2022-10-11 - School Board Meeting

2:08 Good evening. The October 11, 2022 board meeting is now in order. I’m happy to welcome my fellow board members and the public. I would like to take this opportunity to remind the public that the appropriate place for public participation in the meeting is during your individual public comment opportunity as identified in the agenda.

2:25 Outside of your individual public comment opportunity, your role in the meeting is as an observer. Mister Gibbs, roll call please. Miss Belford? Present.

2:32 Miss McDougall? Present. Mister Susan? Present. Miss Jenkins? Present.

2:37 Miss Campbell? Present. The board will now hold a moment of silent reflection and invite the audience to join. Thank you.

3:05 Please stand for the pledge of Allegiance. At this time, I would like to offer my fellow board members and doctor Mullins an opportunity to recognize students, staff, or members of the community who would like to get us started. Miss Bacon, I wanted to say a special thank you to Rachel Rutledge and Lori Benjamin last night at Space Coast League of cities.

3:48 They presented to the league our CTE programs, all the amazing opportunities that we have, and our adult education programs as well, and kind of opened the pathway to a conversation of offering places for our students to continue to go out into the workforce and expand and inviting them into our schools and kind of check out what we’re doing here in Brevard and continue that conversation. So I appreciate them for being there last night. Over the past couple weeks, I had the privilege of working with some of our ESC students at O’Galley High School again.

4:22 I went there about once or twice a week to practice with Brevard Achievement center, putting on an amazing show. So congratulations to all of our students that participated. The title of the program was out of this world.

4:34 So there was a really fun space coast theme going on, and it was super fun and I appreciate it every single year. And going forward, they’re going to continue to do it in this fall season instead of spring. So it was kind of a quick turnaround for audience members, but I hope people kind of keep an eye out and get to come and watch that again.

4:51 So thanks. Thank you, Miss Jenkins. Just piggybacking on that.

4:58 I got to sit in the audience and watch you guys perform. And it was definitely a wonderful performance. And as a performing arts mom, I really love that these students who don’t often get the stage, don’t ever get the stage, got that chance to shine.

5:12 So thank you to Brevard Achievement center. Into the many sponsors. I don’t have my program with me, but there are many, many sponsors who made that day happen, as well as our bus drivers who got them everywhere and the teachers who work with them every day.

5:24 I wanted to thank our staff across the district, from north to south and from across all divisions, for their flexibility and especially those who worked towards getting our school buildings and our other facilities ready for Hurricane Ian. And we’re so thankful to have been spared, although we know there are many efforts going on across the state to help, and thanks to our schools who are recording efforts to help schools across and families across the state. But I just want to thank all of our people here for the good work that they did.

5:55 Our principals had a lot to do in leading their teams to get ready for the storm and then to assess any issues going on afterwards. But the fact that we were able to get it done and ESF didn’t flood. Woohoo.

6:08 And come back to school on Monday ready to go. Great job, team, for helping us ride out that storm. And then our first session of the parent academy was last Monday.

6:26 Last Monday night. Sorry, I’ve been in a lot of places in the last week and I forgot where I was Monday night. And I attended for part of the session, one of the satellite sessions that was held here in the boardroom.

6:40 And then there were three or four satellite campuses. I went down to discovery elementary to attend down there and so that parents didn’t have to come all the way up to Viera, which eliminates some of our issues that we have with people not coming out because there was a place close to them. I would like to see greater attendance on our next one.

6:58 I know the hurricane may have put a little squash on the attendance, but I believe it was recorded. Chris Morris nodding her head. And so hopefully that’s something to be put out because the information was really, really good information.

7:10 They focused on conscious discipline. I know there’s been some controversy around what that is, and I think it would be really good for people in the community, not just elementary, but secondary, because even. Even as I was sitting there that night, I thought, wow, that’s a good tool to have in my back pocket for my own kids just trying to walk through.

7:28 Here’s what it is. Here’s what it is. Here’s how you put it into practice.

7:31 And so I encourage our parents to go find that session. Hopefully we can post that somewhere and then come to the next one because we have. How many more coming up? Three more watching social media.

7:47 And the topic of the next one, is that also going to be on student behavior? Doctor Mullins? Yeah, so we were going to have more. This one was on student behavior, so it was so crucial. But other parent academies, will they also touch on student student behavior? Yes.

8:04 In fact, I talked to Miss Moore this morning ish about the potential of like redoing the first session last Monday night because the storm interrupted our advertising got disrupted through all of that. I think there’s an opportunity to do a redo of that one in the next few weeks. I’d be in favor of that because it was really good material and I hope that people will take advantage of those opportunities.

8:30 So good job team. Even though it was small crowd doing good job. A new date for that is coming soon.

8:39 Thank you, Miss Campbell. Oh, wait, no, it’s my turn. Okay.

8:46 I just want to say thank you for 1010 being here with Miss Delores. Many people inside the crowd. We have the 1010 bus drivers and transportation and custodial workers offered me to come down to West Melbourne library the other day and meet with all of the members and listen to a lot of the same things.

9:03 That was echoed from many of the staff members prior to give you guys a quick update. It was inside of my actual thank yous and I’m glad that you guys are here. So Doctor Mullins took it and wrapped his head around all of those requests.

9:19 About two weeks ago, he put Mister Wilson on getting involved. And many of you know Mister Wilson has already gone and visited all of some of the transportation locations and he’s listening. Big shout out goes to Rashad for all the work that he’s doing.

9:34 Doctor Mullins, for actually taking this thing on. They’re working on a reporting system so that when a referral goes in, it reports and goes. They’re just trying to work out how that’s going to go.

9:44 But they have some solutions that they’re going to bring to you guys. Doctor Mullins is trying to work through those stipends to try to figure out extra bus rides, all that stuff, how that works, because sometimes there’s three, sometimes there’s one. All of those things, the discipline policies.

9:59 Rashad sent me, Mister Wilson, sorry, sent me the list of classroom and that should be what’s mirrored inside the bus. So all of those parents who think that their kid can come on the bus and act a fool and then go to the classroom and act normal, that’s wrong. Like these are our classrooms extend to our buses and that’s how this is going to work and that’s how we’re going to do this.

10:19 And you have full, complete support from the school district. They’re actually going through every single discipline issue that came up to make sure that the fidelity of that matched the classroom and look for it as an opportunity to encourage and educate in case there’s not. So rest assured your team here took advantage of what we said or took it and ran with it.

10:39 And big shout out goes to you, Doctor Mullins and Mister Rashad Wilson. So I just want to say thank you, Dolores. I’m glad that you’re here and we can do it.

10:45 And thank you for having me. At the West Melbourne library, my son is still asking if he can come back and get a sprite and cookies because you guys were the only place he can get that. So anyways, all right, next thing is, I wanted to say thank you to staff.

10:58 We have 20 something providers for 403 b and 457s which are charging more points than what you usually should have a plan if you guys go to get retirement. Not many people understand that you may end up signing a retirement 403 B plan that actually is going to return you less at the end because of the points that are being charged. And everybody says, oh, this is Billy from so and so.

11:23 We support them. So I want to say thank you to the staff. They got me first all of the plans with the points in them, and I’m going to make that public.

11:30 The other thing we’re going to do is go towards possibly looking into the future about how we may be able to reduce the number so that we can enhance the amount of points that are charged. So the larger the amount of pool, the less points are charged. So it means that if you are putting money into your retirement at the end, you will have one, two, maybe three more years of retirement at the end or a higher number because they’re charging you less out of your paycheck for servicing those accounts.

11:59 Great opportunity. And I want to say thanks to staff. Anybody who knows the producer, basketball player, 16 million viewers and stuff like that, he’s coming.

12:07 He’s coming to Brevard county. We’re in the possibility of maybe doing a big show. He’s going to come.

12:12 And it’s in conjunction with a team called the court Kings. Many of you may know who the court Kings are. Booker T.

12:18 Washington. They came in and painted the basketball courts. They work with our low income, low socioeconomic, disadvantaged youth inside of each one of the areas to play basketball.

12:33 Pickup three on three basketball games over the summer. They do summer nights. It’s an incredible thing.

12:38 So we’re looking at some dates right now. There’s going to be some announcements, but in the end, if you see that, please sign up all of the proceeds are going to go to supporting that charity in the evening throughout the summer for court Kings. And if you don’t know who he is, he’s the producer.

12:55 He’s pretty cool. He dances. He’s an amazing basketball player.

13:00 Even Doctor Mullins knew who he was when I talked about it, so it’s pretty good. I want to say thank you to Doctor Mullins for beach volleyball. Looks like we’re moving forward on it.

13:09 And anybody who’s out there that may want to form a team, I don’t know what the rules are. That hasn’t come out yet. And I’m probably getting myself in trouble here, but I want to win that state championship because I think we can.

13:20 And I think that. I wanted to say thank you for your due diligence in making that happen. Let me do this.

13:25 Producer, 403 B. Transportation Puerto Rican Day parade, October 22 if you guys haven’t heard about it, puerto rican day parade is going to be. They stage right there at Southwest.

13:35 They use the restrooms and then they go down. You guys come out and support. We’re trying to get everybody to start heading out to some more of these parades now that COVID’s gone.

13:43 It’s not gone. I apologize. I know you guys probably say something, but it’s not as much of an issue anymore.

13:47 And so what ends up happening is that we can get out there. And I know that Doctor Mullins has been a massive supporter through the years of them, and I look forward to seeing them there. I might jump.

13:56 We might jump on a float together or something like that because they invited me to come. I saw the play, the rap artists and stuff like that. We might be able to get on stage with them, might have some fun.

14:05 I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen anyways. Puerto Rican Day parade October 22 Southwest middle school. If you guys have an opportunity, please come and support them.

14:16 And I was named as the chairman for what’s known as the FSBA ad hoc committee. And what this is is the Florida School board association that I was the advocacy chair for last year has decided to create a special committee where I grab all of the special school board members throughout the state. And what we do is we come up with the innovative ways that we can impact our school districts and put it together because we all do something different.

14:33 And what we bring to the table as a group is stronger. So we’re going to come together. I mean, members from Duval, Charlotte.

14:49 I mean, I have a list of them going all over the place, but I’m going to chair it. And then what we’re going to do is bring back a list of best practices for our districts to have. And this isn’t so much, you know what I mean, transportation policies and stuff like that.

15:00 It’s like the veterans project that we have getting ready to launch with all the veterans in the VFW’s american legions and all those things, packaging it and showing them what they can do back at their district to facilitate more change. So I just wanted to say that. And that is it.

15:14 I think I’m good there. You need me to say anything else? I think you’re good. All right.

15:17 Thank you very much. We’re good. Mister Google, it’s all yours.

15:19 Mister Google, can I just jump in front of you really, really quick? Because I just realized Kay and I were talking about Burrard Achievement center, but I realized that the lady who is responsible for the majority of that show is in the audience right now, Miss Lyse Wornson. So I just wanted to say thank you for all that you do. Please stand up.

15:39 Thank you. Stand up. Thank you so much.

15:46 And I feel like maybe we didn’t, like, address that enough, but, you know, this is a production that they put on in the King center. This provides our students an opportunity to perform, but also for our families to see their students shine, have fun, be like everyone else. And this year, I feel like almost every single school had the gen ed population peers be there with them and support them and perform on stage with them, which was really incredible.

16:12 And those students had the greatest time and the greatest opportunity. So thank you, Miss Sorensen. I’m sorry to jump in front of you, Cheryl, but I saw her head and I had to point her out.

16:20 The things. I just want to give a shout out to Principal Keene at KQ and doctor Daniel McKinnon. I was able, they invited me to go ahead and tell stories at their title one and hispanic night.

16:41 And it was a heck of a lot of fun. A lot of kids turned out, a lot of parents turned out. So thank you to both of them for inviting me to be there and to tell stories with a hispanic flavor to them.

16:53 But I also told a story that some of the kids might know. My little sister, she ate one hare. And it’s a quite funny story, and it’s very.

17:04 It’s. I had the kids laughing and even the parents, because there’s a couple things in there that the students wouldn’t get, but the parents got. But anyhow, thank you so much for inviting me.

17:14 And it was a great turnout. Thank you. Thank you, Miss McDougall.

17:21 Doctor Mullen. Thank you, Miss Belford. Just want to do acknowledgement of October as breast Cancer Awareness Month.

17:29 As the son of a breast cancer survivor that eventually ended up taking my mother’s life, remain very sensitive and engaged in this effort and remind us all that early detection is the best defense against breast cancer or any type of cancer. So please take the time to take care of yourself and take the time to take care of yourself because there’s a loved one close by who wants you to. So just had to do my annual shout out and acknowledgement.

18:07 I want to just commend our schools for being amazing leaders in our community, not only every day to raise up and learn up our kids, but we’ve had several schools reach out on behalf of their students who want to make a contribution to Hurricane Ian relief for our five counties on the west coast that were absolutely devastated by the storm. And so we have student efforts going on across the district to raise money. We determined that raising funds and providing funds directly to the district is better than trying to collect items because they’re just in such upheaval.

18:51 And so we’ve facilitated a means to do that for schools to contribute at the district level. In addition, we as a district, are hosting an opportunity for our community to contribute if they would like to. Through our website, Mister Brun is working on getting that stood up here in the next day or so.

19:10 So if you are in a position and would like to contribute to her hurricane relief efforts, know that we are legitimate, if you will, and all dollars and all funds will go directly to the one of the five school districts on the west coast. I’ll try and get them out. You help me.

19:30 Lee Charlotte Sarasota DeSoto and there’s one more. No, it’s not collier. Oh, my goodness.

19:45 I’ll get it by the end of the meeting. Stay tuned. But just want to thank our schools for being leaders, not just in our local community, but leaders across the state.

19:56 And then finally, a shout out to our guidance services professional, Robert Moore at Meadow Lane Intermediate elementary School, and Miss Carrie Friday, media specialist at Southwest middle school. Miss Campbell and I had the privilege of having lunch with several students at Southwest a few weeks ago, and then I was able to have lunch again with students at Meadow Lane Intermediate. I guess a weekend just right before the storm, those two pie coordinators, our partners in education coordinators at the school level, won a prize where they take back to their school soup with the soup.

20:33 Kids don’t necessarily want soup. Even if it’s with the soup. But they love pizza and they love taco bars.

20:40 So we had the pie coordinators put that together. And it was just a great opportunity to connect with our students across our district and hear from them what’s going great, what could we do to be better and how can we be there to serve you? And thank you, Miss Campbell, for joining that conversation. Thank you, Doctor Mullins.

21:03 Just have a few quick ones. One, a huge thank you to Mister Gibbs, who doesn’t often get. He’s usually put on the spot with really tough questions and not lots of recognition.

21:13 But he did a great ethics training for all of the board members as well as several other elected officials throughout our community a few weeks ago, along with Amy Envall from Orange county, their general counsel. And it was well appreciated. For those of you who have to sit through an ethics training, we have to do it every year, 4 hours.

21:34 And it’s pretty much the same material over and over and over again. But Mister Gibbs and Miss Enval made it fun for all involved. So thank you for all of your work on that on top of everything else.

21:45 Yeah. Not very good at looking. Yeah, there were some buzzer arguments, but, you know.

21:52 But thank you, Mister Gibbs, for. I know you have had a very full plate and that was just one. One extra that you took on, but we appreciate it.

22:00 Many of you may recall Karen Curry, who was here with Pulley development group a while back. We were looking at a contract for the Kyler facility up in Mims. Had the opportunity to go by and visit their facility in Mims, I guess a week and a half ago now, maybe two weeks ago.

22:18 And I encourage you, if you’re up on the north end, reach out to her and stop by. They are doing the after school tutoring program for students. And they’re actually doing it throughout all of Brevard county.

22:30 And some extra programming, even with some students out of state. But they have got just a fabulous little facility in East Mims. And they’re doing after school tutoring every day after school.

22:41 Have some great staff that are coming in and working with the kids and just doing some great stuff up there. So if you get the opportunity. I know Mister Brune helped me to push out some information on their tutoring program so that people are aware of it.

22:52 So hopefully you saw that on our social media. But definitely, definitely wrapping their arms around our kids and doing all they can to help them be successful. So if you’re up that way, give me a holler and I’ll go with you.

23:03 And then the last one that I have is you all may recall that we have had conversations over and over and over again, the fact that our health insurance is self funded and how important it is that our employees understand all of that. And many, many moons ago, I made a request for us to do podcasts about helping our employees understand the impact that their health choices have on the health insurance trust fund, and thereby the money that’s available to go into their pocket. And I don’t know if all of you have had the opportunity to see them, but the team has done a phenomenal job at putting those videos together to really make things fun and understandable and help our team to understand how even the little choices that you make on a daily basis can impact all of those things.

23:45 And so, kudos to all that were involved in that effort. I don’t know. I’m sure Doctor thet and Mister Broon to some extent, but probably many, many others on the team.

23:56 So thank you to all of you for making that come to fruition. And with that, we will move on to the adoption of the agenda. Doctor Mullins, before I start the agenda, just to confirm, it’s Hardy county, our education, family and Florida residents.

24:12 Hardee county is the other district. So thank you. On this evening’s agenda, we have administrative staff recommendations, two presentations, 20 consent items, four action items, and one information item.

24:25 Changes made to the agenda since release of the public include the addition of items f 17 approved the 2022 23 Sally salary adjustments for non bargaining personnel. F 19. Approved.

24:39 International Union of Painters and Allied Trades Local 1010 2022 23. Collective bargaining agreement and revisions to item items a seven administrative staff recommendations. F twelve student expulsions.

24:54 F 14. Instructional staff recommendations. F 20 suspension of administrative employee and age 34.

25:01 Department school initiated agreement. What are the wishes of the board? Moved by Miss McDougall. Seconded by Miss Campbell.

25:08 Is there any discussion? All in favor, please signify by saying aye. Any opposed? Same sign. Motion passes.

25:15 50. Doctor Mullins, will you please let us know about the administrative staff recommendation? Miss Belford and members of the board, there is one item for your consideration. What are the wishes of the board? Moved to approve? Moved by Mister Susan.

25:26 Seconded by Miss McDougall. Is there any discussion? All in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye.

25:31 Any opposed? Same sign. Motion passes. 50.

25:35 Doctor Mullins, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize Mister Christopher Higginbotham, who is here with us this evening. Mister Higginbotham is being reclassed, transferred from the position of teacher at Mila Elementary School to the position of assistant principal at Gardendale Separate day School, effective October 24, 2022. Congratulations, Mister Hagen Botha.

26:09 And now for your big debut. You get to address the crowd and millions of viewers at home. No pressure.

26:15 All right? Thank you. I would just like to thank the school board, Doctor Mullins, Miss Moore, Miss Bland, Miss Gruegen, for this opportunity and express my gratitude to my current principal, Doctor O’Brien, and my beautiful wife and family for their support in getting me here. And I look forward to supporting the students of Brevard Public School.

26:37 Thank you. Well, we certainly appreciate and commend you for your willingness to step forward and serve in an additional role. And we also like to recognize the family, the loved ones, the spouse who support you, to do what you do, to serve kids in brevard public schools and in our community.

27:00 So thank you on behalf of Brevard schools for supporting your husband to do what he does for our kids. Thank you. Doctor Mullins, will you please tell us about tonight’s presentation? Yes.

27:13 Tonight, Mister Mike Alba, director of professional learning and development, will introduce members of the TLC fellowship, the teacher Leadership Council, who will facilitate a pending ceremony for this year’s teacher fellow, Mister Alba. Good evening, Doctor Mullins and members of the board. Tonight I have the privilege of introducing members of the Teacher Leadership Council who are leading the TLC Fellowship program in partnership with Brevard Schools foundation.

27:47 The Teacher Leadership Council was established in 2015 by district Teachers of the year, Doctor Lucy Haddock and Christina Donahue in order to provide an opportunity for our teachers of the year across the district to network and collaborate with one another. Furthermore, the teacher Leadership council works to promote teacher advocacy, leadership, communication and service throughout the school district. At this time, I would like to introduce Kerry Heber, Brevard Public Schools 2020 to 21 District Teacher of the year to share more information about the TLC Fellowship program.

28:32 Good Evening board members and Superintendent Mullins. We’re here tonight to elevate and celebrate this esteemed cohort of teachers who were selected as research fellows for the TLC Fellowships program, class of 2021 22nd 2023 as chair of the TLC as chair of the TLC, it is my pleasure to introduce you to our first full class after last year’s class of early adopters and our pilot program group. Our pilot group successfully paved the way for continuation of this collaborative fellowship.

29:11 This program was made possible by the Brevard Schools foundation, which initiated the funds for this program. And to tell you more, I’d like to introduce Miss Janet Kershaw, president and CEO of Brevard Schools foundation good evening. As you know, Brevard Schools foundation helps fill educational funding and opportunity gaps by supporting innovation, engaging communities, and changing lives.

29:39 As we looked for innovative ways to support the development of teacher leaders that align with the district strategic objectives under exceptional workforce, we brought forth the idea of creating Research Fellowship program. The Teacher Leadership Council embraced its adoption and the program has grown organically, even creating its own teacher leadership ecosystem within the council. As one of several teaching quality initiatives.

30:06 The fellowship program has captured the attention of state leaders and is seen as not only a way to advance teacher leadership, but to support teacher retention. Fellowship director Danielle Lavelle is going to share a little about the program before we introduce our fellows. First, being part of this program and the opportunities I’ve had has presented me with some of the best experiences of my professional career and I’m excited to watch it grow with our new class.

30:41 For teachers who want to lead, this program gives them a chance to do just that. It’s a development opportunity that can help prepare them for formal district roles like mentor teacher. The mission of the fellowship program is to enhance and encourage meaningful action research to further develop teacher leaders and increase student achievement.

31:04 The fellows will engage in a process of selecting their own inquiry. This personalized process, along with monthly meetings and coaching by their group lead, one of the last year’s fellows who successfully completed an inquiry project, is what makes this type of professional development unique. When teachers can gain from the collective knowledge of their peers, well, that’s when the magic truly happens.

31:32 Teachers can bring their passion for education into their practice and solve questions through the inquiry process. This is not a program just for the most seasoned teachers. Fellows are competitively selected and I’m going to ask my fellowship coordinator, Mickey Carvo, to share just how we selected this outstanding group of committed BPS educators.

32:01 When determining the population of brevard educators that would take on the initiative and meet the standard of the fellowship program program our teachers of the year and administrator recommended. Teacher leaders were the obvious selection. The elite group of teacher leaders we are presenting you tonight this evening completed a rigorous application process.

32:21 This included responding to a selection of questions that focused on their knowledge of inquiry and how that can impact school improvement, management of other teacher leadership, roles within the school, strengths in their personal practice, as well as opportunities they wanted for growth. As part of the application requirement, two letters of recommendation were required, one from a colleague and one from an administrator. Requested talking points for the letter of recommendation included how the applicant serves as a teacher leader within the school building, how they prioritize tasks, how they collaborate, how they solve problems, and how the applicant is taking part in the fellowship would impact the school as a whole.

33:03 The fellowship leadership team, comprised of our director, Danielle, myself as the coordinator, and our group leads, Alex Whitaker, our reigning BPS Teacher of the year, and Alex Stewart. Jenny Lam utilized and developed a rubric score to select the applicants for the 2022 school. 2022 to 23 school year.

33:28 Miss Belford and Doctor Mullins, will you please join us at the podium? Without further delay, it is my great pleasure to introduce you to our fellows. From discovery elementary, Tracy Rosado and Ruby Rivera, accompanied by their administrator, Carrie Castillo. Should we.

33:49 Yeah, that’s right. From Ogalley High School, Maria Santiago Rivera, accompanied by principal Jeremy Salman. From endeavor elementary, Michelle Hickman and Kayla Hayes, accompanied by Principal Catherine Murphy.

34:15 From Hoover Middle School, Caitlin Earnest, accompanied by principal Catherine McNutt. From Johnson Middle School, D. Carroll, accompanied by principal misses Marina Zaporrito Middleton.

34:36 From Quest Elementary School, Jonathan. Excuse me, Boletho. Accompanied by Principal Christine Boyd.

34:47 From Rockledge High School, Megan Warner Warren, accompanied by principal Mister Buster. From South Lake Elementary School, Rhonda Rippinger Ripperger. Accompanied by Principal Jennifer Brockwell.

35:08 And last, but certainly not least, from Westside Elementary, Bobbi Wallace. Accompanied by principal misses Stephanie Woodbury. These are 2022 to 2023 fellows.

35:28 Once their projects are complete, these fellows will present their findings to their peers, a hallmark characteristic of teacher leadership at this time. Principals, please pin your fellow as a recognition of their commitment and leadership towards their future action research. I thank you.

36:21 We got a double up, folks. Yeah, some of y’all can’t come up on the not doing a panorama. There you go.

36:34 And slide that way. All right, ready? All right. Next we have a presentation from Mister Rashad Wilson, our chief operating officer, who will present the 2022 to 2023 Florida Safe Schools Assessment tool report.

37:45 Mister Wilson? Good evening, board chair Belfort. The board Superintendent Mullins, I come before you this evening to discuss the district best practices assessment. The objective of the Brevard County Public Schools district best practices assessment is to demonstrate to the school board that a school security risk assessment was completed at each school campus by October 1, due date as required by Florida law, and the findings and recommendations of these assessments were presented to Superintendent Mullins and each member of the Brevard School board.

38:54 This summary will address the efforts of Brevard schools regarding legislative compliance under the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety act, the recommendations of the MSD High School Public Safety Commission, and best practices related to school safety and security. Furthermore, this summary identifies strategies and activities that the district school board should consider implementing to address the assessment finding and improve school safety and security. The Florida Department of Education developed the Florida Safe Schools Assessment tool, better known as EFSAT, to provide a secure online risk assessment portal for completing school safety risk assessment.

39:50 The FSAT was developed to be the primary physical site security assessment tool for use by school officials at each school district and public school site in the state in conducting security assessments. The two annual assessments performed using the FSAT are the individual school security risk assessments and the district best practices assessment. A school security risk assessment must be completed and submitted for every k twelve public and public charter school facility using the 2022 to 2023 template in FSAT no later than October 1.

40:36 We have complied with this directive. District school safety specialists must use the 2022 to 2023 district best practices assessment in the FSAT to compile the SSRA findings and recommendations and to report back to the Florida Department of Education district wide progress on implementing certain school safety and security requirements. It is intended for use by district school officials to help identify threats, vulnerabilities, and appropriate safety and controls for the schools that they supervise.

41:18 Information in the Florida Safe Schools Assessment tool is confidential and exempt from release as a public record pursuant to sections of Florida statute. School measures the positive school measures is placed at the time the school security risk assessments were conducted for this year range from emergency operations plan to student crime watch program. These measures are as follows.

41:55 A school emergency operation plan, better known as the COP, is completed at each school by administration and law enforcement and shared along with active assailant response procedures with staff for their awareness. The superintendent has issued annually since 2019 a directive outlining mandated safety procedures and discuss these directives during a leadership team meeting with all principals. The school aggregate FSAT results indicate that the superintendent’s directive has had an impact on daily safety procedures at our schools.

42:39 In April 2020, an independent security consultant true North Consulting group completed a district wide security appraisal of safety measures at all facilities and provided recommendations for enhancing those measures with improvements at the building and district site. Principals and district leaders have analyzed those recommendations and are working towards those enhancements with available budget. A secure group document was created to track the progress of implementation of those recommendations.

43:17 This is an ongoing multi year process. A capital improvement plan has been developed to implement facility and technological enhancement recommendations. All schools have undergone an assessment of 800 MHz radio reception.

43:36 Facilities is implementing a plan to move forward. District security staff have provided annual opportunities for schools to test the usage of the rave app when conducting active assailant drills and will continue to do so. Students participate in monthly critical incident drills and monthly fire drills where they are educated on the district’s general education general emergency procedures to prepare them for a variety of emergencies.

44:12 Schools complete after action reports that are reviewed by the Office of District and School Security. Our crime watch program for reporting suspicious activity has been enhanced by the reporting tools crime line speak out hotline and fortify Florida and are promoted both at the school level and district level and by the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office K nine deputy. In addition, the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office and BPS have partnered with a motivational speaker to promote speak out district assessment result summary in the district assessment summary, the district has recently implemented or enhanced the following measures to increase school security and is continuously evaluating the efficiency effectiveness.

45:17 We continue to review the independent security assessments, analyze the results, implement recommendations, and enhance the secure document to track the status of each recommendation. This is an ongoing process. District staff responsible for the implementation of the security recommendations continually document the status of each recommendation.

45:44 Improved access control would benefit the district. The hardening of vestibules or public entry is still in the process and a high priority. We added an enhanced security cameras for better quality, extended coverage, and longer storage.

46:02 We evaluated the number of cameras installed at each school to ensure we have met the true north consulting group. Recommendations we updated and rekeyed classroom door lock throughout the district to configure them to default to the locked position or to lock from the inside. Additional upgrades may be needed and the assessment will be necessary.

46:33 We have enhanced the public address systems at many schools. This is an ongoing process district wide. This year, language was added to the superintendent’s directive for security procedures accountability.

46:51 We have trained all school threat assessment team members and continue to train new members. We have implemented a comprehensive gps ridership program solution to contribute to the safety of school bus transportation by ensuring everyone stays safe and connected throughout the daily transport of our students. Additionally, the transportation department worked with the Transportation Security Administration in 2021 2022 to improve bus security, which included training of bus drivers by TSA.

47:33 This is an ongoing partnership district wide. District security has worked with school administrators to practice the usage of the rave panic button application. Furthermore, with mutual link and the new camera system, district security can provide live monitoring to local law enforcement.

48:02 FSAT data recommendation the superintendent will continue annually reissue the mandatory security procedures regarding the MSD commission’s recommendations and discuss it with principals at a leadership meeting to reinforce their critical security responsibilities. All stakeholders of the organization must be involved in maintaining and in increasing the culture in safety and awareness. The chief operating officer will communicate with principals regarding 2022 2023 school security risk assessment, answers that reveal issues with the superintendent’s mandatory security procedures, and other answers that indicate a possible misunderstanding related to security issues.

48:52 The Director of district security will address all principles during a leadership team meeting and review key FSAT questions where data analysis reveals misunderstanding or a need for enhanced implementation. District and school security will plan an annual rave drill window for all schools to practice using rave during an active assailant drill. School security video cameras are being fine tuned to work in conjunction with rave so that law enforcement can access the camera system for live viewing from remote or off campus location.

49:43 We will submit the 2022 to 2023 Office of Safe Schools through hardening grants to acquire appropriated funding for continued intercom replacements or upgrades. Effectively communicate during an emergency for schools identified throughout the FSAC. We will implement the facility security plans to enhance the safety of schools to include 800 MHz amplifications where recent testing indicates a need.

50:18 We will also provide secure vestibules as the main point of entry fund entry hardening must be a priority for the district. In conclusion, the summary and recommendation is provided by the district school safety specialist specialists based on the school security risk assessments and district best practices assessments. BPS principles, in conjunction with local law enforcement and the district offices of security facilities, educational technology, and student services have made substantial improvement in school safety.

51:02 However, work still needs to be done. The superintendent and district security are committed to implementing the recommendations and findings that were identified within the 2022 to 2023 FSAC. The board and superintendent were briefed on all findings and recommendations by the district school safety specialist in an executive session earlier today.

51:29 Therefore, in accordance with the provisions outlined in the Florida statute, the assessment findings, as well as the recommended strategies and activities to improve school safety are hereby presented to the school board for consideration and approval. Additionally, if our board has any recommendations for the Department of Education to consider to consider recommending to the governor, Florida legislature, and state Board of Education regarding policy changes or funding needed to facilitate continued school safety planning, improvement and response at the state and district or school levels, they can be included within the FSAT District Safety and security assessment are there any recommendations? Thank you Mister Wilson, and thank you for taking on this beast of school security. I know it’s only a very small part of the hat that you wear, but it is an enormous one and one that is incredibly important.

52:41 So thank you for all of your work in that area. I know it’s been. You kind of got thrown into the fire on that and I think you were you at a security training, like your second day on the job? I think.

52:52 First day? First day on the job. Yeah, I knew it was pretty close. So.

52:57 So thank you. We appreciate you. Thank you.

53:03 Board members have recommendations for the FSOP for Mister Rashad or Miss Jenkins. Mister Wilson. I just want to echo Miss Belford’s sentiments.

53:14 I know that doesn’t seem like there’s much to present because I can’t really talk about a lot of it, but there is so much work there. So I appreciate all that you do and all that district security does. It’s pretty incredible what goes on behind the scenes.

53:29 And we learned some pretty incredible things they can do today that I wasn’t even aware of. So thank you to all, to everybody involved. During our executive session, though, it was brought to our attention that funding sources for security and hardening of schools, we hear a lot about it being increased by the state, but when in all actuality, over the past two years, it’s been decreased by almost half.

53:54 And so I think that that is something that we need to just, you know, keep banging on the door. Our needs are continuous. As we continue to make improvements, there are things that need to be sustained as well as other issues that are being brought to our attention that need to be addressed.

54:13 So I think it’s important to just keep advocating for the increasing of funding for security and safety of our students and our staff, as well as just kind of, you know, highlighting. Here in Brevard, we have a half cent sales surtax that we are using to do some of those developments. And that is not a continuous funding source.

54:30 And so if we didn’t have voters who were great enough to pass that for their own community, we would have had a bigger deficit to fulfill these needs as well. So something we definitely need to advocate for. Thank you, Miss Jenkins.

54:45 Thank you, Mister Wilson, for presenting all that to us. And just. I do have a recommendation before I say that, you know, one of the things you mentioned in the, in the presentation tonight was our bus ridership and the change we’ve made this year with.

54:58 Is it reaxium? Yes. Okay. Program where the students are having to use their badges to get on and off.

55:03 I just. I just want to do a plea to our parents or our bus riders. I know it.

55:08 Change is hard. And here we are about, you know, two months in and kids are losing their badges. It’s just so important.

55:16 It seems like a pain. But if your child has lost their badge or is, you know, I ran it, talked to. I was subbing at a school one day this week.

55:23 I was like, where’s your badge? And she was getting, oh, the top broke off. And I was like, well, bring it anyway. Put it in a ziploc, baggie something.

55:30 Stick it in the side of your backpack. It’s so important. First of all, if they have them ready to go, it speeds up the onboarding and off boarding process.

55:38 That’s not a word, but you know what I mean. But it’s so important. This is allowing our families, our schools, our administrators, everybody, to make sure everybody’s where they’re supposed to be, when they’re supposed to be there and who’s where there’s, you know, and all of that.

55:51 So in conjunction with our gps system, we’ve just made so much. You guys in transportation especially, have made so many adjustments. So I just plead with our parents to keep.

56:00 Stay on that, stick with the change. It’ll all become a habit soon, but we need to keep going with that because the safety is so important. My recommendation.

56:07 You talked about 800 MHz amplification. We’ve been talking about that for ever since we started doing well before I got on the board, and they were the first conversations we’re having. But ever since we’re starting to do FSAT, I would suggest, in addition to what Miss Jenkins said about just continuing the funding as it had presented, maybe there would be an additional specific grant, because we can’t be the only county who has that need.

56:32 Especially our more rural counties would have a great need in that area that districts can apply to specifically for. I know the legislature really likes those specific funding issues because it helps them know that the money is being spent exactly where they want it to get that 800 MHz frequency amplification done in counties across the state that need that wherever it’s needed the most. That would be my recommendation.

56:58 Thanks, Miss Kimball. Anyone else? I know what has been passed around over the years since we started with all of our drills that I know it’s been looked at, not really decided if we could really look at, with our security departments about cutting back some of the drills. I’m hearing that there’s drill fatigue.

57:26 So when you do it so much, people don’t take it seriously. It’s just another drill. So I would like to go forward with that and ask the state to really look at how many required drills are really necessary.

57:41 And Major Nell, did I hit everything, and did I forget anything? Quality over quantity. Thank you. That’s the word I wanted.

57:49 Yes, quality over quantity. Really, that’s what we really are looking for. Thank you.

57:57 Just a reminder, the state has to come from the state. Mister Susan. Yeah.

58:08 Thank you. So I just wanted to take a minute and talk about how things today are different than even when I was teaching and from when we came on the school board. You think about somebody had spoken earlier about telling the parents, hey, things are a little bit different.

58:26 You know what I mean? You’re losing the card. Every year we improve. Every year this district gets better.

58:28 Every year we do things that nobody else is doing. So we were already moving to fencing our yards and hardening our schools before we even had majority. Stoneman.

58:44 We are already moving to identify students with the badges and everything else. We are advanced, and I’ll tell you where I know that for a fact, is that I travel the state to other school districts all the time, have meetings inside of schools and buildings and everything else. And I will tell you, we are leaders in this.

59:02 We have some of the tightest and strongest security measures there are out there. Now, there are reasons to improve. There always will be.

59:10 I’m really proud that you’re at the helm to do so. I know from my heart of what I’ve seen you. A lot of staff has called me while you’re going to see the bus drivers and the custodians at the different places, saying, this guy’s for real.

59:23 He’s a good leader. He wants to listen to us. So I know when you go into those front offices and they have those single point entries and those two ladies that are in the front, or the one lady or the man says, hey, this is what’s wrong, that you will listen and you’ll improve those situations.

59:40 The presentation you gave earlier was outstanding. I want to say thank you for your collaboration. And I do want to say that it’s not only the capital improvements that we’ve brought forward, the hardening of the fences, the single point entries, the cameras, all of that stuff, but a lot of thoughts and praise go out to our staff for educating our teachers and the rave apps and our students and everything that we do as a holistic is a great program.

1:00:06 Now, it could improve in places and stuff like that, like the drill fatigue. I mean, come on. Like, how many, how many times have we had a situation where we need.

1:00:14 I mean, these kids have been in the same school sometimes for four years, and they do twelve freaking ten, you know what I mean? Drills a year for fire drills and everything. Else it’s just ridiculous. But you guys are working on that and everything else.

1:00:27 I just wanted to say thank you. There’s a lot of our schools. The next round of what we heard today, we’re going to be moving towards.

1:00:33 And I want to say thank you for presenting, and I like to direct. Thank you. Mister Susan, Mister Wilson.

1:00:39 A quick question that I should have asked you earlier, but I’ll ask now because I don’t think it’s any sensitive question. Yes, ma’am. So in the event that we have things that take place at our schools where we have to go into shelter in place or lockdown or evacuate, does that count as a drill, even though it’s a real situation that we’re responding to, or do we still have to do the same number of drills in addition? In addition, that does not count as a drill.

1:01:09 So we still have to go through and jump through all of those hoops, even though we’ve run through the process. So when Buck Ohio last year had ten bomb threats that did not count towards our drill count. So can we make that request? Along with the decrease in required number of drills, can we also ask them to consider, because we have to debrief every incident anyway, right? Correct.

1:01:37 I think it’s a better. I think it’s just doing that way anyway. That’s part of the draft language.

1:01:42 Okay. Yeah, that would make a ton more sense to me. We tried.

1:01:50 Yes. Give it a yeoman decor. So, two things that I will throw out there for consideration.

1:01:58 One is I know that the FSAT has come a long way in its user friendliness since when we first started, when it was an absolute nightmare. And I know we’ve made some progress there. And I know here in Brevard, our team did a phenomenal job of kind of compensating for the weaknesses of the FSAT in a lot of ways.

1:02:17 So I think we’re probably in better shape than most districts as well as far as being able to utilize that data effectively. But it, while we appreciate that there’s been progress, we would certainly welcome additional cleanup on that FSAT and perhaps some, I don’t know if they’re seeking input from districts on how they can, could make that better, but I think that would be a great thing to do if they have not, because, you know, we continue to see that there are challenges there. And then one issue that is of significant importance to me personally, just from the perspective of safety, is ensuring that the state continues to provide the funding for the training of our guardians.

1:02:58 You know, every year there’s been discussion, are they going to continue? And that. And that funding doesn’t. For our public.

1:03:03 That funding doesn’t come to us. It actually goes to the sheriff’s department for the training of the Guardians. But the issue is that we have turnover in that program, and so as those people leave, we have to have continued funding to train new people to go into those positions.

1:03:20 And, you know, we. If you look at the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas report and the recommendations that have come out of that, we are blessed in Brevard county to be able to have a deputy or officer at every campus. But it’s typically a.

1:03:35 And so having. Being able to have those guardians to expand the reach on those campuses is really critically important, I think, going forward. But we need to make sure that they continue to fund it.

1:03:47 Agreed. That would be my request. Okay.

1:03:57 Yeah, you can. What I was saying to Miss Chairman Belfort was, I don’t know if the public understands what all. Like, how many questions would be on this? I don’t think that’s a secret.

1:04:12 That’s not a secret. That. But how many questions north of 400 questions? Yeah.

1:04:18 For every school. For every school. Every school, yes.

1:04:21 Yes. I just thought it was important for our public to know that this is detailed. Our security and our principals walk through this, our administrative staff, every single year.

1:04:32 So, Major Neal, correct me if I’m wrong. Closer to 500 questions, correct? Well, north of 400. Thank you.

1:04:48 Okay. All right, Miss Balford, if I can add to the comments, I’d like to express my own commendation to chief operating officer Wilson. Absolutely.

1:04:58 Done an admirable job of coming on board at a time when there’s not transition, it’s you’re on. And the responsibility of the role and the task is our number one priority every single day. And, Mister Wilson, it goes without saying you embraced and took on that challenge from the moment you took office.

1:05:23 And it wasn’t just a day of training. It was a week of security specialist training. And I also want to add my commendation and appreciation to Major Neal.

1:05:35 He’s been with Brevard schools as our director of district and school security, four plus north of four years, just. Just south of five years. But more importantly, Major Neil, I’ve known you the entire time and had the privilege to work even more closely with you in that former role and couldn’t ask for a more engaged and devoted individual to the mission of brevard public schools.

1:06:06 Number one, the safety of our students and our staff. And Major Neal wears green as a officer of Brevard county, sheriff’s office, but his heart bleeds brevard public schools. And it’s a huge credit to his work and dedication.

1:06:30 He’s out in our schools. I don’t know, all the time responding along with chief operating officer Wilson, and we’ve got a phenomenal team. I appreciate you recognizing, bringing out the number of questions.

1:06:46 I mean, this survey takes our administrators teams hours and hours, and it’s not done idly. I mean, when the answers don’t align with. What if it doesn’t jive? We’re on the phone with the school saying, wait a minute, let’s talk about what your feedback was here.

1:07:06 I mean, this, we aggregate the results, we break them down, we analyze them so that we can be our best for our kids and our staff. So, Mister Wilson, thank you, Major Neal. Thank you.

1:07:19 Appreciate your leadership as well. Thank you. And I’ll just say one more thing on Major Neal.

1:07:25 You know, we love him, but coming into like, he stepped into a completely different world for you and for Mister Wilson and for, you know, you came up through the education world. Not to say that it had, you know, you don’t have those, those learning hurdles as you change positions. But Major Neil stepped into a completely different world when he came into education and became a part of BC of Brevard public schools.

1:07:53 So. And he has been, you know, of the security folks that I’ve worked with, I think that he has, I will say, assimilated to the world of education, probably better than the vast majority have or could. So thank you, Major Neal.

1:08:11 We appreciate you. We give you an honorary educator designation. Miss Bell, for Doctor Mullins and myself had really long hair five years ago.

1:08:28 Mullet. We had mullets. Thank you.

1:08:34 Thank you, Mister Wilson. All right, we are now moving into our public comment portion of the meeting. We have only three speakers this evening, so everyone will receive three minutes.

1:08:44 Please note. Oh, thank you, Miss Campbell. I’ll repeat that.

1:08:49 We are moving into our public comment portion of the meeting. We have only three speakers, so each speaker will get three minutes. Please note that time is per speaker, not per agenda item.

1:08:57 Topics not specific to agenda items will be moved to the non agenda portion of the meeting. We have a clock in front of me to help you keep track of your time. When your time is over, you’ll be asked to stop and allow the next speaker his or her turn.

1:09:07 Always keep in mind that reasonable decorum is expected and your statement should be directed to the board chair. The chair may interrupt warning or terminate a participant’s statement when time is up. It’s personally directed, abusive, obscene or irrelevant.

1:09:22 Should an individual not observe proper etiquette, the chair may request the individual to leave the meeting for the audience. Please remember that outside of your personal public comment period, your role is as an observer. Therefore, I would ask that you please not disrupt the meeting by interjecting comments or noises during public comment.

1:09:38 Our three speakers this evening are Katie Delaney, Dolores Verney and Julie Bywater. Miss Delaney, whenever you are ready. Thank you.

1:09:54 The first agenda item I’m going to speak on is f 19, the teacher shortage. This year. The chair went on national tv and was talking about how hard it’s been for the 9000 staff members.

1:10:10 And you would think rather than coming up with nine policy changes that this board can’t even vote on, tackling discipline would have been more important. I have pictures that a teacher just sent me of damage done by an elementary student who has been through ten teachers so far this year with injuries ranging from bruises and bites to one teacher actually getting a concussion. Discipline is the number one reason why teachers are leaving.

1:10:41 And yet this board and superintendent would rather rush these things under the rug. F 21 reproductive health and disease materials. I have requested this over and over again.

1:10:57 These type of topics should be an opt in, not an opt out. Parents don’t necessarily always see your guys updates and then they. They get their kids home and they tell them all about this, you know, controversial or, you know, potentially inappropriate topic that the parents had no idea about.

1:11:16 And, you know, if we just had an opt in process, we wouldn’t have these issues. We wouldn’t be exposing children to these things without parental knowledge. Age 34 b, the tape pg cultural exchange, which is going to.

1:11:35 Which I understand we need. Obviously, we need more teachers. This is going to cost us an extra $12,500 per teacher, which I’m guessing is the visa, and probably money to go towards whatever this organization is.

1:11:48 Three years with potential to extend two more. My question with all of this is, if Florida teachers want to come back into the classroom, can we then fire or let go these foreign teachers and put our Florida teachers back in their roles? And my final agenda item that I want to speak on is h 35 c, which is the youth Truth survey. I am so disappointed that this board is bringing this up again because it was so controversial.

1:12:17 And this is data mining our children. It’s funded by Bill and Melinda Gates and especially when a new board is a month away from being sworn in. This is $262,000 for a survey, which the survey results just told you guys the same things that we, the parents, have been telling you that the culture is lacking from our schools.

1:12:44 Parental involvement in the schools, not being allowed in the schools, that’s what’s lacking. Open the doors and that will change. You don’t need to spend $262,000 to tell you guys that.

1:12:57 Thank you. Miss Delaney, Miss Barney, Miss Belford, members of the board, Mister Mullins, good to see all of you this evening. My name is Delores Varney and I am the business representative for local 1010, BPS support staff union.

1:13:23 I’m here to report on the contract ratification vote for 2022. 2023. And I’m happy to report that the vote passed.

1:13:33 We had 153 yes and 35 no. And I want to express our appreciation to all the employees that came out and supported the challenging work of their union. I would also like to give a great big thank you to those members of their union that spent many, many volunteer hours at the office, and in the evenings, and after work and on Saturdays to make this happen.

1:14:02 And I’m just going to briefly give you a list of them. Tracy Arzola. Patrick Darvell.

1:14:08 Mark Edward. Alicia Calderhouse. Leslie Lauder.

1:14:13 Dawn Swigger. And we also have a retired member, Lydia Felton, which she was a school teacher and retired and came back as a IA and became a part of our union. She’s retired again, and she’s still coming and helping us.

1:14:28 So I want to thank those folks because they were there through the duration, and they worked so hard for their coworkers, and I appreciate then they work so extremely hard. It and I wish every employee could see the hard work and dedication these employees have for their coworkers, along with all the time research effort they put in every year going toward the contract and their negotiations. So our hopes are going forward in the future, employees will see the need to be involved in their union and be a voice for themselves and their coworkers.

1:15:07 And I thank all of you and appreciate you. Thank you, Dolores. Bye.

1:15:13 Water. Good evening. I’m Julie Bywater.

1:15:22 I am a member of the Moms for Liberty Brevard chapter. I’d like to talk tonight about the youth truth survey. I have a couple concerns.

1:15:38 Last year, we had some issues with students being required to take this as a requirement for a grade. Some of the students were told they would get a zero if they didn’t participate. Concerned that when parents opt out, and the teacher is saying this is a zero, that we’re still going to be dealing with that issue, I’m concerned that there.

1:15:58 There might be times when a student doesn’t want to participate, regardless of whether the parent has opted them out. This is not part of their education. So we should be assuring students that any question on there, they don’t.

1:16:14 You guys are going to vote for it. So, I mean, that goes without saying. So you need to start giving these students the opt out themselves.

1:16:23 You need to give them assurance that when they’re concerned about a question on there, they can skip it. Because right now, that wasn’t the message they were getting last year. Kids were being told that their grade, that they would get a zero, there would be a zero in their gradebook.

1:16:42 Now, not every teacher did this, but there were some. So I really urge you, because we know you’re going to vote for it anyway, so whatever we say and the concerns that we bring up really isn’t going to make much of a difference. So I’m urging you to work with parents on this.

1:16:58 Give these kids some assurance that this isn’t a grade. Second of all, when you’re talking to us about how much you need money, you know, you just brought up the security issue on the money. This thing costs $262,000.

1:17:14 That’s. That’s five new teachers. You’re coming to me on the next day and we’re going to spend $12,500 per teacher on this foreign exchange program for teachers where they’re only going to come here for three years, maybe five if it’s extended.

1:17:35 We’re hemorrhaging money. Let’s be sensible here. I have a hard time voting to give you guys this millage increase when I’m watching you just throw money away.

1:17:46 Quarter of a million dollars on a survey you can do yourself, a survey we took last year that you could probably figure out yourself and do it yourself for way cheaper. You’re not a good steward of the money. I really wish you were, but you’re not a good steward of the money.

1:18:04 So when it comes to the millage, I’m voting no. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Bywater.

1:18:13 Doctor Mullins, would you like to speak to the twelve five on the teachers, or would you like me to the TPG contract? I would welcome Doctor Thady to come up and address any questions. She’s worked most closely with the contract, but happy to give her the opportunity. Or, Miss Belford, you are.

1:18:31 I’d also like to give the opportunity to Doctor Sullivan to address any questions or concerns the board may have about the contract on the agenda with youth church. The $12,500 per teacher is the administrative cost for TPG. To work through the J one visa process, do all of the training, get the help them with the licensure and certifications, and it is offset by our insurance.

1:18:58 They do not take our insurance. They take TPG’s insurance. Our insurance is about a $10,400 cost for the board portion for the year.

1:19:08 In addition to FRS. That’s correct, yes. An offset with FRS as well.

1:19:15 So by the time we are not putting into their retirement and we’re not paying further insurance, it’s a wash or to our benefit. Yes. I just wanted to let everybody know Martin county is getting ready to come out and offer any teacher of the year $100,000 to come to them for three years, split out over three years.

1:19:39 I was talking to their board members like they’re close to doing it. So there’s other districts that are going to be coming out with huge financial incentives to start trying to draw the best talent pool. I don’t know who’s going to move to Martin County.

1:19:50 I lived in Jupiter, which is just on the edge of it. Martin’s a little bit different. But just to let everybody know, there are other school districts are getting very crafty.

1:19:58 The other thing they’re doing is they’re also coming up with teacher housing. So they’re literally going to build and manage housing on Martin county schools. So there’s a lot more, you know what I mean, opportunities that I think we can talk about in the future.

1:20:12 But I did just want to. Since we’re on this time, the only thing I would add is I wish brevard Public Schools had an exclusive arrangement with TPG. We don’t.

1:20:23 There are many districts across the state that are having a very positive experience with them, and we’ve had a very positive engagement with them already and very positive feedback from our administrators who are already engaging with candidates to come to us. And so we receive very positive feedback from other districts, as well as our engagement with them, and very excited. Not only the opportunity this year, but a growing opportunity for the start of next school year.

1:20:52 All of the educational journals that are monitoring the workforce shortage of teachers in education are not predicting that this is. The workforce shortage is ending. This is a one or two year issue.

1:21:05 This is a long term issue. The colleges of education are not growing in candidates, which is the part of pipeline challenge. So, in fact, other reports have indicated that one of the solutions to workforce shortage is to look at international opportunities.

1:21:26 And so I’m very appreciative of my team being flexible, being agile, to pivot and go after opportunities to provide quality instructors in front of our kids. And for clarification, these teachers are subject to the same expectations of highly effective or effective on evaluation going forward as well, right? I mean, they’re annual contracts. They are, yes.

1:21:53 So they’ll be reevaluated on an annual basis. And yes, we have an opportunity every year to re evaluate where we are and to evaluate if we need more or fewer. So that comes up each year.

1:22:03 The other thing I forgot to mention is the fee is also about the recruitment of the teachers. It’s about the assistance for housing, transportation. All those, all those pieces are included in that fee.

1:22:16 Super. Thank you. Doctor.

1:22:17 The doctor. Doctor Theti. Approximately how many teacher vacancies do we currently have? It varies day to day, but about 130.

1:22:25 And how many teachers are we planning on hiring through this program? So in January we’re starting with 20. That’s how many j one visas they have for us. There is the opportunity to scale up in August depending on their needs.

1:22:39 Okay, so just. I guess my question is, is this program intended to fill all of our vacancies? It will not fill all of our vacancies. Now, anyone else have anything for Doctor Theta? Doctor Sullivan, I know that you did an enormous amount of work with parents last year around the youth Truth survey and I don’t know if you would like to just update on some of the changes that have been made since last year.

1:23:05 Absolutely. Thank you for the opportunity. Had some great meetings with our community members and parents who all brought up outstanding points.

1:23:15 You know, certainly, you know, to hear comments like teachers have made it required, it’s an assignment. All of that is disheartening. We value student feedback and student voice to an extraordinary degree.

1:23:31 However, never at that level. So when I heard those stories, we were disappointed. We have a pretty clear process for rolling it out and found that that didn’t happen across the board.

1:23:47 So we had provided recommended strategies. They’re no longer recommended. And so there are a couple of things that I can assure the board and our families in terms of how we were able to take their feedback and make some changes.

1:24:01 First and foremost, through district and school communications, parents will know in advance on when the survey is going to be administered. Every school we will ensure have copies at their front desk for any parent that wants to review it without complications. Although most of our families could, we found that some said no, so we’ve eliminated that concern.

1:24:29 Not only can parents opt their child out, as our speaker said, absolutely. A student can opt themselves out and they can choose. I don’t wanna or they can choose to skip questions or those kinds of things.

1:24:43 And we will make that extraordinarily clear. You know, we value student voice. All of our schools use this data in planning and improving student engagement, but certainly not a discomfort of any of our families.

1:24:57 So in addition to some modifications on some questions based on the feedback we’ve got, we have very clear directions for our schools, very clear communication. We’ll make sure on the communication that goes out there is an email that, you know, certainly alert us if there’s anything concerning. But I feel really confident in our ability to be extraordinarily clear on expectations, no longer recommendations and so we never want anything to be tied to an academic marker or anything like that.

1:25:31 Another point that our families made that we thought was another really good point. A lot of our schools encourage kids to do it at home and then that might get a little icky in terms of cell phones or home computers. We’re going to ask all schools to make sure students have the opportunity at school.

1:25:49 That way they’re not on a private device or anything like that. I don’t know technology enough, but I want to eliminate that concern and so we’ve certainly eliminated that as well. I also want to assure everybody these are grant funds that were categorical grant funds to amplify student experiences.

1:26:10 So certainly want to address that. And again, we’ll make it super clear who the district point of contact is. Myself, Miss Weibelt.

1:26:18 We’re happy to meet with any families, but we are going to make sure that every school in communicating the survey window communicates that any parent can just request an opt out, but any child at the moment I totally agree with the concerns that were brought up and we’re going to ensure that all those things are addressed. Doctor Sullivan, could you remind the board and our public what is the anticipated window for the survey coming up this year? February, January ish? Obviously we don’t have a window because we don’t have a contract yet. We just completed the three year contract and so once all that’s executed, we will work with our partners to get that set up.

1:27:04 But January ish, shortly after the first of the year. So just so our families know. Right.

1:27:09 But we will be super. I mean we’re probably going to drive our poor families crazy because I do want parents to feel more comfortable those that had any questions or concerns. So we will be extraordinary in our communication as well.

1:27:26 Thank you, Doctor Sullivan. Any board members have any questions for Doctor Sullivan? Are we going to discuss it when it comes up or do you want to just do that now? I think we can discuss it when it comes up. I mean, if it’s specific to the contract and not questions that Doctor Sullivan needs to answer.

1:27:41 No, I mean, I just, I was going to run through of them. So it’s completely voluntary? 100% anonymous, 100%. Data that is collected, specific to student information is gender.

1:27:56 What was the fields again? The students, the students self identify fields. So there’s no populating of fields. Okay.

1:28:05 And so there’s no fields that, so the student, I believe on the elementary boy, girl and grade level, on the secondary, I think we asked them some additional things. I have the, in the back there. I just didn’t bring it up here with me.

1:28:23 But they’re self disclosed, so there’s no, in some surveys, they connect your students data system. There’s no correlation to our data system. So a student could choose what they tell us or choose not to tell us.

1:28:40 And certainly a okay. And prior we, and we will see any prior to it going out, there will be a copy of the questions that somebody that a parent can go look at online and everything else they can go to their school, their local school. Yeah, we will have it available in hard copy at every school, certainly up here.

1:29:01 What, you know, and I can, you know, work with anybody as well, but we’ll definitely have them the heart because the local school is usually the best point of contact. There are different ones for the grade levels, but yeah, we can show anybody at any point in time all the questions on the survey. What I was concerned about is that like, if a parent can’t come up and see the actual copy of the questions to make a joint decision or decision on if they want their student to fill it out? Is there a way that we can put the questions per grade level online so that parents can view it prior to going out? I would doubt it.

1:29:31 Based on intellectual property. I would certainly read scan. You know, I could work with families a little bit.

1:29:40 I’m just, I’m uncomfortable with the intellectual property, Mister Gibson. I would have to review it. They can definitely come see it, no question emailing it.

1:29:51 I’m a little more unclear on that. I just, I think it creates a barrier if you want to see this actual list. And as a parent, and we can’t, you know what I mean? I have to go into the school to get it and look at it and stuff like that.

1:30:02 That’s all I would say, doc. Wouldn’t you say, Paul, that it is something that if we are submitting a hard copy, that we would be able to see the questions. The public would be able to see the questions prior to it online.

1:30:16 I mean, I understand where your fear is on the intellectual property. I’m not saying no. I’m saying no.

1:30:20 I know, and I appreciate that. Doctor Mullins will say that’s the reason we’re trying to stay out of trouble. All of these documents are subject to public records.

1:30:28 So we did release several hard copies through public records last year and shared them with those, of course, who visited with us and all of that. I just think that if I’m going to make a decision on whether my eleven year old, my ten year old, my five year old, whatever is going to make that, I would like to see that. And as a parent, I may not have the opportunity from the time that it gets announced or whatever to take a look at it.

1:30:52 That’s all. So I was trying to look at that. Paul, what are your thoughts on that? I’d have to look at what copyrights there are, what they’re claiming is intellectual property and or no, I can’t think of the term of art off the top of my head at the moment, but it’s in the contract as well that they have protections on their work product.

1:31:14 So I would have to look at all that within the contract and Florida law. I think that that’s a little cause for concern. I think there was that piece and then are they the same questions year in and year out, or we come up with different questions? That’s a great question.

1:31:33 So there is a base of questions, and some of them we’ve eliminated all three years and there’s potential for additional questions, and we have alternated those to get some different perspectives from students. For example, we’ve eliminated the segment on the mental health questions as related to, of course, the new policy. But honestly, we decided last year, based on the feedback with our parents.

1:32:07 And so there’s a couple modules that are optional and those can change, but the base are the same to get consistent data throughout the years to be able to evaluate. And so, for example, one of the optional ones we are interested in this year. And Lena, help me out again.

1:32:37 Learning styles. Learning styles, yeah. So there’s one question on learning styles and a question on, you know, project based learning that, you know, we think is beneficial as we’re looking at curriculum and programming and things like that.

1:32:51 But we eliminated the entire slate of the mental health questions and actually the security question. So we get two optional sets every year and stem for elementary. And then we had spoken earlier about student privacy and parental access to Information act and stuff like that.

1:33:10 And there was a series of things on there that we removed from this survey that may have been the controversial ones that they were talking about from last year, correct? Yeah, we had a couple of the questions we’ve never asked. And one of there was question, there was concerns about one of them, particularly for elementary, and the survey itself had actually already modified it. And so where there were options in gender, there are no longer options.

1:33:44 So that’s already been modified in the survey. And so like what I’m reading here is political affiliations, mental, psychological problems, sex behavior, attitudes, illegal, antisocial, indiscriminating, critical appraisals of other individuals, individuals legally recognized. Are those the topics that we pulled or.

1:34:02 No, most of those topics were never there. We did have mental health topics that we have pulled, pulled. That was probably the only cluster that would have been relevant there.

1:34:14 And they were pulled before and we won’t know what those questions are totally going to be and what we have until we sign the contract. They then adopt them and send them to us. Or am I. No, we have it.

1:34:25 Yeah. For all grade levels. Yep.

1:34:28 Yep. Okay. All right.

1:34:31 Thank you. May I ask a question? Sure. Doctor Sullivan, how many years have we been doing the youth Truth survey? We’ve completed three years, so we just completed the initial contract.

1:34:42 Okay. And has the board been aware of the youth Truth survey every single year and been given access to it? Yeah, I’ve done a board presentation on the overview every year. And then of course, all the board members have access to the data and the patterns you guys are aware of.

1:34:59 Really nice analytics for us to be able to be actionable to it. Yeah, that hasn’t changed. Thank you.

1:35:06 Yeah. One last question. How are we notifying the parents to be able to opt out or take it? How do we do that? So I’m intending to use all of the tools at our disposal.

1:35:18 Blackboard Connect. Obviously social media, the blackboard Connect, which is going to be something else soon because I think a company just bought them. But to where each parent gets a direct communication, we’ll use focus, we’ll use the whole panoply of tools so that it targets individual parents as well as, you know, some don’t use social media and we’ll let them know, you know, when the date is.

1:35:41 Welcome to look at the surveys and any questions they may have. UDA content. Okay.

1:35:47 I want everybody to know that I value the taking survey data from people and finding trends throughout the years and everything else. It is what we need to do as educators. I don’t want that to come through here.

1:35:58 Where my concerns are is just the availability of being able to see it online. A couple of the ways we deploy allowing our parents to see that and things like that, that’s where I was trying to get around, but I didn’t want you guys to feel like you’re against the surveying of our students. That’s not it at all.

1:36:12 We need to find those educational trends in non, you know what I mean, subject areas. I would absolutely amplify that the feedback that we’ve gotten has helped to make us better. I’m super thankful for those parents that have shared their concerns, have reached out, have taken time to come in, it has it highlighted, you know, sometimes with 100 schools, you know, you don’t, you believe something’s happening at every school, but obviously it let us know where we have to be more directive to make sure that every student and every parent, you know, has the perspective that they need.

1:36:48 So we’re really thankful for that. The questions are all really good questions and I think good pushbacks. We’ve pushed back on our vendor even to make sure we have the data that we want and the way we want it.

1:37:00 Really pleased to say, when we call, say, hey, we don’t like this, no problem. Take it out. What we wrote it, we never get any pushback on that.

1:37:09 But like I said, really great data to support our kids from their perspectives. I always just thought when I was looking at the information on it, it comes from the gate, from an organization that does philanthropy work and stuff like that, very involved in helping companies and people understand, right? And I was like, man, and if they really wanted to help us, like they could give this to us for free, you know what I mean? Because they’re literally using it. But we have been able to, we had some negotiation power this year because of the size of our district, but yeah.

1:37:52 Thank you. Thank you, Doctor Sullivan. Doctor Sullivan, thank you.

1:37:59 Yeah, I keep, I keep, it’s my fault. I keep forgetting to turn my damn mic on is what it is. I’m sorry, it’s my fault.

1:38:08 No, not only do I not turn my mic on, but I go out of order. And so it does. And I agree, you know what I mean? Thank you, Doctor Sullivan.

1:38:17 I appreciate you being willing to come up and answer all of the tough questions and for all of the work that you’ve done to ensure that we can continue to get quality, valuable information from our students. Thank you. All right, team, we are moving into the consent agenda.

1:38:33 We are at 07:07 p.m. Does anyone need a restroom break before we.

1:38:38 Okay, so I have a request for. We’ll do about five minutes and then we will be back. All right, we are back and moving into our consent agenda.

1:48:48 Doctor Mullins, there are 20 agenda items under the consent agenda. Does any board member wish to pull any item from the consent agenda hearing? None. I’ll entertain a motion to accept the consent agenda as presented.

1:49:00 Moved to approve. Moved by Miss McDougall. Second seconded by Miss Jenkins.

1:49:04 Is there any discussion? All in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Same sign.

1:49:10 Motion passes. 50. Doctor Mullins, will you please let us know about items under the action portion of today’s agenda? Section 1001.

1:49:39 39, subsection one of the Florida statutes, requires any travel outside the district exceeding $500 receive prior approval to confirm. The travel is for official business and complies with the rules of the state Board of Education. An opportunity for the public to speak to these items must be provided prior to action by board.

1:49:53 On tonight’s agenda, there are two travel requests on the agenda for approval, followed by two. Two additional action items. First is item H 32 for Katie Campbell to attend the FSBA FadS annual Joint conference.

1:50:09 Is there anyone present who wishes to publicly address item h 32 on Miss Campbell’s travel request to attend the FaDS FSBA FadS conference? Okay. Do I hear a motion moved by Miss McDougall. Seconded by Miss Jenkins.

1:50:16 Is there any discussion? She allowed to vote on her own? Yes. This is the weirdest thing in the world. It is.

1:50:22 All right, all in favor, please signify by saying aye. Any opposed? Same sign. Motion passes.

1:50:27 50. Congratulations, Miss Campbell. All right, Doctor Mullins.

1:50:40 Next is item age 33 for Matt Susan to attend the FSBA Fads annual joint conference. Is there anyone present who wishes to publicly address item age 33 on Mister Susan travel request to attend the FSBA? Fashion. Come on.

1:50:48 Everybody in there should get up and harass me for going. You guys should come up and make me feel all right. Do I hear a motion? I shall move.

1:50:54 Second moved by Miss McDougall. Seconded by Miss Campbell. Is there any discussion? All in favor, please signify by saying aye.

1:50:57 Aye. Any opposed? Same sign. Motion passes.

1:51:03 50. Doctor Mullins, the next is item age 34. Department school initiated agreements.

1:51:07 What are the wishes of the board? Move to approve. Second moved by Miss McDougall. Seconded by Miss Campbell.

1:51:25 Is there any discussion? Just briefly, I’d like to thank the Lockton and the staff for securing our savings on the stop loss contract. Yay. Anything that we get in that area that’s for those really big claims, really saves money on our self funded health insurance plan that you recognize.

1:51:37 You know, we talked about earlier this evening, so great work, team. Thank you, ma’am. Any additional discussion? It’s amazing when you get a good consultant, what can happen? Like, how many times were we told, you can’t do this, you can’t do this, you can’t do this.

1:51:44 And then we get a good consultant, and it’s like, hey, we can do this. And all of a sudden, the money savings are there. It’s just a very interesting situation.

1:51:51 So I’m glad. Thank you. Any additional discussion? All in favor, please signify by saying aye.

1:51:55 Aye. Any opposed? Same sign. Motion passes 50.

1:52:04 Doctor Mullins, the last item is h 35, procurement solicitations. What are the wishes of the board? Move to approve. Second moved by Miss McDougall.

1:52:08 Seconded by Miss Campbell. Any discussion? Yeah, I’d like to. I just.

1:52:23 My whole thing is, is that when we go to vote on this, I wanted everybody to understand where my issue is, is that I would. I would love to have the opportunity to be able to publish these so that parents can go online and view them. And unfortunately, until we can do that, that I’m not going to support the youth through surveys.

1:52:31 But I do believe in the survey system. So thank you. Any additional discussion? Yeah, sure.

1:52:45 Thank you to all the people who reached out to share your concerns. I think there’s a lot of misunderstanding of how it goes, and I certainly understand people’s concern about. Some people have association issues with Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.

1:52:49 But I know what the questions are. We’ve seen the questions. We also know how we’re using them.

1:52:57 I want to encourage people in the community and parents who’d like to know what kinds of things, how we are using it. To go back to the. I looked this up.

1:53:26 April 26 board workshop you can find on our YouTube channel. If you just go to the list of videos and you just go back, you know, six months ago to April 26, there was the last presentation to the board on our youth Truth survey data. You will see how it was used, what the response rates were, the topics which include our student engagement, academic challenge, relationships, cult, school culture, instructional methods, belonging, college and career readiness.

1:53:36 That’s just for the high schoolers. And then this year, the new topics that are going to be accessed. This is our tool for student voice.

1:53:58 And the opportunity to have that year over year allows our schools to not only see how they’re doing compared to other schools. It also allows them to see how they’re doing compared to last year and the year before. And I know they don’t have those questions anymore, but we even had COVID questions during our e learning year.

1:54:23 Not COVID, COVID and elearning questions, you know, so we could compare how the students were doing who were at home most of the year compared to how the students were doing who were brick and mortar. And that was very insightful that year and allowed us to really push towards the end of that year getting as many students back in the building as possible. So I think that, and I understand your concern, Mister Susan, but the truth is this, you know, for the parents who want it, it’s always been accessible.

1:54:39 Maybe not as much as it needs to be. And thank you, Doctor Sullivan, for addressing those issues that the families brought up earlier in the previous school year. But it’s going to continue to be accessible in every way that we can possibly make it legally accessible.

1:55:07 So I hear the concerns, but I think this is a good tool for us and in whatever time, especially consider considering that we get to control what questions are on there. But again, I urge people to take the opportunity to look at the workshops. You see what we’ve collected before that is not identified either to us or to the youth truth company, parent company, who it is and then how we use it.

1:55:32 Tonight we’re going to be voting on our school. We’re going to be presented with our school improvement plans, which will be voting on at the next school board meeting. And I just briefly looked through some of the school, school improvement plans and they are using this data to say, you know what, we have a weakness here and this is something that we need to improve, that our students have brought up that we don’t have any other way of getting that data except for that anonymous, you know, students saying, hey, you know what? I don’t feel like I know what, you know, those next steps are for me.

1:55:49 I don’t feel like my school’s prepared me for college readiness or prepared me for career readiness. Well then that school knows they need to do some work in that area. So it’s being used to make improvements to our school.

1:56:01 And in such a time that the questions are things that I don’t think that we’re not allowing. This won’t happen because of state law. Now that we’re not allowing parents to make those opt out choices, we’re not allowing students to make opt out choices.

1:56:11 Considering the questions are inappropriate, then I won’t support it, but at the time, right now, I will. Yeah, I just. I had to say something.

1:56:18 I’m just. I’m so tired of the facades and I just can’t take it anymore. We’ve had these agendas for at least two weeks.

1:56:28 Usually, board members have plenty of time to address their concerns ahead of time to staff members. We talked about this in the workshop. This has been a survey that’s been available for three years.

1:56:36 These concerns had ample time to be brought up. It’s very frustrating. It’s just feeding into the narrative.

1:56:42 This is a wonderful tool for our schools. This is something we should be supporting. This helps our kids.

1:56:47 That’s what we need to focus on. All right. Any additional discussions? Sure.

1:57:00 So there is an opportunity that we can have these same surveys and control all the same data. And we don’t have to have an outside organization do it. And we can also post and have the same information.

1:57:12 We just won’t have the consulting behind it, that’s all. So some people have mentioned, hey, we can do this thing outside. The difference between this and what happens otherwise is that the consultants come in and work with Doctor Mullins and everything else.

1:57:17 You are 100% right, Miss Jenkins. And I’ve said that publicly to the group that’s back there. We did approve this as a board last year.

1:57:24 We did approve this, and it went out. So that is on me for not having this known beforehand. That is right.

1:57:35 But tonight, I did not know until we had that conversation that we would not be able to let the parents see who to make the judgment that they need to make based on whether they can or they can’t see it. I didn’t know that till now. And I didn’t know that we couldn’t post it.

1:57:45 I didn’t know that this was intellectual property. That’s where I’m going to stay. And that’s not playing facades or anything like that.

1:57:50 That’s just something that just came out. Thank you. I just want to clarify.

1:57:59 Parents can see it. They will be accessible at their schools. I understand you’re saying you want it online, but I just want to make it clear because that was said, again, they are accessible.

1:58:13 Parents can come in and view them. Doctor Sullivan already said if there’s any special circumstances, she will go out of her way to rectify those. Anyone listening, if you need a different kind of circumstance, reach out to the school district.

1:58:21 We’ll help you out. There’s a reason we put things online, so that people can see it. If we didn’t have a website, we wouldn’t need it.

1:58:35 Doctor Sullivan could just answer questions from anybody so that we don’t have to use it. Having a parent have to contact the school to try to find the information, to try to set up time to do it is just. It’s not transparent.

1:58:39 And I think it’s something that we need to be able to do. Hold on. No, I’m sorry.

1:58:44 It’s really frustrating to me because there we are. You just said the word it’s not transparent. That is not truthful.

1:58:48 And you were projecting this narrative. It is transparent. It is transparent.

1:58:53 And that is the point of me speaking out. It’s ridiculous. This is a survey that benefits our kids.

1:59:04 Transparency would be to put it online so everybody can see it. Transparency is not presiding a question. All in favor, please signify by saying aye.

1:59:07 Aye. Any opposed? Same sign. Nay.

1:59:17 Motion passes four to one. All right, we’re moving on to the information agenda, which includes items for board review and may be brought back for action at a subsequent meeting. No action will be taken on these items today.

1:59:26 There’s one item under this category. Does anybody wish to discuss it? Discuss it. All right, we are now board member reports and discussion points.

1:59:36 Do we have anything? We have nothing on the agenda. So safe to assume. Mm hmm.

1:59:53 Wanted to report to you guys are. We had our FSBA board of directors meeting last week in Citrus county. We elected a new treasurer elect, Tim Bryant from Okaloosa county, who will be replacing our treasurer, who was from Duval county, who lost her election in August.

2:00:10 We also, they are looking for new committee members for the different committees. So if you’re interested, please check out the FSBA website they talked about. We had one of our board members from Charlotte county who is heavily affected by the hurricane.

2:00:33 We had connected virtually to one of our board members from Lee county. Their words to us were, Doctor Mullins has already said the donations we’re directing to their schools, foundations or their foundations, that each one, each school district is doing a little differently. I think one school district maybe does not have a school foundation, but, you know, in their, their most appropriate way to receive those funds.

2:00:44 But also, I know Christopher Treecker from Lee county said, you know, right now we’re just so overwhelmed with. We don’t even know what we need next. And so her words to us, I think, were pretty wise.

2:00:59 Something we should just stack in our back pocket, and that is just hold off right now. But when we’re ready, be ready. So funds would be a definitely flexible way, because then they have it for whatever they need.

2:01:11 But because lots of school districts had reached out to them, they should have said just hold off because right now we’re just in such a place we don’t even know. I know Charlotte county, they shared that every single school had damaged. I’m not sure when they’re going to reopen.

2:01:31 They may have announced at this point, but the superintendent at the time had just announced indefinitely and that was really scary for them to hear. So we certainly continue to pray and think about those communities, but appreciate Doctor Mullins, I shared with him some of that as well. But I know there are going to be districts across the state, they’re going to be ready to present.

2:01:51 So she just hopes this is a long term help, right? So we don’t want to forget about it two months down the road when they’re ready for help more specifically. So anyway, that was a good word from them. We have our new national school board association, CASPA, the coalition of state school board associations and exciting.

2:02:10 They’re going to have the inaugural conference here in the state of Florida in Tampa March 30 through April 2. They’re already up and running even though we’re like barely less than a year old, actually less than a year old officially. And so there are lots of good updates there, but exciting to be able to host that here in the state of Florida.

2:02:33 And then if you guys wouldn’t mind, before we leave, I would like to put we’re going to have our marching band just as by way of announcement to us as well as to the community. The marching band music performance assessment will be Saturday, October 29. And the reason why I’m mentioning to you board is one I would hope that you’ll get to come and at least watch some of your schools perform that day.

2:02:42 It’s an all day from the afternoon into the evening and then they do a trophy presentation at the end. It’s lots of fun. You get to see all the marching bands perform back to back to back.

2:02:59 But also I’d like to put an ad in the program which I’m happy to pay for, but that will be from the board encouraging them and they have it in the program and so can we stick around right after and just take a selfie really quick and I attach that. I’ll have my husband make up a nice little thing. We’re proud of you from the school board and like to put that in the program.

2:03:12 We’re in the program and like our officials name, but I’d like to put something fun if you guys wouldn’t mind. And Doctor Mullins, stick your face in there, too. So if you guys would allow me to do that, I’d love to submit an ad for the program.

2:03:16 Be happy to pitch on the coughs, too, Miss Kimmel. No sense in you taking it on on your own. Sounds good.

2:03:23 I’ll take. I’m sure we can do that. Any additional board discussion? Oh, I’m sorry.

2:03:27 I’m sorry. I didn’t say it’s at Melbourne High School this year. Thank you.

2:03:43 Doctor Mullins, do you have anything to add? Yes, Miss Belfort. I want to just acknowledge that one. I want to echo earlier sentiments on Hurricane Ian’s more favorable or less impact on Brevard.

2:04:18 I think we all are tremendously and overwhelmingly thankful for what, where we are today compared to where we could have been. And certainly what the storm anticipated suggested, what it could have presented even to Brevard. I was on a call with the commissioner of education, the chancellor for K twelve education, last Friday in conversation centered around districts preparations and response to missed school hurricane, missed class, school time.

2:04:39 There’s every expectation that, as in the past, school districts would utilize either time within their school calendar or, excuse me, within their school day as well as their calendar to make up missed time. We have flexibility, as the board knows, within our school calendar. That is a locally approved calendar.

2:05:17 Brevard is in a little bit of a unique situation as we look at options for makeup days, probably the most significant that presents some inflexibility restrictions on what we can do is we actually have one of the shorter instructional school days of school districts across the state. So what that means is we do not accumulate as many hours over the week and then ultimately over the semester for FTE required reporting as well as instructional hours required for high school credit earning courses. That’s a lot of education ease and jargon.

2:05:35 That ultimately means there’s Florida state statute. We have to meet certain instructional minute requirements, certain hour instructional requirements for credit earning courses. So in our situation, we will be required to make up the three days or account for the instruction missed.

2:05:56 For first semester, I’m working with staff and on every potential option. We have six identified hurricane makeup days built into our calendar we’re looking at. Are there other options we can utilize? Sometimes we can adjust our calendar and the end of first semester, second semester.

2:06:06 We’ve done that in the past. As the board remembers, it does require coming to the board for approval. We’re also talking with our union leaders.

2:06:30 Are there some other considerations we want? We may be able to come to agreement on, but certain things are in contract that we can’t just make the decision before I bring a recommendation to the board. I have prioritized this to let our community know within the next week what that calendar will look like. It’ll be on the board agenda for the next meeting for final approval.

2:06:51 So hopefully we can, in the coming days at the very latest, a week from today, provide our community what will be required of us for our hurricane makeup day. So I appreciate the patience we’ve had to work through a few things. We’ve got some options and we’re trying to be considerate and responsible to our community and some of the.

2:07:12 Some of the needs we understand to be there, as well as meet our required statutory, instructional, and hourly credit earning minutes. So we’ll definitely keep the board apprised and keep our community aware of what will be as a recommendation for the makeup days for the rest of the school year. Thank you.

2:07:23 Thank you, Doctor Mullins. Any board members have questions or comments for him on that issue? All right, that’s going to move us into our remaining speaker who signed up to comment on non agenda items. Miss Delaney, you are our only.

2:07:49 So if you would mind approaching, I would just like to speak about the youth truth survey a little bit more. I was one of the parents that sat with Doctor Sullivan last year, and she was gracious enough to break everything down, and she was wonderful. So none of this is a shot at the staff.

2:08:00 They do a great job. One thing I want to say is that it’s not anonymous. Because the kids log into their computers with their ids, it can get traced back to them.

2:08:37 Also, one of the concerns with the mental health questions, which I understand are gone, but that’s not the point that I’m trying to make, was that if a kid identified that they were having suicidal thoughts or something along those lines, and one of our questions was, well, how do we get to that kid? How do we help them? And so they are able to get back into the survey and figure out what kid filled out that survey. It is not anonymous. Another thing is that they were asked for their pronouns in which it’s just not appropriate.

2:08:55 It’s just not appropriate. Also, the extra topics are not on the contract. So how do we know what topics will be picked? You know, you guys just passed this thing and we don’t even know what extra topics are going to be for sure picked.

2:09:05 And it’s just fiscally irresponsible. It’s $262,000. There’s not a survey out there that doesn’t cost a quarter of a million dollars.

2:09:23 That brings me into what I really want to talk about, which is the millage. And I will be a no vote on that millage increase because we need a complete overhaul of the budget. The budget needs to be taken down completely.

2:09:32 Every single purchase needs to be looked into. Every single penny that comes out of this district needs to be looked at. We have one point billion.

2:09:56 With a b dollars, we should be able to pay our teachers. So the idea that you have to take more money from our people is ridiculous. And the half cent sales tax? Just to show the fiscal irresponsibility of this board, our schools still don’t have air conditioning.

2:10:07 Merritt Island High School a couple days ago didn’t have air conditioning. We have $500 million raised by this half cent sales tax. Yet our schools are constantly losing air conditioning.

2:10:21 Endeavour elementary school, their roof was raining from the ceiling. $500 million. Every school in the county could get a new roof for $500 million.

2:10:29 You need to show us that you are fiscally responsible. Before we give you any more money, please vote no on the millage increase. Thank you.

2:10:44 Thank you, Miss Bellini. Anything that we need to address Doctor Mullins or board members? Board wishes to thank this evening. Speakers willingness to join us is appreciated. There being no further business, this meeting is now adjourned.