, dependable and enthusiastic.

49:37 I’ve had a really fun time here at Port Malabar, and I totally recommend it. Riviera is a very open school. We’ll do almost anything for our students in order to make sure that they’re successful.

49:59 We do believe in that village mentality where it takes a full village to raise a child. The thing that excites me the most is we’re not stagnant. Every year, our expectations here for our students expand and they get greater and greater.

50:11 What gets me excited about coming to work each day are the kids seeing them learn. I enjoy greeting them in the morning, seeing their excitement for coming to school every day, and the positivity that they have, knowing that no matter what happens, we’re here to support them and they’re safe while they’re here doing it. I’m really proud of the work that we’ve done at Riviera to make our core academics really strong, specifically in the areas of reading and math and science.

50:37 I am very proud of the fact that we’re all attending tight knit community, and we’re all working towards a common goal, which is for the students to be successful. We’re full of instructors and staff that reflect, and so our number one goal is to make every day better than the day before. For me and my team, we love seeing the progression that the students have.

50:59 The light bulb going off is basically why we do what we do. We work hard with these students five days a week. So you’re sitting with that student and those students working hard, and to see them progress, see them understand something, it makes it all worth it for someone new.

51:18 Coming to Riviera, you can expect kind people and people that can help you. They don’t just, like, say the answer. They teach me how to get the answer.

51:27 I like science because we get to do some experiments time to time. They provide kindness, respectfulness, and mostly fun. I am a product of brevard Public schools.

51:51 I’ve been with brevard Public schools for approximately 18 years. South lake is an amazing school, and what makes it special is the collaboration between the teachers and the faculty. Well, students have different learning styles, and part of what we do in the smart lab is that choice if they’re interested in 3d printing or video or building engineering.

52:26 And I think that giving students the opportunity to follow their passions in the smart lab helps with engagement, helps them find that success. As students decide on the careers that they want to do, what they learn here is really going to help them. I love the fact that we honor, respect, and take ownership in all the diversity and the differences in the uniquenesses of all of our teachers, staff and the students, every aspect of South Lake is a teaching opportunity.

52:58 Be ready to be enriched. Get ready for the adventure of learning. And not just having one teacher, but having 50 teachers, not just having one friend, but having hundreds of friends, in my opinion.

53:11 I really liked PE and smite lab. We do things on the computer and things with robots. I really like it.

53:18 You can go into school and go like, oh, I wonder what is gonna happen today, because there’s just new things every day to try for me. You can kind of, like, feel the friendliness about Southlake. You can wave at people and they’ll wave back.

53:32 Like, you smile and they smile. I love Southlake because of stuff like that. When I talk to fellow people and I say, I’m at sunrise.

53:48 They say, oh, I’ve heard of that school. Oh, I know that school. It’s always for really amazing things.

53:58 We are making the kids more responsible for their learning. Now, we are all here for the children and just holding them up to, I think, higher expectations. Knowing that we will reach every child here on whatever level they need is why they should come to sunrise.

54:13 Sunrise elementary is a school community where it just radiates joy and love and a super passion for learning. Sunrise is well known for academic success and helping every student shine. Our teachers love what they do.

54:31 They learn right along with the students, but they also collaborate with one another to plan and execute amazing, fun and engaging lessons. And that’s what I want for the future of Sunrise elementary school. I want our little sea turtles that come here to be able to come start when they’re young, grow up in our school, and we want to be able to help them meet their full potential and help them shine as they become young adults in the world.

54:57 We came up with three standards that aligned with our core values, which is be safe, work hard, and be nice. And we run our day to day lives here at sunrise that way. And we recognize students and staff and faculty that follow that mindset.

55:11 You know, it’s just a great guideline of what you should be doing at all times. Every teacher’s classroom rules aligns with the sunrise standards. You can ask any student and they’ll tell you what the sunrise standards are.

55:22 We really work on having those kids take ownership of their behavior. All the teachers care about all the students, and all the students, like, look up to the teachers. Everybody’s very kind.

55:31 Everybody’s very nice and, like, it’s just a great place to be. All the teachers, they’re wonderful. They don’t treat the students differently.

55:39 They treat all the students the same. They never treat you because of how smart you are. They treat you because of who you are.

55:56 We are a hidden gem. Where else can you walk outside and see a rocket launch? Deep traditions in this school. The spirit, the pride in this community is just unbelievable.

56:07 You see it on this campus. You feel it as soon as you walk through the doors. And there’s just so much pride in Titusville high school.

56:14 You can’t not love it academically. Different pathways that we can lead our students. One is through the AP coursework or the more advanced coursework.

56:27 We have the dual enrollment path, or we have the CTE path, which is the career technical education path. We definitely feel responsible for the child, the person, and then the academics on top of that, we have so many things here at the school. We have great academics, we have all these amazing art programs, we have amazing culinary program, we have an amazing auto program, we have a CNA 911 program.

56:50 That there is really something for every interest of every child at our school. And it makes it feel like a family. Instead of just where you come to do something, you have to do.

57:01 We have an actual community. It’s not just a school, it’s not just an institution. It is a community in which people are willing to help each other.

57:08 The students and their enthusiasm and their gusto for learning is unparalleled. The academics here are tremendous, as well as the caring of the faculty and the teachers we have here. I love all the teachers here.

57:21 They’re awesome. They make the day better, honestly, like, half of the school is the atmosphere that is given by the teachers and staff and administrators. And you can tell that they really care about their students.

57:31 It’s really fun to have people that are passionate about the school and want to participate. And it’s really good to have the whole school spirit at the level that we do. Inclusion is super important to us.

57:42 At Titusville High School, everyone’s really friendly and like, you can really talk to anybody and everyone’s here to help you. I’m proud of the atmosphere. I’m proud of, like, the things we get to do.

57:52 It’s a good environment, especially for you to join clubs and be involved in the school. You’ll have a good time. Good evening.

1:00:32 I’m happy to welcome all of my fellow board members and call the July 29, 2021 school board meeting at the and tentative budget hearing to order. Whether you are in attendance here or watching from another location, my colleagues and I are pleased you took the time to join us. Pam, roll call, please.

1:00:47 Misses Belford? Present. Misses Campbell? Present. Misses Jenkins? Present.

1:00:52 Misses mcDougall? Present. And Mister Susan? Present. The board will now hold a moment of silent reflection and invite the viewing audience to join us.

1:01:16 Thank you. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all of.

1:01:57 Okay. At this time, I would like to offer my fellow board members and Doctor Mullins the opportunity to recognize student staff or members of the community who would like to get us started. Miss Campbell, is that you? Yes.

1:02:11 I’ll just keep mine short. I wanted to highlight the videos that government community relations has been doing related to our summer construction projects. And just encourage everybody to go out to our YouTube channel.

1:02:26 I know not every construction project is highlighted, but there’s been some. Ed Stone Ogalley, Myla Pinewood. I think it’s really incredible the work that’s been done.

1:02:38 And since in the summer, who goes to school, right? So you as a community, get to have aerial views and back behind the scenes views of the major construction that’s going on in our schools. So great job for our facilities department, for all the work they’re doing. But thank you, GC and R for G NCR, for allowing us that inside view into what’s going on in our schools.

1:03:03 Thank you, Miss Campbell. Miss McDougall, I just want. I don’t think it’s on.

1:03:10 Hold on. Let me find the right mic for you. There we go.

1:03:12 That’s right. I just want to give a shout out to our Frode service department. I went to their kickoff on, I think it was Tuesday.

1:03:21 And for the managers and doctor Mullins, would you remind me how many meals they have served over this past year? 11 million. 11 million meals that our food service people have served to our community and our students. And I want to give a shout out to Kevin Thornton and his department for the amazing job they’ve done.

1:03:42 So thank you, food service. Anyone else? Yeah, I’ll go. You can’t push a button, mister.

1:03:55 Susan, let it happen. Try that. Is your light on? Is your light on? It looks.

1:04:00 There it is. Okay. You’re good.

1:04:02 Hey, everybody. I just wanted to say since we’ve been gone, I’ve been putting together that Ogalle corridor like group to support. I guess we’re looking for a name yet.

1:04:14 Right now we have seven churches on board. We have five major leaders inside the inner city. We have 14 businesses.

1:04:22 And we have a group of supporting organizations that are coming on. And the goal is to take the Ogalley area so that everybody knows when they come across something that they can help in this way. One of the problems we have throughout our districts is that we replicate services right now coming out of COVID coming into the school districts.

1:04:42 This is going to be one of the worst times in the history of education for the drop of knowledge, drop of services, drop of everything. So we’re creating something in my district which is the most needy, which is that Ogalle corridor area, and bringing in the churches and all the other organizations for support. So that was amazing.

1:05:00 I want to say all the individuals that are there, thank you for that. I also wanted to thank Jack Parker. Many of you guys may remember him as the former sheriff, he’s the vice president over at eastern Florida State.

1:05:11 We’ve put together, he’s been working with our school district, but most importantly, some of the other fire school recipients from like Rockledge to the county to everybody else that have their fire, you know, the fire stations to take our kids from Brevard into eastern Florida state’s curriculum and then have them come out like a pipeline that we talk about. But one of the issues that we’ve been working on is making sure that that pipeline, like, we have great programs, but where do they go from here, right? So he’s been instrumental with working with the county, with our staff and everybody else on a lot of different moving parts, even though it’s not his deal. And he, I just want to give him a shout out.

1:05:51 And we had seven more total companies join that jobs program with the kids. Two construction and three in healthcare. And then two just randoms where they’re just giving the kids opportunities.

1:06:04 And then I also wanted to say I was selected to be the advocacy chair for all schools school boards in the state of Florida, which oversees all 67 school boards, that oversees the federal, the state legislation, along with a couple other subcommittees for all the school board’s recommendations to the state of Florida’s legislature and to the federal government. I met with Bill Montford, the head of superintendents, Miss White, the head of Florida association of School Administrators, and I met with our teachers union in Tallahassee to start discussing like we are forming a committee to discuss collaboratively education. Many of you don’t know, but our organizations, even though we’re in the same scope, are not in the same.

1:06:44 We don’t collaborate like we could for all of our children. So I think if we’re all together working, we’re going to do a great job. So I wanted to say those are some of the things I’ve been working on and give some shout outs.

1:06:57 Thank you Mister Steven. Thank you. Thank you Doctor Mullins, did you have anything you wanted to share? There it is.

1:07:08 Okay. Got the light? Thank you misses Balford? Yes. I wanted to recognize our human resources team.

1:07:14 Team. Over the last two weeks we have hosted both a transportation or bus driver career fair and a substitute teacher fair. It took extraordinary collaboration across human resources, transportation, government, community relations, educational technology to put these events on.

1:07:40 We went in not sure how they would be received, but we were so pleased with the response and the feedback. 52 people came interested in bus driver positions. Our goal at the end of the event going into it was if we can just leave with 25 qualified individuals for drivers and transportation.

1:08:01 That would be success. So we feel we’ve got a great pool to, to pull from for those. And then at the substitute career fair, we had 130 interested individuals come and learn about how to be part of teaching staff, if you will, through the venue of being a substitute teacher.

1:08:23 So when you think about 130, doesn’t seem like a lot when we have 4000 classrooms, but that’s more than one additional sub pertain school on any given day. And given the struggle we had last year, I know our schools would be thrilled to have the assurance that we have at least one more sub available for each of our schools. So many thanks to human resources and all of the other departments to help make that possible.

1:08:51 It was a busy place here over those two days. It was a one stop shop. You come in and get the application paperwork, you go through screening, you go through interviews and you leave knowing you’re a candidate for one of those respective positions.

1:09:06 So thank you HR and all of the other teams, transportation et government, community relations. Just a great success for team bps. Thank you Doctor Mullins.

1:09:21 I have just one quick one and that is a huge thank you for the superintendent summit. Congratulations to Mike Alba for a great job pulling all of our leaders together. And thanks to our school leaders for investing the time.

1:09:35 We had a speaker that spoke about relational leadership as adult social emotional learning. And that might sound really dry to some folks that are not engaged in the work that’s going on in the classrooms, but he was a very engaging and entertaining speaker and really, I think brought the message home on several occasions. So thank you Mister Alba and Doctor Mullins for your inspirational message as well as we kick off our new school year and get ready to rise to all of those challenges that is going to bring us then to the adoption of the agenda.

1:10:11 Doctor Mullins. Sorry. Thank you misses Balford and members of the board.

1:10:21 On this evening’s agenda we have administrative staff recommendations, one presentation, nine consent items, six items for the tentative budget hearing portion, two action items, one information item, and two board discussion items. Changes made to the agenda since it was first released to the public on Thursday, July 22, 2021 are as follows. Item a seven on administrative staff recommendations received revisions.

1:10:47 An attachment was added to to the superintendent’s report on G eight and G 19. The superintendent’s presentation under the tentative budget hearing and discussion items on mask and equity audit were also added. What are the wishes of the board? I’d like to make it a motion so he has it first.

1:11:07 Yeah, you can second. Mister Susan’s motion for discussion. If you like, Miss McDougall.

1:11:11 I’ll second it. So, I have a motion by Mister Susan II by Miss McDougall and that would open for discussion. I’d like to amend the agenda in the.

1:11:22 In a way that we can focus on people who are public comment for people who are speaking to the agenda. And anyone that is not on the agenda be after the discussion. The board discussion.

1:11:36 So I have a motion on the floor to move our non agenda related speaker public comment section to the end of the agenda after board discussion. Is that clear enough? Mister Gibbs? Do I have a second for that motion? I’m going to second it for discussion and then I wanted to clarify and then we’ll go from there. So you’re seconding? So I have a motion and a motion for amendment and a second which opens for discussion, Mister Susan.

1:12:06 So what’s happening is that we’re trying to move the discussion and presentations and speakers to the pertinent so that everybody understands what’s happening they want we. Miss McDougall made a motion, which I support, to move all the speakers pertinent to some of the discussion points later on to when that happens. So that the individuals that are here for the budget and other things that are here can actually have the meeting wrap up and go home.

1:12:31 And then the people that are here for the many like hour worth of speakers, they don’t have to be here for that. That’s all. So we’re just making a motion to move it all.

1:12:41 Doesn’t mean there’s anything nefarious going on. We’re just doing that. So.

1:12:43 That’s all I wanted. Is that what you meant? Okay, so I have a. I have a motion and a second.

1:12:53 I’m assuming you need a voice vote, Pam? Yeah, first the amendment, then the actual. Yeah, first the amendment, and then the actual. Okay.

1:13:29 Do you need a voice vote on that, Pam? All right, so, board members, give me just a moment to unmute your mics. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. I would like to make sure what we are voting on first.

1:13:49 Is this the amendment? Yes. Yes. Okay, just checking.

1:13:54 Yes. So we have a motion to amend the agenda as presented. And we have a second on that.

1:14:01 So all in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Same sign.

1:14:06 Okay. And the motion passes 50. Now, Mister Gibbs, we need to revisit the original adoption of the agenda or we’re good.

1:14:15 All right. So we are going to adopt the amended agenda. So I will entertain a motion on the amended agenda.

1:14:25 We already put it on there, but I’ll move to approve again. Second. All right.

1:14:30 And that opens that up for discussion. So, point of clarification for you all who are in the audience this evening. This is our budget hearing.

1:14:37 And the budget hearing must be completed today so that our finance staff can move forward on all of the things that have to take place that they can’t do until the board has approved it. So what we’ve just done is we have moved anyone who is speaking on a non agenda item to the end of the meeting so that we can get that budget stuff out of the way. There is some question, has been some question leading up to today’s meeting about whether board discussion is an agenda item.

1:15:04 Board discussion is not an. So neither of the items that are on the board discussion area will be considered agenda item for priority speaking. But our meeting shouldn’t be that long to get to the rest of the issues.

1:15:18 We just need to make sure that we’re getting all of that budget information out of the way. Okay? Okay. So with that, do you need a voice vote on that one, Pam, to adopt the amended.

1:15:34 Okay, so, board members, give me just one moment to get your mics ready. All right. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

1:15:42 Aye. Any opposed? Same sign. All right.

1:15:45 And the motion passes. 50. Doctor Mullins, will you please let us know about the administrative staff recommendations? Yes, Miss Belford? There are nine persons on this agenda item for the board to consider.

1:16:04 What are the wishes of the board? Move to approve. Second moved by Mister Susan. Seconded by Miss Jenkins.

1:16:10 Is there any discussion? Hearing? None. Please vote. All right.

1:16:18 Miss Escobar is requesting voice vote. All in favor, please signify by saying aye. Any opposed? Same sign.

1:16:26 The motion passes. 50. Doctor Mullins, will you please provide us your update on Covid-19 mitigation strategies? Thank you.

1:16:48 Miss Belfort and members of the board wanted to provide the board and the community an update on our Covid-19 mitigation strategies. Since the last board meeting where we provided an update on June 22, I’m going to begin with several items, several slides that are the same. Repeat from the presentation on June 22.

1:17:09 There has been no change to that information that we presented on June 22, but for the benefit of the community, to revisit those things, we know that Covid has presented challenges for students and family members across our community in terms of challenges and struggles, not the least of which are academic. And all of the disruptions that have occurred over the last 15 months and the impacts that that will have as our kids return, what we hope will hope will be a less disruptive school year. And I’m pleased that as we’ve met with schools and principals and leaders over the last couple days few days in preparation for the school year, they are already planning and preparing to capitalize and leverage the additional dollars we have going into this school year, largely in part of the federal stimulus grant that is available for our schools and ultimately for our kids.

1:18:05 But to visit back some of the slides from a few weeks ago, our continued mitigation strategies continue to enhance and elevate our commitment to our facilities, both minimizing clutter across our classrooms to be able to maximize social distancing where possible, as well as continuing some of the hallway traffic patterns that we implemented last year. Moving forward of course, our maintenance department is also very attentive to our HBA systems. We’ve been running them longer every day to ensure we have maximum airflow, as well as being extraordinarily attentive to the filter changes that need to occur.

1:18:49 In addition, we will maintain our strike, our custodial strike team who will be deployed where needed and necessary to support our schools to ensure cleanliness in terms of daily operations. Again, we will maintain amplified cleaning procedures protocols, emphasizing and prioritizing those high touch surface areas across our schools. One change from last year, our buses may be fully occupied as we move forward.

1:19:17 We did not have them as fully at full capacity last year as we anticipate they will be this year, but again, we will be continuing our enhanced cleaning practices on our buses, hand sanitizer dispensers as students enter and egress the bus, as well as we will have masks available for students to use if they choose as they enter the bus. Additional impacts across daily operations. Schools will continue to support family engagement through virtual events and meetings in addition to carefully planned in person events.

1:19:55 Although we as we open up our campuses and have volunteers and family based activities on our campuses, moving forward, our cafeterias will continue to provide grab and go opportunities for students. We want to thank our parents for taking advantage of the online PayPal type opportunity for students. We really significantly reduced the exchange of cash in our cafeterias last year and encouraged parents once again to take advantage of that.

1:20:31 Even now, they can go online and add funds to their child’s lunch accounts. Locker rooms will be fully accessible and cleaned regularly as we move forward. So that is also another change from last year for our PE programs.

1:20:50 In terms of professional development, we have restored in person professional development that began just over the last few weeks but also will continue moving forward. We do. We will continue mitigation protocols moving forward, supporting our employees through online portals as well, particularly the orientation process.

1:21:15 I want to mention the blended learning instructional experience. Some folks read that and say, oh, we’re going back to e learning. No, blended learning instructional professional development has to do with supporting teachers in the utilization of online platforms as part of the regular instruction.

1:21:33 That is not an elearning platform. We are not utilizing the e learning platform this year. Actually, we don’t even have the option to utilize an e learning platform as that was specifically approved and provided for by the Florida Department of Education last school year, given the situation we were facing.

1:21:56 Also in terms of student health, we will continue to support our medically fragile students through the development of a very specific individualized health plan. So our parents who have concerns, we certainly encourage them to reach out to their child’s school and we’ll work with them to develop those plans. But we want to emphasize, and you’ll hear me say it probably a couple more times throughout this presentation that we depend on.

1:22:21 And we need our parents to be the first line of defense in the health of their children in doing that daily health check of their child before they send them to school. And we fully support our parents keeping their sick child home, certainly demonstrating any symptoms of illness. Keep them home and keep their child safe, but also those around them safe in their school environment.

1:22:56 Additional provisions that we’re making available for both staff and students is the availability of face max face masks if they choose to utilize those in our schools as well as on our buses. We also have in inventory extended supplies of PPE, hand sanitizer, additional cleaning products. We found great benefit in using the misting disinfecting machines.

1:23:24 We’re continuing to utilize those across our schools. But I also mentioned earlier the challenges that we anticipate are the kids have faced through disrupted learning over the last 1618 months and we have put in place robust academic support opportunities throughout our schools. Every school has been given an allocation of funds to enhance their academic support program opportunities and they are developing those plans and responses to meet the needs of their kids right now.

1:23:54 And as we move forward into the start of the school year, but also our students will continue to be progress monitored three times a year in english language arts and math. Students will be provided those additional supports as needed. We also just, well, not just a few weeks ago completed summer school.

1:24:14 We had favorable participation in summer school this last year. We would have loved to have had even more students, but understand that it was a quick turnaround for parents to make the decision in summer school and we’ll continue to support them moving forward and want to assure our families. As some questions have come up relative to how will we support students who may experience quarantine due to Covid, we’re working with our teachers to support access to materials.

1:24:47 Virtually all of our instructional materials are available online and many of our teachers utilize those enhanced virtual tools like Google Classroom and so on to support our kids. So I’ll talk about that a little bit more as we move forward. In terms of student activities, visitors and volunteers will be permitted to participate in structured school activities that are carefully planned by the school in consideration of student safety.

1:25:16 As we move into the school year, principals have been instructed that they may approve field trips and pursue our regular field trip process depending on if it’s in county, out of county, or out of state. But we do ask that principals carefully consider gatherings or large group activities and what are some responsible and reasonable mitigation strategies to put in place to increasingly keep everybody safe? And where feasible, schools will continue to hold high risk events outdoors instead of indoors if possible. So that is that information was all presented several weeks ago.

1:25:58 None of that has changed since it was last presented, but if the board recalls, there were still six items under consideration when we met on June 22 and want to provide the board and the community an update in response to those items this evening. The first is the process of contact tracing and quarantining of students. As a result of contact tracing, the CDC updated their contact tracing guidance, I believe just either last week or early this week.

1:26:28 We have reviewed that. We have conferred with our brevard Department of Health, our local DOH, and they continue to recommend those quarantine guidelines. We will be following that recommendation moving forward.

1:26:41 There is a ten day and 14 day quarantine period for an individual who is in close contact of a Covid case. However, there are additional considerations for individuals who have been vaccinated or can demonstrate a formal, confirmed positive COVID test within the last 90 days. So we’re training our school leaders in that process, even right now, to support them moving forward in terms of supporting our students in the event that they may be quarantined.

1:27:18 Of course, we will work closely with a child and their family in the event of an extended absence, just like we do in other circumstances, and ensure that we are as supportive as possible to the student who may be removed from school for a period of time. And our teachers are prepared to be responsive in a host of different ways different classrooms, different types of content, different grade levels facilitate different levels of engagement. In some cases, that’s a paper pencil instructional option for students.

1:27:49 In other cases, a teacher may choose to utilize a zoom in or a video instructional option for a student. But we’ll work with students on a case by case basis and our administrators are prepared to support teachers and whatever tool or vehicle that they identify as most feasible for their classroom situation. We will continue to have devices available for students who may need a device to go home with to be able to be increasingly responsive to the resources that are available to students.

1:28:28 But again, you heard me say it before. We ask that our kids and our parents prioritize their child’s health and be continually engaged in monitoring a child’s health to keep the best interest of the child in consideration. Of course, we will work closely with any students who have an IEP 504 or Ell related services to ensure continuity of support in those situations.

1:29:00 The next item, I believe is number three are school clinics. We will maintain all of the health protocols we had in place last school year for our clinics, whether it was enhanced PPE materials in our clinics and keeping individuals separated and so on. There’s been question about our case reporting and dashboard management.

1:29:23 We will stand up, if you will, our Covid-19 data dashboard that we maintained all last school year. It will launch next week, August 2, as we have all of our teachers reporting back to their campuses on Monday. And then we’ll maintain that as we have in the past, twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays that are reflective of the data since the previous report.

1:29:54 And then finally the last couple items the board may recall. And I don’t know that our public even knew. The state did provide some minor allowances for our mandatory drills last school year, which we did take advantage of.

1:30:13 But this year the state has said we must return to our full protocols for mandatory drills of evacuation and other emergencies. So those obviously will be put back into place in completion this coming school year. And then finally, the last item was guidelines for parents, parent or guest visits on our campuses.

1:30:32 Of course, we welcome and want to encourage our families, our parents, to become a registered volunteer and make themselves available for scheduled and routine involvement and engagement with our schools. And we recall that this past year we had the attrition of our media assistants across our schools as an unfortunate but necessary budget reduction, and we had hoped when we were making that decision we could have volunteers help fill that need in our media centers, and we look forward to opening that opportunity opportunity this year as all of our schools will feel the full loss of a media assistant in their media centers. So again, we have.

1:31:19 Our security office is in full swing, getting individuals cleared for volunteers. We are finalizing and getting our mobile screening process put into place and expanding that as well, so that we can increase the number of volunteers we have available to support our schools. Campuses will continue to remain secure for unscheduled visits, so lunch with students will not be permitted this year, as well as parents walking their child to class will not be permitted.

1:31:59 As we start the school year. Organized school activities for visitors, as always, consistent with our school board policy 8475, which requires the supervision of all guests by staff the entire time on campus. So with that, that is a full update of the mitigation strategies we have for this coming school year.

1:32:22 Again, I’ll close with just to implore our parents and families, legal guardians, to please work with us to keep our schools informed of any child who may be experiencing any symptoms of COVID So that we can all be responsive and responsible in keeping their child and other children safe moving forward. And if the board has any questions, I’m happy to try and answer those. And I’ve got my great experts in the back who can help me if it gets too difficult.

1:32:57 Thank you, Doctor Mullins. So, board members, in just a moment, I’m going to turn it over to you for questions, comments, concerns, however you’d like to address it. I do want to mention that we have representatives from the health department here to answer questions as well.

1:33:09 I did assure Miss Moore, as well as our friends from the health department, that when we wrap up this discussion portion of our meeting regarding the presentation, they will be free to go. So they don’t feel the need to be with us until however late. The rest of us are going to be here this evening, so please take advantage of their presence while we are in this discussion portion of the meeting at this time, I will open it up for any board member that would like to ask questions, comments, anything.

1:33:41 I just have one pretty slight. Miss Jenkins, go right ahead. Sure.

1:33:46 My question is just for the health officials that are here, if you’re able to answer this question or not. But where were we in terms of our positivity rate in last around last August? And possibly if you can give me the one in January, as well as where we are now, Miss Belford or Misses James Maynard? Can we have the Department of Health representatives introduce themselves first? Just so everybody knows who we have with us this evening. Who’s brave to go first? I’m ready.

1:34:15 Is my mic. You can hear me. I’m Helen Medlin.

1:34:19 I’m the epidemiology program manager for the Department of Health in Brevard county. Sorry. Hi everyone, I’m John Davis.

1:34:29 I’m the community health nursing director for the Brevard County Health Department. I am Anita Stremmel. I am the assistant director at the department of health.

1:34:37 And far. Thank you for being with us tonight. I’m sorry, someone have the best person to respond to.

1:34:45 Misses Jenkins, please. So I can give you probably what I looked at before I came here, because obviously I don’t know all this off the top of my head, but I looked at the positivity rate at this time last year, and at that point in time it was 7%. And on our last reported data, which was last Friday, it was 20%.

1:35:23 Miss Jenkins, hold on just 1 second please. I understand that we are certainly discussing some emotional issues this evening, but I’m going to remind the audience that this is the board opportunity to have their meeting. You will certainly have an opportunity during public comment later to share anything that you would like to share, but I’m going to ask that you not shut out from your seats and interrupt the discussion that’s taking place between the board and the superintendent or the health representatives.

1:35:50 Okay? Thank you, Miss Jenkins. Thank you. I’m actually, honestly, I think I heard what somebody had said and that was actually going to be my first follow up question is, what does that 20% mean? Was that a one day? Sorry, I’ll clarify.

1:36:06 So I was looking at the week, it’s 20% positivity rate over the week. So a seven day total. Seven day total.

1:36:15 And again, that was the same for a year ago. Was the 7%, was the average over the weekend? I kind of know the answer to this, but I don’t know the specifics. So I would love you to tell me, since you’re the expert.

1:36:32 Obviously there’s a difference in that number there. There’s a significant increase in that number, but there’s other changes too. Right? So the ages that are being affected are not the same as well because it’s a year later, vaccines are available.

1:36:44 So can you tell me a little bit about that? Yes. So let’s start with positivity rates a little bit. So when you’re looking at positivity rates, they are really showing you need, well, people to be testing at the same time to kind of have those lower positivity rates.

1:37:10 Sorry. So, you know, it’s basically looking at the rate of positives to negatives. Okay, so there is the difference in that.

1:37:26 Personally, I think it’s more important to look at transmission rates because positivity rates is related to a lot of healthy people going to get tested and we don’t have the ability to do that at this point in time. So again, if you look at transmission rates, it’s cases per 100,000 of population. So last year we had 72 cases per 100,000 over a week, and this past week we were at 354 cases per 100,000.

1:38:08 When we’re looking at age groups because of the success of vaccinations, we are seeing a decrease in the caseload in the older population, which has been significantly vaccinated. Is there a new dominant age group or bracket that we’re seeing here in Brevard? Because I know back in the beginning of this pandemic, obviously we’re really concerned about people who were 65 and older, and I would assume that. So is there a new age bracket that we’re concerned about? Well, we’re concerned about all age brackets, but yes, on our daily case list, certainly we’re seeing more folks in their twenties, thirties, forties that are making up the vast majority of the daily case count.

1:39:01 We do see pediatrics, of course, and we’ve seen them in greater numbers of late. The hospitals are also seeing lower ages being hospitalized. In the past we were looking at the older ages and now we’re looking in the 50 to 60 year old range as the majority of the people are hospitalized.

1:39:25 So I have one more question. We’ve been seeing a lot in the news lately that some of our local hospitals and health clinics are setting up tents, that they’re using them right now. Can you explain to the public and to us what is causing them to do that now when they weren’t doing that a week ago? Again, we are at 353, was it per hundred thousand? And you’re going to see with the release of the information tomorrow by the state that it will increase a bit from there.

1:40:02 So that’s reflected in our healthcare system. They’re being maxed right now. They’re under heavy stress and we have more of it circulating in the community.

1:40:14 Thank you. Yes, Mister Susan. So I spoke to health first and the steward about the tents, right? And actually when I was, I do daily checkups with the ICU docs and stuff like that and ask them, hey, what are you seeing? Are you seeing kids under the age of twelve? What’s going on? And one of the health first guys said, hey, just give you a heads up.

1:40:37 We’re going to put a tent out front has nothing to do with the increases and stuff. What we’re seeing is a lot of people are coming in and they’re saying, I think I have Covid. And once they break the threshold of the hospital, they have to be checked in and all that stuff.

1:40:48 So they were trying to avoid the hospitalizations and all that stuff by seeing them inside the parking lot to allow them to vary between what’s coming in one to mitigate for future uses. But the other thing is they were seeing an influx of people that said that they had Covid and they were coming up there, but they didn’t want to reuse the resources of staff to go through that. So it wasn’t a situation that was being driven from a massive amount of cases that were coming through.

1:41:13 Can I ask a follow up question? Audience so I had a couple questions, but I’m going to go after everybody else, so I’ll wait until all you. Hold on, Mister Susan. Hold on.

1:41:25 I need to circle back to Miss Jenkins. Yes, she had a follow up on I think. I appreciate that Mister Susan, but the man.

1:41:32 Ladies and gentlemen, please lower your voices so that we can continue with our business. If we have to ask you again, you’ll be asked to leave. The man that you spoke to isn’t here right now.

1:41:44 And so I would like to ask the people who are here, do you agree with that? And is there a different way that you think that could be defined as to why it is there? Because that’s not what they had just said to us. You’re asking them, but they’re not the hospital. Well, we have a hospital representative right there.

1:42:01 Okay. No, we’re not representing the hospital. But again, right now they have more inpatients with COVID than they’ve had in the past.

1:42:18 Okay? So that is a fact. And I think that’s been acknowledged by their leadership and it’s been in the press. So I don’t think that’s breaking news here.

1:42:31 Thank you. All right, Mister Susan, you said you wanted to wait on your questions. Yeah, I was going to wait until everybody else had their time.

1:42:38 Miss McDougall, Miss Campbell. Okay, thank you guys for being here again. Doctor Mullens in the presentation referred to the updated CDC guidance for quarantines.

1:42:55 And I have read through that. But just for some clarification, it looks like that guidance was making for contact tracing and quarantine just a little bit different for K twelve schools than for everybody else. If you could clarify.

1:43:12 So I think some of it’s the same. If you’ve been vaccinated, you don’t have. If you’re asymptomatic, you don’t have to quarantine.

1:43:19 If you’ve had Covid in the last 90 days and that’s verified, you don’t have to quarantine. That’s the same for everybody. But then there was something about if you are in an environment where the person who tested positive was wearing a mask and the person who was exposed was wearing a mask, then you also don’t have to quarantine.

1:43:37 Can you? Yes, I can answer that. So the CDC guidance and I can read it. Vera vatum, if you wish.

1:43:47 It says exception in the k twelve indoor classroom setting. The close contact definition excludes students who were within three to 6ft of an infected student, where both students were engaged in consistent and correct use of a well fitting mask and other K twelve school prevention strategies, such as universal and correct mask use. Physical distance, increased ventilation were in place.

1:44:21 So is there anything that would preclude us from being able to use that exception? I believe that you do not have a universal mask use. I’m not sure about your ability to physically distance in all classrooms and your increased ventilation at all schools. Thank you.

1:44:44 So I had a question regarding, and this, I mean, CDC guidelines. I’m not asking you to explain the whole process of their. But if you can give me some more insight.

1:44:53 You know, when I have looked at the studies of people who have been infected with COVID and obviously that’s not a strategy. We’re not telling people, go, let someone breathe on you so you can get immunity. But we do know that people have immunity after having tested positive.

1:45:08 There’s some question as to how long it lasts. I know the CDC has kind of arbitrarily. I’ve seen some studies, but they kind of arbitrarily picked 90 days.

1:45:18 However, when I look at this studies, it seems that what they’re saying is, I think it was one in a thousand. I don’t know how old that data was, but one in 1000 people who had tested positive for Covid were able to be or had been reinfected. But then I’m seeing the data for people who have been vaccinated and how much breakthrough is going.

1:45:39 And so I guess my question is, why are the people who have tested positive for Covid only getting the 90 days when we’re not putting any kind of limitation at all on people who have been vaccinated, even from last December? Do you have any? I know that’s not you guys, that’s CDC. But what. This isn’t like a concert.

1:46:00 I appreciate you guys are here and being active participants, but it’s really distracting and it’s going to make the meeting take a lot longer also. So if you can let people answer the question. Thank you.

1:46:10 Really need any applause? Certainly. I can’t speak for the CDC. I do know with other COVID infections, so the other coronaviruses that circulated throughout human society for lengths of time that we had anything from six months to about two years, we do not get a lifelong immunity from their natural infection.

1:46:35 Why they choose the differences, that I cannot tell you. I’m sorry. Right.

1:46:40 Okay. I appreciate it. You know, it is frustrating to me as a parent who, of a child who had immunity, and it’s continued to work for her, but she’s stuck within 90 days as well and will have to be quarantined when I know that, I also know people who’ve been vaccinated who have had their breakthrough cases.

1:46:59 So just as a note to the board, because we have chosen different guidelines, that is something that we could make an adjustment to if we. If we chose are, you know, we. I’m trying to look at the studies and not the media, because the media, you know, is interesting.

1:47:21 No, no insult to our guests over to the right, but the information coming out is conflicting often. So one of the things that I have read and studied is that the new variants are more contagious, more infectious. I’m not sure if I’m using the right vocabulary word, but for that.

1:47:39 But that they are generally, and over the history of virology, less lethal, less deadly. Is that an accurate depiction of the variants that we have going on? I think that each variant has its differences. Certainly the delta variant replicates much quicker, which is why it is more transmissible from person to person.

1:48:08 And so, for example, if you’re exposed, it will replicate much quicker. So instead of, say, taking three to five days to have symptoms, now it might take take two to three days. With something that replicates much faster, your viral load can become quite increased as well with that.

1:48:33 And understand that with any disease, the higher your viral load, the more infectious you become. Okay, now I’ve lost my train of thought. What was the second part? The second part was the deadliness, I guess.

1:48:48 Or of the variants as they go, don’t they generally become less lethal as time goes by? No, I don’t think that you can say that. I think that it is dependent on each variant and how it mutates and how it then affects our body. You can’t generalize with any of these mutations.

1:49:09 Each one is unique in its own way, and some can actually become more lethal to the human and others will be less. There’s no rule. Okay.

1:49:24 One of the things that we’re not able to see specific to Brevard because of the way that the Department of Health is posting the data just weekly. And the only thing that we can see specific to brevard is our cases, our percent positive and our vaccination. So we’re not able to see, and I was trying to see on the CDC website because you can see some things by county there.

1:49:42 I was trying to see if we could compare our hospitalizations. And by the way, thank you for thinking that about the percent positive, because, you know, even that was told to us last summer when we had a roundtable. The percent positive is not necessarily a biggest factor because if you only had 300 people come test that day, it’s going to be a higher percentage.

1:50:05 And we’ve had some off numbers throughout the last year, but the hospitalizations and deaths are an important one, and I know they lag. So we are having kind of a spike right now, and we’re not as likely to see this hospitalization death numbers spike as well. But generally now we are getting close to where we were at our highest point in end of January, early February, when we were at about 376 cases per week.

1:50:34 Are we seeing a similar spike in hospitals? I know obviously our hospitalizations are going up, but are we seeing the same spike in hospitalizations and deaths similar to that, or are they not as high as they were at our high point? The hospitalizations right now are higher than they were in January. And you will see tomorrow when the statistics come out, that our case rates have increased as well over this past week. Okay.

1:51:03 Thank you. I think I, and this may, I don’t know if this is more for you guys or for Chris Moore, but, you know, during the, during the spike that we had in that January, February time, did we, you know, I, when, as we walked through the year, we, you know, we did not see. This was consistent.

1:51:30 It was anecdotal for the most part. But I think Chris Moore probably has more of the day than you guys that were working with her and her team. We, I just kept hearing that the cases were not necessarily passing around the school.

1:51:42 They were passing around, you know, from families particularly, because those are super, you know, ex, the close, closest contacts. Right. But also outside of school activities.

1:51:52 Did we see more transmission in the schools during that highest bike time of the January, February, you will always see that the community in the school reflects the community in which it is. So, you know, when you have a high transmission rate outside of the school, you’ll have a high transmission rate of in the school. Right.

1:52:16 But we didn’t really see that necessarily from student to student. It was also a different variant. So we’re looking at something different right now.

1:52:29 I hear you. I hear you. And I’ve seen it.

1:52:32 Honestly, I’ve seen it going on in the community around me as well. We just had a local camp that had to be shut down because they didn’t have enough student workers, and a band camp that was shut down this week recently as well, because of numbers of cases unspread. I think.

1:52:53 I think that’s all, Miss Belford. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Campbell.

1:52:59 Miss Jenkins. Yeah. So just stemming off of Miss Campbell’s question about our spike that we saw in our community in January and how it kind of reflected in the schools, because we reflect the community, was there something that the schools were putting in place to potentially stop that number from climbing above what it was at that time? They were following the CDC mitigation, and I do believe that they certainly made a difference.

1:53:38 Difference. So do you believe that the fact that our students from third grade and above wearing masks did not have an even bigger spike in brevard public schools? Well, again, it was a recommended mitigation strategy. An important one.

1:53:58 It continues to be an important one. Thank you, Miss McDougall. Yes.

1:54:05 First, thank you very much for being here. And Miss Campbell has already asked about the quarantine, the CDC quarantine. That was one of my questions, and I guess I have a question, and I don’t know if this is for Miss Moore or for you all.

1:54:20 How the contract tracing, who is going to be doing that? Are we going to be tending on you all to do that and to notify or Miss Moore? How is that going to work this year? I could attempt to answer it, but since Miss Moore is already on her way, she’ll get it more accurate than I will. Contact tracing is going to remain the primary focus of our schools. Only our schools are going to be able to get the detailed information about who’s sitting next to who, who rode what bus, who was playing next to who on the, at recess, who was out at testing, who was absent that day or not that day.

1:55:11 Contact tracing isn’t a day. Contact tracing is from the moment a student is ill, 48 hours before that, and up until the day that they are no longer there at times. Contact tracing is one day.

1:55:26 Sometimes contact tracing is six or seven. So our administrators will continue to be responsible for that contact tracing. Thank you.

1:55:36 It does take up a lot of time. I know that Miss Campbell talked about the breakthrough cases. I just want to make sure that everyone is clear that the vaccine is not a cure all.

1:55:50 It is to make sure that we don’t end up in the hospital and we don’t get so ill. Just kind of like the flu shot. You can still get the flu if you get the shot.

1:55:59 It’s not something that’s going to stop you from getting it. You hope it will, and it is very effective for many people. So we don’t have any data, do we, on how this, how this virus, especially the delta, will affect our pediatric children or our teenagers? Do we have any data on that at this point? In terms of the vaccine? No.

1:56:27 In terms of the, you know, you hear about these long haulers that they’ve gotten the COVID and they still have symptoms three months, six months afterwards. Yes. Yes.

1:56:46 That is in fact the case. We certainly know of folks like that. And do we have any data for our children at this point? Just to clarify your question, I believe you’re asking if we have data on how the Delta variant affects children.

1:57:07 No, at this point in time, I’ve not seen any specific data that shows any long term. I don’t think the various has been around long enough for that type of information to be available. What I can tell you is that it’s certainly the information that is out there which says that children do transmit the Delta variant more readily than the other variants and, and that we can, we’ve seen that in our community over the summer.

1:57:45 Thank you. Is that all for you, Miss McDougall? Yeah, this time. Okay, Mister Susan.

1:57:56 Thank you. Got me? Yep. Thank you.

1:57:59 I wanted to say thank you for the individuals from the DOH coming over here. It means the world to us right now. We have multiple agencies saying multiple things and you guys are our closest lifeline to any piece that’s actually got some relevancy in the medical area.

1:58:15 So thank you so much for being here. I was going through a couple of these things and I’m trying to follow up here. On July 21, the CDC division of laboratory Services sent out a memo saying that lab PCR tests couldn’t test the difference between Covid and influenza.

1:58:36 That being one of the largest pcr tests that we’ve seen. Are you guys aware with that? And is that a possibility that we may be seeing influenza cases marked as Covid cases. The PCR looks at the rna of the virus.

1:58:55 The RNA of the influenza and the COVID virus are very different, so it’s very specific. I’m not sure how they can mix the two up when they’re looking at it in the lab. So you guys haven’t seen that memo? No, I apologize.

1:59:19 It’s literally the CDC. I thought that it was. It’s a PCR.

1:59:25 It came to me from our actual docs, from the ICU, showing me that, hey, this might be something you guys want to look at. And it indicates that the influenza rates may have been decreased and Covid rates may have been increased because of the fact that it couldn’t determine the two. But anyways, if we didn’t, we didn’t.

1:59:43 But let me ask you this. Have the influenza rates dropped since COVID has started to a different level than what they were previous, are we seeing less influenza rates than we were? And is it a significantly less like. Can you speak to those statistics by any chance? A little, yes.

2:00:02 So influenza is seasonal, and each season we have different rates. You know, it’s very, again, very depending on which, again, variant of influenza is here. We did see a decrease in influenza over this season.

2:00:20 We often. Our season often follows the season in the southern hemisphere. They saw a decrease in influenza there and we saw a decrease in influenza here.

2:00:33 One of the thought processes was that the masking of the community decreased influenza in our community. It also resulted in a decrease in rsv in our community. And what we have seen is an unusual seasonal increase in rsv as we have seen the masking taking off.

2:00:54 Okay, thank you. You’re welcome. All right, so if we can run through a couple of statistics real quick.

2:01:02 Currently, under the current guidelines, in the last two weeks, how many individuals under the age of twelve in Brevard have gone into the icus, have been admitted into icus? We don’t really have that data. No, no, no. I mean, I checked in with the hospitals.

2:01:24 I thought that they reported that data, and I apologize. I didn’t know that they didn’t report the icus. And since the end of the emergency, public health emergency, from the end of the governor’s emergency, those.

2:01:38 That information hasn’t been reported. Okay. Because the conversations that I’ve had.

2:01:44 So you guys don’t have any data on the ICU cases at all, whether they’re. Whether they’re median ages or age groups or anything? Because they’re not being reported? We do speak with the hospitals right now on a daily basis that’s where I got my information about the average hospitalization being 50 to 60. We don’t go into detailed age ranges.

2:02:09 I know they indicated that there were some children seen, infants. I don’t know. There was a couple that went NICU because the pregnancies, when I was speaking to them, that did.

2:02:22 But I was more focused on the children that might be between the ages of four and twelve, which is our truly grouping that we don’t have, we cannot vaccinate. So I was trying to look for guidance as to we may be seeing increases in numbers. We may be seeing all of those things where my concern was hospitalizations and ICU cases.

2:02:41 So if we can speak to that. Do we have any statistical data showing cases between three and twelve or any of those grouping ages for hospitalizations at least? We do not. Okay, but the hospitals have been.

2:03:00 They have that data, correct, because they’ve been speaking to you on that. And, I mean, they have. Yeah, I’m sure the hospitals do.

2:03:06 Okay, so we don’t get that detailed in our. No, I understand. I understand.

2:03:10 I thought that they might. I apologize, Doctor Mullins. They have that.

2:03:14 So if we can get those statistics from our hospitals, they probably be more than willing to give us what their numbers are over the last month. And I think, truly, when we look at those numbers is where. When I’m concerned about the increases and everything else is the health of the individuals.

2:03:32 And in that area is where it makes my decisions to do things. And from what they have been saying, and this is what was as of about three days ago, is that 95% of the people that were inside there that had gotten the COVID were unvaccinated inside the ICUs, the ones that were vaccinated, the other 5%, 100% of them were ones with underlying conditions. So when I was looking at the numbers, and this is not, again, this is me saying this, and this is not verified, because I was hoping.

2:04:03 I thought the health department had it. There were nobody that did, wasn’t vaccinated that didn’t have underlying conditions heading into the ICU. And as of them, as of two days ago, they had said that no child under the age of twelve, between the ages of three and twelve had gone in there.

2:04:20 And that was health firsthand steward. So, like, when I was looking at making decisions, I was, okay, you know, those were some of the things I was looking at and I wanted to make them available to you. But obviously, we have to go further and request that patenthood.

2:04:33 Can I just jump in for a minute to talk about that. I know that Doctor Mullins and I was at a coco commission meeting on Tuesday, I think it was, and the president of Stuart, the hospital in Rockledge, was there, and he said that his ICU is filling up. And exactly what you were saying is, for people, 99% are unvaccinated people.

2:04:57 So I wanted to. Hedgesthe just shared that with us two days ago. Yeah, I wanted to share that.

2:05:05 So it’s similar data. We’re looking at it. So now.

2:05:08 Thank you for that. I wanted to ask, so we don’t have hospitalization data. We don’t have ICU data.

2:05:15 We only have the numbers that are actually positive and negative. And that’s based on 100,000, which was good. But we don’t know if that could be, according to the laboratory services, possibly of change because of the testing for that PCR.

2:05:30 All right, if I can run through Doctor Mullins, the vaccinated and unvaccinated. I just got a text from somebody that was showing me that there’s some quarantining times that have been kind of sent out to some of the people, a memo coming out of one of our high schools. So I was just going to walk through these quarantine times, if we can, because I think there might be some confusion on athletics and all those pieces.

2:05:56 If I can walk through it. So, Miss Moore, if you can come down and answer any of these questions, I think it’s important we clarify the hospitalization piece. What’s that? Can I clarify something? I won’t.

2:06:06 And thank you. Thank you, Miss Moore. Yeah, you bet.

2:06:23 So for students that are 13 to 18 that can be vaccinated. Right. If we can just walk through this process.

2:06:30 So I am a vaccinated individual that is sitting right next to, in a classroom, a student who tests positive for Covid or shows the symptoms, what happens to that vaccine person if they are within the last 90 days, vaccinated, like you had mentioned? Can you walk me through what that quarantine testing, that quarantine procedure is? So the 90 days and the vaccines are two separate things. Okay. So if a student is vaccinated and they are, contact a case of school as soon as we are notified and verify the vaccine, that student can return to school.

2:06:53 Okay. So if they. If they ever leave.

2:07:06 Okay, perfect. So if I am a student playing athletics, right, and I have the vaccine and somebody. Same procedure, no different.

2:07:19 Okay. Correct. Okay.

2:07:30 So I am a non vaccinated student. Okay. And I. And this person tests positive, I go out and test negative for there’s no time period.

2:07:43 How long is this student out for? Sure. So as a contact decay school, as the flowcharts are currently written. And of course, I believe you guys have a copy of a draft of those that we sent.

2:08:03 A student would be quarantined for ten days on day six. And I don’t have the flow charts in front of me, so please forgive me if I tell you I get a day off, but my partners at the DOH will correct me on day six. After exposure, if they test negative, they can return to school on day eight.

2:08:15 However, they can’t participate in athletics until the 14 day period is up. That’s the one that I’m getting caught on. Can you explain that piece to me? I can have the DOH explain that piece to you.

2:08:22 Sure, you bet. Sorry. And Miss Moore, I appreciate you saying that we got those Covid numbers.

2:08:31 It’s just that the public didn’t get those. And I wanted to walk through those scenarios because I have some individuals that are asking in this space those same questions. Sure.

2:08:41 And the reason the public doesn’t have them yet is they’re in draft form. And the last thing we want to do is put out information to our public that we’re not ready to say. This is the way it’s definitely going to be.

2:08:56 So we’re still meeting with administrators, we’re meeting with the DOH. We’re making sure that information is correct and tight. And as you guys are all aware of, as I’m sure the public is aware, information changes quickly as it relates to Covid.

2:09:08 So we’re going to publish those as soon as we are. We’re sure that they’re ready to go. And Miss Moore, we can, as a school board, make the decision to change any of those quarantining ways if we choose.

2:09:12 Also, when your process that you were going through, as far as explaining. We’re going to. We’re going to.

2:09:15 We’re going to. We’re going to work with all those people. We’re part of that process.

2:09:18 Process, too. So I just wanted to add that. I know you know that, so I wanted to add that.

2:09:23 So thank you. So somebody’s going to tell me the difference between the athletic. Yes, thank you.

2:09:47 So really, it’s the CDC guidance for quarantining. And it relates both to the testing on day six, which shortens a quarantine to return or out of quarantine on day eight. Or you cannot do the testing and you can return on day eleven, essentially.

2:10:14 So ten day quarantine, day eleven, CDC recommends that you can shorten it as long as for the continuation of those days. Up to day 14, you continue the mitigation strategies that they recommend. And they are to wear a mask, they are to 6ft distance, they are to stay out of large crowds, etcetera.

2:10:50 So the thought process is that playing sport, one cannot. 6ft distance, it is also difficult to play sport with a mask. And so allowing the student to go back to school, education being the priority, that we would try and agree with that type of mitigation, that they can return to school but not to sport until the end of the true quarantine, which is 14 days.

2:10:54 Okay, thank you so much. And that’s the recommendation of you guys. I would like to try to recommend that if an individual tests negative on day six, that they can continue their athletics and their studies.

2:11:21 I would like to try to do that. Can I make a comment on testing? So you can test negative on day six, but that doesn’t mean that you’re not going to be symptomatic and positive on day seven, eight, nine or ten or eleven or twelve. No, you are 100% right.

2:11:25 It incubates. It does all those things. I 100% guarantee.

2:11:31 But I would like to see what the appetite. I would like to see what the appetite of this board is. I’d like to make a.

2:11:47 I won’t do that just yet. I want to see if anybody in here would like to reduce the amount of quarantining for athletics and activities and everything else from the 14 or eleven days down to the six. And I’ll tell you why.

2:12:14 These students, when they are gone in athletics or activities, two weeks can determine the kid’s life and being the fact I went back and I was doing this with, with my old coach today, and I said, I think this is where I’m going to have an issue and where I’m going to dig in a little bit. I said there were three games that I was in high school that defined my career as an individual. And I can remember those vividly today.

2:12:24 And if I would have missed one of those games just because of a CDC recommendation, that kind of doesn’t follow the same one as being inside the school. I think that it just doesn’t. It doesn’t kind of doesn’t kind of fit.

2:12:35 So I’d like to make the recommendation. I’d actually like to make a motion to reduce it down to the other one. And I’d like to see what you guys think.

2:12:51 So first I’m going to remind the audience again, please let us get through what we need to get through tonight. Mister Susan, the. We haven’t all had an opportunity to ask our questions, get clarifications.

2:13:02 You want me to wait until I’m done to make that motion? Are you okay with that? Sure. Just so we can make sure we have all of the information. I’ll withdraw that and I will circle back to you at the end of our discussion on this topic.

2:13:09 Okay. Okay. Misty.

2:13:16 So I have some more. Misty? Yes, Miss Jenkin? I know you haven’t gone and I don’t want to jump from you. I just want to ask you.

2:13:25 The things that I want to say are stemming from what other people. I’m sorry, I can’t control my microphone. Sorry.

2:13:29 Okay. The things that I want to ask and say are stemming from what? The discussion that has happened. Do you want me to wait until you’re finished? That would be awesome.

2:13:40 Just in case they are addressed already? Yeah. Yep. Thank you.

2:14:15 Okay, so in some of the things it says that items under still under consideration, educational services for quarantine students. We talk in there about. We are.

2:14:33 I just want to verify, as you have said over and over again, that there are no e learning options that are going to be forced upon our teachers at all. That is correct. The only reason we were able to offer or provide elearning last school year is because the Florida Department of Education, within their emergency, their emergency order, made provision for that and we had to submit a plan for approval to the DOE before we could implement elearning.

2:15:02 They have neither provided the emergency order to extend elearning for this school year, nor provided any provision for a plan to be approved. So there is no provision from the Department of Education to provide e learning and as such, we will not have teachers providing an e learning platform. Okay.

2:15:06 And then just wanted to make sure that that was resounded and thank you for doing that, even though it was redundant. Doctor Mullen’s case reporting and dashboard management, we kind of touched on it, but can you get a little bit in depth on that? Like, what are we looking at for that? What are your thoughts on that? Are we going to do the daily? Because I saw the report that goes to the DOH that they post where all the schools in the state are inside of there with their rates and everything else. Well, I can’t speak to what the DOH is going to be reporting.

2:15:21 That’s. That’s their own process. Our process was.

2:15:47 We managed the COVID data dashboard on our website. It was updated on Tuesday and Friday of each week. That was inclusive of positive cases in schools who had positive cases from the previous, since the previous reporting period.

2:15:50 So that same exact process will be continued starting August 2. Moving forward, we will be working in cooperation with the department of health because they will be the first point of contact for the contact tracing in cooperation and partnership with our schools who actually do the contact tracing like Miss Moore explained. And then they will provide us the data to report to our government community relations for the dashboard.

2:16:01 Perfect. Did that help? Absolutely. Thank you so much.

2:16:16 Quick question is, last year we had one of our schools that the COVID spread got so much it went into we shut it down and we had to go to elearning. Right. For a couple of days while we cleaned and everything else.

2:16:28 Do we have a mitigation strategy for doing that? Being the fact that we’re not going to be on e learning, is that going to be one of those where the teachers give out the homework like we did when I was in school, when the kids weren’t there, hurricanes, stuff like that? Again, we don’t have elearning. There’s no. We didn’t.

2:16:46 We were able to utilize elearning in cases where classes or in some cases a school had to close down. We simply shifted to 100% elearning. But we don’t have that availability now.

2:16:57 So we will have to work on a case by case basis to support students and manage that. And it’s just for the parents to know that in the event that a school closes down, it’s not that we’re going to start sending them information to say fire up your laptops and get all that stuff done. It’s going to be a different strategy.

2:17:03 Kind of like what we’ve done in the past where the teachers will give homework based on their as 400s or whatever and the students will be able to work on that and everything else. That’s all. I just wanted to make sure those were that guidance.

2:17:15 I’ve had some inquiries about that. I think that’s the best explanation we can provide right now. With that.

2:17:36 I think I’m good until we get back to that motion. Thank you Mister Susan. Doctor Mullins, I’ll start with a couple questions for you.

2:18:03 Just because we can get them out of the way and you don’t have to go back to the podium or any of that stuff. Last year we were able to work out some protections for our employees with regard to COVID leave, should they have an exposure, those sorts of things. Can you speak to what we’re doing for our employees? This year to provide some protections as well.

2:18:21 Yes. Doctor Thetti and her team have been working to work through the details of extending COVID leave again for our employees in the event that they test positive or are in a situation where they have to quarantine. And we are making accommodations in the cases that an employee can work from home or remote, in even in the cases of teachers making that provision possible.

2:18:44 Doctor Theti, did I capture that pretty correctly or do you want to clarify anything? You captured it accurately. Thank you. Thank you both, Doctor Thetian and Doctor Mullins, for that information.

2:19:03 Another question and something that I had mentioned to you, Doctor Mullins, and this one probably is more geared toward, I don’t know, whoever wants to take it. Our department of Health friends, Miss Moore. Miss Doctor Mullins, one of the things that in looking at all of the ways that we can mitigate risk in our schools was screening testing.

2:19:40 And there seems to be kind of two approaches to screening testing. There’s like screening on a regular time interval, either the entire school or a portion of a school. And then there’s also a district that is utilizing testing to offset quarantines.

2:19:50 Flagler County, I believe with their health department, has worked out a situation where they are doing rapid testing on students who are considered close contacts, and they’re actually doing the rapid testing every other day throughout the quarantine period. Do you all have a recommendation on the feasibility of screening testing for our students here in Brevard in either of those situations, just as general screening or as quarantine screening? Miss Belfer, I think misses Moore is going to come or Miss Moore is going to come forward. I was hoping the DOH would jump in.

2:20:19 I’m going to take a stab at it. We just got that information or that suggestion, I believe, yesterday, and we started conversation with the Department of Health about that. We.

2:20:40 Do you correct me, Department of Health, they do face a challenge because they do not have large testing standalone sites established right now. Those have been closed down, if you will, and all of those staff have been reallocated to providing vaccines. So, for example, the large testing location at eastern Florida State College, Palm Bay campus, that doesn’t, that is not functioning right now.

2:20:54 Individuals are taking advantage of pharmacies and their regular doctor’s office or walk into clinics for testing. So we started the conversation today. Feasibility, logistics is definitely a challenge, but I don’t know that we’ve concluded the conversation, but we just began it today.

2:21:07 But there are definitely some, some challenges. There is that. You are welcome to correct me if I misrepresented it.

2:21:23 I mean, we, we’re looking into some rapid testing, but there’s some questions that we’ve got for, for our legal folks that are still unanswered. Super. So then we’ll just kind of put that as one of those.

2:22:00 We’ll have a follow up on that at some later time. Okay, super. And while we’re at it, and speaking to some extent to Mister Susans concern about, there was also some recommendation, I believe.

2:23:04 Correct me if I’m wrong, I think it came from CDC guidelines. But recommending specifically, even if we couldn’t manage to do screening for all of our schools on a regular basis, could we potentially screen our athletes on a regular basis to cut down on potential exposure there? So, not expecting an answer now, but just as we’re looking at our opportunities, if we could just have that consideration as well, I would appreciate it. So I believe it was Miss Campbell earlier that brought up the exception to close contact.

2:23:20 And Miss Moore, I know you and I spoke to this yesterday, but if our health department friends could just clarify for me, it sounded like when Miss Campbell asked, is there anything from keeping us from taking advantage of this, that it wasn’t just the lack of a universal masking policy that would keep you all from recommending that exception. Is that correct? Or maybe the easier way I should ask it is, if we had a universal masking policy, would we no longer have to quarantine students? Well, again, that’s a CDC recommendation, and as your infrastructure stands now, it doesn’t meet that criteria. So just for clarification, even if we had a universal masking policy, our physical infrastructure would prohibit us from taking advantage of the exception, is that correct? John? Again, ideally, you would have the masking policy in place, which is obviously not the case.

2:23:24 You would need at least 3ft distance in your facilities. So again, that’s their recommendation. They’re comfortable putting that out if those measures can be met.

2:23:56 So I’m not sure. We don’t determine that. Right.

2:24:14 Right. So if, and I’m not trying to put you on the spot, I just want to make sure I understand your recommendation. And I’m not asking you to weigh in on universal mask or non universal mask, but if we had universal masking in our schools and we had students separated by 3ft, does that meet the criteria for us to take advantage of the exception, according to your perspective of our district? And the reason I’m asking is because there was also one other element there of ventilation.

2:24:22 Right? It wasn’t just 3ft unmasks so I just want to make sure that we understand all of the things that we would have to do to be able to get to that opportunity. Do not have to quarantine students in the classroom. That’s the way it reads.

2:24:34 Again, that’s not coming from us and we’re not going to make that determination. Okay, super. Thank you.

2:25:14 One of the things that was mentioned earlier was with an increased viral load, you get an increased transmission, and I know that. Or increased. Yeah, transmission, I guess.

2:25:35 I know that you all don’t have very specific information about hospitalizations, but one of the things that I have heard both from Maria and Patty at the health department, as well as several of the medical professionals in our community, is one of the things that we seem to be seeing with this delta variant is that people are getting sicker faster, which I think is one of the things that you all mentioned, and that it is progressing much more quickly. So we are seeing people end up in the hospital at a higher rate than we did previously, at an earlier point in the infection. Is that something that you all have heard? That’s correct, and that’s what we’re seeing.

2:25:53 And the other thing that I have heard, if you can clarify or dispel, is that many of the people who are ending up in the hospital are like closer to forties than the upper numbers that we were seeing. Right. With earlier variants.

2:26:14 It’s the reason that we’re not seeing the older age group in the hospitalizations is because they’re vaccinated. So yes, there are the older group being hospitalized, some of the. But typically it’s the unvaccinated.

2:26:24 And because we have a higher level of vaccination in that age group, then it’s going to decrease the hospitalizations of that age group. The amount of vaccinations that we have in the 65 and younger is lower and we’re seeing. So the burden of hospitalizations is a little higher in the age group.

2:26:38 So it really reflects those who are vaccinated and the percentages of vaccination in those age groups. Super. Thank you.

2:26:53 And I want to touch just a minute on the pediatric aspect. Mister Susan mentioned that he had heard that there were no children under the age of twelve in ICU in Brevard county from the medical professionals. I’m sorry, three to twelve.

2:27:19 Three to twelve for Covid. But do we have a pediatric ICU in Brevard county? No. Yeah.

2:27:42 So would we see, even in our reporting, would we see pediatric hospitalizations for Brevard county? We would. In that, yes. Because the report on a child or anyone who is resident in Brevard county, whether they’re hospitalized elsewhere, the statistic goes to the county of residence.

2:28:04 And so are we. The other thing that I’m hearing from medical professionals is that, as mister or Susan referenced, we’re not tending to see a significant spike in pediatric hospitalizations, but we are seeing a significant indication of spread among pediatric populations that we did not see with the earlier variant. Is that accurate? That’s accurate.

2:28:20 That’s accurate. And so let’s figure out how to ask this. Should we be encouraged by the fact that we’re not seeing hospitalizations? Or is it a too early in pediatrics specifically? Or is it too early for us to really know the impact in pediatrics? Because we didn’t necessarily.

2:28:38 We’re seeing things differently than we did earlier on in the pandemic, right? Yes. So hard to say. But we’re certainly seeing more pediatric cases.

2:28:42 We’re not seeing the hospitalizations. We are seeing the transmissions and the outbreaks within that age group. It’s difficult to say what will be in the future, but I can only speak to today.

2:29:15 I appreciate that. Thank you. I don’t have any magic eight ball either.

2:29:23 So with regard to the pediatrics, are we also seeing that pediatric patients are in. Our contact tracing are spreading the virus to adults at a much more significant rate than we saw with the earlier variants we’re seeing, the transmission in pediatrics has increased to what it was in the previous. And we are seeing transmission from the child to the parent at home.

2:29:38 Yes. Okay, super. Thank you.

2:29:44 I believe that is all of the questions that I have for you right now. So I will circle back and see if any other board members have additional questions for the health department at this point in time. Miss Jenkins, was there anything I did not cover that you wanted to get to? Yeah, thanks.

2:30:08 Go ahead. Thank you. So.

2:30:15 Well, first and foremost, Mister Susan, that memo that you said was sent to you, just a quick Google tells me that that is a social media viral post that is misrepresenting the CDC announcement of the Covid-19 PCR test. Audience members, I’m going to ask you again, please stop interrupting the business of the board. So if I can respond to.

2:30:19 Please stop interrupting. I’m not accusing you of doing anything wrong. You said you should be ashamed of yourself.

2:38:02 Breathe the nuremberg. Stop. If you guys would please escort him out.

2:38:12 And we are going to take a brief recess. Sadeena Khdem. Sadeena.

2:38:19 Sadeena. Sadeena. Sadeena.

2:39:36 All right, we are back in session. And Mister Susan, I think you have requested to respond to the memo that. Miss Jenkins.

2:39:49 Absolutely. Thank you for the time. I just want to let you know, it is not from a social media, viral whatever it is.

2:39:53 It’s literally the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC dot gov, and anybody that goes ahead and types in Labalert changes to CDC RT PCR four SARS Covid two testing will find out and go to their website on their site, and it reads, in preparation for this change, the CDC recommends clinical laboratories and testing sites that have been using the COVID or the CDC 2019 Cov RT PCR assay select and begin their transition to another FDA authorized COVID test. CDC encourages laboratories to consider adoption of a multiplexed method that can facilitate the detection and differentiation of SARS, CoV two and influenza viruses, which in that statement from their site says that that test has difficulty doing that. I had every right to ask the Department of Health for their opinion on what was on the CDC’s website.

2:40:06 Being the fact that every single one of our recommendations comes from the CDC site. I wanted to make that clarification. I texted it to you, Miss Jenkins, so that you can verify and then also look at it to verify that it comes from the CDC website.

2:40:19 Can you please do that? It’s on your cell phone, so I’m not. I just want that part cleared. It’s not that I look on social media websites.

2:40:22 So Mister Susan, from that site. Hold on. That’s it.

2:40:30 So thank you, Mister Susan. So I believe that the Department of Health is requesting to address the memo as well. Is that correct that I’m hearing from? I would love that.

2:40:38 But can I get clarification that it was not from a wild sight in that. So, Mister Susan, I would have loved to give you that clarification if you had submitted that to us before bringing it up here at the board. You just.

2:40:56 I would like. Miss. Hang on.

2:41:06 Can I please have Miss Campbell? And secondly, days ago, Miss Jenkins and Mister Susan. Stop. No, hold on a second.

2:41:17 Okay, I know, I want to clarify. I’m not accusing you of anything. What’s going on? This needs to stop because we’re interrupting each other.

2:41:31 If you all want to have the mic and want to have discussion, then you are absolutely welcome to do so, but speaking over each other is not getting us anywhere. Thank you, madam chair. So I will be happy to recognize you all to respond as long as we were doing so respectfully and not interrupting and speaking over each other.

2:41:37 Okay. I believe I had the mic before we went to recess. I don’t think we are reverting to recess, but I will be happy to come back to you, Miss Jenkins, momentarily.

2:42:18 Our friends from the Department of Health, I would like to give you your evening back. Would you like to respond or clarify the memo in any way, shape or form? Yes. I’m sorry.

2:42:41 When you asked the question previously, I didn’t understand your question. Audience members, I have seen that a seat report. It is actually a laboratory alert.

2:42:57 So it’s basically out there for labs. Okay. Professional labs.

2:43:11 And what it’s saying is that at this point in time, the PCR testing that has been done within the laboratories was done under an EUA agreement, and that those EUA agreements are going to be going away and they have to be using FDA approved. Also, when it talks about the influenza and the COVID testing, one of the things that they’re wanting to promote is the multi testing. So when your child goes to a pediatrician, they can do one swab, and on that swab they can do a PCR testing, and they will test multiple diseases.

2:43:30 So it’ll be a Covid, influenza, RSV, and several other diseases all at one time. So I’m a little confused about the question that you had asked me in the way that I interpreted the lab alert. Thank you so very much for that clarification.

2:43:34 We appreciate it. You want me to just follow up? What are you wanting to follow up with? She said, I didn’t understand your question, and I wanted to say thank you for getting where you were. Where I originally was.

2:43:44 I was trying to just get down to the bottom of one of the memos that was sent to me from an ICU doctor, one of the largest ICU docs in the entire, that he runs the ICU in the state of Florida. And I did send it to you via text, and Miss Campbell just verified it. I’ll ask her to do that in a second.

2:43:54 But that’s all I was asking, that in the event that it couldn’t determine the two, they were asking for a separate one, and I didn’t know if you could get to that. And I read that to believe that that test did not determine between the two. And so in the event that we needed to change, could it be.

2:44:09 And that’s why I was asking about the employment. Yeah, it was all I was asking. Yeah, I didn’t.

2:44:18 Sorry, when you were asking that question, I had read that article, but I hadn’t read that, that in the article. So I didn’t understand. Sure.

2:44:35 No, that was all. And that’s why I was just trying to get down to the bottom of it. If those influenza, that’s one of the biggest topics that we have here, is that the influenza rates are lower than they should be and it could be Covid.

2:44:41 And I wanted clarification because you guys are the people that are in charge. So I just. As far as the CDC and Doh, and as I said previously too, you know, we have seen not just influenza decrease, we’ve seen multiple diseases decrease.

2:44:49 And that was because we were socially distancing. We were staying inside, we weren’t going out to restaurants. We were wearing masks.

2:44:53 So all those things that we put in place not only helped us with COVID it helped us with multiple diseases. And you can see that in the disease reporting that we’ve received throughout the state of Florida and throughout the United States. So these mitigations do work.

2:45:02 They work not only for Covid, but they work for multiple diseases. Thank you for that. You’re welcome.

2:45:09 Thank you, mister Susan. Miss Campbell already verified that we received that. Thank you.

2:45:27 If you want to finish. Did you want to respond? Yeah, I do. Okay.

2:45:35 I’ve been asking website and I gave it to you guys. Great. Okay, well, is it my turn now? Okay, so I’m gonna restate what I said.

2:45:44 Okay. Okay. I said, viral posts misrepresent CDC announcement on Covid-19 PCR test.

2:46:02 Here was my concern about the statement you previously had made and you had asked them. It sounded as if there was an issue with the PCR test that would have false positives for Covid because they might have been influenza. So my question to the DoH is, is that what that memo is telling us? No.

2:46:15 No. Thank you. Okay, so I. Hold on, I have the microphone.

2:46:29 I’m not attacking you. The sounds of the room might make it feel that way, but that is literally what I read off of my screen. And that is how I interpreted, interpreted what was asked.

2:46:58 And I want to make that clear that the change in that lab doesn’t mean that those numbers are inaccurate prior to July 21. And I think that’s really important to re articulate to the people who are listening. We have a lot of questions about hospitalizations.

2:47:06 And as much as I care about that, and I care about the numbers increasing, I’m glad we don’t have children in ICU, and I’m glad we don’t have them hospitalized. But we all know that they can still spread it. The rest of the community, and to their families.

2:47:18 And you guys had already given us some information about how our hospitalizations are rapidly increasing. So I think that’s really important to bring up. Again, I do have a question for.

2:47:45 I believe it would be for Chris Moore. You might not want to get up yet, because maybe it’s not for you, but when we’re talking about sports, I would love for somebody to please come up and tell me how many athletes were quarantined, how many had cases, how many games were canceled this school year due to Covid. So I apologize to the board.

2:47:50 We do have that information. Doctor Ramjit did keep that information. I can have that collated into you by Monday, and I appreciate it.

2:48:27 I didn’t expect you to have it. I know it was just the conversation that came up from my memory. I’m not quoting this by any means, but I feel like when we were given the amount of activities that were canceled, it was around 200.

2:48:45 But I would love to come back to that number and talk about that. I do have a question for the DOH, and I’ve asked this in the past, but forgive me, I don’t even know if you are the same people who had answered me last time. Have you seen any negative patient outcomes with children wearing masks? No.

2:48:57 Thank you. So, I have one last question, and I think that you. Oh, I’m sorry.

2:49:05 Reflect to the American Academy association of Physicians and what they state on their website. I have one question, and I have a funny feeling you’re not gonna answer this one for me, but I’m going to ask it anyway. So, if I am a teacher in a room with at least 30 students, given a pretty standard class size, would you recommend that I be in that room with those 30 students without any of us wearing masks? Currently, no.

2:49:22 Again, thank you. You know, we’re not here to dictate what the policy of the school should be. Okay? But at the same time, I think common sense measures, or common sense for a reason.

2:49:27 I’m going to ask our audience again to please keep the chatter down so that we can hear each other and we can hear our friends from the department of health, and we can get through this and move on to our other points. Okay, mister. Miss Jenkins, are you done? Yes, I am.

2:49:38 Thank you. Okay, Mister Susan. So I had one follow up with the CDC, and then I did want to say, Miss Jenkins, my follow up question.

2:49:49 And I’m sorry, madam chair, that I had jumped in there. That was inappropriate. Miss Jenkins, if you can just verify that for me and for everybody that’s here, that the accusation that this was not a CDC website memo was not part of that, like you accused me of.

2:50:05 And then also, can you verify that? I sent it days ago. That’s all. That’s all.

2:50:13 I just want to know. Miss Jenkins, would you like to respond to Mister Susan? Yes. So I did not say that it was not a CDC memo.

2:50:24 I read. I read. If I did, I’m sorry for that, but I read specifically viral posts misrepresent CDC announcement, which in and of itself says there was a CDC announcement.

2:50:33 Right. And I am concerned about how the question was asked and how it wasn’t yet answered by the DoH that would lead the public to believe that these tests were not accurate and they were falsely claiming people had Covid. That is not.

2:50:42 That is not helpful to spread to our community. And I felt like it needed to be clarified. Can I verify that you sent me an email? I cannot do that.

2:50:47 I’m being honest with you, because we’ve had hundreds of emails. I also had a really wonderful state representative put out my personal cell phone that has been bombarding me constantly. So, no, I can’t.

2:50:51 But did you just text it and I just read it? Absolutely. And I’m not saying you may not have emailed it, but I have not seen it. No, I apologize.

2:51:21 It was. I said it again. It was a text that I sent to all of us a couple days ago prior to your cell phone being sent out.

2:51:23 And I just wanted verification that you had received it. I didn’t know if. You know, it’s good.

2:51:33 We’re good. I’m okay. Last question.

2:51:36 So there was some clarification coming to me from different people saying that quarantined individuals at the rate of actual Covid positives was extremely low. Is there a. Can you speak to that? And from the medical groups that we were working with had said that the number was less than 1% of individuals that are quarantined later turn into half.

2:51:39 Covid. That was all. I just.

2:51:42 That was the statement made. I’m just looking for verification if we have statistics on individuals that were quarantined, if they turned positive. I didn’t know if that was available or not.

2:51:52 No, I’m sorry. Okay. We don’t keep that to type of statistic.

2:51:56 Okay. No, no, no, it’s not. It’s just a question.

2:52:09 Thank you. It was one of those, and I forgot to ask it. Okay.

2:52:31 We don’t keep the statistic, nor do we, you know, in the general public follow up with every quarantine person to be able to do that. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

2:52:34 That’s it. I have no more questions for dealing. Thank you, Mister Susan.

2:52:54 All right, I’m going to ask for one last. One last round just to make sure before we thank our friends from the department of Health for joining us this evening. Because I’m sure that with everything that we’re dealing with in our community, they are ready to go.

2:53:02 So, is there any board member that has any additional questions for the Department of Health? All right, thank you all so very much for always making time in your schedule to come and join us and help us to better understand the challenges that we’re facing in our community. Like I said, I know you all have been running ragged and pulling your hair out. So the fact that you have taken time to come and be here tonight, we appreciate and thank you so much.

2:53:21 I hope you get some rest this evening. Thank you. No problem.

2:53:30 Thank you. Thank you. All right, so, Mister Susan, before we move from the discussion of mitigation strategies, you had made a request to reconsider the quarantine.

2:53:45 Mister Gibbs wanted to interject into that. Yes. So, Mister Gibbs, if he would like to weigh in on that.

2:53:52 Yes, I was just going to advise the board. There was nothing on the agenda regarding a vote on mitigation strategies for tonight. And I confirmed with Pam even the mitigation strategies portion of the agenda for the superintendent’s report was not added until Monday or Tuesday of this week.

2:53:58 Reasonable notice is defined and held up by courts to be seven days. Florida statute says seven days for agenda notice. Board policy says seven days for agenda notice.

2:54:02 Without good cause. It would be my recommendation to move any vote to the 10th. So, Mister Susan, given that guidance from the general counsel, are you comfortable postponing that? Are you still pushing for a motion this evening? No, I want to push.

2:54:28 You’re pushing for a motion this evening? All right, so, mister. And I’ll explain why. And Paul, thank you.

2:54:40 This is nothing against you. You can do this. You got me muted and I’ll explain why.

2:55:00 Paul, great point. Right? We’re not on the agenda. It’s inside one of the presentations.

2:55:18 But it came in late, whatever it is. Look, when I used to write laws in the state of Florida for Greenberg Troreg, we used to do them based upon the fact that when we did a law, if we wanted to amend that law, we had to do it with subject area inside of it. Okay, I would make the same argument here today that in the event that we were discussing something on record that was in here and it says, literally things to be considered.

2:55:23 Our general public has to make decisions on what they’re going to do. And we don’t have but a couple of weeks before school starts. So with that, I might be wrong, but I want to try to make the motion.

2:55:48 And if my board doesn’t support it, that’s okay. We can bring it back on the 10th. But I would like to make a motion to reduce the amount of days, no past six, if there were no symptoms on the quarantine for individuals that were not vaccinated from the ages of 13 to eight on to 20.

2:55:57 All right, so I have a motion on the floor. Is there a second on that motion? I wouldn’t mind giving a second, but. I wouldn’t mind giving a second, but we also would not be able to take any kind of a vote unless we’ve had public comment on that, which means we wouldn’t be able to take that vote, just FYI, until the very end of the meeting.

2:56:06 And I don’t feel comfortable. I wouldn’t want. I wouldn’t want us to.

2:56:40 Actually, I don’t want us to vote on it tonight because I feel like we need to follow the protocol that our council has given us if we need to take a second and table until such a time as we can be noticed. Paul, can you give us some more? Mister Gibbs, can you give us some more guidance on that? I would just recommend that any motion get moved to the 10th and it can be put on there as an item for the board to vote on. Do we need a second to do that? It can be put on the.

2:56:47 Yeah, the board can move to put it on the fence. If there’s no second, then it dies. And then I’ll make another motion right after.

2:57:08 So, Miss Campbell, clarifying, you are not seconding the motion from Mister Susan. Do I have any other second on Mister Susan’s motion hearing? No second. The motion dies.

2:57:10 Mister Gibbs, your direction on how to move forward so Mister Susan can achieve what he’s trying to achieve is for him to go ahead and put in a request for that to be put on the August 10 agenda. Yes. So, Mister Susan, are you formally requesting that we put on a vote to modify the athletic quarantine period for the August 10 agenda and not just athletics, because you want to talk about singing and everything else, all schools, all activities past the six days? No, we don’t need a workshop on it.

2:57:16 And I. And I have the mic, technically, so don’t. Please don’t interrupt me. The thing is, is that here’s here’s the.

2:57:19 Here’s the bottom line. I would like to make a motion that we table the motion until the second meeting that anybody who is between the ages of 13 and 18 or 13 and 20 that actually are quarantined can return within the six day period if they show no symptoms and can show a test. Eight.

2:57:24 Eight. It’s eight. I thought she said six.

2:57:29 I wrote down six. And then you can come back on eight. Okay, whatever.

2:57:32 Eight days. It’ll be better. Don’t interrupt him.

2:57:47 So, Mister Gibbs, Miss Jenkins, please. Nope. You could say it to him, too.

2:57:59 I’m saying it to all of you. It’s exhausting this evening. That’s it.

2:58:11 You guys get it, bring it back. We’ll vote for it. Put it on the agenda.

2:58:34 Let’s go. Do we have sufficient what we need to have at this point to move forward on this issue? I think. Pam, do you know what they’re asking to be placed on the agenda? You know what? We don’t have to notice it for a while, so I’ll just tell you afterwards and we can put it on there.

2:58:36 How’s that to clarify for clarification, since I can’t do it today. Okay. Are you good with that, Miss Esquire? Okay, super.

2:58:41 All right, that is going to move us into the console. Sent. Oh, wait, I’m sorry.

2:58:44 We are at public comment, and we do have one speaker who is supposedly speaking on an agenda item. Yes, ma’am. We didn’t vote on administrative stuff.

2:58:47 I thought we did. That was the opening vote. Yeah, we did.

2:59:04 And we approved the budget. Yes, we did. We did not approve the budget.

2:59:24 Approved the agenda. So. Agenda.

2:59:40 The agenda we approved. Yes. So, Miss Escobar.

2:59:45 We did. According to my notes, we took a voice vote on the adoption of the agenda and the administrative. Yes, and the administrative staff recommendations.

2:59:52 And I had both at a 50. Mister Susan and Miss McDougall motioning on the adoption of the agenda and Mister Susan and Miss Jenkins motioning on the administrative staff. You are most welcome.

2:59:58 All right, that is going to bring us two public comments. And we have one speaker who is signed up to speak to an agenda item this evening. That is going to be crystal Coates.

3:00:03 If you would please approach the microphone. We have a microphone in front of me. You have three minutes.

3:00:17 Keep it appropriate for kids. Crystal coats. She’s right there.

3:00:30 Are you speaking on. I have you down for mental health plan. Are you speaking on something else? Well, I had.

3:00:36 I had a couple different things that I wanted to address, but I was. I didn’t know it was going to make me special. I just had.

3:00:47 I thought I had to put what I wanted to talk about. So would you like to speak at the end with everyone else? Well, I’m here now, I suppose, if you want to hear me, if that’s okay. I’m with my daughter.

3:01:02 She wants to. She was going to speak, but then she decided not to, but she. Can you just get close to the mic for me so we can hear you? You can raise it or lower it, whatever you need to do.

3:01:12 Well, how about that? There we go. That’ll work. Yeah, that’s less embarrassing.

3:01:34 Oh, okay. My three minutes. So, firstly, I want to say thank you to Doctor Mullins for the mitigation strategy with the individual health plan.

3:02:21 There were a couple things that I wrote down that I thought were positives. So the individual health plan, I think, is good. And then for opening up for volunteers and field trips and getting as close to old normal as we can get, I suppose, for lack of a better term.

3:02:31 I’ve spoken at another meeting before. I’m very new to this process, so I’m trying to learn. So forgive me if I say anything silly.

3:02:45 This is the only platform that parents have to speak directly and be as involved in decision making for our kids as we can be. So it’s understandable that both sides of whatever we’re speaking about are going to be very passionate. And you guys are, for the most part, pretty patient with all of it, especially newbies like me.

3:02:55 I wanted to speak about the mental health plan because I actually wanted to see if there was a way to have access to that plan and if there was going to be access to it before the meeting, because it’s such a broad term, and as it was pointed out to me by a board member on Facebook last night, mental health and counselors and things of that nature don’t require parental consent, even though taking a picture of my kid at school requires parental consent. So I’m curious as to where exactly those monies are going to go to, because there was also an issue with some trainings that everybody here is pretty aware of that were I called mental health also. So I’d like to make sure that that’s accessible to parents and that plan is published.

3:03:11 I know you’re voting on the funding, but is that proposal available? I don’t even know if we can have this interaction. Okay. Nevermind.

3:03:17 The other thing I wanted to speak to was, of course, masking. I want to throw my name out there as being for masking, remaining optional again? If you want to mask your child, you have the option to. My child is here.

3:03:25 She’s going into third grade. She was forced to wear a mask in second grade, even though it was optional then. And we’re not doing masks again in our family anywhere.

3:03:29 So that’s that. What’s the other thing? I had another. Okay, I’m sorry.

3:03:35 There was another thing that I had. Oh, the equity. Just to bring up.

3:04:04 In case anybody didn’t know. Equity is not equality. Equity is guaranteed equal outcome, not equal opportunity.

3:04:08 We have always had. What we haven’t always had equality. But we’ve had it for a very long time.

3:04:18 So equal opportunity. It’s not the school’s responsibility to raise our kids. It’s ours.

3:04:28 Thank you, Crystal. Okay, that is going to move us into the consent agenda. And Mister Gibbs, once again, I believe I have to ask for your assistance in navigating sent agenda.

3:04:48 Oh, it’s not. It’s on the procurement section for action items. All right, never mind then.

3:05:08 Doctor Mullins. That is going to move us into the consent agenda. There are nine agenda items under this category.

3:05:10 Thank you, Doctor Mullins. Does any board member wish to pull any item? Hearing none. I’ll entertain a motion to accept the consent agenda as presented.

3:05:15 Move to approve second moved by Miss McDougall and seconded by Miss Campbell. Is there any discussion? All right, hearing none. Please vote.

3:05:26 Is it going back? Can you hang on? Refresh. I hit refresh, but I’ll do it again. Just a second.

3:06:02 Jennifer is here. It’s coming up. I’m showing you this.

3:06:30 I’m restarting it real quick. Okay. All right, so we’re going to go ahead and take a voice vote on this.

3:06:56 All in favor, please signify by saying aye. Any opposed? Same sign. The motion passes.

3:07:16 50. All right, we are now going to recess the school board meeting and open the tentative public hearing for the 2021 2022 proposed millage rates and tentative budget. Doctor Mullenhouse, Madam Chairman, and members of the board, Miss Cindy Laszynski, chief financial officer, will make a presentation on the proposed 2021 2022 millage levy and budget.

3:07:39 Misses Licinski. So. Good evening.

3:08:04 Good evening, madam chair, board members. Doctor Mullins, the purpose of this public hearing today is for the board to adopt the FY 22 proposed millage rates, as well as the FY 22 tentative budget. You will be approving the final millage rates and budget on September 14.

3:08:27 And then you can see here, this is the agenda. So the truth and millage legislation requirements are detailed under Florida statutes. Trim timelines are very prescriptive in law, and the clock started on July 1.

3:08:57 The total timeline to budget adoption is 80 days. The statute dictates the order of the business during the budget hearings, and trim requirements require two public hearings for open discussion of millage rates and proposed budgets. So you can see here that millage is a term that represents.

3:09:19 Actually, it’s just the tax rate on property or real estate. One mill is equivalent to $1 in taxes per thousand in taxable value. If your home has a taxable value of $100,000 and you’re assessed one mil tax rate, you will pay $100 in tax.

3:10:04 So the Florida Education Finance program is the centerpiece for financing Florida school District operating costs. Funding for FEFP combines state funds primarily generated from sales revenue and local funds generated from property taxes. The split is actually about 65 35.

3:10:16 So the local, the required local effort is that a local amount that we levy to get that 35%. So it’s key to understand that the Florida legislature sets the RLE, so you can’t move that rate up or down that’s set by the legislature. And the school board must levy that RLE or they will not receive that 65% of funding.

3:10:35 So in order to receive funding in Florida, you need to levy that amount of the RLE. And then you can see on this slide the required local effort for 21 22 is 3.602.

3:11:03 And the basic discretionary operating and the capital outlay, they are a fixed amount. The legislature sets the maximum, and that’s what we’ve done over the last twelve years. And so the total millage is 5.

3:11:25 850. And maintaining these millage rates at the same level as in the previous years will help us continue to serve every student with excellence. This slide just shows you the comparison of the total millage rate from this year and last year.

3:11:40 And you can see that there is a reduction of 0.092. So the actual millage rate this year is less than last year.

3:12:08 So you can see that the millage rate went down this year. Okay, so this slide shows you the historic millage rates. And you can see that the millage rates have declined every year since Fy twelve.

3:12:36 Why? Our property values increase in the county. You can also see that the capital outlay and the discretionary remained fixed. So trim requires that we compare the rollback rate to the proposed millage rate and the state.

3:12:56 So the state rolls back the rate as property values increase to bring the total dollars taxed, roughly equivalent to what you paid last year. So as values go up, the millage requirement goes down. And that’s about the same amount that you’ve been taxed the previous year.

3:13:32 When the rollback rate is less than the proposed millage rates, we must advertise a tax increase. And so for brevard public schools, the proposed millage rate is 2.16% higher than the rollback rate.

3:14:01 And so when that happens, then you have to put a notice in the paper, and that went out on July 24. And again, you can see that the proposed millage rate is higher than the rollback rate. And so the certified school property values, the tax roll, this is a really telling slide, and it’s very important because the.

3:14:55 The certified school property values is a large component of how education is funded in Florida. And you can see in Fy zero nine, it was the highest annual tax row prior to the great Recession. And then since 2013, you’ve seen that property values have continued to grow.

3:15:10 And, you know, I guess when you see 2021, the 48,000,000,000.8 number there, that is the number that we are assessing this year. The 21 22 is current projection for next year.

3:15:17 And what’s interesting is on March 23, the projection said that this number has doubled since March 23. So to me, it’s very startling that, you know, in a time of such economic uncertainty, that we increased $3 billion from 20 to 21. This is mainly due to the high demand for homes, driven by low interest rates and growth, new jobs.

3:15:47 And especially in the south, the 21 22 projected growth doubled, like I said before, in March. And this is an absolute good news story. It’s something that you wouldn’t have thought a year ago, that we would have increases this high in our property values.

3:16:28 So just to kind of break this out a little bit more for you, the retire, the required local effort, like we talked about, is required to levy in order to receive state funding. That total amount goes to the general fund, the operating funds, and that is 179 million. Then you take a look at the discretionary funds, the 748 mils, and that garners us 37.

3:16:42 2 million. And then the other thing that this garners is for the school districts. If the average FTE, when a school district levies the full amount, and if the average FTE, which is a full time equivalent for students, is less than the state average, then you get a.

3:17:05 A state compression supplement, and we will receive that because we were below the state average. And so the state will also provide $7 million to the. To our budget.

3:17:49 And then this last one is the cap, the local capital improvement. And that’s 1.5 mils.

3:18:18 And you can see here that that generates 74 million. We have to take 37 million off the top. For debt service, we also transfer 10.

3:18:50 3 million in maintenance labor. For facilities, it also covers our property insurance, and it leaves the capital needs at 21 million. Now, that’s about 2 million higher than it was when we had the capital workshop.

3:19:08 And so we’re going to reconvene our committee, take a look at the, the unfunded list that we had that we said we’d buy these down if more money came in, but we’re going to relook, make sure if we see if we can fund different things in different ways, if it’s still a requirement, and also if there’s any emergent requirements, that may be more important. So we’re going to take a look at that, and then we’ll bring it back at the next budget workshop for approval. So how are school taxes calculated? So there’s the assessed value at $100,000.

3:19:17 And if you have the homestead exemption of $25,000, the taxable value would be 75,000. You divide that by 1000, you multiply it by the millage rate. And then.

3:19:39 So for assessed value, home of $100,000, the school property tax would be 438. And this kind of brings out a little bit more. This slide illustrates the changes in a school related property taxes for a home over a homeowner over several years.

3:20:08 And you can see in this example in 2016, the property taxes or $1,210, and then as long as they qualify for save our homes as we go on, we see in 2021 that their tax, the amount that they are taxed is 1000, 142, and that is actually $0.09 more than they were taxed last year. So altogether, over 16 to 2021, the change has been $67 that they paid less.

3:20:46 So that’s kind of interesting to me that. But again, that’s more because of the, as the values go up, we bring down the, or the state brings down the millage rate. And so what does this mean for families? The average family will pay about $1,000 in property taxes on a home assessed at 200,000 for public schools, for Brevard.

3:21:04 And over the course of one year, that averages out to $2.80 a day. And you can see that $2.

3:21:15 80 per day covers a lot of things, the teachers, the schools, the counselors, the electricity, water, school bus, I mean, just everything. And it’s just critical. All these things are critical in providing every student in Brevard public schools, a world class education.

3:21:40 So this is the final slide. And you know, the budget development process started in December and we’re nearing the end. It takes, takes a long time and both operating and capital budgets are balanced.

3:22:07 And I guess I just want to go back a little bit. And we are in a very different place than we were last year. At this time.

3:22:15 We were facing so much uncertainty about the economy. What would it look like? The length, the severity of the pandemic in the county, the state, the nation, and globally. The board made very difficult decisions and made reductions in anticipation of a budget reduction due to loss of enrollment for FY 22.

3:22:34 And you know, we’re incredibly fortunate because of the federal dollars and being held harmless this last year that we didn’t have any major revenue reductions. As a result, we have some one time savings that we were able to use in order to balance the FY 22 budget. Although not ideal, it is consistent with how we utilized ARA funds during the great Recession.

3:23:00 We still have a lot of uncertainty around enrollment and how much enrollment will rebound this school year. So we will continue to monitor that and make necessary adjustments in order to minimize the dependence on these one time dollars and make sure that we have the right funding and the right amount to ensure that the resources available are there to meet the needs of every student to have a world class education. You can see this is the proposed budget.

3:23:20 There will be some changes when we come back in September, mainly because we’re still closing the books and there’s, you know, we may have additional federal money that we would have to include. And that’s all I have. Unless you have some questions.

3:23:40 Thank you. Miss Licinski. Does anyboard Moore have questions from Miss Campbell? Yes, I don’t think we have heard anything about yet.

3:23:58 I know we haven’t heard anything about Essra three, which is from the american rescue Plan. But have we had any further updates from the state regarding when we could expect SR two funding, which is the one that was passed in December. Yeah, so the state did come out with their, the guidance and Doctor Sullivan could probably talk to that better than I can.

3:24:10 But everything, all the different, all the different applications, they’re due by August 12 or 13th, 12th. So it is very good news that the guidance finally did. I actually saw an article just this week and I can’t remember which publication it was in, but it was talking about all the money that Florida isn’t using yet.

3:24:27 And I, as a school board member in the state of Florida, it was a national article. I wanted to say that’s because we haven’t been given it. It’s not because we’re not using it, because we.

3:24:48 That those funds are going to pay for many things that we have already put in place, including our summer programs. Correct, Doctor Sullivan. So would you want to give us any further updates on when we can expect those SR two funds? Well, I can’t really give you that, but I’ll tell you our current operating plan.

3:24:59 So, back in March, we had actually received an original RFA request for application from the Florida Department of Ed for Chris O. Grant, the Esser two. And then we heard nothing and we turned it in and we hypothesized they were going to change the guidelines.

3:25:14 We just couldn’t get clarification. About a week ago, we received from the Doe four RFAs request for applications for sir two. So essentially replacing what they had originally asked for back in March, statewide.

3:25:34 So they’ve divided the SR two funds into four categories with designated set aside. So category one is academic assistance, and for brevard public schools, it’s approximately $10.8 million, where we submit a plan that’s entirely focused on academic assistance.

3:25:55 The second one is technology. It’s about a $2 million set aside, and our application will be focusing almost entirely on devices for students. The third set aside, and each of these are separate grant applications now is non enrollment assistance.

3:26:28 And that’s where we identify students who were enrolled in provide public schools for school year 2019. Didn’t enroll in school year 20. No, I’m gonna.

3:26:50 I’m gonna go backwards. School year 20, did not enroll in school year 21, or did not appear in our two survey periods, meaning potential chronic absences. And then we are submitting a plan to specifically target those needs around $2 million.

3:27:16 The fourth iteration is now called lump sum. Fancy name. And in the lump sum grant, we identify each of our anticipated plans alongside the 15 allowable expenses identified by the US Department of Ed and the Florida Department of ED.

3:27:31 As you mentioned, we were well on our way. We were prepared for the moment the DoE released. So between now and the 10th ish, we’re targeting.

3:27:33 We are rewriting what we had originally planned on in the scope of the new plan. No substantial changes in our anticipated expenditures. Quite frankly, the vast majority of our plan goes for academic assistance.

3:28:06 So we had originally written over $30 million worth of activities in academic assistance, pared it down to 10.8, and then put the rest in lump sum, if that makes any sense. So, working under the new paradigm as Miss Laszynski mentioned it is due to the DOE by the 12th.

3:28:25 I hope to get updated drafts, of course, to Doctor Mullins well before then. And then, of course, as always, he shares with the board once it gets to the Florida Department of Education, it goes through like a 17 step review process. And so we hope that they’ll be expeditious in that process.

3:28:53 New to esser two, the Florida Department of Education, alongside the state legislators, under the direction of the governor, built in a legislative approval process for the funds. So this is nothing we’ve ever seen before in any federal appropriations. So what we believe that will be on current information is after the Florida Department of ED approves the grants, we have no reason to believe ours won’t be approved.

3:28:59 They’re really targeted items for the spirit of the grant. Then they convene a legislative committee once all of those get through that process to review the grants. So we’re not as optimistic as we once were on the timely release of the grants.

3:29:19 But we’re very optimistic that our application is entirely aligned with the US Department of Education’s guidelines and the federal Department of Education. So we really feel really confident, especially, like I said, the vast majority of our plan is on academic assistance, technology, and of course, continued mitigation strategies, PPE, things like that. I think you’ve seen some draft version already.

3:29:33 And again, we’re working fast and furious with this new information in this new deadline. So I’ll say yes ish, like I always do. So if I dream big, I’m going to hope by October.

3:29:41 Awesome. Thank you. And thank you for being.

3:29:48 And to echo what was said, there has been no release from the DOE regarding Arbesser. And it’s my understanding that the US Department of Education is yet to receive the application from the state, which the approval of the state plan precedes their ability to then disperse to the states. So you are correct in your interpretation that we have not sent down two or three because we have not received two or three or had the ability to receive two or three yet.

3:30:02 Thank you. And then, Miss Lucinski, once we get that information, then we’ll build that federal money into the budget. Correct? Either before, if we have it before that information, before the September 9 meeting, or in future amendments to the budget.

3:30:13 And the other thing to add is we are and will cash flow where we need to. We don’t want to stop, you know, good things going on for our kids, waiting for money that we know is coming. Right? So, just to reiterate what you just said, in other words, we haven’t waited to do the necessary academic programming that we needed to do to catch our students up because we didn’t have the money yet we were able knowing that it was coming where we went ahead.

3:30:25 And because our whole summer program was based on that. Correct. You said it much better than I just said.

3:30:38 That’s all right. Thank you. I’ll add to that that there’s a several positions within Esser number two that are intended to be funded and we have judiciously released the approval to advertise for those positions and hire them, starting now, with every anticipation that they’ll be supported through Esser number two.

3:30:47 And then we cash flow it and then we do an amendment to reimburse the district for those positions. Thank you. Anyone else have anything for Miss Licinski? Mister Susan? Thank you.

3:31:00 Miss Lucynski, I’m very proud to have you as our CFO. You do a great job. Ever since you’ve come on, you’ve been honest, you’ve been open.

3:31:26 And I just want to say thank you for everything you’ve done. You’ve been very transparent. These are set up correctly, you know what I mean? You do a great job.

3:31:51 I’m just going to ask some questions that you don’t need to respond to that will then address at a later time. You know what I mean? Because I didn’t send you an email earlier explaining which ones I had issues with. So you don’t have to write any of it down.

3:32:02 I’ll follow up with you. But I just wanted to walk through so you could kind of see where I’m coming from on page four. So we got this, I think, last Friday, roughly proposed tentative budget, all funds.

3:32:26 Right, great. I just wanted to say. Okay, so page four, looks like we’re increasing the administration departments and decreasing supportive services.

3:32:33 I know this is part of a plan that we talked about, but in here it just looked like we were doing one with the other. Those were direct area coordinators that are referenced on page six. Okay.

3:32:48 Page nine. The FEFP went from an adopted revenue of 161 million last year. We amended that to be 162.

3:33:03 And then our projected revenue was 146. It’s just a $16 million drop, you know what I mean? And we can talk about it then. Let’s see here.

3:33:10 Had some concern because I saw that we adopted a budget for transportation, utility, custodial, environmental services, maintenance all the way through here in 2020, 2021, and then many of those same areas are being decreased even though we spent. So like say for instance, transportation, we went from 18 million under the adopted budget, according to the amended budget, we spent 19 million. But then under the tentative budget, we’re spending 17.

3:33:14 So just some concern wrapped around capital services that I represent. And then the one kind of common theme that I was looking in here and Doctor Mullins, you could probably do something for the school board members, is wrapped around medical insurance. On page 13, line number 9400, it says medical insurance paid from fund, which is the 3100.

3:33:30 Right. And then it says that it’s in the budget for next year. Then it says additional medical insurance commitment under the same 9400 line of 5 million that we adopted the budget this year.

3:33:47 But then we’re only putting in the tentative budget for 3 million next year. So if you follow the same theme for health insurance, and I’ll come back to page 13 on another one, if you look on page 14 at the bottom line 232, we are showing an adopted budget of $39 million from last year, a spend of 45 million. But then we’re only putting in a tentative budget of 42.

3:33:53 2 million. So there’s just a little bit of a seesaw, that’s all. And we’ll address that on kind of a medical claims and stuff.

3:34:02 I want to kind of dive into that before. And then I’m looking at Susan, I just remind you, just for the public, if you remember, we have been overspending in medical and that’s why we’ve had to put in those one time funds to balance it. So that’s part of the explanation there.

3:34:07 If we were going to be doing the one time funds, it just didn’t make sense that we were going to reduce what we were spending. You know what I mean? So basically we have an adoption of 2021, adopted budget of 39 million. We spent 45, apparently.

3:34:18 Right. But then we’re only adopting 42 million, meaning that if we spent 45, and we know that’s coming, we may need to adjust that. Sir, if I may.

3:34:31 Yeah, this is Karen. We do have the 3.1 million.

3:34:45 I reduce our premiums every year by that amount, the expense, and then I put it in from fund balance. So that’s why you see that decrease. As soon as we’ve opened the books, I’ll put the 3.

3:34:50 1 million back and we’ll be back where we started. I saw that if you wanted to reference it. I was also under that same medical line.

3:35:34 If you look where it says additional medical insurance commitment, there’s one that says 5 million and then we’re only doing 3 million on that same one on page 13, if you were referenced, we don’t have to get into the seesaw. I just wanted to reference some of these things, then we can come back to them. Miss Strickland, you don’t have to respond.

3:36:01 We’ll just. We’ll talk about it. And then.

3:36:16 Oh, again, in the health insurance. So, in the health insurance trust fund reoccurring commitment, we put in an adopted budget of $4.7 million.

3:36:25 According to this, we amended the budget at 2.9, and then we tented budget at 7.1.

3:36:42 So that’s under assigned. And then if you come down to unassigned additional medical insurance commitment of 5 million, it says, we amended the budget for zero. And then we’re only putting 3 million in.

3:37:02 So there’s just a lot of fund balances that if we can get some explanation on, that would be great. All right. And that’s all I have.

3:37:24 Thank you. Does any other board member have any questions for Miss Liczinski? All right, then. We will open the public hearing.

3:37:40 Hearing is now open. For public comments. We will, in accordance with Florida law, accept the speakers in the following order.

3:37:59 The 2021 2022 proposed millage levy, followed by the 2021 to 2022 tentative budget. Is there any individual that would like to address the board on the 2021 2022 proposed millage levy? Is there any individual that would like to address the board on the 2021 2022 proposed Milledge levy? Is there any individual that would like to address the board on the 2021 2022 tentative budget? You gotta go to the mic. Does this get rid of our time for public comment? No, it just has to be directed specifically at the budget.

3:38:06 Okay. I do have one question, maybe, and I. You know, I don’t have a whole lot of experience reading budgets of this extent. Did I see towards the end that our school board is, or our school district is negative $7.

3:38:23 7 million? I can’t respond during the hearing, just like we can’t respond during public comment. But if you would like to send me an email, I’ll be happy to follow up. Okay? Okay.

3:38:56 Thank you. You’re welcome. Is there any individual that would like to address the board on the 2021 2022 tentative budget? Please approach.

3:39:29 Yes, Miss Escobar has asked if we could please have the speaker state their name. The first one was Katie Delaney. Miss Escobar, your name, ma’am? Tanya Johnson.

3:41:02 I’m a teacher at Holland elementary, wanting to know if there’s anything in that budget for teaching salaries, increase of salaries. So I can’t answer questions on the budget. If you would like to send me an email, I’ll be happy to respond.

3:41:16 Okay. Okay. Yeah.

3:41:29 And I also did want to comment, and I’m just extremely frustrated as a teacher. I have some of the best scores in the state of Florida. Teach math yet I stayed at home with my kids for a while, came back into the classroom again, have some of the best scores yet.

3:41:33 I’m making the same amount of money as a student who just graduated from college. So it’s just really hard on me with the, you know, the years of service. You know, the just, you know, my scores speak and, you know, it’s just amazing to me that I make the same amount of money as a brand new college graduate.

3:41:44 It just makes no sense to me. Even though we, everyone out in the public heard teachers got raises, teachers got raises, and no new teachers did. But veteran teachers who have, you know, put in there, put in their time and everything.

3:41:57 No. Thank you. Is there any individual that would like to address the board on the 2021 2022 tentative budget? That was enough times.

3:42:10 Or I need to ask a second time after the last speaker. All right. The public comment portion of this hearing is now closed.

3:42:17 That will bring us to the recommendations for the adoption of the proposed millage rates and tentative budget. Doctor Mullins, there is a total of three separate motions for the board to consider. I will read each of these recommendations into the record in a request.

3:42:39 Board action for each a. Adopt proposed 2021 2022 millage rates of general fund required local effort 3.602 local discretionary 0.

3:42:49 748 capital 1.50 total 5.850 what are the wishes of the board? Moved by Miss Campbell.

3:43:02 Seconded by Miss McDougall. Is there any discussion? Please vote. The motion passes.

3:43:34 50. Doctor Mullins, the second motion for the board to consider is the is b. Adopt a 2021 2022 tentative budget of general $655,528,812 special revenue $190,854,695 debt service $38,041,944 Capital Outlay $294,743,000 $936 enterprise $1,174,575 subtotal $1,180,343,962 less transfers $66,511,992 for a total $1,113,831,970 internal service $81,800,771 what are the wishes of the board? Second moved by Miss Campbell seconded by Mister Susan.

3:43:48 Is there any discussion correction on that? It was $711 on my agenda page. I have 771 as well. Miss Lysinski.

3:43:55 On the electronic it says 711. That must be a typo. It is actually 771.

3:44:20 That’s what we need to read into the record. And that’s what we did. Read into the record.

3:44:38 So the verbal read in the record is correct, the printed is incorrect? Yeah. The online agenda says 881. Internal services $81,800,711.

3:44:53 So you did read it correctly. It’s just the one public facing is not accurate on the attachment. It’s correct.

3:45:05 So do we need to make a change to the agenda? We’re good, as long as he read it correctly. So that’s what you’re approving? I just want to make sure the motion was getting approved correctly. Perfect.

3:45:18 Thank you, Mister Gibbs. So I have a motion by Miss Campbell and a second by Mister Susan. Is there any discussion? All right.

3:45:26 Please vote. The motion passes. 50.

3:45:33 Doctor Mullins. The third and final motion for the board to consider is c, authorizes the superintendent to take the following actions. One.

3:45:40 Notify both the property appraiser and the tax collector of the proposed 2022 2022 millage and the following. Rollback rates. General fund rollback rates required.

3:45:51 Local effort 3.560. Local discretionary 0.

3:46:00 7209 capital outlay rollback rate 1.4456. Total rollback rate 5.

3:46:06 72,652. Notify both the property appraiser and the tax collector of the final public hearing on September 9, 2021, at 05:30 p.m.

3:46:37 at the educational services facility, Viera. And three, adjust the revenues and expenditures if necessary prior to the final public hearing. What are the wishes of the board? Move to approve.

3:46:45 Second moved by Mister Susan. Seconded by Miss McDougall. Is there any discussion carrying? None.

3:46:55 Please vote. The motion passes. 50.

3:47:13 Prior to adjournment of the hearing, the following statement must be read. The proposed 2021 2022 millage rate necessary to fund the tentative budget exceeds the rolled back rate by 2.16%.

3:47:34 This hearing is now adjourned and we will reopen the special board meeting. All right, Doctor Mullins. All right, we will move on to item G 25 on procurement solicitations.

3:47:42 Mister Gibbs? Yeah? There’s a problem with G 20. Five’s item D, RFP 21 446 p kr. Flexible spending account.

3:48:04 There’s a discrepancy on the document that needs to be corrected, so we need to pull it. So the motion needs to be to approve G 25 without item D. All right, board.

3:48:14 I will entertain a motion to approve item G 25 without item D. So moved. Second moved by Miss Campbell.

4:01:34 Seconded by Mister Susan. All in favor, please signify by saying aye. Wait.

4:01:48 I’m assuming did you need a voice vote on that, Pam? Okay. All in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye.

4:01:56 Any opposed? Same sign. And the motion passes 50. And we are not going to vote on the pulled portion.

4:02:06 Correct, Mister Gibbs? We’re just going to move on to G 26. Okay. Doctor Mullins, item G 26 is on department school initiated agreement.

4:02:32 What are the wishes of the board? Move to prove. Second moved by Mister Susan. Seconded by Miss McDougall.

4:02:45 Is there any discussion hearing? None. Please vote. The motion passes 50.

4:03:02 All right. We will move on to the information agenda, which includes items for board review and may be brought back for action at a subsequent meeting. No action will be taken on these items tonight.

4:03:27 Doctor Mullins, there is one item under the information category. Does any board member wish to discuss the item under the information category this evening? Yes, Miss Belford, if I could. Absolutely.

4:03:58 Miss Kimball? There was a question about this particular item, but I just wondered if the attachment that’s on this information item. And we’re not voting until August, but the attachment is actually just a reiteration of the agenda item. It’s not actually the mental health plan grant.

4:04:08 So I’m wondering, is that the correct attachment? Just saying. No, it looked like it was supposed to be the grant, the actual grant, but it actually is just a. Like I said, it’s just a repeat of the agenda item.

4:04:25 Can we. I know by the time we’re voting on it, we can get it corrected. But are we okay with that, Mister Gibbs? We’re good.

4:04:36 Okay, so when we come around next time, when we’re voting on that in August, Miss Moore, can we get that attachment corrected? Thank you. Thank you, Miss Campbell. Any additional discussion on the information item on the agenda? All right, so that is actually going to bring us to our board discussion points.

4:04:52 And I think it would be a good idea for us to take a brief recess, recharge, and then we will come back for that discussion. Discussion. And get into the end of our public comment.

4:05:08 Okay? Sadeena. Sadeena. Sadeena.

4:05:44 Sadeena. Radhe. Sadeena.

4:05:59 Sadeena. Sadeena. Sadeena.

4:06:16 All right, we are back in session. And Miss Jenkins, I am turning the mic directly over to you. You had two discussion items that you requested for this evening, one being masks and the other being an equity audit.

4:06:31 So I will hand the floor to you, ma’am. Sure. Do I have to speak about them in the order that they’re in, or what? No.

4:06:42 Okay, so I’m gonna. I’m just gonna start with the equity audit first. This was something that I briefly brought up to you guys when we were together discussing over the superintendents evaluation.

4:06:47 And I think it was something. I think it’s something important that I wanted to have a conversation out in the public and with all of you, because we couldn’t really talk about it in detail. I think it’s wonderful that this board hired a director of equity and diversity, but she’s been here for, I believe, seven months now, and doesn’t have a plan in place like the rest of our other departments typically do every year.

4:06:53 And one of the biggest barriers for her is that she’s still struggling to completely get all of those resources and tools she needs in place in order to put that plan in. Into place. Yes, there’s actions being taken.

4:07:09 Yes, they’re looking at vendors to use. I think it’s important, though, for us to have a discussion as a board whether or not this is something we really want to prioritize and get a move on. Because it’s been seven months, she can’t put a plan in place by herself.

4:07:24 She’s one individual for this entire county. And so it’s really important to have a third party come in, do an audit, just like we do for all the other departments, so that she can get moving on a plan. Because one of the questions that I keep getting from most of our constituents is, well, what is she going to do about it? And it’s a great question, but she can’t answer that question until we accurately assess every single department and where those discrepancies lie.

4:07:44 I was really happy with the response to the last board meeting where we were all presented those disparities in academics, but we know that those disparities are in many other areas, in discipline, in workforce. And so I think it’s really important that as a board, we make it known to the superintendent to kind of push forward and get moving on that. So I. Oops, sorry, used to the other button.

4:07:50 So I believe. And Doctor Mullins, feel free to speak up if I’m mistaken. In my understanding, I believe that our current holdup.

4:08:01 I shouldn’t say hold up. We are in the process of exploring the options for an equity audit and waiting on staff to bring us recommendations for a vendor on that. Is that correct? Yes.

4:08:19 Sorry, I gotta get back into multimodal technical difficulties. We can’t turn our own mics on and off, only the board chair. That’s why we’re having such difficulty with the mic.

4:08:50 Yes, I meet with Doctor McKinnon, very regularly, along with Doctor Sullivan, we discussed the progress that we’re making. We are having ongoing discussion about that. It’s neither accelerated nor deaccelerated.

4:08:59 We’re continuing to walk that out. But looking at what an equity audit would look like, what are the potential consultants to utilize and so on. But no decision has been made or no proposals have been brought forward at this time.

4:09:04 Do we have any potential timeline? Has that been discussed at all? Like when you expect to have something back to the board or as far as recommendations? We have not identified a timeline at this point. Okay, so, Miss Jenkins, what are you wanting from the board at this point? I just want the board to have this conversation so we can make it clear to the public as well, to our director of equity, that we support her position, we support her work going forward. I know there was some conversations about the potential price point of that audit.

4:09:14 And I just. Again, I just think it’s really important that we’re really intentional about it and we get a movement on it. Because to be perfectly frank with you, she’s receiving public records requests because people want to know what she does and what she plans to do.

4:09:21 And she can’t answer that. And so I think it’s our responsibility to give her the tools that she needs to set a plan in place. Just like every other department in our district.

4:09:46 So do you feel comfortable with what has taken place this evening? Are you ready to. Yes. And this is.

4:09:57 So the reason why this has to be a discussion is because of sunshine law. If this becomes an item that costs a certain amount of money, it comes to the board to vote on. So we’re not allowed to have a conversation about something that could potentially be voted on outside of the sunshine.

4:10:14 So, no, there’s no action that needs to be taken. But I wanted to have a discussion with you that this is a concern of hers and it’s a concern of mine because it’s been. It’s been seven months since we’ve been here.

4:10:26 So I just. Again, from the progress and information we had from the last meeting, I thought it was really important to talk about. Awesome.

4:10:37 Thank you for bringing that up. Did you. Miss McDougall, it looks like you might want to weigh in.

4:10:55 Doctor Mullins, I understand that there is no timeline, but I think we need to really have an endpoint. I mean, I know that all of our staff are busy, but I also think that we need to be at least something to shoot for. For when is.

4:11:09 When will we have some information? Is it months? Weeks? Years, I guess. I just want to know, have a clearer picture where we are on that. I mean, I get what, I agree with Miss Jenkins, but at the same time you said, well, there’s.

4:11:30 There’s no plan at this point, so how do we get there? I guess, is what I’m asking. How do we get there? What do we need? What needs to happen? Well, I’m certainly happy to meet with staff to develop it. I’m not prepared to give the board a suggestion this evening because I’ve not been given or warning that the board was expecting that this evening.

4:11:42 So I’m happy to work with staff and bring something back to the board. And if the board would like a workshop, we can accommodate that as well. Great.

4:11:55 Thank you. Anyone else? Miss Campbell? Yes, thank you. I’m uncomfortable with a couple things of the way they’ve been presented this evening.

4:12:07 One is that I don’t want the public to sit here this evening and think that Doctor McKinnon has been sitting around twiddling her thumbs with nothing to do for the last seven months. That’s absolutely not true. And if someone did a public records request for what she’s been doing, she’s been quite busy working with our departments, working with our schools who have invited her in.

4:12:11 Hey, we have this program going on and what can we do? We want to make sure that we’re opening up opportunities to students who may not have taken advantage of these opportunities before. So I just think we should be careful with our language going forward. Also, when we do a survey or an audit, there’s always the item, the thought of, what are we going to do with this data? Because we’re not going to spend money on an audit or data dive or whatever without having a purpose.

4:12:23 We won’t know exactly what we do with it until we get the information. But that’s some conversation I know I would like to have with one on ones before we move forward with anything. So I’m not.

4:12:48 You know, I don’t think that there’s. First of all, we’re. I was going to say we’re drowning in data.

4:13:00 We have data right and left, all kinds of data. So there is. It is also not necessarily accurate to say that we don’t have data on certain things, to have an outside audit.

4:13:10 We do that and we do that in other departments. Yes, but it’s, again, not that we don’t have any data. Doctor Mullins presented a lot.

4:13:20 We’ve had other data presented to us. When it comes to our HR numbers and our discipline, Chris Morris presented that in an extensive workshop this past year when it comes to our discipline and behavior plans and our watch list that we were on and all that gets tracked by the state. So I just want to make sure we’re presenting the situation accurately, whether or not we do an audit.

4:13:30 Like I said, I want to have that conversation with Doctor Mullins too, as well. Just trying to figure out what, you know, not having had this discussion before, because we just. You briefly mentioned it the other day.

4:13:47 I’m not prepared to give direction one way or the other without knowing what exactly are we, are we looking at? What type of audit? You know, are we, are we looking at. I just not prepared to give that direction this evening. May I follow up? Yeah, me too.

4:14:02 Yes, you. Okay, so I just want to make it clear, I didn’t say that Doctor McKinnon doesn’t have anything to do. I meet with her quite frequently on a regular basis and she’s absolutely super busy.

4:14:15 What I did say is that she cannot answer what it is she is going to do as a plan of action. She does not have a formal plan of action. And that’s not a discredit to her.

4:14:22 She would say that to you. And what I do have an issue with is that we’re questioning this audit. But what other audits have we questioned in the past? We spent 357,000 on audits just in the year 2021.

4:14:31 That’s 123-45-6789 audits. I would like to know if any of those were questioned for how they would be used. I’m not really sure how we think the data would be used negatively.

4:14:46 And I understand that we have loads of data on academics and things that the state requires us to report. But Doctor McKinnon herself will tell you there are many, many areas that we do not assess because we don’t go beyond what the state requires. And if we’re going to move forward on this and we’re going to make a difference and we’re going to.

4:15:29 We’re going to start making some progress, there are areas that she really wants looked into. So again, I wasn’t looking for any direction here. And I wasn’t looking to put pressure on Doctor Mullen to give you an end date.

4:15:46 But ultimately the conversation was so that you could be aware that there wasn’t an end date and that it’s been seven months. And I think there needs to be. I’m a Cheryl, there needs to be some end date in mind to show that we actually are committed to this, to this change.

4:16:10 Not that we’re just going to present those disparities of data over and over again, year after year. And as you saw last board meeting, those numbers haven’t changed for the past five years. Miss Belford, can I. Thank you, Miss Jenkins.

4:16:43 Mister Susan. I had a request from Miss McDougall and then I’ll come to you. Okay.

4:16:50 Miss McDougall? Yes. I just want to state that I know we have. The RSM is our risk and audit committee group that we have.

4:17:06 And I remember as a board member that every year they ask us what do we think would be important as an audit? And so I don’t believe that we’ve. That as individual board members, we have things that are important to us. And so I would want to make sure that we are not discounting somebody’s another board member’s request for an audit, because we’ve never done that before.

4:17:27 So I just want to put that on record that we all have the ability to ask for a particular audit. And I’m hearing that Miss Jenkins and I both are interested in something like that. Thank you, Miss McDougall.

4:17:30 Mister Susan. Sorry. Thank you, Miss Jenkins.

4:17:33 I wanted to. There was a report when I first got elected, Doctor Blackburn actually sent somebody to do some sort of an equity piece. Right.

4:18:11 I would try to dig that up. It was when we first got elected, it was 2016. There was a gentleman that came up, we allocated dollars for it and he came up with some kind of a.

4:18:19 He interviewed all of us and he came up with it. So there’s one, the audit committee, which is the function of RSM, you have a representative on there and they meet, what is it, monthly, quarterly. And they adjust which audits that they’re going to do for the year based upon feelings of transportation or whatever.

4:18:30 I think that that is where the appropriate ask into for an audit would be if you were asking how you wanted to do that, because those individuals, I think, may have done an equity audit recently. We can check. Right.

4:18:51 But the idea is that what is the direction of them? And if we make an audit request, what has to be taken off or what costs have to be increased. And I think that’s the approach place to ask for the recommendation to come back to us first. I really do.

4:19:16 The audit committee, that’s all, because they know more about the audits and the RSM and everything else. And you have a representative on there. Just trying to suggest that.

4:19:36 That’s all. Thank you, Mister Susan. So are we wrapped up on equity? I just want to say one last thing about that.

4:19:47 So RSM, I don’t believe, is the appropriate channel for that. Don’t believe that’s the route that they’re going. Nor is it my job to figure out who they’re going to use to do the audit, by any means.

4:19:58 But it’s my job as a board member to advocate for the progress we presented last week that we felt so passionately about that we actually make move on it for once. And with all due respect, even if there was an equity audit done six years ago, that’s not data that’s going to be relevant, relevant to us today. And so when we hire somebody, and there’s been a lot of conversation about the fact we spent money to hire this person, which I know we didn’t, I know that it was awash with other positions that were changed, but if we aren’t going to commit to this role in this position, then why do we have it in the first place? And so I just thought it was a really important conversation for us to have.

4:20:13 Thank you, Miss Jenkins. All right, Miss Campbell, just one last thing. You know, I think that committing to the position and knowing what would be in that type of audit are not necessarily.

4:20:18 Yeah, I. For me personally, I want to know what’s in there. I don’t think that we are limiting Doctor Kennan’s, Doctor McKinnon’s role or the work that we’re doing because of their. When we talked about last week, when we heard, listen to people from the community, and when I heard people, community come to me personally and say, as I shared last board meeting, you know, what are you going to do about the disparities? We can get to work on that.

4:20:36 We are already, our staff are already getting to work on that. They’re not waiting around for the information that we would get from an audit because we do have enough information that we need to be working on. And that is, again, there’s no hold on the work that’s being done on that department, maybe it can be more refined, defined, and I would like to look into that, like have more information about that, but I’d like to have that more information before I would be able to give direction.

4:21:34 Thank you, Miss Campbell. All right. Nothing else on equity audit.

4:48:07 Then I think, Miss Jenkins, you are free to move into mathematic. Yeah. So before I really dive into this, I kind of want to talk about something that’s going to spiral back into the math conversation.

4:48:18 So I think it’s something that I need to address and I need to address it publicly. Some things were said tonight on this dais that I was personally offended by and. Go right ahead.

4:48:34 Hold on, Miss Jenkins. You know, it’s fine. I don’t know.

4:48:55 Hold on. All right, I’m. This is.

4:49:13 This is the final, final time I’m going to ask that you all not interfere with the business of the board. Please leave, sir. Okay.

4:49:29 All right. We are going to resume our business. And if the audience continues to interrupt with our resuming of our business, we will ask additional people to leave.

4:49:44 Okay? Please be respectful. Let us communicate to get our business done so we can get to the opportunity to give you the microphone. Okay, Miss Jenkins, please resume.

4:50:04 Thank you. So what I think is important for me to talk about, like a comment, and I know you didn’t mean this this way, Mister Susan, and I’m not blaming you for this, but I think it’s important for the public to hear this. And you can roll your eyes at me all you’d like, sir.

4:50:17 When you passively say you sent something to me before my phone number was given out and I hear, I’m tired of it. Well, I’m tired of stuff too. And I think it’s important for the public to be aware of the topic we’re about to talk about and what has happened.

4:50:38 In April, I received a phone call from a chief of police and a city manager asking me not to return to my home for four days. There were people 20ft from my door. Let me read to you some of the things they said to me.

4:50:51 This is just. Honestly, I’ll just read one thing. We have a surprise for you fascists.

4:51:19 We have a surprise. We’re putting an end to you. We’re gonna come for you and make you beg for mercy.

4:51:45 I have a four year old in my house. For weeks after that, people were lurking around my home randomly. When I was here at a board meeting, they were lurking around my home, taunting my husband and my four year old daughter.

4:52:10 There’s a man in this room who was part of that, who I see every time. Yes, sir. You.

4:52:29 Who gives me threatening gestures. Every board meeting, there’s extra security presence in this room. Who follows me every time I get up and tells me which way to walk.

4:52:42 And yes, my phone number was given out today, but I have a state representative personally texting me, calling me a piece of garbage. And so to act like I didn’t do my job because I didn’t read an email was offensive to me. And this is all started from a conversation about masks.

4:53:04 So this was all started on a conversation about masks. And I. I’m going to remind everyone this, please, we step out for a minute, please. And we are back in session.

4:53:16 Just a couple of points of clarification for our audience. One, Mister Susan alluded to it earlier. Items on for discussion cannot be voted on tonight.

4:53:24 So there’s not going to be any vote on anything that we are discussing the remainder of this evening. What we could do is request it be added to a future agenda as we did with the quarantine issue. Or we could schedule a special meeting.

4:53:42 So, our plan for the remainder of the evening, in the event that I have to interrupt the flow of the meeting again, we will clear the boardroom, the board members will remain in the boardroom and public speakers will come in one by one from outside. Okay. You can certainly watch the live stream of the media.

4:53:57 I’m hoping it’s not going to become an issue. But the truth of the matter is we need to get through what we need to get through this evening without further disruption. So, Miss Jenkins, I believe we left off with you on your mask discussion.

4:54:02 Oh, I’m sorry. Thank you. So ultimately, the point of me saying all that is just that I, I’m one of the voting bodies of this board who wasn’t even here when the mass mandate was put in place.

4:54:06 I didn’t even vote on a mass mandate. And when I was elected, I immediately became the target of that. And so I think it’s important for the public to understand how that affects these conversations.

4:54:13 And the personal cost of my job is extremely high, but I truly deep down feel like the cost of not being here and not doing what I believe is right is higher. And so everyone in this room is well aware of where I stand on this issue. I’m not going to go into defending it detail because we had a conversation with the DoH.

4:54:23 I asked all the questions that I care about. But the one thing I do want to say is I’m the only person on this board who was in a classroom when Covid started. And I’m the only person on this board who was in a classroom in August.

4:54:42 And I was the only person on this board who was fearful in the summer when there were eleven hour meetings, debating over a word and a thesaurus of how serious we were going to take a mass mandate. And so I am passionate about this because I have a different perspective and I acknowledge that than everyone else on this board. My other perspective.

4:54:53 Elizabeth Toro. Wayne Moore. I shared a building with Elizabeth Toro, our first teacher to die from COVID in March and August.

4:55:07 Wayne Moore my husband shared a building. He was a colleague of our second teacher to die from COVID And so yes, I have a very different perspective, just like everyone in this room. But I think it’s really important for people to understand the perspective that I come from, that it’s not some conspiracy or a political agenda.

4:55:22 It is from a personal experience with two teachers that we lost and being in the classroom. And now I have a little girl rolling into kindergarten and so I have a different personal experience as well to worry about. But I just want to continuously remind people that I am one of five and we don’t all have to agree, just like we didn’t agree in May.

4:55:34 And I also want it to be known that I encouraged this board to have that vote in May when I knew very clearly it wasn’t going to be in my favor. Because I think that the public deserves to have an answer when they were asking for an answer. And the reason I put it on the agenda tonight as a discussion was because we’ve got flooded with concerns and emails like it was Covid starting all over again.

4:55:58 And I felt like the public had a right to hear where we were on this issue, especially because of the changing climate of COVID especially because of all the other school boards that are having this conversation. There’s no reason for us to drag this out. We should just be talking about it.

4:56:23 Because no matter what side of the issue you fall on, I don’t think you want to wait for us to have this conversation any longer. There’s just no point to it. And so again, I don’t want to go into the details why I support masking our students.

4:56:42 The only thing I’m going to say is that our numbers are no different than when we had masks in place the last school year. And the statement that I made in May as to why I did not vote to remove them was because I wasn’t comfortable predicting how August would look. And I think I was right and I was uncomfortable because we don’t have vaccines for students under twelve.

4:57:09 We don’t have the option for vaccines under twelve. And our mask mandate was for children younger than the vaccine that is available for them. I want to make one more thing actually very clear as well.

4:57:24 The reason why I believe in this mass mandate is because I don’t believe in mandating a vaccine. People think I do. I don’t.

4:57:50 We don’t have a right to ask you if you’re vaccinated or not, and I don’t think we should. But if we don’t, know, if you’re vaccinated and we’re not going to make you get vaccinated, then the only way to ensure the safety of our staff, even our unvaccinated ones, I care about them, too. And our students that are unvaccinated, I care about them, too.

4:58:20 And the unvaccinated family members and community members that they interact with on a daily basis. Who I also care about is to wear a mask while we’re seeing the numbers that we’re seeing. And to remove them quickly when we don’t need them anymore.

4:58:40 Because again, that is something I agree with. When. When that is something we should talk about.

4:58:57 We need to talk about it. We don’t need to wait. We need to talk about it and move on.

4:59:17 And so. So, again, I just wanted to put it on the agenda because it is clearly a concern of the community. And I think it was something we needed to acknowledge.

4:59:30 Thank you. So, Miss Jenkins, just to be clear, you’re not requesting any action at this point in time. So I’m aware we can’t vote tonight.

4:59:39 And that wasn’t my intent. Anyway, I assumed this conversation would hopefully lead to us putting it maybe on the next meeting. I don’t know if we have to make a motion for that, but I mean, teachers are returning to school on Monday and so many of them want to know if that’s going to change or not.

5:00:04 And so I think sooner than later, we need to have that conversation. No matter what the result is. It’s got to happen.

5:00:32 All right. Any other board member wish to respond to the discussion item? Miss McDougall? I do. First, I want to know, do we need to make a motion to have it on the next board meeting or on a special board meeting? I guess.

5:00:54 Point of clarification there, Mister Gibbs. You don’t have to have a motion to ask for direct or direct for it to be put on the next agenda. If you want a special meeting, you can call for a special meeting.

5:01:16 First. I want to make sure that it’s on at least the next meeting. And then I can talk to Doctor Mullins if, and Madam chair yourself if we need a special board meeting sooner than later.

5:01:31 But I need to weigh in because I was one of the four of five of us at the time that voted for the mass mandate. Matter of fact, I was adamant on changing the language because we see how well it worked when we had it optional this summer at Viera elementary. Not so well.

5:01:42 So. And what I’m hearing from medical professionals across this, across the gamut from the pediatric association to the medical for the doctors from our local hospitals, that this is one thing that will help stop the spread. Hand washing, social distancing, changing the filters and the mask.

5:01:58 Do I love wearing a mask? Absolutely not. But if it’s going to keep our staff and our children in school, I am going to support this going forward. So I wanted people to know where I stood and why I stood for this.

5:02:14 Thank you, Miss McDougall. Anyone else want to weigh in? Miss Campbell? So obviously I, Miss Belford, you’re probably going to, I imagine, bring this up because you’ve shared with us before that, I mean, the governor’s made it pretty clear what he intends to do with school districts who put a mandate back in place. That’s just, you know, everybody in this room is probably aware of it as well.

5:02:25 I do think, you know, we are in a different place than we were last year. Obviously, our numbers are higher than we were at the beginning of the school year. They’re about where they were at our peak in January, February.

5:02:31 But we are in a different place. One of the ways that we’re in a different place than we were at that point, and I mentioned it in our may meeting, is that we do have the vaccine available to, not to our youngest, but to our most vulnerable to our adults, especially to our older adults. And, you know, when we look across our numbers, one of the things that I don’t have it pulled up right this second.

5:02:41 But among our elementary schools, which people have been the most concerned about because our under twelve s are not able to get the vaccine, among our elementary schools, which included our primary grades who were not required to wear a mask, and I do understand many of them did it anyway. You know, our elementary school that had the most cases, I had 32. And I won’t list a school, but that document is not up on the Florida Department of Health website anymore.

5:02:54 But I saved the last one. And so our elementary school that had the most cases was 32. And just for our reminder, all that data, when we had to report that the Department of Health that included some kids who were e learners, if an e learner tested positive, we had to include them in our data even if they were never on campus.

5:03:23 And so, because that’s how the state shared those numbers. So when we look at our elementary school, like I said, that had the absolute most cases across and it was a pretty good size elementary school in the 700 student range. They had 32 cases.

5:03:25 Our highest was a secondary school which had almost two, has almost 2000 students in it. They had 102 the whole entire school year, or September to May 28, at least that’s when they tracked it, had almost 2000 students, 102 cases. And again, that’s with almost 2000 students.

5:03:43 And many of those were the, that school happened to have a high percentage of students who were e learners. And if they were e learners and they caught Covid, they still were included in that number. So we’re in a different place.

5:04:14 I would like, here’s where I am. I think the mask made a difference this year. I do think they did make a difference.

5:04:37 I just, you know, the, I know the commissioner of education came out in the spring and said, oh, didn’t really make any difference, but we haven’t really seen the data district to district. District and how many e learners were there? How many of them were wearing masks. Anyway, there’s been no data to come out and to show that study of which districts had mask mandates, which didn’t and who had more cases.

5:04:47 But here’s what I would say to where I am on this. I think I would like to encourage our community and our parents knowing the data where we are now, knowing the, especially the quarantine guidelines, because I feel like one of the most frustrating things this year for the public, for our staff as well, is that we were having to quarantine healthy students because that was part of the process. That’s part of the contact tracing.

5:04:55 I’m just going to give a reminder and reiterate what the Department of Health people said is that there’s, especially if you’re in the secondary level and you’re concerned about having to lose seat time for higher level classes, for athletics or whatever, there’s a couple ways that you can avoid that. And one is you can get vaccinated. I’m not pushing vaccines.

5:05:02 I’m just saying that’s one way that you can avoid having to be quarantined. The other thing is I know there’s a lot of, I’m encouraging parents, as I’m hearing cases right and left, I’m encouraging parents, go get your child tested because I know that our family, we have done the do it yourself test to find out if we were positive, but those do not count. Some people are like, I’m just going to keep them at home.

5:05:31 Take advantage of the 90 days, even though your antibodies are going to probably last way longer than 90 days, the CDC, the Department of Health, we are giving you at least 90 days. So go ahead and get tested. If you think your kid potentially could have had Covid because you need an official record.

5:05:36 And that way you’ll get those 90 days. And my personal belief is that at the end of 90 days, we’re going to be down past this hump. And so you can save your kidde from having to be quarantined unnecessarily.

5:05:46 So if you think your kid might have had it very recently, see if you can go get tested and get that positive test. You can take advantage of that. The other thing is just we constantly need to reiterate that people whose kids, or if your kid is sick, please, please, please keep them home.

5:05:55 Please, please, please keep them home. And then I would also say, have your child wear a mask. And I’m not saying where I come down on this is I don’t want us to reinstate our mandate, but I do want to encourage this, and I’ve been consistent about this.

5:05:57 Even though last summer I didn’t want us to have a mandate, I was fine with us leaving it strongly encouraged. But I also told the public, get your kid a mask and be ready. But I also am aware, listen, we have to balance.

5:06:05 Nobody’s going to be happy. We’re not going to have happy people all around. There’s no decision we can make that everybody’s happy.

5:06:23 And just like we talked about in May, but we’re. There are. I also want us to acknowledge, and I think most, we all do, that there have been some detriments to the mask wearing.

5:06:53 There have been detriments to students who are autistic, detriments to students who are, who even staff. I’ve had one of our principals talk to me about how asthma developed over this last year. I mean, that is reality.

5:07:02 And we’ve had to weigh those things in the bounce. What’s the most important thing? Is there a way to meet? But I will tell you, I really seriously, considering the CDC guidelines have been, they’re making that exception for people if there’s general masking. I would like to see for those who haven’t been vaccinated, especially for those who haven’t had Covid in the last 90 days, I’d like to see, and I’m already seeing it when I go into a store and I’m at you guys, I’m seeing more people wear a mask.

5:07:17 I’m seeing the uptick of people. So I think people are going to take it seriously. I really don’t think that if we don’t have the mandate that we’re going to have a mask free, free for all.

5:07:27 I think people are taking it seriously. Maybe not as many as you’d like, but I think people are taking it seriously and we can look at that. I would be willing in a couple of situations.

5:07:35 Just tossing this out here is a possibility for our discussion later. Our bus situation is a little bit different, and I’m not sure how the state level leaders would feel about this, but I would be curious to see what the rest of the board would think about having. We did have a separate level of masking requirements on the bus, and I think because it’s such a short time, but it’s also a time when students are much more, much closer together than they are in the classroom, that we might consider the possibility of having a mandate for the buses.

5:07:41 Also, we could have, I think, in still being compliance with what the governors asked us to do, we could have mask requirements for visitors on campus. And I meant to ask, this is the Department of Health where they left. But when we talk about our clinics, if we have a student who’s symptomatic, are we.

5:07:55 Before we had. When they came to the clinic with potential symptoms, we had them immediately put on a mask. Is that going to be part.

5:08:13 I believe we’re returning to the full clinic. Okay. So in the clinic, if they’re symptomatic and we’re isolating them, they would have a mask on.

5:08:28 Okay. I just want to make sure that’s in the case, because in those cases, we know we could potentially be having a positive case. That’s where I am.

5:08:35 And I’m sorry if that seemed all loose, but I’m not in favor of returning to the full mask. Manda. But there’s a couple things that I wouldn’t mind us taking a look at that I think would be in line with what the governor’s asked us to do and would give our staff as well who have been vaccinated or, you know, tested positive, you know, the ability to make that choice as well.

5:08:42 Thank you, Miss Campbell. Mister Susan, did you want to weigh in to. No, I’m good.

5:09:01 Follow up one thing. Let’s go. Yes, Miss McDougall? Miss Campbell, you said that one of the largest schools only had 32, as I recall.

5:09:15 I believe that. I knew we closed one whole school. And didn’t we close? Did we close to Miss Moore? She’s shaking her head.

5:09:30 Yes. So we closed two schools last school year. We did.

5:09:35 Yes, we did. And I just want to make sure that our public remembers that. Basically, I just want kids in school.

5:09:55 I want kids in school because that’s what we really, that’s what we’re tasked to do. And how do we keep them safe? We keep them safe with fencing sros cameras on the outside. We do all sorts of things to keep our children safe so they can get a good education.

5:10:29 But I just wanted to bring up that we did close two schools for Covid last year, so that’s all. So, Miss Jenkins, I’m going to go back to you, and not to put you on the spot, but just to understand what is it that you are hoping to get out of this discussion? Just a public awareness of listening to the discussion. So if it’s not going to be on the next board meeting, I really.

5:10:57 Given the timeline of when our teachers are going back on Monday, I think we need to have a special meeting just to have a vote on the record. So let me. I think that’s what people have been asking of us.

5:11:21 I think that’s what our staff’s been asking of us and I. That’s what I’m requesting. So you were requesting a special board meeting next week on a vote to mandate masks. Is that what you’re asking for? Or to review the mask policy? Yeah.

5:11:28 The mask policy. Yeah. Is that significant clarification, Mister Gibbs, as to what are you.

5:11:39 You can call a. The chair has the authority to call a special session. Okay.

5:11:56 Or three members of the board can call a special session, ask a couple quick questions. Yes, just clarifying. Hold on.

5:12:07 Yes, Mister Susan. Thank you, madam chair. Paul, besides the chair making that request, does that take a majority vote to move to put something on a special election or special meeting? If she didn’t? Yeah.

5:12:38 Three board members, the superintendent or the chair. And then, Miss Jenkins, if you can kind of qualify what your statement would be. Are you trying to say mask mandates for staff and students? Students below to second grade.

5:12:51 No high school kids, no mask. Like, can you just kind of verify where you’re going with it? Yeah, I’m just proposing we go revert back to the policy. That was the way it was written.

5:13:07 So, third grade and up, students and staff. Okay. That will be what was on the agenda.

5:13:10 Okay. And are you going to make that, or do we need a motion for a majority? Well, I think it would be. And maybe we have discussion along this line.

5:13:21 I think it would be important to know if I. I’ll be frank. I hate to schedule a special board meeting if we don’t have support, a majority support, to reenact the policy as put forward. So if we’re the.

5:13:29 Just revisiting the policy from last year and we do not have board support, to do that. Majority board support to do that. I hate to pull in staff and law enforcement and parents and for absolutely no reason.

5:13:40 So unless you all feel like there is. I do have a question, though. So, like, for instance, I mean, you know, clearly Katie and I are not going to agree, but Katie did bring up things that are a concern to her that involve a mask.

5:13:47 And so we would have to have a special meeting to have that conversation. Correct. So that’s.

5:14:01 Let me, Mister Gibbs, our mask policy, does it detail third grade and up the. Can we make changes to that without. If you’re making changes to the actual policy, it would be rulemaking.

5:14:22 So it would have to go through the rulemaking process. So we would either have to accept the policy as presented and authorize the superintendent to enact the policy as presented, or we would have to go through the rulemaking process to modify the policy. Yeah, you could do an emergency, if you deemed it an emergency, for health, safety, welfare, you could do an emergency policy just for school buses if that’s where you wanted to go with Miss Campbell’s idea that she threw out, and then you could build that in over the 90 days.

5:15:03 That’s why the emergency policy provisions there. Okay. And so if we have a special, if we call a special board meeting next week, and the board, the board could then vote at that time to have a modified policy, you could vote for your policy implementation as has been, you know, recommended as well.

5:15:16 Or you could vote for an emergency policy only for buses. So since we have the policy already that’s there still, we can’t just implement part of the policy, is what you’re saying. I don’t think it references buses at all.

5:15:41 I’m trying to pull it up right now. Well, and volunteers and everything. Well, we didn’t have to have separate with the buses because we.

5:15:54 It was just mandated across the board, so buses were not singled out. Right. And I’m not really sure exactly where I fall on that.

5:16:07 I just think that that’s one area where we. I think it’s probably the most. One of the most risky places because students are very close together and it’s a short time.

5:16:19 So am I. I have no desire. I’m not asking for a special meeting. I’m not asking for a special.

5:16:29 So, Mister Susan, you do not want a special meeting, Miss Campbell, you do not want a special meeting. I also am not going to be in support of a special meeting at this point in time, although I would certainly be willing to, you know, as we see how things play out, if we decide, you know, next week that we would like to call a special board meeting, then we could certainly reach out to Mister Gibson, request to do so. But I think that we are given where we are at this moment, I just am not in support of that.

5:16:51 And madam chair, if we can get hospitalizations and icus rates from the hospitals in the meantime, too, I’ll follow. I was just asking if we could get the data that we didn’t get from the DOH. That’s all.

5:16:59 The ICU rates, the hospitalization rates by age, branded, bracketed. That’s all? That’s all. Okay, so is there any additional board member discussion on the mask at this point? And are we all clear as to how we.

5:17:20 Sorry, go ahead. Miss Jenkins. Yeah.

5:17:33 So I do have a question, Mister Gibbs. So we were focused on a special meeting. So what does it take for it to be on the next agenda? Request.

5:17:58 Just a request. I request that it be on the next agenda. So, miss.

5:18:21 Miss. Huh? Any member can put an agenda item on the agenda? Yep. So, Doctor Mullins, you have that request on.

5:18:44 Okay. Anything else, Miss Jenkins? Madam chair? Doctor Mullins. Yes.

5:19:00 Can I just ask clarification, just for two? So the agenda item that would be back on the agenda would be for the board to vote on the reinstatement of the existing board policy. The board mask policy 8420.02.

5:19:10 Is that correct? Any additional clarification? Are we good? We good? Okay. All right. That is going to bring us into our public comment section.

5:19:24 And as we get into this, all right, we have 39 speakers signed up this evening. I do not know how many of those speakers are still with us. Given the lateness of the evening to that point, and given the fact that we have gone through our board discussion, you all have an idea as to what the plan is moving forward.

5:19:34 And Mas will be discussed in two weeks, on August 10 as well. Should you wish to waive your public speaking time, you are certainly free to do so. If you would like to stand up, up and say, I’m in support of masks, and waive the rest of the time, you’re welcome to do so.

5:19:39 At the same time, we will absolutely honor everyone having the three minutes that they signed up for. So just throwing those options out there. All right, our first speaker is going to be Thomas Jefferson.

5:19:59 As Mister Jefferson’s approaching, keep in mind that each speaker is limited to three minutes. We have a clock in front of me to help you keep track of your time. When your time is over, you will be asked to stop and allow the next speaker his or her turn.

5:20:10 Always keep in mind that reasonable decorum is expected at all times, and your statements should be directed to the board chair. The chair may interrupt, warn, or terminate in participants statement when time is up. It’s personally directed, abusive, obscene, or irrelevant.

5:20:15 Should an individual not observe proper etiquette, the chairman may request the individual leave the meeting. Let’s all encourage an environment appropriate for our children who may be present or are watching from home. All right? We will.

5:20:30 Actually, Miss Escobar, do you have the list? May I get that? It’s just easier for me to track my threes. I apologize, mister. Jefferson.

5:20:51 Jefferson, I will be right with you. All right, so our first three speakers will be Thomas Jefferson, Charles Langworthy, and Nancy Lopez. Mister Jefferson, you may begin as soon as you’re ready.

5:21:12 Try the other one, Buddha. Hello. That one’s working.

5:21:24 Okay, first of all, I’d like to point out for everybody here that we had a board member tonight that talked to the health department and asked a specific question. Whether that person on the health department would want to be in a class with 30 kids without a mask or without a vaccination. And she was looking for a no answer.

5:21:43 And yet that same person sits on this board without a mask tonight in front of 100 people, just like that same teacher. That’s hypocrisy. Okay, so I just want to start with that so everybody understands that the person sits here without a mask.

5:22:08 Who wants our kids? Who wants to make our kids wear masks? Okay? So I’d like to start by saying that we, the patriots of Brevard county, made a grave mistake last year, allowing this board of dictators to put in place a mask mandate on our children at school. We will not allow you to put a mask mandate or any other mandate on our children anymore. The children of this county are our children, not your children.

5:22:20 And we as parents, decide what is right for our children, not a board of dictators. This is America, not Nazi Germany. However, each day in America, it seems as if we are getting closer to Nazi Germany, with all the dictators telling us what to do, what to say.

5:22:34 It is not the right of any government body to tell us how to raise our children, especially not the job of five board members. Mask option is the only constitutional option. Allowing parents that want to send their kids to school with masks to do so, and allowing parents that do not want to send their kids to school with masks not to do so.

5:23:02 That’s what freedom of choice is all about. This is not even the school board’s decision to make whether our kids wear masks or don’t wear masks. This is only the decision and the parents rights to decide what their children do.

5:23:15 The last time I checked, the government and school board members aren’t raising my kids. I am. These school board members don’t feed our clothes or provide for our children.

5:23:35 We do. We, the people of Brevard county, are fed up with five members trying to tell us what is right and what is best for our children. We are here to say, you will not mandate our children to wear masks anymore.

5:23:45 Give me liberty or give me death. Thank you, sir. Charles Longworthy.

5:23:52 Charles Longwood. Longworthy. Going once, going twice.

5:24:08 Nancy Lopez, it is a long night. I just want to say I’m pro math and I yield my time to the next speaker. Thank you, Nancy.

5:24:21 All right, next three. Next three speakers are Nicole Hosey, Marin Caldwell and Finley Caldwell. Nicole? Good evening.

5:24:35 My name is Nicole Holsey. I’m an attorney locally here in Brevard County. I have three children.

5:24:57 Two of my children attend Viera Elementary School. I’m requesting that this board revisit the mask mandate on July 19, 2021. My son contracted Covid-19 when he attended summer school at Viera Elementary.

5:25:14 I want to point to the fact that my son did attend school last year in person and did not contract Covid-19 this board removed that mask mandate and less than two months later, my son test positive for Covid. It was eleven cases that we are aware of at Viera elementary and an unknown number of individuals who had to quarantine. It’s time to seek the experts.

5:25:57 It’s time to look to what the CDC says. And we had experts here today explaining the importance of wearing a mask and the importance of how Covid is going right now. This is not the time to be guided by your feelings, by what you’re comfortable about, but facts, common sense, and a large consensus of the experts.

5:26:08 I understand people have different perspectives on the argument with this mask. I completely get that. But what we have to do is we have to keep the best interest of every children in Brevard county and mine.

5:26:18 If masks are not implemented, we can look to see more hospitalizations, more deaths, more continued quarantine in this coming school year. I’m not sure how something as simple as a mask have become so political at this point. Party affiliation should not be a priority.

5:26:26 It’s time to reevaluate why you ran for board. Why are you on this board? And is your goal for the best interest of the children, their well being and their health? If every child in Brevard county schools are wearing a mask, that does not just protect my child, that protects every other child and every other person in this community. Some children wearing a mask or mask being optional is not enough.

5:26:31 My child is an example of that. He wore his mask to school every day and at summer camp and still contracted Covid. No parent should have to go through what me and my husband went through on July 19, 2019.

5:26:58 The fear we had of what we did not know what was going to happen to our kid, that disrupted our personal lives. It disrupted our professional lives. The only way to protect our children’s health and their well being is to require masks.

5:27:08 In this country, we all have rights, and my rights end when it begins to encroach on someone else’s rights. My parenting decisions may be different than others in this room, in those households, but all children have to go to school. If another parent’s decision is not to allow their kid to wear masks to school, that could result in my child being sick at that point, you’re encroaching on my child’s rights, my child’s health, and the rights as a parent.

5:27:20 Nothing further. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Josey Marin Caldwell.

5:27:35 Finley Caldwell left, as well, Catherine Delaney, followed by Thomas Tomas and Adair Connor. Hi. I want to start off by saying I can’t believe we are here again.

5:27:41 If we are going with the argument that masks save lives. I just wanted to repeat what the experts said. Correct mask usage is the key.

5:27:55 Children are not going to wear masks correctly. It’s just not going to happen. And that was proved this year.

5:28:10 That being said, that’s not my opinion. Masks do not work in slowing the spread of Covid-19 my son’s kindergarten class was not required to wear masks last year. Guess how many times they got quarantined? Zero.

5:28:22 That is because masks are irrelevant in stopping the spread of Covid-19 stop with the fear mongering. It’s not working. Our school district has so many more.

5:28:26 I’m sorry. So many pressing issues to deal with other than masks like the performance of our student body and the achievement gaps. I’m going to say this loud and clear.

5:28:38 If you vote to force my child to wear a medical device, I will withdraw my three children from the district along with their funds. I know there is a large amount of parents who are ready and willing to do the same thing that will greatly affect the budget for our district. This is not a threat.

5:28:47 It’s a promise. It’s simply something that’s going to happen. Quarantining our healthy kids without an e learning option is detrimental to our children’s education and flat out discriminatory.

5:29:03 Now, I sent somebody up there an email that talked about their presentation about the achievement gap, and it frankly disgusted me, from what I understand. And the reason why I’m talking about this is because they have refused to answer my question through email. It sounded to me that he said that the reason why we have an achievement gap is because our teachers and administrators are possibly unknowingly racist and biased.

5:29:11 I find that disgusting. We need to put the funds towards helping our kids who scored two or below on the FSA. We don’t need all the equity training.

5:29:15 We don’t need all the diversity training. This is 2021. My kids were in the park the other day.

5:29:24 They didn’t care what color the kids were. They played with the kids in the park. They don’t care.

5:29:32 Stop trying to make race an issue when it’s not. Educate our children. Thanks, Katie.

5:29:54 Have a good night. Thomas. Hello, my name is Thomas Tomas, and I’m not good at this, but I have to tell you, this has been the most passive aggressive game of whack a mo I’ve ever heard.

5:30:18 Personal feelings shouldn’t be brought out onto the stage. Okay. Just a short while ago, by the way, all of us, I’m 62.

5:30:35 All of us were in the phone book. All of our phone numbers were published. Just so that you understand where I stand, we’re not wearing a mask.

5:30:48 My children will be going to school, and they will not be wearing a mask. So I listened to someone previous to me say, oh, well, you’re infringing on me now. Let’s go back, let’s think for a second.

5:31:00 I’m all over the board. I understand that because I’m not prepared. I’m just pissed.

5:31:10 So she said, okay, you’re infringing on me. Well, no, let’s go back to the smoking thing. Okay? We don’t have smoking indoors because you’re infringing on me.

5:31:33 We didn’t say to the smokers, oh, well, you can keep smoking because by making you stop smoke smoking, that’s infringing. No, it doesn’t work that way. There has to be an action and then a reaction in case everybody remembers.

5:31:36 Okay, so you’re infringing on me by telling me that I have to bring my kids to school with a mask. I’m not infringing on you. Bye.

5:31:51 Sending my kids to school with. Without a mask. We’re doing nothing.

5:32:20 We’re just going to school, which is exactly how it’s supposed to be. Just go to school. This whole, you know, the whole freedom and USA and all of that.

5:32:38 I believe in that. I’m not right or left. I could care less what color you are or what persuasion or.

5:33:05 I don’t care. I always say that if you take somebody from the far right and you take somebody from the far left and you sit them down at a table and say, listen, I’ll be back tomorrow. When you get back, you’re going to find the two of them there just ch ch ch ch ch.

5:33:17 Just chatting away. You know why? Because we’re all right there in the middle. So let’s stop this political nonsense.

5:33:31 I’m going to ask you to stop pointing at our board members. Absolutely. Thanks.

5:33:37 I’ll refrain from that. Let’s stop this political nonsense. You’re not going to force us to wear a mask.

5:33:58 The governor is going to back us up on that, and you guys are just going to have to deal with it. You are. No offense.

5:34:07 I’m sure you’re all wonderful people, every single one of you, but you’re not going to vote on something that we’ve already voted on as a state. All right, thanks, Thomas. Excuse me.

5:34:17 Adair, Connor, Jennifer Dunna. I have my speech, but everything. I just want to say first that I’m really.

5:34:30 This one’s better. I’m really disappointed and sad that you think that it’s okay to take special moments and memories away from myself and my family and my children, such as walking my child into his second grade class, not holding his mother’s hand. It’s nothing acceptable.

5:34:33 I am here again to address my concerns with you about allowing me to parent my own children. I am the mother of two boys who attend Brevard public schools. So first I would like to say I do not co parent with the government.

5:34:44 Okay. I will decide what is best for my children. I will no longer allow you to make decisions regarding my children’s health, and I am prepared to withdraw both my children if you try.

5:34:52 Per HB 241, the parents Bill of Rights. As a Florida parent, you have the right to make healthcare decisions for your minor child. We should not be having this discussion again.

5:35:17 Let me parent my children. Matthew Dawley, followed by Sarah Schiavario and Rachel Roberte. Matthew.

5:35:38 Hello, Matthew. Dolly. I’m the village Elliott.

5:35:53 Back at it again. I had a thing prepared, but we kind of went off rocker tonight, as we all know. Whose sad story wins? Because I brought my kid up here a few weeks ago or whenever it was.

5:36:08 And I told you about how my kids, because they’re in the grades that don’t have to wear masks, were purposely singled out by staff members, segregated and treated differently. My pre k child was sent home so many times with no problems at all, not displaying any health abnormalities for the sheer fact that he didn’t have a mask on so many times that our pediatrician wrote a note for us to give to the principal say, stop sending this kid home. He’s not sick.

5:36:23 And then when I call this teacher to talk about it, she’s sick at school. A teacher that’s at the age, if she catches Covid, she’s going to die. But you’re sending my four, five year old home sick who doesn’t have any symptoms because he’s not wearing a mask.

5:36:38 My second grader in his music class, him and all the boys that didn’t wear masks were sat in the back and segregated. And we’re told by the music teacher that people that don’t wear masks are super spreaders. Like, where does this end? Whose sad story wins? Like, really? Was this gonna be a virtue signaling contest? And I wanna also speak about the climate of these meetings tonight.

5:36:49 I’m just gonna give you the honest perception of me being dummy self sitting here watching. We have specialists come in and. And I think every person up here was somewhat a little guilty of this.

5:37:07 We’re not asking these people’s questions to find a truth which would be better path to the children. We’re asking these people questions to either solidify our argument of what we want or not. And that’s got to stop.

5:37:23 That has got to stop. All right? And that’s both sides. That’s both sides.

5:37:33 We need to be our mission to serve every student with excellence as the standard, not to serve every student which what we think would be best for them, all right? That’s our job as parents. Some of these parents are not going to do a good job of certain things, all right? I’m not a fan of the screaming and yelling. I’m not a fan of the hooting, hollering.

5:37:50 That’s why I stay quiet. Every person in this room with a mask on or a mask off is a human being. For real.

5:38:07 We have children. Whoever arguing about whatever, set an example for your children. People, for the love of God, set an example for your children.

5:38:16 All right? Do you want your children to act like this? Treat people with respect and dignity? And that goes both ways because people over there are guilty and people over there are guilty. Eat a slice of the humble pie. We all need to treat each other like human beings.

5:38:34 Maybe we get somewhere better. Three minutes. Say enough.

5:38:54 Bring coffee next time. Thanks, Matthew. Sarah.

5:39:12 Good evening, madam chair and board. My name is Sarah Schavierio. I am a student pursuing three degrees in behavioral science.

5:39:40 I’m a registered voter, taxpayer wife to a husband who is involved in the commercial space industry. And most importantly, I’m a mom to two children attending bps next month. I have four topics I would like to address as people are concerned with rising cases of COVID Again, I urge you to keep in mind how damaging the masks were physically and mentally to the children.

5:39:51 I hear a lot of people concerned about COVID cases rising and talking about masking quarantines lockdowns again. But I also hear many mental health clinicians talking about the mental health crisis and fallout from these things. I plead with the board to consider the mental health of all children.

5:40:16 Mental health is just as important as physical health. Due to the lockdowns, quarantines and being forced to wear a mask, overdoses, suicide, anxiety and depression. Numbers are up 30%.

5:40:25 These are statistics from a neighboring county. I have yet to reach out to our local sheriff’s office and get the numbers for Brevard County. I implore you to continue to keep masks optional and the medical status of minors private.

5:40:45 Do not quarantine healthy children with a different medical status than their classmates. Separate is not equal. Do not discriminate children by class due to their parents own personal, private, religious and medical choices.

5:41:07 That is creating more division and not unity or equity in our classrooms or school community. After the past year, the school community needs unity and healing. That’s why medical choices for minors need to remain private and masks need to be optional.

5:41:21 To stop the division in the BPS community and start to bring people and parents from all different points of view together. This, that is the future. To learn from our differences and each other.

5:41:35 Continue to keep in mind that mental health is just as important as physical health. As I said before, therefore, healthcare choices of minors should and must remain private. My family and I look forward to a wonderful school year and building relationships with administrators and our wonderful teachers.

5:41:46 Just wondering when we will be able to volunteer in the cloud this year and support our schools and students. Thank you. Thank you, Rachel.

5:42:03 Followed by Chloe, who I’m guessing is coming with you. And then Jeff, Sharon after that. So we’re here to say that we do not co parent with the government.

5:42:18 We do not agree that there should be any type of mandate, personal family choices should remain personal and within the family. And I think that goes for bringing all of your personal business right up to the front of the board. Also.

5:42:25 You can talk to us, Chloe. We won’t bite, I promise. You guys have a good night.

5:42:31 Jeff. Jeff. Sharon.

5:42:38 Jeff? No, it’s Jeff. Sharon. There’s probably Jonathan Schumann on here someplace.

5:42:58 Bill Hickman, followed by Jordan Johnson and then Christina Baker. Bill, can you hear me? I’m a nurse. I work locally in one of the hospitals.

5:43:07 Over the last year I’ve seen dealing with COVID and all of the after effects families, everything. I had a lot of prepared stuff. But, you know, what’s been said here tonight has really kind of made a lot of this.

5:43:20 The Delta variant has tripled the transmission rate. We’ve seen cases skyrocket here locally and across Florida over the last three weeks. Today, health first reported 172 Covid cases admitted, 95% of which are unvaccinated.

5:43:29 I do question about pediatrics because there’s, I’ve heard the 15 year old on a ventilator. So, interestingly, Fox News affiliate in Jacksonville yesterday reported from a pediatric infectious disease specialists that there was 20 cases they heard back from two hospitals, one of which that had 13 pediatric cases, five of which in the ICU. The other hospital reported six cases.

5:43:42 So they are happening. We don’t have great resources here, so it’s a concern. If it’s a serious case, it is going to be sent to Orlando.

5:43:48 So, you know, these are things that need to be taken into account. I support having masking specifically because of what I’ve seen, but I think at a baseline, it is the best mitigation strategy that we have available to us to universally protect everybody, the staff, the kids. It’s the best option right now.

5:43:57 Were there a better one, we’d all be pursuing it. Do we want to stay wearing masks forever? No. I’ve been wearing this thing twelve to 14 hours a day.

5:44:01 And would I go without it if I could? Yes. But what’s the in business, we look at what is going to give us the biggest bang for the dollar. The strategy, the simplest strategy to come through that’s going to make the biggest difference is putting a mask on kids, putting the masks on the staff to help stop transmission.

5:44:10 Why did we have a non existent flu season last year? Kids wearing masks, kids being super spreaders of flu, in running around, being in close contact, they were masked. So it greatly reduced what our numbers were. So there was effects of strategy, you know, questions about the testing.

5:44:34 The. The CDC is pushing over straight to actually being able to use tests that were already there. PCR tests did their purpose under emergency use authorization.

5:44:48 And regardless of what happens with the state, we have a responsibility here in our community to keep everybody safe. So the best of all possible options is to do that. Thank you, Bill.

5:45:05 Jordan Johnson, followed by Christina Baker and then Damian Hosey. I’m sorry, Damani Hosey. Good evening, board members.

5:45:31 So talking about my favorite thing tonight, quarantining of students and staff, I will start with saying I think it’s crazy that we’re twelve days away from school and we’re just now getting this information. First of all, this has been talked about and talked about and talked about, talked about. I’ve been here since last September.

5:45:54 I’ve talked about quarantining healthy students. Do we have those numbers? Department of Health? No, we sure don’t. We don’t know how many quarantine students never got Covid, but they weren’t allowed to go to school, so that’s fantastic.

5:46:16 So then I get to school today for registration. Oh, I’m sorry, I wanted to start with this. Public comment.

5:46:35 Public comment. There’s 30 minutes allotted for public comment. I understand the issue with we’re all speaking off task.

5:46:52 I’m not really. This is mitigation strategies. I guess I accidentally wrote quarantine and that I should have wrote mitigation strategies.

5:47:22 There were several people here with really young children and I think that maybe, maybe it could have been motion like, hey, we have this 30 minutes. We have one speaker. Is everybody in agreement that anybody with a baby, a kid, do you want to go ahead and take out of the allotted 30 minutes? Okay.

5:47:28 Now back to the discriminatory policies that I learned at school today. Twelve days before school starts. I don’t have a lot of options here.

5:47:36 Under the direction of the Brevard county of Health department, which is not my child’s educator, quarantine periods will range from ten to 14 days. It’s a mystery. Maybe because they, you know, I wear moms for liberty shirt.

5:47:53 My kid gets an extra few days. Students and staff who are fully vaccinated will not have to quarantine. So update for you there.

5:48:13 This is news. You can fact check it. The CDC just updated guidance today that vaccinated individuals who have been exposed to Covid should be tested three days later.

5:48:39 So your policy needs to reflect something there. One. I’m sorry.

5:49:02 With all the talk of equity and achievement gaps. Here we go. This is not an equity policy.

5:49:28 Not everyone can get the vaccine. Not everyone can get. Twelve year olds can’t get it.

5:49:47 It’s not FDA approved. It’s still under emergency use. So you have a policy right here, plain black and white, that doesn’t give everybody a fair chance.

5:50:06 And if you want to encourage mask wearing so much, why don’t you make the policy? Hey, if you wore a mask, you don’t have to be quarantined as long since they work so well. Right? Like, there’s, there’s a lot of different ways around this, but to say that non vaccinated athletes who are contact to a positive case will not be permitted to participate in athletics until day 15. So we have a quarantine period of ten to 14 days.

5:50:15 But if you’re an athlete, it’s 15 days. And as it was brought up earlier, these are major moments in these children’s life that determine so much. But I’d like to just put out the fact that a learning event is just as important as a sporting event.

5:50:29 Christina Baker. Hi, I’m Christina. I am definitely not for the mask.

5:50:39 I mean, it just kind of doesn’t make sense because the kids are still getting together, they’re having extracurricular activities, they’re gathering, they’re doing all the things that they would do in school, outside of school, and then they come in to school, and then you guys want to mask them. But if you’re, if it’s not consistent all the time, it’s not going to work, and it’s not working. My daughter’s a thumb sucker.

5:50:51 She has figured out how to put her thumb under her mask and suck her thumb at school when the teacher is not looking. So I am can guarantee you that there are many other students that are picking their nose and God knows what. And the whole vaccine thing is just kind of crazy to me because they’re like, gotta get your vaccine.

5:51:12 But now you have to wear a mask because you’re still getting sick, and Pfizer is now wanting you to get another shot. And nurses are telling me, nurses, they’re saying that they’re admitting 50 50 that 50% of the people they’re seeing are vaccinated. You got a 50 50 chance of getting sick.

5:51:22 Everybody does, and now it’s 50 50. I also heard a board member ask the DOH about, okay, nevermind, I want to start over. There has been little to no mention of emotional and mental health for children due to mask wearing.

5:51:45 There was one question asked to the DOH about it tonight, which I’m confused as to why you would consider the voice of the DoH. Over the voice of the parents that listen, talk and care for our children. We have shared stories in the past with you about how mask wearing has negatively affected them.

5:52:01 And I’m sure all of you have received plenty of emails from parents on this matter as well. Are you actually listening or do you think you are required to decide what’s best for us? Damani Housie followed by Aisha Hosey and then Sarah Hayfield. I think I said Halsey instead of hosey.

5:52:17 I’m sorry, doctor Hosey, can you hear me? Okay, okay. My name is Damani. Yeah.

5:52:28 Can you raise it or. Hello? Perfect. Thank you.

5:52:45 My name is Damani Hosey. I’m father of three children in Brevard public schools and I’m a family physician to thousands of patients in Brevard. I’m back before this board today to renew my plea to reinstate the mask mandate so our kids can have a safe school year.

5:52:59 I’ll get straight to the point. Without a mask mandate, I’m preparing to remove my unvaccinated children from brevard public schools because I cannot in good conscience send them to classrooms where exposure to Covid-19 is almost guaranteed. The mask mandate should have never been eliminated in the first place.

5:53:10 The science told us that masks are effective at preventing Covid-19 spread. 0% of our kids under twelve and only 22% of kids over twelve in Florida are vaccinated. Unvaccinated children can become severely ill and die from Covid-19 more kids have died from Covid-19 than the worst of any flu season in recent history.

5:53:22 In the past week, there’s been more than an 80% increase in COVID infection amongst children of all age groups in Florida. Since you rescinded the mask mandate. A new, more contagious, potentially more deadly delta variant, which we all know about now, has emerged as the dominant Covid-19 strain.

5:53:33 The state of Florida has become a pandemic hotspot with 20% of all new Covid cases in the US. And Brevard has become an epicenter in Florida with a surge in cases, hospitalizations and percent positivity. The number of COVID cases in my own medical practice has been on the rise when for weeks I hadn’t seen any cases, the CDC, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the World Health Organization.

5:53:38 Now all say that all children, regardless of vaccine status, should be masked for indoor instruction. Maintaining this mask optional policy is getting more and more irresponsible by the day. In light of these recent Covid trends and scientific recommendations.

5:53:52 Having unvaccinated kids school staff together in confined classroom spaces is a perfect scenario for Covid transmission. The Delta strain of COVID is opportunistic. And it will find its way into our schools and into our children.

5:54:13 Please stand up against those politicians in Tallahassee. And use your local power to get masks back on kids this school year. Thank you.

5:54:22 Thank you, doctor Hosey, Asia Hosey. Followed by Sarah Hayfield and then Dustin Platter. My name is Ayesha Holsey.

5:54:36 I’m a registered nurse, retired. And that is my son who I’m very proud of. I am speaking to you as a grandmother.

5:54:46 I have five children in brevard school system. All five of my children, my grandchildren. I have one grandson that already graduated.

5:55:05 And I have another little one that’s on the way. I implore you, all of you, from the superintendent to all of the rest of you, to protect my five grandchildren. I am not asking you to do everything for children at home.

5:55:18 We are protecting them. And we have not had any incidents of COVID in our family. Until my grandson went to your summer school.

5:55:32 This year when you dropped the mass mandate, we sent two of our children to summer school. One of them came home with COVID You wanted to know what it’s like for parents to take care of children. Your child does not have to go to intensive care for it to be a problem for the family.

5:55:42 You’re looking at a child night and day because he’s running an elevated temperature and he has a dry cough. His mother and father cannot go to work because they are now quarantined as well. The little sister.

5:56:02 We have to isolate. Do you know what it’s like to isolate and quarantine an eight year old from a four year old? It is extremely difficult. I am saying it, but it’s necessary.

5:56:10 We did not want the four year old to get Covid. And for us to have another one that we had to worry about. I implore you.

5:56:19 I’m very disappointed that you did not have that extra meeting. Things are changing with COVID every day. What you decided in May does not apply to what’s happening today.

5:56:46 We have a new strain of COVID that is very virulent. It is affecting our children in a way that’s different. When we first started this pandemic, we are living in Florida.

5:56:59 That’s one of the four greatest states. With the increase of COVID Okay, we can’t just look in the past. This disease is changing.

5:57:05 And our policies must change with it. Do not send our children unprotected. And when they get off the bus, it’s the school that is protecting them.

5:57:16 Yes, it is. You talk about liberty, our children face this way. Thank you.

5:57:29 Please protect Sarah. Grandchildren. Thank you.

5:57:42 Ma’am, I’m gonna have to ask that you put the microphone down and step away. Ma’am, please put the mic down for me. Okay, it’s time for somebody else to speak.

5:58:14 Thank you, Sarah Hayfield. Followed by Dustin Platter, Annalise Strobel. Sarah Hayfield, Dustin Platter.

5:58:36 Good evening, school board and fellow parents. Tonight you heard many people shouting for you to listen to their side. So let me start by making this point clear.

5:58:54 Tonight, you’re being forced to make a choice. You can listen to the medical experts, the scientists, and the parents trying to protect their children, or you can listen to the moms who want their child’s comfort placed above everything else. It really is that simple.

5:59:09 Because the choice is that clear. A month ago, we looked forward to sending our kids back to school. My daughter would be starting kindergarten, and my son the gifted program.

5:59:29 We recognize how important it is for them to get that education firsthand. Instead, we have seen Florida’s numbers have increased from a seven day average of 1200 to 13,000. Hospitalizations among under 18 year olds have increased 68%.

5:59:42 And the reason is simple. Because a group of liberty moms and freedom fanatics refused to wear a mask. Those very same people are here tonight asking you to side with them to implement their policy.

6:00:03 That literally has us in the current situation. Last year, with a sizable portion of students at home and the rest in mask mandates at school, you still had 700 children get infected. This year.

6:00:21 The mask is spreading faster and hitting children harder. If you drop the mask mandate, you are guaranteed to have at least another 700 children. We want our kids back in school.

6:00:31 And as parents, we are doing everything we can to protect them while trying to ensure that they get the education they need. Once the vaccine is approved, we will get it. We will give them every tool possible to be safe, because that’s our job as parents, to give our kids the tools they need to be safe and succeed.

6:00:33 But until the vaccine is approved, we need your help. During World War two, we came together. We sacrificed to ensure that we won.

6:00:53 We didn’t complain. We didn’t argue that helping the allied cause was against our freedom. Miami Dade has reinstituted the mass policy.

6:01:06 Bauer has done so as well. Your job is to protect and educate our kids, help set the example, follow the science and the experts re institute the mask mandate at least until all the children have the opportunity to get fully vaccinated. And I just want to add, Miss Campbell had mentioned some numbers earlier and it was account to about 5% being infected and that was with a less transmittable rate and with masks.

6:01:10 So without masks and a more virulent rate, it’s going to be even higher than that 5% and you’re going to have more than two schools shut down. This is. I keep hearing the side talk about freedom and their choices.

6:01:17 I’m going to ask you to just stop referring to the other side because it’s divisive. Okay. If you would like to share your opinion, we welcome it.

6:01:31 There are a group of people who are trying to sit there and say it’s all about their freedom and their choice. But just like drunk driving, that choice is impacting my child. If I send him to school, he can get infected.

6:01:49 Thank you. Thank you. Elise Strobel, Alyssa Bobbitt and then Carrie Jurasse.

6:02:06 Hi everyone. My name is Elise Strobel. I’m 15 and I’m going into 11th grade at Melbourne High School and the first thing I want to say is there’s no flu and any other diseases because it’s all getting counted as Covid.

6:02:12 I made the choice last year to go to school because I can’t learn by sitting at home and listening to a teacher speak. I sat in a classroom for 90 minutes while my teacher sat behind a shower curtain wearing a mask and teaching through an overhead exes between seats at lunch because you can’t get too close to the people that you hang out on the weekend with worrying about getting dress coded or not wearing a mask correctly. Our schools, and especially this school board, is supposed to be looking out for the best interest of the students, not playing into the media and the government’s little gain.

6:02:25 My best friend got Covid last year, but yet still had to go on to quarantine. Two other times after that she got a viral throat infection from wearing a mask eight plus hours a day. My biggest stress last year was getting that call from the dean’s office saying I had to go down because I’m getting quarantined again, getting taken out of my class and my learning time to go online.

6:02:46 These couple of months masks free has taught me a couple of really cool lessons. My biggest insecurity has been my skin, my acne, like a lot of other teens that struggle my age and wearing a mask all day was the worst year for my skin. It’s finally starting to clear up and heal.

6:02:58 Chorus has been a passion of mine since I was in elementary school and it was ruined by wearing a mask and singing outside 6ft apart in the heat, cold. The only reason why I decided to sign up for course this year is because we’re supposed to not have to wear a mask. I don’t.

6:03:28 There’s so many people that passed out outside because of how hot it was because they had to wear a mask. On top of heat exhaustion and oxygen deprivation, we have a scientific microscope at my house and placed a mask under it. One hole is big enough to allow thousands of the tiny particles to go through and that’s supposed to keep us safe.

6:03:51 Our own secretary of health and human services said that they want the government to know every single person that gets vaccinated. I don’t think they have that right. When I found out that, I was shocked and horrified.

6:04:03 I work at a restaurant where masks are not required and no one has gotten Covid and we still make our food better than McDonald’s. Why is it that boys are allowed to wear tight jeans, skirts and crop tops with no issue, but as soon as I have my shoulders showing, it’s a distraction. I get distracted by people wearing tails, ears and dog collars.

6:04:14 But does that opinion matter? No, it doesn’t. My biggest problem that disgusts me is how even elementary schools get to kids get to identify as whatever they want and walk into the boys and girls restroom. I don’t know about everyone else, but when I go to the bathroom, I like to be surrounded by the people of this, my gender.

6:04:33 I don’t want a guy coming in with me. I have a five year old sister and I think, I really hope things change before she gets much older. And let me just say, thank you, Alyssa.

6:04:50 Have a good evening. My name is Elise. I mean Elise.

6:05:04 Alyssa is up next. Hello, my name is Alyssa and let me just say, drop the mask. Us, we do not like wearing a mask.

6:05:16 I am in high school and let me tell you, I’m walking around, walking up and down stairs and I can’t even breathe. We are in gym class. We can’t even have fun anymore because the sports can’t even play them.

6:05:31 Because why? Because you’re too close. 6ft apart. We’re walking around the track.

6:05:39 You’re supposed to be 6ft apart. If you’re with someone, you have to wear a mask over your nose. At the 90 degree heat.

6:05:43 There’s people dehydrated, lightheaded, nauseous, goes on and on. Like she said in chorus, there’s people passing out because we have to wear a piece of cloth that doesn’t do anything. Nothing.

6:06:02 I’d also like to say that I like the dress code at Mel High is ridiculous. There is guys wearing skirts and heels, and I wear a shirt that shows a little bit of my stomach or my shoulders and I get yelled at referral. It’s ridiculous.

6:06:19 There’s girls dyed hair, blue chains, and I can’t wear a shirt that shows half my stomach. It’s ridiculous. I literally had to go to the doctor because I got an infection in my throat from the mask.

6:06:49 It’s ridiculous. This needs to be stopped. We have five year olds going into kindergarten.

6:06:59 Their moms can’t even walk them to class because of COVID It’s sad. I mean, really sad. I have a five year old here with me.

6:07:06 Do you want to say, okay, thank you, Carrie. Followed by Jonathan Schumann and then Avalon Strafford. They should both work.

6:07:15 Hello? Can you hear me? Yeah. Okay. My name is Carrie Drace, and I wanted to start by addressing the thought about pediatric cases.

6:07:29 Kids wore masks all day at school, but then we watched them go out into the neighborhoods and run around with their friends all afternoon without masks on. So, I mean, there’s that for you. And in listening to all of the questioning of the department of Health, what comes to mind as I’m listening to all your questions is, what about natural immunity? That doesn’t ever seem to be something that is talked about.

6:07:37 So each of you have the opportunity to be a true leader nationally. Other states have watched how Florida has stood up to the politics being pushed down onto the nation like lockdowns we did as a state governor. DeSantis has bravely set examples on numerous fronts.

6:07:46 One that comes to mind is the lawsuit against big tech censorship. You too, can be brave and set new ground. You can stop the perpetual fear.

6:07:51 Be brave. Say enough. Our children here tonight at home, everywhere are watching what we do.

6:07:54 Show the children that you can be brave enough to stop saying what if every single day we are faced with risks. Teach our children how to be brave to face life’s challenges. Make the masks stay optional.

6:08:16 Thanks, Carrie. Jonathan. No.

6:08:29 Okay, sorry. Distinguished board members like Jennifer Jenkins. I’ve had two vaccinations.

6:08:51 Second one was difficult. The first one was no big deal. But I wear a mask now because my wife is dealing with leukemia and her blood count is not good.

6:09:24 And I dare not bring this home, bring home this virus because she won’t survive. I lost my mother to the virus back in 2020. She took her six, eight weeks.

6:09:46 She fought hard, but she lost the fight. I want you to visualize. I want everyone here to visualize the virus.

6:10:01 You can’t see it. It’s too small. So let’s pretend they’re bees.

6:10:23 If you had a whole room full of bees and they all had good stingers, maybe they were the. The newer version, which is the african bees, you would find that you’d want to cover your face. You wouldn’t want to be stung in the face, stung in the eyes, okay? Some of you would be allergic to it.

6:10:33 You might end up with anaphylactic shock. By the way, I’m a biology teacher and I got two days left and I retired. I’ve taught over 4000 students and I’m proud to have served this community and who have worked with your kids.

6:10:37 Okay? So anyway, the thing is that this virus is changing. It’s about two mutations away from solving the population problem on the planet, okay? I mean, right now, it’s a thousand times more virulent than the original form of this thing, okay? And our only way of fighting it is to keep from getting it. Because if we get it, it has an opportunity to mutate.

6:10:51 Now, the thing is that masks are a problem. I give you that. It’s a problem for me to teach with one.

6:10:58 This one’s five layers thick. Okay? Luckily, just keep it directed this way for me. Okay.

6:11:10 Thanks. So anyway, the thing is that I’ve given you two articles by email. One of them deals with demings in Orlando.

6:11:14 Declared a state of emergency. Their positivity rate is about equivalent to ours, maybe just a little bit higher. And the fact is, if we don’t get a handle on this, it’s going to get out of control.

6:11:24 Like a wild fire going through bomb bay. I remember that time, too. Good chunk of the city burnt down.

6:11:47 Couldn’t put the fire out. Didn’t have enough water. Well, you know what? If this virus gets a good handle on us, we’re not going to be able to put that out either.

6:11:51 Okay? And there won’t be any way to go. Go to escape it. I thank you again for the opportunity.

6:12:05 Thank you. Mister. Schumann.

6:12:11 Avalon Strafford, followed by Christopher Finn and then Ashley Joyner. Good evening, chairman, Chairwoman Belford and members of the board. I’m here to talk about masks and simply start by saying, enough with the mask mandate.

6:12:27 They are causing me to be anxious, nauseous. They are hard to breathe in, and it’s hard to hear people when one is speaking with while wearing one. These masks are also covering the beautiful faces of my friends, classmates and teachers.

6:12:44 I have missed seeing their smiling faces throughout the school days. Additionally, there have been numerous studies done that concluded mask are causing more harm to us than helping us. I refer to article entitled a careful review of the evidence in this article.

6:12:53 On page 13 it covers the ineffectiveness of masks, especially after wearing one for longer than 20 minutes due to saturations from one’s breath. On page 21 there’s a list of possible harms from wearing them which far outweighs their benefits. It has also been proven that school aged kids are not the super spreaders of this virus.

6:12:57 And again, it does more harm than good, both mentally and health wise, for us to be wearing mask, to be wearing a mask, especially for longer periods of times. I would like to close by stating and reminding the board that we live in a free country where there’s still freedom of choice when it comes to personal decisions regarding our health. I have wonderful parents.

6:13:00 I have wonderful bonus parents that always has my best interest at heart. I do not. I do not and will not be co parent by the school board or by the government when it comes to these separate decisions.

6:13:10 Thanks, Evelyn. Christopher Finn Christopher Finn, thank you for saying so late to hear what we have to say. It’s been a long night and I appreciate you all being here.

6:13:15 I am a father of three children. One of them actually is married and now moved on, but I’ve got two still here in the school district. One goes to Stevenson, the other one goes to Jefferson Middle School.

6:13:30 I also have an exchange student. They’ll be coming this year. She’ll be going to Merritt Island High School.

6:13:38 I am super proud of having my children go to school. The thing is, last year we started with e learning. Now it didn’t take a week for us to decide that e learning was not going to work out for our second grader.

6:13:40 All right. You try to put a seven year old down in a chair for six and a half hours, that is just. It’s crazy.

6:13:49 So I am pro staying open for school. I really need the schools to stay open because the benefit he had when he went to school and Miss Flier was there. She’s an amazing principal.

6:14:05 She actually accommodated us. She listened to us. She’s wonderful.

6:14:35 She’s such an asset to the county. But she listened to us and she set up standards and we had the mask mandate place. And you know what? It was a wonderful year at Stevenson.

6:14:42 Now, my daughter, she decided to continue with e learning and she kind of liked that because she didn’t have to get out of her pajamas. But the thing about that was she didn’t get any socialization, and she’s really excited for school this year. But I also remember there was a period of time at Jefferson where I was getting phone calls, like, two or three times a week, letting me know that there was another Covid case and another Covid case and another Covid case.

6:15:01 And I get it. It’s really hard to get the kids to wear a mask. It really is.

6:15:15 But they can do it because they have done it. And I’m coming to you as a father, and I hear a lot of passionate people, a lot of students, and I get it because you know what? I also teach at a local university, and I hate getting up in front of people and having to speak with a mask on. It’s super uncomfortable.

6:15:40 It is harder to breathe. But the fact is that I’m doing my best. I don’t need to wear the mask.

6:15:56 I mean, I’m fully vaccinated, and I was a breakthrough case, all right? So I’m like a Covid Avenger right now, okay? Like, I could walk into a room and I’d be fine, but my children aren’t. And that’s what I worry about is my eight year old son. He can’t get vaccinated.

6:16:05 And so if at the very least, our elementary school kids could actually wear masks, at least until we have a vaccine, that would be something, you know, and to end it just because I’m a little bit funny and stuff, but I think I am. So I guess I am. But I always tell my kids and I’ll change it a little bit.

6:16:19 But, you know, if you have a bowl of rice and you put just a little bit of mud in it, it’s still muddy rice. Okay. It doesn’t matter if you ask people not to put mud in it.

6:16:31 If there’s mud in it, there’s mud everywhere in it. You’re not going to eat it. Say, here, have some rice.

6:16:34 Well, I don’t think so. There’s mud in it. Well, that’s.

6:16:44 That’s the thing about optional masking. We know very well I love this county and I love the people in this county, but only half of them are going to do the mask, period. So if we do it optional, it’s just not going to work.

6:17:07 So I’m please asking you to reinstate the masking policy. Thank you. Thank you.

6:17:21 Christopher Ashley Joyner, followed by Scott Labouf, Janice Crisp, and then Daniel Espinoza. Ashley. Hello.

6:17:31 Good evening. First, I want to start with talking about the mask. Ashley, if you could.

6:17:38 Yeah, either one. Thanks. I’m gonna reset you.

6:17:59 Okay, thank you. All right, so I’m gonna start with talking about the mask. I want to thank all of you for coming back in and talking to us.

6:18:06 I also want to thank those of you that asked the proper questions that should have been asked of the Department of Health, which they had no answers for. So they are saying, you know, that most of the children are not even displaying any serious effects. There are some, but most are not.

6:18:27 However, children are 50 times more likely to die from the COVID vaccine than they are from the actual virus, per doctor Michael Yiddin from the Pfizer VP, a former Pfizer PP who headed the research into the respiratory disease. The amount of myocarditis that these vaccines are causing in children and even adults is appalling, and it should cancel the vaccine mandate as it is. I do not agree with children being vaccinated, and I do not agree with mandating a mask on a child.

6:18:58 I think it should be a choice. I’m not saying that they don’t need to wear a mask. I’m saying they can wear it if they want, if they feel safe.

6:19:19 Obviously, the masks aren’t working if we’re having all these cases. The next I want to talk about was the CRT training that came up, and I wanted to speak to that. It’s clearly got a trickle down effect to the students, regardless of whether you’re training the students or teaching the students to it or not.

6:19:39 There was a school here in Brevard that a yearbook page was dedicated to protesting. I don’t know about you or the schools that you grew up in, but when I look back at my yearbooks, my yearbooks have nothing to do with anything outside of school activities. Yet here we are.

6:19:51 When these kids go and pull their yearbooks for their children in the future, they’re going to have to explain, well, it’s protesting on the basis of a color of someone’s skin, which is racist. The same school also decided to change their masculine due to cultural sensitivity. The students voted, and I think it was somewhere around 60% initially against it, and then, oh, let’s re educate and revisit.

6:20:01 So now I’m changing the schools. So the amount of money going into changing the school could have gone to the teachers as a bonus for what they had to deal with the 2020 school year. It’s a good thing that Governor DeSantis recognizes this and is hoping to get these teachers a $1000 bonus.

6:20:18 Starting this year, there are wonderful teachers in this county, and they deserve more. Bless those teachers who are the last lines of defense against the ideology of CRT. Thank you.

6:20:27 Thank you, Scott. Hello. Hi.

6:20:34 Thanks for having me. I just wanted to say simply that I will not be allowing my child to wear a mask this year. If you guys put the mandate back on, I’ll be pulling my child out of the school.

6:20:47 I was here last month. I talked to you guys. I had a few concerns.

6:20:59 One was that, you know, we get up here as parents, we take the time to come to the meeting. We step up here, we talk to you guys, we have concerns. And honestly, I don’t know if you guys care.

6:21:10 I don’t know if you listen to our concerns. There’s no way for us to measure your reaction to what we say other than by the rules that you pass and the mandates that you pass. So it would be really nice since you guys have our names, you have our addresses, you have our email addresses, you have our phone numbers, there’s plenty of ways for you to correspond with us as parents.

6:21:33 I think it’s only fair that if we take the time to sit here for 4 hours, speak our mind, let you know where our concerns are, that you should probably reach out to us as parents and let us know that. Number one, you hear what we’re saying. Number two, you’re looking for the answer, or you found the answer.

6:21:44 Whether we like the answer that you give us or not, I think we’re entitled to an answer to our concerns. That’s all. Thank you.

6:21:52 Janice. Hi. Thank you.

6:22:15 I would just like to say kudos to the little bit of drama that went on today for the media that was here. The phone number that went out publicly was not a private phone number. It was published throughout the person’s campaign and given to the.

6:22:25 Move along from that, please. Dennis. I’m sorry, but this constitution right here gives me the right to speak.

6:22:41 Thank you. And if you need to read it, I can give you this personal copy as I had planned to tonight. Brevard school members, I just want to remind you that your behavior tonight violated policy 0123, and I would like you all to take a look at it.

6:22:51 You have agreed to have certain conducts when you come to us, and the behavior that went on here tonight, bringing personal, personal issues up, violated that policy in that conduct and walking out on us as we sat here for 3 hours with children. People might have missed work. That violated that code of conduct, and I am ashamed of your behavior.

6:22:54 You also signed a loyalty oath that states that you uphold the constitution of the United States. I know some of you may not be aware of what this document means, and I brought one in case you need to read it. But it states that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is at the forefront of each and every God given right and man made law that we have in this country.

6:23:19 The definition of liberty is the condition of being free from confinement and the condition of being free from the oppressive restriction of control by government and other powers. Moreover, our government, Governor DeSantis, has signed an executive order to end mask mandates given by counties. School members are not an entity of your own.

6:23:29 But you are a part of Brevard county, funded by tax funds and your very seats created by the Brevard county charter. I would argue this puts you under the executive. The same authority as the.

6:23:55 As what the governor signed an executive order of. You have no authority to give a mask mandate. It should remain the option of the parent.

6:24:27 I understand there is stories. There’s deaths, there’s hospitalizations, and there’s cases. But you are here to educate the children, not to assume the health responsibilities of any child here.

6:24:38 This was more like a health board meeting tonight than an education board meeting. That needs to stop. The politics needs to stop.

6:25:08 You’re here to educate our children. Start doing that and stop trying to be the doctors. Thank you very much.

6:25:15 Thanks, Janice. Daniel Espinosa. After Daniel will be Ashley Hall, Chris Bird, and then Rayleigh Siebel.

6:25:24 Good evening. My daughter will be attending Brevard Elementary School. Unfortunately, you know, the pandemic has been turned into a culture war.

6:25:43 However, I think we need to rise above this and listen to the scientists to protect our young children. Without vaccines for children under twelve, that only leaves masking. Covid is a preventable illness.

6:25:48 We need to be proactive and not stand by and watch the delta variants sicken our children unnecessarily. The negative of COVID infections vastly outweigh the negatives of mask wearing. I’m also in favor of tailoring the mask policy to elementary students or for others who are the most vulnerable.

6:25:57 Thank you, Daniel. Ashley close. Hello, members of the board.

6:26:36 My name is Ashley hall. I’m the brevard chair of moms for Liberty masks optional, period. You know where I stand on this.

6:26:41 I also want to point out the hypocrisy of tonight. Many, many different hypocrisies. But to say that masks in one form have shut down schools or have sent our kids home to quarantine when they’ve been masked and then to turn around, on the other hand, and say that blue is gone because of masks.

6:26:57 Look at the hypocrisy there. There are so many different contradicting statements made by the Department of Health by multiple people. We have got to get back to normal.

6:27:12 We have got to get our children in a normal state of affairs. We cannot continue to run away from a virus that is going to be here forever. It’s going to mutate, it’s going to continue to run its course like the flu, like the common cold.

6:27:31 How many variations of the common cold are there? Hundreds. We cannot continue to run from sickness. We can wash our hands.

6:27:48 We can do the things that we do we know we need to do. We don’t need to have 6ft distance. We don’t need to have masks.

6:28:15 We don’t need to do all of this masking on buses or masking our visitors. That’s one good way to not have volunteers because I will tell you right now, I will not go into the schools if I have to be masked. So please, can we just stop with this and go back to normal and educate our children.

6:28:39 Thank you. Thanks, Ashley. Chris, good evening.

6:28:59 So I. Okay, hopefully it stays in place. I originally was going to just talk about the mitigation strategies and the quarantining, but then the mask came up that we were going to discuss that possibly tonight. And I think it actually fits together.

6:29:10 My daughter is entering freshman year and I have looked forward to her high school years forever because I just think it’s, you know, the most memorable years of everyone’s life, mostly is their high school years. It’s the years we remember, the things we did, the athletic programs, our teachers, our friends. My daughter is not only an athlete, but she is also chorus, musical theater.

6:29:26 She wants to do it all. Okay? And the only person who seemed to get that tonight is Mister Susan. So I want to thank you for that.

6:29:43 You recognize that this, what we’re talking about here is taking away memories from so many kids. I my daughter has friends up to the age of 18 and watching their high school years be ripped from them these past couple years is depressing. And I am just sickened by the idea that I am going to have that ripped from her this past year.

6:29:52 We are talking about mental health. It has been horrible for our family. It is too much to discuss in public.

6:30:05 Okay. I know I’m not the only one that’s going through what we’re going through right now. Kids need to return to normal, like was just said.

6:30:31 It is so important that’s why Governor DeSantis is making it a priority that our kids return to normal. I understand that there are concerns and there are a lot of people out there that are hearing different things from different doctors. This doctor says this.

6:30:40 The CDC says that. You know what? There is no consensus. I heard someone say there’s consensus.

6:30:51 There is none. Okay. For example, if you haven’t watched the roundtable with Governor DeSantis, the doctor, doctor J.

6:31:00 I can’t say his last name, pronounce it from Stanford, points out the CDC has not been willing to differentiate between being hospitalized from COVID and with COVID So if a child is hospitalized for a broken leg and is positive with COVID they are classified as Covid hospitalization. How are we supposed to know what the true numbers are with that? The doctor also said, regarding masks, that the CDC has not produced any randomized control studies and mixed correlational evidence to show that masks are even beneficial. Doctor Fauci would agree with that.

6:31:16 He said so in a public email. Thank you, Chris. We appreciate your time this evening.

6:31:31 Riley. After Riley, we have James Blackman, Alex Webush, Leah Donaldson, and then Samantha seal. Maybe.

6:31:48 Good evening and thank you for this opportunity to speak. My name is Riley Sibel and I’m going to be a sophomore at Satellite High school. I’m a proud member of the Satellite Academy of Fine Arts program and have a strong passion for music and theater.

6:32:03 These are a couple key reasons we chose to move to Brevard county and chose satellite high school when moving here a year ago. First and foremost, I would like to thank each of you who voted in favor of listing the mask mandate beginning in June. Because of your wise vote, we got to kick off the summer with an amazing fine arts experience.

6:32:08 Throughout the production of Big Fish, we got to see the expression of our fellow actors while performing. We got to breathe freely while dancing. And the audience was able to relate to our characters by watching our faces and the emotions expressed.

6:32:16 We can’t ever underestimate the importance of human interaction through expressions. We need to see our teachers, we need to see our fellow students, we need to see our audience, and most importantly, we need to breathe air. The dangers of singing and performing outside in the Florida heat and humidity while wearing a mask that covers all of our air holes far outweighs any other risks.

6:32:32 There is plenty of evidence to back this fact and we absolutely cannot go back to this dangerous practice. I ask you to please continue making decisions based on what’s truly best for the well being of the students you represent. Please don’t let the game of politics sway your decisions.

6:32:48 I came up with this in the middle of the meeting with regards to the Department of Health, and I say this with all due respect. I tested positive for strep throat last year and refused a COVID test. My parents received a call from the Department of Health the next day to discuss, quote, my positive test results.

6:32:58 How can we be sure that these types of false reportings are not common occurrence? Just food for thought. Thank you. Thanks, Riley.

6:33:09 James Blackmandeh. Good evening, board members. I don’t know.

6:33:22 I’m confused and perplexed. This feels like a twilight. I came here because I wanted to talk about the bastardization and the hijacking of critical race theory.

6:33:34 But I was told that that wasn’t on your agenda. And then I was concerned about these moms. Sir, keep it focused on me, please.

6:33:45 I’m sorry. Thank you, moms, for liberty. And I also wanted to address this, this gap and achievement between black and brown, students versus whites.

6:33:56 But the way you guys acted with this mass issue causes me to put those on hold. My mama say, put a pin in those things and come back to them. I will tell you guys that Procter and gamble spends a lot of money to convince us that a bear will snuggle up to the toilet and wipe his honey with charming.

6:34:10 A bear defecates in the woods. Fat meat is greasy. And listen to me.

6:34:34 Everybody keeps saying that they don’t know how this became politicized. Yes, you do. It was a hoax by the Democrats to get the president out of office.

6:34:50 Disinformation. Misinformation lies. Gravity works mask work.

6:35:11 Black folk are not treated fairly in Brevard county schools. That’s why there’s a gap. I went to the bathroom and ran into one of your board members, and I reminded him that he’s been captured by the lies.

6:35:29 We had an election in November, and they’re still counting ballots in Arizona and won’t account them in Philadelphia. Anywhere black people live. You say this is divisive, but what has happened is there’s a misinformation.

6:35:37 There’s a disinformation campaign and you’re being lied to. And you know you’re being lied to. You know we don’t have a right to go into the Capitol and try to kill the vice president, but yet you want to follow behind people with that nonsense.

6:36:12 I’m going to tell you something. The truth is, ma’am, you have a right to exit. Not while he’s speaking.

6:36:27 Can I have my 10 seconds? I’ve stopped the clock. Mister Blackman. I’d like to have my time.

6:36:32 I’m working on it, sir. Ma’am, please find your way out now. Listen, I’m gonna say this and I’ll sit down.

6:36:41 1 second. Mister Blackman, I gotta get your. Okay, go ahead.

6:36:55 I had a brain fart and don’t really remember where I am. I just know that I was embarrassed by this board kicking the can down the road. We’ve known for the last 30 years that there’s an achievement gap between black and white students.

6:37:00 And y’all want to study and study and study. It reminds me of Tim Scott from. From South Carolina.

6:37:16 Thank you, Mister Blackmun. We appreciate you joining us this evening. Alex Weibush.

6:37:20 Thank you. Mister Blackman. Mister Blackmon, please.

6:37:42 Alex, hi. Can you hear me? Okay, I’d like to start out by thanking the school board for being flexible and changing the policy for masks from mandatory to optional. I appreciate that.

6:37:53 Thank you. Making that decision took courage and leadership and was the right decision to make. The usage of masks and vaccines should be a choice by the parents, not the school.

6:38:10 Okay. I understand some parents would prefer everyone wearing masks, double masks, you know, five vaccines, whatever. That’s all good, but that’s their decision.

6:38:27 And you know, the way it should be is it shouldn’t be mandatory for anything. You know, we care for our kids, not the schools. Okay? So I appreciate that you guys did that.

6:38:41 In my opinion, wearing masks makes it more difficult to communicate using both verbal and nonverbal cues. That’s undeniable, you know? So some of you that are wearing masks or not wearing masks, I can’t tell when I’m talking, what you’re thinking or what you’re feeling, or it’s harder to hear you. So imagine being in a school and trying to listen to the teacher, and you can’t understand what they’re saying, or you can’t.

6:38:49 You’re like, hmm, are they smiling at me? I don’t know. So when people are wearing masks, it’s difficult to understand what they’re saying and what they’re teaching. So wearing masks negatively affects the learning experience of my children.

6:39:01 Your mission statement behind you states that your mission is to serve every student with excellence as the standard. Generally speaking, I think that the school board does a good job with that, and I thank you for that. I think the policy of masks being optional best fits that mission statement because it allows students to have the best possible learning experience. Another thing I’d like to bring up is and have the board address in the future. Is the abstinence policy related to Covid? There’s been a lot of talk of quarantining and things like that. My son was sent home a few times during the school year for simply having a runny nose which is common for kids of elementary school age. No, it’s not nose kids. No thanks. He never had any other symptoms such as fever or coughing but was still sent home. He was sent home and required to get a negative COVID test to return to school which caused him to miss valuable class time and puts an undue burden on the parents sometimes this process took several days, especially if he was sent home on a Friday. Can the school board please address this issue and how it will be taken into consideration in regards to excuse absences and loss of learning opportunity? This is especially key for students with IEP since the school is required to meet those commitments. In closing, I noticed that the school board members are not all masked, which I think is a good thing. It’s more difficult to understand and communicate with the board members that are masked because it’s harder to hear you and we can’t read your facial expressions. I’m grateful for those that chose not to wear a mask. I’m simply asking that you continue to allow parents to make that same decision for our kids. Please have the courage and leadership to leave the masking policy as optional. Thank you. Thanks, Alex. Leah Donaldson. Leah Donaldson. Samantha. I’m going to butcher their last name. C I h a l c hall. I want to thank you guys. Can you hear me? Yeah. I just want to say thank you. Board meeting. It’s been interesting. I’ll say that my son is supposed to go into kindergarten this coming school year and I would like the math to remain optional. I’m a medical professional. I work in the field. I have a master’s degree in cell molecular biology. I know how to read journal articles. I know how to participate in research. So I’ve done a lot of my own research and I feel very confident in how I feel about this. That being said, my son’s been in VPK this year and he goes to a school that’s three to six years old. So they have BPK, they have kindergarteners and they have the three year old class. Since January, 1 child has tested, tested positive for Covid. Mind you, they’re mask optional. Most kids, I think all kids don’t wear a mask there. We have not had one instance of having to quarantine and that’s just been my experience this year with the mask being optional one child since January. So I just wanted to put that in there. I also wanted to ask about natural immunity. If you get an antibody test, can’t that count for something? With the quarantining for the kids this year? That hasn’t been really been talked about. And I know that some colleges are also using that in lieu of vaccine. Like if a student doesn’t want to get vaccinated. I just wanted to see if there’s something that you guys could come up with or talk about, discuss whatever it is that you guys do. But to try and help with some of the quarantining for kids that are asymptomatic or not sick. So thank you. Thank you, Samantha. All right, that concludes our public comments for this evening. Thank you for your patience as we work through all of them, both to our audience and to our board. The only thing we have left on tonight’s agenda would be a superintendent’s report. Doctor Mullins, do you have anything else for us carrying? Nothing further. This meeting is adjourned. Have a great night.