Updates on the Fight for Quality Public Education in Brevard County, FL
0:00 We’ll be right back.
0:30 Good evening. The August 9th, 2022 board meeting is now in order.
0:33 I am happy to welcome my fellow board members and the public. I
0:36 would like to take this opportunity to remind the public that
0:39 the appropriate place for public participation in the meeting is
0:42 during your individual public comment opportunity as identified
0:45 in the agenda. Outside of your individual public comment
0:48 opportunity, your role in the meeting is as an observer. Mr.
0:51 Gibbs, roll call please.
0:54 Ms. Belford, present. Ms. McDougall, present. Mr. Susan, here.
0:59 Ms. Jenkins, present. Ms. Campbell, present.
1:02 The board will now hold a moment of silent reflection and invite
1:05 the audience to join.
1:24 Thank you. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.
1:34 I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
1:41 and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, for God,
1:45 indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
1:48 For all.
1:50 I don’t know. Some of your friends.
1:54 All right. At this time, I would like to offer my fellow board
1:56 members and Dr. Mullins an opportunity to recognize students,
1:59 staff, or members of our community who’d like to start us off.
2:02 I’ll go first.
2:04 I’ll be pretty quick.
2:05 So last board meeting, I had the pleasure of revealing that Cocoa
2:08 High School was getting almost $80,000 of weight room equipment
2:13 from Academy Sports.
2:15 So shout out to Academy Sports one more time.
2:17 But also something pretty incredible happened after that.
2:20 I had talked about how the community is going to come together
2:22 at some point and kind of paint the weight room, make the space
2:25 look fresh and new, and we were going to find a muralist and
2:29 start a fundraiser in order to get that paid for.
2:32 After the board meeting, an assistant coach from NFL team who
2:35 wants to remain anonymous had reached out to me and said that
2:38 they wanted to pay for the mural, which was incredible.
2:41 But I hadn’t gotten a quote, nor a muralist.
2:43 And before I even could, that amazing assistant coach from Cocoa
2:46 High School, Mr. James Falston, had already accomplished all of
2:51 the things.
2:52 He went out of his way.
2:53 He found a muralist.
2:54 He got a quote.
2:55 He got the entire project fully funded.
2:57 So I just want to give another shout out to Mr. Falston for
2:59 being the most incredible human being, not only working for this
3:03 team for free, but for donating his time, his money, and his
3:07 care, and his love for these students.
3:08 He’s an incredible, incredible human being.
3:10 So thank you again, Mr. Falston, for coming through.
3:13 And I just want to do a quick shout out to our new kindergarten
3:21 parents.
3:23 We are going to start kindergarten tomorrow, and I know that
3:26 your kids are going to be happy and excited, but probably cry a
3:30 lot.
3:31 And there’ll probably be some tears for you too.
3:34 You’re going to make it through.
3:35 All of us starting first grade next year, so I know what it
3:37 feels like for you guys.
3:39 But I just want to shout out to those brand new parents who are
3:41 starting their experience with Brevard Public Schools.
3:44 We’re happy to have you.
3:45 It’s going to be a great year.
3:46 It’s going to be a great experience.
3:47 Just hang in there.
3:48 Hold back those tears.
3:49 Thank you, Ms. Jenkins.
3:53 Yes, first of all, welcome to everyone.
3:57 It’s a very colorful meeting out in the crowd tonight.
4:00 So glad you all are here to be a part of what we have going on.
4:04 We had registration going on all over the place, starting as
4:09 early as July the 26th, 27th-ish, and continuing on into this
4:14 week.
4:15 And one of the things that I noticed, two schools down in my
4:19 area do, I thought was really helpful.
4:22 One of them was like a ninth grade.
4:25 They did today.
4:26 You know, come on campus, take the tour, see your classes.
4:28 And because of registration day, you don’t really have a lot of
4:30 time to do all that.
4:31 And then I know Dr. Sullivan and her crew are working on our
4:34 middle school transformation, right?
4:37 But I think some of our schools are starting to get a head start.
4:40 And I can’t remember if I shared this with you guys or not, but
4:42 Central Middle School did a new student activity day last Friday
4:46 afternoon where it wasn’t just go around and see the classes.
4:49 They actually had games and fun activities for the afternoon for
4:53 them to do.
4:54 And so, you know, just drop off the kids and let them have a few
4:56 hours of getting to meet their, getting to know their new school
4:59 and their new staff.
5:01 And so that was really great and engaging and a great way to
5:03 kick off the middle school for those.
5:06 You know, it’s hard to send your kid to kindergarten, but I’m
5:08 just telling you because I’ve already done it three times.
5:11 It’s even harder to drop them off for seventh grade.
5:14 So many more drop offs to go.
5:17 Last week we’ve talked about Brevard Virtual School and what an
5:20 amazing things, all the amazing things they’ve done in the last
5:24 two years.
5:24 You know, we extended the deadline to apply to Brevard Virtual
5:27 School two summers in a row.
5:29 And that was really, really hard on them.
5:31 And I shared with you guys before the surge, right?
5:33 Up to, I don’t know, at 5,000 at the peak.
5:36 And so I did take the opportunity last week on the day that they
5:39 were all together and I presented our Impact Elevated pen to
5:43 everybody on staff.
5:44 Because the principal, Ms. Price, just couldn’t narrow it down.
5:50 Just as few said, I’d have to give it to everybody.
5:52 I said, let me talk to Tammy and see how many pens we have.
5:54 And I presented it to all the staff we’ve been over the last two
5:55 years.
5:56 So that was a great day.
5:57 Very well received.
5:58 And then just final, just kind of a little announcement is that
6:02 this Saturday, the Children’s Hunger Project has moved into
6:07 their new facility there at the edge of Cocoa Village.
6:10 And they’re having their ribbon cutting and open house this
6:13 Saturday.
6:14 So invite the rest of the board and invite the community.
6:16 You know the great work that the Children’s Hunger Project does
6:19 for our students who are experiencing, you know, weakened hunger.
6:22 And they pack those meals and work in cooperation with our
6:24 schools to meet those needs.
6:26 So the ribbon cutting is this Saturday.
6:28 I invite everybody to come out to Cocoa.
6:31 And for the exact address, check out the childrenshungerproject.org
6:36 website.
6:37 I believe it’s 11 to 1.
6:39 Yeah.
6:41 11 to 1.
6:42 Awesome.
6:43 Thank you.
6:44 I could go or you could go, Madam Vice Chair.
6:49 You want me to go?
6:50 Yeah.
6:51 Oh, I got a couple pages.
6:52 Want me to go before you?
6:53 No, go ahead.
6:54 Hey, I wanted to say thank you for everybody that’s here tonight.
6:58 Seeing you guys interact, whether each one of us has a separate
7:02 issue.
7:03 We’re glad that you came in here tonight to be with us.
7:06 The first thing I wanted to say is I sent an email as a follow-up
7:09 to the 403Bs and 457 plans to try to get that information that I
7:14 did.
7:15 Many people don’t know that we have over 22 providers.
7:19 And the fees that are inside some of those retirement plans will,
7:24 if they’re too high, will actually inhibit a retirement for one
7:29 to two to three years on the back end for the retirement.
7:31 So I’ve requested all of those with the fees.
7:34 Should have something for you guys at the next board meeting.
7:36 But we’re moving forward with that.
7:37 I got to say thank you to the ROTC programs at Vieira High
7:41 School and others.
7:43 They had me come over and Don Weaver, many of you guys don’t
7:46 know or do remember Don.
7:48 He’s the one that worked with me to create the largest veteran
7:50 speaking project in the southeast United States.
7:53 He’s still going.
7:54 Like I just said, hey, this is a great idea.
7:56 Let’s go.
7:57 And then Don’s been doing it for six years.
7:58 So he was speaking to the ROTCs about that and an issue that we’re
8:01 going to discuss later on about, hey, if we have more kids that
8:04 are interested in ROTC, let’s try to figure out a way so that we
8:08 can increase the amount of instructors and stuff like that.
8:10 But I want to say thank you to them for giving me the
8:12 opportunity to speak to them, listen to them about what they’re
8:15 having problems with so that we can address that as a board.
8:17 Big deal, you guys.
8:19 Beach volleyball is now an official FHSAA sport, which means,
8:23 not many people understand this, that the number one teams in
8:27 the state of Florida, comp teams, everything else, come from Brevard.
8:31 So we might be able to, for the first time, host an FHSAA state
8:35 championship for a program here in Brevard.
8:39 The Tourism Development Council was excited.
8:41 There’s some other things going on, but it just literally became
8:45 a sport.
8:46 And we have the best athletes.
8:47 Many people don’t know, like UCLA’s beach volleyball team is
8:50 amazing, right?
8:52 Yeah, we got a kid on there.
8:53 The team that we had just recently, the comp went all the way.
8:56 So huge opportunity we’re going to discuss later on for us.
8:59 I wanted to give a big shout out to the ALCs.
9:01 Dr. Mullins is actually working on and Sue Han about the
9:05 basketball court in the back that Dr. Mullins promised me he’d
9:08 do a one-on-one with me once it’s completed.
9:10 But many people don’t know this.
9:14 Our ALCs were double the amount last year.
9:17 They went through the toughest times as individuals, along with
9:20 everybody else, but they had double the enrollment on their
9:23 staff.
9:24 And the discipline was out of control.
9:26 And they were on the front lines.
9:28 And that is an exceptional workforce, exceptional group,
9:31 especially in the South Area ALC, and anything we can do to help
9:34 them out.
9:35 I know everybody here has been greatly appreciative of them, but
9:39 anyways.
9:40 The other thing is, is I worked on the mandates.
9:42 Remember I said the school, the good idea fairies up in Tallahassee
9:45 sometimes come up with these great ideas that they’re going to
9:48 mandate this big volume of stuff and this big volume of
9:51 requirements and this big volume of requirements.
9:53 And you know what?
9:54 They forget that every time they do that, that’s less time for
9:57 our kids to learn.
9:58 So when they’re inside of the classroom and the teacher has to
10:01 stop and fill out 55 forms or all these requirements to go to do
10:04 all these things, then that takes time away from the classroom.
10:07 So we started identifying and I started making a phone call to a
10:10 bunch of groups to come together and tell me, complain to me
10:13 about what takes time out of your day.
10:16 And then let’s go come together and come up with a anti, you
10:19 know, hey, we can change some of these, these, these regulatory
10:24 and requirements.
10:26 So I sit on the board of the directors.
10:28 Well, I sort of sit on the board of directors for the Florida
10:30 School Board Association, and I’m going to make this my number
10:33 one request legislatively is to reduce a lot of these mandates
10:36 that we have inside of our classes.
10:39 Hey, I don’t know if you guys are checking, but literally our
10:42 enrollments are exploding in some of our schools.
10:45 Rockledge is up over 150 kids.
10:47 Some of our, it’s across the board incredible what’s happening.
10:51 That’s great, right?
10:52 Our schools are showing the rebound.
10:54 Kind of scary because we’re already at a teacher shortage.
10:57 So that requires more teachers.
10:59 So Dr. Mullins, great job, great direction.
11:01 We’re expanding.
11:02 And after school, many of you guys weren’t here at the workshop.
11:07 It was great stuff.
11:09 They presented on after school programs.
11:11 And I got Dr. Mullins to agree to look at AAU offering some
11:15 sports inside of the elementary schools because many of you know
11:20 after school programs, those kids are crazy.
11:22 They come out of school and they’re like ADHD city.
11:25 So if we give them an opportunity to compete against each other
11:28 in intramurals run by an organization with their own insurance,
11:31 we might be able to get it off.
11:33 And then I wanted to say thank you to Suntree Elementary.
11:36 My daughter is starting her sixth grade year and Suntree United
11:40 Methodist for both of there.
11:43 My son’s starting there for kindergarten.
11:45 And I’ll tell you guys, the heart and soul of this district is
11:49 inside of our teacher.
11:51 And I am absolutely amazed at what our programs and our schools
11:55 are doing.
11:56 And Ms. Tressler is doing a great job because my baby girl gets
11:59 to go to school and she gets to see and feel comfortable and be
12:03 a part of a learning environment.
12:05 And I wanted to say thank you.
12:06 And then we’ll be addressing some of the misconceptions over the
12:09 libraries and stuff like that a little bit later on.
12:12 So thank you so much.
12:13 Appreciate it.
12:14 So I only have a couple.
12:18 First, I want to thank Dr. Mullins because he was a speaker at
12:23 the Cocoa Beach Chamber of Commerce.
12:27 And he did a great presentation on our schools, the safety in
12:30 our schools.
12:32 And it was with the Sheriff’s Department also.
12:36 An amazing turnout.
12:37 It was one of their largest turnouts.
12:39 So thank you for being there.
12:41 And I also just want to say thank you to all of our teachers, to
12:45 our volunteers, to our substitutes, to our parents.
12:50 And I wish everyone a great school year.
12:53 I think it’s going to be fabulous.
12:55 So I just want to say thank you for everything that you do and
12:58 look forward to a great year.
13:04 Thank you, Ms. McDougall.
13:05 Dr. Mullins?
13:07 Thank you, Ms. Becker.
13:08 I’m going to go ahead and defer my time for the back-to-school
13:10 presentation.
13:11 I’ll make some recognition.
13:13 Perfect.
13:14 I have just a couple of quick ones done.
13:17 Ms. Campbell, like you, I have been so excited to see.
13:21 I have seen both middle school and high school have done, like,
13:24 student team-building days where the students get to come in and
13:28 do activities and start to build relationships with both their
13:31 peers and the faculty and staff at the school, which I think is
13:34 just phenomenal.
13:35 And so thanks to all of the teams that worked so hard to put
13:37 those together for our students.
13:39 Current feedback has been amazing on them.
13:41 And I think it’s just a great start to the school year,
13:43 especially with students coming into a new school and not
13:46 knowing people.
13:48 And so the other thing that I’ve noticed, which I really
13:51 appreciate, is lots of our principals have been utilizing pre-planning
13:55 to do team-building with their faculty and staff as well.
13:59 And so I think that, too, goes along with our whole push for
14:03 cultural change at the schools and starting off our year strong.
14:09 And we can’t forget either that so many people behind the scenes
14:13 have worked so hard to make our schools ready for tomorrow.
14:17 We can’t wait to see if we can’t wait to see if we can.
14:19 And we can’t wait for that.
14:20 We can’t wait for them.
14:22 And we can’t wait for them.
14:23 We can’t wait for them.
14:30 And we can’t wait for them.
14:31 are coming on board and so it really has been a full team effort
14:35 to make sure that we are ready to
14:36 go for tomorrow and i just want to thank everyone for that um
14:40 also want to share with you all i
14:41 don’t know if you noticed in the bps headlines but i think it’s
14:45 appropriate to share a congratulations
14:47 to our financial services staff who were awarded the certificate
14:51 of achievement for excellence in
14:53 financial reporting the government finance officers association
14:56 of the united states
14:57 in canada has awarded the certificate of achievement for
15:00 excellence and financial reporting
15:02 to the school board of brevard county for its annual
15:04 comprehensive financial report for the
15:05 fiscal year ended june 30th the report’s been judged by an
15:08 impartial panel to meet the high
15:10 standards of the program which includes demonstrating a
15:12 constructive spirit of full disclosure to clearly
15:15 communicate its financial story and motivate potential users and
15:18 user groups to read the report
15:20 the certificate of achievement is the highest form of
15:22 recognition in the area of governmental accounting
15:24 and financial reporting and its attainment represents a
15:27 significant accomplishment by a government and
15:29 its management so many congratulations to our financial team and
15:34 i know uh gcr had some input on the the
15:37 putting together of that document as well so thank you to all of
15:40 you for your your efforts in that area
15:42 and with that uh we will move into the adoption of the agenda dr
15:47 mullins
15:48 madam chair members of the board on this evening’s agenda we
15:51 have one presentation 18 consent items
15:54 two action items and five board member reports or discussion
15:57 points changes made to the agenda since
15:59 released to the public include the addition of items f18
16:03 approved memoranda of agreements with
16:06 international union of painters and allied trades or local 1010
16:11 for the 2022-23 premium pay
16:14 and recruitment retention bonus h19 approved premium pay and
16:18 recruitment retention bonuses for eligible
16:21 non-bargaining personnel k31 athletic stipends k32 teacher
16:27 shortage plan k33 classroom libraries and book
16:31 fairs k34 rotc additional instructor and k35 parental visitation
16:37 during lunch and a revision to item h30
16:41 department school initiated agreements
16:44 what are the wishes of the board moved by miss mcdougall seconded
16:48 by miss campbell is there any
16:50 discussion um i will share just one quick comment that i think
16:54 is important to note i’m thrilled to
16:56 see that we have the mou on here for 10 10 for them to be
17:00 getting those funds um i was out speaking
17:02 with someone recently and the perception was that because the
17:05 there was much media coverage over the
17:08 teachers um salary negotiation for the coming year the
17:11 perception was we were not doing anything for 10 10.
17:14 um and so i just want to make sure that everyone’s aware that we
17:17 are preparing for bargaining on our 10 10
17:19 contract we haven’t forgotten about all of those individuals um
17:22 it was just a timing issue with
17:24 getting together with the union to begin that bargaining and so
17:26 we don’t want them to think that they
17:27 have been forgotten by any means it is coming so uh if there’s
17:30 no additional discussion i will call the
17:33 question dr mullins did you want to say something well miss belford
17:37 i appreciate that record that
17:39 acknowledgement of the process with our other employee groups i
17:43 would echo the same with our non-bargaining
17:46 employee groups the only thing the board is approving this
17:49 evening is premium pay which was negotiated
17:53 very early with the brevard federation of teachers and we
17:56 thought it most expeditious if we brought it as
17:59 as soon as possible so to your point we are continuing
18:02 negotiations with 10 10 and anticipate bringing a
18:06 contract to the board for approval in the near future super
18:09 thank you all right all in favor please signify by
18:12 saying aye aye any opposed same sign motion passes 5-0 next we
18:18 are going to have a back to school update
18:20 and safety and security presentation from dr molin all right let’s
18:26 see if i can get this
18:32 queued up well uh i believe i recently uh suggested that my
18:41 favorite day of the year is not christmas day
18:48 unlike many of our kids are uh out there but uh it is literally
18:53 tomorrow morning as we wake up extra early
18:58 and prepare for uh conclude the preparations for because we’ve
19:02 been doing a lot of preparations over
19:04 the last many weeks to receive our 70 plus thousand kids across
19:10 our nearly 100 places of learning in our
19:14 great community brevard county so i wanted to provide the board
19:18 and our community just an update
19:21 of uh where we are and where things are and what our plans and
19:24 preparations uh are as we prepare for
19:27 the days ahead so i’d like to begin with talking about staffing
19:31 i presented to the board and uh dr
19:34 thetty did as well uh over the last couple board meetings where
19:37 we are with teacher and staff vacancies
19:40 i wish i could tell you that we have overcome the challenge but
19:43 uh we continue to work through that
19:46 challenge like our other districts across the state and uh truthfully
19:51 across the country i’m encouraged
19:53 and pleased that we’ve made progress made improvement since we’ve
19:56 reported to the board over the last few
19:58 weeks uh we do we do at this time have 143 classroom vacancies
20:04 remaining that is up from 93 classrooms uh this
20:08 time last year but we also have some uh support staff vacancies
20:13 as well and i’ve provided a breakdown by
20:16 both elementary and secondary and what i want to emphasize in
20:22 the midst of the perceived uncertainty of
20:26 those classrooms we faced as difficult and i would even suggest
20:30 more difficult circumstances a year ago
20:34 where we had triple digit vacancies yet also the uncertainties
20:39 of quarantines and staff going out
20:41 for illness and so on so at this time we are we are putting
20:46 contingencies in place to be prepared of
20:48 course for our first day tomorrow with our students uh we have
20:53 uh accelerated our substitute uh program
20:56 we’ve reached out to them we have if the board remembers over
20:59 the last couple years we’ve had very
21:01 inconsistent substitute availability throughout the school year
21:05 uh the substitute fill rate right now is up over 83 percent
21:09 uh which is better than anything we experienced over the last
21:13 two and a half years and uh isn’t that much worse than
21:16 what we had during pre-pandemic time and we’ve also prioritized
21:21 substitutes for schools that we know
21:23 are going to have some immediate needs as we work through some
21:27 additional hiring process but in addition
21:29 to that our district instructional staff will provide supports
21:33 to schools both our leading and learning uh
21:35 staff are being deployed to schools as well as our student
21:38 services staff are deployed to schools uh supporting them
21:42 um during some of this transition of filling those classrooms
21:45 and i’ll emphasize again later but we
21:48 go through a process of some adjustments and right sizing our
21:52 classrooms and so on which is really
21:55 fine-tuned during our six-day count process i’ll mention that
21:58 again in just a moment but in addition
22:00 to this our student services teams uh are supporting our new our
22:05 new gardendale gardendale education center
22:09 uh for uh our students for the first time and just want to give
22:14 a huge shout out to not only student
22:17 services who have turned around a starting up a school in
22:22 literally a matter of a few weeks but also to the
22:26 entire team of brevard public schools as my entire senior
22:30 cabinet have rallied around student services through
22:34 this endeavor to provide capital support staffing support uh
22:39 services and so on and everyone
22:41 came to to the ready to help our our team uh get that school
22:46 ready and it it’s going to be a great
22:48 first day for our kids at gardendale in addition esc has the
22:51 opportunity uh student services has the opportunity
22:54 to contract out some of our esc services uh for our schools as
22:58 well
22:59 in addition i i want to reassure and assure our community every
23:04 one of our parents our principals
23:06 are very aware as we are of exactly where our needs and
23:10 potential gaps are and we have a plan to receive
23:14 our kids tomorrow and to give them a positive and quality first
23:18 day of school tomorrow across every one of our campuses
23:22 we will be looking at how might we utilize brevard virtual
23:28 school through some extended day assignments
23:32 to support our secondary classrooms as well as look at extended
23:35 day assignments uh within our schools for
23:38 teachers who are interested in in for another year a double stipend
23:43 opportunity to take on an additional
23:45 course uh in their school so that that’s those are transitions
23:49 that happen every year that’s normal
23:52 and we anticipate maximizing those options again this year in
23:56 addition we’ll be as enrollment realizes
24:00 and what i mean by that is is sometimes we aren’t completely
24:04 perfect at the projections of where we have
24:06 our students and what uh grade levels and even in what classes
24:10 across our secondary schools and we’ve got
24:13 to do some uh collapsing we got to do some some consolidating
24:17 and so on and we anticipate that that will
24:19 ease uh some of our vacancies that exist right now as well as we’re
24:24 continuing to walk out the search for
24:27 potential international teachers we’re uh in conversation right
24:30 now with an organization that would suggest
24:33 they have uh teachers in canada who want to transfer and who are
24:38 certified teachers and could help meet
24:40 some of our needs as well but because of uh visas and those type
24:45 of things it’s a it’s a complicated
24:48 process so we’re working through it as expeditiously as possible
24:52 but again our six day count process i know
24:55 the board is very familiar with that our schools are certainly a
24:58 little bit of an education ease term for
25:01 our community and what that means is after the sixth day of
25:05 school we sure up our numbers we take counts
25:08 on the first second and sixth day of school and we use those to
25:12 begin setting our uh allocation
25:15 adjustments into the first semester of the school year we
25:18 literally meet with every principal at every
25:21 school with staff across the district to right size our allocations
25:26 over uh three very rigorous days uh
25:29 called our six day count meetings and that uh that is where we
25:32 begin to optimize staff across the district
25:35 and that’ll be the process we have in place again this year
25:37 before i move on to some of our operational updates i also want
25:44 to use this opportunity to reiterate to our
25:48 our community that um all of our schools are open to in-person
25:54 learning and activities are restored
25:58 completely there are no restrictions uh two activities as we go
26:02 into this year we phased out of
26:04 restrictions last year and those remain in place i will share
26:08 with the board at this time that there is
26:10 only one exception and temporarily um and that is lunch visits
26:14 on campus as the board knows uh we have our
26:18 first priority to receiving our students establishing our
26:22 security measures and processes some of which i’m
26:24 going to highlight in the security portion and given the demand
26:30 on our our our school staff right now
26:34 particularly with some additional shortages uh we need to give
26:38 the time to our principals to make sure
26:40 that we’ve met our security supervisory responsibilities as well
26:45 as give them the opportunity to
26:47 make the classroom adjustments that are required uh right now as
26:51 well as getting students settled into
26:54 class and to mr susan’s point i would echo that our enrollment
26:58 is looking very favorable this year
27:01 we have new families enrolling in our schools every day and
27:05 anticipate that as folks come in from
27:07 particularly out of state northeast where the school year starts
27:12 later we are expecting a considerable number
27:14 of families even coming into our schools and these coming days
27:18 wanting to register their students
27:20 we’re starting school at the beginning of august is unfamiliar
27:23 to them given that they often start
27:25 don’t start school until after memorial day but i will be coming
27:28 back to the board here in the next
27:30 couple few weeks and revisiting the uh lunch visits of parents
27:35 on our campuses
27:39 next i want to give an update on food service we’ve made some
27:42 mentions of our free breakfast and lunch
27:46 programs for our uh students over the last two years as part of
27:51 the the federal school lunch initiative
27:55 to support all of our schools that program has ended but we have
28:00 positioned ourselves to expand our
28:03 community eligibility eligibility provision program and we’ll be
28:06 able to continue to provide free breakfast
28:09 and lunch to now uh 46 sites across brevard schools what many
28:15 folks aren’t aware of is brevard public
28:19 schools free and reduced lunch rate has continued to increase
28:22 over the last several years and our latest report of
28:27 students who qualify for free reduced lunch increased from 51 to
28:31 57 percent so we have been able to
28:34 accordingly expand our cep program uh but our students will
28:39 continue to receive free breakfast across
28:42 all of our schools and you can see the uh robust investments
28:46 that we’ve made into our cafeterias and our food service
28:50 uh programs across the district in many of our schools uh across
28:57 the district
29:01 transportation very excited as we uh launch the reality of brevard
29:09 public schools buses every one of them
29:13 is going to be equipped with gps now those of us who drive a
29:17 vehicle or carry a cell phone find it
29:20 surprising that we don’t have gps on our buses yet no we hadn’t
29:24 until this year and uh by through the
29:27 support of our sales surtax initiative uh we’ve been able to now
29:32 equip our buses with uh this this resource
29:37 and it comes with a tool called rexium that is also installed on
29:41 every bus and it gives us
29:43 real-time information on where our buses are the any troubles
29:48 that they may be experiencing with delays
29:51 or adjustments to a route so we can ultimately make real-time
29:55 adjustments in the district office
29:58 inform our schools but also give notifications to parents of
30:03 exactly what’s going on with the routes
30:06 uh that their children are on so we have provided that
30:09 information to our parents through registration
30:12 over the last several weeks we had transportation
30:15 representatives at every one of our elementary
30:18 uh established registration days and they were there able to
30:22 assist parents in understanding how they’d
30:25 be able to utilize this tool moving forward on their smartphone
30:29 some of the the um tools that
30:34 are going to be or feedback that we’ll be able to glean from
30:38 this new uh instrument or this new program
30:41 is identifying discrepancies between what we plan for and then
30:45 what reality is particularly for our kids
30:48 on their buses we’ll actually be able to real-time know what is
30:52 our pickup and drop-off times are they
30:55 consistent are we meeting our goal of having every student on
30:59 campus with time to go get breakfast when
31:02 they arrive on campus so we have real-time uh reporting of our
31:07 arrivals but then also our parents can monitor
31:12 where their student is on the bus as they can receive a
31:15 notification of when their student gets on the bus
31:19 and when they get off the bus it’ll even notify us when a
31:22 student happens to get on the wrong bus
31:25 yes and prevent that student from departing from the school
31:29 campus to get a few miles down the road
31:32 and realize uh-oh i’ve gotten on the wrong bus and we’ll be able
31:36 to notify families or parents when that
31:39 uh occurs as well so now moving on to uh capital projects that
31:45 we have had going on across our district
31:48 all summer it has been a very very busy summer for our capital
31:54 projects team across our campuses you’ll see
31:57 as a result of our sales surtax initiative we have been able to
32:03 expand or complete electrical renewal
32:06 intercom renewals canopy renewals track renewals mr susan
32:10 already referenced that as well as we’ve
32:13 upgraded water fountains across our schools with now bottle fillers
32:17 as we’ve learned that that is
32:19 essential coming out of the pandemic but also the pool lighting
32:23 initiative that we’ve discussed
32:25 at previous board meetings and workshops as well as several
32:30 security projects across the district
32:34 but not only were infrastructure items enhanced and improved
32:38 across our schools but also the insides of
32:41 our classrooms as we replaced furniture across different
32:45 elementary schools we upgraded science labs i uh
32:49 i shared last with the the league of cities last night and i met
32:55 steve who was a graduate of coco high
32:58 school in 1974 and i was sharing this slide and i said steve you’ll
33:01 be pleased to know that the science labs have been
33:03 upgraded at coco high so um we uh we had a little bit of a chuckle
33:07 about that because he is a proud alumni
33:10 uh from 1974 but also we’ve been able to replace carpet that is
33:15 has more than lived its life across our schools
33:21 uh and district
33:22 uh it’s it’s amazing uh it’s amazing uh as a former principal
33:27 who had the benefit of welcoming my students back to a new
33:31 school year with a new fresh of paint on the school
33:36 the students walk in with beaming smiles and pride to see how
33:40 bright and new their school looks
33:44 with a a fresh coat of paint so very pleased we were able to
33:47 provide that uh those paintings services to
33:51 several of our schools this summer and that’ll continue again
33:54 next summer but then also some led lighting
33:58 projects that not only enhance the environment for our students
34:01 creating the most positive
34:03 learning environment for them but also enhancing safety and
34:08 security across our campuses as some of
34:10 our schools have events going on into the evening after dark as
34:15 well as saving energy by converting to led products for lighting
34:22 other facility projects that occurred across our district you
34:26 can see hvac at several schools uh a a significant
34:30 renovation at the garden education gardendale education center
34:34 to support our new day school
34:35 restrooms outdoor court renewal jrotc range and the firefighter
34:41 academy at palm bay high school
34:43 and others received significant improvements and that’s above
34:47 and beyond the many uh food nutrition service
34:51 improvements that i already referenced in addition to capital uh
34:56 facilities our educational technology
34:58 team has been very busy uh improving the expansion of our
35:03 network uh our our what will soon be our own
35:07 fiber system for for resiliency as well as dependability across
35:12 the district prepping our classrooms for the modern
35:17 classroom uh technology that we’ll be able to provide them in
35:20 support of our one-to-one initiative uh moving forward
35:24 with our high schools and elementary schools next as well as a
35:29 formal full launch of focus
35:33 uh it is an amazing tool parents have been introduced to it over
35:37 the last year or two
35:39 we are making that platform fully available and accessible to
35:43 our parents and really want to do and
35:45 encourage our families to become familiar with all of the
35:49 resources that focus has to provide
35:51 from keeping track of classroom assignments to communicating
35:55 with teachers as well as school staff
35:58 so real quick pictures are worth a thousand words uh mr susan
36:02 can probably would say i’ve already used a
36:05 thousand words but um i’ll give you the pictures as well um here
36:08 are some before and after the painting
36:11 that we did at suntry elementary school you can see the media
36:15 center at west melbourne school for science
36:18 a real wonderful upgrade and enhancement there here’s a picture
36:22 of some of our classrooms before on the left
36:24 and the new furniture and positive learning environment we’re
36:28 able to establish
36:29 after as well as improving bathrooms at our coquina elementary
36:36 school
36:38 you’re right we didn’t that was for the faculty
36:57 no but uh our kids and our faculty did not experience the
37:05 bathroom on the left but that’s
37:06 what it looked like before it got gets to look like uh what is
37:09 on the right
37:10 all right um now i want to kind of transition into uh you know
37:20 a topic that uh is certainly serious but one that i am
37:25 extraordinarily proud to discuss uh having had the
37:30 opportunity and privilege to work as chief operating officer
37:33 before becoming superintendent
37:35 what i am proud of at that very life-changing time of marjory
37:42 snowman douglas but what i am proud of is
37:43 is the commitment the priority that our district has made to the
37:48 safety and security of our students long before tragedies
37:51 began happening very close to home and that has continued i know
37:58 parents because they’ve reached out to me even this summer are
38:02 concerned about the realities that have happened
38:05 to our education family to our education family not far away and
38:09 how are we working to ensure we’ll do everything we can in our
38:16 power to keep our kids safe
38:17 and i want to provide that assurance that i know this board i
38:21 know this superintendent i know our law enforcement agencies who
38:26 are all of them are partners with brevard public schools are a
38:30 hundred percent committed to the safety of our students and our
38:34 staff
38:35 every day across our campuses so just quickly here is a snapshot
38:41 of the schools that we are responsible
38:43 for serving across the district and all of these sites will have
38:50 even in the midst of staff shortages
38:52 they will have an armed presence in every one of our schools
38:56 whose sole responsibility is to protect our kids and protect our
38:59 staff
39:00 who are those law enforcement agencies and individuals well the
39:06 this the board knows brevard county sheriff’s office is our
39:10 contracted security provider for our schools
39:14 we’re very fortunate to have a robust security office with
39:19 several brevard county sheriff’s office employees
39:22 uh employees who work hand in hand day in day out with our own
39:27 staff through our operations department with
39:30 our chief operating officer to ensure we’re meeting our students
39:34 uh we’re meeting the needs of our kids and our schools
39:37 but you can see that we have 34 uh county deputies we have 34
39:42 other law enforcement uh school resource
39:45 officers as well as we maintain 34 of our own security
39:49 specialists across our schools so you can see we more than
39:53 exceed
39:53 the staffing that we need to have an armed one at least one
39:57 armed presence at every one of our schools
39:59 so i want to highlight our district office uh manned by brevard
40:04 county sheriff’s office major brian neal
40:06 he is a familiar face uh even to this room lieutenant joanna siegel
40:11 but also the other staff that we
40:13 have in that office that include analysts whose primary
40:16 responsibility is to uh search social media
40:20 and internet and so on and monitor any threats that could be
40:25 shared out there so we have a jump
40:27 on what uh may be confronting our schools and they work
40:31 literally 24 7 to support our our school administrative
40:36 teams as well as our law enforcement representatives across our
40:39 schools but not only do we have an
40:42 amazing partnership with brevard county sheriff’s office but
40:46 that extends across our 10 municipalities
40:49 and the police departments that also provide armed officers in
40:54 our schools and these just aren’t men and
40:57 men and women who put on a uniform and wear uh wear weapons to
41:02 protect our campuses these are men and
41:04 women who have personally invested in the lives of the people
41:07 inside that building and it is not uncommon
41:10 i give a shout out to our sro at ocean breeze elementary school
41:15 who has a phenomenal rapport relationship
41:19 partnership with the kids with the staff and that was recognized
41:23 as she was our district employee of the
41:25 year and then went on to be recognized as the state employee of
41:28 the year but she’s not an exception our sros
41:32 are invested in our schools our school safety specialists are
41:37 engaged at every level in our schools
41:40 and they’re not just another staff member they’re part of the
41:43 family and they work hand in hand with our
41:45 school administrators to ensure that we’re all coming together
41:48 to share the safety and security of that
41:52 environment and so i highlight again the different uh police
41:56 departments across our district that we
41:58 partner with and meet with regularly to ensure that
42:01 communication remains open and robust
42:06 i want to highlight the training that occurs every year for our
42:10 law enforcement partners but also for our
42:13 school staff this summer we had the opportunity for several of
42:17 our administrators to participate in an
42:20 active shooter exercise provided by health first it was hosted
42:24 by the sheriff’s office and our
42:26 administrators were able to engage in this mock experience and
42:30 do post-action debriefing and learn from that
42:35 experience and take actions back to their own schools to improve
42:38 the environments that they are responsible for
42:41 we also require monthly incident and fire drills but it’s not
42:47 just a practice of doing a drill after every
42:52 drill our administrative teams come together with the law
42:55 enforcement representatives and they debrief and do an
42:59 after-action report that has to be submitted to the district
43:03 indicating where they will
43:04 make some adjustments and or improvements to the process to be
43:08 better increasingly prepared and when we
43:11 don’t receive those after-action reports our chief operating
43:15 officer knocks on the door of the principal
43:17 and says uh let’s have a conversation so that we keep everybody
43:22 current and up to date on that on that
43:25 process but in addition our security specialists continue to
43:30 have to meet annual recertification requirements i know this
43:34 bell
43:34 you’re familiar with that as well as you personally uh
43:38 participated in the security specialist
43:41 training but that the training far exceeds the state requirement
43:46 of about 139 40 hours our program uh conducted or
43:51 or uh provided by the sheriff’s office is 176 hours to ensure
43:58 that our men and women are uh above and beyond prepared in
44:02 addition our srs
44:04 to ensure that our staff members of the staff has to continue to
44:08 continue to continue to continue to serve as a school resource
44:11 officer an initiative i’m very proud of as as we launched this
44:16 years before it was required by the state and i would uh
44:21 uh share with the board and our community this process has been
44:24 recognized by the state as an exemplar for districts across the
44:25 state
44:25 it is our own in-house developed school emergency operations
44:34 plan or what we call to what we refer to
44:36 as the sea op it is personalized and developed at every school
44:41 it is comprehensive and identifying
44:43 everything from evacuation plans to items that need to go with
44:48 staff and students when they evacuate where they
44:51 evacuate to whose role and responsibility it is for several
44:54 different functions throughout any type of incident
44:58 and so on it is reviewed annually annually with our law
45:02 enforcement partners and it includes the drills and
45:06 the after action reports that are required as well again they
45:10 are not available to the public they are protected uh as part of
45:16 uh our security plan but i want to provide the reassurance to
45:21 our community that our administrative teams dig into
45:24 uh this personally and comprehensively to ensure that they have
45:29 done everything they need to to be
45:30 prepared in case of any incident and as i wrap up and i’ll
45:34 certainly uh be available for questions for the from the board
45:38 we continue to enhance the hardening of our campuses uh across
45:44 the district this summer through our sales
45:47 surtax dollars uh upgrading our intercom systems which are
45:51 obviously essential for communication
45:53 hardening our front offices which as we have now created a
45:57 single point of access to our campuses
46:00 that front office uh indicated a considerable vulnerability and
46:05 we have addressed that as well
46:06 as as well as providing gps and continuing to establish hard
46:11 corners in our classrooms
46:13 uh i had the opportunity to share this conversation with the
46:18 coco beach chamber that miss mcdougall
46:21 referenced last week along with uh sheriff wayne ivy and i don’t
46:25 think i would be speaking
46:27 out of place if i reiterated some of the things that he
46:30 emphasized uh in that conversation and that’s
46:34 because i have seen it firsthand myself number one the
46:37 communication that exists between every law
46:41 enforcement agency and as we’ve looked at tragedies that have
46:45 occurred in other places a lot of things
46:47 went wrong not the least of which was communication even across
46:53 agency and i am pleased to say that that is not a
46:57 uh a problem that we’ll have to experience here in brevard
47:00 because the communication and the comms center
47:04 at the county will be able to patch us together but also there’s
47:09 been question or wondering are our
47:12 officers trained and prepared to act when a threat is presented
47:18 and i can confidently tell you i’ve heard
47:21 it myself and i’ve seen it in the in the officers who serve our
47:25 schools
47:27 they know their responsibility they are committed to their
47:31 responsibility and there is no question
47:33 they are empowered as well as prepared to act and put themselves
47:38 between danger and our kids and our
47:41 staff and that’s a sobering thought but it’s also a reassuring
47:46 thought and i commend the partnership we
47:49 that we have with our law enforcement agencies across brevard
47:53 county and with brevard public schools
47:55 before i open it up i’ve got to bring us back around to what
48:02 tomorrow the magic that’ll happen tomorrow
48:06 yes we will open the front doors and the gates of buildings and
48:10 campuses
48:11 but that will be eclipsed
48:17 by the thousands and thousands of men and women across this
48:22 organization who will open the gates to their
48:25 hearts to welcome our students with love
48:29 acceptance
48:30 and strive to inspire them to reach goals and dreams that in
48:36 many cases they would have never thought
48:38 of themselves so i’ll leave you with uh this short video that
48:43 captures
48:44 best why i think and i think you’ll agree education matters
48:54 education is the equalizer for kids kids students come from all
49:00 kinds of backgrounds but when kids walk
49:03 into the doors of our schools we can provide them a new gateway
49:07 to all of the opportunities that are
49:09 before them and provide them inspiration to pursue a dream they
49:13 may not have otherwise thought was
49:16 possible for them education matters because it is the foundation
49:21 for our society our young people
49:24 grow up they learn the lessons that they need to be productive
49:27 citizens after high school
49:28 my favorite part of being an educator is working with the
49:32 children the best part of this job 100
49:36 hands down no matter how bad my day is i can go in there and i
49:38 can see their smiling faces and it’s
49:40 going to put one on mine to be an educator to me just means i
49:43 have a say saw on my legacy
49:45 and i think that’s important because i would like to think at
49:49 the end of my life
49:50 it would be nice to know that i had a hand in something that
49:53 affected everyone around me the
49:55 kids and the environment is what makes me happy about coming to
49:59 work every single day to be able to
50:02 have that opportunity to help them choose the right path and
50:05 maybe make a difference in their life is
50:08 what it’s about having the support of fellow teachers and
50:11 educators in brevard public schools means a lot
50:15 without educators we would not be a community i just think back
50:20 over my 20 plus year career how
50:23 there have been so many people along the way who have inspired
50:26 me because they were doing great
50:28 things with their students i thought man i can do great things
50:30 with my students as well
50:32 i’ve been blessed to have several different people pointing to
50:35 me that i’ve been able to pull
50:37 information from and just be able to observe and watch and it’s
50:40 been a game changer for me my hope and
50:44 commitment drive for our employees is that you realize there’s
50:49 only one you we need your best for our
50:51 kids and we can only be our best with you your impact knows no
50:56 bounds you know when you drop the stone in
50:59 the pond the ripples go out forever and that’s what a teacher
51:02 does every single day for a student
51:04 the interactions that you have those ripples you just don’t know
51:08 how far they reach getting involved
51:09 with brevard public schools just was icing on the cake because
51:13 now i get to not only enjoy where i
51:15 live but i get to help make it a better place i am enormously
51:19 proud of the commitment and the work that
51:21 our entire school system has provided our kids and our community
51:26 during this time
51:27 well with that i reassure our board and i reassure our community
51:37 we are excited we are ready let’s get
51:41 started thank you dr mullins and and the entire team for uh all
51:46 of the work for that uh any board members
51:50 have any questions or comments for dr mullins on the
51:52 presentation a very important question um did we
51:56 burn those carpets that we ripped out they have been hauled far
52:04 far away thank you dr mullins and um
52:08 i mean not to take away from the seriousness of the the latter
52:10 part of that presentation um but there’s
52:12 just been there’s been so much work over this summer and and
52:15 over the past year to get get ready and get
52:17 started for this new school year so thank you to everyone on our
52:20 team that participated in it
52:22 and thank you to to you dr mullins and thank you for that video
52:25 um you know i do have answered several questions over the summer
52:34 from people who’ve asked especially
52:36 after what happened out in texas and you know as more and more
52:40 came out the report had come out you know i
52:43 i i felt more confident in what we have done than ever because i
52:47 some of the things that went wrong as
52:49 you um alluded to i i feel like we we have that already handled
52:53 here and not to say it’s something
52:55 you know tragic couldn’t happen but i’m very thankful for the
52:57 partnerships that we have and for the work
52:59 that we’ve already been able to do and for our our staff and our
53:04 um sros and for our three specialists who are
53:06 committed all sorts of things i i i have to thank you about you
53:09 know but i know there’s been a little
53:11 it’s every time we have something new it’s changed right there’s
53:15 going to be a little resistant there’s
53:17 i’ve seen a little bit of resistance of barring regarding the
53:19 new bus program with the reaction program
53:22 but i have to tell you as someone you know every day um we get
53:25 an incident report and it goes to
53:27 district level staff into the board and it tells everything you
53:30 know a kid at discovery elementary fell
53:33 and hit their head on the playground or someone had a seizure or
53:37 you know a bus ran into a fence you
53:40 know things like that but included in those incident reports
53:43 every week there’s some child that the
53:45 parents called and said my child didn’t get off the bus where
53:48 are they and sometimes it’s because they
53:49 did actually get off the bus and they went to the johnny’s house
53:52 next door and didn’t call anybody and
53:54 then they find them later and everybody’s searching around but i
53:58 can see how this is really going to
54:00 eliminate so much of that confusion confusion and panic you know
54:03 right stricken in parents hearts
54:05 because they’re going to know you know they’re going to have
54:07 they’re at work they know child got off the
54:09 bus and they should know where to look and so i think this is
54:12 going to be a great thing i look forward
54:13 to the implementation of that i look forward to those incidents
54:16 not being on the email report every day
54:18 that’d be fantastic so um i just had a quick question um when we
54:24 um when we had our our you know we had
54:28 found out that we were the separate day school the special day
54:31 schools were you know that wasn’t going
54:32 to happen that we had to have gardendale up and running in such
54:35 a very short time did we get some of
54:38 the staff from our previous uh special day schools did did we
54:42 able were we able to hire some of those
54:45 we did we were able to hire some of them i i
54:48 i i can’t remember exactly what the number is but uh we hired
54:51 several of them to serve in our our
54:55 school now at gardendale um some of them chose to to pursue
54:59 other paths as well as went to other
55:01 school opportunities including some of our other schools but
55:05 several of them did end up serve
55:06 continuing to serve our students at gardendale yeah well i just
55:09 have to say kudos on that too because
55:10 that was a herculean effort and i i know you said it already but
55:14 that’s it that’s not just setting up
55:16 any school it’s a very intense um it requires a lot of
55:20 specialized staffing and um facilities and so
55:25 good job on that as well thank you i i would uh highlight a
55:29 comment miss moore said she said
55:32 it has shocked me the little things we never suspected we’d be
55:35 the big barriers and what we thought were
55:37 going to be the big challenges that were never even an issue and
55:40 it really came down to the big things
55:42 that we thought were going to be an issue we controlled in
55:45 within the organization and the
55:47 team rallied and said that’s not a problem we got that it was
55:50 the little things like getting the
55:52 school an id number who would have thunk uh but literally got a
55:56 call from the chancellor of education
55:58 he said help me understand what are you doing what are you
56:01 trying to do and so i explained our situation
56:04 he says oh okay i got it let me see what i can make happen so
56:07 appreciate their work but it took a call
56:09 from the chancellor to the superintendent to get our new school
56:13 a school id number so interesting
56:15 um i just i would just uh put this challenge out to my fellow
56:18 board members i know that some of us
56:20 over like yeah i know here we go we haven’t had a challenge in a
56:23 while we haven’t had a challenge
56:25 all in a while mr susan um so this is a serious one that i think
56:28 we can meet especially since um
56:31 actually all five of us three of us in the at the public schools
56:34 you know as teachers but you know
56:36 you’ve taught college kids so you can teach kindergarten um and
56:39 miss mcg we’ve all subbed
56:41 uh over the last couple years when there was needed height you
56:45 know high uh absentee days
56:47 i have already talked to dr thetty and volunteered my services
56:50 and give me a couple weeks first
56:51 um but uh as as we have opportunity and it’s all hands on deck i
56:55 know it sounds like we’re doing
56:57 great actually in the sub area and i’m super excited about the
57:00 new uh software that we’re using but
57:01 i want to challenge my fellow board members to to jump in there
57:06 and uh and offer your services maybe
57:08 one day a week or once a month or something like that because um
57:12 i think that uh you know it helps
57:14 when leadership sets an example of being willing to jump in and
57:17 serve and and no you don’t have to do
57:19 kindergarten i don’t really like to do kindergarten myself but
57:22 give me a middle school class we forget
57:24 miss campbell i also work with the little ones in the pool so i
57:27 might be well suited for kindergarten
57:28 you never know right anybody else have uh mr susan madam vice
57:33 chair so dr mullins i’ve seen part of
57:39 this presentation before and thank you again it’s very well put
57:42 together and i’m very excited for our whole
57:45 staff and again opening gardendale was uh an amazing feat so kudos
57:53 to everyone who was involved because it
57:56 wasn’t just one department it was our whole everybody working
57:59 together and making it happen as you said so
58:01 thank you very much for this presentation i appreciate but i do
58:04 have a question about the
58:06 the sea up that sea up isn’t that don’t we have to report that
58:10 to the state don’t they sign off on our
58:13 plan uh yes they do but uh you may also be thinking of the fsat
58:18 that’s the annual survey that we do every
58:21 one of our schools completes approximately a 400 question survey
58:26 related to safety and security of their
58:29 specific campus we then uh break it down go through every
58:34 response we aggregate the responses look for
58:38 any commonalities and respond and then here in the next several
58:41 i know uh mr wilson is working on that
58:43 right now uh then we’ll present that to the board here in the
58:46 coming weeks that then also has to be
58:48 reported to the state so yes is there a timeline on that the fsat
58:52 response i believe has to be to the
58:55 state by october 15th it was it is i don’t think mr wilson is in
59:00 here right now i believe the
59:03 the responses from the schools uh the completion was was due august
59:09 1st i believe and now we go
59:11 through the disaggregating and then aggregating data to see if
59:14 there are any district responses we need
59:16 to make and i just want to remind everybody it’s 400 questions
59:20 yes so it does take a lot of time and
59:23 it’s very comprehensive it is comprehensive and i appreciate our
59:26 staff following through and i
59:28 believe we work with our sheriff’s department to complete that
59:32 together yes mr wilson works with uh
59:34 major brian neal and his team to look at the results as well
59:39 make sure there isn’t a response
59:40 that we need to put in place that is law enforcement oriented
59:44 thank you so dr mullins thank you um when you
59:49 were talking about the child’s getting on the buses we always
59:52 get those and that’s that’s really uh
59:54 part of it but one of the things not many people understand is
59:57 that our bus drivers
59:58 during covid had to literally submit paper um every single day
1:00:03 about who was on their bus
1:00:06 and it was one of the most ridiculous things that we had to do
1:00:08 as covet it’s not our fault at all but
1:00:10 but to put our people through that this gets rid of that any
1:00:14 time we ever have an issue in the future
1:00:17 children be able to show their badge scan it and get on the
1:00:19 other thing that this does
1:00:21 is that for security and i’m not sure if we’ve implemented this
1:00:24 yet but i know that you can use
1:00:26 them also for all passes and everything else so as a teacher
1:00:30 when your student says hey i’m going to go
1:00:32 out and use the hall pass you now have a registration of when
1:00:36 they left when they came back you know if
1:00:38 they’re still out if there’s an instance that comes out they’ve
1:00:40 registered that they’re out the central
1:00:42 base will know which is out there phenomenal program dr mullins
1:00:46 and hats off to you um that’s just one of
1:00:48 the most amazing things to do um i love your idea i’ve always
1:00:52 subbed every year um once a week a little too
1:00:55 much for me right um but i do like that and i think it’s a
1:00:58 culture that we should do
1:01:00 one of the things you do even though i taught for nine years in
1:01:03 the district and i love doing
1:01:04 it and i had great engagement man when i went back into the
1:01:07 classroom i realized that i couldn’t
1:01:09 make it now to be honest with you it takes a lot to get moving
1:01:12 there’s so many regulations but the
1:01:15 kids there’s just so much energy that takes behind it and for us
1:01:18 to realize what the teachers are going through i
1:01:20 also would say uh deskovich used to do it ride with the bus
1:01:23 drivers every once in a while see the
1:01:25 stuff like the kids acting inappropriate you can see some of
1:01:28 that or it’s kids that are good see the
1:01:30 past um i think that there’s some of those that we really can do
1:01:33 and i think we do do that for the
1:01:34 most part um so challenge accepted um and we’ll go from there
1:01:38 thank you
1:01:39 thank you dr mullins for all of that information and and to all
1:01:45 of our team um just a couple of things
1:01:48 a couple of questions and then a couple of comments um we if i
1:01:52 recall correctly from
1:01:55 days way back when you were coo and i would get calls from you
1:01:59 about our transportation issues
1:02:01 um as miss campbell mentioned you know the the heart feeling of
1:02:06 the parents but i can tell you and
1:02:08 and you know from our conversations as the board member who’s
1:02:10 getting the call that hey we have a
1:02:11 child that got off the bus and we we have not yet located them
1:02:14 um one of the requirements that we had
1:02:17 especially for our youngest our kindergartners was that the
1:02:20 adult that picked them up from the bus have
1:02:22 a photo id does the incorporation of the new technology
1:02:25 eliminate that requirement do you know
1:02:28 i don’t believe so no we still require the parental id when they
1:02:32 pick up their student their child at the
1:02:34 bus stop okay perfect um and then um for my for my fellow board
1:02:40 members who were here for the workshop
1:02:44 this morning and also for our audience who probably didn’t get a
1:02:46 chance to see it you know there were
1:02:48 we had four staff members that presented about the work that
1:02:51 they had done and every one of those staff
1:02:52 members was presenting about a teeny little nugget of their job
1:02:56 right because they all wear so many hats
1:02:58 and i just want to recognize that those same individuals
1:03:02 who have worked their behinds off to get gardendale open who
1:03:06 have worked on making sure that our head start
1:03:09 is doing phenomenally well who have who have worked uh so hard
1:03:12 on ensuring that our students are actually
1:03:14 getting to school and addressing our attendance issue are also
1:03:18 the same people that are being
1:03:19 deployed out to our schools this week to make sure that we have
1:03:22 coverage in the schools and so um you
1:03:25 know when when dr mullen says it is a full team effort uh i i
1:03:28 just could not be more proud of the way
1:03:30 that the team has come around and and supported the the opening
1:03:34 of gardendale and you know all of these
1:03:36 things that fires come up and they just they just jump in and
1:03:39 take care of them and so thank you for
1:03:41 your leadership and and to our you know our other district
1:03:44 leadership for all the work that they do to
1:03:46 make sure that we really are are functioning as a team um and
1:03:49 then the last thing that i’ll uh
1:03:52 i guess reference dr mullins and you mentioned it when you’re
1:03:56 speaking
1:03:56 i too have had a lot of parents reach out to me with concerns
1:04:00 about our safety response and um
1:04:02 as you mentioned i went through the active assailant training i
1:04:06 can tell you i have trained
1:04:07 not only with our our bcso staff um that prepares our our
1:04:11 specialists to go out to the schools but i’ve also
1:04:14 trained independently with some of our municipalities that have
1:04:17 gone and trained in our schools
1:04:19 and i just want to assure our parents that there is not a
1:04:23 scenario where our local law enforcement
1:04:26 is trained to stand back and and not immediately address a
1:04:29 threat in our schools um every single
1:04:32 aspect of the training is about immediately addressing that
1:04:36 threat and so you know as we see more and
1:04:38 more of what’s coming out i think we just we just need to not
1:04:42 let our guard down but know
1:04:44 that that is not the way that we would operate here in in bevard
1:04:48 public schools with uh with the
1:04:50 sheriff’s department or with any of our municipalities being
1:04:53 represented so uh just just a little
1:04:56 encouragement there thank you all right anything else for dr mullins
1:05:00 before we move on thank you so
1:05:03 much dr mullins for that update we appreciate it all right we
1:05:06 are now at the public comment portion of
1:05:10 the meeting on specifically on agenda items we actually have
1:05:13 three speakers signed up for agenda items
1:05:16 um miss skipper the item that you had signed up for is not
1:05:18 actually an agenda item because it’s not
1:05:20 something that we’re taking action on tonight so i will move you
1:05:24 to the to the top of the non-agenda okay
1:05:26 um and mr kaluchi you also had mention of the the k33 on yours
1:05:32 so just giving you guys a heads up before you get here you have
1:05:35 the other one on yours as well so um so we have katherine deline
1:05:40 and anthony kaluchi on agenda items uh if you guys want to make
1:05:44 your way and i will read the things that
1:05:46 i need to read um we have only two speakers so each speaker will
1:05:50 receive three minutes please note that
1:05:52 the time is per speaker not per agenda item topics not specific
1:05:55 to agenda items will be moved to the
1:05:57 non-agenda portion of the meeting we have a clock in front of me
1:05:59 to help you keep track of your time
1:06:01 when your time is over you’ll be asked to stop and allow the
1:06:04 next speaker his or her turn
1:06:05 always keep in mind that reasonable decorum is expected and your
1:06:08 statement should be directed to
1:06:09 the board chair the chair may interrupt warn terminate or terminate
1:06:13 a participant statement
1:06:14 when time is up it’s personally directed abusive obscene or
1:06:18 relevant should an individual not observe
1:06:20 proper etiquette the chair may request the individual to leave
1:06:22 the meeting for the audience please remember
1:06:25 that outside of your personal public comment period your role is
1:06:28 as an observer therefore i would ask that
1:06:30 you would please not disrupt the meeting by interjecting
1:06:32 comments or noises during public comments all right
1:06:37 miss delaney give me one second here just to make sure i’m set
1:06:40 whenever you are ready ma’am thank you um i am wanting to speak
1:06:49 on the superintendent evaluation
1:06:52 i have had a very different experience than what has been
1:06:55 presented here today and um you know at the
1:06:59 at the evaluation um i’ve been met with completely unprofessional
1:07:05 behavior
1:07:06 um to parents to taxpayers to the general public um and after i
1:07:13 left the meeting last school board meeting
1:07:19 chairwoman belford you went on to say it was a misunderstanding
1:07:24 why one of the board members
1:07:26 was left out of the final evaluation that’s fine but what about
1:07:30 the requirement required notification
1:07:33 to the public that you did not do you changed and proceeded with
1:07:37 the meeting without public notification
1:07:41 that breaks sunshine law
1:07:46 i would like the public and the teachers to be aware that dr mullins
1:07:50 received an eight thousand
1:07:52 dollar bonus and a raise with this evaluation while our teachers
1:07:57 got a four percent raise which is
1:08:01 really a decrease in pay because of the nine to eleven percent
1:08:04 inflation thanks to the failures of the current administration
1:08:07 why would the superintendent receive a raise and an eight
1:08:12 thousand dollar bonus when our school grade went down
1:08:16 for the county
1:08:17 when our discipline is out of control in our schools when our
1:08:26 teachers are getting assaulted in their
1:08:28 classrooms by children
1:08:30 that’s not leadership and we need new leadership thank you thank
1:08:37 you mr delaney mr collucci
1:08:44 chair belford i believe both these items are related to f13 my
1:08:54 name is anthony collucci i’m the president of the
1:08:58 brevard federation of teachers tonight i’m here to talk about a
1:09:01 walking contradiction the behavior of this school
1:09:04 district i point you to the f13 under supplemental positions
1:09:09 unless this board acts now you are about to
1:09:12 you to the f13 under the school district i’m here to talk to you
1:09:15 to the f13 under the school district
1:09:17 i want to talk to you to the f13 under the school district i
1:09:19 want to talk to you to the f13 under the school district
1:09:21 i want to talk to you to the f13 under the school district i
1:09:23 want to talk to you to the f13 under the school district
1:09:24 the school board may then award the position to a non-teacher
1:09:27 volunteer
1:09:27 the arbitration decision was respected by bps for five years and
1:09:32 then suddenly we have a qualified teacher with exemplary
1:09:36 experience apply for a boys varsity basketball position and you’re
1:09:40 about to support a direct violation of the
1:09:43 arbitration decision by hiring a non-teacher volunteer i’m
1:09:47 asking that this item is pulled for discussion
1:09:50 and this board stopped this injustice arbitrating this language
1:09:54 which you never tried to change at the bargaining table is not a
1:09:58 fight you should be having
1:09:59 now on the other hand this board should be fighting hb 1467
1:10:05 but instead is willing to act in an over cautious manner before
1:10:09 the state even puts out guidance about the law
1:10:13 other districts are not responding to the law in this way they
1:10:17 are trusting their teachers and
1:10:18 administrators to use their professional judgment whereas brevard
1:10:22 is ripping resources out of students hands
1:10:25 you’re forbidding teachers from using supplemental curriculum
1:10:28 you’re preventing book fairs from happening
1:10:30 you’re overloading our already overloaded media specialists with
1:10:34 tasks you’re not sure are required yet
1:10:37 and don’t let staff tell you that it’s not happening i’ve seen
1:10:41 the memos with my own two eyes
1:10:42 i’ve spent nearly two decades as a classroom teacher and without
1:10:47 a doubt preventing students from using supplemental materials
1:10:51 will create them will cause them to become bored and disengaged
1:10:55 your approach is going to hurt students
1:10:58 preventing teachers from using their professional judgment to
1:11:00 choose supplemental materials will cause them to leave
1:11:04 i remind this board your job is to insulate our teachers from
1:11:07 harm in this case you’re not insulating
1:11:10 you’re intensifying the damage and if you think i’m exaggerating
1:11:14 let me read from a teacher who resigned
1:11:16 yesterday over 1467 my entire classroom theme was harry potter i
1:11:21 planned on incorporating many aspects of
1:11:24 this novel to teach a multitude of standards when i asked her
1:11:27 media specialist if it was vetted she found
1:11:30 that was only for grades five and up that’s when i left and
1:11:33 began breaking down my classroom please
1:11:35 know it wasn’t just harry potter it was a principal and point
1:11:38 knowing that i cannot expect my students
1:11:40 to instill a love of reading so so many books are under scrutiny
1:11:45 i feel my moral compass is too high
1:11:47 i can’t look at my parents and students and tell them everything
1:11:51 is fine when it is not and board i
1:11:53 can’t look at you and tell you everything we appreciate you
1:11:56 joining us this evening
1:11:57 all right that is going to then move us into the consent agenda
1:12:07 for those of you not familiar with
1:12:08 the process if you signed up to speak to non-agenda items you
1:12:10 will be called at the end of the meeting
1:12:11 okay we’re not not skipping over you um dr mullins consent
1:12:16 agenda yes there are 18 agenda items under
1:12:19 the consent agenda does any board member wish to pull any item
1:12:22 from the consent agenda i sent you a
1:12:24 little card f13 yeah i just need you to say it yes i wish to
1:12:27 pull f13 um all right then i will
1:12:30 entertain a motion to accept the consent agenda as presented
1:12:33 with the exception of item f13th second
1:12:37 moved by miss mcdougall seconded by mr susan is there any
1:12:39 discussion all in favor please signify by saying
1:12:43 aye aye aye aye any opposed same sign motion passes five zero mr
1:12:48 susan um mr gibbs that will move us to
1:12:52 item f13 correct all right so i will entertain a motion on f13
1:12:56 move to approve moved by mr susan
1:12:59 seconded by miss campbell floor is yours mr susan thank you um
1:13:03 currently we have a situation where
1:13:06 there’s been an active there’s an active grievance going on and
1:13:10 there’s been past arbitrators who have
1:13:13 arbitration that has actually found against and the reason that
1:13:16 i know this is is because as a coach
1:13:19 there’s many times when you come to a situation where you have
1:13:22 two people who are up and it’s always
1:13:23 a community coach and you have a staff person right a teacher
1:13:27 and what ends up happening is is they are
1:13:30 very qualified between the two and it’s been an argument that i’ve
1:13:33 had to wrestle back and forth
1:13:35 um when this came up as an issue a couple like a month ago when
1:13:39 we were talking about this
1:13:40 um my thought process was let it move through the arbitration
1:13:44 let it go ahead and move through
1:13:46 and then once it comes out let paul and the district staff do
1:13:49 that and then we make a decision based on
1:13:51 the second half of that um what came is is that just recently
1:13:55 like literally as we’re coming in
1:13:58 to find out that this individual in the middle of a grievance is
1:14:03 put onto the agenda to be accepted
1:14:06 and receive the supplement move forward um it made me pull it
1:14:10 and just say hey we got to stop for a
1:14:12 second so i just had a couple of questions to run through just
1:14:15 to make sure that i’m on the on the
1:14:16 right portion here and i wanted to hear if there’s anything that
1:14:19 i’m missing
1:14:20 um but uh paul is there an active grievance currently over this
1:14:25 item
1:14:26 yes to my awareness they’ve grieved the uh selection so it’s
1:14:33 going to an arbitration
1:14:34 and is there past arbitration on this item that has been found
1:14:40 for or against us
1:14:44 on this specific this employee has not not this employee but on
1:14:48 this topic the issue has gone
1:14:50 i want to say at least twice that i’m aware of and in both cases
1:14:54 has the district prevailed or lost
1:14:57 those items the last one was the one referenced by mr calucci we
1:15:02 lost i don’t recall okay i want to say
1:15:06 that’s okay because we were on the board when this happened and
1:15:09 i’ll be honest with you
1:15:10 setting aside whether the community coach or the teacher is
1:15:14 better
1:15:15 is not what i make the judgment here that’s not it at all where
1:15:19 i fall on is the process
1:15:22 of us putting an individual on the agenda to pass them in the
1:15:26 middle of an arbitration and that’s
1:15:28 where i have an issue so thank you for that paul um is there a
1:15:32 reason that i’m missing that we
1:15:34 want to appoint this individual now uh i didn’t know if is there
1:15:38 a reason for that like i see it on here
1:15:40 maybe i’m missing something maybe there’s something going on can’t
1:15:43 speak to why they’re moving forward
1:15:44 other than the obvious of they want to get the program running
1:15:48 okay is it dr mullins is there a
1:15:50 reason we’re doing this now as opposed to like a month from now
1:15:53 or anything well i would have to
1:15:54 ask dr thetty to come up she’s closest working most closely with
1:15:57 the situation i provide one clarification
1:15:59 to your question to mr uh gibbs and that is it has been arbitrated
1:16:04 in the past but not all the
1:16:06 procedural circumstances are the same fine that’s close enough
1:16:11 dr thetty thank you for coming what
1:16:13 why would we move to put the individual in the middle of a grievance
1:16:16 on the for moved move forward with
1:16:19 this because we’re in the approval process for those sports for
1:16:21 that season oh is it consistent that in
1:16:25 august we usually do the approval process for all of the sports
1:16:28 for this for basketball and those winter
1:16:31 sports we take the supplemented sports for the for the fall when
1:16:34 they come in from the schools so what
1:16:36 i did was i i thought about that i said you know when we do the
1:16:39 approval process for the supplements
1:16:41 usually we never really did them during sports until halfway
1:16:45 through the year because we didn’t know if
1:16:48 the coach would actually work out so you’d have football you’d
1:16:50 have three or four coaches that work
1:16:52 below you and what you end up finding is is that they may not
1:16:55 make it throughout the process so i said
1:16:58 well let me look at past preference on when we actually did
1:17:02 approve supplements for them so i went back
1:17:05 to august of 2018 i went to august of 2019 i went to august of
1:17:11 2021 i’ll hand these to you we have never
1:17:14 approved a basketball or a sport actually no sport at all
1:17:20 supplement between july and now for any of
1:17:24 these so basketball has never been approved in july or august so
1:17:28 this goes against not only the
1:17:31 arbitration but past precedence of when we actually do it so oh
1:17:36 here’s august 27th of 2019 so when do we
1:17:40 do it so instantly if you look through those you’ll find that
1:17:44 there’s absolutely no supplements related
1:17:46 to basketball and actually in most of them no supplements
1:17:49 related to any sport so for basketball
1:17:53 what you end up finding is is that in november december and january
1:17:56 you start to see them come in
1:17:58 so generally you’ll see a coach who’s been in playing for a
1:18:02 while they end up coming in so here’s for
1:18:04 instance november of 2019 you’ll see that you have head soccer
1:18:09 basketball from middle school
1:18:11 head football they all start kind of rolling in so in this case
1:18:14 um where we always are usually doing
1:18:17 that is in november not july not august mostly not september
1:18:21 there’s that’s that’s november of 2019
1:18:25 this is november of 2021. you can see all of our and we put
1:18:30 those into the minutes if you don’t mind mr
1:18:32 gibbs as you’re looking at this december of 2021 you can see it
1:18:37 also so november december and january
1:18:39 we end up supporting having these individuals get their stipends
1:18:44 so what i said was okay so there’s
1:18:47 something else going on i you know if it’s if it’s agreeable
1:18:50 that we’ve done it in the past
1:18:52 then that’s one thing but if we haven’t then i’ve got an issue
1:18:56 and i’d like to amend the current motion
1:18:59 to remove wardell jefferson collins from basketball head coach
1:19:05 supplement
1:19:05 until after the arbitration is complete and then we can do our
1:19:10 due diligence
1:19:11 there’s a motion on the floor here’s this one this is august of
1:19:15 this year
1:19:15 amended motion is there any second sorry my mic’s not on i have
1:19:21 an amended motion is there any second second
1:19:23 second and open for discussion on that motion mr gibbs yeah mr
1:19:29 susan do you have any additional
1:19:32 discussions since it was your original motion my thing is is
1:19:35 that i just feel like right now in the
1:19:37 middle of an arbitration that it’s difficult for us as a board
1:19:40 to make a decision on an individual it may
1:19:43 be preemptively and i’ll tell you why here’s here’s the other
1:19:46 piece the social emotional of the team okay
1:19:48 so as a former coach if i hear that i have this one coach and
1:19:52 everybody gets behind and they start putting
1:19:55 together this team and they start going then all of a sudden we
1:19:58 lose the arbitration now those kids have
1:20:01 to get another coach and i’ll be honest with you as a coach as a
1:20:05 coach who has gone through multiple seasons
1:20:08 in multiple sports in transitions it’s difficult because teams
1:20:13 get put in between things and they
1:20:16 don’t get an opportunity to just play and i think that preemptively
1:20:20 us putting this person in as the
1:20:22 coach prior while there’s an arbitration goes on goes against
1:20:26 that that’s my feeling and i will answer any
1:20:28 questions but intimately for me this is this is a you know
1:20:31 something that i feel strong about so i have
1:20:36 a question so what happens do we just put the basketball team on
1:20:40 hold that they won’t have a
1:20:41 basketball team until we figure out this arbitration they don’t
1:20:44 start till november
1:20:45 why do they so when you say start is that when they start
1:20:51 playing or when they start practicing we can
1:20:53 ask when it starts but basketball generally doesn’t start until
1:20:55 the end of october early november
1:20:57 and we have an arbitration and file i’m just saying i don’t want
1:21:01 it to um be a penalty to the students
1:21:05 who want to play basketball and not have any practice that’s a
1:21:08 good question um i would say that
1:21:12 i know that basketball doesn’t start until after a couple months
1:21:15 into the season so i would hope that
1:21:18 the union and the negotiations would come forward and get this
1:21:22 resolved prior to for the betterment of our
1:21:24 kids just for the record i believe arbitration dates are being
1:21:28 kicked around and we’re in october or november
1:21:31 well let’s just say we don’t have to make a decision today we
1:21:39 don’t have to make it right now we don’t
1:21:42 we don’t have to make it now we can make it in 30 days we can
1:21:45 make it in 45 days but i will tell you
1:21:48 right now we are jumping the gun to allow an individual to go in
1:21:51 to start coaching because of
1:21:52 the social emotion of our students and having two different
1:21:55 coaches i’ll tell you that much right
1:21:56 now yeah so i’m i i just want to make sure that we’re keeping in
1:22:01 so if everybody gets an opportunity
1:22:03 sorry we have that whole thing i apologize i thought i was being
1:22:06 asked a question or
1:22:07 um so i agree um i i think it’s weird that we’re doing this in
1:22:14 the middle of a very obvious we know
1:22:16 we’re having an arbitration we know where the discrepancies lie
1:22:19 um and and just for me personally
1:22:21 i find it really difficult to read that language of that arbitration
1:22:24 decision and uh understand how
1:22:27 it’s being applied in this situation so i’m with mr susan on
1:22:31 this one i i don’t want it for it to
1:22:33 affect our students um but at the same time it’s a very obvious
1:22:38 result in my personal opinion um and
1:22:42 i don’t understand why we’re doing it in the first place miss
1:22:45 campbell did you want to speak with this
1:22:48 uh speak particularly to mr susan’s you know addressing you know
1:22:54 what we do or don’t do in august
1:22:55 and then so you know i i hear you i’m not going to look through
1:22:58 every single page i trust you that we
1:23:00 didn’t do that in august but we did we do some other ones in the
1:23:02 summer i just look back just really
1:23:04 quickly on our board meetings from the summer we did um at the
1:23:08 end of june we did for edgewood a
1:23:10 couple of supplemental positions dance corps future problem
1:23:13 solving earlier in june we did a softball
1:23:15 assistant coach that had head track coach at titusville and some
1:23:19 other
1:23:20 um supplemental positions so i you know as dr 30 said you know
1:23:25 they we approve them as they come in
1:23:27 because we have supplemental positions on almost every agenda ms
1:23:30 campbell those supplements were
1:23:32 from the previous year hang on they weren’t for the now year
1:23:34 they’re from the previous year okay oh
1:23:37 i got you you know what there you go you’re correct so but we
1:23:40 almost every agenda throughout the year we
1:23:42 we approve the supplements as they’re rolling as they get hired
1:23:45 so um i i also wonder just as a um
1:23:49 as a is there even a grievance to be had if we actually haven’t
1:23:53 hired them i mean because they’re
1:23:56 not officially hired until the board approves process i mean the
1:23:59 principal has hired them but
1:24:01 you know does that make sense the rec the recommendation is
1:24:04 being made so it creates the grievance okay all
1:24:07 right um i don’t know that i necessarily right now need to weigh
1:24:12 in on my opinion one way or the other i i
1:24:16 don’t i would don’t want to uh put a pause on this no i’d rather
1:24:20 just move forward with hiring the coach
1:24:22 as recommended by the principal who’s already made their
1:24:24 selection miss belford may i respond to the
1:24:27 other supplements that were done over the summer since it
1:24:30 referenced me could i ask some questions
1:24:32 first since i haven’t spoken yet and then i’ll come back to you
1:24:34 for response to them um and i don’t know
1:24:38 who is best to answer this question whether it’s dr mullins mr
1:24:42 gibbs um what is what is the impact of
1:24:45 not approving this item tonight
1:24:48 dr teddy would you like to respond to that she understands the
1:24:54 hiring process but i’m not i’ll mess
1:24:56 it up i just didn’t want to put her on the spot without you i
1:24:59 appreciate it as far as when the
1:25:02 supplements come in we do approve them we we take them as they
1:25:06 come from the schools
1:25:08 um the impact of pulling it tonight if we can bring it back on
1:25:11 the next the next board agenda it
1:25:14 wouldn’t have a huge impact but there is play pre-season play
1:25:17 and all those other things that
1:25:18 come into play with fhsaa i don’t want to speak to fhsaa rules
1:25:21 and when the season begins because i
1:25:23 don’t have it in front of me right now i do know that i had
1:25:26 confirmed the basketball season begins october 30
1:25:29 um and so um you mentioned that we typically approve the
1:25:37 supplements when they come in from the school
1:25:40 so is it just like our schools were more efficient this year and
1:25:43 getting all of their coaches names
1:25:44 turned in and that’s why we’re seeing this in august do you or
1:25:47 you don’t know because you guys just
1:25:49 approve them when they come in as long as they fit requirement
1:25:52 we approve them when they come in and
1:25:53 we send out the memo in the summertime okay um and mr gibbs from
1:25:59 a procedural standpoint um the amended
1:26:03 motion that’s on the floor is to remove one individual’s name
1:26:06 from this particular agenda item
1:26:07 and approve the remainder of the agenda item is that procedurally
1:26:13 appropriate for you can approve just
1:26:16 everybody without the one so that’s the motion that he’s made
1:26:20 and it’s been second so
1:26:22 okay um so what i’m hearing from from you uh dr thetty is if if
1:26:31 this is not approved tonight it needs to
1:26:34 be approved at the next meeting i’m not necessarily saying at
1:26:38 the next meeting but we we have to
1:26:40 approve the coaches before we typically approve them before the
1:26:43 season begins but mr mr susan is correct
1:26:46 there are occasions when that doesn’t happen if we don’t have a
1:26:48 coach on board at the time but we
1:26:50 approve them as they come in and so if if we go through this
1:26:53 pride just want to make sure i understand all
1:26:56 the sides of it so um if we go through with the approval tonight
1:27:00 and then the arbitration goes forward
1:27:02 and we lose the arbitration what is the process at that point it
1:27:05 depends on the outcome of the arbitration
1:27:08 it depends on what the arbitrator decides so is there um
1:27:20 we would have to go through some process to reverse the decision
1:27:24 if the arbitrator said that we should
1:27:26 have chosen differently correct yes it would depend on what the
1:27:29 outcome is and what the arbitrator what
1:27:31 the remedy is that the arbitrator puts forth to the district
1:27:35 okay and you said currently we’re looking
1:27:38 at october or november for dates for arbitration yes okay all
1:27:43 right mr susan i think that is um the
1:27:46 remainder of my questions if you would like to respond or thank
1:27:50 you so much so i looked at it and um
1:27:52 going back as far as i could and i apologize about not having i
1:27:55 think it was 2020 for some reason we
1:27:57 don’t have those minutes on the on the internet when i was
1:28:00 trying to get to it so it goes like back down
1:28:02 to 22 hits a couple 21 then jumps like down to 19. so everything
1:28:06 that i looked at from june july august
1:28:10 we have never hired a sporting coach for basketball during that
1:28:14 time there is a question of when the
1:28:16 season starts practice starts um just like dr mullen said for
1:28:21 girls and boys would be the last two or
1:28:24 three days of october or the first couple days of november it’s
1:28:26 always what ends up happening so i want
1:28:29 to tell you guys um from my perspective i took over a wrestling
1:28:33 team literally the day before season
1:28:37 started and i took them to an undefeated season and i won coach
1:28:40 of the year for the county so to
1:28:43 say that you need to get in there way before to put our legal
1:28:47 liability in jeopardy to take kids and
1:28:49 have them go the wrong way i just don’t think it’s worth it to
1:28:53 me so i would say that we don’t have
1:28:55 to truly make a decision as a former coach until october and i
1:28:59 think that it behooves the union to
1:29:01 bring this thing forward not to drag it out if that’s the case
1:29:04 or our union or our lawyers to get
1:29:06 it taken care of um and i would reiterate just remember this if
1:29:11 we make this decision which has
1:29:13 already been lost by the district by subject matter but there is
1:29:16 some differences like dr mullins pulled
1:29:17 out and we lose again we have to take a group of children that
1:29:21 have been told they have one coach
1:29:23 and put in another coach which causes an acoustic environment
1:29:26 for that coach going in and that’s
1:29:28 tough i’ve been there before i’ve seen it before it’s really a
1:29:31 bad thing that’s why i decided that
1:29:33 i think it’s a bad thing and i would vote to uh support the
1:29:36 amendment can i make one more statement
1:29:40 and or question um i’m going to keep it really simple but uh you
1:29:44 know
1:29:46 as school board members do we not have the authority to request
1:29:50 that this just be expedited
1:29:51 and not delay this process longer than it needs to be if we know
1:29:55 that this is going to impact children
1:29:58 if we if we hold off on it till october then why are we not just
1:30:00 trying to get this done as soon as
1:30:02 possible don’t we have the authority just to make that statement
1:30:04 really clear to the superintendent
1:30:06 i think i think they’re lining up their attorneys and i think
1:30:09 after this meeting they’ll probably do it
1:30:11 right i just want to make it clear though if we’re if we you
1:30:13 know if if this does go through where we
1:30:15 vote to say that we don’t want to you know accept this right
1:30:17 here and now we have the authority as
1:30:18 school board members to make it very clear uh that we don’t want
1:30:22 this to impact children so just
1:30:24 putting that out there she’s just saying let’s let let the
1:30:28 attorneys know get together and let paul
1:30:32 let them know that if there’s somebody else that needs to jump
1:30:34 in there so that we can make it happen
1:30:36 and we’re letting the the um union know you know what i mean let’s
1:30:40 make it happen yeah they will
1:30:42 anybody else i can just provide some additional clarification um
1:30:49 just to keep in um if i remember correctly dr thuddy teachers
1:30:57 actually if they are coaches
1:30:59 they actually don’t go on the board of agenda for approval is
1:31:01 that right only community coaches do
1:31:03 because they’re a new newly appointed no the teachers go on as
1:31:06 supplemented positions okay
1:31:08 i’m not sure what is being suggested or proposed um i would dr feta
1:31:17 you’re involved in the arbitration
1:31:18 process you correct me if i’m wrong but the reason that it is
1:31:23 moving to an arbitrator is because the
1:31:25 union’s attorneys and our attorneys disagree and so the
1:31:28 disagreement that has to be presented to an
1:31:31 an arbitrator if we if we were as interested in in a expedited
1:31:36 arbitration as the union would be but i
1:31:39 don’t know that that can occur before october 31st given
1:31:45 schedules and and that type of thing so
1:31:48 i would assume we’re we’re as interested in in
1:31:53 working through this process as quickly as possible but we’re
1:31:56 confined by
1:31:56 my schedules is that that’s true okay so I just stated that we’ve
1:32:04 never had in a
1:32:05 single coach hired before on the supplements before August of
1:32:09 the year
1:32:10 for basketball season doesn’t start until August 20 October 25th
1:32:14 or
1:32:14 November 1st right in between there we have plenty of time until
1:32:17 October 15th
1:32:18 we have at least four board members meetings probably until then
1:32:21 we have
1:32:22 time to do that we established all of that stuff and I think it
1:32:26 behooves us to
1:32:26 do the right thing that’s all thank you
1:32:30 yes my question would be if the arbitration hasn’t happened by
1:32:34 the
1:32:34 September board meeting or the October board meeting then are
1:32:40 you then we’re
1:32:40 back to where we are today mm-hmm I mean I I’m not sure but I
1:32:44 think miss sorry Jenkins are you suggesting that you would like
1:32:56 the board
1:32:56 to go ahead and weigh in you know aside from the arbitration
1:33:01 what we think this
1:33:03 is we how we would want to direct the superintendent and the
1:33:05 hiring of this
1:33:05 position is that what you’re suggesting because we can’t move
1:33:08 that what I’m
1:33:08 saying okay what I’m saying is I understand that there there is
1:33:13 going to be a
1:33:14 scheduling situation going on but I think if we just make it
1:33:18 very clear that we
1:33:18 want to get this done as soon as possible and expedite it as
1:33:21 soon as
1:33:21 possible and let’s make that happen and you know if it doesn’t
1:33:25 happen before
1:33:26 October 31st then technically any one of you can put this back
1:33:30 on the agenda if
1:33:31 you wanted to the way it is today
1:33:34 Dr. Thetti I’m understanding that whatever happens in the arbitration
1:33:45 whatever way it goes let’s say this coach that’s currently on
1:33:49 the agenda starts
1:33:51 coaching is it necessarily that the arbitrator would say okay
1:33:55 get rid of that
1:33:56 coach and put in this coach or would there be another outcome
1:33:59 where you
1:34:02 it should have gone to the other person so you now have to pay
1:34:06 for that coach and
1:34:08 keep the curtain coach in place does that ever happen there
1:34:13 could be a variety of
1:34:13 outcomes mrs. McDougall I can’t comment on because I don’t know
1:34:17 what’s going to
1:34:18 happen in this case so at the same time again my big concern is
1:34:23 for students to be
1:34:25 able to play and I want to make sure that we
1:34:31 we as a board are willing to relook at this if we decide to pull
1:34:38 this now and
1:34:38 Dr. Thetti can you bring that to the next board meeting or do we
1:34:42 have to bring it or
1:34:43 how does it fall how does that work it can be placed back on the
1:34:46 agenda once it’s
1:34:46 scheduled if we know it’s going to be scheduled in November it’s
1:34:50 not going to go
1:34:50 off before the start of season so that everybody will know if
1:34:54 that’s what you
1:34:55 guys are wanting to decide
1:34:56 I would like this arbitration that happened before November
1:35:00 before
1:35:04 I kind of like where you’re going with this I kind of do maybe
1:35:09 we arbitrarily put it on
1:35:11 the agenda for October whatever 13 15 something like that and
1:35:15 then let them know that this is the
1:35:17 way it’s going to happen um in the previous litigation that we
1:35:21 had or arbitration what
1:35:22 they did was they found in favor of this teacher at Vieira high
1:35:26 school and they
1:35:27 said this teacher will become the coach so that it will probably
1:35:31 be the outcome
1:35:32 that one or the other will become coach and again I’m not in the
1:35:36 middle of who’s
1:35:37 better anything else this is purely process like and what I know
1:35:42 it does to
1:35:42 kids when you switch
1:35:45 if you don’t mind miss Belford I’m sure there’s people out in
1:35:48 the audience who have
1:35:49 no idea what’s going on so just to clarify for all this make
1:35:52 sure we’re all on the
1:35:53 same page us as well as anybody who might be listening we have a
1:35:56 situation where you
1:35:58 know one side is saying that the situation is if we have a coach
1:36:02 position and
1:36:03 correct me if I’m wrong or if they don’t understand it correctly
1:36:05 that we have a
1:36:06 coach position like a basketball coach that we’re talking about
1:36:08 tonight and we
1:36:09 have someone who is a teacher at the school who applies to that
1:36:12 position who is
1:36:13 qualified they have to be qualified whatever FHSAA requires and
1:36:17 we have
1:36:17 somebody from the community who is also qualified but they’re
1:36:21 not a teacher if
1:36:22 there is at least one teacher who applies the teacher
1:36:25 automatically gets the job
1:36:27 no regardless of experience regardless they have to meet
1:36:33 criteria and be very
1:36:34 that’s what I’m saying if they are both quality they have to
1:36:36 meet to qualify it
1:36:37 can’t be that you have a teacher that’s just got no experience
1:36:40 horrible
1:36:40 everything else and then I didn’t say horrible but you kind of
1:36:43 eluded buddy okay
1:36:44 okay all right but then but then if there’s
1:36:48 it’s not necessarily all things being equal between the two I
1:36:51 would say this
1:36:52 interpretation that the teacher gets the position and if the
1:36:56 principal doesn’t
1:36:57 have the choice and in that to pick between the two he has to
1:37:00 pick the
1:37:00 teacher and that’s interpretation that the Union is as mr. Colucci
1:37:04 was referring to
1:37:05 rather than that the principal can choose the in their judgment
1:37:11 the best
1:37:11 qualified candidate regardless of whether they’re a teacher or a
1:37:14 community
1:37:15 coach am I understand that correctly the issue is there is a
1:37:21 teacher and a
1:37:22 community coach and the principal selected a community coach
1:37:24 thank you thank
1:37:27 you for making it so so plain there dr. Fetty we appreciate that
1:37:30 so dr. Fetty’s
1:37:32 good at less word is better she she organizes our chaos so so I
1:37:38 will tell you I I’m I am
1:37:39 not necessarily opposed to approving the amendment if we can
1:37:42 have an
1:37:43 arbitration date set prior to the next board meeting so that we
1:37:49 know what the
1:37:50 timeline is on it and if we need to move forward on the issue is
1:37:53 that is that a
1:37:54 likely outcome do either of you know the attorney not schedule
1:38:00 yeah so the
1:38:01 attorneys are talking about when it’s gonna be scheduled so it
1:38:04 but not not like
1:38:06 like I don’t I don’t mean can we get it scheduled right like
1:38:09 take place before the
1:38:10 next board meeting no I’m not saying it’s scheduled yeah so do
1:38:14 you feel like we
1:38:14 would have a definitive date of arbitration by the time we come
1:38:18 back
1:38:19 together I would hope by September because that’s our next
1:38:21 meeting okay a date set
1:38:25 yeah yeah that’s fair yeah yeah that does exactly what Jenkins
1:38:30 wants to do
1:38:31 correct which is kind of get him giddy up and go which if we can
1:38:34 is great and if
1:38:35 not then I think we need to revisit the issue so that would that’s
1:38:38 where I’m coming from absolutely
1:38:40 are you is anyone opposed to me calling the question at this
1:38:43 point in time can I
1:38:44 offer a friendly amendment sure that we would go ahead and put
1:38:48 it forward to the
1:38:49 next in just you know that we put it forward to the next agenda
1:38:55 which would be
1:38:55 September the I don’t think we necessarily need an amendment on
1:38:59 that I
1:39:00 think that can probably be board direction to ask that it be
1:39:02 brought back would you
1:39:03 agree mr. yes staff has time to just add it to the September
1:39:06 agenda if you want to get
1:39:07 to get opposing councils to agree within 30 days of a date
1:39:10 they can’t do that that is a very good request I just want to
1:39:15 clarify I can’t
1:39:16 guarantee schedules of attorneys in an arbitrator match up so if
1:39:20 we have an
1:39:21 attorney who can’t meet with them and we should find another
1:39:25 attorney to meet with
1:39:26 them you have three parties that are trying to coordinate
1:39:29 schedules and they’re
1:39:30 all very busy so I know so I think that we have come to a good
1:39:35 place you guys get with me calling
1:39:36 the question all in favor please signify with saying aye aye any
1:39:41 opposed same sign the amended motion passes 5-0 okay
1:39:47 yeah so we need no because we approve the amended motion right
1:39:58 so now we need to
1:39:59 approve item f-13 independently or is that taken care of 13 wasn’t
1:40:04 done without yeah
1:40:05 the one so we just removed that individual from an f-13 is
1:40:09 approved so
1:40:10 that means that we are done on consent agenda correct thank you
1:40:14 all right mr. Susan
1:40:16 Mullins please let us know about items under the action portion
1:40:27 of today’s agenda
1:40:28 the first item is H-29 procurement solicitations
1:40:35 what are the wishes of the board
1:40:36 moved to approval second moved by ms mcdougall seconded by ms
1:40:39 campbell is there any discussion
1:40:40 all in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed same
1:40:45 sign motion passes 5-0
1:40:46 we are now at board member discussion points and reports mr.
1:40:49 Susan added five items under this category for discussion this
1:40:51 evening mr. Susan
1:40:54 Moved by Mr. Susan, seconded by Ms. McDougall. Is there any
1:40:58 discussion? All in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any
1:41:04 opposed, same sign. Motion passes 5-0. We are now at board
1:41:08 member discussion points and reports. Mr. Susan added five items
1:41:12 under this category for discussion this evening. Mr. Susan.
1:41:16 Hey, listen, we get paid. So we came, we had a situation last
1:41:21 school board meeting, which you guys really supported, right?
1:41:27 And it had to deal with female wrestling and giving them the
1:41:31 ability to get the stipends. And Dr. Mullins so eloquently said
1:41:35 that due to Title IX, because we have the situation between
1:41:38 girls and boys having the same teams, we have to get it no
1:41:41 matter what, something else came up.
1:41:44 And this just literally came to my desk from parents who have
1:41:48 beach volleyball. So let me give you a little bit of background.
1:41:53 About two and a half years ago, I was approached from the Tourism
1:41:55 Development Council to create a beach volleyball network
1:41:59 internally inside of our schools so that we could then compete
1:42:04 and they could bring beach volleyball championships to Brevard.
1:42:07 They already do in many ways. They already do in many ways. But
1:42:10 what ended up happening is that I said, okay, so I contacted the
1:42:16 county. The county set out and created some beach volleyball
1:42:19 locations. One’s up in Merritt Island, I think, and a couple
1:42:21 other ones. And we have some other places where the kids
1:42:24 actually practice, right?
1:42:25 So these kids have been practicing way before this moment for
1:42:28 the last 20 years. And we’ve actually got national championship
1:42:34 kids that come out of here, full-ride scholarships on beach
1:42:36 volleyball. And we’ve never had an official program.
1:42:40 So FHSAA came out with an official program. And they said, hey,
1:42:45 you know, now it’s an official FHSAA sport. It’s a female sport.
1:42:50 It helps with our equity. We are off-centered. We have, because,
1:42:55 you know, on the boys’ side, we have like 600 male football
1:42:58 players.
1:42:59 And so our numbers are like 46-54 right now, with female to male.
1:43:04 And then with cheerleading, along with the wrestling, which is
1:43:07 only a couple, and then with this, it would bring us up really
1:43:10 close.
1:43:11 We’d be one of the best equitable districts in the state of
1:43:15 Florida. And it would be close to being like 49 to 51. So I said,
1:43:19 man, let’s go.
1:43:20 So instead of just losing the opportunity to field a team, I
1:43:24 thought, let’s do this. And on top of that, we can get the TDC
1:43:29 to create a state championship here, and our team can win it.
1:43:34 And I’m telling you, because nobody throughout the state has
1:43:37 beach volleyball teams. If they do, they’re not that good. But
1:43:40 we’ve already been winning for years.
1:43:41 We could literally field the state championship volleyball teams
1:43:44 in their first season, and we could host it, and then we could
1:43:48 own it for the next 20 years.
1:43:50 Because if you look back, Cocoa Beach, Cape Canaveral, that is
1:43:55 beach volleyball territory.
1:43:58 And I really feel that we need to give the opportunity to this.
1:44:04 Now, I’ll explain to you the negatives. The negatives are, they’re
1:44:07 going to say, we don’t have any beach volleyball facilities.
1:44:11 Totally agree. They already have facilities. They’ve already
1:44:14 been practicing playing and everything else.
1:44:16 Well, those aren’t BPS facilities. Well, remember,
1:44:20 Sierra doesn’t have their own baseball field. There’s many other
1:44:24 sports that don’t have their own facilities that we rent out, or
1:44:27 we have collaboration agreements that Mr. Tobias is trying to
1:44:29 take away from us, right?
1:44:30 So let’s go further than that. The next one is, is, well, maybe
1:44:34 not all the schools are out there wanting to participate.
1:44:38 I will tell you, we will only have less than four schools.
1:44:42 But, in many sports, we don’t have all the sports participating
1:44:45 in all the schools.
1:44:46 So what I would like to do is give direction to Dr. Mullins to
1:44:50 say, hey, try to make this thing work.
1:44:53 Try to work towards a yes. See if we can do it.
1:44:56 It’s a very small, minimal amount of stipends.
1:44:58 We field a couple of teams.
1:44:59 Championship team will probably come out of Ms. Jenkins’
1:45:03 district.
1:45:04 Really?
1:45:06 Oh, we got Merritt Island.
1:45:07 You think Merritt Island’s going to field a team to beat Ms.
1:45:09 Jenkins’ team?
1:45:10 Oh, I think so.
1:45:12 Anyways, I would just like to have Dr. Mullins look at it with a,
1:45:15 hey, let’s try to get there.
1:45:16 Bring it back to the next board meeting.
1:45:18 If we can get it to go, they’ve already got their teams.
1:45:20 They’ve already got their players.
1:45:22 They would love to get the opportunity, and it would help us
1:45:24 with equity.
1:45:25 That’s all.
1:45:26 That was my idea.
1:45:27 And I found out about this a few days ago.
1:45:29 Sorry about it being the last-minute item.
1:45:31 Ms. McDougall, there is a sand volleyball court at Satellite
1:45:34 High School.
1:45:35 And now the Mustangs always rise to the occasion.
1:45:42 Anyways, so I would like that.
1:45:45 I didn’t know what your feelings were.
1:45:46 If you guys are okay with Dr. Mullins just working on it,
1:45:49 bringing it back, seeing it possible,
1:45:50 I think we go.
1:45:51 And then I’d like to see you guys wear off in a mano-a-mano
1:45:56 beach volleyball match against
1:45:57 each other, and I’ll referee it.
1:45:59 You guys good with that?
1:46:04 Any negatives?
1:46:11 Well, this only came to my attention yesterday as well.
1:46:14 So I’m certainly not prepared to give the pros, the cons, the
1:46:18 impacts, the costs, the implications
1:46:21 across 16 high schools.
1:46:23 So I can certainly, if that’s the wishes of the board, work with
1:46:27 my staff to identify those
1:46:29 answers and be prepared to present something to the board, if
1:46:32 not at the next board meeting
1:46:34 by the end of September.
1:46:35 Which will give us plenty of time because the season doesn’t
1:46:38 start until the end of October
1:46:40 and November.
1:46:40 Beach volleyball season is actually in February.
1:46:43 Oh, whatever.
1:46:45 So we got some questions.
1:46:45 He does know more than you.
1:46:47 Are you sure it is?
1:46:48 Yes.
1:46:49 Oh, okay, good.
1:46:50 We got plenty of time to do this.
1:46:51 All right.
1:46:52 Dr. Mullins, teacher shortage plan.
1:46:59 Yeah, but literally, here’s the deal.
1:47:03 We have, so here’s what happened.
1:47:05 So everybody in the crowd knows.
1:47:07 We, my child went to school the other day and many families went
1:47:12 into school and walked
1:47:14 into a school where they find out that possibly they have a
1:47:18 substitute right now with no end.
1:47:21 That a library books were turned opposite way or missing, that
1:47:26 they don’t know, like, what is
1:47:29 the plan?
1:47:29 And last time we talked about this, we talked about the fact
1:47:32 that we came through COVID and
1:47:34 we did a good job.
1:47:35 But this is a little different.
1:47:37 This is a long-term sustained problem.
1:47:39 So I just wanted to give Dr. Mullins the opportunity.
1:47:41 He talked a little bit about it.
1:47:43 But we have staff and stuff going in.
1:47:45 But what I was looking at is this.
1:47:48 There’s 51 people sitting inside of our stands right now.
1:47:51 And you guys, with all intents and purposes, will be here for
1:47:54 about two hours tonight.
1:47:56 That’s 102 minutes that we could have had given from your time,
1:47:59 volunteered to our students.
1:48:01 And we need to start doing some of that stuff, which is where
1:48:04 everybody starts volunteering
1:48:06 and coming into our schools and working hard.
1:48:08 So when we do that, we’ll be able to bridge the gap to help out
1:48:12 some of these teachers and
1:48:13 stuff like that.
1:48:14 I want to give Dr. Mullins the opportunity to just say, hey,
1:48:17 what’s the teacher shortage
1:48:18 plan as far as addressing it?
1:48:20 And he pretty much did it already.
1:48:22 But I want to talk about it.
1:48:24 Well, I can certainly go back to my PowerPoint slides.
1:48:27 You want to get loud?
1:48:29 But, you know, Mr. Susan, I will reemphasize.
1:48:34 Number one, our principals have, well, our directors for leading
1:48:39 and learning, both elementary
1:48:41 and secondary and assistant superintendents, are in literally
1:48:46 daily communication with our
1:48:48 schools.
1:48:48 They are confident every school has a plan to address the needs
1:48:52 of their campus right
1:48:54 now.
1:48:54 And we will welcome our students ready to serve them tomorrow.
1:49:00 We will work through the adjustments.
1:49:02 I can’t tell.
1:49:03 We go through this kind of adjustment every year through six-day
1:49:07 count process.
1:49:08 Some schools lose teachers because of enrollment.
1:49:12 Other schools gain teachers.
1:49:13 So we will have that shuffling process.
1:49:18 Adjustment, just like we have every other year.
1:49:20 We will have new extended day opportunities becoming answering
1:49:25 some of the problems and the challenges
1:49:28 we’re facing because numbers in one class don’t make that class
1:49:33 has already collapsed and they pick up another section.
1:49:36 I mean, it is literally, it reminds me of, okay, I’m going to
1:49:40 age myself.
1:49:42 Remember the little square number game where you got like 36
1:49:45 tiles and they’re all, this is pre-Rubik’s Cube.
1:49:48 And you got to get all the numbers in the right order and you
1:49:53 only have one empty chip.
1:49:56 That’s what our master schedule and teacher staffing is like in
1:50:00 the first days of school.
1:50:02 Particularly when we’re anticipating some enrollment growth that
1:50:06 weren’t built into our projections.
1:50:09 So listen, I put my name behind the principles we have serving
1:50:16 our schools.
1:50:17 I put my every last ounce of confidence behind my team who has
1:50:21 worked tirelessly all summer to support our schools and meet
1:50:25 their needs.
1:50:26 We have faced bigger challenges than going into a new school
1:50:29 year than I think we’re going to face now.
1:50:32 So is it any less challenging?
1:50:34 No, it isn’t.
1:50:35 But I’ve got a, we’ve got an amazing team of people who are
1:50:39 going to tackle it and address it.
1:50:41 The numbers I presented aren’t accurate as we talk right now.
1:50:46 They’re, they’re probably different from when I presented them
1:50:50 an hour ago.
1:50:50 Because our, our, our staff are working crazy number of hours
1:50:56 onboarding people and so on.
1:50:59 So, um, I’m, we will work through all of these processes.
1:51:05 From, from the standpoint of parents helping and supporting our
1:51:09 schools, 110,000%.
1:51:12 Uh, we’ve already rolled out our mentoring program that is
1:51:16 supported and, and established on our website.
1:51:20 I, everywhere I go, I talk, everywhere I go, I talk about the,
1:51:24 the mentoring opportunity we have for our community to engage in
1:51:29 our schools and get involved in a young person’s life.
1:51:32 Uh, our principals are ready and prepared to talk to our
1:51:35 community about that.
1:51:37 Our schools are open and ready to talk with parents and
1:51:40 community members about volunteering in our schools.
1:51:43 We absolutely need volunteers at every single one of our media
1:51:47 centers.
1:51:48 We no longer have media assistance.
1:51:51 We have increased obligations on our media specialists right now.
1:51:57 It would be my, um, shameless ask for our community to answer
1:52:02 the call to have every media center in Brevard Public Schools
1:52:08 covered by parent volunteers Monday through Friday, every single
1:52:12 day of the rest of the school year.
1:52:13 It’s planned, it’s purposeful, it’s impactful.
1:52:18 So, I know our principals would receive and welcome, uh, that
1:52:22 interest and that opportunity.
1:52:25 And it’s flexible one day a week, commit every third Monday at
1:52:30 your child’s, uh, media center to serve as the check-in, check-out,
1:52:35 get books back on the shelf and that type of thing.
1:52:38 So, um, I don’t know if I’m.
1:52:41 No, you did.
1:52:42 Reiterating the, the points that you wanted me to, Mr. Susan,
1:52:45 but number one, we, we are prepared and we’re ready to receive
1:52:49 our kids.
1:52:49 Uh, number two, our schools are open and.
1:52:55 Ready to receive parents and families to get engaged and get
1:52:58 involved.
1:52:58 So, uh, welcome those opportunities.
1:53:00 So, we have, we have resource teachers.
1:53:04 We have individuals inside the district that are filling all of
1:53:07 those positions.
1:53:09 And in the long run, we’re going to have to figure out the next
1:53:12 step because if we’re sustaining a hundred vacancies, there’s
1:53:15 going to be a next step.
1:53:17 But in the short run, very difficult to do the master schedule
1:53:20 and everything else.
1:53:22 So that’s all I just wanted to kind of, when we put that down
1:53:24 there, I didn’t see that inside the slides.
1:53:26 So that’s it.
1:53:27 Good.
1:53:27 All right.
1:53:29 Classroom libraries and book fairs.
1:53:31 Here we go.
1:53:32 So there’s been two school board meetings where our staff has
1:53:36 gotten up here and said that there’s no direction to the schools
1:53:39 to do exactly what we’re seeing in some of the schools.
1:53:43 And so I wanted to give Dr. Mullins the opportunity to address
1:53:46 everybody again for a third time because it seems that there’s
1:53:49 people that are misinterpreting what’s happening out there.
1:53:52 I wanted to read you guys the actual bill doesn’t become law
1:53:56 that everybody’s referencing until January 1st of 2023.
1:54:00 It says that media specialists are supposed to be trained and
1:54:04 ready by January of 2023.
1:54:07 So in the meantime, what we’re doing is we’re seeing some people
1:54:10 that are doing something different.
1:54:12 And I wanted to give Dr. Mullins an opportunity to address that
1:54:15 or have staff do it.
1:54:16 Before Dr. Mullins, please, can I just jump on that because I
1:54:18 actually have to trump you on something there.
1:54:20 I don’t necessarily agree with one statement that you made.
1:54:24 We were literally emailed a presentation that some of our staff
1:54:29 was presented just the other day.
1:54:31 Which I requested.
1:54:32 Yes, and within it, it did instruct people to vet the books
1:54:37 inside of their classroom.
1:54:40 If any of them are talking about sexual orientation or gender
1:54:45 identity, to remove them from their classroom libraries.
1:54:48 And if they couldn’t vet them automatically on our Follett
1:54:51 system, but they had to wait until they’re vetted to be used and
1:54:55 that they must be removed.
1:54:55 So I do want to make that clear.
1:54:57 There are staff members who are getting instructions to do those
1:55:00 things.
1:55:00 And so…
1:55:02 It’s not unjust for them to be concerned, confused, and want to
1:55:07 have clear expectations across the board.
1:55:10 Because some schools are being told one thing when another
1:55:12 school is being told another.
1:55:14 And full disclosure, I mean, I’ve called Dr. Mullins multiple
1:55:17 times from people reaching out to me, both parents and teachers.
1:55:20 Because they’re all…
1:55:22 You know, we do have over 80 schools.
1:55:25 So we have multiple administrators, and sometimes these things
1:55:29 are not being conveyed equally across the board.
1:55:31 So just wanted to jump over that.
1:55:34 So I wanted to make…
1:55:35 Say when I was…
1:55:36 Wanted to complete what I was saying.
1:55:38 Let me read the text from the actual bill.
1:55:40 Beginning January 1st, 2023, media specialists and other
1:55:45 personnel involved in the selection of school district library
1:55:49 materials must complete the training program developed pursuant.
1:55:53 And then it goes on to do the statute before reviewing and
1:55:56 selecting appropriate materials and library resources.
1:55:59 It was referenced by the union that we may be overstepping right
1:56:03 now.
1:56:04 And I think when I was talking to Dr. Mullins earlier, he stated
1:56:08 that that’s what exactly is going on.
1:56:10 Because there’s no direct district directive to be removing
1:56:13 libraries and everything else.
1:56:15 I want to give Dr. Mullins the opportunity to address it.
1:56:18 Lots.
1:56:22 I will do my best to be as concise as possible.
1:56:27 First, Mr. Susan, just as clarification.
1:56:29 And I’m looking back to Ms. Harris and Dr. Sullivan.
1:56:34 If I’m correct, we did receive a memo from Chancellor Oliva verifying
1:56:40 that House Bill 1467 went into act July 1st.
1:56:46 Is that correct?
1:56:46 So we have received DOE direction that the statute is in place
1:56:53 July 1.
1:56:54 All of the contents of it.
1:56:57 The contents include reference to the DOE being required to
1:57:01 provide training to media specialists no later than January.
1:57:05 And they have, the DOE has also indicated that they are working
1:57:10 on that training and will provide it likely in a virtual format.
1:57:14 Toward the end, the impression was, I don’t remember the exact
1:57:17 language, toward the end of first semester.
1:57:20 So we do have the responsibility to do our best to interpret and
1:57:27 honor the law.
1:57:28 And that is, I’ve explained, I think, to board members.
1:57:33 One, we are intentionally not trying, let me make sure I said
1:57:37 that right.
1:57:37 We’re intentionally not trying to over-interpret the law.
1:57:41 Read it for its simple fact, for its simple word.
1:57:46 At the same time, we’re obligated and responsible for honoring
1:57:51 the law.
1:57:52 And third, we are trying to preserve our staff, our people who
1:57:57 are boots on the ground, from being caught in the middle of over-interpretation,
1:58:03 interpretation, and honoring and revering the law.
1:58:07 So, is there going to be challenges of what individuals’
1:58:13 interpretation is of that along the way, even with our most admirable
1:58:20 attempts to provide clear and concise guidance?
1:58:24 I would suggest yes, when we have hundreds of staff, nearly a
1:58:29 hundred schools, trying to manage this.
1:58:32 We did meet with media specialists last week and provide them
1:58:37 guidance for classroom teachers.
1:58:40 One, look through your classroom library, like you likely would
1:58:45 be every year.
1:58:46 Make sure there is not a text that is there that you didn’t
1:58:50 intend for it to be there.
1:58:53 Yes, we are obligated to make sure that there isn’t text that it
1:58:57 shouldn’t be there in kindergarten through third grade, like the
1:59:02 law requires.
1:59:03 Second, take your books and go into our online system of Follett,
1:59:09 which is our electronic media center program.
1:59:13 If it is in Follett, it is automatically evaluated or reviewed
1:59:17 by a media specialist, because all of our texts in Follett have
1:59:21 been reviewed by media specialists.
1:59:23 And so, then it’s good to go.
1:59:26 And third, if there is a book in your classroom library that isn’t
1:59:30 in Follett, take it to your media specialist.
1:59:33 If they have the time, they have lots of things going on right
1:59:36 now.
1:59:37 That may be, take some more time than you’d necessarily like,
1:59:40 but…
1:59:43 If the media specialist evaluates it and says, you’re good to go,
1:59:48 then it can go back in your classroom library.
1:59:51 So, you know, have we potentially had staff go to one extreme or
1:59:57 another?
1:59:58 Potentially, and in every instance, I’ve worked with staff, and
2:00:01 I know staff have already gone and worked more closely with
2:00:04 schools and staff to bring the appropriate response to that.
2:00:10 There’s been some additional confusion around instructional
2:00:14 materials and supplemental materials that have to be reviewed
2:00:19 versus have to be listed.
2:00:24 Our classroom library books do not have to be listed on the
2:00:28 website, but instructional materials used do have to be
2:00:33 presented and posted on our website.
2:00:35 So, our staff are working because staff are getting confused.
2:00:38 Is it this?
2:00:39 Is it that?
2:00:40 In spite of our meeting with department heads, meeting with
2:00:45 media specialists, and so on.
2:00:49 As much as I’ve talked to some board members about some of the
2:00:52 challenges, yes, we’ve had some miscommunication, some over-interpretation,
2:00:59 but it’s been limited, in my opinion, with the number of impact
2:01:07 that we have across literally 90 places of learning.
2:01:11 So, no, libraries are open and available to our kids and to our
2:01:17 families.
2:01:18 Book fairs have not been banned.
2:01:22 There has been no direction from the district to stop book fairs.
2:01:27 Have some schools who normally have done a book fair, like
2:01:31 during registration, said, you know what, given everything we
2:01:36 have going on, we’re going to delay our book fair.
2:01:39 They have.
2:01:40 They’ve also got staff, we’re understaffed, and they’re trying
2:01:43 to get schools ready and open, and they’ve made some school-by-school
2:01:47 decisions, but it’s not been from a district directive that book
2:01:51 fairs are not going to be available to our students.
2:01:54 They will be.
2:01:55 We’re working with our vendors to make sure they’re fulfilling
2:01:58 their responsibilities in reviewing books and so on.
2:02:01 So, honestly, our families and our kids should see very little,
2:02:07 if any, difference or impact from the schools and classrooms
2:02:13 they left in May to the ones they return to tomorrow.
2:02:20 But I know that the board has expressed some concern.
2:02:24 I have spent quite a bit of time on this issue with my staff who
2:02:29 are in the back.
2:02:30 If there is more clarification needed, I am happy to provide it
2:02:34 or ask some of my very capable staff to come up.
2:02:38 Tara and Dr. Sullivan, kind of give me a thumbs up or a thumbs
2:02:42 up if I pretty much covered it or stand up if there’s something
2:02:46 I need to add.
2:02:47 Thumbs up from Dr. Sullivan.
2:02:48 I don’t know if there’s another response from Manny Diaz, but
2:02:54 the one that I have here is response to federal guidance on the
2:03:00 meaning of sex discrimination under Title IX.
2:03:03 I have not received anything or seen anything from Manny Diaz
2:03:07 that says that the law that was written is now in effect with
2:03:12 libraries.
2:03:12 Can somebody help me there?
2:03:13 That came from Chancellor Jacob Oliva, who is Chancellor, not
2:03:17 Commissioner of Education.
2:03:20 I’m happy to provide it.
2:03:21 Typically, those memos don’t go to school board members.
2:03:24 They go to superintendents and staff, but I’m happy to forward
2:03:27 that to the board.
2:03:28 If you go to 1467 on HB at the Florida site, it says effective
2:03:34 July 1st, 2022.
2:03:36 The bill says absolutely July 1st, but what you’re saying is,
2:03:41 and this is really, really okay,
2:03:43 a little bit crazy, is that the Commissioner on Education
2:03:47 decided that he was going to take a law
2:03:50 that was supposed to go into effect January 1st and says, we’re
2:03:53 just going to do it now.
2:03:54 Okay, all right.
2:03:56 Then can you send that to me?
2:03:59 Because I haven’t seen that memo, and when we discussed this
2:04:01 earlier, there was no conversation about that.
2:04:04 And so that’s, you know, what it is.
2:04:07 I’ll send the, I’ll forward the memo to the board before the end
2:04:11 of the evening.
2:04:12 May I just make another comment?
2:04:14 All right.
2:04:15 I just want to just kind of just make another statement, but,
2:04:20 you know, this law has very broad
2:04:23 language throughout it with very significant threats to our
2:04:28 staff members and, quite frankly,
2:04:32 to our children’s education.
2:04:33 And I understand the tension on both sides of this issue.
2:04:40 I really do.
2:04:41 I understand feeling like the district might be overreacting,
2:04:46 but at the same time, I do
2:04:48 have to say the district is also overreacting to protect their
2:04:51 staff members because that
2:04:53 language is so broad.
2:04:56 But, again, I have advocated on the side of being as cautious as
2:05:01 possible and not rushing,
2:05:03 not rushing to implementing these things because there are
2:05:06 significant impacts to our students
2:05:08 and to our education and to our curriculum.
2:05:13 I just encourage our staff members who are typically very
2:05:15 comfortable reaching out to me,
2:05:17 emailing me, calling me with their concerns, take a pause when
2:05:21 you’re told something and reach
2:05:23 out to somebody and have a conversation because this isn’t, this
2:05:26 is not a simple solution.
2:05:27 This is very confusing.
2:05:29 The language is very, very broad.
2:05:31 We do have a ton of schools and it’s really easy to have a game
2:05:35 of telephone going on where
2:05:37 one thing is said and it might be relayed maybe the wrong way.
2:05:42 But just to have a little grace on both sides.
2:05:44 And I, at least, I can speak for myself.
2:05:46 I mean, I will be receptive to whatever you’re saying and Dr.
2:05:49 Mullins has been receptive to
2:05:50 every concern that I’ve brought forward to him to try and
2:05:53 address it directly too.
2:05:54 So, we have to stick together as a team in this situation
2:05:58 because, again, it’s confusing.
2:06:00 It’s broad.
2:06:01 There is literally zero direction from the Department of
2:06:04 Education other than this law is now implemented.
2:06:06 Have fun.
2:06:11 Can I, can I mention something we might want to do here?
2:06:14 And it was what Dr. Mullins and I were talking.
2:06:16 So, I think we’ve come around to a full circle.
2:06:18 There seems to be a lot of confusion because we went to the
2:06:21 media specialist, asked, presented
2:06:23 to them.
2:06:24 They then took what we wanted, went back to their schools,
2:06:26 presented to them.
2:06:27 And now we have teachers.
2:06:28 So, it’s like that.
2:06:29 I tell you, you tell you, you tell you.
2:06:31 And by the time it got down to people, it’s been disseminated.
2:06:33 It would be nice as if Dr. Mullins could send out a memo saying,
2:06:37 here’s what is required.
2:06:38 Here’s what we’re looking for.
2:06:40 So, that everybody can read that directly and say, hey, this is
2:06:43 what we need, rather than
2:06:44 telling people.
2:06:45 You know what I mean?
2:06:46 Rather than saying, like, hey, we told the media specialist,
2:06:49 media specialist does this
2:06:51 because, to your point, Ms. Jenkins, I feel that the liability
2:06:55 that, from a broad statement,
2:06:57 stuff like that, puts us in danger in some areas.
2:06:59 So, maybe that would be a good, appropriate thing.
2:07:01 Send it out to staff, say, hey, there’s been some confusion on
2:07:03 this.
2:07:04 This is what we can put together, and this is what is expected.
2:07:07 I don’t know how you feel about that, Dr. Mullins.
2:07:09 We talked about it on, you know, sending direction like that.
2:07:12 Well, I certainly don’t want to confuse the issue more.
2:07:17 I’m confident in the communication my staff has provided.
2:07:20 I’ll certainly review it all with them and reevaluate.
2:07:23 And it is helpful if I send communication out in addition to
2:07:27 what we’ve already done.
2:07:29 I’m happy to consider that.
2:07:31 But I would need to make sure I know exactly how we’ve
2:07:33 communicated it to staff already,
2:07:35 which I know has been in multiple venues, through our leadership
2:07:38 team packet,
2:07:39 to our principals and principal meetings, presentations, and so
2:07:42 on.
2:07:43 I would suspect if we can just get started,
2:07:49 the tension and confusion is going to be resolved because our
2:07:56 classrooms are open.
2:07:58 Our media centers are open.
2:07:59 Our classroom libraries are available to students.
2:08:04 But I’ll certainly reevaluate it.
2:08:08 All right.
2:08:09 So.
2:08:09 Go ahead.
2:08:10 I’m sorry.
2:08:11 I’ll keep jumping ahead.
2:08:12 No, I would echo what Ms. Jenkins said, and that is, you know,
2:08:17 the actions that the staff has taken have been in protection of
2:08:21 our staff and our teachers.
2:08:24 And, you know, what I’ve been telling people is this is a
2:08:27 process and it’s going to have to get worked out.
2:08:29 And it’s not going to be perfect from the get-go.
2:08:31 And sure, there’s going to be some questions.
2:08:34 And, yes, there’s going to be some, hey, right now, while we’re
2:08:37 still in this period of not knowing all of the details and all
2:08:41 of the expectations,
2:08:41 we’re going to have to be a little bit more prudent and a little
2:08:45 bit more proactive in ensuring that we’re doing the best we can
2:08:49 to protect our faculty and our staff.
2:08:50 And as we get through this process and we have more hands on
2:08:54 deck to vet books and we have more opportunity for principals to
2:08:58 have conversation with their faculty about it
2:09:00 and we have hopefully some clarity from the state, to your point,
2:09:04 Mr. Susan, yeah, it’s pretty ridiculous that we pass the law
2:09:08 effective July 1 and no training until January.
2:09:12 But it’s not the most ridiculous thing we’ve seen out of our
2:09:16 legislators by any stretch of the – guys, hold your applause,
2:09:20 please.
2:09:20 I’m sorry.
2:09:20 Hold your applause, please.
2:09:22 I clap, too.
2:09:25 It is not the greatest stretch that we have seen, you know, the
2:09:27 most ridiculous thing that we have seen.
2:09:29 And so the reality is that all of us as board members, right,
2:09:33 advocating for our community as Dr. Mullins and his staff have
2:09:36 been trying to work through this lunacy
2:09:38 to ensure that we are protecting our faculty and staff and
2:09:42 putting a process in place.
2:09:43 So regardless of what is in place tomorrow, that doesn’t mean
2:09:46 that that’s what’s going to be in place in three weeks, right,
2:09:49 as we have the opportunity to work through all that.
2:09:52 So, you know, I think, you know, Ms. Jenkins mentioned grace on
2:09:56 both sides, and I think that’s a very appropriate ask at this
2:10:00 point in time.
2:10:01 Because, you know, I’ll share with you, too, I have – I got an
2:10:04 email from a parent today that has a gifted child that’s reading
2:10:08 at –
2:10:09 she’s in fourth grade and reading at a sixth or seventh grade
2:10:11 level, and she doesn’t have any books available to her child
2:10:14 because we’re, you know, keeping it to grade level.
2:10:16 And so there’s going to be bumps in the road to our parents, to
2:10:19 our teachers, I can promise you, there are going to be bumps in
2:10:22 the road.
2:10:23 And we’re going to just have to work through it to the best of
2:10:26 our ability.
2:10:27 You know, and to your point, Mr. Susan, I understand what you’re
2:10:31 asking, but at the same time, there is no – every school is
2:10:34 different, right?
2:10:35 What we’re going to do in a kindergarten classroom is going to
2:10:38 be different than what we’re going to do in a ninth grade
2:10:40 classroom or a twelfth grade classroom.
2:10:41 And so I just – I think we are right on the cusp of starting
2:10:45 school tomorrow and let everyone get into their groove.
2:10:48 And if we need to check back in and address some things, I think
2:10:51 it’s perfectly appropriate for us to do that.
2:10:53 But it is frustrating.
2:10:56 We hear it.
2:10:57 Yeah, and here’s what it comes down to is that student that
2:11:01 comes to school, that parent that gets called and says,
2:11:04 we don’t have any library books because that teacher in my
2:11:07 classroom, that teacher decided to take it over, Steph, just
2:11:10 like you said, right?
2:11:12 And now all of a sudden that parent decides and says, you know
2:11:14 what?
2:11:15 I’m just – this isn’t the public school that I want.
2:11:17 I want the public school that has the things that they had, and
2:11:19 I’m pulling them out and going to home school because that’s the
2:11:22 conversation I had with about 21 people.
2:11:24 And that was – and there’s no lie.
2:11:27 And so just hang on, Dr. Mullins.
2:11:30 So the bottom line is this, is that giving direction to our
2:11:33 staff when they’re sitting there and they’re not sure about what
2:11:36 to do, I would say is the appropriate thing.
2:11:39 Obviously, the board doesn’t feel the need for it.
2:11:42 Dr. Mullins is kind of saying give it some time.
2:11:44 I would send an email out.
2:11:45 I would send it out and I would say, here’s what we’re sending
2:11:48 guidance to, no matter if you’re in first, second, third, fourth,
2:11:50 fifth, this is the standards, and just do it.
2:11:53 Because otherwise, we’re going to create more confusion than
2:11:56 there – I’ve just never – I’ve never sat back and let just
2:11:58 let things go.
2:11:59 That’s all.
2:12:00 Well, I respectfully would disagree.
2:12:03 We haven’t let things go.
2:12:04 We have intentionally, strategically, and consistently
2:12:07 communicated with our staff across the organization.
2:12:10 So I have asked to review and make sure I understand all of the
2:12:16 extents of that process.
2:12:18 And if it is prudent, we’ll do that again.
2:12:21 That’s not going to happen between 8:45 Tuesday evening and 8 o’clock
2:12:25 tomorrow morning when our kids and families report to our
2:12:28 schools.
2:12:29 What I would respond to our families who are considering –
2:12:32 they have questions about what their child’s experience is in
2:12:35 their classroom – to do what we have always done.
2:12:39 Go to the principal of the school.
2:12:41 Share your concern with the principal.
2:12:44 Ask the questions.
2:12:46 Ask for an explanation and to understand the why.
2:12:51 If the why seems inconsistent with what we have said here, then
2:12:57 we have a process.
2:12:58 They go to the principal supervisor and follow that process.
2:13:05 But if a parent is going to have an experience at the school
2:13:09 that is contradictory to what they expected to see and not tell
2:13:14 anyone before they depart from our schools,
2:13:18 then that’s a difficult thing to prevent.
2:13:22 So I can’t implore our families enough, if you have concerns, if
2:13:26 you have an experience in your child’s school that is
2:13:30 contradictory to what you expected or what you’ve heard from
2:13:35 this superintendent, my staff, or this board, go to the
2:13:38 principal.
2:13:39 They are the CEO of their school.
2:13:42 And if questions remain, concerns remain, then we have a process
2:13:48 to do that, to follow up on that as well.
2:13:51 So I just want to provide that assurance to our community.
2:13:54 So I agree with you 100%.
2:13:55 The only problem is that as an individual that might be sitting
2:13:58 there as a parent, now all of a sudden I’m going to go to the
2:14:01 principal to ask direction, who’s also overseeing that school.
2:14:05 It just causes a lot of work.
2:14:06 People are going to be asking questions.
2:14:08 People are going to say, well, that’s not the rule.
2:14:10 You need to provide this.
2:14:11 It’s just sending an email, and I didn’t mean to send it by
2:14:14 tomorrow morning, but sending an email out is appropriate to set
2:14:18 direction as a school district.
2:14:20 But obviously I don’t have the push.
2:14:21 But I would just say, Mr. Susan, that a lot…
2:14:25 They need to ask the question before they take what they see.
2:14:29 I’m particularly seeing it on social media.
2:14:31 And it’s going like wildfire.
2:14:34 And I’ve gotten the text, too.
2:14:38 Hey, I just heard that elementary schools aren’t going to have
2:14:41 their libraries.
2:14:42 Kids aren’t going to be able to check out books.
2:14:44 Where on earth did you hear that?
2:14:45 Turn around, very next text.
2:14:47 Hey, PTO just said we’re not having book fairs because of all
2:14:50 the book banning that’s going on.
2:14:52 Which, I mean, that is the rhetoric that is going around, and it’s
2:14:56 causing confusion because people are hearing one thing, and they’re
2:15:00 running wild with it.
2:15:01 And it’s not necessary what’s actually happening.
2:15:03 So I spent a lot of time with one of our media specialists on
2:15:08 Saturday.
2:15:09 We talked around, you know, what did the training, we walked
2:15:11 through the PowerPoint, and what was said, and what was not said.
2:15:14 And so it is, you know, I understand the frustration, and I
2:15:17 understand the caution.
2:15:19 But, you know, we can abide by this law.
2:15:23 I have full faith.
2:15:24 We can abide by this law and have libraries.
2:15:26 We can abide by this law and have book fairs.
2:15:28 We can abide by this law and have classroom libraries.
2:15:31 We can do it.
2:15:32 It may not be business as usual, but business as usual is kind
2:15:37 of how we got into this situation, which is why.
2:15:41 Audience, hold your comment.
2:15:44 So it can be done.
2:15:46 And so I would much rather go with what Dr. Mullins just
2:15:48 suggested, which is find out what’s actually happening at your
2:15:51 child’s school,
2:15:51 rather than what is going around on social media and assuming
2:15:55 that it’s happening in your child’s classroom and at your child’s
2:15:59 school.
2:16:00 Can I jump in really quick?
2:16:02 These people just called me, talked to me directly.
2:16:05 It wasn’t social media.
2:16:06 We have, every one of us has a situation where we’re looking at
2:16:10 people who are telling us different things.
2:16:12 And the only way to communicate that to the 51 people here or
2:16:16 the 50 people that are watching online, there’s only 100 people
2:16:20 watching.
2:16:21 We have 60-something thousand kids that are coming to school
2:16:23 representing 100,000 parents.
2:16:25 There’s no way they’re all going to call the principal and ask
2:16:28 questions over this and that.
2:16:29 And it’s just like, to just say, go, I just, I respectfully
2:16:32 disagree, Ms. Campbell.
2:16:34 So I just want to jump in here.
2:16:36 With all due respect, we’ve been listening to this rhetoric for
2:16:40 months.
2:16:41 This is not new.
2:16:42 It’s not just social media.
2:16:43 It’s not just because it’s law passing.
2:16:45 This has been happening for months and months and months.
2:16:46 This has been a concern of our community once it started.
2:16:50 I am with Mr. Susan.
2:16:51 I believe we have an obligation to be proactive here.
2:16:54 Just put out a simple message.
2:16:55 Nothing crazy because we don’t have any direction from the
2:16:58 Department of Education, but just put
2:17:01 something out there to temper the claims as much as we possibly
2:17:03 can.
2:17:03 It will not stop all of the confusion.
2:17:05 It will not stop all of the concerns.
2:17:07 But there is literally no reason why we can’t just jump ahead of
2:17:10 this and say something simple and clean and give a little bit of
2:17:13 direction, not only to the parents who are looking at social
2:17:16 media like we’re supposedly referencing here, but also to our
2:17:20 staff.
2:17:21 We’re just finishing pre-planning and our staff is exhausted,
2:17:27 and we have to recognize that these laws are literally attacking
2:17:32 our staff members.
2:17:33 They are on edge, and it doesn’t hurt to just give them a little
2:17:36 bit more direction and guidance from the top.
2:17:39 Whether or not things were done correctly or incorrectly, it
2:17:42 doesn’t matter.
2:17:43 Just give them a little more guidance.
2:17:45 Give them a little more support and comfort.
2:17:47 I think it would do us justice.
2:17:49 I agree with Mr. Susan.
2:17:50 So I would suggest, Ms. Jenkins, that Dr., and to everyone, go
2:17:55 back, like, probably 10 minutes into this discussion, and Dr. Mullen
2:18:00 said that he would absolutely look into the communication that
2:18:04 has gone out and provide follow-up communication if necessary.
2:18:10 So is there anything else on this specific topic that anyone
2:18:15 feels the need to talk about?
2:18:18 All right.
2:18:18 Mr. Susan, your next topic.
2:18:20 ROTC.
2:18:21 So right now, inside of our schools, I went and met with the ROTC
2:18:26 instructors, and what they ended up doing is they said that
2:18:30 there’s been some instances throughout the past,
2:18:32 and what’s happened is that they wanted to increase their
2:18:36 enrollment, but they were told no from the district
2:18:39 because they needed a third instructor, and we weren’t about to
2:18:43 do that from various reasons, right?
2:18:45 And I said, well, let me meet with Dr. Mullins.
2:18:47 I’m going to one-on-one with them.
2:18:48 Let me find out what’s going on.
2:18:50 Let me call the armed services, the individuals that oversee
2:18:53 these accounts, stuff like that.
2:18:55 So I said, okay.
2:18:56 So I called the armed services, and every single one of them,
2:18:59 except for one that I couldn’t get a hold of, said that in the
2:19:01 event that the school district said that they would like to
2:19:04 increase an instructor,
2:19:06 that they would pay their portion because not many people
2:19:09 understand that an ROTC instructor is paid half by the school
2:19:12 district, half by the military, right?
2:19:14 And they have to provide that instructor and everything else.
2:19:18 They have to come from the military branch.
2:19:19 Okay, great.
2:19:20 Second thing is, Dr. Thetty, who’s amazing, sat down with me.
2:19:24 And we walked through it, and she said, there’s a couple of
2:19:26 factors.
2:19:27 There’s the enrollment piece, then there’s the PAR piece, and
2:19:30 there’s a couple of little barriers inside of there, which Dr.
2:19:33 Mullins reiterated later on.
2:19:37 But what I didn’t want to happen is, is that if there’s a group
2:19:40 of students that want to do ROTC, and they go to register, to be
2:19:44 told no, because there’s not an instructor.
2:19:47 And so I wanted to kind of get into that space and find out how
2:19:51 can we streamline the process to increase those without creating
2:19:56 a situation where we’re limited from other areas.
2:20:00 And I’ll explain why.
2:20:01 If you have PAR, that’s so many teacher units that you have
2:20:05 inside of your school, somebody might say, well, we want to be
2:20:10 able to offer this to the school.
2:20:12 Well, sometimes, if a student wants a certain career path, they
2:20:16 shouldn’t be held back, is all.
2:20:18 So all I was saying is, I’m just going to work with Dr. Mullins,
2:20:21 try to figure those pieces out, and report back to the ROTC
2:20:24 instructors so that they understand what the process is.
2:20:27 That’s all.
2:20:27 So they don’t think that it’s the military or the school
2:20:31 district coming out and saying that they can’t have it.
2:20:34 And to be honest with you, there’s a bunch of, there’s some of
2:20:37 our ROTC programs are actually declining in some areas.
2:20:41 And one of the things that we found out, which Dr. Thetty helped
2:20:44 me out a little bit with, is that you can actually be a homeschool
2:20:47 student or, and actually come in and take an ROTC class,
2:20:51 which would help with our revenue, help with our enrollments,
2:20:54 and stuff like that.
2:20:55 But I think there’s just some good opportunity there to try to
2:20:57 explain the process, tell them, here’s what you can do.
2:21:00 And from the board, after it comes back, in the event that we
2:21:03 hear that they may want to increase a specific school, that they
2:21:06 should be allowed to do that.
2:21:08 And not one school actually reached out.
2:21:09 They just said, here’s some of the things that we have.
2:21:11 So it’s not like Merritt Island High, who’s got an amazing ROTC
2:21:14 program, said it or anything like that.
2:21:16 You just think you got it that way.
2:21:18 Vieira’s not bad.
2:21:21 Anyways, does everybody understand that?
2:21:23 I had to put that on my Facebook post when I did it.
2:21:28 I was like, ooh, this is going to be kind of crazy, because I
2:21:31 was looking for a junior ROTC logo for that.
2:21:33 So cool.
2:21:34 And my former place I taught for six years.
2:21:36 Does everybody understand where I was going with that?
2:21:38 No, I think Dr. Mullen.
2:21:41 It’s an easy process thing.
2:21:43 Yeah, I’m finished now.
2:21:45 Sorry to hold everybody up.
2:21:48 What’s that?
2:21:50 Oh, there’s a second page?
2:21:52 Oh, yeah.
2:21:54 Okay, Dr. Mullen says some good news about parents and student
2:21:57 lunch.
2:21:58 I forgot about it.
2:21:58 We’ve been so busy.
2:21:59 No, come on, Dr. Mullen.
2:22:01 You ran through a bunch of stuff.
2:22:02 There’s a bunch of parents out there that want to hear about the
2:22:04 student lunch.
2:22:05 Student lunch is that right now, we don’t have an opportunity to
2:22:10 offer this.
2:22:11 No, he didn’t want to.
2:22:15 He said he already addressed it, but he tried to get out of it.
2:22:18 Well, I want to talk about it again, Dr. Mullen.
2:22:25 So here’s what it is.
2:22:27 If I’m a parent inside this school right now, I can’t go to
2:22:29 lunch with my parents.
2:22:30 That was not the direction that we gave to the school board
2:22:33 before, right?
2:22:34 From the school board before we ended the school year, we said
2:22:37 we were not going to have that.
2:22:39 Now, the difference is that Dr. Mullen said that we have
2:22:43 security issues, we have capacity issues, and all that stuff.
2:22:47 But the one thing that he didn’t say earlier in his presentation
2:22:50 that we talked about was that the goal is not to keep parents
2:22:54 out.
2:22:54 The goal is to find a way to get there.
2:22:57 And that he’s going to come back, I think it was like 30 days or
2:22:59 something, and figure out a way to get to yes to allow our
2:23:03 parents to come in and eat during lunch.
2:23:06 I think that was part of my five minutes at the podium.
2:23:08 All right.
2:23:11 Here we go.
2:23:13 To add on to that, I know people have been pretty upset about
2:23:16 this, but, you know, if the goal is to be involved in your child’s
2:23:20 school, and I’ve shared this with Dr. Mullen before, I think in
2:23:23 the meantime, I would like to see every school, especially at
2:23:27 elementary schools, you know, the teenagers don’t necessarily
2:23:29 want their parents coming up very often.
2:23:32 But, especially at our elementary schools, for each school to be
2:23:37 intentional and to have some kind of way for parents, and a lot
2:23:40 of our schools do a really great job of this all throughout the
2:23:42 year with parent nights and activity nights, to be intentional
2:23:45 about having our parents on campus.
2:23:47 So we have that, the COVID years where the community perceived
2:23:51 that they were not welcome, we have to work hard to work against
2:23:55 that.
2:23:56 But I would say, for everybody who’s listening, you have been
2:23:59 given an invitation to get involved in your child’s school, to
2:24:02 be, and as someone who used to volunteer in the library, even
2:24:05 back when my kids were a little bitty,
2:24:07 So, the media centers need volunteers, and that would be a great
2:24:11 way, you can see your kids come through, and they get to come up
2:24:14 and say hi, and you’re serving the schools, and so that is a
2:24:18 great way, for people who want to be on the campuses, because
2:24:23 you’ll be there, but you’ll also be helping you, and we could
2:24:25 really use you, so I just reiterate Dr. Mullen’s challenge.
2:24:28 - Thank you, Campbell.
2:24:29 Any additional board discussion points?
2:24:30 Okay, I want to do a quick check-in with the team, we have 13
2:24:40 non-agenda speakers, so each one is slated to get two minutes to
2:24:47 speak, going to keep us here about another 26 minutes roughly,
2:24:52 does anyone need a break, or are you guys good for, okay, I have
2:24:56 a request for a quick break.
2:24:58 So, we’ll take about a five minute recess, and then we will come
2:25:01 back.
2:25:28 Thank you.
2:33:32 All right. We are back in session and ready to move into our non-agenda
2:33:43 item speakers.
2:33:44 Each speaker is limited to two minutes. We have a clock in front
2:33:47 of me to help you keep
2:33:48 track of your time. When your time is over, you’ll be asked to
2:33:50 stop and allow the next
2:33:51 speaker his or her turn. We will hear from the speakers in the
2:33:55 order in which they signed
2:33:56 up. As stated earlier, reasonable decorum is expected at all
2:34:00 times and your statement
2:34:01 should be directed to the board chair. Should audience
2:34:04 participation interfere with speakers
2:34:05 being heard or hearing me, I’ll be forced to clear the room.
2:34:09 When I call your name, please
2:34:10 line up along the east wall of the boardroom to facilitate the
2:34:13 smooth transition of speakers.
2:34:15 Our first three speakers will be Vanessa Skipper, Michelle Beavers,
2:34:18 and then Michael Bloom.
2:34:21 Whenever you’re ready, Ms. Skipper.
2:34:30 Vanessa Skipper, mom of a BPS student, English teacher and vice
2:34:34 president of the Brevard Federation
2:34:36 of Teachers.
2:34:36 Vanessa, hold on one second for me. My clock is not happy.
2:34:40 You can leave me all the time in the world.
2:34:42 Okay. There we go. All right. Go ahead.
2:34:49 To say that I’m heartbroken to see what is happening in
2:34:51 classrooms around the district with classroom
2:34:54 libraries would be an understatement. The idea that students
2:34:56 around this district are going
2:34:59 to walk into their classrooms tomorrow and the only books they’ll
2:35:01 have access to are textbooks
2:35:03 and curriculum is infuriating.
2:35:05 While I understand that BPS is trying to respond to House Bill
2:35:08 1467, this harsh approach is not
2:35:10 necessary. To say classroom libraries are open is simply not
2:35:15 true. To say that media specialists
2:35:18 have not been told that scholastic book fairs will not be
2:35:22 happening is simply not true.
2:35:24 To say follow-up clear communication should not go out is short-sighted.
2:35:30 We have teachers
2:35:31 in tears. We have teachers who have not unpacked their classroom
2:35:36 libraries. Our teachers are leaving
2:35:38 in droves and this is a straw on their backs for some of them.
2:35:41 They are losing the joy in teaching
2:35:43 with the removal of access to things that make their classrooms
2:35:46 inviting and fun places to be. One
2:35:48 of the power points that was shown during pre-planning at our
2:35:52 elementary schools stated that teachers
2:35:54 needed to make cute signs saying that the classroom libraries
2:36:00 were closed. You know what cute signs
2:36:03 and empty libraries do reduce literacy. That’s the exact
2:36:06 opposite of what we’re supposed to be doing
2:36:09 as teachers. Also to put the enormous responsibilities of approving
2:36:13 individual titles from classroom
2:36:15 libraries on our media specialists. Did I miss something or are
2:36:18 y’all giving our media specialists
2:36:20 their media assistance back? Are you going to compensate our
2:36:23 media specialists and our teachers
2:36:25 for the extra time they have to spend going through thousands of
2:36:28 books in their classroom? And do you
2:36:31 know how much money Scholastic book fairs bring into our schools?
2:36:35 For both of my sons, the Scholastic
2:36:36 book fair is meant a break from the classroom to go do something
2:36:39 fun with books. It’s really this
2:36:41 simple. If parents don’t want their child to go to the book fair,
2:36:44 don’t send money for them to buy
2:36:46 anything. Don’t punish all students for just a few. That’s not
2:36:50 good educational practice. Thank you,
2:36:52 Ms. Skipper. Audience, hold your applause, please. Michelle Beavers.
2:37:01 I want to say thank you to the teachers this year
2:37:06 for coming back and being amazing. First thing I want to say is,
2:37:10 Ms. Dee, you mentioned a little
2:37:11 earlier that you wouldn’t do what in a kindergarten classroom,
2:37:14 what you would do in a 12th grade
2:37:15 classroom. And that is exactly what a Mothers for Liberty person
2:37:18 has said, and you’ve misquoted her.
2:37:20 She said to say they were slaves is one thing, to talk in detail
2:37:23 about how slaves were treated and with
2:37:25 photos is another, meaning that you wouldn’t put those photos in
2:37:28 the hands of a kindergartner.
2:37:30 You mentioned that in a NAACP meeting, there is an organization
2:37:37 that’s active here locally and around
2:37:38 the nation that’s been quoted as saying it’s inappropriate to
2:37:42 teach, I’m sorry, it’s appropriate
2:37:44 to teach slavery existed, but it’s not appropriate to show
2:37:47 pictures or describe how they were treated.
2:37:49 That was not what she said, and you know that. You also went on
2:37:52 to say the current leader of Brevard
2:37:54 County went to Tallahassee and said we are absolutely teaching
2:37:57 critical race theory in Brevard public
2:37:59 schools because we have pictures of black children in our
2:38:02 textbooks. I dare you to find somebody who
2:38:06 said that. You were actually tagged on a Facebook post publicly
2:38:09 by Moms for Liberty and you untagged
2:38:11 yourself with it instead of answering where you would have
2:38:13 gotten that kind of quote. So I think you
2:38:16 should apologize, number one. Number two, the emails that I sent
2:38:20 last week, I’m sorry, on the
2:38:24 19th of last month, I said nobody bothered to respond to them.
2:38:27 It turns out nobody actually got them. They
2:38:29 were sent from me. I called Dr. Mullins on Friday the 29th. He
2:38:33 was going to get back to me about what
2:38:34 happened to my emails. I didn’t hear back from Dr. Mullins and I
2:38:38 also heard back from me from Katie who
2:38:40 said my email appeared on Thursday of this last week. Now all of
2:38:43 a sudden my email has appeared. I don’t
2:38:46 know how that happened, but it was definitely sitting the 19th
2:38:48 and I approved it was sitting the 19th and
2:38:50 nobody here got it. So I’m being blocked. And I think that
2:38:53 someone needs to answer for that. And I’d like
2:38:56 a really good reason why these books can’t be behind a librarian’s
2:38:59 library desk and opted in by parents
2:39:01 so they’re sexually explicit. Thank you. Thanks, Michelle. As
2:39:04 Michael is approaching, Katie Delaney,
2:39:08 Fred Kilgallen and Carrie Drace, if you would please approach or
2:39:13 move to the east wall.
2:39:20 Good evening. I’m a product of the public schools. I’m the son
2:39:24 of an elementary music teacher.
2:39:26 And I was one of those students that read above grade level and
2:39:31 above the books available in my grade
2:39:33 school library. My parents installed the love of books in all
2:39:36 their children. One of the things I do
2:39:39 now in my spare time is administer a local private cultural
2:39:43 library. But I came tonight to speak in
2:39:45 support of the board and all BPS students and support teachers
2:39:49 and support staff.
2:39:51 The last few years have been trying for all of us and I commend
2:39:56 the board and all staff for doing
2:39:57 their best in unprecedented and trying circumstances. They have
2:40:02 successfully accomplished all the normal
2:40:05 school business while responding to both a global pandemic and
2:40:08 multiple forces outside of the school
2:40:11 district working to dismantle and destroy our public schools. I
2:40:15 urge the board to continue to stand
2:40:18 strong in the face of the ignorant and the ill-informed. Michael,
2:40:22 careful.
2:40:22 I urge the board to continue to make policies to keep all our
2:40:27 students and staff safe from the COVID pandemic.
2:40:31 I urge the board to continue to fight for the preservation of
2:40:36 books in our libraries and
2:40:37 classrooms and the teaching of factual history and factual
2:40:40 science.
2:40:41 I urge the board to fight for competitive pay for our teachers
2:40:45 and our support staff.
2:40:47 I urge the board to continue to work for equity for our diverse
2:40:52 school population.
2:40:53 Know that there are many citizens diligent working to elect
2:40:57 school board members that will continue
2:41:00 with the mission of serving every student with excellence as the
2:41:03 standard.
2:41:04 Thank you, Michael.
2:41:06 audience, hold your applause, please.
2:41:08 Ms. Delaney.
2:41:11 Thank you, I want to speak on parents coming to lunch.
2:41:17 The father who brought that up originally, he didn’t have the
2:41:23 opportunity to come and volunteer in your
2:41:24 schools. He wanted to go to see his little child on his lunch
2:41:29 break and he should have that opportunity.
2:41:32 That is his child and he deserves to see his child when he wants
2:41:36 to.
2:41:38 It is not dictated by any of you when we can see our children or
2:41:42 not.
2:41:42 Right now, Title IX was talked about in the workshop before.
2:41:51 And right now, a rape victim could be forced to go into school
2:41:56 with their rapist.
2:41:58 Like what happened last year at one of our Brevard Junior Senior
2:42:01 Highs.
2:42:01 Ms. Belford said when they were talking on truancy that they
2:42:10 have to abide by state statutes.
2:42:12 According to one of the other board members, they don’t have to
2:42:17 follow state statutes or the board of
2:42:19 education when it comes to having explicit material.
2:42:23 Letting our kids basically have porn in their libraries, that’s
2:42:29 fine.
2:42:30 Or having safe bathrooms and locker rooms and protecting girls’
2:42:37 sports.
2:42:38 We warned that there would be a Loudoun County situation because
2:42:44 of these dangerous guidelines.
2:42:47 An incident did happen over the summer in a restroom at VPS.
2:42:55 Coincidentally, at the same school that a teacher was caught by
2:43:01 students looking at pornography during class,
2:43:04 the kids took a picture of it and sent it out on Snapchat.
2:43:10 We have major problems.
2:43:11 We need you guys to take this seriously.
2:43:15 Thank you.
2:43:16 Ms. Planey.
2:43:17 Fred Kilgallen.
2:43:22 My name is Fred Kilgallen and thank you for letting me speak.
2:43:39 First, we’re starting back to school during a surge in the virus
2:43:43 because of course we are.
2:43:44 Because Florida, hey.
2:43:45 Also because Florida, we can’t make mask wearing or distancing
2:43:49 or basically anything that might mitigate
2:43:51 the spread of the virus a requirement.
2:43:53 So I’m asking you, and by you I mean everyone that can hear the
2:43:56 sound of my voice,
2:43:57 to at least ask students and teachers to mask and take what
2:44:00 precautions they can to stop the spread of COVID.
2:44:03 Hey, I get it.
2:44:04 We’re over it.
2:44:05 Unfortunately, just because we’re over it doesn’t mean that
2:44:08 people have magically stopped dying from this.
2:44:10 A friend of mine nearly died last week in Kentucky.
2:44:14 It’s still out there.
2:44:17 I’m not going to explain why mitigation needs to be done, but I
2:44:21 do promise to come back and say
2:44:23 I warned you about this if the cases rise and people die.
2:44:26 Spare all of us my return to say I told you so.
2:44:30 I beg you.
2:44:31 Second, while the Second Amendment people are fainting from
2:44:34 pleasure right now at our Sheriff’s
2:44:36 announcement regarding the deploying of military-style weapons
2:44:40 on campus, oh my god,
2:44:42 I ask you all to work harder to strengthen teacher-student
2:44:46 relationships so that when students detect
2:44:48 that one of their own, and it’s 99.99% one of their own, is
2:44:54 about to explode when violence,
2:44:56 they’ll actually think it’s a good idea to tell a teacher or a
2:44:59 staff member before it happens.
2:45:01 And thus prevent the act from occurring in the first place.
2:45:06 Good teacher-student relationships is hands down the best chance
2:45:12 any school has of preventing the worst.
2:45:13 It’s not mentally ill people who shoot up schools.
2:45:16 It’s angry, wounded, ignored, and abused young boys and men who
2:45:21 do it.
2:45:21 Imagine if they had a counselor or a therapist or a trusted
2:45:24 teacher they could talk to right on campus
2:45:26 before they erupt.
2:45:28 Let’s put that system in place and reinforce it.
2:45:31 Because if the Sheriff ever needs to implement his system, it’s
2:45:35 too late.
2:45:36 We lost.
2:45:37 Thank you, Fred.
2:45:38 Audience, hold your applause, please.
2:45:41 As Carrie’s approaching, our next three speakers will be Rochelle
2:45:44 Jolly, Jabari Hosey, and then Michelle Barano.
2:45:49 Carrie, whenever you’re ready.
2:45:50 Good evening, board.
2:45:53 I wanted to start by thanking you for the clarifications that
2:45:58 you made on the misconceptions about HB 1647,
2:46:04 regarding our classroom libraries and our book fairs.
2:46:07 I appreciate the way that you have stated it in multiple
2:46:11 meetings.
2:46:12 It’s too bad that more people aren’t watching your meetings to
2:46:14 get this communication.
2:46:16 I also really appreciated the way that Dr. Mullins included in
2:46:20 his presentation
2:46:21 the portion about safety and security.
2:46:24 As a former teacher who went through all of those classroom
2:46:29 trainings when the catastrophe happened
2:46:32 in Texas in the spring, it certainly made me reflect on how safe
2:46:38 I felt as a teacher in this community.
2:46:40 And I hope that helps parents out there understand that we are
2:46:45 prepared as best as you can be
2:46:48 in the face of that type of emergency.
2:46:51 I also really enjoyed, in listening to your banters tonight, the
2:46:56 very good idea that came up about
2:46:59 the possibility of an organized effort of parental parent
2:47:05 volunteers helping our media specialists.
2:47:08 And I think that would definitely be an area where all parents
2:47:12 should look at their own schedule
2:47:13 and say, how can I get involved and be out there?
2:47:17 So the conversations tonight have been difficult, but there’s
2:47:20 been a lot of progress and I appreciate that.
2:47:23 Thank you, board.
2:47:23 Thanks, Carrie.
2:47:24 Rochelle?
2:47:34 I just want to thank the board for letting me come up and speak
2:47:36 tonight. I’ve not done this before.
2:47:38 A couple things I want to say.
2:47:40 I do think that that’s a great idea for parents to come into the
2:47:43 media center and be able to help out the media specialists.
2:47:46 And I’m sure that there are a lot of people in this room who are
2:47:49 available to do that.
2:47:51 But we have a lot of parents in this community who work two or
2:47:55 three jobs who don’t have an opportunity
2:47:57 to go in and help in their child’s school.
2:47:59 So I know of no other profession that depends on the public to
2:48:05 come in and help them do their job.
2:48:06 I’m a Brevard County resident.
2:48:12 Some of my children have come to me through childbirth and some
2:48:16 of them have come to me
2:48:17 because their parents are not able to take care of them.
2:48:19 All of my children have attended Brevard Public Schools.
2:48:23 I have a really good idea about how we might be able to retain
2:48:27 our teachers and maybe even gain some.
2:48:29 I have served as a room mom of chaperone field trips.
2:48:35 I’ve been a high school chair mom and I’ve served on a school
2:48:39 advisory committee.
2:48:40 I’ve volunteered at my children’s school that they don’t even
2:48:44 attend
2:48:45 because there are schools that don’t have parents who are able
2:48:49 to volunteer at those schools.
2:48:50 And I have friends who are teachers there who needed help in
2:48:53 their classrooms or help on their field trips.
2:48:55 Through these experiences I have witnessed the incredible job
2:48:59 that our teachers do every day.
2:49:01 Teachers have positively influenced my own life and I’m sure
2:49:05 there are many people in this room
2:49:06 who can name a teacher that they love.
2:49:07 I have seen teachers navigate friendships and help children
2:49:12 learn to be good citizens.
2:49:14 I’ve seen teachers comfort a child who had an older brother who
2:49:19 was gunned down the night before
2:49:20 and was at school the next day.
2:49:21 So while some of us are able to go and volunteer in these
2:49:27 classrooms because we’ve been very fortunate,
2:49:30 there are a lot of parents who are not we need to be respecting
2:49:35 our teachers.
2:49:36 If we’re able to help our children achieve their potential, we
2:49:38 must be respecting our teachers.
2:49:41 Thank you, Rochelle.
2:49:41 We appreciate you joining us.
2:49:42 Jabari.
2:49:44 Hi, I’m Jabari Hosey, President of Family for Safe Schools.
2:49:53 So many topics to talk about.
2:49:54 I’m going to pick a couple here.
2:49:55 So I’m here to thank Dr. Mullins and the majority of the school
2:49:59 board for protecting all of our students
2:50:01 and ensuring that our student guidelines go unchanged after the
2:50:04 Department of Education has requested
2:50:06 you follow the state’s own interpretation of federal law.
2:50:10 Title IX as a federal law has been around for more than 50 years.
2:50:14 Prohibits sex-based discrimination in educational institutions.
2:50:18 The protections were expanded to cover sexual characteristics,
2:50:21 stereotypes,
2:50:22 pregnancy, orientation, gender identity.
2:50:24 The governor and the Department of Education have a problem with
2:50:28 the latter two
2:50:29 and are willing to openly tell our public institutions to ignore
2:50:32 this expansion.
2:50:34 I’m happy the majority of the board is in favor of following the
2:50:37 law and guidance of the federal
2:50:38 government and not the state acting as an authoritarian when
2:50:42 deciding which laws we can
2:50:43 and cannot follow based on their agenda.
2:50:46 I know one of the school board members in particular here has a
2:50:49 mission since this expansion started
2:50:51 to remove that language of protection from our students and
2:50:54 staff from discrimination.
2:50:56 But saying that she is okay with openly discriminating is a
2:51:00 slippery slope
2:51:01 that we’ve seen play out in generations and decades in the past.
2:51:05 Also highlighting why we must teach accurate history in our
2:51:09 classrooms.
2:51:10 So we don’t repeat those things.
2:51:12 To the rest of the board, again, thank you for protecting our
2:51:15 children, our teachers, our staff,
2:51:16 as much as you can during this turbulent time as we start a new
2:51:20 school year tomorrow.
2:51:21 I didn’t have a place for this, but I had to add, after seeing
2:51:25 the sheriff’s video,
2:51:27 the militarization of the BCSROs, brandishing assault rifles, is
2:51:33 not a solution.
2:51:35 That is not what we want our children to see and feel when they’re
2:51:38 in the classrooms.
2:51:39 And we have to find a better solution going forward.
2:51:41 We need to have a reworking of a contract or some sort of
2:51:45 discussion
2:51:46 when it comes to having assault rifles strapped onto our
2:51:49 resource officers.
2:51:50 Thank you.
2:51:50 Thank you, Jamari.
2:51:51 As Michelle is approaching, our next three speakers will be T.O.N.,
2:51:55 Danielle McDonough,
2:51:56 and Wyatt Stumbo, whenever you’re ready, Michelle.
2:52:01 Hello.
2:52:02 Thank you.
2:52:02 And I would especially like to thank all the teachers out there
2:52:05 who are getting ready to start
2:52:07 a new year under attack in a way that they never have been
2:52:10 before and never should be.
2:52:11 Know that the majority of the parents of public school students
2:52:15 respect you and appreciate the
2:52:18 work that you do and I ask you to hang in there.
2:52:21 Hopefully it’s going to get better.
2:52:22 As a member of Families for Safe Schools and as a parent of a
2:52:27 Brevard County student,
2:52:29 I appreciate the commitment this district has made towards
2:52:32 school safety.
2:52:33 I fully support support the hardening of the schools, Dr. Mullins,
2:52:37 that you showed us on that
2:52:38 presentation, the fencing, the cameras, the intercoms, hardening
2:52:42 the front offices for sure that needs
2:52:45 to be done. Training and most especially increased communication
2:52:49 are wonderful and those are the
2:52:51 correct answer for protecting our students. They are effective
2:52:55 and they don’t increase the risks
2:52:57 inside the schools. The Sheriff’s plan, based on the video he
2:53:02 released today, is to harden the
2:53:05 schools by more aggressive, visible tactical weapons on our
2:53:08 school resource officers. Having this
2:53:11 strapped onto a SRO in our student school is not the answer for
2:53:17 those of you who can’t see it over there.
2:53:20 The intent, he says, is to save time in the event of an active
2:53:24 shooter.
2:53:25 What it will do is create a prison or warlike environment in our
2:53:29 schools. Nobody feels safer when
2:53:32 they see this. They feel like they’re in imminent danger. The
2:53:36 risk, this actually makes our students less
2:53:39 safe. The risk of a shooting in school is one in 612 million,
2:53:44 which is still too high. There should be
2:53:46 zero. Just for comparison, your odds of winning the Powerball
2:53:50 are one in 302 million. So you are
2:53:52 twice as likely, you are twice less likely to be shot in school
2:53:56 than to win the Powerball. The odds of an
2:53:59 accident with a gun like this in the school, one in 8,349. Let’s
2:54:04 not make the cure worse than the
2:54:07 disease. Thank you. T. Owens. Audience, hold your applause,
2:54:12 please.
2:54:13 Good afternoon. Well, good evening. I’m T. Owens. And basically,
2:54:20 I want to speak regarding
2:54:23 the book banning and also LGBT rights. So as books are banned
2:54:27 and words can’t be used, there are so many
2:54:30 other issues to fight about, which actually help the children.
2:54:33 One being reading. Most importantly,
2:54:36 the reading levels reported of black students and students of
2:54:41 all races and disadvantaged communities
2:54:44 have went down. Have you really considered the mental health
2:54:50 issues of those LGBT students and teachers?
2:54:54 Have you considered how minorities feel about banning books that
2:54:58 depict pictures of black children?
2:55:00 How can you cancel history? Our history? You can’t. Racism and
2:55:09 homophobia are real and ever-present in
2:55:14 Florida, especially in Brevard County. So for all those teachers
2:55:20 and students that can’t say it,
2:55:20 I’m proud to be gay. Gay. Gay. Gay.
2:55:24 The audience, hold your applause, please. Uh, Danielle McDonough.
2:55:33 Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Hold on one second.
2:55:41 Danielle, let me hear.
2:55:43 Okay. Now when you’re ready. Thank you for the opportunity to
2:55:47 speak. I’m Dr. McDonough. I am a BPS
2:55:50 parent. This is my 13th year. I am a BPS volunteer. That doesn’t
2:55:55 mean I go on school field trips. It
2:55:57 actually means in addition to working full-time, even when I was
2:56:01 a grad student, I was at the school.
2:56:03 My first volunteer opportunity was in the media center. So, um,
2:56:09 you know, there’s always been
2:56:11 opportunity for parent engagement at the school, as long as you
2:56:15 seek it out. Um, I really came here
2:56:18 tonight because I went to my students meet the teacher last week
2:56:23 and I walked in that school
2:56:25 for the 13th year in a row and I felt this warm, welcoming
2:56:30 community full of wonderful staff that
2:56:35 were there, happy and welcoming to the students, regardless of
2:56:39 the stress that they have been under
2:56:41 in this pre-planning. And I just can’t say enough about our
2:56:44 teachers and our community. Brevard County is
2:56:47 a top-rated school district in the state of Florida. And it’s so
2:56:51 disappointing to come here
2:56:52 week after week and listen to these board meetings where people
2:56:57 sit here and say that teachers are
2:56:59 abusive, students are abusive, bad things are happening in our
2:57:02 schools. Guess what? Our students
2:57:05 are going to Ivy League schools. Our students are top athletes.
2:57:09 Our students are top performers. They’re that
2:57:12 because they have dedicated teachers who are there for them
2:57:16 every day. And we need to support them.
2:57:19 Another important topic to me is books need to be available to
2:57:23 the kids. My kids are readers. My kids
2:57:26 have never brought home a book that has caused them distress.
2:57:30 They read anything and everything that they
2:57:32 want. Our classroom libraries are suffering right now. I know
2:57:36 that you think that they’re not, but they
2:57:38 are. We need to make the opportunities for us to opt in to Scholastic
2:57:44 book fairs, to the media center,
2:57:46 the classroom libraries. Don’t punish us because a few people
2:57:50 don’t want books.
2:57:51 So thank you. Thank you. Wyatt. And as Wyatt is approaching our
2:57:58 last speaker will be Julia Anton.
2:58:00 Good evening more. So one thing I want to touch on was the media
2:58:06 center or library employee,
2:58:08 probably some out here. This weekend I was at a birthday party
2:58:12 with my son and one of the people
2:58:14 there was a media center person. And in our discussion they
2:58:18 referenced that they are not a part of the
2:58:21 performance bonus that teachers get. And this person is not Ms.
2:58:26 Kludzik, but Ms. Kludzik at my kid’s
2:58:28 school is a phenomenal librarian. She goes above and beyond all
2:58:33 the time. I mean she’s the kind of person you want
2:58:36 every school. And I know she works as hard if not harder than
2:58:39 teachers do. So if that is a fact that
2:58:42 they are not part of a performance based bonus or annual or
2:58:46 whatever you all call it, I would challenge
2:58:49 you to work that out with the gentleman in the back that was up
2:58:54 here earlier. That said, I agree with
2:58:56 volunteers in the schools and I believe that the volunteer
2:59:00 credit that we did last year, did that expire
2:59:05 where you didn’t have to pay for fingerprints. So volunteers are
2:59:09 still good to go. That leads to my
2:59:12 solution, which is eating with your children is important. And I
2:59:16 think we all agree parental
2:59:18 involvement in schools is very important. So with an approved
2:59:21 volunteer status, why couldn’t you go in?
2:59:23 That would handle the security concern. Closing it out, I’m
2:59:28 going to say that back to the discussion on
2:59:32 coaches. When you look at our mission to serve every student
2:59:35 with excellence, why are we not picking
2:59:38 the better coach regardless of who they work for? That makes no
2:59:42 sense to me. We shouldn’t be giving
2:59:44 preference to teachers if the other person is better but doesn’t
2:59:46 work for the school. That’s the problem
2:59:49 I’m with unions. Thank you. Thanks, Wyatt. All right, Julia.
2:59:55 Okay, so I’m at the store and I make my purchase and the cashier
3:00:05 has no idea how to count the change.
3:00:07 I think to myself, this is why public education is so important.
3:00:12 We should be able to go to the store,
3:00:14 buy what we buy, pay for our stuff, and get our change back by
3:00:17 somebody who knows how to do it.
3:00:19 Public education is good for the community. It’s to graduate an
3:00:25 educated workforce that knows how
3:00:27 to analyze contracts, execute building plans, create and enforce
3:00:31 fire codes, fix broken computers, staff
3:00:34 aircraft control towers, practice medicine, operate forklifts,
3:00:37 take inventory, negotiate real estate deals,
3:00:40 analyze business processes, write novels, instruction manuals,
3:00:44 pilot airplanes, and oh, yeah, go to the moon.
3:00:47 And that’s why the community funds public education. Public
3:00:52 education is not some taxpayer-funded babysitting
3:00:57 for parental convenience. All of the community is the school
3:01:01 system’s customers, not just the parents,
3:01:04 not just the kids, all of the community. We, the community,
3:01:07 deserve a system to meet the community’s
3:01:10 needs by serving every student with excellence as the standard.
3:01:14 That includes gay students, trans students,
3:01:16 straight students who say gay. That includes students who read Hutt
3:01:19 Fent, Kill a Mockingbird, or the Outsiders.
3:01:22 Students with non-traditional family structures. Students who
3:01:25 are Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, agnostic,
3:01:27 Jewish, Muslim, atheist. It includes students belonging to
3:01:31 demographics historically mistreated, lynched,
3:01:34 or enslaved, who have just as much right to hear about their own
3:01:37 ancestors’ history as to learn about Robert E. Lee.
3:01:40 Every student means every student. The community’s agenda is not
3:01:45 culture wars, not removing books from the
3:01:47 library or classroom, not falsely accusing teachers of being pedophiles
3:01:51 or groomers. The community’s agenda is to
3:01:55 support our teachers and staff. The community agenda is the
3:02:00 customer. The community is the customer.
3:02:02 Its agenda is education. Thank you, Julia. We appreciate you
3:02:05 joining us this evening. Audience, please hold your applause.
3:02:08 All right. That concludes this evening, speakers. The board
3:02:15 wishes to thank you for joining us this evening.
3:02:17 Anyone have anything for the good of the order? Can we just, um,
3:02:21 Missy, I just want to clarify one thing
3:02:24 that was said by one of the speakers, if you don’t mind, just
3:02:26 something super simple. Um, one of the speakers
3:02:29 brought up teacher bonuses. And, um, I just, I just want to
3:02:31 clarify that just because I understand why
3:02:33 that would be a concern if you heard that. Um, so what you were
3:02:36 talking about or what was told to you
3:02:38 was an old bonus from the state. Um, and that was true. Uh, we
3:02:42 had nothing to do with that. That was not
3:02:45 old, but the bonuses that BPS has administered has gone to all
3:02:47 of our, all of our teachers and our media
3:02:49 specialists. So, um, they are correcting what they said, but
3:02:52 that had nothing to do with BPS and that’s
3:02:54 old. They don’t even have that anymore. Thank you, Ms. Jenkins.
3:02:57 Anyone else? All right, hearing nothing
3:03:00 further, this meeting is now adjourned. Have a great evening.
3:03:06 Thank you.