2023-05-30 - School Board Meeting

4:09 Good evening. The May 30, 2023 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 your appropriate place for public participation in the meeting is during your individual public comment opportunity as identified in the agenda outside of your individual public comment opportunity, your role in the meeting is as an observer.

4:31 Paul, roll call, please. Mister Susan. Here.

4:34 That’s right. She’s coming. She’s out in the parking lot.

4:37 Go. Mister Trent. Here.

4:39 Miss Campbell. Here. Miss Jenkins.

4:42 Here. The board will now hold a moment of silent reflection and invite the audience to join. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance.

5:10 I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. What nation? Under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. At this time, I would like to offer my fellow board members and miss hand an opportunity to recognize student staff or members of the community.

5:34 Miss Campbell, you ready to go? Let’s go. All right, so I have quite a few to get us kicked off. I’m trying to talk fast because we have stuff.

5:48 Standing room only in the boardroom. It’s awesome. So, since that’s what happens when we have three weeks between board meetings, we have so many things to talk about.

5:57 So, you know, we had school lunch, hero week or day, but then, out of the state of Florida, there were five cafeteria workers across the state who were recognized as Florida school lunch heroes. And one of them was here in Brevard. Miss Brandy Nahouse, who’s the cafeteria manager at Turner elementary, was recognized in a surprise ceremony from the Florida Department of Agriculture.

6:22 And no kid hungry. So it was an awesome morning. And congratulations to Miss Nahas, one of the five Florida school lunch heroes for 2023.

6:36 Yes. Yes. Yes.

6:51 Then later that day, got to attend, along with Miss Hann and some of our other district staff, the Palm Bay Rotary Club recognizes students from the Palm Bay schools every year. One student from each school, elementary, middle, and high. And that was a great ceremony.

7:01 And so, congratulations to all those, and thank you to Palm Bay Rotary Club for recognizing those students every year. It’s a great, great event. Also, that week, I was able to attend an event.

7:25 I think you guys received an invitation. Also, Our lady of Lords hosted a roundtable discussion by the Salvatorians, and we had representatives from Senator Rubio’s office, Senator Scott’s office, as well as Congressman Posey’s office, and as long as well as some school and community members. And the topic was learning to help vulnerable teens and children.

7:42 I very much appreciate everybody who participated, as well as our congressional representatives, for really listening on what we’re seeing around the needs of our most vulnerable kids. I was able to attend our retiree brunch in this room. It was so fantastic.

8:10 And I always like to recognize our longevity awards. And so if I’m stealing you by sunder, I’m sorry, but I wanted to recognize that there are wonderful awards given out to the administrator, the teacher, and the support staff member who have served the longest in each batch of retirees each year. And so I wanted to recognize our support staff person with the longest tenure was Miss Ruthanne Thompson, 40 years, and she’s retiring from our blast program.

8:17 So congratulations to Ruth Ann. And then our teacher retiree with the most years was Miss Mary Ratliff, who graduated from Palm Bay Magnet High School. So congratulations to Miss Ratliff, 40 years for both of those.

8:53 And then our administrator with the most years, 46 years, retiring this year. Mister Susan, you want a guess? She’s one that, you know, administrator with the most years of 46 years was Joy Salomone. So congratulations to Joy Salomon, 46 years.

9:09 That was fantastic. I’m assigned. I was assigned to the Brevard Cultural alliance, and when we had our meeting a couple weeks ago, the EDC is doing a project called Mission Space code, where they are going to rebrand the Space coast.

9:36 And they’re getting lots of, they’ve been getting lots of community input, and it was, they were showing all the organizations that have been a part, and I was like, BPS is not on there, and we’d love for you to be a part of our conversation. So Angela Neal said she’d love to come in and do a little presentation so that we can be a part of rebranding and maybe BPS gets to have, we can add their logo, whatever the new logo is to our logo, whatever. I don’t know what that might look like, but she said she’d love to come out, so I’ll hook you guys up later.

9:44 No, she presented the EDC. Mission space coast presented with us. Right, right, right, right, right, right, right.

9:48 Graduation week last week was fantastic. So I’ll just keep it short. Great job.

9:59 All our schools who had to deal with such really yucky weather. It was nice to have a couple of dry graduations towards the end of the week. Sorry you didn’t get any dry ones.

10:01 I got two dry ones. It was great. Two wet ones.

10:08 Two dry ones. But congratulations to all our graduates and great job to our school. Administrative administration staff for having to deal with all the weather.

10:28 And then my final one is that we are going to very soon be saying goodbye to someone who’s been very special to our district. And he’s not leaving Brevard, but he’s leaving bps. And so I just wanted to give my thanks to Major Brian Neil, who has been the head of district security for the last five years.

10:46 And just thank you so much for the heart that you put into your job. We’ve got a lot of principals and AP’s in this room, and I know they know the importance of your office and particularly your leadership. And we also want to welcome Major Klein, who’s already here.

10:56 He’s been here today, and who is going to be taking over that role. And so welcome, Major Klein. But just didn’t want the night to go past without giving you a huge thank you, Major Neal.

11:04 Thank you. All right, Miss Jenkins, you ready? Yeah. All right.

11:17 So I was a little bit delayed for being a lunch hero like everybody else because I wasn’t in town for it. But I did make it up. I got to spend the day at Ocean Breeze, which is probably the most fun cafeteria staff you could ever possibly meet.

11:24 I had the best. So thank you to everyone for inviting me there. We got to wear some capes and masks and have a good time and be superheroes for our kiddos.

11:37 I really appreciated that. I had an opportunity to attend the CTE work based learning event and awards with Miss Campbell as well at Roswell Marine. So, number one, thank you for being a host for us.

11:46 I made a joke. It is probably one of the most unique work environments you could find in Brevard county. Really modern, really cool.

11:55 Has a pool table inside of. Inside of their office. I think our children are going to be a little bit spoiled to think and expect that that’s what they’re going to get in all of their future careers.

12:04 But it was still a really wonderful experience to host for us. We got to see all of our seniors accept awards for completing internships this year. CTE internships.

12:22 Heard about some amazing opportunities and jobs that are already lined up for some of them, which was really exciting. But one of my favorite moments was a moment where I was eavesdropping a little bit. I got an opportunity to be there just a little bit before the ceremony started and listening to some families speak to one another.

12:47 And there was a dad and a son having the sweetest conversation, the most heart touching moment where the dad just looked at his 17 year old. I would assume at this time, who’s towering over him and just had this really serious heart to heart conversation of, you know, dad, I know you didn’t go to college and mom didn’t go to college. Did grandma and grandpa go to college? And dad said, you know, no, none of them did.

12:59 You’re the first one to go to college and I am so proud of you. And it was the sweetest, most genuine moment I could have eavesdropped on. And I actually turned to miss hand and I told her all about it.

13:11 But I’m not going to call them out for who they are because I didn’t have permission to hear that conversation. But thank you for letting me that sweet, sweet, genuine moment. I also had the opportunity to attend Emma Jewell’s graduation.

13:18 They invited me to be there again. I love that school. That community is so caring and loving to those kids.

13:34 It was wonderful to see some of the kids that have been there since kindergarten, all the way in 6th grade. The tears of fear of leaving such a safe space. But just genuine love and appreciation for all of the staff there.

13:40 The kisses and the hugs. Just the most amazing experience. So thank you for inviting me to that.

13:45 Of course. Got to attend satellite as well. Rainy, rainy, rainy, rainy night.

13:50 You know, Mister Pruitt, you know, maybe we broke some lightning rules, I don’t know. I don’t know. We won’t talk about it.

14:01 But great, great experience. As well as West Shore. I just want to say shout out to one of their students who, man, talk about brave.

14:11 Gave the most boisterous performance of Michael Blublais. Feeling good and really turned up the crowd that night. It was so much fun.

14:27 And I also had an opportunity to attend the 6th grade graduation of Port Vallemart elementary. Again, a sweet, genuine experience. And man, some of those kiddos had come up on that stage for award after award after award, high achievers, big dreamers.

14:32 And I’m so proud to have been a part of that experience. So thank you for that opportunity. Here we go, Mister Trent.

14:37 All right. Well, graduation time. That was awesome.

14:47 Yes. I had one dry out of my week because it was indoors, but learned a lot. It was my first time around enjoying the graduations.

14:57 It was an honor to be a part of them. The first one started off with Coco highlight and learned a little bit. I know why they won the state championship in football.

15:15 Because if they play football with the intensity that they graduate a class, you know, I don’t pity their opponents. It was pouring rain the entire time and they did not flinch. I was waiting for it to be called, but nope, it was good and it was quick.

15:21 Hour and 15 minutes we were out of there. But performances and everything. It was a great night.

15:29 Merritt island the next night, also the rain, but a different experience. It lasts a little bit longer. Bigger school.

15:40 And the heavens cleared while it rained all the way up to the first announcement of a name. And then it stopped. 376 names later, it started raining again.

15:46 So we need to get out of there and then finish it up with Cocoa beach. We had Edgewood on the inside. Everything was perfect.

15:54 That was a lovely night. And then finished up with Cocoa beach on Friday. It was threatening rain.

16:11 We just got a lot of wind. It was crazy windy there. But what I’ll take from it is what I learned the most is in the Cocoa beach ceremony, there were going to be ten speeches, and three of them gave up their time to just speed up the night.

16:21 And that’s what I’m going to take from that, and I’m going to do the same thing. I could talk about a lot of the different places we went and the students, but we have a packed house. We have a lot to get through tonight.

16:36 So you know what? Good end of the year students and teachers and staff rest up over the summer. We appreciate you and we expect you to be back in August full of energy. Thank you, Miss Ryan.

16:56 All right, well, I obviously in the same boat following graduation week and all the excitement. It’s so funny how being in that room and being around all those students and the energy they have, it just takes you back to remembering what your graduation was like and what an accomplishment that was for our students. And so I had the honor of attending all three.

17:02 All three of mine were in the rain. So we stuck it out, some worse than others. They were all unique in their own ways.

17:16 So I really appreciate Mister Flora, he, at Space coast, you set up a makeshift area, really, for us to graduate at the cocoa complex there. And that’s a lot of work to graduate off site. So I am so grateful for the amazing job you did.

17:26 So many people were really thrilled with how that ceremony went and just thought it was flawless, honestly. And then, miss Miller, we sat in the rain at astronaut for 2 hours straight. You could wring her hair out.

17:30 Miss Klein, I think you were with me there. That was quite the experience. Another fun event.

17:34 And we lost power. Power was off and on. We weren’t sure if it was going to happen.

17:43 And then finally it all cleared up and it did happen. And then miss Gonzales, at Titusville High, we had an amazing time there. They put on a huge dinner for us with their culinary department.

17:49 It was amazing. And then we endured the rain and the wind just like everybody else did. So lots of fun.

17:55 I want to give a shout out to love and sunblock. That was an event that took place at Titusville High School. It happened right before the end of the school year.

18:13 And really, this came about because of an individual in our community who had passed away from skin cancer, and her family. Her daughter actually attends Titusville High School, and her family wants her legacy to live on, and they want to educate people about the importance of sunscreen. And I’ve got the opportunity to go and hand out sunscreen, talking to students.

18:22 I could not believe how many students never wear sunscreen. And we live in Florida, and it was alarming. So I’m like, oh, my goodness, again, guys, wear your sunscreen.

18:24 It’s summer, it’s Florida. It’s beautiful. Wear your sunscreen.

18:30 It’s very, very important. I also want to give a shout out to a student I had an opportunity to meet with at Melbourne High. Miss Riley.

18:41 She asked the board to. She had some ideas that she wanted to present to us, and I took the time to go down and meet with her at her school. And she is standing up, really, in an area that just blew me away.

18:50 So she is students that are working against the vaping that we’re seeing in our schools. Oh, sorry. Is my time up? Yeah.

19:02 So I was just really impressed because this is such a problem in every single school, and for our students to take the initiative and say, hey, I see this as a problem. I recognize it. And I want to partner with you guys and figure out how we can change this.

19:18 So I’m going to invite Miss Riley to come and speak before the school board with some of her suggestions, because she is so impressive that I think, honestly, everyone deserves to hear what she says. And then, Miss Sue, I want to thank you. You have stepped in at an amazing time for us, really, and just, I mean, been unbelievable.

19:25 You have been peace. You have been stability. You have just been really everything that this district needed.

19:32 And I cannot thank you enough for. For stepping in during such a time where it was, it was a little bumpy there for a minute, but we appreciate you. We love you.

19:43 We are so grateful for you. Couldn’t have been done it without you. So thank you so much.

19:59 So I really enjoy having a packed crowd. Many of the individuals that I see here that are being promoted and cheering on the others are former educators with me, former opportunities and friends. So thank you and welcome to Brevard Public Schools school board meeting.

20:19 I really follow the same sentiments as that Roswell Marine. My friend that I used to play rugby with is one of the vice presidents there. They’ve had many, many opportunities, and if anybody has an opportunity to go by there, they’re a canadian company that has some Google esque type areas for their employees to be in and stuff like that.

20:25 And they do some really unique things with boats and stuff like that. So it’s really cool. Graduations.

20:41 Thank you to Ogalley, adult Ed, Rockledge, Edgewood and Viera that I was able to get at. And I also was able to carry my ring of 26 graduations without being rained out at all. So that was good, even though nine of them were indoors.

20:49 But hey, look. All right. But the thing is, is that when those were rolling in, even with adult ed, they were coming in and it was raining and they just kept coming.

21:10 And I will tell you across the board, all of the kids that we shook hands with, all of the kids that were there, we graduate some amazing kids. And the parents that are behind those and the educators that got them there and the principals that they’re a part of, I mean, it was respect across the board. You know what I was really upset about was, remember back in the day when there would be so coming, like air horns, they would be doing dances across stage.

21:17 They don’t do any of that anymore. Like, like, I didn’t see our student. There was no, like, there was no dancing going on across the stage and stuff like that.

21:26 And I was like, what is going on here, man? Like, there’s. Principals are doing a good job keeping that going, the respect level. But I wanted to say thank you to those schools for those graduations.

21:35 I also was a part of that retiree lunch for a short time. Joyce Salomone, one of my principals and a friend. Yeah, she’s amazing.

21:44 Like, she and I, when I was a teacher, she was in the HR office. So I remember her from then and then as we moved forward. But a lot of hats off to joy in her service in our school district.

22:09 And one of the things that I brought up to the team there at the retiree lunch, and I think I’m going to talk to Doctor Rendell about it, is that one of the things we do is we don’t recognize, recognize all the people that have worked here for so many years, except in a board meeting and then a retiree. So what I’d like to do is bring forward an opportunity to put pavers out for the years of service. So if you get above a certain number of years, you get 2030, 40, and you get a paver with your name on it, so that you’re always remembered.

22:32 Because we have so many people that come forward inside of our school district, and many of the retiree days when we were teachers, it would be somebody that had 30 years, and we’d meet them down at the beef O’Brady’s and we’d be like, yeah, it was great. And then afterwards, it’s gone, right? And that service, even though they didn’t do that for a paver or for something, should be recognized somewhere. So I’m going to kind of go with them and mention that to them and see where that cost is, and maybe we’ll bring that back to the board.

22:42 But I did want to say thank you to Brian Neil for your service. Is he back there hiding? He’s hiding. He is, isn’t he? Mister Neal, thank you so much for all your time working with us.

22:59 You’ve carried us through many difficult situations, and I know you have the respect of all of the administrators and, and teachers inside this, this room, and we really appreciate you, Mister Klein. Look forward to, you know what I mean, some good years with you and we’ll see. Yeah, he’s like, I don’t know about this.

23:02 He’s starting to hear the stories already. Starting to fill them in. So thank you.

23:10 Welcome. I did want to say thank you to our north area AlC and Gardendale. I visited them last week.

23:27 Salt of the earth. Many of the principals and administrators know that the kids that are inside your schools that are just out of control, end up there in a high quantity. So we’re trying to get to a place where we can, you know what I mean, get a little bit ahead of some of the services and some of the facility needs that we have there.

23:41 So, it was a good conversation today, and I wanted to say thank you to the individuals that sat with me and met with me, and talked about some of the issues that they had. And I did want to take a second. Oh, I did forget my daughter had her 6th grade graduation and that.

23:52 Let me tell you something, like, honestly, like I’m thinking, okay, now we’re going to middle school, right? There’s the boy thing. And I just, I’m like, this is too much. So I. But thank you to her team over at Suntree elementary for the work that they’ve done with my daughter.

24:06 It’s the same for everybody else, and it’s just amazing opportunity. But I did want to say thank you, sue, for all of your work. I don’t know if everybody noticed, but, like, we had some little bit of chaos going on, and then sue took over and it all went away.

24:13 And there’s a lot of good things that sue does. Works behind the scenes. She gives instant credibility to our district, and she’s amazing.

24:22 And your work during the time followed that entire component that you were delivering right at the beginning. So thank you for all your time. I really appreciate it.

24:33 And we’ve got. Doctor Rendell’s getting sworn in tonight, so we’re getting excited about that, and so is sue, because she’s had a countdown on her thing that has said how many days and minutes that she gets to get out of here. And it’s in, like, two days.

24:37 Right. I think all the way around. I want to say thank you to everybody to be here.

24:42 We’re excited we can get started. And thank you for the people that are leaving and thank you for the people that are coming. So.

24:46 All right. With that, that brings us to the adoption of the agenda. Miss Han? Yes, sir.

25:17 On this evening’s agenda, we have administrative staff recommendations, 32 consent items, three public hearings, two action items, three information items, and one board member report. Changes made to the agenda since release to the public include the addition of AcE seven oath of office for Doctor Mark Grendel, f 18 and f 20 job descriptions for assistant district coordinator, bas and county athletic and activities director, and f 52 legal advertisements. Board report revisions were made to ACE seven administrative staff recommendations.

25:37 F eleven student expulsions, f 13 general fund budget Amendment G 43, school board member, district residence area redistricting and g 45, new middle school attendance boundary. In addition, Southwest Middle school construction management services was deleted. Do I hear a motion? Move to approve.

25:47 Second, any discussion? All in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? All right.

26:09 First is the administration of the oath of office for Doctor Mark Rendell, who assumed the responsibility of superintendent on June 1. Ron Meyer, pastor of Faith Viera Lutheran Church, which is also where I vote, and right around the corner, has known Mark and Heidi Rendell for almost 30 years. He founded Faith Viera Lutheran church and has been baptized all of Rendell’s children.

26:26 So with that pastor, you have the opportunity for the oath of. Do you want to say anything nice about him? If you want to use that microphone up there, we’ll make it official. When we moved to Viera, Mark and Heidi lived right across the street from us.

26:38 So 27, 28 years. Now we’re full circle in Viera. Still, on behalf of a lot of people that know you, mutual acquaintances, just congratulations.

26:47 And I know that this is not a job. This is a calling. And so I think the school of Brevard county schools is in good hands.

26:52 Why don’t you raise your hand? Okay. That’s right. You have your old faith there, Bible.

26:56 That’s right. Pretty good. Repeat after me.

27:11 I, Mark Rendell, do solemnly swear. I, Mark Rendell, do solemnly swear that I will support, protect, and defend I will support, protect, and defend the Constitution and government of the United States the Constitution and government of the United States. And of the state of Florida.

27:24 And of the state of Florida. I swear that I am duly qualified to hold office I swear that I am duly qualified to hold office under the constitution of the state. Under the constitution of the state.

27:41 And that I will well and faithfully and that I will well and faithfully perform the duties of the superintendent of schools of Brevard county perform the duties of superintendent, schools of Brevard county, on which I am now about to enter. On which I am now about to enter. So help me God.

28:00 So help me God. Congratulations. Thank you.

28:05 Pastor Meyer, mister chair. I just might for just a minute. Listen, you’re superintendent.

28:07 This is in your blood. You guys take that thing. Two more days.

28:14 Two more days. I just want to thank the board for giving me the opportunity to serve in this capacity. I care about this community.

28:23 I care about the kids and the families in this community. So hopefully in this role, I can make a difference. I can’t do it by myself.

28:34 It’s all going to be about teamwork. Together, hopefully, we can provide every student with excellence as a standard. I do want to echo some of the other sentiments that have already been made about sue.

29:01 There’s an old saying, a story about standing in the gap, that when there is a leadership void, who will stand in the gap and provide that leadership? And sue has stood in that gap and provided leadership for our school district, and she has done an excellent job, and she’s actually helping me transition more than I could ever have imagined. So I appreciate sue for stepping forward and standing in the gap. Two more days.

29:14 Two more days. I do want to congratulate all of the principals and assistant principals that are going to be appointed and promoted tonight. Being a leader of a school building is a great honor.

29:23 It’s a lot of work, but it’s a great honor. It’s something I’ve done a couple different times and truly, truly enjoyed it. So congratulations to each and every one of you.

29:38 I look forward to working with you as we go forward. Members of the board, thank you again. Miss Rendell.

29:46 I wanted to say thank you for your commitment. Also because being the superintendent, he also needs your shoulders to carry them. And also your time that he’s away.

29:52 So thank you for what’s about to happen, and thank you for the many years coming forward. We appreciate you. Thank you.

30:11 All right, Miss Hand, will you tell us about the administrative staff recommendations? Yes, sir. Mister Susan and members of the board, there are 21 items for your consideration. Do I hear a motion? Is there any discussion? All in favor, signify by saying aye.

30:16 Aye. All opposed passes. Miss Hand? Yes, sir.

30:24 Thank you. I’m so excited to welcome the new members to our leadership team at BPS. You guys are going to do an amazing job, so congratulations.

30:46 And first, I’d like to recognize Tara McPherson. She’s being reclassed from the position of teacher at Mila elementary to the position of assistant principal at Croton Elementary. Miss McPherson.

30:53 Good job. Mister McPherson. I’d first like to thank the board for this incredible opportunity.

31:14 I’m so excited to work along Doctor Bennett and the Croton staff, students and their families. I’m so grateful for my previous administrators and colleagues who encouraged me and supported me along my journey. I’d like to thank my family for always cheering me on, and especially my husband for always having my back and supporting me in all ways possible.

31:38 This upcoming school year is going to be amazing and I’m so excited to be a Croton cardinal. Thank you. And next, I have the honor of introducing Keltie Fernandez who is being reclassed from the position of teacher on assignment at Gulf Hugh elementary to the position of assistant principal at Gulf um, elementary.

31:57 Congratulations. I’d like to thank everyone, I’d like to thank the board, I would like to thank misses Klein and all of our directors. And then of course, I’d like to thank my family and all of my family at Golfview.

32:14 They have truly supported me in this journey and I can look forward to continuing my work at Golfview and being a bobcat. Next, I’d like to introduce Michelle Allred. Welcome to Brevard.

32:23 Being appointed to the position of assistant principal at Ocean Breeze elementary. Thank you. I’d like to start by thanking the board.

32:39 I’d like to thank Miss Klein and the directors, especially Rachel Roberts who tells me to be my authentic self. And I guess that works. I’d like to thank Shelley for welcoming me today with open arms.

32:54 I’d love to thank my family, my son who is an ocean breeze dolphin former student who’s all grown up now. They didn’t know when they hired me that I was a mom, a dolphin mom. So I’m super excited about that.

33:05 Just thank everyone and thank my PBA family. I’m excited to move from charter to BPS. Thank you.

33:06 Next, I’d like to introduce Allison Marlaska, who’s being reclassified from the position of teacher at Discovery elementary to the position of assistant principal at Sunrise elementary. Congratulations. Thank you.

33:30 I’d like to thank the board and Miss Klein for this opportunity. I’m so excited to be a sea turtle. Miss Castillo, thank you for being my champion.

33:42 I would not be here without you. And to my family and my husband, who have been the best supporters. Thank you.

33:56 And next, I’d like to introduce Lauren Edwards Hollis, who’s being reclassified from the position of teacher on assignment at Pombe elementary, to the position of assistant principal at Palm Bay elementary. Congratulations. Thank you.

34:03 Thank you to the board. Thank you to doctor, to Misses Klein. Thank you to the directors, especially Doctor Ivory.

34:28 I’d like to thank some mentors. Mister Mike Mall, Stephanie Woodbury and my PBE family. I’d like to thank my husband for being my motivator, my family and friends and I look forward to continuing to serve Brevard county schools.

34:43 Next, I’d like to introduce Danielle Lavelle, who’s being reclassified from the position of teacher on assignment at University Park elementary, to the position of assistant principal at Sherwood elementary. Congratulations. Good evening.

35:09 First and foremost, this is just an absolute dream come true. So I would like to thank the board, the directors at elementary leaning and learning for granting me this incredible opportunity. I feel like I truly did win the golden ticket and not to give disgrace to any of their schools here, but I mean, they showed up and I am just elated to continue serving within Brevard public schools.

35:38 It took a village of motivation to get me to this point. So I have to take time to thank my children, Travis and Isabel, my husband, who is watching live, and the incredible women that have helped step in at times as a mom when I had to make sacrifices in order to get here, there have been incredible women and leaders. Miss Shaw, who is here from University Park, Miss Diaz, who I know is watching, and my family from Riviera Elementary School.

35:53 I am truly honored and humbled to continue to serve bps at this capacity. So thank you. And next, I’d like to introduce Jamie Minor.

36:13 Jamie is being reclassified from the position of assistant principal at Coquina elementary to the position of principal at Lewis Carroll elementary. And Jamie, I just want to personally recognize you and thank you. Had an opportunity to work with Jamie when we set Coquina on fire earlier this year and she was just a rock star and I was just.

36:22 I was so impressed with your work there. So congratulations. A well deserved promotion.

36:40 Thank you so much. I just also want to thank the board for giving me this opportunity, Miss Lovelace, for giving me every opportunity to grow that’s possible. I think she thought she was going to retire a little sooner and she was just getting me all ready, but she decided that she’s going to stick around.

37:04 And I’m so honored to pass the baton over to Nicole, who’s going to be learning so much from Miss Lovelace because she is the most amazing mentor that there is out there. And I just want to thank all of the directors, Miss Chappie, who has been there along this crazy four years for everything, and all the directors who have been there to support me in my journey. I’ll always be a cougar.

37:19 It’s bittersweet, but I’m super excited to join the Lewis Carroll family. They have already welcomed me with open arms. I’m very excited for this next chapter in serving Brevard Public schools.

37:49 And next, I’d like to introduce William Booth, who is being promoted to a twelve month assistant principal at satellite High school. I thank you. I’d like to thank the board, the leadership of secondary leading and learning, my outstanding principal, Mister Robert Pruitt, my beautiful wife Sarah, and this incoming freshman scorp, also known as my daughter, Kendall Booth.

38:09 Thank you all very much. And next, I’d like to introduce Sharon Knight, who is being reclassified from the position of guidance services professional at McNair Middle to the position of assistant principal at Madison Middle. Congratulations.

38:13 I want to thank the board, of course. Definitely want to thank Doctor Sullivan for this opportunity. Opportunity misses Bowman for always checking on my progress to see where I was.

38:36 Definitely want to thank Miss Wybel for always encouraging me. I definitely want to thank my former principal, Jasmine Delautor, who took me out of the classroom and put me in the position of GSP. But she added a title, dean in training.

38:48 So I was able to get those experiences to prepare me to go to the next level and always teach. I say, yeah, she gave me those experiences whether I wanted them or not. So I definitely want to thank her.

39:04 I definitely have to thank my current principal, Doctor Richardson, for coming in and continuing what principal DeLauto started. I have to thank my McNair family. I know some of them are watching.

39:14 I’ve been at McNair for 17 years. I was a former student there a long time ago when it was Poinsett Middle School. So I have a lot of history there.

39:25 So when I sent them the email, I said, I’m ready because you all prepared me. So blame yourself. So every time you ask a question, every time you wanted to vent, you all prepared me for this.

39:34 I also want to thank Genesis Rowe. I have to thank her. She moved from the assistant principle of discipline to the CC position.

39:42 But I know what I know and I’m prepared because of her. She ran everything by me. What do you think about this? Every meeting dealing with discipline.

39:54 She made sure I was there, so she really, really helped me in my journey. I want to thank doctor lips, my new principal at Madison. I am very, very excited.

40:02 I’m excited to be a mohawk. I am very excited. And I want to thank my mom, mom and my sister for always, always supporting me.

40:24 Thank you. Next, I’d like to introduce Bettina Thomas, who is being reclassified from the position of teacher on assignment at astronaut High to the position of assistant principal at Jackson Middle. Congratulations.

40:31 I would like to thank the board for this opportunity. I have to read off my phone. Sorry, guys.

40:45 I’d like to thank doctor Sullivan for her consideration and just her support. Miss Whitebelt and the office of secondary Leaning and Learning for her support and always saying, you can do this. You can do this.

40:59 My astronaut admin team, Krista Miller, Laura Cantaloupe Jr. Hansen and Jamie Russell for their continued guidance and support throughout my journey to assistant principal. They are absolutely awesome. And if I cry.

41:03 I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Oh, shoot.

41:21 Hold on. I’m sorry. And to my new principal, Jennifer Shockley, for inviting me to become part of a new administrative team and family at Jackson Middle School.

41:34 And I’m going to try to hold this together right now. I’m sorry. But I like to thank my father, who is not present this evening, but is so very proud and is thinking of me at this very moment.

42:02 And my mom, who passed away, but her spirit is with me and I guarantee that she’s bragging right now to angels how proud she is of her daughter and how amazing that I am and how proud she is to be my mom. And finally, if you look around these two, this is my family. Even these guys are my family.

42:14 So to my family who are present this evening, I would not be standing here if it were not for. For you sending. I can’t even read because there’s tears in my eyes.

42:34 Standing beside me, supporting me, encouraging me to persevere through the tough times and pushing me to keep going every time I said I quit. Thank you for loving me enough to get me here. Thank you.

42:50 Next, I’d like to introduce Jeff Jennifer Hughes, who’s being reclassified from the position of teacher on assignment at Palm Bay Magnet High to the position of assistant principal at Bayside High. Congratulations. Thank you all so much.

43:09 I first and foremost thank you to the board for the opportunity to continue serving our amazing students here in BPS. I’d also like to thank everyone that is here this evening. The fact that we have this many people who are vested and have this much of an interest in our school leaders and our students really speaks volumes about the community that we have and the power that we can have for these kids.

43:15 So thank you. Thank you to secondary leading and learning. The leadership there has really inspired me.

43:35 Every training, every workshop, they continue to speak life into our leaders and I am inspired by them daily. I’d also like to thank my current principal, Mister Kaminsky over at Palm Bay, and the rest of the awesome admin team there. They’ve really entrusted me with a lot and I feel like I’ve gained so much leadership experience the last two years.

43:52 Doctor Rendell spoke about teamwork and this is my awesome team that I have with me today. I have my supportive husband, our two small kids, as well as my mom, dad and my parents in law are also here. I’m grateful for the entire community that has cheered me on the whole way.

44:05 And I’m excited to work with Principal Zander over at Bayside High School, Bear Nation. We have a lot of wonderful things coming our way, so I’m excited. Thank you so much.

44:26 Next, I’d like to introduce Doctor Roseanne Harrison, reclassified from the position of teacher at Heritage High to the position of assistant principal at Cocoa High. Congratulations. Thank you very much on behalf of both sides of my family, my mother, my daughter, my son, who Mister Wendell used to know.

44:38 I come from a long line of military service. I chose to serve children and I’m grateful that I can continue to do so. Thank you.

44:50 Now I’d like to introduce Keith Dixon, who is being appointed as assistant principal at Merritt Island High. Congratulations. Welcome.

45:08 First off, thank you to the board and the superintendent for this wonderful opportunity. Thank you to Mister Rehmer for allowing me to join Merritt High School and to become a Mustang. And last but certainly not least, thank you to my wife and my mother in law, for all their love and support throughout the years, I’m so excited to start this next chapter in my education journey.

45:31 And I’m excited to help lead and serve her, our students, to success. Next, I’ll introduce Brian Irvine, who’s being reclassified from the position of assistant principal at Space Coast Junior senior High to the position of assistant principal at Kennedy Middle. Thank you.

45:46 I want to thank the board, secondary leading the learning. I also want to thank Mister Flora, especially at Space coast. It’s been a wonderful breath of fresh air for me after 30 years and it seems professionalism that is there that he has instilled the professionals at Space coast.

46:00 It’s kind of sad, but I am very excited because I get to go with Pap to Kennedy where we get to continue this and we get to continue on with the students. I’m very excited. Thank you very much.

46:10 Next, I’d like to introduce Frances O’Connor, who’s being appointed to the position of assistant principal at Space Coast Junior Senior High. Congratulations. Thank you.

46:24 I first want to thank the board and I want to thank Doctor Sullivan as well for this amazing opportunity. I am the new kid on the block and I’m so excited to be here. And I want to thank Mister Flora.

46:27 Looking forward to it. It’s all about the kids. So I’m ready.

46:48 I’m very excited and I’m ready to work. Next, I’d like to introduce Jona Karikas, who’s being reclassified from the position of teacher on assignment at Central Middle to the position of assistant principal at Central Middle. Congratulations.

47:12 I want to start by thanking the board and the superintendent for this wonderful opportunity. Also, I’m excited to continue at Central Middle School and I’m very appreciative that Miss Smith has given me the opportunity and all of my previous experience has got me where I am today. And I appreciate all the mentorship that I received.

47:25 Next, I’d like to introduce Annevis Williams, who’s being reclassified from the position of teacher at Heritage High to the position of assistant principal at Central Middle. Congratulations. Good afternoon.

47:42 I want to say thank you to everyone on the board, first of all, and secondly, to Miss Heather Smith for giving me the opportunity. I want to give a special shout out to Doctor Harris. He has pushed me over the years since he has come to Heritage High School.

47:48 He’s always said to me, Miss Williams, I can you doing it. I need you to go get it done. I need you to get it done.

47:50 And I finally did it. So I want to thank him for pushing me and for putting me in a position where I was able to show that I can be a leader. I want to thank Miss Vivi Finerson and Mister Melendez, as well as Doctor Manchin, who have been great mentors to me and have actually paved the way and assisted me in every area that I’ve needed.

48:24 I want to thank my daughter and my grandbaby for driving the way to come out and be supportive, as well as all my friends that have showed up today means a lot more than you really know. Thank you. Thank you.

48:42 Thank you everyone. And again, I thank you all. And next, I’d like to introduce Stephanie Booth, who is being reclassified to the position of twelve month assistant principal at Coco High.

48:54 Congratulations. Thank you. I just want to say how completely humbled and appreciative I am to further serve my cocoa community in this new capacity.

48:54 I want to thank my principal, Miss Stewart, for always believing in me when I always believe in myself. For my directors, Miss Lena Weibelt, my other amazing directors, Doctor Sullivan. I’d like to thank Miss Cross, my AP mentor, who no matter what time I call, has always been there with encouraging word and great, great model of what amazing leadership looks like.

49:40 I want to thank the board for modeling for us what it truly means to serve every student with excellence as the standards. Thank you very much. And next, I’d like to introduce Miss Kiera Lang, who’s being reclassified from the position of guidance services professional at Madison Middle to the position of assistant principal at Fiera High.

49:47 Congratulations. Good evening, everyone. I want to first begin by thanking God for his continued grace, mercy and protection.

49:47 I want to give a thank you to Super Superintendent Rendell and the Brevard County Public School Board, as well as both Doctor Sullivan and Miss Bowman. And really, everybody, the phenomenal BPS educational leadership staff and partners in education for your leadership and your stewardship. I’d also like to say muchas gracias to my village of unwavering support that is my family and friends, who really have been my first inadvertent teachers and students as well.

50:49 I want to say to my dearest friends, thank you all for affirming all of my ambitious goals. To my family near and dear, some of y’all watching, thank y’all for just always supporting me and my quirks. And to every stranger that’s really come along and given me a friendly word of wisdom, or just perspective and even correction, I want you to know that I’m really in this position with you in my heart, because of you.

50:54 I am empowered and standing on the shoulders of giants. To every teacher. Sorry, I’m shaking.

51:10 Sorry. To every teacher that’s helped me really tap into my gift. To every coworker that has encouraged my journey, and most importantly, to the community members, the parents, and my super scholars, near and far, I want to say thank you all for being constant and consistent.

51:28 Just beautiful reminders of why I chose this educational path. I love reciprocal learning, reciprocal teaching. To doctor Leps and Miss Donahue and the Madison family who have really just become not just friends, but faithful super troopers and supporters of my goal.

51:40 I want to say I love y’all and thank you because I wouldn’t be here without you. You are a mosaic of tenacity and talent. And I really do appreciate you for polishing up this gym that is me.

51:54 And finally, to Miss Robinson and the Viera high school community. I’m just really elated and looking forward to working under your leadership and joining such an esteemed team. The metaphorical baton is in good hands and I’m excited.

52:06 Thank you, Mister Susan. I just want to say how proud I am to be a part of. Part of such an amazing, amazing team.

52:18 There’s so many great educational leaders here in the room tonight and just thank you for all your service. It’s an honor to work with you and I appreciate all of you so much. And congratulations to our.

52:25 Did we miss someone? A picture? He’s saying, oh yeah, we need to miss Hanwhit. It’s the picture that we. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

52:27 I’m sorry. I’m just. I’m just yakin.

52:31 I think I’m gonna. I’m gonna break it so everybody can lean. Yeah, you usually do the picture thing.

52:38 Anyway, sorry we got our wires crossed. So um. Any just to wrap up.

52:42 Wait, we’re missing one. Are we missing one? We are missing one. I’m sorry.

52:55 I’m so sorry, Nicole. Did I miss you? Oh my gosh, Nicole, I am so sorry. Somehow you got a chance.

53:03 Checked next to your name and I just moved on. My apologies, sincerely. So let me do a really good job here.

53:22 I want to introduce Nicole Hogan. And she’s being reclassified from the position of EsE support specialist and administrative support to the position of assistant principal at the Great Coquina Elementary School. Congratulations, Nicole.

53:30 Good evening, everyone. I want to thank the board and the directors for this amazing opportunity. And especially to Blair Lovelace for choosing me to be at Coquina.

53:38 I’m very excited. My main goal will to make sure to support students, teachers, the community and parents at Coquina. I’m very excited for this journey.

53:48 Thank you. Other than a profound apology. Apology to Nicole.

53:50 I’m done. Thank you. Thank you.

1:02:35 Miss Hand. If everybody that was just spoke, can you please come up so we can get a picture? I’m going to break for five minutes so that after we get this picture, if everybody can leave, then we’ll do public comments two. We are now at the public comments portion of the meeting.

1:02:38 We have zero. We have. Sorry, not zero.

1:02:46 That’ll be nice. So we have 2020 public speakers, which each will receive three minutes. I’ll call up three speakers at a time.

1:02:57 The first three speakers are Joanna Bass, Sarah Mirsky, and Samuel Riposta. Please, let me get this straight. I gotta get this thing going here.

1:03:04 Hang on just a second. Flip this timer. Believe me, we gotta be on top of this thing, guys.

1:03:07 Oh, yeah. Hang on. Let me do a start.

1:03:11 Stop. There we go. All right.

1:03:19 I am Doctor Joanna Bass. Yes, I am Doctor Joanna Bass. Community elected member of the Suntree Masters Homeowner association board of directors.

1:03:52 Please include area one’s well prepared communities in Viera Middle School opening 2024, Area one and Viera align as residential planned neighborhood communities. Viera and Area one are both in Statehouse district three and Brevard County District four. Area one and Viera are geographically linked as one state planning region.

1:04:17 An educational star, Viera has several top performing schools well recognized with professional learning programs. Area one will contribute to that distinction. According to public school review, area one, Suntree elementary consistently delivers students well prepared for middle school.

1:04:43 83% of students score above proficient level for math and 82% score above the proficient level for reading. According to the December 2022 greatschools.org test scores at century elementary are above Florida state’s average, suggesting most students are performing above grade level.

1:05:11 Area one populations are stable with steady rates of population change. According to the 2022 us census, Suntree elementary had a 4% change change in population. Studies show student yearly enrollments are far more predictable when populations are stable comparatively.

1:05:36 U Haul 2022 Growth Index reports the Palm Bay municipality is growing faster than 85% of similar sized cities. U Haul moving company reports people going to Palm Bay in one way. U Haul trucks have jumped 32% year over year.

1:05:50 Please choose area one’s stable communities for the opening boundary of Viera Middle school. Thank you, Miss Bass. Next up, Sarah Mirsky.

1:05:59 Samuel Riposta, Janice Crisp. Good evening, chairman and board. Happy summer.

1:06:13 I’d like to address a couple areas of concerns. First of all, my name is Sarah Mirsky. I’m a wife, a mother of two children in BR public schools and I have a holistic interest in seeing this district be successful.

1:06:44 One of the issues I’d like to address is the discipline issues in policy and bps. I watched the discipline audit with great concern since mental health was only mentioned in one sentence in the PowerPoint materials. I would like to propose that this board put a task force together for discipline with behavioral specialists who use evidence based practice that can develop a plan at the district level, school level, and at the individual level as there are programs mentioned during the discipline meeting and during the audit committee such as scared straight and dare.

1:06:59 Although these programs had good intentions, the data and research show they didn’t have the results they were hoping for and didn’t work. There are other programs and plans that work better for students. The district recently recognized a social worker who had also been recognized by the NASW.

1:07:21 I highly recommend putting people like that on the task force as social workers write plans at the macro, meso and micro levels. The other issue I would like to address is your truancy policy. I was shocked to learn that a parental written note was not an excused absence, and it is an excused absence in other counties.

1:07:40 When I get the recording on my phone, I’m asked to provide a written note or a doctor’s excuse to explain the absence. That is verbatim the message that I get. I agree that there needs to be accountability be in a certain number of unexcused absence and that becomes an actual truancy issue.

1:08:00 However, other neighboring districts accept a parental note as an excused absence. I should think since the parent is aware that the child is not in school should suffice, especially when the parental Bill of rights was signed into law last year. The simple change to your policy can help stop the school to juvenile pipeline.

1:08:41 And also with the wording in the email I got, I was being threatened with parental prosecution two days before school ended. All I’m asking is to take another look at your policy and give grace with parents who always make their child’s education priority. Parents who volunteer, donate and partner with their teachers in school community and you know, many of us had to adjust this year with the buses running notoriously, notoriously late for most of the year, I, as well as many other parents have been understanding, compassionate to the crisis and shortage that BPS has gone through over the past year.

1:08:47 However, it’s another gap in your attendance insurance policy. Thank you. Thank you.

1:09:18 Miss Mirsky, Mister Samuel Riposte please. Thank you for allowing me to speak. My name is Sam Riposta.

1:09:29 I was this upsuit teacher for Brevard county this great year that passed. Unfortunately, I got hurt. I got hurt on the job.

1:09:51 I got assaulted three times out of cocoa because I see a drug deal and I try to stop it. Yes, cocoa Hyde. I’ve also hurt my back because of it.

1:10:05 And I was told that at Cocoa High that when we had a disturbance, I hit a boy. I did not hit a boy. I was told that.

1:10:29 So I left the school and I went to McNair school, which is a Magnus school, grade school. My kids went to that school. Two days after I went there, I guess they got a call from Cocoa High and they tried to pass the buck on again.

1:10:44 So we had a problem there. They were throwing the laptops across the room. I wrote the kids up, nothing happened.

1:10:53 Teacher assistant came, took the kids away, nothing happened. Ten minutes later, the kids came back. Nothing happened.

1:11:11 Big joke. So your tax money is nice and wasted because the laptops being thrown across the room, you don’t play horseshoes with the laptops. When I was in school, they didn’t have laptops.

1:11:21 They didn’t have cell phones either. That’s another problem. We have the cell phones again.

1:11:37 I was asked to leave Coco McNair because I see drug deals and I try to stop them. I went down to the next school, which is. Let me see.

1:11:44 I forgot the one. Oh, thank you. That’s my secretary.

1:11:55 And there’s a joke there, too. Teaching a math class. And I have a degree, but I don’t have a degree.

1:12:08 When the kids get up and they start selling gummies in class, I wrote up a report. Nothing happened. I wrote.

1:12:17 And then I got a letter from Kennedy saying it wasn’t Mister Riposta. Thank you so much for speaking tonight. Appreciate the time.

1:12:23 Please email us with the rest of the. Whatever you had, and Miss Hann, if you can look up. Well, I got plenty.

1:12:25 I got plenty to talk. Please do. Please do, sir.

1:12:27 Thank you. Thank you. If you’ll send that.

1:12:29 Appreciate that. Miss Janice Crisp. Bernard Brian.

1:12:32 Deborah. Chris of Foley. Please.

1:13:08 Thank you, thank you. Before you start my time, could I just ask if you are aware of the bullying and harassment policy towards staff and volunteers? If you’re okay. Bullying and harassment towards student and employee, volunteer and visitors, whether by other students, employees or third parties, is strictly prohibited and will not be tolerated, is what the policy says.

1:13:22 Says this. There’s an individual who sits on the audit committee whose name is Jennifer Parrish, who has had a history of social media harassment in the community during this time. Miss Crisp, I just want to remind you we’re not.

1:13:32 You can’t say anybody else’s name while you’re speaking. So the other board members, you can speak their names, but you can’t speak names from the general public. Sorry, but that’s not what I mean.

1:13:43 No, that’s what. That’s what it is. You can’t place under investigation with her newly founded Moms for America organization due to her social media harassment and bullying.

1:14:05 She has under. With social media posts she has incited with her false accusations and verbal and near physical attack of an individual at a republican meeting. She has created slanderous accusations to be told by others business and careers and who live in the community and volunteer in this school and have children in the school system.

1:14:16 Her attacks have been harmful both emotionally, physically and financially. The rest of her social media posts go something like this. You have zero integrity.

1:14:22 You’re nothing but keyboard warriors, miserable trolls. You need to find Jesus. Seriously.

1:14:35 You are snakes, clowns and white trash. These are just some of her specific posts. And she serves on a committee here.

1:14:48 Secondly, there is another group of individuals, one of them who serves on a committee named Paul Robb. His wife has. Miss Crisp, this is the second time I’ve asked you not to say people’s names.

1:14:53 I’d appreciate it if you said that. Miss Crisp. Miss Crisp, I understand, but we’re do have a.

1:14:59 We have rules and regulations. I’ve asked you to stop. So please continue.

1:15:04 No, Miss Crisp, please continue. Okay. These people have caused.

1:15:17 Caused damage to a certain individual. And you know what has been happening because it’s happened right here on the property. They have threatened to ruin their effing life.

1:15:30 They have docs, this person. They have made images to mock them and had them right out here on the property. And you’ve allowed this to happen, to go against your own policy.

1:15:42 So when are you going to do something about it? Both of these individuals were placed on these committees against your policy. Allowed to happen for over a year. Do better.

1:15:47 Thank you, Miss Crisp. Next up, Bernard Bryan. Deborah Cristofoli.

1:16:00 Kerry Takis. Thank you board for allowing me to speak today. And I’d like to again thank misses Hans for her leadership.

1:16:19 We really appreciate her. I’m here to speak directly toward item number 44 which is the redistricting change that is being proposed tonight. As you are aware, Brevard Public School has been experiencing a lot of instability.

1:16:36 And as doctor Rendell says, someone needs to stand in the gap. So I’m here standing in the gap for our communities. I’m here standing in the gap for the South Brevard branch of the NAACP, as well as the concerned citizen of south Bavada.

1:16:48 We’ve had a change in our leadership, a change in board. We’ve also had a change in our superintendent. We have had rules changes in reference to discipline.

1:17:04 We’ve had dress code changes in reference to new policies. We’ve also had new HR changes. But I’m standing here before you because I’m concerned about the changes that occur coming with this redistricting.

1:17:48 What we are concerned about is that when we look at the standard deviation based on the number of schools that are being moved, the standard deviation is worse. If Brevard public schools align themselves with the county commissioner numbers just based on standard deviation alone, which is the movement from the average Brevard county school system. If you go to this proposal, the standard deviation will shift right around 3.

1:18:09 3%. Your current standard deviation, based on your current alignment, is right around 1.4%.

1:18:31 So what this tells me is that if you approve this change, the average, the deviation in terms of the variation from the means will be worse. So if you can reconsider that, we are very concerned. We do understand that the range is right around 10%.

1:18:46 But if you look at the standard deviation from the assignment of the new board members, it’s a little bit worse. If you accept this proposal, so please consider that it’s not going to get better. Again, this standard deviation analysis was done by the amount of schools that are being reassigned, not based on population.

1:19:02 So please let us know as you discuss it tonight. What are the pros and cons of the changes that are being proposed? And we have read a lot of the public comments, and there are a lot of questions about this. So thank you so much.

1:19:11 I know I have 7 seconds, but I’m concerned about the standard deviations that has taken place. Thank you, Mister Bryan. Next up, Kerry Takis, Christina Rosean and Deborah or David Folbe.

1:19:20 Oh, yeah. Deborah Castafoli, Kerry Takis, Christina, Rosie Roseanne. Go.

1:19:37 Right. Thanks. Go.

1:19:50 You have to start speaking before I do it. I’m here to speak on behalf of one of your book committee members. She has been, she’s received threats.

1:20:04 There are videos all over the Internet calling her expletives. She’s been doxxed, she’s harassed constantly, and nothing’s done about it. The individual that is at the head of the harassment is married to another book committee member.

1:20:11 I don’t see how those two, two can work together when the spouse of that person is. I don’t want to say it, but said, quote, I will ruin your effing life. I will make sure everyone knows you.

1:20:33 And now there’s videos all over TikTok calling for violence against this person all over books. We can agree about the books, we can disagree about the books, but violence is not okay. And I just want to make that known because she doesn’t deserve that.

1:20:39 Whether you agree with her or not, we’re all adults, so I wanted you guys to all be aware of what’s going on. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Takis.

1:21:06 Miss Deborah Criso, fully, please. Sorry about that, Miss Cristofoli. So I just want to say to everybody, if you get a chance, go check out today’s workshop session and listen to Brandi Crisofoli give her presentation on trafficked children in our community.

1:21:23 It is overwhelming, and I could cry just thinking about it. It’s incredible. Thank you for that, by the way, school board bringing that.

1:21:35 So what I’m going to talk about, and my presentation is definitely going to run out of time. And it’s actually planned on purpose because I get really confused when I try to follow the trail of a lot of information, of funding and different programs, and they all seem to morph into being the same thing. And I wonder sometimes how many times does the same thing have to be implemented for our kids? So I’m going to talk about the reimagining middle school program and just a little bit.

1:21:52 And what I did is I must have missed somewhere the work session that was done on April 11, and beautiful presentation was done, and I missed it. So I went back and watched it and took a lot of notes on it. And so these are just Debbie’s thoughts, if you know me, I just have thoughts.

1:22:01 They might not have great order, but they’re disconjobulated on purpose because I get very confused. So from that PowerPoint, sorry for the. I hear that smacking sound all the time.

1:22:15 Sorry about that. The opening slide of that presentation says, we are a committed group of middle school educators dedicated to an intense process of program review, data analysis, stakeholder feedback, and research to ensure that BPs middle school students are and educated in a manner that is responsive to their unique needs. Good.

1:22:25 So when I went to page three, these are just some of these slides that stood out to me. There is a book called the successful middle school. This we believe.

1:22:33 And if you read about that book a little bit, it’s very concerning, just questionable. You know, I don’t know if the general public really is aware of all the information and the literature that comes into some of these programs, definitely they. They have to be read.

1:22:44 Parents need to know about this. Page four. Present findings and recommend changes for BPS middle grades to the school board of Brevard county.

1:22:48 So I would imagine that those findings were at your April 11 meeting. Okay. So if anybody missed it, sorry, you missed it.

1:23:00 A student survey was done, and I’m so tired of surveys. Surveys are great, but they are a pain in the butt. 77% of educators respect and value young people.

1:23:10 That was at the top of the list. The bottom of the list. 44%.

1:23:18 Curriculum is challenging, exploratory, integrative, and diverse. I would imagine that would be the goal to have first that should be at the top of the list. And so something’s really disconjobulated.

1:23:25 It’s not right. If you click on the bottom of slide 25, you can actually do that right now on your phones. You see the Amle, the association of Middle Level Education.

1:23:36 There’s a lot to navigate. There’s so much to navigate that I actually just shut my computer off. I said, really? I don’t know how you all keep up with it all.

1:23:55 Listening to the budget report today and all the programs coming in. Miss Kristen Floyd, thank you so much. Please follow up with an email on the rest of it.

1:24:41 We appreciate your time. Thank you so much. Miss Christina Roseanne, David Falvi and Lynn Hall Hawkins, please.

1:25:05 Good evening. My name is Christina Rosine, and I am a mom and a teacher here in Brevard county. And I just wanted to take a minute to thank this board for partnering with our Brevard County Sheriff’s department and doing everything that you do to keep our kids safe in school.

1:25:22 Years ago, I taught at a public school in a very wealthy suburb of Chicago, and my former colleagues just presented to their board, their school board, about how 65% of teachers in my old school are afraid to come to work and how 28% of teachers in my old school have been physically assaulted in some way while on campus. Thank you for recognizing. Recognizing that here at home, we are having some problems in our schools with discipline and with student behavior and doing everything that you can do in your power to make sure that we don’t wind up with statistics like that here in Brevard county.

1:25:48 This is something that’s very personal to me. On the third day of school, my son was attacked at his school, and he was hurt quite badly, actually. And the best solution that was offered to our family from the principal was the Hope scholarship, which is that he could attend another school in Brevard county that wouldn’t be his home school someplace else.

1:26:09 As a mom and as a teacher, I didn’t find that acceptable. So I reached out to you, Mister Susan, and you listened to me, and you were incredibly supportive. Supportive of me and my family, and I will always be grateful to you for that.

1:26:23 And professionally, this board supports teachers very much as well. Teachers in my school, we needed the support of our union this year, and we wanted the support of some board members as well. And Mister Trent, you were able to come out to our school not once, but twice, to some very long meetings, and again you listened and you were very supportive, and the staff at our school was very grateful for that.

1:26:41 I’ve been doing this teaching thing for decades now, and I have to say, I have never seen a school board work so well with a teachers union. This is just something that doesn’t happen. And I’m certain that every member on this board right here would come out in support for our teachers, for parents, and for our kids.

1:27:02 But I definitely wanted to call out the gentlemen of the board this evening and thank you very much. Thank you all for everything you do for Brevard county schools. Thank you Miss Roseanne.

1:27:10 David Falve, Lynn Hawkins and Julia Anton, please. Mister Falvi? Hello, I’m David Falve. I’m here tonight as a 15 year resident of the villages of Viera east.

1:27:25 And I found out with the new middle school coming in that we were left out of the zoning for the Viera middle. I have three children, six, four and one. You know, we had my oldest just finished kindergarten and we’re very happy and love living in Viera.

1:27:27 We were just kind of taken back by us being left out, basically. I mean, it’s. To me it’s like satellite beach high.

1:27:40 Not having all of satellite beach be able to go there, you know, it doesn’t make sense to me. So basically here to ask the board to reconsider the zoning, to not leave any of Viera out. That’s it.

1:28:18 Thank you. Mister Falve. Lynn Hawkins.

1:28:31 Questions? Julia Anton and Gregory Ross, please. Is Lynn Hawkins here, please? No? All right, moving on then. Is Julia Anton here, please? Thank you.

1:28:50 Miss Antonio, I have a little arithmetic problem for you. I want you to get out of pen and paper and I want you to write down the answer to my little arithmetic problem. What’s 52 minus one? Write it down.

1:29:07 Going to put a pen in it. You’re going to need it later. Earlier this month, I spoke to you about the lasting damage that misplaced priorities did to me and to others from my home state of Alabama.

1:29:22 I talked to you about the fact that even to this day, people automatically expect me to be ignorant and uneducated and a bigot because they watched on the news while misplaced educational priorities. Mister Trent. I’m talking mister.

1:29:37 Susan, can you stop the clock and tell Mister Trent? No, you’re fine. Go ahead. Now, those misplaced priorities, instead of being focused on actual education, they were focusing on keeping little black children away from the lily white ones.

1:29:58 The whole world watched it. The whole world thought it was so stupid. And 60 years later, I still constantly encounter people who think of me as ignorant because that’s where I went to school and that was the priorities there.

1:30:05 So tonight I’m going to continue that theme. But this time I’m not going to talk about how it affects me or other individuals personally. I’m going to talk about the focus on how entire communities have, have suffered.

1:30:23 And as I’m telling you this, I want you to think about what is being done to this community. The suffering has gone on for decades. One example, in the eighties, I was recruiter for the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health, one of the three best schools of public health in the United States of America.

1:30:56 I would go to recruiting events and people would say, you couldn’t pay me to go to Birmingham, Alabama. They would say they were forced, kicking and screaming to go because of their job. They couldn’t wait to get out of there.

1:31:06 They would say they actually quit great jobs in order to avoid going to Alabama. And I see my time running out. But I want to get this in real fast.

1:31:09 That 51 that you wrote down, $51 billion is how much those misplaced educational priorities cost Birmingham, Alabama in a single year. Because Hartsfield International Airport was supposed to have been built in Birmingham, and in Birmingham, the people were so busy concentrating on stupid things that Atlanta took advantage and said, we’re the city that’s not going to be dealing in hate. Atlanta got Hartsfield International Airport, now the busiest airport in the world.

1:31:13 $51 billion a year in difference between Hartsfield and Birmingham’s airport in a single year. There’s way more. But thank you, Miss Anton.

1:31:17 Appreciate your time. Mister Gregory Ross. Paul Raub.

1:31:25 Pamela Castellano. Please. Mister Ross.

1:31:54 Great history lesson there, Miss Anton. Let’s hope people listen. This is the space coast.

1:32:13 Good afternoon, board members. Thank you for allowing public comment during this meeting. Now that 2022 to 2023 school year is over.

1:32:38 I hope the school board members take some time to reflect on what impact their words, actions, policies and behavior have had on the students and employees of brevard public schools. To help the board members reflect over the last six months, let’s review many of the accomplishments of this board since you took office. In the first meeting of the newly elected board, Mister Trent, Miss Wright, and Miss Susan kept their part of a deal with state representative Randy Fine and forced the highly qualified and widely respected superintendent, Doctor Mullins, to resign.

1:33:00 What a great impact that decision has had on our school district. Nothing like a little leadership chaos halfway through the school year, right? The board then sent a winning to begin 2023. The board then failed to do their due diligence and rushed the hiring of an interim superintendent, Doctor Shiller, the board chair.

1:34:06 Mister Susan, even managed to ignore the warning signs given to him by other board members and staff about Doctor Schiller. It wasn’t until Doctor Schiller pointed out how this board was unqualified and incompetent in many regards, and others suddenly realized what a poor and rushed choice they had made. I hope the board members reflect on how they were responsible for the failures in that hiring decision.

1:34:30 Also, in early 2023, Mister Trent made his now famous remarks that Brevard county is a conservative county and that anyone who is not conservative should move on. To top that, Mister Trent then went on to label transgender people as mentally ill. If those two specific acts were not outrageous enough, Mister Trent then went on to laugh at a dislike student’s public comments all on film.

1:34:42 I certainly hope that Mister Trent reflects on his behavior over the last six months, especially considering your campaign slogan was students over politics, right? Finally, and perhaps their greatest accomplishment, the board has failed to bring any kind of responsibility to Mister Trent after the school district removed him from being a teacher for a year after he was outed for lying on his application, the board not only kept silent at Mister Trent’s questionable submittal of Mister Hearn for the same behavior, but even egregiously, the board has stood by and allowed Mister Trent to continue to get paid through brevard schools, access health care insurance paid for by brevard schools, and allow Mister Trent access to thousands of dollars in discretionary funds. I hope the school board members take some time to reflect on what impact their words, actions, policies and behavior have had on the students and employees of brevard schools. My reflection over the last six months, I think many members of this board lacked qualifications, courage, experience, understanding, compassion and knowledge.

1:34:56 Thank you thank you for your time, Mister Ross, Mister Raub. Pamela Castellano and Kelly Kerbin. Please don’t worry, I’m not going to waste anybody’s time with gossip and playground theatrics and so forth.

1:35:22 What I got up here to talk about is I’ve lived in Brevard on and off since the eighties. Love it here. Family’s here, kids were raised here.

1:35:37 And I don’t love that. We are not all of a punchline, but we are part, we are an active, enthusiastic part of a national punchline. And I hear this from friends elsewhere.

1:35:55 People who’ve moved away or people who just know about Florida from the news that on an almost daily basis I’m having to tell somebody, no, that’s really happening. We have a lot of people who seem to take the handmaid’s tale as a how to manual. So they share articles like oh, a lady banned a thousand books in whichever county and those are funny or amusing or oh boy, Florida.

1:36:13 Because they seem, well, that’s just ludicrous. Obviously somebody’s going to see through that. There’s going to be some sort of adult supervision to step in and say, okay, that’s cute, but let’s get back to educating.

1:36:20 So we think that there’s going to be an adult, someone’s going to step in, somebody with the kids best interests at heart, someone who doesn’t think that kids are clueless and helpless. Although the people who think that seem very intent on keeping kids that way. But ha ha, Florida, no adult supervision tends to show up.

1:36:27 And I don’t love that we are part of that joke and we don’t have to be. I mean, let’s look at the book review process. I can argue about how much of that was necessary in the first place, but the adults are joining in the fun now.

1:36:34 Let’s pull the books immediately from the shelves just because they were challenged indefinitely. Anne Frank. The graphic novel of Anne Frank.

1:36:47 Still off the shelves, as far as I know, not on the review schedule. Someday, hopefully. Maybe the diary of Anne Frank.

1:36:53 Again, as I have to tell people very frequently. No, really, that one. This county.

1:37:03 Let’s remove the experts from the review committee. Not super helpful. Let’s add the original challenger of many of the books to the committee.

1:37:16 Okay, that’s a move you can make, I guess. That’s a look. It’s not a good look.

1:37:37 We don’t need to be part of, of a national punchline. We can do it better. There are real problems to address.

1:38:10 Thank you. Thank you, Mister Rao, Miss Castellano, please. Hi.

1:38:32 It’s been a minute since I’ve been here, and I’ve read the comments from the survey regarding the redistricting proposal. I joined my voice to the clear majority in those comments who call this what it is, another attempt at retribution, politics, and the injection of politics into school board business. The first action this board took was to fire doctor Mullins out of retribution and politics.

1:39:05 We all heard Jean Trent state that non conservative voters and parents don’t deserve the same education as conservative ones and should look elsewhere for their education. In addition, the public now knows that Mister Trent sent a request for an investigation into a substitute teacher’s employment application on January 13, and a response was given within five days banning him from employment for 365 days. The same investigation, for the same infraction into Mister Trent’s employment record took four months to close, and he still collects a paycheck from brevard public schools.

1:39:21 He’s also eligible to get healthcare benefits under Brevard public schools. And recently, your board decided to use taxpayer funds to join the Florida Conservative Coalition of school board members. As recently as two weeks ago, Matt Susan was on a radio program threatening the existence of the district’s director of equity and diversity, a purely political move.

1:39:34 You can shake your head, but we all heard it. Why did he choose the conservative talk show to make that outlandish statement? Perhaps because his politics have decided that diversity and equity are bad words from the BPS website. In October 2020, Doctor McKinnon began serving as Brevard Public Schools director of equity and Diversity, a new role developed to support all divisions in transformative and collaborative work to eradicate opportunity gaps, accelerate student achievement for all learners, and ensure a working environment of respect and appreciation for the value of diversity.

1:39:55 And now you want to redraw districts because you can’t fire the elected voices who don’t align with your goals. I worked closely with Jennifer Jenkins when she won her election with strong voter support. One of the key components of her race was the need to address inequities in our district.

1:40:14 We have all watched her fight for Doctor McKinnon to be given the tools she needs to do her job effectively. And we have all watched the majority of you deny her those tools. Please stop playing political games with our schools.

1:40:40 Thank you, Miss Castellano. Kelly Kervin, Diana Webb Haynes, and Maribel Campos. A couple months ago, I attended a town hall meeting featuring Katie Campbell.

1:40:55 During the question and answer portion with the audience, one particular question blew me away. Mister Susan, one of your loudest supporters commented that you always seem to have the right idea, but the way you go about saying it doesn’t always sound as intended. She actually asked Miss Campbell if she would help steer you back onto the train tracks when you start to veer off.

1:41:20 Now, ignoring the sheer audacity of asking a sitting school board member to handhold the chairperson’s hand, the most shocking part was that your own supporters see your communication skills as a weakness. Your lack of communication skills, or as I would put it bluntly, your inability to think before you speak was evident during the Bill Mick radio show on May 15. For those who haven’t heard the interview, Mister Susan cited a speech given by my husband about her youngest daughter.

1:41:40 She has autism and for the first few years of school was a very scary place because interacting with people was really hard. And yeah, one year she was a dinosaur and another wolf, but she wasn’t disruptive to the learning environment. She was quiet, played mostly by herself, and did her work.

1:42:10 So when you immediately chose to state, quote look, there is mental health issues here and quote after talking about her, you can probably see where I have a problem. Autism isn’t a mental illness, it’s a developmental disability and I would expect a former teacher who no doubt taught autistic students at one point or another should know that. Now let’s assume you had a gaff and you didn’t actually mean to insult the 75 million people who have autism and instead were calling furries mentally ill.

1:42:30 Even stat insulted a quarter of a million of people who also arent mentally ill. Ironically enough, between five to 10% of furries are actually autistic. As a mom whos fiercely protective of her daughters, I had a lot of choice words for you after that and im benefiting from the fact that there was a break before the next school board meeting, but it would actually be what you said after that mess that would break my heart.

1:42:39 While specifically talking about furries, you actually uttered the words if you don’t dress weird then you’re okay inside the classroom within the same sentence. Mister Susan, you’ve approached me a lot to try to convince me that you have the best interest of our students at heart, and when I say I don’t believe you, this is why I wasn’t able to be here earlier to talk about dress code and I’m just going to do it really quick as a wrap up. When I showed up here on April 11 said modest and reasonable were subjective and unenforceable.

1:42:45 You agreed with me and I respected that. So I’m really confused why you took out subjective language and added subjective language. And I actually talked to some principals and AP’s about the non human characteristics and I’m going to leave you with a quote from a principal who’s actually put in her resignation.

1:42:54 She said, I’m glad I’m leaving because I’m not going to enforce that. That’s completely unenforceable at the elementary school level. What does that even mean? Do better for our teachers, administrators and staff.

1:43:01 They deserve a board who focuses on clarity and transparency, not whatever this is. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Kirvin.

1:43:23 Next up is Maribel Campos, Rob Dale, Jessica Boycott, Diana Webb. I’m sorry, Diana Webb. Haynes is up now.

1:43:33 Then Maribel Campos, then Rob Dale. Sorry. Good evening.

1:44:02 I just wanted to make a quick statement about this evening when I was filling in my comment card. I’m a little disconcerted about the fact that I had two agenda items to speak about at a public comment and I was told that I have to fit it all in in three minutes. I really find that to be absurd because the agenda items are separate entities and we should be able to address them as agenda items.

1:44:18 This year we have seen many changes in our school system. Some were good, some not so. But I’d like to highlight the ones that are near and dear to my heart and to remind parents to get involved.

1:44:38 We had the uncovering of pornographic books in our children’s school libraries and thankfully, due to the wisdom of this board, these books were removed while being under review by a committee. Many parents worked tirelessly to read the filth our children were exposed to in order to bring light to what’s been going on in our schools. We had a major change in the superintendent’s position and now, hopefully, after trial and error, we’re going to get down to going down the right path with our new superintendent, Doctor Rendell.

1:44:54 He is well aware that all eyes are on him and the expectations are high and we pray he does the right thing by the students, the parents and the administration. We found that the discipline in our schools was completely out of control. Out of control to the point teachers were leaving.

1:45:26 So we found out also there were and are cool cover ups, inconsistent Esser reporting or none at all. Inconsistent policies, inconsistent discipline actions combined with the complete and total lack of discipline in some areas resulted in this disaster. Hopefully we’re on track for better results next year.

1:45:48 One of the most egregious events that I became aware of this year that I brought forth to this board several times was the alleged sexual assault that occurred at Johnson Junior Middle School. This event was so disturbing to me. I lost sleep, cried tears, and knew I couldn’t keep it to myself.

1:46:02 It’s been almost a year later and nothing has been done about that alleged sexual predator out in our school system or justice for the victim. The women protecting the identity of the teacher who had knowledge of this sexual assault have done nothing to come forth with the truth, even though allegedly the Department of education, the head of the department of education stepped up and allegedly said there would be no repercussions to the said teacher who had the information. In light of all of that, it made me wonder if it even happened.

1:46:06 Around the same time, there was an alleged sexual assault that occurred at Space coast junior senior. And after reading the police report, which I’d be happy to give anybody that would like to read it, I’m wondering if it wasn’t somehow a political ploy for some sort of political gain. Lastly, there was much in the news and on social media regarding the Steele versus BPS case.

1:46:16 I suggest those that are running amok on their keyboard look up the legal term dismissed without prejudice. Your reading of the summary of a sealed order, which remains sealed for now, is that there is so much more to come in regards to Ferris. Thank you, Miss Webb.

1:46:19 I appreciate your time. Thank you so much. Please follow up with an email if you have anything.

1:46:33 Miss Maribel Campos, Rob Dale, Jessica Boyco, you’re up. Thank you. Do you need somebody to help you bring that down a little bit? I think it’s okay.

1:46:46 Okay. Okay. Let’s be honest.

1:46:57 The school system has let the parents down. For example, the lack of oversight on the pornographic books that made it to our schools. It’s unfortunate that the decision to allow these types of books in our schools were made behind closed doors without parent involvement.

1:47:04 It’s pretty sad when it took a lot to get these pornographic books out of the schools. This huge disappointment has led me to trust no one. In order for the schools to regain the parents trust again, it needs to be 100% transparent.

1:47:19 The only true representative of the students are the parents. It is not the school district employees, nor the school staff, nor the teachers. And especially not the teachers union representatives.

1:47:24 Representatives. A teachers union represents a teacher. The unions have the best interest of a teacher first, not the students.

1:47:38 A parent has no hidden agenda other than what’s best for the student. As a parent, I want to be sure that my children will get the best education possible in order for them to be independent, successful adults. To our next superintendent, doctor Rendell.

1:47:58 For our new one. A word of advice from a concerned parent. Please put the needs of our kids first.

1:48:10 In your application statement, you wrote that we have to support our teachers in order for them to be able to support this student. I disagree with this statement. Sometimes what a teacher needs or wants is not what is in the best interest of the student.

1:48:28 The parents, along with the school system, have a tremendous responsibility in producing future adults that will one day be running our country. This is why we need to do everything possible to support support the child’s needs. First, we have to continuously ask ourselves what is the best for our students and how can we continue to support them.

1:48:48 The students are depending on us and looking for our guidance. My last and fourth child will be attending middle school next year. On May 4, there was a virtual meeting with the reimagining middle school task force.

1:48:56 The virtual meeting had already begun when I was able to join online. I must admit that was a little bit confused at the beginning as I thought that the parents were going to be hearing a presentation on getting an overview of the reimagining middle school program. Instead, we heard about summer programs and other items.

1:49:07 I cannot type quickly and Doctor Sullivan has stated that she was going to make it a quick meeting. What I would like is for an in person informational meeting with the whole task force present where the parents can ask questions and get answers. Lastly, after the virtual meeting, I noticed that there is not one single parent that is part of this task force.

1:49:16 But not surprising, there are two teacher union representatives on it. This is unacceptable. The parents want a seat on this task force.

1:49:27 I hear all the time how important a parent’s involvement is in our schools. But I’m not sure if the Brevard school district leadership truly wants our input. The parents demand and want 100% transparency in our school.

1:49:34 Wouldn’t it be easier to work together now than the school district face lawsuits later? I support the teachers as long as they support my child first and their needs. Thank you. Thank you.

1:49:46 Miss Campos. Rob Dale, Jessica Boyco, and then Katie Delaney are the last three speakers. Mister Dale.

1:50:37 Good evening everyone. My name’s Rob Dale. I’m the chairman of the Viera East Community Development District.

1:50:59 Had an opportunity to speak with you guys a couple months ago. I appreciated that opportunity. Just as I appreciate this opportunity, I am not here.

1:51:28 I want to emphasize representing the board that I do serve on tonight, though, we have roughly 12,000 residents in Viera east and many of them have been tuning in for all the tapes of the the middle school talks that you guys have been doing, and I think they’ve gone very well over the past couple months, and that’s primarily the reason I’m here. I just wanted to say that we appreciate the comments of those of you that appear supportive of the staff’s recommendation to include Viera east in the new middle school zoning. Including Viera east in the middle school zoning is the right thing to do, and it’s the right thing to do for all the reasons that I listed the last time that I spoke before you.

1:51:51 And just to summarize some of those reasons, again, Viera east has been paying the taxes and been promised this middle school the longest for 30 years. We’ve been paying taxes, impact fees. We appreciate the fact that you’ve taken that into consideration.

1:51:57 We’ve also had discussion about HB one and the fact that we would expect most of our students not to want to attend any other school than Viera middle school. So we appreciate you taking that into consideration. Again, arbitrarily designating Viera Boulevard as an artificial boundary we don’t think is the right thing to do.

1:52:27 And we set that. We think that that does set a precedent for future zoning issues, whether it be county school board, as a lot of government agencies tend to copy the previous, the previous borders. So lastly, the one thing I do want to address that’s a little bit new is people tend to lump Viera.

1:52:33 I grew up in Brevard County. I know what everybody says, oh, that’s where all the rich people live. You know, that’s.

1:52:54 I know the stereotypes, but what I don’t think everyone is aware of is the fact that in the original middle school map, and I really appreciate Miss hand taking this into consideration, but in the original middle school map, roughly 400 affordable housing units were left out of the original map in zone two. And we don’t think that’s appropriate to. Whether it was discrimination or whatever, or just.

1:53:00 Just people weren’t aware of what was going on. But you, mister. Thank you.

1:53:12 If you send an email to us, that’d be great. Jessica Boyco and Katie Delaney, you’re up next. My daughter wanted me to bring this to you and show you, because unfortunately, she couldn’t be here today.

1:53:25 She got a physical issue. She spoke at the last school board meeting. Alyssa Young.

1:53:41 And she asked me to read you guys a little note. It says, hello, my name is Alyssa Young, and as of Friday, I’m a 6th grade student at Suntree elementary. I’m.

1:54:17 I’m here because other kids can’t be. We want to go to a school that’s close to home and not a school that is more than an hour away. We want to go to a middle school and a high school with our friends.

1:54:28 One of my friends is already zoned for the new middle school. But if you vote to keep zones one, two and three out, she will be alone because the rest of us will be zoned for Delora. This is available on the school board website.

1:54:37 This is hundreds of comments from members of the community, parents, teachers, people who work in Suntree and Viera asking to be included in the new middle school. This is over 36 emails to Miss Karen Black, again asking to be included into the new middle school. I’m hoping that you’ll take into consideration the people that you serve, the students that you serve, and include them in the new middle school.

1:54:53 Thank you very much. Thank you for your time. Miss Kitty Delaney.

1:55:38 Thank you. Sorry. I am here to speak today about the redistricting.

1:55:53 I’m standing with the Viera parents. They’ve been here for a long time being promised that school and I think that they should be able to go there. The next thing is the school studies weekly procurement.

1:56:06 Obviously, since we’re so close to the new school year, I understand if that’s something that has to go through at this point, but I hope in the future we look to something different. I’ve done substitute teaching a few times and between that and also talking with other parents that I know and students, it’s okay. But it’s very frustrating sometimes because a lot of the questions you have to do outside research and when kids go home at night and then now they have to research all over the Internet for.

1:56:10 And we’re talking elementary school kids, they’ve been in school for 8 hours. Last thing they want to do is spend an hour on their social studies homework. So I just hope that you guys look into that and kind of maybe get some community feedback.

1:56:15 And I don’t think that this was something that was brought before the board recently. So maybe that’s something that the staff can do at some point. Thank you.

1:56:22 Thank you, Miss Delaney. Appreciate the time. We’re now at the consent agenda.

1:56:37 Miss Hand? Yes, sir. There are 32 items under this. There are.

1:57:08 Come on. There are 32 items under this category. Does any member wish to pull any of the items hearing? None.

1:57:31 I will entertain a motion to accept the consent items with the exception of those moved to approve. Anybody got a second? 2nd good. Any discussion? All in favor, signify by saying aye.

1:57:40 All opposed? Motion passes. We’re now onto a public hearing to address item g, 3043, school board member redistricting residents in district areas. Is there anyone present who wishes to address this item? Seeing nobody else, you’ll be the only speaker for this, Miss Carvin you want to speak to.

1:58:12 Okay, thank you. I think my concern is the reasons why this is actually happening. I think we haven’t been explained what those actual reasons are.

1:58:27 I have my suspicions. Right. They’re very political, obviously, but it’s definitely a concern as to why they’re being done.

1:58:45 So hopefully you guys will go in depth about why this needs to be done and what benefit there is, because, you know, as Mister Bryan pointed out, that there’s some real issues on this redistricting. So let’s just hope the discussion, you guys have some discussion on this item before you vote on it and we can get down to what the real reasons are. Thank you.

1:59:05 Thank you, sir. Next up, Miss Kirvin. So obviously, redistricting is a hot topic because everybody likes to throw around the word gerrymandering, which obviously has a negative connotation.

1:59:30 So far, I’ve heard a lot about how this is going to affect district five, which is where I live in District Three. As far as moving Miss Campbell and Miss Jenkins out of their districts, Miss Jenkins has been very honest from the beginning that she has no intention of running for school board again. So it doesn’t really affect her.

1:59:58 Miss Campbell, at the last meeting that I wasn’t able to attend, I did watch. I heard you say that you felt that the board had made your decision for you because you weren’t going to be able to run for district five again, which is where you have served for the last seven plus years. Miss Ray, you’ve stated that you’re the least affected district.

2:00:03 And Jean, this doesn’t move you out of your district, obviously, with 2024 in mind, Mister Susan’s seat, District four and District three are up. Obviously, Miss Jenkins isn’t running again, so that seat will go whoever decides to run. I had somebody from BrEC approach and ask if I knew that Mister Susan had planned to run again.

2:00:10 And I feel like we know where everybody else on the board is. And if we’re talking about redistricting and cutting off 40,000 voters from the potential to being able to vote, I think it would behoove for the sake of transparency to know what your plan is for 2024, because this, I understand that redistricting has to happen for legality. I don’t understand why we’re redistricting in this manner, especially when it disproportionately puts schools under one member.

2:00:20 It puts less schools under another member. The lines are wonky. It just.

2:00:28 As a resident, I don’t. I have not heard a solid reason for why. And that’s what I’d really like to hear.

2:00:48 Thank you. Thank you, Miss Mirsky. Good evening again.

2:00:59 My name is Sarah Mirsky. I’m a wife of two children in Brevard public schools. Mother and wife and college student.

2:01:13 But when I moved to Brevard county, my child, my one child was. I was zoned for different schools in different zones. So these past two years, my children have attended Brevard public schools.

2:01:34 One of my children went to a school that I didn’t have a school board representative for. And it’ll be interesting. I know there is discussion about maybe rezoning McNair to district one.

2:01:52 That means that my children have gone to three different zone schools since we’ve been in Brevard county. Something I did propose to the county review commission. County charter review.

2:02:19 Sorry, I’m getting these things straight in my head. County charter review is that the voters are able to vote district wide for school board members, but that quickly got shot down. But what that would do is it would bring the solution to, with all these rezonings, that voters would not be shut out of voting.

2:02:26 Everybody would be able to vote district wide for school board members running in their district. The other thing is that you guys, as a board, make choices at the district level. So the choices that you make as a majority affects all of the students across all districts.

2:02:29 So just kind of keeping that in mind, I do live in that weird part of Rockledge where, like my county commission and different schools and my state representative got all changed around. And I do appreciate this board taking, being financially conservative with following what the county commission is doing. However, there are lots of concerns and it’s very confusing to taxpayers and voters.

2:02:40 Thank you. Thank you so much, Miss Mirsky. Does anybody wish to speak on this item? Hearing.

2:03:11 Oh, okay. Hearing none. Is there.

2:03:45 Do I hear a motion? Do I hear a motion? So moved I have a second. 2nd. Is there any discussion? Yep.

2:04:03 All right, Miss Jenkins? Yeah. I’m not going to say my piece on why I think this is ridiculous and obviously motivated by something, but I’ve already said that 100 times. But I do have a question, because when this was initially proposed, it was first brought to our attention, oddly enough, by a county commissioner who was proposing to pay for the fee that would go to the supervisor of elections or putting money towards it.

2:04:22 So that it would cost us less money. And Mister Susan had advocated that it would be cheaper for us to go with the county commission maps because of that. And so my question to I would assume, Mister Gibbs, and if you’re not the right person, you can tell me that is, when the majority of the board votes in favor of this, does the board then have it presented in front of them how we’re going to pay for that? And the reason I’m asking is because again, if the majority of the board goes in favor of allowing the county commission to help us pay for it, that’s on them.

2:04:33 But I want that to be publicly stated because that money is coming from the Affordable Care act and I’m not comfortable with that. So I’m not signing off on taking the money, money from the county commissioners to pay for our redistricting, for money that should be going back to the taxpayers. And that hasn’t been discussed.

2:04:53 And I think it’s important for people to be aware of. So if it’s the proposition that’s going to come forward after this passes with the majority of the board, it may not be anymore. But if it is, we need to know and does it have to come before the board before we sign off and okay it? I don’t have any knowledge about who’s paying for because it’s, it’s not in standard.

2:05:20 I’m not finished. Point of order. You absolutely made that statement, Mister Susan, when you brought it up, you said it is more affordable for us to go with the county commission lines.

2:05:34 And then you had discussions with Mister Tobiah across the street, who presented it at his meeting publicly that he would then take money from the Hoover Middle school project and put it towards pay, paying for this redistricting. If you don’t believe me, it’s on video and it’s in the minutes. You can deny it all you want.

2:05:44 So it is my duty as an elected representative of this county to ensure that if this is to go forward, that if that is to be the decision that is made, it comes before the board publicly because I am not comfortable where those funds are coming from. If your position now is that is is not how we’re going to pay for it, great. I would like to know, and that’s why I’m bringing up the discussion point.

2:05:53 Are you finished? I am. Thank you, Miss Kimball. I’m not going to step back into the conversation before because the boards heard it and I said the last board meeting.

2:06:07 So you would like to hear my take on this? You can go back to the last three times we’ve talked about it. I do want to address a couple things. We had lots of people in the comments and some people were confused.

2:06:16 Some people thought they were talking about the Vera middle school project. Some people thought we were redistricting their schools. And we’re not redistricting any schools because we do that every year.

2:06:43 We only do this every ten years. For whatever motivation, I’m just not going to buy into that. I only believe my own conspiracy theories and I won’t share with them with you tonight.

2:06:54 They don’t have anything to do with this. But I did want to say this. Just make a suggestion to the board that we talked about how we’re going to do the schools in the future.

2:07:05 Because I don’t think the intention of this board is to leave district two with 22 schools to visit, not supervised, because we don’t supervise schools, but to visit and district three. So my suggestion board is for the next year, year, that we just leave it to the, to the schools that we’re representing right now. That we’re overseeing right now, visiting right now until we get whoever’s going to be elected in 2024 and then we make the shift, because this is where we were elected.

2:07:11 So for right now, we just leave it the way that it is. We’re going to vote tonight on the boundaries that will be the next two people who are elected to this board. Right.

2:07:21 But as far as our school relationships, that we leave them the way they are until 2024. We get the new people on board and then we can reshuffle and decide how we. That would be my suggestion as how we move forward on that.

2:07:31 We can have that discussion later. Thank you, Miss Campbell. Mister Trent, do you wish to say anything? No, I’m good.

2:07:39 Okay, Miss Wright? No, I’ve said. I mean, I’ll say again, I know everyone’s asking, why is this happening? Why is this happening? And again, because we have to. We don’t have a choice in it.

2:07:43 It should have happened two years ago. Honestly, this shouldn’t have been a decision this board even had to make. But unfortunately, it wasn’t dealt with when it should have been dealt with, and so now we’re having to deal with it.

2:07:57 That is why it’s being done. So I am in favor of your suggestion, Miss Campbell. As far as nobody’s schools are going to change, that’s another misconception I read in the comments.

2:08:07 Oh, now I’m going to have to go to a different school. We’re going to be zoned for different schools. That’s not the case at all.

2:08:11 Your school is going to stay the same, so it’s not going to change in that aspect. And again, I would challenge anyone who go ask somebody out in your area, hey, who’s your county commissioner? You know, what district are you in for? County commissioner. What district are you in for? School board.

2:08:18 You will be alarmed. I was that people don’t even really know, honestly, which is really sad. But again, the conception of most of our voters is they think it’s the same.

2:08:25 So I’m like, it makes sense to make it the same. That’s all I have to say. Thank you, Miss Wright.

2:08:44 I think that that is a great point. I think both you and Miss Campbell made some great points. The first one is that we were out of compliance two years ago.

2:08:52 We should have done it. And that’s when I made the proposal to move to the county commission prior to you guys even being on the commission. All right.

2:09:01 And then also, I think, prior on the board, prior to any political upheavals on different stuff. And the main reason behind it was that we could work with the county commission on a lawn our districts to save money and resources towards our staff. That was my main argument, along with the confusion and the transparency that it creates across the board.

2:09:20 That is the thing. And it came out before anybody else made any. So these conspiracy theories that this is done politically because of various things are not true.

2:09:50 The bottom line is, is this was the plan that I proposed two years ago before any of this happened. Before any of this happened. So that’s the first piece.

2:10:07 The second piece is that redoing the schools. I’ve sat with individuals that came up and spoke just now and explained the redoing the schools policy process, said that we will work with them and they still come up and they say, I’m concerned about it. The issue is, is this, is that we can redo and do a better job of representing our schools than we could.

2:10:15 If we try to readjust and gerrymander all kinds of districts to try to do it, we literally can represent, because by statute, by statute, we’re supposed to represent all schools, not just the schools that are inside of a specific district. And I will remind people, what I said before is that when you represent a school, that’s just the geographical location. I would say if you looked at us, that probably 50% of our schools, we represent not only the geographical, but somebody inside of one that maybe isn’t another.

2:10:20 So it’d be impossible. For instance, Anderson elementary is geographically, the headquarters is set not inside my district, but a portion of that students are in my district. So it’s difficult when you start trying to draw geographical lines based on the school address rather than the people that are there.

2:10:36 And then there’s a couple other things. I read these comments inside of it. I will say, thank you, Miss Campbell, because people were confused about Viera Middle school.

2:10:51 They were talking about redistricting schools. They were talking about gerrymandering. The current.

2:11:11 The current one that we have is more gerrymandered than the one that is being presented. So the other part of it is just as a reminder, this also gives each one of the board members a beachside that we can represent, and it makes it more fluid where we’re representing both land and beachside. And it’s really good.

2:11:25 This is legally reviewed. There’s 300 plus pages of work that the county commission did on it. Saves between 50 and $100,000, saves staff’s time and prove and said for from the supervisor that it would be easier to go down this plan for him than to go down another redistricting.

2:11:50 Now, looping back to when we came back on the conversation wrapped around, there was some people that were mentioning things inside the comments about, well, there’s, you know, now all of a sudden you have to pay money. And Jennifer Jenkins brought it up. The deal on the money is there’s no statutory law that says that we have to pay for this, okay.

2:12:00 There’s no statutory law that says that we have have to pay for it. Miss Hand and I have had conversations about this back and forth. There is nothing that says that we have to go out and pay the supervisor of elections money because he has to send out mailers to change it.

2:12:15 There’s not. So in conversations when I called other county commissioners, Mister Tobiah, during the time when I was mentioning, hey, is there any issues here, as I would do to do my due diligence as a school board member, to ask about this process that I’ve asked passed before? Mister Tobiah said that he had some funds that in the event that this came up, he would like to cover the cost. But we don’t have to even accept that, and Mister Tobiah doesn’t have to pay it.

2:12:19 There’s a large reserve inside the supervisor of elections that they can use. We are not forced by any law to do that. So I don’t know where the confusion is, and that’s pretty much it.

2:12:23 I mean, there’s not this conspiracy theory that this has been pushed and consistently driven inside the community, and it’s not true. So with that, if nobody else has anything else to say, we can move on. You guys, good.

2:12:28 Move to a vote. Do I hear a motion? We already have that. Okay.

2:12:43 I’m sorry. All in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye.

2:12:56 All opposed? Nay. Three, two. Mister Gibbs? You got it? Yep.

2:13:08 All right. Next is a public hearing to address g 44, public policy 3500, remote work. Is there anyone present who wishes to address this item? Is there anyone present who wishes to address this item? Do I hear a motion? Move to approve.

2:13:21 Second. Is there any discussion? Yeah, I have something. I didn’t bring this up along the way because I didn’t want to restart this entire process, and I needed to dig a little bit deeper.

2:13:36 I would like us to be flexible when it comes to this. Not to pause this and not pass this part. But there’s other positions within our school system that have come to me asking to potentially be considered.

2:13:49 So I just want them to know that I heard you. But I have not yet had conversations with staff or cabinet members about whether or not that might be an idea. And that’s why I didn’t bring it forward to the board.

2:13:59 Physicians like our psychologists and staff who don’t necessarily have an office in. Inside of a school, and they’re kind of traveling back to their office that may be the complete opposite direction of where they’re ending their day and charging mileage to the school district, things of that nature. So I want you to know I heard you.

2:14:07 I haven’t forgotten about you. I will continue to ask questions and advocate on your behalf so that your concerns are being heard. But I’m obviously going to still be voting forward for this, even if you are not considered on it today.

2:14:23 Thank you, Miss Jenkins. Anybody else else have anything to say? Yeah, I think just to address your concerns, that part, I think is on this is on the administrative procedure. So I think we.

2:14:37 That part’s not as less is more flexible than the policy itself. So thank you for mentioning that. Yep.

2:14:42 And they can always advocate through their administration to be able to get the opportunity to do so. So with that, is there any other discussion? All in favor, signify by saying aye. All opposed? 50.

2:14:50 This next is a public hearing to address g 45, new middle school attendance boundaries. Is there one present that wishes to address this item? You do. Come on up.

2:14:56 Tell us all about it. We appreciate you coming. I’m a little nervous.

2:15:22 Why would you be nervous? I’ve never been to the school board meeting, but my eyes have been open. Well, you might. You might be the.

2:15:29 I did not know what it was going to be like until now. You go ahead, you tell us what you want. Yeah, I got you.

2:15:49 I’m here representing my son and my daughter that go to Suntree elementary and Mister Susan came to Suntree elementary and encouraged parents to show up and ask for support. And I was unable to come to the April 11 because my son was actually presenting to local philanthropists to raise money for scouting. And he’s really into stem.

2:15:58 And I’m very, very excited about the new middle school. And I’m hoping. I’m sorry, I get teary eyed.

2:16:11 I just love my kids so much. I’m just hoping the board thinks about some century students. And for example, my son coded his own video game first time at ten years old, and got fifth place for the district of his first science fair project.

2:16:15 And I’m just excited. Thank you for your time. No, that was great.

2:16:32 Thanks for coming and taking your time with us. All right, anybody else wish to speak on this item? If not, do I hear a motion move to approve? Second. I wanted to do it.

2:16:49 Second, I thought you did. That’s why. Is there any discussion? Yeah, I think we.

2:16:51 I think we need Miss Hann to clarify what is actually being included because there’s a lot of public comments that happened today that were mentioning areas that are included in this recommendation. So I think it would be good for her to kind of re overview that really quickly. Yes, ma’am.

2:16:59 The recommended. The recommended boundary includes the base boundary areas one, two, and three as defined on the maps. And that’s basically the suntree area and Viera east area, but the boundary lines are one, two, and three on the map.

2:17:20 Thank you, Miss Hannah. I appreciate that. I just.

2:17:57 I know there was a bunch of public comments that were concerned. Concerned and asking for those areas to be included. And I just want to make sure everyone’s aware of what actually was being recommended in the first place.

2:18:18 Thank you. Thank you, Miss Jenkins, for that clarification. Is there any other people that want to wish to discuss? Yeah, I. You know, months ago when we had this conversation, I shared my concerns, which we all shared at some point, or most of us, but I, you know, I’m going to be voting for it tonight because the staff is, after looking at everything, has made that recommendation.

2:18:52 And I trust that even if we open it up and we ended up overcrowded quickly, that this staff, you have to stay to help solve this problem. We’ll come up with a solution for any things that may arise in the future. I do just have to address a couple of things because, you know, when we talk about what we’re owed or what was expected or what was promised, that continues to bother me and I’ve addressed that before.

2:18:59 But, you know, when we talk about the area of stability versus areas of instability, you know that stable neighborhoods deserve a stable school. And I don’t want to misconstrue the words, but, you know, Sun Tree was compared to Palm Bay and put cast Palm Bay in a negative light. And honestly, I don’t think that’s fair.

2:19:25 I think we need to recognize the difference in demographics. I mean, you know, and I appreciate, very much appreciate that there is affordable housing going up in this area. But the truth is, of course, this research is going to show nobody disputes that stable families in a stable environment are going to produce students who perform better.

2:19:34 Sorry, I’m collecting my thoughts. I’m not, you know, I don’t ever say anything for applause. I’m just trying to get my thoughts together.

2:19:43 But we have students in struggling families in cities all over this county, including Palm Bay, who are driving long distances on buses to get to their schools, who have been there for a long time. And I’m going to say it again, there’s only one middle school in the city of Pombe, which is the largest city in the county that has 100 and probably 20,000. I’ve lost count.

2:20:06 20,000 people, 100 something, 132,000 people. There’s one middle school. We’re shipping students all over the place.

2:20:20 I know we’re going to get. We’re not. Middle school in Pompeii is not on the radar right now because we have an elementary problem we’ve got to deal with first.

2:20:38 But I just, it bothers me greatly when we start looking only into, you know, let’s take care of me, let’s take care of our community. We as a board. It was mentioned tonight in the redistricting conversation that we represent all schools.

2:21:03 Absolutely. I just don’t like the rhetoric because, you know, we’re gonna have a shiny new object around the corner. It’s gonna be fantastic for all the students to get to go.

2:21:37 And I don’t think this district has any intention of forgetting the students who are at the buildings that are 50 and 60 years old. We don’t have any intention to do that, but we need to recognize that. We just need to be careful community in how we speak about those other areas.

2:21:50 In a way, if we communicate in a way that says our community deserves this. Well, what about all those kids down in Palm Bay or Pentitusville or mems or Scottsmore? Those kids deserve it. I don’t care if they come from an area that’s not stable, that there’s people moving in and people moving out and families, homeless communities.

2:22:31 They deserve great facilities, and they deserve top notch teachers, and they deserve every bit of funding and support that we can give them as a board and board, I don’t think we have any intention to do, do anything differently, but when the public comes and says that, it just greatly bothers me. So let’s check ourselves. Let’s check ourselves, because we’ve got 60 something thousand kids in this community that need our support.

2:22:50 And I want everybody in Suntree and Aries one and two and three to have a great school. But at the same time, we have to be careful when we say stuff like that. It’s like we’re saying Dallara is not a great school and McNair is not a great school and Kennedy’s not a great school.

2:23:16 And it’s not fair to those kids. It’s not fair to their teachers, it’s not fair to their administrators, it’s not fair to the kids who are going to be left at those schools who might be thinking, what am I? So, community, the challenges to you, watch your rhetoric, because you’re saying something to those teachers and those students and the communities. And I, for one, don’t appreciate it.

2:23:26 All right. I’d have to go back to it, but I just wanted to say, Miss Campbell, I agree with you 100% and everything that you said, but I think that the speaker that was speaking was speaking to the amount of population, not family size or anything like that. So I think that there was a.

2:23:42 Maybe I’ll go back and take a look at it, but I don’t think that she was saying that it had anything to do with family sizes and stuff like that. So, anyways, I wanted to say how proud, proud I am that this school district is building one of the best middle schools that we will ever have, just like we do every time we build one, just like we do all of the elementary schools and every time that we go to move forward. Miss Hand, this has been a project that you’ve worked on a lot, and you’ve put a lot of energy into it.

2:23:56 There’s a lot of really good announcements that are coming out with a lot of the STEM projects and stuff like that that we do. And I just. I think that what we need to do is honor the.

2:24:12 The fact that we’re doing an amazing thing, just like you said, and hold people accountable if they’re saying those kind of things. I agree with you, Miss Campbell, and I’ll support you 100%. But I think that we need to take a minute and get excited, because what’s about to happen is something that’s very special for our school district and very special for our students.

2:24:28 I want to say thank you for staff’s recommendation to include the other boundaries. Those boundaries are now including all of our students, including the fact that my daughter wouldn’t have been included in the new. If one, two, and three wasn’t inside there, too.

2:24:50 So I think that this is going to be a good opportunity for us all the way around, and I think that it will be the Viera Suntree school, and that’s what the design was originally meant to do, and I’m excited to move forward. So with that, I have something to say. I think.

2:24:58 Yeah, you can huff him, puff. I think I’m just going to. I’m not going to say anything better than Miss Kimball just said, so I’m just going to very quickly re encapsulate everything she just said by saying Brevard Public schools has all of the best middle schools, and we’re proud of them.

2:25:09 And we’re going to continue to serve every single middle school student in Brevard public schools equally and make sure they have access to the best opportunities and education they possibly can have. Okay? Thank you, Miss Jenkins. With that, all in favor, signify by saying aye.

2:25:14 All opposed passes. 50. Congratulations.

2:25:24 All right, next item is age 49. Department, school initiated agreements. Do I hear a motion? Age 46.

2:25:28 Hang on a second, guys. Hang on a second here. Did that good.

2:25:41 I have h. G 45, which is the middle school, and then I have h 48. Is that what you’re talking about? G 46 or age 46? Yeah, age 46.

2:25:45 It’s showing up as h 48 on mine, so. Oh. It’s because there was two items that were removed from the agenda.

2:25:55 That’s probably why that’s confusion. Okay, miss Hand, would you please let us know about the items under the action portion of today’s agenda? Yes, sir. The first item is h 46.

2:26:01 Procurement solicitations. Do I hear a motion? Move to approve. Second.

2:26:12 Is there any discussion? All in favor, signify by saying aye. Any opposed? 50. The next item is age 49.

2:26:16 Department, school initiated agreements. Do I hear a motion? Move to approve. Second.

2:26:31 Is there any discussion? All in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, did you say the wrong number? Yep.

2:26:43 Is it? Okay, next. Yeah. So we got to change.

2:26:55 All your numbers are all going to be off? Yeah. We will move on 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 at these items today.

2:27:04 There are three items under this category. Does any member wish to discuss any of these items? Okay. Hearing number we are on at board member reports.

2:27:12 First, I’d like to provide the board with an update on legal advertisements. Paul, this is just left over from the. Yeah, I don’t know.

2:27:26 I didn’t add that. Okay, so we don’t have any legal updates. I think that’s probably what it was about.

2:27:43 It was about the fees for advertising. I’m sorry, I assumed. But, yeah, we got an email talking about the fees and stuff, so if you guys want to just make sure.

2:28:04 Yeah, I think just so you guys. Just so you guys know, just so you guys know this, we actually pay a very nominal amount of money, and now if we move towards a new amount, it’s going to cost us more money. And I wanted to kind of have that.

2:28:20 What they did, Miss Hann, is, is that the county decided that they were going to move forward with legally advertising on their website. But then they charged money, which is more money than it would cost for us to do what we’d normally do. Now, it might be different for property appraisers and some of the others that have to do those, but for us, it’s actually more expensive to move that.

2:28:28 And I just wanted to make sure, because we all kind of are in favor, that we just continue to move down the road that we are. Just to clarify, I think it’s my understanding from what she sent out that for our regular meetings that we do in the eagle, that’s only, I don’t know, like $25. It will continue with that, but for our special meetings that are a little shorter time frame, we may want to do it.

2:28:43 The county’s website is cheaper than Florida today, which we usually have to use for the short term. So I think she was proposing that we use, use them for those if it’s cheaper, but the overall is that we’re not moving everything to the other side. So.

2:28:58 Yeah. Everybody good with that? Yep. All right, now we go back to the two items that we had from earlier.

2:29:09 We had a special assignment stipend that I put on the agenda. And this kind of went in line with much of what you had said, miss Haynes, earlier. So, like, it was specific to ALCS and Gardendale people and all of that confusion.

2:29:20 And I had put this on the agenda prior to actually getting some of the feedback and then talking to you about some of the stuff that you did. So I’m okay with just saying this is already being addressed and you have your head on it. If anybody else wanted to speak to it specifically, that’s great.

2:29:24 But due to the last 48 hours development, I think we’re in a good spot. I just want to clarify though, that we are, as a board, saying we are in favor of the stipend. Is that correct? Okay, so that’s.

2:29:35 Just want to make sure we’re moving towards that. Yes, I believe Doctor Green has already been working on that and we’ll be working with Doctor Rendell and Miss Stampier, and that should be coming back to you shortly. Okay, thank you.

2:29:57 Thank you. Thumbs up. Yep.

2:30:16 Good. The last topic is the activity wheel media specialist. Okay, so did you.

2:30:34 So I don’t know if you guys have noticed, but if you’ve attended any of our elementary schools and some of the areas, there’s a drastic need for media assistance. And it’s something that we decided to do as a board a while ago. And, you know, since then, we’ve had many increases in activities for these media specialists.

2:30:52 On top of, there’s been, they have actually become more with the technology and all of these things. So I went ahead, met with some of our media specialists, and then in doing so, some of them were on the verge of leaving at the time. And I said, give me a minute, because this is something that I think is in favor of the board.

2:31:07 But I wanted to give before the board to discuss it. The reason behind this was, is that we had some media specialists that were on the fringe of just saying, you know what, we may not move forward with this. And the reason that they were saying is that they really wanted to have a media assistant to help them with a lot of the new, you know what I mean, requirements.

2:31:29 I mean, I don’t know if you guys know this, but I have one school that, I mean, all of the schools that responded are, they actually are seven periods a day. They see all of the students, they see them for seven years out of their schooling. You think about it, k through six.

2:31:34 Like there’s a severe component. And did miss Tammy able to get you guys the information that I had pulled that statistically shows the achievement data that is increased because of media specialists. Did you, was she able to get that to you guys? She said she was having problems with it.

2:31:51 I mean, I can read if you guys want some supporting information, but my goal today was to just say, hey, board, as part of our budget discussion, I would like to ask staff to bring back the cost of it and then make it part of our budget discussion when we come up later as a possible item that we would fund. And if we do it as a board, it puts some sort of significance on it. And that was it.

2:32:12 So that’s kind of an explanation in the beginning. And then I have some supporting information if you guys need to. But Ms. Wright, Miss Jenkins.

2:32:42 Yeah, I’m sorry. Miss Jenkins advocated for this since the day I got on this board, and they already have the cost associated with it because I’ve asked 100 times. Because our elementary media specialists all, every single one of them teaches seven classes a day.

2:33:02 On top of it, they are doing extra duties as a sign, sometimes doing lunch duty, and then they have no time to curate books, to check in books, check out books, while they’re also doing an entire planning of every single class in grade level from k through six. So that should be something that should be able to be turned around pretty quickly. And I see Miss Klein nodding her head.

2:33:22 And the difference between media assistants being in elementary versus being in all of them is actually not even that significant of a number, because I don’t know why, but there’s more of them. But if you could, I would request, if you could send the breakdown of the difference, not just Alan running. I would really appreciate that if it would be in the junior seniors as well, because they also have some quirks to them that they have a little bit of extra duty and responsibility.

2:33:50 Thank you very much, Miss Campbell. Just not to put a complete kink in the plan, but I just want to make the board aware, especially our new board members and even Miss Jenkins, because I think we made this decision before you got on the board. It was part of the staffing plan.

2:34:10 And so not every elementary actually got a media assistant because you had to be a minimum size. So we need to have, when staff brings that recommendation back, they need to bring the whole thing. Because if you were, I don’t remember what the number was, but if you’re under a certain size, you actually didn’t qualify for an assistant before.

2:34:23 So when we talk about bringing them back, are we going to bring them back with the same staffing plan? You know, because we need to not, you know, some of our elementary schools only have 200, 300 students. So I don’t remember what that number was in the past, but I think that needs to be part of the conversation of, you know, how many, because if we put one in every elementary school, we’ll actually bring you back more than we had before. I’m 100% in support of this, honestly.

2:34:31 So when I, when I go to my elementary schools and I walk into those libraries and I see what they’re doing, I’m like, oh, my goodness, they need help. And how long ago was it that the media assistants were removed? It was. It was the summer of 2020 when we made the decision for the next year, because we, we needed every scrap of dollar we could find towards compensation.

2:34:56 It was totally out of desperation. All right, well, and I think now with all the things that have changed, we need one more now than ever. So, yes, I would support putting one in every single elementary school.

2:35:11 Okay, so Mister Trump, she’s like this. No, exactly. A few things.

2:35:19 I worked very closely with the, it wasn’t elementary, but with the media specialist at Cocoa beach, obviously, you know, it’s a seven through twelve, both with the assistant and without. And even in that surrounding it, it worked so much better for the students when we had the media assistant there versus not. And we have an absolute fabulous media specialist at Cocoa Beach.

2:35:45 Miss Colburn there is probably the best. But then my eyes were opened up after I got on the board and visit the elementary schools. Oh, my goodness, do they work? So hats off to them.

2:35:57 And if we can get them help at all, I’m all for that. All right. We’re all good.

2:36:09 Yeah, I just. I want to add something to, you know, those media assistants. I’m not sure why that’s funny, but they also not only help the media, media specialists themselves, especially at the elementary schools, they’re significantly beneficial to almost every single classroom teacher on that campus by supporting them and helping them with copies and laminating and things that you take for granted, how much time that takes a classroom teacher to accomplish.

2:36:20 So they’re really, really helpful there. But, I mean, obviously, board, you need to remember that this is obviously an additional cost. Now that we know that we have millage passed, maybe we can, you know, somehow supplement it there.

2:36:28 But another thing to consider is, when that change was made, it was devastating to some of those people. But. But our district did a really, really good job for anyone who wanted to continue to work in brevard public schools.

2:36:44 They helped them find a position that they would love and flourish in. So it’s not like we’re going to have a sea of media assistants running back to fill those voids either. Some of them are really going to be genuinely happy where they are and.

2:36:47 Or where it’s going to now create voids in other areas like ias and stuff. So it’s just something for us to consider holistically. Thank you.

2:37:06 Anybody else? So miss hand, did you want to say something? No, other than just. I know that Miss Klein and Doctor Sullivan have been looking at this and have submitted proposals as part of their budget submittal. So that definitely will be in the context of the budget conversation coming up.

2:37:22 Beautiful. Thank you. So I just wanted to say.

2:37:26 One of them emailed me and said that last year she had checked out 25,812 books. They end at 04:00 every day and they work to finish at 232 45 and then are there for an hour and 15 hours and a half and 30 minutes. And it’s.

2:37:30 And I had spoken to Doctor Rendell before he brought this forward and they think that there is a way, whether it’s through the millage like you said, Jenkins, or through another way to be able to fund this. So I wanted to just say thank you so much. I had a feeling that you guys felt that way, but I wanted to bring it before you before we started talking and thank you.

2:37:40 So I think that’d be great. You do? As another board discussion item. Yeah.

2:37:53 Okay, great. Go ahead. I just wanted to get board approval.

2:38:01 I would like to invite this student that I met with at Melbourne High to come and present before us at our next board meeting. I just wanted to get consensus that everyone would be in favor of it. They’re part of tobacco Free Florida.

2:38:07 She is taking this initiative to really look into how we’re going to stop and help through educating our students with the vaping crisis that we see in every single one of our schools. So is everyone in favor of me inviting this student to come and present to us? Yep. Yeah.

2:38:20 And just work with, you know, we’re workshop board meeting. What are you thinking? Or let Tammy and. Yeah, doctor Rendell.

2:38:28 Yeah. Just wanted to make sure you guys were all okay before I reached out. Yeah, okay, sounds good.

2:38:32 I have one more. Go ahead. Actually, can I just jump on that real quick? I don’t know if it’s the same student, but we’ve had two female students come to this boardroom multiple times advocating for the same thing.

2:38:43 So I’m wondering if we can. I’m wondering if we can figure out who they were and maybe kind of put them together and connect them. It might be part of the same program.

2:39:13 It might be the same. It is the same. I was gonna say I was gonna say, I think it’s the same thing.

2:39:41 So if we can just try to be inclusive with them as well, because they’ve been here twice already trying to advocate for the board to listen to them. Thanks. So we’re good.

2:40:01 Everybody good on that one? Yeah, just another item and we don’t have to hash all this out tonight. But you know, between last board meeting and this meeting, we had someone submit a list of all almost 300 books to be challenged. And to be quite honest, and I, you know, this was in the Florida Today article, but you know, it was frustrating to me because it was clear that the person didn’t even really, my opinion, even vet their own list.

2:40:13 Because in the mix of a bunch of Bible stories and things like that was also a book about the Grand Canyon and Ripley’s believe it or not, and a book about Helen Kelly and a book about Mesopotamia and George Washington Carver and detective Dan and a clean joke book. Then we also had the cupcake Bible and the backyard bird Feeders Bible, a to Z guide to feeders, and the origami artist Bible, which I’m pretty sure this last three don’t have anything to do with the Bible. So I think.

2:40:38 Bored, that part of this is a result of us allowing people to put challenges in anonymously. And I think it’s an unintended consequence. But, you know, I feel like if we, you know, the original request for it to be anonymous was because of, you know, people didn’t want to put their address on.

2:41:00 And I get that. So if there would be a way, I would suggest if we, if we, if we have any movement on the board to go back into rulemaking on this, we don’t stop the process. We keep going with the committee as it is, but to redo the policy.

2:41:10 The meantime, in the future, we’re going to have to look at it anyway, again, because the state laws have changed. I think Doctor Sullivan earlier, or maybe Jane, that there’s some changes just passed it, we’re going to have to probably tweak it a little bit again. But when we do the tweaking, the next time that we take away the anonymous option, if we want to make the form where they don’t have to put their address, I totally get that they have to prove that they’re a citizen and so there’s a place to check.

2:41:26 They have to submit it to a person if they don’t want to put their address on there. Just like they’re doing, the anonymous people are doing now. They’re showing, you know, I am a resident of Brevard county, but I think it’s, I, this is, this is ridiculous and it’s wasting time for, to me, what seems spiteful.

2:41:46 But, you know, we’re going to have to go through the process. Of course, this is not the formal process. And to the people who have reached out to us or reach out to me, I’ve had several by phone or text or email.

2:42:19 They’re really concerned about, you know, what’s going on in the books that were on the list. You know, I’ve just told everybody it’s an informal process right now where the district is identifying where these books are and having the principal and the media specialists at each school, you know, review them again and see for appropriateness. Nothing’s been removed.

2:42:32 It has to go through the formal process, which the anonymous submitter would have to do one on every book that they want to do the formal process on, and tell why and all of that. And it’ll go through the committee and it’ll be removed from the shelves at that time. But I just, this is going to log jam the process, and I don’t think that was our intention.

2:42:46 So I would like us to reconsider when we look at this policy again, allowing people to submit anonymous book challenges, because I just, I think we’re going to get a lot of this and I think people need to just stand up and challenge what needs to be challenged. They haven’t had a hard time coming to us before and talking about them from the podium. And I understand the negative backlash that comes sometimes when you stand up for what you believe in.

2:42:59 Believe me, I understand that. And we get paid to take that backlash. Other people in the community don’t get, get paid to get the backlash, but, you know, I want people to stand up for what they believe in, what they think is right, and share what they think is wrong.

2:43:21 But I don’t like that anonymous option that we put in, and I think that’s a change we need to make. All right, mister chair, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to comment. Yeah, I’d like to speak on that also.

2:43:35 Yeah. Way too many books put in for the informal review. And for months we’ve, and we, and we know it was out of spite and revenge and just my suspicion.

2:43:45 It’s the same people that got up here for months talking about how we don’t have respect for media specialists, putting them off a committee, which they’re not off a committee. They are a committee of one in the informal process. They are the ones that are having to take those books and, and review them, that’s the time.

2:43:55 And that’s the respect we have for our media specialists. Those who want them to read the cupcake Bible, they’re not going to win on this. I will be supportive of the anonymous putting forth of books.

2:44:01 We have reasons why people’s careers, their families have been threatened. They will not win on this. We will change the policy.

2:44:05 I agree. And we will make it where those just, it won’t work. I will do whatever I can to get the right books in front of our media specialist.

2:44:14 I’m not blaming the media specialist. Many of them don’t know what’s in all those books in the library. It’s not their fault.

2:44:31 They’ll be able to take it out. That’s their vote. I haven’t said a lot in the process.

2:44:42 And then if it goes on the formal, they will still be there to ask questions of. And then we’ll have our five representatives voting. We may have to change some of that policy.

2:44:54 We’ll talk with Doctor Rendell, we’ll talk to the people on the instructional review material review committee to see what’s best that we can get those books quickly off the informal and not go into a formal. There’s absolutely no reason to. We’re not going to back down to their games.

2:45:10 It’s not going to work. We’re here for our kids. We know what books needs to be off and that’s what we’re going to fight to be able to do.

2:45:17 Okay, I’m leaving this one alone. Anybody else? Good. I would just say that I do think it’s pretty, pretty ridiculous that they made that request.

2:45:27 It does do a lot of the different stuff that is. I mean, it’s basically chicken because they’re making a big argument over this process and everything like that, and then they just go throw all of that down. So hopefully staff will move through, we’ll have the informal process taken care of and we’ll move forward.

2:45:47 And if that’s anything. Does miss hand, do you have anything to say in the last item? I do. Okay, go ahead.

2:46:05 Oh yeah, that’s right. Thank you Mister Susan and members of the board. I just want to say I really appreciate the opportunity that you all gave me.

2:46:18 Over the last eight weeks. I have learned so much about this district, especially with my friends in leading and learning and student services where I didn’t spend a lot of time being from the facilities in the operations world. So I’ve learned a lot and it’s going to make me a better facilities person.

2:46:45 Like I’m going to be able to better serve our students because I know more about the work that’s happening in those arenas and that’s really been valuable experience for me. So thank you for trusting me with the district and the leadership role that you assigned me for the last eight weeks. I really sincerely appreciate that.

2:47:00 It’s been great. Everyone involved has just treated me so wonderfully, has been so helpful. My cabinet friends, thank you for all that you have done to support me when I’ve not been able to do my real job.

2:47:02 The folks in facilities have just, you know, stuff happened and apparently I’m not actually needed there is what I learned. But it’s just, it’s been an amazing eight weeks and I’m so excited to have Doctor Randell in the leadership role and I’m looking forward to supporting you and doing everything I can to make your job easier. I think you’re putting together a great team and I think we’re going to do great things in the district.

2:47:25 So very proud to be here and thank you so much. Thanks, sue. We love you.

2:47:35 All right, here we go. Here’s the love fest. Here it goes.

2:47:42 I know. Thank you for helping us end on a bright note. You are amazing and so trustworthy, such a woman of integrity and clearly have the support and just of the team that you worked along with all these years and just to step up into this role.

2:47:56 We so much appreciate you and the stability that you provided. And we would have never known. Anybody from the outside would have never known that you were delving into these areas that you didn’t really have to.

2:48:19 To touch before because you. That’s just a mark of a good leader and I appreciate you so much. And the brownies.

2:48:32 Thank you. Yes. Yeah, I. I appreciate so much the love and affection you immediately provided our staff.

2:48:45 Who, who needed that the most. Integrity is the perfect word for the person that you are. You are experienced, you are capable, you are absolutely tremendous and valuable and I hope that you never, ever, ever forget that.

2:48:54 We appreciate you so much. Your colleagues respect you and adore you and I know that they are forever grateful for you stepping in and filling that void. So thank you very much.

2:49:03 Yeah. So it sounds like a going away party, but it’s not. You have lots of work to do, right? You didn’t open your email, did you? No, I’m just kidding.

2:49:10 You’re here and we need you and somebody in your position you’re gonna like. What I have to say is, job well done. Yeah.

2:49:14 You did what we were hoping you would do. That’s not as common in today’s society, so. And then you not only did what you were supposed, you did a lot more.

2:49:22 Those conversations were really good. I enjoyed actually talking to someone that didn’t have an education background for once. I mean, that was really.

2:49:32 It was good. It was refreshing. So thank you so much.

2:49:43 Thank you for the gift. Sorry. I opened it up during a speaker, whoever emailed me that, but I don’t have a problem with that.

2:49:51 Thank you so much. All right, Sue, I absolutely. I’m like, you came in and fixed the transportation thing that I felt like I was jumping up and down about for a really long time.

2:50:05 And within two weeks, I think you came in and just cleared the way and heard the needs, and I just cannot thank you enough, honestly. So I’m a hugger, so I’m gonna come over there and give you a hug and tell you thank you so much. Don’t go anywhere.

2:50:23 We need you here. Here in Brevard county, we are so appreciative of everything that you’ve done for this district, and it’s an honor, honestly, to work alongside you. So thank you.

2:50:31 I’m hugging you out. Okay. Should we do this? Suing on the team from when you transitioned into the position you are now.

2:50:32 And then from there, as the representative for facilities, I’m honored that you did the time that you did, and you did so well that in the event that you’re here for another ten years and Doctor Rendell retires, then we’ll just call you back. But I did. I did just want to say thank you for everything you do.

2:50:40 One of the things that I love about you was, let’s get to work. And that’s what we have to do now as a district, is get into our things and get moving. And I know that we’re better off because you’re here. So thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Good? You’re good? Yes. All right, gavel us out. You want to say anything? Good. All right, we’re done.