Updates on the Fight for Quality Public Education in Brevard County, FL
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8:29 Mr. Paul, roll call, please.
8:31 Mr. Susan.
8:32 Here.
8:32 Ms. Wright.
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8:33 Ms. Jenkins.
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8:35 Mr. Trent.
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8:36 Ms. Campbell.
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8:47 and to the Republic for which
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8:54 for all the first topic to
8:56 hold a public hearing for board policy 5511 dressing and
8:59 grooming is there anyone present
9:00 who wishes to address this item is there anyone present who
9:04 wishes to address this item
9:06 is there any board discussion
9:08 i was just gonna say thank you to mr reed and miss klein for
9:16 interpreting our many
9:19 items of discussion and getting them all in there somehow in a
9:22 coherent fashion i appreciate it
9:24 good job anybody else all right next topic is social media
9:29 litigation you guys have the floor
9:32 thank you steve sharp and tear sharp and tear law firm hang on
9:40 hang on i got you now you got it oh
9:42 we’re better so sorry i want everybody to hear me steve sharp
9:46 and tear sharp into your law firm
9:48 one of the few law firms that was educated almost solely by brevard
9:52 county schools
9:53 starting with the fifth grade and coquina all the way through
9:56 titusville high school
9:57 eastern florida state college and then on off to ucf then fsu so
10:02 you know i kind of have the state
10:04 covered there but we really appreciate what you guys are doing
10:08 and along with jonathan keefer of
10:11 wagstaff and cartmel and stephen mayor of the mayor law firm i’m
10:16 here today to kind of
10:17 kick this off and we’ll hear some more from john about the
10:20 specifics but we’d like to talk to you
10:25 about the social media litigation issue we also refer to it as
10:28 social media addiction and if you’ve
10:31 read and i’m sure you have any of the articles going around the
10:34 country on this issue it is on the
10:36 forefront as far as our track record with you all we are in the
10:41 process and toward the end of the jewel
10:44 litigation so this same team was selected by you all to do that
10:49 and i i think uh we’ve done a really
10:53 good job with your help and we’re still delivering on that and
10:56 delivering in a good way that i hope
10:58 makes a positive impact on brevard county schools we also this
11:02 same team was part of the team that
11:04 represented brevard county in the opioid litigation and we are
11:08 again we’re not quite as far along in that
11:10 case but we are toward the end and doing very well on behalf of
11:14 the county so i think our reviews will
11:16 be good i think our track record and credibility and
11:19 communication skills are good and working with
11:22 your council and both the county’s council and their teams and
11:25 your team has worked out very very well so
11:28 we have a little bit of a track record also part of our team who
11:31 is not here today is kendall moore
11:34 who’s been very valuable and very helpful especially with the
11:38 communication aspects so what i’d like to
11:40 do is turn it over to somebody that didn’t go to brevard county
11:44 schools but is very well educated
11:46 and that’s jonathan keifer and he’ll give you some more details
11:48 on where where we are and where we hope
11:50 to take you thanks steve as mr sharpenter indicated i’m john keifer
12:01 from the law firm wagstaff and cart mill
12:05 along with steve mayor from the mayor law firm in winter park
12:08 and mr sharpenter we’re here to talk
12:11 about litigation we’ve brought against several social media
12:14 companies on behalf of school districts
12:16 nationwide forgive me if i’m talking a little bit fast i
12:19 understand you have a full agenda today
12:22 and i’m going to try hard to stay within the allotted time mr
12:25 sharpenter mentioned briefly the jewel
12:28 litigation i’m going to touch on that very briefly at the outset
12:31 primarily because i understand there are
12:35 some board members today that were not on this school board in
12:40 in late 2019 and early 2020 when we
12:44 initiated the jewel litigation and this litigation against the
12:47 social media companies in a number of
12:50 respects is similar to that so i want you to know a little bit
12:53 about that and kind of our experience
12:55 with this type of work um in dis we uh my law firm was the first
13:00 law firm in the united states to initiate
13:04 litigation against jewel labs maker of the popular e-cigarette
13:08 on behalf of school districts for
13:11 essentially the the plague that was unleashed within the public
13:14 schools and kind of the creation of a new
13:17 youth nicotine epidemic we did that in 2019 i’m happy to say
13:22 that certain school districts in florida
13:24 were among the very first who were willing to step out front and
13:28 help us lead that litigation
13:30 we litigated that case hard and did most of the work in the
13:34 middle of a pandemic late last year there
13:38 was a global settlement breached against jewel labs and certain
13:41 individual defendants that’s been reported
13:43 in the news media of about 1.7 billion dollars that’s on behalf
13:48 of about 1500 school districts nationwide
13:51 the remaining defendant who did not settle is a large tobacco
13:55 company by the name of altria also known as
13:58 philip morris they own the marlboro brand we went to trial
14:02 against altria and two and a half weeks ago i was in a
14:07 a courtroom in san francisco close to the end of the trial altria
14:10 settled that case
14:12 um on behalf it was a school case san francisco unified school
14:15 district i’m proud to say a school
14:18 was the first entity in the united states to go to trial against
14:21 these companies they settled that
14:23 litigation for 235 million dollars so as it relates to brevard
14:27 county um your recovery should be a little
14:30 under 2.5 million dollars from the jewel settlement and then
14:34 close to another 800 000 from the altria
14:36 settlement so um we’re pleased and proud to have represented you
14:40 all in that and um to provide
14:42 resources um that we hope can certainly be used to to assist
14:47 with that problem um in that litigation we
14:51 also represented a number of other florida school districts palm
14:54 beach county one of our clients was a
14:56 bellwether case meaning they were second or third in line to
15:00 have their case tried if the uh if the san
15:02 francisco case had gone all the way to verdict um there’s a
15:05 number of them here on the screen brevard
15:07 was one of the early ones um and i know board member susan and
15:11 campbell were supportive of that
15:13 litigation when we brought it forward we appreciated that
15:16 support then we appreciate that support now
15:18 it’s really easy to jump on board when 1500 other school
15:22 districts in the country have joined
15:24 litigation that’s been ongoing for three years we think it takes
15:27 a little more courage to to be one
15:28 of the first to step out and you all were one of the first and
15:31 we think you should be commended for
15:32 that um just briefly um in in the litigation we also ultimately
15:38 represented um some of the largest
15:40 districts in the country new york city public schools chicago um
15:44 clark county nevada and again
15:47 we feel like one of the reasons we were able to do that is we
15:49 were the literally the boots on the ground
15:51 litigating the case but we also um had an early show of support
15:55 from from brevard and some of the other
15:58 districts here in florida so what’s the social media litigation
16:02 all about well a lot of you have
16:03 probably seen news reports about increasing public attention
16:08 increasing attention in the public health
16:11 research community about the adverse effects of social media on
16:15 youth just last week the surgeon general
16:19 issued a very sober advisory about the detrimental effects of
16:24 social media on youth this is not
16:27 unlike the jewel litigation in late 2018 the surgeon general
16:31 issued an advisory about an e-cigarette
16:33 epidemic among students um and singled out you know jewel as the
16:38 cause um litigation was already
16:41 ongoing at that time and certainly grew thereafter um the
16:45 surgeon general’s advisory runs 20 pages plus or
16:49 minus and for any of you that have the time um for that sort of
16:53 reading um it’s an eye-opener and i
16:55 would i would recommend it to you um he also gave an interview
16:58 on cnn last week i don’t know if any of you
17:01 caught that um that’s under five minutes i happen to watch it um
17:05 i think it’s it’s worthwhile viewing for
17:07 anybody in the school community of particular note one thing
17:12 that he said several times which resonated with
17:15 me is that the social media platforms so meta which some of us
17:20 know as facebook but that’s facebook and
17:23 instagram tick tock youtube snapchat they run off of algorithms
17:28 mathematical formulas so kids for example
17:32 aren’t just necessarily viewing whatever their hearts desires
17:36 lead them to they are being fed a stream of
17:39 content that is mathematically derived sometimes through the use
17:44 of artificial intelligence
17:46 for the purpose of keeping their attention on the social media
17:51 platform that’s called engagement
17:54 these platforms only make money by selling ad revenue if anybody
17:58 has a facebook account you know you can
18:00 create a facebook account for free so how does facebook make
18:03 money they make money by selling ads
18:06 and the more users are on their platform and the longer amounts
18:09 of time those users spend on
18:11 the platform the more ad revenue they can charge so when we
18:15 initiated this litigation
18:17 and sued these platforms we treated it like product liability
18:20 case and we said look if you
18:22 make a car in 2023 and it doesn’t have a seat belt and somebody
18:25 gets injured or killed in an accident for lack of a seat belt
18:29 you’re liable the same thing we contend should apply to these
18:32 social media platforms these are not
18:35 passive platforms like in the old days when i went to high
18:39 school if you wanted to talk to a friend you
18:40 picked up the at&t telephone line and you called them and spoke
18:43 to them on the other end these platforms
18:45 platforms are not passive their algorithms are a product they’re
18:50 a product that they create they’re a product
18:52 they create for the purpose of profit and they are a product we
18:56 contend that is defective it’s unreasonably dangerous
18:59 as it pertains at the very least to miners and teenagers and so
19:04 we believe they’ve got potential liability there so
19:07 we’re very happy to see the surgeon general um echoed our view
19:11 um in his interview to cnn
19:13 that these are in fact products we expect manufacturers of
19:16 products to adhere to certain
19:18 safety standards and if they don’t there should be consequences
19:21 for that notably i thought he also
19:24 said we don’t expect parents to inspect motor vehicles and
19:28 understand all the engineering behind them so as
19:32 to reach a conclusion about whether those vehicles are safe for
19:35 kids that’s not the job of parents
19:37 certainly parents have a role to play as it relates to their
19:40 kids social media but these algorithms are
19:42 complex they’re opaque they are not disclosed and i think it’s
19:46 it’s beyond the realistic expectation
19:49 for any parent that they’re going to have any meaningful
19:52 understanding of the type of content that may be
19:54 being served to their kids a couple of recent statistics 45 of
19:54 high school students report using social media
20:02 daily i think that’s a low number frankly uh 24 of teens report
20:07 being online almost constantly again
20:09 that’s one survey i think that’s a bit low facebook has until
20:14 recently dominated the market in 2021 it had
20:18 almost 3 billion users ad revenue for facebook in 2021 was 115
20:24 billion dollars and again as i said a moment
20:26 ago they only make their money through users spending time on
20:29 the platform
20:31 our litigation was given a bit of a jump start some of you may
20:34 be aware of this but there’s a young
20:36 lady by the name of francis haugen she gave an interview to 60
20:39 minutes and then testified before
20:40 congress she is in effect a whistleblower from facebook left the
20:44 company she was in sort of their
20:46 youth protection so they call it area and what became convinced
20:51 that they were not serious about doing
20:54 anything that would protect youth from the adverse effects of
20:57 their platforms and in fact we’re doing the
20:59 opposite she left facebook a couple of years ago took a trove of
21:02 documents with her
21:03 that show that certainly facebook or meta as it’s now called is
21:09 it was and is well aware of the
21:11 impacts that its algorithms have on kids these are from internal
21:16 documents from meta
21:19 they report 13.5 percent of teen girls say their platform makes
21:24 thoughts of suicide or self-injury
21:25 worse 17 percent say it makes thoughts of eating disorders worse
21:30 and one in three say
21:31 instagram and facebook make body image uh worse for kids
21:37 especially girls in spite of that knowing that
21:40 facebook set a three-year goal to create more products for preteens
21:45 and their internal documents from 2020 say
21:48 why do we care about tweens or preteens because they’re a
21:51 valuable but untapped audience and as
21:54 we stand here today they are still making efforts to get younger
21:58 and younger people on their platforms
22:01 other platforms are increasing in popularity and frankly
22:06 starting to overtake facebook and instagram
22:10 youtube tick tock which many of you i’m sure have heard of and
22:13 snapchat
22:14 so litigation was initiated late last year like the jewel case
22:20 there are individual cases that have
22:23 been brought by for example families of teens who’ve committed
22:27 suicide as a result of problems associated
22:30 with social media kids who’ve had eating disorders and hospitalizations
22:34 as a result of social media and school
22:36 districts um there’s litigation consolidated in the northern
22:39 district of california federal court
22:42 which is where our jewel case was and there’s also some state
22:45 court litigation that’s consolidated
22:47 in los angeles that’s the exact same kind of legal track that
22:52 the jewel litigation followed
22:53 the defendants in the case are meta snapchat snapchat tick tock
22:58 and google
23:01 and the crux of the case is that these platforms individually
23:04 and collectively through their
23:06 algorithms are designed to and in fact do foster social media
23:10 addiction particularly as it relates to youth
23:14 i’m going to skip past a few of these slides because i know we’re
23:20 limited on time and i’m
23:22 trying very hard to stay within my time frame a lot of these
23:24 things i’m scrolling past are
23:26 in the internal facebook documents that we have as a result of ms
23:30 haugen’s congressional testimony
23:32 symptoms of social media addiction are everything from
23:36 modifications to mood to behavioral cognitive and
23:41 emotional effects withdrawal symptoms if kids are kept off of
23:46 social media conflict that results
23:48 between kids that initiates on social media and relapse you may
23:54 see in the school arena declined academic
23:57 performance sleep disruption anxiety depression etc the question
24:02 may be asked so what are these
24:05 platforms supposed to do about it well there’s various things
24:07 that we contend they should have done
24:08 and their internal documents indicate that at different times
24:11 they’ve considered some and have not
24:13 that is limit the hours that notifications are sent to kids
24:17 limit the hours that kids can access certain
24:20 of the platforms or certain type of content limit features of
24:25 their algorithms which so far
24:27 they’ve been unwilling to do and limit the use of social media
24:33 influencers
24:36 schools here like in the jewel case are very much on the front
24:40 lines of this and it’s everything from
24:43 disruption in the classroom for example teachers trying to teach
24:46 while kids are preoccupied with their
24:49 phones or messaging or sending photos student conflicts that
24:53 arise on social media the tick tock challenge
24:57 that um i’m sure some of you have heard about which has resulted
25:00 in you know school property damage all the
25:03 way up to increased demand for um student supportive services
25:08 student mental health services directly tied to
25:11 social media use we recognize that some of these problems are
25:15 complicated some of them are multi-factorial
25:18 i think there’s been a lot of press about teen mental health
25:22 issues sort of writ large
25:25 and different factors have been implicated in that certainly um
25:29 distance learning during the time of
25:31 the pandemic has been one factor but over and over again what
25:35 you’re hearing more and more what we’re
25:37 hearing from our school clients is a very substantial part of
25:41 these problems arises from from um use of
25:45 these social media platforms and the kind of content that they
25:48 feed to kids um i talked about some of the
25:52 the impacts on the schools and again we could talk more in depth
25:55 at a not at a session where we want
25:57 some time limited about the very specific impacts on brevard
26:00 county um some of the schools we’ve talked
26:03 to depending on the schools have spent hundreds of thousands and
26:06 in some cases millions of dollars to
26:08 deal with the problem to increase student support etc and like
26:12 it was the case with the jewel litigation none of
26:15 this is going to be fixed overnight um we don’t have the um you
26:19 know i’m not a legislator um and i’m not
26:23 i’m not a prosecutor so i can’t change the law and we can’t send
26:27 anybody to jail but what we can do
26:29 is sue them in massive litigation and try to make them pay a
26:33 whole lot of money which we think directly
26:37 hopefully will give schools resources to help address these
26:41 problems and indirectly will de-incentivize
26:44 these companies from some of their previous bad behavior if you
26:47 hit them in the wallet
26:48 the thinking goes you get their attention and hopefully you
26:52 change behavior
26:53 a number of schools have filed already um our or have signed up
26:58 our client clark county nevada i think
27:00 it’s about the fifth largest in the country has voted to join
27:03 this litigation uh orange county florida
27:06 i apologize for the typo on the screen i was tweaking this over
27:09 the weekend i didn’t catch that but
27:11 um orange county here in florida has voted to move forward with
27:14 us um and there’s a number of others
27:16 and we’re we’re confident i don’t want to get ahead of any of
27:19 our other clients but based upon conversations
27:21 we’ve had with the florida clients we represented in jewel um we’re
27:25 confident that that most if not all of
27:27 them will likely come along in this litigation um the litigation
27:31 model that we’re following here is
27:33 largely the same as what we did in jewel it’s called public nuisance
27:37 same legal theory i won’t take up
27:39 our time to to get into that today but that’s part of the theory
27:42 that was used in the 1990s to fight
27:44 the big tobacco companies and the mayor law firm uh mr mayor and
27:48 his uh his father mike mayor were
27:50 instrumental in achieving that result for the state of florida
27:53 it’s the litigation model we used in jewel
27:56 and it’s the one that we’re pursuing here um as in jewel um we
28:00 do this work exclusively on a contingency
28:03 basis so that’s all time all expense if we are unable to
28:06 generate a net positive financial recovery for
28:10 brevard county um we don’t get paid uh it’s as simple as that um
28:15 it uh it’s it’s meaningful litigation
28:18 it’s socially important litigation um we think it’s litigation
28:22 lots of schools um need and frankly many
28:25 are welcoming um and in our situation kind of what you get is a
28:29 law firm that has a depth of expertise
28:33 in these issues nationally and we always partner with the best
28:37 of the best sort of local law firms
28:40 in this case the mayor law firm and mr sharpenter who are you
28:44 know plugged in with the district and
28:47 can be sensitive to to your needs and the things that are unique
28:50 about brevard county so that’s really
28:54 it for the comments that i had today i appreciate you giving us
28:58 time to consider this i’m happy to take
29:01 questions now or at another time or come back but we really do
29:05 appreciate you um giving this your
29:07 consideration it’s been our pleasure to represent you up to this
29:11 point so thank you so i appreciate
29:13 your time i want to give the school board members a second to
29:15 maybe comment towards this if that’s okay
29:17 yeah certainly um do you guys have anything to mention thank you
29:22 um obviously this is a major concern uh we’re
29:28 well aware of it as a community and as a society i think um and
29:33 so this might be heading in the right
29:35 direction um don’t know if you guys got to check out bama rush
29:39 yet check it out oh because it it plays
29:42 right into this conversation and it’s really eye opening to the
29:46 effects of our kiddos who started
29:49 when you know facebook and tick tock all that kind of started
29:51 and now they’re transitioning into adulthood
29:53 so um take a take a peek into that that’s not really the point
29:56 of it but that’s what i took out of
29:57 that out of that um so thank you i appreciate it i i think i
30:00 know the answer to this but because this is
30:02 being done publicly i just want to ask this question in case the
30:04 public is paying attention how long
30:07 potentially can a litigation like this last how many years it’s
30:10 a great question um almost all our
30:13 clients ask it and we the lawyers ask it because we have a lot
30:16 of time and and resources invested in
30:18 these cases uh the answer is it’s always hard to say um we have
30:23 typically the larger the more complex
30:26 and the more at stake particularly money in litigation as a
30:31 general rule those cases go longer
30:33 than cases that are simple or the stakes are smaller we’ve had
30:38 some of these cases stretch on for over
30:41 five years the jewel litigation we were really pleased we went
30:46 from basically the inception of that
30:49 to to full resolution including a trial that was about two days
30:53 from going to the jury in a little
30:56 over three years against huge companies including the largest
30:59 tobacco company in america
31:01 and we did that substantially most of the workup of that case
31:04 was done in the middle of a pandemic
31:06 so it was done remotely um to be candid with you i would say
31:10 that’s a little atypical on the short
31:12 side um could it go longer than that it absolutely could could
31:16 it be less time than that it could as well
31:18 it’s it’s hard to um it’s hard to read the tea leaves in these
31:23 cases one thing i will say um and i don’t
31:26 want to get out over my skis since this is a public meeting
31:30 these companies um are manic about protecting
31:35 their algorithms and their internal documents this sort of
31:38 litigation puts those things directly in the
31:41 crosshairs that kind of information is usually the type of thing
31:46 that is sought and obtained in whole or in
31:51 part in the early stages of a case so depending on how this
31:56 unfolds there could be business side incentives
32:00 that the companies have to you know come to the table earlier
32:04 rather than later in this case but
32:06 that you know that’s that’s speculation on my part but the last
32:10 thing i will say is
32:11 um we would not anticipate a lot of ongoing need for resources
32:16 and support from brevard county
32:19 whether it were to last a year or five years just to pick two
32:23 numbers in the jewel case brevard had
32:26 to fill out about a 45 question questionnaire um kind of doc
32:31 with things as basic as how many schools do
32:34 you have how many students do you have and then some questions
32:38 you know a bit more complicated but in most
32:40 cases it took anywhere from a half a day to a couple of days to
32:44 gather that information we would anticipate
32:46 a similar process here unless brevard was selected as a bellwether
32:51 school district um to kind of go
32:54 through full discovery and potentially a trial and we don’t put
32:58 any of our clients forward as a proposed
33:01 bellwether unless they want their name proposed um you know we
33:04 don’t have any interest in having our
33:06 clients sort of involuntarily thrust to the forefront so even
33:09 though i’m sorry for the long-winded answer but
33:11 i wanted to be complete even though the litigation could go on
33:15 for a while we don’t anticipate there’s
33:17 going to be a need for ongoing work and support from the
33:20 district in any substantial way regardless of
33:24 how long it goes on thank you and and i understand that answer
33:27 is going to have a million variables and a
33:29 a couple of offshoots that we can’t predict um but i appreciate
33:32 that very much just because uh if
33:34 this something is if this is something that we do pursue as a
33:36 board i can see hopefully with
33:38 conversations that we’re going to start having a little bit more
33:40 focused on the mental health of
33:42 our students i want the public to be aware that this isn’t
33:44 something that would just you know turn
33:45 around and generate revenue and changes for us all right all
33:48 right
33:48 miss Campbell um sure so thank you and thank you for your work
33:56 and uh all your firm’s work on the
33:58 the dual litigation um so this one’s a little more complicated
34:04 and i i think um certainly having
34:08 you know three teenagers of my own i see you know that problems
34:12 that have arisen uh especially
34:14 in that area when it comes to social media that the tricky part
34:18 is for me jule’s an easy decision
34:21 um you know because there’s there’s no good healthy purpose
34:27 right for that you know social media is a
34:30 two-edged sword i mean there are there are the harms but then
34:33 there are the great benefits our own
34:35 district you know we have social media pages on all those
34:37 platforms that we use um for it’s because
34:40 it’s a tool and so my thoughts you know we’ve got all you know
34:45 obviously social media’s been in the news
34:49 when it comes to the state legislature also congress is taking a
34:53 look at there’s more focusing on you
34:56 know the international aspect of it um but i’ve seen some things
35:00 some social media cases even i think
35:02 have gone all the way to supreme court at least on some early
35:05 decisions so what have you seen in that
35:08 kind of trial basis that might kind of lead you as far as what
35:11 the supreme court or however far it might
35:14 go what they might do for a company like this when it comes to
35:17 verse amendment rights i’m just trying
35:19 to figure out you know is it as much of a home run as jewel
35:23 seemed to be yeah those are great questions and
35:26 there are several there um i guess the first thing i’d say as it
35:29 relates to the jewel case
35:30 and i’ll borrow your term of a home run we’re pleased with the
35:34 outcome obviously that outcome
35:37 certainly was not preordained or even visible on the horizon
35:41 when we initiated the litigation and i can
35:44 certainly tell you it it took a lot of not only hard work but
35:47 threading various needles legal needles
35:49 factual needles etc to kind of get that litigation to where it
35:54 ultimately landed you’ve obviously as it
35:56 relates to social media you’ve obviously been paying attention
36:00 the case in the supreme court there were
36:02 two actually the lead case is called gonzalez versus google and
36:07 there was another similar case involving
36:11 twitter the supreme court actually handed down a ruling on those
36:16 cases within the last month and
36:19 without getting us stuck in the legal weeds because we’re time
36:22 limited the real issue before the supreme
36:24 court was a statute called section 230 and section 230 is a law
36:29 that was passed in the in the 1990s in the
36:32 very early days of the internet and it gives broad immunity to
36:36 these social media platforms and the idea was
36:40 this industry the internet and it was really designed for the
36:44 internet before any of the social media
36:46 platforms even sprung up the idea was in those days the internet
36:51 is sort of like a telephone line
36:53 right and so if you think about you know an old mob movie the
36:58 mob two mob guys plot a robbery or a
37:01 murder over a telephone line AT&T isn’t typically liable for
37:05 that just because somebody did something bad using their
37:09 communications network so the thinking behind section 230 was
37:14 just that this internet is a brave new world
37:16 it’s in its infancy we don’t know where it’s going to go so we
37:20 as congress are going to give immunity to
37:22 these internet providers otherwise so the thinking went they
37:27 might be hit with a barrage of lawsuits
37:29 well that’s all fine and good but that was over 25 years ago
37:33 nobody had thought about facebook or instagram
37:36 or tick tock and certainly nobody had thought about these
37:40 algorithms that are feeding content to youth
37:42 at those points in time the gonzalez case involved someone who
37:47 died in a terrorist attack in europe and the
37:50 allegation was that google search utilities were used by members
37:56 of a terrorist group to target the terrorist site
38:00 and then people were killed including the the daughter of one of
38:03 the named plaintiffs and the suit was brought
38:06 under what’s called the anti-terrorism act and the question was
38:10 does section 230 provide immunity for
38:13 bad acts done under the anti-terrorism statute different than
38:16 our case the supreme court decided the case
38:19 on very narrow grounds it did not give any wholehearted endorsement
38:24 to section 230 it also did not repeal
38:27 section 230 and it said that issues for another day gee maybe
38:31 congress and the legislature will take it
38:33 up at some point in time the way we view it is it doesn’t impact
38:37 our case at all because we’re taking a
38:40 very specific tack with this case and that is we’re treating
38:44 these platforms like a product just like a car
38:47 without a seat belt to use my earlier example and our view is
38:51 section 230 does not provide immunity for
38:54 that um this is if if if a platform is building a mathematical
38:59 formula that serves content to minors
39:03 that they’re not necessarily even asking for um that’s outside
39:07 the ambit of of section 230 immunity so
39:10 i said i wasn’t going to get into the legal weeds and i kind of
39:12 got into the legal weeds that’s what happens
39:14 when you get a lawyer talking um but we feel like the case um is
39:18 and will remain viable um and and
39:22 and i’m not casting stones at congress or state legislatures but
39:26 those wheels are often pretty slow
39:29 to turn and those wheels are oiled by industry lobbyists and all
39:34 sorts of things and so we’re all in favor of
39:38 more regulation we’re in favor of more legislation and the tool
39:43 we have in our particular toolbox is
39:46 litigation and it’s not this wouldn’t be the first time that the
39:50 litigation tool is sort of out front of
39:53 the of the of the of the legislation and the regulation tool gotcha
39:58 but i agree with you it’s a um it’s
40:01 it’s a complicated case it’s a complicated issue um it’s stuff
40:05 that parents and kids and teachers are all
40:06 wrestling with but um we feel like this case can do some real
40:10 good so right thank you thank you miss
40:12 campbell uh that’s right sure all right um thank you for this
40:18 presentation honestly i i’m in favor of
40:20 this because the the social media aspect of what it’s doing to
40:23 our children it’s alarming it really
40:24 is and i think being at the forefront of it is better than being
40:28 behind it um miss campbell what
40:30 you had said about it being a tool age appropriate i think is is
40:33 really where we will see this headed
40:35 eventually but that’s going to happen through legislation um it’s
40:39 complicated as a parent
40:41 who has kids that that are trying to navigate through the same
40:44 thing i grew up in a generation
40:45 where we didn’t have social media so then now you as a parent
40:48 are trying to parent children that have
40:50 this tool that we’re not 100 familiar with so um i think it’s
40:54 very very wise to go at it from the
40:56 product litigation aspect i think that you have some winnable
41:00 things there so i’m in favor
41:02 of this um i appreciate the work that you guys have done with
41:05 jewel and i’m looking forward to
41:06 hopefully one day we’ll see we’ll see the legislation step in
41:09 there but the speed of government is very
41:11 frustrating so if we can do this and we can litigate and get
41:13 there faster then i think that that’s
41:14 probably a good thing for us mr trump without repeating uh it is
41:19 very it’s going to be a challenging
41:23 you know for you and and it’s going to take a long time and and
41:27 i’m glad you’re going to be there
41:29 fighting because i’m also for it i’ve got five kids of my own
41:32 and we’ve been there from the very
41:34 beginning and it is uh it takes up a lot of time in parents days
41:38 uh just to talk to their kids about
41:41 it and and and it’s it’s like having somebody else living in
41:44 your house with your with your children and
41:47 it’s uh it’s a it’s a constant concern with within households so
41:52 it’s it’s worth it’s worth battling
41:55 so i thank you yeah um thank you paul if i could ask a question
42:01 so in the jewel litigation we moved
42:04 forward with you know what i mean this through a process what do
42:07 you what is the process about
42:09 it seems like we have a majority of the board members that are
42:11 willing to i know we haven’t had real deep
42:13 in-depth conversation about it but what would the process be
42:16 would they bring forward a active
42:18 engagement like at mlu and how does that work board gives
42:21 consensus to move forward and yeah they’ll
42:23 send their retainer agreement and they’ll get put on the agenda
42:27 okay all right and then if that was
42:30 something that this board was to move forward with doing how
42:32 long does it take you guys to bring back
42:34 that letter of engagement matter of days okay all right so so
42:38 here’s here’s where i’m at i want to
42:41 say thank you mr mr meyer for um in the late 90s i worked for
42:44 greenberg truorg as their legislative
42:47 coordinator in tallahassee and i watched a lot of the
42:50 legislation i also was an intern up in the capitol
42:53 because i went to florida state also political science major and
42:57 what i did was i watched on one
42:59 hand where they were transitioning many of the tobacco farmers
43:02 and a lot of what they were doing and then
43:04 also figuring out what to do with some of the money to engage
43:07 inside of our communities to make sure
43:10 that this didn’t happen again and when you look at it from that
43:12 perspective it’s one thing but then
43:14 when you look at the perspective of what the tobacco farmers are
43:17 not with the tobacco farmers but what
43:18 the tobacco companies were doing then to make that happen was
43:22 absolutely disgusting what they did
43:24 and what brought about those lawsuits so i want to say thank you
43:27 for the time i did want to know that
43:29 that was a big deal up there um jewel when we sued them
43:32 originally just so everybody knows my reason
43:35 that i did it was not because i thought that we would i didn’t
43:37 know if we’d win i didn’t even care
43:39 i knew what they were doing to our kids they were targeting them
43:41 and i just wanted to basically punch
43:43 them in the face so with me going forward with the lawsuit was
43:46 saying you know what who cares how this
43:48 thing turns out we’re going to take action in some way because
43:50 sitting back is something that i never
43:52 like to do so from my perspective when we did it i was not
43:55 looking forward to how much money we would
43:58 get how long it would take i just knew that if we engaged with
44:01 them that it would start the process
44:03 of holding them accountable because we have no other way like we
44:05 can’t pass stuff yeah it’s illegal to do
44:07 inside of our schools but we can’t pass state legislation and
44:10 all the other things so it gave us an opportunity
44:12 so thank you for that um what i was looking at was when we look
44:17 at this stuff and we say do we move
44:19 forward do we not you look at basically is what they were doing
44:24 to us targeting our children and then
44:27 did what they were doing when targeting our children affect
44:30 something that we have we have evidence
44:32 inside of our school district that social media created such a
44:35 problem that we then had to come back
44:37 and reinforce our cell phone policy which meant that we had
44:40 issues inside we had teachers that testified
44:43 in december about that and i feel very strongly that that’s an
44:46 issue and if they are targeting our
44:48 students to for these behaviors creating a psychological problem
44:51 with them to do that i think that that
44:53 gives us a huge opportunity to move forward um i also some of
44:57 the things that we dealt with
44:59 was not only that but we also had a lot of teachers that felt
45:02 like some of the things that we were
45:04 dealing with basically they were sick and tired of dealing with
45:06 inside the classroom because they
45:08 didn’t have control of their classrooms anymore when they
45:11 started having these situations it was really
45:13 hard to teach so thank you for that but my key is is that has
45:17 they done anything have has facebook has
45:21 tick tock has any of these guys done anything to try to offset
45:25 the effects that are happening inside of
45:28 our schools and i can’t find any that’s where i was where i came
45:31 to can you talk to that a little bit yeah nothing of
45:33 any consequence at all i mean you hear you hear lip service from
45:37 time to time but there’s no
45:38 there’s been no um no changes that any of us are aware of in
45:44 their business practices their algorithms
45:47 we haven’t seen anything proactive done in terms of youth mental
45:52 health or school type things i mean
45:54 again i i hate to keep reverting to the jewel example um but to
45:58 play off of mr sessions comments um i’m really
46:02 glad he brought it up because i don’t mean to to suggest this
46:06 stuff is all about money because i’m a civil
46:09 litigator that’s the only recovery we can get for our clients
46:12 unlike the prosecutor that can send somebody
46:14 to jail or a legislator that can change the law but to his
46:18 comment about in the early days of the jewel case
46:21 weren’t really thinking so much about money as just sort of
46:24 punching them in the face to use his term
46:26 that’s what really impressed me going around the country talking
46:30 to school boards which i don’t think
46:32 as a group as a category of people i don’t think school boards
46:36 are that litigious right but i was and
46:39 this was before covet and that preoccupied everybody but what i
46:44 was really stunned by was the number of
46:46 school boards with exactly that sentiment where we’ve got to do
46:49 something we’ve got to say something
46:51 we’ve got to take our stand we got to punch them in the face try
46:54 to get their attention that actually
46:56 worked you can’t always quantify the benefits but i can tell you
47:00 jewel is still trying to get fda
47:02 approval for its product which is a whole nother story but in
47:06 begging the fda to allow it to remain
47:09 on the market it set forth a litany of things it will do and a
47:12 litany of things it will not do if it’s
47:15 allowed to remain on the market um all of which have to do with
47:18 kids and youth appeal and things that
47:21 frankly they should have done before anybody sued them and
47:24 before any school district sued them but
47:27 when school you know when people start stepping forward but
47:30 especially school districts start stepping
47:32 forward and start stepping forward in mass in the form of things
47:35 like litigation it does tend to get
47:38 the attention of big corporate defendants and they’re you know
47:42 the the social media platforms as a group
47:44 have kind of a black eye right now in the overall court of
47:47 public opinion not just as it relates to kids
47:50 and so i think you know the more school districts sort of bring
47:54 the fight to them the greater the likelihood
47:56 is that hopefully they will start instituting some reforms from
48:01 within separate from what we’re trying
48:04 to accomplish in the litigation and i think i thank you for that
48:07 explanation and i think um some of the
48:10 new board members may not have been a part of the school
48:12 district when the tick tock challenges came out
48:14 and that was absolutely disgusting we actually had just so
48:17 people may not understand what hat is inside the
48:20 community um we had tick tock that created challenges to create
48:23 deface our school district property and
48:26 also do things to our teachers and then they would not take it
48:29 down like tick tock decided that they
48:32 were not going to stop what was happening to our schools that to
48:37 me was disgusting like when i
48:39 we tried to appeal we tried to do anything we could try to grab
48:42 other school board members to try to send
48:44 stuff and it was ignored they knew that this kind of stuff was
48:48 going on and there was no kind of try to
48:50 control it try to shut it down anything and in my mind punching
48:55 these guys in the face with this kind
48:57 of litigation is getting back at the situation that we had we
49:00 had defaced property we had teachers that
49:02 were touched inappropriately we had all kinds of stuff that was
49:05 recorded and put on tick tock as these
49:07 challenges and they’re a joke and i just i wanted to say thank
49:10 you to bring this forward i think we have
49:12 i would say that we have board uh support to bring it back as a
49:16 discussion item with your
49:17 um stuff i would like to try to do that you guys feel pretty
49:20 confident that we could bring that back
49:22 and then before we would vote on it we could have that final
49:24 discussion but i think we could move in
49:25 that direction because timing’s a thing jean you’re there miss
49:29 campbell we’re good miss jenkins we’re
49:32 good so what i would say is is um bring forward your retainer we’ll
49:35 put it we’ll try to get it on maybe
49:37 the june 16th meeting that we have i think it’s the 13th and
49:40 then maybe we’ll move forward with that
49:42 um thank you so much for coming forward yep it’s our pleasure
49:45 okay thank you all for your time much
49:47 appreciate it um while they’re going away i want to talk to you
49:50 guys about the next presenter miss
49:52 christine chrisifulli um has an organization life recapture that
49:57 is amazing okay many of you guys know
49:59 about it um but i wanted to give an opportunity i went out there
50:02 and i spent some time with her
50:04 and uh john casey who works very closely with her and i was floored
50:08 um i always knew there was a little
50:10 situation that we had um after talking to them i needed to move
50:14 into action so i wanted to give
50:16 them an opportunity to explain what they do so that the board
50:19 could in a in general understand understand
50:22 the problems that we have inside of our community that we may
50:25 not already know is in existence and
50:27 then i’m going to ask the board if it’s okay if they work with
50:31 our staff to give help in how to engage
50:33 with our students um and our staff on delivering the human
50:37 trafficking portion of our curriculum for
50:40 next year so with that miss chrisifulli and mr john casey and
50:43 others if you guys will come forward
50:44 thank you gentlemen um yeah if you guys will come up and we can
50:48 even have you guys sit and each have
50:50 your own mic if you have a presentation we could put it on top
50:52 of the thing but i wanted to just give
50:54 you guys an opportunity you guys don’t have to sit so far apart
50:56 you guys can just grab the mics and
50:58 come over it’s like a congressional hearing and we hate it we
51:01 actually we actually try to come down
51:04 level with you but in some instances when we’re up here we’re
51:07 just rolling so i apologize we could
51:08 have set it up but this is the best way we could do in the
51:11 meantime so with that you have the floor miss
51:13 christopher foley hang on hang on hang on he’s going to come up
51:21 and help on the mic we need to make
51:24 sure that you get taken care of here okay can you hear me okay
51:33 so thank you for making sure that our
51:35 children have good education and for their safety my name is
51:39 brandy christopher foley christine is my
51:41 secretary that’s okay i am the founder of life recaptured sorry
51:47 and what we do our organization
51:49 goes out and we actually rescue those survivors who have been
51:53 victims of human trafficking and then
51:57 we put them into safe homes that’s not an easy thing to do
52:00 because when we bring them in a lot of
52:02 them were taken at the age of four six or eleven so when we
52:07 bring them in we have to have a lot of
52:10 psychologists we have to have medical help we also have to have
52:15 dietitians we have to have overall
52:18 holistic healing because there’s a lot of chains in their minds
52:21 for the things that they’ve been
52:23 through but we’re with them and we will continue to be with
52:27 those people for life with their families
52:30 because we have found that a lot of their families are the ones
52:34 that are actually trafficking them
52:37 so when i first heard about human trafficking was actually
52:41 because of my little sister she was a
52:44 victim of human trafficking and she didn’t make it and i thought
52:49 human trafficking is in my own backyard
52:51 so what i did is i went and i received training for four and a
52:55 half years you would be surprised that the
52:58 people that we talked to that don’t believe that we have any
53:01 human trafficking going on here in brevard
53:04 county when you’re trained and you hear the depth of this how
53:09 wide it is and how deep it is and what’s
53:12 going on then you begin to realize we have a duty we have a duty
53:16 to go into our communities we don’t just go
53:20 out and rescue human trafficking survivors we go out and educate
53:25 sometimes i know you’ll find this strange
53:28 but sometimes when i’m speaking people and sharing your passion
53:31 with us today miss jenkins yeah um i’ve
53:37 never heard of you before so thank you for for coming here and
53:40 um sharing your story your personal story and
53:43 how you were motivated to make this your path um it’s inspiring
53:47 and i appreciate that so much
53:50 it’s emotional for me because i’m thinking about a scenario and
53:56 a student that i had just recently
53:58 interacted with um and was near their home just like seeing the
54:02 real implications of all of it
54:05 it’s dangerous and it is prevalent um and it is silent we’re
54:10 hearing more and more about it so i
54:12 appreciate you bringing awareness to it and you know it’s it’s
54:15 frustrating to me because you said a word
54:18 that we’re hearing so often being um rebranded uh and it’s so
54:23 dangerous you know grooming our children
54:28 need to understand what that really means right um and it’s
54:30 going to become more and more difficult for
54:32 our school systems to really make a difference in this area when
54:36 we legally can’t teach our kids about
54:38 their bodies or use the right words or teach them what an
54:41 inappropriate or inappropriate touch is because
54:44 they it’s not going to be our role anymore and so really the
54:49 only
54:50 ability we have to make a difference here is what you’re
54:55 speaking about is continuously educating the
54:58 adults in the room to identify what those warning signs might be
55:03 or those red flags might be
55:05 unfortunately without having the words or giving the words to
55:08 the children themselves
55:10 i appreciate you and i would love to get to know a little bit
55:13 more about you guys
55:14 after today thank you all of you thank you thank you mr truck
55:21 well brandy hi here we are um i have heard of you before and you
55:27 know unfortunately it wasn’t a long
55:30 time ago it was just a year ago um when i had somebody that was
55:35 helping me during my campaign that
55:37 made it very apparent that i needed to meet you and um you know
55:42 a little shout out to ashley clark
55:45 and merritt island who made it you know her mission to get us
55:48 together and it took a while so it was
55:50 last summer about a year ago yeah and um i i hadn’t heard of you
55:54 and um there wasn’t a dry eye in and
55:59 and that was sitting around you know that little meeting we had
56:03 uh at your place in merritt island and
56:05 um you know i just knew at that point uh we needed to get your
56:08 organization and your word out any way
56:12 possible thank you and you know i took it to heart then and i’m
56:16 i it’s very nice to see you guys here
56:19 today um we did bet these people and uh and when i say we vetted
56:24 them we 100 believe in them as well
56:28 you have done so much in brevard that people just have no idea
56:32 what you’ve done and it was amazing to
56:34 hear what you have done uh so far and uh you know kind of felt
56:38 guilty i’m like this was going on without
56:41 us knowing and and we’ll do whatever we possibly can um you know
56:46 up here as much as we can to get
56:48 the education out and that’s what that’s what we’re really
56:50 talking about a little bit of education goes
56:52 a long way so we can educate the adults in the rooms and um and
56:56 and and we can leave the the detailed
56:59 messages away from our little kids and that’s okay yes you have
57:03 our support you have our prayers i want
57:06 to thank you for everything you’ve done so far but this is just
57:08 the beginning thank you thank you thank
57:11 i too have the honor of meeting you brandy and john i’m very
57:17 grateful i’ll never forget gene actually
57:18 during campaign season you came back and you said you have to
57:21 meet this woman she is really amazing and
57:23 what she’s doing and i think you had attended an event that you
57:26 had at your facility or your building up
57:28 there in north merritt island and got the opportunity to meet
57:30 you and honestly i was blown away because i just
57:33 didn’t know what i didn’t know and this is a world that most of
57:36 us don’t live in and we don’t see we
57:38 don’t even know what to look for so i do believe that educating
57:42 our staff will help us be the the voice
57:44 that can possibly bring awareness to this issue i would love to
57:48 see a day when when trafficking is
57:49 eradicated and we don’t have it it doesn’t exist anymore um so
57:53 for your passion for you for you to
57:55 turn your tragedy into um really your life’s work and your
57:58 testimony and how you’re going to change
58:01 things to save even just one child it it warms my heart like you
58:04 do not know so thank you thank you
58:06 from the bottom of my heart i would love to do whatever we
58:09 possibly can to get you guys in front of
58:10 our educators teach them the signs of what they can look for
58:13 give them the resources because again they don’t
58:15 know if you don’t know you don’t know so um who do we call what
58:18 do we look for those things are
58:20 very very important to make sure that everyone is aware of so
58:23 thank you guys for coming today
58:24 thank you for sharing your story and thank you for for making
58:27 sure that your sister’s legacy lives
58:28 on through saving other children thank you thank you everybody
58:32 um i’ve i’ve had the uh great opportunity
58:37 to work with john on a on a project he built the dog park that
58:41 sits in over here in uh sun tree viera
58:44 right and i will tell you everybody else was an elected official
58:47 so nobody really did any work
58:49 and john did it all and i’ll give him all the credit in the
58:52 world um and there’d be like times i’d show
58:54 up and he says we don’t have this so i’d run out and go get it
58:56 but he literally was there every day
58:59 so i know um as you have vetted people when john called me and
59:03 said matt you gotta come i came
59:05 because john you work your um yourself very hard for causes and
59:10 there’s no i mean like he built a
59:12 dog park and then everybody gets to go there but he didn’t like
59:15 make money off the dog park he just
59:16 you built three of them i know i know but there’s just something
59:20 holistically about this group here
59:22 is that you care from the bottom of your heart and i want to say
59:24 thank you john for bringing me into
59:25 this brandy i apologize about the earlier it’s saved in my phone
59:29 that way and my staff put it on this
59:31 like one way so i apologize um but i did want to say i was
59:34 speaking about this to some other people
59:37 hey we have this issue coming up because i bounce a lot of stuff
59:39 off of people and i the principal that
59:41 i talked to very often um told me she says yeah i have i have a
59:44 student that was human trafficked and
59:46 i said really and they’re like yeah this is more abundant than
59:48 what you know so that even furthered me
59:51 to push to do what we’re trying to do here um my friend was an
59:54 investigator for the sheriff’s office
59:56 and did many of these investigations so for over the past
59:59 probably six years um she left a year ago
1:00:02 to take a private business job but during that time she was one
1:00:05 of the lead investigators for these
1:00:07 things and the stories that i heard were just disgusting so
1:00:10 thank you for taking and absorbing
1:00:12 this part of the world because i know how much that wears on
1:00:14 your body seeing that but the opportunity
1:00:17 you see from the individuals that become that get better is so
1:00:21 much worth more right in the end so thank
1:00:24 you for that um i do want to get to some of the deliverables now
1:00:27 um we’re getting ready to start
1:00:30 in august on going to each one of the cities we’re talking to
1:00:32 the clerks right now about setting that up
1:00:34 i would love you guys to come and educate um as a part of it to
1:00:38 educate the city officials inside of
1:00:40 there the city and see if there’s um community engagements
1:00:43 because outside of one of the things
1:00:45 that we’re talking about inside of those meetings is how we all
1:00:48 are doing the same thing wrapped around
1:00:50 like uh after school programs and all that stuff so they have
1:00:52 after school programs that are running
1:00:54 through their cities that could be educated on human trafficking
1:00:57 and in many of those after school
1:00:59 programs are in very high dense areas for what you’re dealing
1:01:02 with right so like titusville melbourne and
1:01:05 all of those have the um boys and girls clubs and stuff like
1:01:08 that so i think that would be great if you
1:01:10 could come along with that i think i spoke to um dr solomon
1:01:13 about this already and she had mentioned that
1:01:16 this is inside of our curriculum and stuff like that so if after
1:01:19 this meeting’s over if you could just
1:01:20 take a second and give your com your information to dr sullivan
1:01:24 in the back and just say hey and
1:01:25 then she’ll start working on getting you engaged into helping us
1:01:28 through the education of our staff
1:01:30 our students and our parents and then also setting up for some
1:01:33 of the way we deliver our curriculum maybe
1:01:35 better through discussing it with you guys that’s great so that’s
1:01:38 wonderful does that sound okay with
1:01:39 everybody kind of a deliverable for it at the end yeah all right
1:01:43 well you guys thank you so much thank
1:01:45 you for taking the time um it sounds like any vetting that i do
1:01:48 i should do through you because
1:01:50 that was pretty intense i was like i was former cia and i
1:01:52 invited them i was like yeah it’s like it’s
1:01:55 like my wife every day i go home i get vetted so thank you so
1:01:58 much for all of your time but thank you
1:02:01 god bless you guys and i appreciate you thank you thank you is
1:02:07 everybody doing okay on uh bathroom
1:02:10 breaks all that stuff we’re okay all right next topic is our
1:02:21 amazing head start team here we go
1:02:31 so good afternoon everyone and uh welcome to the head start
1:02:40 board workshop uh for the two who are brand
1:02:46 new for me presenting i am wendy smith i am led by mrs jane
1:02:50 klein under elementary leading and learning
1:02:53 so i supervise 10 elementary schools but also have the pleasure
1:02:56 of being the director of the head start
1:02:58 program as school board members you are our governing board for
1:03:03 the head start grant and as required by
1:03:05 the governing board you have to be apprised of what is going on
1:03:09 in head start so that hence that’s why
1:03:12 i’m here first of all like to start off as i always do with our
1:03:16 vision and mission and because we have
1:03:19 two new members i will just share it with you is to serve our
1:03:22 community enhance the lives of preschool
1:03:25 students and families by delivering the highest quality
1:03:28 education in a culture of dedication collaboration and
1:03:32 learning where our mission is to serve every pre-kindergarten
1:03:36 student and family with excellence
1:03:39 as the standard our agenda today will include going over our
1:03:44 head start overview program goals education
1:03:49 our oral health initiative the continuation application national
1:03:53 head start association annual conference
1:03:56 and board governance training so getting started with the
1:04:01 overview just to give a background of the
1:04:04 history of head start it did originate in 1965 under president
1:04:09 lyndon b johnson’s war on poverty
1:04:12 it was in the office of economic opportunity to the office of
1:04:17 child development moved to the administration
1:04:21 on children youth and families that’s in the department of
1:04:24 health and human services
1:04:25 it’s currently or it’s a full-fledged federally funded program
1:04:30 and it delivers the comprehensive early
1:04:34 learning health nutrition and family support to over 1 million
1:04:39 children ages 3 to 5 who are living in
1:04:42 poverty now compared to back in 1965 where it started as a
1:04:48 summer program to break the cycle of poverty
1:04:51 started with 561 000 children or families and now over 1 million
1:04:57 the goal of head start is to promote school
1:05:01 readiness of children ages birth to 5 from low-income families
1:05:05 by supporting the development of the
1:05:07 whole child to include early learning health and family well-being
1:05:11 now bps was awarded the grant in 2012
1:05:16 it is a five-year grant cycle so bps has been awarded the grant
1:05:22 twice and now we are in the third
1:05:24 five-year cycle so actually it’s been awarded three times but we
1:05:27 are in the first year of our five-year
1:05:30 grant cycle the third grant cycle brevard does have early head
1:05:36 start which is birth through three
1:05:40 but not in brevard public schools it’s actually the children’s
1:05:44 home society
1:05:45 so for bps headstarts just the facts i want to let you know for
1:05:51 2023 2024 the locations will stay the same
1:05:56 the school sites in the north are coquina enterprise and mims in
1:06:01 the central area it would be cambridge
1:06:04 endeavor saturn and sherwood and in the south we are housed at
1:06:09 discovery jupiter palm bay port malabar
1:06:13 and university park we are fully funded for 624 slots or 624
1:06:19 children we divide that out to 35 different
1:06:23 classrooms this is where it gets confusing a little bit there
1:06:28 are 20 head start vpk classrooms which means
1:06:31 four year olds and then 15 head start threes which means those
1:06:35 are three-year-old classrooms
1:06:38 there is a requirement for us to serve 10 percent of our
1:06:42 students who have an iep so we work with
1:06:46 to make that a goal if you see our scan me symbol we are trying
1:06:51 to put it everywhere in front of school
1:06:54 offices on our website and anything we can get it out to people
1:06:58 so that parents can scan that and take it
1:07:00 right to our head start head start website so what’s the
1:07:05 difference about head start as you know we also
1:07:09 have other four-year-old programs step forward blended we have
1:07:13 the pre-k ese and then we have head start
1:07:16 but what’s different about head start first of all there’s an
1:07:19 eligibility meeting to be able to attend head start
1:07:22 it’s based on age three and four year olds and income and that’s
1:07:27 on a sliding scale based on
1:07:29 how many adults and children are in the household based on the
1:07:33 poverty guidelines
1:07:34 there is a student teacher ratio that we fund of three adults
1:07:40 for every classroom so in our three-year-old
1:07:43 classrooms we have one teacher and two ias to up to 17 children
1:07:49 and in our four-year-old classrooms we
1:07:51 have one adult or teacher and two ias and they max out at 20
1:07:56 students we have instructional coaches
1:08:00 currently we have four instructional coaches for the next school
1:08:04 year who are deployed to go out every
1:08:07 week to those head start sites and work with the teachers and ias
1:08:12 as teaching teams to help support
1:08:15 the children there is a school readiness focus where families
1:08:20 make readiness goals that our coaches
1:08:23 and our teachers help them with there is also a required a
1:08:26 community assessment once every five years
1:08:30 the board was presented with our community assessment last year
1:08:34 it’s quite a detailed document and it it
1:08:38 talks about the poverty within brevard and where the pockets are
1:08:42 so that we can best serve our students
1:08:45 and families we have a policy council which parents from every
1:08:50 school site represent their school and come
1:08:53 up and meet with my assistant director terry barlow at the clear
1:08:57 lake site we have family advocates who do
1:09:00 the eligibility meetings but they also set family goals with the
1:09:05 families and provide wraparound services
1:09:08 now what does that mean well a family goal might be that a
1:09:12 parent wants to receive their ged
1:09:16 well the family advocate would help that parent get hooked up
1:09:19 with the right people to receive that
1:09:22 they might need a job so the family advocate could help them
1:09:26 seek out employment practice an interview
1:09:29 write a resume a family goal might be something to do with
1:09:34 health and the family advocate would get them
1:09:38 with the right people to help them with their health goal and
1:09:40 that’s what that wrap around services means
1:09:44 that it’s not only for the students but it’s also for the
1:09:47 families all in an effort to help the pre-k
1:09:50 pre-k students be ready for kindergarten there is a parent
1:09:55 committee at each school we also have a
1:09:58 health services team and i’ll talk about this a little bit more
1:10:01 in detail in a minute but we do have a
1:10:03 health manager and three health techs one being a full-time
1:10:08 dental hygienist for us and if you were on the board a year ago
1:10:13 when we
1:10:14 when you approve that i’ve got some great statistics for you in
1:10:17 just a minute
1:10:17 yes the kids have to brush their teeth daily and so that’s an ordeal
1:10:23 in itself with the three and
1:10:24 four year olds brushing their teeth and due to the dental hygienist
1:10:29 we don’t have to go to a dentist
1:10:31 anymore we have on-site dental exams so again i’ll share a
1:10:35 little bit more about that in a minute
1:10:39 we have five year program goals remember the grant is for five
1:10:43 years and at the beginning of that baseline grant we write goals
1:10:46 in an effort not to read this i’m just going to give you some
1:10:50 key words to our five goals
1:10:53 our first goal the key words is school readiness second goal our
1:10:58 key words are the high quality workforce
1:11:01 that is a consistency of care to provide professional
1:11:06 development to our teachers
1:11:08 and our instructional senate uh instructional assistants as well
1:11:12 as practice-based coaching
1:11:14 where our instructional coach coaches go in to support the
1:11:18 teachers and ias with instruction
1:11:21 the key words for goal number three is parent engagement we want
1:11:25 to help them be able to
1:11:27 help their own children with kindergarten readiness goal four it’s
1:11:31 a year-round process to reach out to
1:11:34 eligible families remember i said there’s 624 slots what’s once
1:11:39 those 624 slots are filled we don’t stop
1:11:43 we keep up with the eligibility meetings we’re required to hold
1:11:47 a wait list so if one child transfers out and
1:11:51 moves that next kid on the wait list the parent is called and
1:11:54 they can come in within the next couple of days
1:11:57 and finally our fifth goal is continuous improvement with
1:12:01 accountability consistency and efficiency in all of
1:12:05 our service areas that include education and child development
1:12:09 the family health and also the program management
1:12:16 so for education star early literacy as you know is the
1:12:20 assessment for the four-year-olds it’s the same for
1:12:24 all of our vpk or four-year-old classes for the first time this
1:12:30 year all pre-k four-year-old classrooms had the
1:12:34 same curriculum the blended the pre-k ve the um head start and
1:12:40 also the what’s the other one i just
1:12:43 i just forgot i’m sorry it’s women anyway all of them all of
1:12:49 them um they use the same curriculum
1:12:52 and head start we meet with families three times a year to kind
1:12:55 of sit down meet with them one-on-one
1:12:57 and say hey this is where your child is this is how you can help
1:13:00 this is how we can help and what can
1:13:02 we do to help you a little bit different for head start
1:13:06 professional development we have 12 school
1:13:09 sites my instructional coaches go out and provide professional
1:13:13 development once a month not only to
1:13:16 our head start teachers but also to those ias and so they become
1:13:21 the teaching team we do invite the other
1:13:24 preschool or the pre-k teachers to attend if they would like to
1:13:27 and this is something i’m very proud of
1:13:30 34 teachers are trained monthly 68 i instructional assistants
1:13:35 are trained monthly and when we added up
1:13:37 all the hours there were over 690 hours of professional
1:13:41 development provided on site specific to that
1:13:45 school’s site the oral health initiative this is what i’m
1:13:50 talking about about the dental hygienist that
1:13:54 we’ve had for one year now and we’re very very proud about this
1:13:58 data this data looks a little confusing
1:14:01 but this is what we have to present to the office of head start
1:14:05 so what i want you to take a look at
1:14:08 just just to make sure that it’s a little bit more clear in 2021
1:14:12 through 2022 the middle column
1:14:15 there were 71 children diagnosed as needing dental treatment and
1:14:22 36 of them received the dental
1:14:26 treatment now the disturbing percentage is if you also look in
1:14:31 that middle column 53 percent of our students
1:14:35 completed a dental examination and really that’s pretty good
1:14:40 data as far as head start goes but not for us
1:14:44 miss barlow and i said i said listen 53 percent that’s half of
1:14:48 our kids getting a dental screening we’re
1:14:51 missing half what can we do so miss barlow in the middle of the
1:14:55 night came up with this idea and she
1:14:58 came back to me and she says we’re going to hire a dental hygienist
1:15:00 and i said we’re going to do what
1:15:01 she says yeah we’re going to hire our own dental hygienist i
1:15:04 said wait a minute that means our
1:15:08 children’s parents don’t have to sign permission forms load up
1:15:12 on a school bus the teacher and a couple of
1:15:16 kids drive to a dentist office picture this one kid go back
1:15:24 where are all the other kids in the waiting room
1:15:28 reading a book teacher trying to entertain probably taking them
1:15:34 to the bathroom i i can just see popcorn
1:15:38 everywhere so we said you know what maybe parents don’t want to
1:15:41 have them go on that bus maybe they don’t
1:15:43 understand maybe they’re scared of the dentists themselves so it
1:15:46 was a year-long process but terry worked with the
1:15:49 department of health we purchased a children’s size dental chair
1:15:54 got some pictures in a minute
1:15:55 we purchased an intraoral camera to take pictures of the teeth
1:16:02 the ppe for the dental hygienist
1:16:05 there’s special glasses with a light on so she can see better
1:16:09 for the pictures materials for the screening
1:16:12 and assessment and fluoride for the children so then those
1:16:17 pictures are sent to a department of health
1:16:20 dentist who reviews the teeth and says if a child might need
1:16:26 extra treatment so let’s go back to the
1:16:29 data for a minute remember 53 percent of kids received the
1:16:33 dental screenings prior to our own dental hygienist
1:16:37 if you skip over to the 2022 2023 as of april 2023 98 of our
1:16:43 kids had that dental screening on site
1:16:47 more importantly byproduct of this initiative that we never even
1:16:52 thought of
1:16:54 71 kids year before were diagnosed with needing dental treatment
1:16:59 now we diagnose 203
1:17:02 who needed additional treatment and 92 have already in the
1:17:08 process of getting that extra dental treatment
1:17:11 that means cavities being filled or you know something something
1:17:16 else that the hygienist couldn’t do on site
1:17:19 we’ll tell you a great uplifting story there is actually there’s
1:17:23 about 10 children who need urgent care right now
1:17:27 meaning that brevard brevard county might not even be able to do
1:17:32 that because we have to go over to
1:17:34 orlando in case they need to be put under for some kind of
1:17:37 treatment there was there is a child
1:17:40 in so much pain right now that they are having to go over to orlando
1:17:46 the family advocate is helping secure all of this
1:17:50 treatment and the child is going to be able to get some cavities
1:17:56 removed that were put in actually in another country
1:18:00 and maybe even some teeth removed however he won’t be in pain
1:18:04 anymore so what a great byproduct of that
1:18:07 that yay we got the 98 of our kids screened but more importantly
1:18:12 kids who need services are getting them
1:18:15 more frequently so big shout out to terry barlow and my oral
1:18:20 team for that now the continuation application
1:18:25 remember i talked to you about a baseline application and we
1:18:27 weren’t right at once every five years
1:18:29 they don’t let us go for four years doing nothing the
1:18:32 continuation
1:18:33 application is an annual
1:18:36 application that we have to
1:18:38 produce and mr susan signed that a couple months ago it was sent
1:18:42 to all of you for review to provide input
1:18:45 but just a quick comparison between the baseline versus the
1:18:48 continuation
1:18:49 like stated i stated before the baseline is once every five
1:18:52 years
1:18:53 we have those program goals that i just went over those five
1:18:56 with the key words
1:18:57 what’s our service delivery in other words where are we going to
1:19:01 service our children based on that
1:19:03 community assessment the budget and then strategies to get the
1:19:08 most responsive needs to the family and
1:19:11 children who need them so then the continue a continuation
1:19:15 application is us reviewing our program goals
1:19:20 making any changes if needed the rationale of changes we use
1:19:24 data for continuous improvement
1:19:26 we have to describe any challenges that might
1:19:30 come up and then we have to update our budget so that’s the
1:19:34 difference between the baseline versus
1:19:36 the continuation we’ve had our baseline approved for the five
1:19:39 years we’ve had our continuation
1:19:41 approved for the second year so there’ll be three more
1:19:44 continuation applications
1:19:46 prior to submitting another baseline application
1:19:49 now our national head start conference
1:19:52 one year ago my team of coaches
1:19:57 instructional coaches who go in and provide that pd to teachers
1:20:02 and to schools and we actually tiered the schools
1:20:05 they said you know what we think we do a really good job we’re
1:20:08 going to apply to go present at the
1:20:10 at the region for head start conference i went okay i think you’re
1:20:14 awesome go ahead well they got it
1:20:17 they presented in atlanta last year it’s phenomenal great
1:20:21 responses uh people from all over the southeast
1:20:25 region would contact our program and say how do you do this what
1:20:28 kind of problems did you run into
1:20:30 can you help us with this my team says hey we want to go back to
1:20:34 atlanta again and i said nope you’re
1:20:38 going to go big or go home go to the national convention go to
1:20:41 the national conference and present there
1:20:44 so they big eyes and they said well that’s kind of intimidating
1:20:49 i said you know what i’m so proud of
1:20:51 our dental program terry and i are going to apply also so we’ll
1:20:55 both apply we just got back it was the
1:20:58 first weekend or week in may out in phoenix arizona there were
1:21:02 over 500 applicants for programs 120 were
1:21:06 chosen and we received two both of our applicants were there so
1:21:11 we put bps head start on the map we
1:21:14 didn’t go big we came home but this was our team of coaches they
1:21:20 presented on implementing quality
1:21:23 coaching makes all the difference and as you can see they’re
1:21:26 working with teachers right there
1:21:27 on instruction on program goals on data and then terry and i and
1:21:32 here’s a couple of our little
1:21:34 pictures of our precious children receiving the dental screenings
1:21:38 um presented on how to build an
1:21:41 on-site dental program each of us had 100 to 150 participants
1:21:47 out in phoenix we continue to get emails
1:21:50 daily on other programs going that was really cool we couldn’t
1:21:54 do that but do you think this could work and it’s just
1:21:57 a great collaboration with us and very very proud of that so now
1:22:05 here’s your job as the governing board
1:22:10 of our head start program there is a required program governance
1:22:14 training
1:22:15 it is online the links are within the powerpoint one is on the
1:22:22 program governance training which remember
1:22:25 you are our governing board and the other is how we make
1:22:29 students eligible recruitment we select them
1:22:32 how the enrollment is done and the attendance so if you hear ursi
1:22:36 that’s what it stands for
1:22:38 we will be providing a sign off sheet just as document for our
1:22:44 federally funded grant
1:22:47 and if you could get that completed by june 30th i would highly
1:22:53 appreciate it as well as you are always
1:22:56 welcome to ask any questions of terry barlow or myself if you’re
1:23:01 doing the training and you have some
1:23:03 questions or if you just have questions in general so that
1:23:07 concludes my presentation is there any questions
1:23:13 i had a couple yeah i got some too go ahead okay you might have
1:23:18 said this already and i missed it um
1:23:18 how many family advocates do you guys have with the head start
1:23:21 program well as like we do with teachers
1:23:25 we have a couple of ads open okay so we currently have 10 and we
1:23:29 have two open um okay we we are we are
1:23:35 wanting to fill those okay good um and then you mentioned the
1:23:38 wait list and how many how many
1:23:40 children were allowed to accept how long is that wait list well
1:23:43 that depends and there’s a whole bunch
1:23:45 of different criteria on selection like for instance if you are
1:23:50 home if you are made eligible and you’re
1:23:52 homeless uh you go you go bypass the wait list so there’s a
1:23:56 whole different um you know qualifications for
1:24:01 different things like if you uh receive snap or i’m trying not
1:24:05 to get into all the weeds of the things
1:24:08 as your question on how many are on the wait list yeah just just
1:24:11 on average obviously it doesn’t have
1:24:13 to be an accurate number but what would you say terry maintains
1:24:15 that wait list what would you say terry
1:24:16 300 okay now some of them are over income so you could be made
1:24:23 eligible but you might make
1:24:26 250 percent over the poverty guideline where this person is on
1:24:30 the wait list and they are 100 percent
1:24:33 under so it it is a graduated wait list and monitored every time
1:24:39 a new uh opening comes up okay uh the
1:24:43 dental work that you’re doing is amazing honestly that was the
1:24:45 the part that i kind of focused in on
1:24:47 when i was looking at this powerpoint ahead of time i thought
1:24:49 this is really great now that we have so
1:24:51 many students there’s such a fear for children to go to the
1:24:53 dentist and honestly this eliminates it if you
1:24:55 have that dentist right there with them it gets them comfortable
1:24:57 with it so hopefully it’ll set up a
1:24:59 lifetime of healthy oral habits which is good so i will tell you
1:25:02 a story that we’ve had mama say
1:25:04 are you kidding me my kid won’t leave me alone i have to brush
1:25:07 my teeth before we leave the house
1:25:09 before i go to bed he’s become the toothbrush monitor and uh but
1:25:13 i mean that’s all in a good thing now
1:25:15 we will be doing these again so if you ever want to go it will
1:25:19 make your day oh please send us little
1:25:22 kids hop up into this child dental chair now i will say some
1:25:26 close their mouth and they’re like
1:25:28 but the ia’s are working with them amanda our dental hygienist
1:25:33 is working with them i’ve been there
1:25:35 working with them and then some are just they hop up they open
1:25:38 their mouth like it’s nothing
1:25:40 and then it’s always helped that a toothbrush gets to go home
1:25:43 with them a tube of toothpaste and of
1:25:45 course a bendable tooth toy oh fun well please send us the
1:25:49 information i would love to come and see
1:25:51 that i will it is a good day thank you for the presentation i
1:25:53 appreciate it and i’ll make sure
1:25:55 you would like each of us board members to email you once we’ve
1:25:57 completed the training that you know
1:25:59 we’ll send a signature sheet and you can just sign that and then
1:26:01 we’ll get it just to put it in our
1:26:03 files okay sounds good thank you you’re welcome everybody else i
1:26:06 think everybody’s going to want
1:26:08 to turn um yes please send that to tammy so she can i will pound
1:26:13 us to get that done i will
1:26:14 so family advocates i have a question do we have one per school
1:26:21 or do we have some that like oversee
1:26:23 multiple so we did have one per school and part of the
1:26:28 leadership team looking at uh the procedures
1:26:33 for that some schools only have two classrooms where other
1:26:38 schools had four classrooms so we have
1:26:42 changed to not having one per school for the fairness and equity
1:26:47 of one advocate having two classrooms
1:26:50 we’re another one having four and we’ve tried to split it out
1:26:53 and divvy it out a little better because
1:26:55 i was thinking at one time we had one we did per program okay we
1:26:59 did but as the cost of all of our
1:27:01 employees goes up and monitoring that money we’ve we’ve made
1:27:05 some strategic changes that we think were
1:27:07 doable no i i totally understand i agree so having been on on
1:27:11 the board since before when we’re just
1:27:13 envisioning what the hygienist thing you know it’s really
1:27:16 exciting to now be on the other side of it
1:27:19 and getting to see the fruit of all that work and so quickly so
1:27:23 it’s exciting and great job miss barlow
1:27:25 as well for for uh you guys and your work on that that’s really
1:27:29 exciting to see how far we’ve
1:27:31 progressed and what a difference we’re making in kids health um
1:27:36 that was it i’m good okay
1:27:40 eugene yeah i’m good okay miss jenkins yeah just i mean for the
1:27:45 sake of brevity i mean you guys are my
1:27:47 people um so i appreciate you uh i always enjoy hearing your
1:27:51 updates and knowing that though our
1:27:53 early intervention still exists and it’s prosperous yes um
1:27:56 obviously we we don’t want more and more kids
1:27:58 to need early intervention but it’s great that it’s being
1:28:01 utilized because we know we’re getting we’re
1:28:03 we’re meeting the needs of those students when they need them
1:28:05 thank you thank you thank you so much for
1:28:08 all of your work you know you always have the support of the
1:28:10 board thank you for thinking outside
1:28:12 the box and and the um dental hygienist that’s a big area i know
1:28:15 in many of the other school districts
1:28:18 that i i visit um they have traveling dentists and you know what
1:28:21 i mean vehicles and stuff like that
1:28:24 so this is great and showing those numbers because at first i
1:28:26 was like wait a minute one person and all
1:28:28 these kids and then you threw those numbers down and i said that’s
1:28:31 amazing so thank you so much for
1:28:33 servicing our kids in every way we’ll continue to go big we won’t
1:28:36 go home we’ll just continue to go
1:28:38 big all right all right well thank you very much do you have
1:28:41 anything else to add if not we’ll get
1:28:44 prepared for secondary leading and learnings budget
1:28:46 presentations anybody need to take a restroom break
1:28:49 are we okay yeah i might go to the restroom real fast you want
1:28:51 to take a second i don’t know if anybody
1:28:52 else needs to go we’re good all right let it go then it’s fine i
1:28:56 need water okay we’re going to take a
1:28:58 second okay five minute break okay good timing we’re not going
1:29:03 to
1:29:22 Thank you.
1:39:22 Thank you, Mr. Sullivan, you have the floor.
1:39:52 Thank you.
1:43:22 And so I’m going to move on to Ms. Bowman’s Department and I’m
1:43:26 going to move on to Ms. Bowman’s Department and I’m going to
1:43:29 move on to Ms. Bowman’s Department and I’m going to move on to
1:43:30 Ms. Bowman’s Department and I’m going to move on to Ms. Bowman’s
1:43:31 Department and I’m going to move on to Ms. Bowman’s Department
1:43:32 and I’m going to move on to Ms. Bowman’s Department and I’m
1:43:33 going to move on to Ms. Bowman’s Department and I’m going to
1:43:34 move on to Ms. Bowman’s Department and I’m going to move on to
1:43:34 Ms. Bowman’s Department and I’m going to move on to Ms. Bowman’s
1:43:35 Department and I’m going to move on to my school.
1:43:37 And we’ll move on to Ms. Bowman’s Department and I’m going to
1:43:40 move on to Ms. Bowman’s Department and I’m going to move on to
1:43:44 Ms. Bowman’s Department and I’m going to move on to Ms. Bowman’s
1:43:48 Department and I’m going to move on to Ms. Bowman’s Department
1:43:51 and I’m going to move on to my school.
1:43:54 And we just thought that would be easier for the sake of our
1:43:57 community. As you can see, she has the single point of contact
1:44:01 for each of those core areas, meaning we have one math
1:44:06 specialist, one science, one social studies, one ELA, one
1:44:11 reading and one instructional coach.
1:44:13 And in some districts, these are administrator level positions.
1:44:17 In our district, it is a 10 month teacher position, which does
1:44:21 make training and professional development a little difficult.
1:44:24 And there’s no redundancies. These are the single point of
1:44:27 contact for each of those areas. And so this is Ms. Bowman’s
1:44:31 Department. And then I’m going to take you next to her budget.
1:44:36 So this is the budget that manages that entire team to include,
1:44:40 again, the operations of math, English, science and social
1:44:44 studies. And again, it’s a pretty lean budget when you consider
1:44:50 the amount of people that are served in it.
1:44:52 Again, school visits is the majority of the budget that is spent
1:44:55 on making sure that we are available and accessible to all
1:44:58 schools. You can see the notes on each of the budget items there
1:45:04 between all of her staff. Her non staffing budget is just around
1:45:10 28,000.
1:45:20 So we’re going to take a little bit longer. And then we’re going
1:45:24 to take a little bit longer and we’re going to take a little bit
1:45:24 longer.
1:45:24 And we’re going to take a little bit longer. And then we’re
1:45:26 going to take a little bit longer.
1:45:26 And then we’re going to take a little bit longer. And then we’re
1:45:28 going to take a little bit longer.
1:45:28 And then we’re going to take a little bit longer. And we’re
1:45:30 going to take a little bit longer.
1:45:30 And then we’re going to take a little bit longer. And then we’re
1:45:32 going to take a little bit longer.
1:45:32 And then we’re going to take a little bit longer. And then we’re
1:45:34 going to take a little bit longer.
1:45:34 And then we’re going to take a little bit longer. And then we’re
1:45:36 going to take a little bit longer.
1:45:36 And then we’re going to take a little bit longer.
1:45:38 And then we’re going to take a little bit longer. And then we’re
1:45:40 going to take a little bit longer.
1:45:42 And then we’re going to take a little bit longer. And then we’re
1:45:44 going to take a little bit longer.
1:45:44 And then we’re going to take a little bit longer. And then we’re
1:45:46 going to take a little bit longer.
1:45:46 And then we’re going to take a little bit longer. And then we’re
1:45:48 going to take a little bit longer.
1:45:48 And then we’re going to take a little bit longer. And then we’re
1:45:50 going to take a little bit longer.
1:45:50 And then we’re going to take a little bit longer. And then we’re
1:45:52 going to take a little bit longer.
1:45:52 And then we’re going to take a little bit longer. And then we’re
1:45:54 going to take a little bit longer.
1:45:54 And then we’re going to take a little bit longer. And then we’re
1:45:56 going to take a little bit longer.
1:45:56 And then we’re going to take a little bit longer. And then we’re
1:45:58 going to take a little bit longer.
1:45:58 And then we’re going to take a little bit longer. And then we’re
1:46:00 going to take a little bit longer.
1:46:00 And then we’re going to take a little bit longer. And then we’re
1:46:02 going to take a little bit longer.
1:46:02 And then we’re going to take a little bit longer.
1:46:04 And then we’re going to take a little bit longer. And then we’re
1:46:06 going to take a little bit longer.
1:46:08 And then we’re going to take a little bit longer. And then we’re
1:46:10 going to take a little bit longer.
1:46:10 And then we’re going to take a little bit longer. And then we’re
1:46:12 going to take a little bit longer.
1:46:12 And then we’re going to take a little bit longer. And then we’re
1:46:14 going to take a little bit longer.
1:46:14 And then we’re going to take a little bit longer. And then we’re
1:46:16 going to take a little bit longer.
1:46:16 And then we’re going to take a little bit longer. And then we’re
1:46:18 going to take a little bit longer.
1:46:18 And then we’re going to take a little bit longer. And then we’re
1:46:20 going to take a little bit longer.
1:46:20 And then we’re going to take a little bit longer. And then we’re
1:46:22 going to take a little bit longer.
1:46:22 And I’ve got to give a special shout out to Ms. Hauser. That’s
1:46:26 in her last year in the district.
1:46:27 She manages gifted, dual enrollment, AP, IB, and ACE. So we have
1:46:33 a really talented team that I think serves this district with
1:46:39 excellence.
1:46:41 Mrs. Vega’s budget is below, really similar to the leanness of
1:46:45 the other budgets.
1:46:47 We have been cleaning up department affiliation. So you’ll see
1:46:51 an increase in some areas, but that represents a decrease in
1:46:55 Sherry’s budget.
1:46:56 So we are robbing Peter and paying Paul, so to speak, as we
1:47:00 reorganize folks into the better departments.
1:47:06 And again, you can see pretty nominal budgets there for the
1:47:10 maintenance of the department.
1:47:12 I’ll give you a second and take a look at that as well.
1:47:20 And I’ll give you a second and take a look at that as well.
1:47:23 I’ll give you a second and take a look at that as well.
1:47:30 So I can’t say a lot about this budget, except there wasn’t
1:47:33 enough money.
1:47:34 So we had to increase it a little bit for hard costs.
1:47:37 And these hard costs are the trophies for the tournaments,
1:47:40 the officials for the district-wide events.
1:47:43 We did have the opportunity, thanks to the support of the
1:47:46 finance team,
1:47:46 to review every expenditure.
1:47:48 And they were spent very appropriately and on actual hard costs
1:47:53 related to athletics.
1:47:54 There was nothing that concerned us at all.
1:47:56 Just it did need a slight increase to cover those hard costs.
1:48:00 So you’ll see a 3,000 or so increase.
1:48:05 They did request it last year.
1:48:06 It wasn’t put in there.
1:48:07 So we’re actually running a little behind right now.
1:48:10 But again, that’s new to us.
1:48:13 But we felt really comfortable with how they had expended these
1:48:16 funds over the past year.
1:48:18 And those are currently sitting under Ms. Vega.
1:48:21 Depending on what happens in general, may fall somewhere else in
1:48:25 secondary leading and learning,
1:48:27 but currently attached to her.
1:48:30 Career and technical education.
1:48:32 I know you guys have gotten a lot of information over the year
1:48:35 on career and technical education.
1:48:37 And these content specialists are even more different than the
1:48:42 ones in our core areas.
1:48:44 As you can see, there are six total.
1:48:46 Worthy of mentioning, four of them are grant funded.
1:48:49 So really little impact to Fund 100.
1:48:52 But because we have over 40 programs, each content specialist is
1:48:57 assigned to multiple programs.
1:48:59 So there might only be a couple of teachers in each area, but
1:49:03 they oversee all aspects of the programs,
1:49:06 as you can see, in multiple areas.
1:49:09 We count on them to become industry experts very, very quickly.
1:49:13 And again, I know you all have worked with many of them.
1:49:16 Very, very talented pool of candidates that are developing
1:49:20 programs, evaluating programs,
1:49:21 and monitoring and supporting them.
1:49:25 And that, again, this represents the entirety of the staff.
1:49:29 There are no others there.
1:49:32 And wait, actually, I wanted to point out, the CTE operates, we’ve
1:49:38 discussed this before,
1:49:39 with Perkins and CAPE funds and some additional resources.
1:49:43 We’ve also posted all of that online.
1:49:46 So if at any time any members of the community or the board
1:49:49 wants to see more,
1:49:50 wants to see more than just Fund 100, all you’d have to do is
1:49:54 click that link right there.
1:49:56 And Mr. Susan, I think you had a preview of this.
1:50:00 Ms. Rutledge posted three years of expenditures and how those
1:50:04 are balanced across all of the schools.
1:50:07 Really beautiful detailed reporting.
1:50:09 Yep. Yep.
1:50:10 So, every wrench is on that list somewhere, and we buy a lot of
1:50:15 wrenches.
1:50:16 And so this is the budget that manages that team of people,
1:50:20 their office.
1:50:22 So I’m going to, again, let you take a look at that.
1:50:28 One of the things that, again, you may have noticed is extra
1:50:31 duty pay.
1:50:32 That is because they’re all 10 month employees.
1:50:36 And we do a significant amount of training in the summer.
1:50:40 And they do their entire curriculum overhaul each summer.
1:50:43 So that our curriculum plans are ready for teachers in the fall.
1:50:47 And, again, we have to budget for that.
1:50:58 So the usual copy machines, the basics.
1:51:03 So this is where –
1:51:04 Can I ask a question?
1:51:05 Sorry.
1:51:06 Yeah.
1:51:07 I saw in a couple of budgets about the Seminole office.
1:51:11 Can you just explain what’s copy?
1:51:13 That’s our copy.
1:51:14 Seminoles are a copy machine contract.
1:51:16 Oh.
1:51:17 Because I – sorry.
1:51:19 I had a moment.
1:51:20 Well, I know that we have a reading program.
1:51:23 This may be more of an elementary thing where we share –
1:51:26 there’s some things where we share with other districts.
1:51:29 And so I’m like, oh, maybe we share some of this.
1:51:30 Literally our copy machine vendor.
1:51:32 You know –
1:51:34 Not near that interesting.
1:51:35 That’s my one moment for the day.
1:51:36 Thank you.
1:51:38 No, no, no.
1:51:39 It’s a good question.
1:51:40 And, in fact, I often answer those same questions of my team
1:51:45 because you’re doing a quick read and it catches your attention.
1:51:48 So it is totally fine.
1:51:50 I may have spent this morning with Rachel.
1:51:52 Tell me what this is again.
1:51:53 So it’s all good.
1:51:54 I remember when that bid came through and Seminole won it.
1:51:57 And there was a big changeover.
1:51:58 So when I first saw it, it’s the same thing.
1:52:00 I said, what are we doing in Seminole County?
1:52:02 And then I remembered it.
1:52:03 It just happens to be their name.
1:52:04 Seriously.
1:52:05 It just happens to be their name.
1:52:06 Very good point.
1:52:07 We have our copies made in Seminole County.
1:52:08 And then we go pick them up.
1:52:09 No, no, no.
1:52:10 It’s the machines.
1:52:11 And so this is where it gets a little interesting and confusing.
1:52:17 I’m going to add a little bit more.
1:52:18 So if I’m going to add a little bit more.
1:52:19 I’m going to add a little bit more.
1:52:22 So I’m going to add a little bit more.
1:52:23 I’m going to add a little bit more.
1:52:30 And then I’m going to add a little bit more.
1:52:31 All of this goes out to the schools and or directly supports the
1:52:36 schools.
1:52:37 And so where I went ahead again for the sake of no confusion,
1:52:43 put them all here.
1:52:45 And that way there’d be no question about another pot that we
1:52:48 might be missing.
1:52:50 And so in 9810, we have several different projects.
1:52:54 If you remember, Miss Hand did a lovely job of explaining that
1:52:59 you have your cost center
1:53:00 and then you have a project, which is basically what it’s for.
1:53:04 And so I’m going to go through each of the projects with you so
1:53:07 that you can understand.
1:53:09 Plus, I think it’s also nice to know what the district does
1:53:12 indeed support district-wide
1:53:14 when you’re getting questions out in the community.
1:53:17 This first one covers two big buckets that support the school
1:53:22 system.
1:53:23 One is performance matters.
1:53:25 Performance matters is our learning management system.
1:53:29 By law, we have to have it.
1:53:31 It is very robust, very useful.
1:53:34 I know Mr. Tran’s probably very familiar with it.
1:53:37 It’s also very expensive.
1:53:39 And so I do want to mention that working alongside Mr. Cheatham’s
1:53:45 office, we are looking at is there a potential to sunset
1:53:50 performance matters as we add capability to focus.
1:53:53 We’ve had Dr. Carr working alongside his team all year.
1:53:58 So we’ve been doing parallel play to identify the gaps that
1:54:02 would come towards our teachers and our school staff.
1:54:06 And is there a way to use some of those funds for the full
1:54:10 capabilities of focus?
1:54:12 Project team is working on it.
1:54:15 This is a state law requirement to have a learning management
1:54:18 system.
1:54:19 And it is incredibly robust and powerful.
1:54:22 We’re just hoping that focus can add some of that capability and
1:54:26 minimize the cost to the district.
1:54:28 The other software purchase is to maintain the media centers,
1:54:32 the Destiny Follett thingy, where all our entire collection in
1:54:37 Brevard Public Schools is on, is accessible to families, is
1:54:41 accessible to the public.
1:54:43 And those are the two main buckets in this project.
1:54:47 The next funds are academic support funds.
1:54:57 And these come out of state categoricals for SAI, Supplemental
1:55:00 Academic Instruction.
1:55:01 That is a really large pool of money.
1:55:03 This is a small slice of it.
1:55:06 The net 942,000 is distributed to schools K-8 based on their
1:55:12 level one and two readers.
1:55:14 And so every fall, in fact, Ms. Bowman is our expert on this,
1:55:18 works with our elementary friends.
1:55:20 We look at the number of struggling readers at each school and
1:55:24 send it out proportionately, calculating a per student cost, a
1:55:29 per student allocation, and sending it to the schools.
1:55:33 They then, in turn, expend those funds.
1:55:36 We literally put the money in their school account.
1:55:38 And I’ll show you what some of those budget sheets look like at
1:55:41 the end of the presentation.
1:55:43 Our schools are typically supporting tutoring before school,
1:55:47 after school, sometimes supplemental materials for Tier 3
1:55:51 students.
1:55:52 Some of our schools brought in some external tutoring today, but
1:55:56 it’s basically enriched support for students.
1:56:00 Some of our schools have a large allocation and are able to
1:56:04 purchase, like, an instructional assistant that can come in and
1:56:08 do small groups.
1:56:09 It just really depends.
1:56:11 They each have to submit a plan to Ms. Bowman, and then we load
1:56:14 those budgets into their account.
1:56:16 We just want to make sure they’re eligible based on the categorical.
1:56:23 This is our allocation for professional development by our
1:56:26 teachers for teachers, typically allocated by our content
1:56:31 specialists.
1:56:32 This bucket is used in reading, ELA, and world language.
1:56:36 And as you can see, nearly the entirety of the budget is spent
1:56:40 on extra duty pay or subs.
1:56:42 So think about a teacher.
1:56:43 We’re either paying them perhaps on a Saturday or after school
1:56:47 to attend professional development, or we are paying for a sub
1:56:51 for them to attend.
1:56:53 This will be familiar for those of you that have worked in our
1:56:55 district.
1:56:56 46,000 for the entire year for all major literacy programs.
1:57:02 Just want to mention that.
1:57:04 So again, those are navigated to support teachers’ ability to
1:57:12 participate.
1:57:14 This next bucket, 428, is the exact same thing, but anchoring in
1:57:18 math and our other subject areas.
1:57:20 And as you can see, this covers four core areas.
1:57:24 You can also see nearly all the expenses are in extra duty pay
1:57:28 or subs.
1:57:29 And so this is where we are paying our staff to participate in
1:57:32 professional development opportunities.
1:57:35 Oftentimes in the summer, because they’re not teaching and
1:57:42 otherwise we provide a sub to them.
1:57:46 Answer my question.
1:57:47 So post-secondary remediation, this is our next project, this
1:57:50 project 440.
1:57:52 This is exactly what we said about the K-8 level one and two
1:57:56 readers, but for high school.
1:57:58 So anybody that’s worked in a high school will be familiar with
1:58:01 the term post-secondary.
1:58:05 That’s our short vernacular for this bucket of funds.
1:58:08 Same thing.
1:58:09 We allocate based on level one and two readers from ninth and 10th
1:58:13 grade plus juniors and seniors who have not yet passed reading.
1:58:17 These funds are provided to the schools to provide targeted
1:58:21 academic support.
1:58:23 This also comes from the state SAI categorical for supplemental
1:58:28 academic instruction.
1:58:30 And again, the schools submit a plan and the resources get
1:58:34 allocated to the schools.
1:58:36 I truncated this one a little bit because they’re spent all over
1:58:40 because they’re spent at the schools.
1:58:43 And so this one’s a little harder to budget.
1:58:45 I drive Cindy’s crew crazy every year because we put it in a
1:58:49 bucket and then they allocate it in a bucket and we move it in
1:58:54 those strings.
1:58:56 And then we move it in those strings.
1:58:57 We move it in those strings.
1:58:58 Can I ask one question real fast?
1:58:59 You can ask.
1:59:00 You stop me whenever you want to stop me.
1:59:01 I think I know the answer.
1:59:02 I’ve got my list.
1:59:03 I know.
1:59:04 I’m like, I want to do it before we go to the next slide.
1:59:06 So when we look at our actuals and, you know, as of 331, it
1:59:10 looks like a lot of these categories, a lot of these budgets, we
1:59:13 haven’t used or touched any of them or very small portions of
1:59:17 them.
1:59:17 Is that because majority of it is spent over the summer or?
1:59:20 Yes and yes.
1:59:21 So majority of us is spent late spring.
1:59:24 And so when we did these, I checked the balances up until last
1:59:27 week.
1:59:28 Cindy’s team had balanced based on 331.
1:59:31 We’re also right now in the weird COVID crossover period.
1:59:36 So we are intentionally and knowingly trying to expend federal
1:59:42 funds first, but maintaining the budget.
1:59:46 So right now the schools have double amount because of ESSER.
1:59:50 Okay.
1:59:51 So we have asked them to spend those ESSER funds first,
1:59:53 protecting fund 100.
1:59:55 Anything unspent, of course, goes back to Cindy’s stuff.
2:00:01 And so it kind of pulls back at the end of the year and gets in
2:00:06 that lapse dollars, I think is the correct term.
2:00:11 So we are, we are knowing that we are spending less than
2:00:14 allocation for these ESSER years.
2:00:16 Okay.
2:00:17 Thank you.
2:00:17 Yeah.
2:00:18 Good question.
2:00:19 AVID, you all are quite familiar with AVID and the impact in our
2:00:24 schools.
2:00:25 The AVID budget, it covers a couple of different things.
2:00:29 It covers the cost of tutors.
2:00:31 So we pay our AVID tutors to come in twice a week.
2:00:35 It also covers the district AVID contract.
2:00:39 And then each school gets a 0.2 for their school-wide
2:00:43 coordination, which is a lot of work.
2:00:46 So if a school has an AVID program, they get a 0.2 of a human so
2:00:51 that that teacher does not have to, can teach six, five out of
2:00:57 seven and ten of six out of seven to serve as a coordinator for
2:01:00 one period.
2:01:01 Okay.
2:01:02 Got that right.
2:01:05 And so again, a pretty narrow budget there.
2:01:08 And I’m going to go on.
2:01:13 Career research and decision-making.
2:01:15 That is our district-wide course for ninth graders to get their
2:01:19 curriculum planning done.
2:01:22 And this is the project that is the budget for that curriculum
2:01:26 writing.
2:01:27 Bring in teachers every summer.
2:01:29 And that’s where the bulk of this budget goes is that summer
2:01:32 work.
2:01:33 Again, summer work is really important to our operation given
2:01:38 the 10 months of our staff.
2:01:41 Career and technical education.
2:01:43 She does have some fund 100 budget for the schools.
2:01:47 And this is her equipment and supply replacement budget.
2:01:52 And all the funds directly support school programs.
2:01:55 They send us their requests.
2:01:57 We buy all kinds of things.
2:01:59 As you can imagine.
2:02:00 in the range of our career and technical education programs and
2:02:05 we are
2:02:05 processing those purchase orders of course to make sure they’re
2:02:08 eligible in
2:02:09 our requirements science materials as you can imagine science
2:02:19 labs take things
2:02:20 and so we distribute k-12 to each school a proportion based on
2:02:26 their
2:02:26 student enrollment for laboratory supplies and again I’ll show
2:02:30 you what
2:02:31 that looks like but again that’s across k-12
2:02:36 it’s another one to balance where they spend it and where they
2:02:46 need it because
2:02:48 the teachers themselves decide where to spend this budget so
2:02:53 typically the
2:02:54 principal will get the notification your school has X amount of
2:02:57 money in
2:02:58 project 1015 most secondary schools will work with a department
2:03:04 chair and
2:03:04 elementary school is typically going to be the administration on
2:03:08 purchasing beakers
2:03:09 and things for for labs and dr. Sullivan on this slide I noticed
2:03:16 that the budget
2:03:17 office is higher than your request is there a quick there’s some
2:03:24 bigger chunks in
2:03:26 the teachers yes so it they those supplements were not they’ve
2:03:32 always
2:03:32 existed they were not charged previously to this string and
2:03:37 Cindy can correct me
2:03:38 they oh no she can there she is they are they are attaching
2:03:43 those things to the
2:03:45 correct projects now and so that’s why it got moved it hasn’t
2:03:49 changed it moved from
2:03:50 some mystery land directly into the science project and I don’t
2:03:55 mean to imply
2:03:56 mystery mystery to me because it’s district level I’m sure Cindy’s
2:04:00 team has it down pat
2:04:02 but that’s just an that’s just moving those supplements to the
2:04:06 correct charge
2:04:06 music programs we’ve got a couple of different buckets for music
2:04:12 programs this is our k-12 bucket
2:04:15 and these resources are allocated to the schools primarily with
2:04:21 some of the resources going to
2:04:23 our all county programs and so you’ll see king center rental and
2:04:27 some of those associated costs there
2:04:30 and then everything else is supporting the schools
2:04:42 secondary band this is obviously a little different they have
2:04:46 increased expenses for marching band and
2:04:48 high school band programs and so they get additional resources
2:04:52 based on those those needs many will look
2:04:57 at the enrollments and allocate the resources out based on
2:05:01 enrollment like i said i’m going to show
2:05:02 you what that looks like but every year in the fall they look at
2:05:06 all this enrollment and then reallocate
2:05:10 the budget out the budget comes back in and goes anything
2:05:13 remaining goes back to the finance team
2:05:15 secondary chorus exact same thing funds get distributed to the
2:05:22 schools
2:05:23 and so to the best of our abilities the buckets that they’re in
2:05:32 the next one’s model student senate we fund the expenses related
2:05:37 to hosting model school senate in
2:05:40 its own project this is one that we do manage up here because we
2:05:45 facilitate it but as you can see it’s
2:05:48 an incredibly modest budget lean is the theme of secondary
2:05:53 leading and learning we run a lean operation
2:05:58 the next bucket is advanced placement and this is not a true
2:06:03 budget allocation because all these costs are
2:06:08 funded through bonus fte through the doe so as students complete
2:06:13 their exams and score at a certain
2:06:16 level through bonus fte we get those funds back those funds come
2:06:20 in and pay for the exams primarily that’s the big
2:06:24 one you see those are the actual exams and some other some other
2:06:28 minor expenses related to advanced placement
2:06:32 all covered through bonus fte though so the program generates
2:06:36 the funds to pay the cost these aren’t
2:06:39 coming out of fund 100 well they are coming out of fund 100 but
2:06:43 we’re getting the funds because of the program
2:06:50 ctso programs i know you guys are always very excited about our
2:06:54 career and technical student
2:06:56 organizations these are our groups that typically compete across
2:07:00 the state and sometimes the nation
2:07:02 and this is a modest budget that we keep to assist the cost of
2:07:06 the teacher
2:07:07 so for example palm bay high school is always one of our
2:07:10 exceptional programs
2:07:12 and tsa this would help the teacher with those costs for the
2:07:16 competition
2:07:17 skills usa is another common amazing program this these would
2:07:24 offset some of those fees for the teacher
2:07:26 because you guys know kids can’t fundraise for the teacher costs
2:07:31 yeah it’s ridiculous
2:07:34 um itinerant strings this is the cost including the salary and
2:07:39 the travel expenses of our bank of itinerant
2:07:42 strings consultants i think there’s 10 ish and they are paired
2:07:48 up between an elementary middle and high
2:07:51 school and they travel to a different school in the morning in
2:07:54 the afternoon and throughout the days
2:07:57 like i said the bulk of it is actually the salary of the string
2:08:00 consultants they are bps full-time
2:08:02 teachers they are itinerant and so this is one where the salary
2:08:06 cost was charged to the project
2:08:08 much like itinerant in other fields they are full-time teachers
2:08:13 that we schedule them in a variety of different schools
2:08:17 and we are so pleased they’re they’re the primary extracurricular
2:08:21 music instructor in our elementary schools
2:08:24 art programs so our art programs above normal school supplies
2:08:32 require things like paint and clay
2:08:35 and all the things that you can imagine this pot of money is
2:08:39 distributed k-12 between all the schools
2:08:42 based on enrollment so you’ll hear that over and over again
2:08:46 money goes out to the schools for the art
2:08:49 teachers to be able to purchase same thing that i mentioned
2:08:53 before the memo goes to the principal
2:08:55 the principal will either work directly with the art teacher or
2:08:59 some of our large schools have like an
2:09:00 arts department that department chair might manage those budgets
2:09:04 we remind them with great regularity
2:09:08 that they should always prioritize keeping their classrooms well
2:09:13 supplied
2:09:14 academic tournament costs you guys are familiar with the
2:09:21 academic tournaments we’re running up this
2:09:24 year state champs last year and the agreement with this state is
2:09:30 when you participate you have to cover the
2:09:32 costs of your students so this covers their cost to go into the
2:09:36 state competition
2:09:38 and the teacher uh whose time is spent every week in the
2:09:42 competitions for for mr trent and miss wright it’s
2:09:46 a thrilling uh fall season of academic tournament competition
2:09:50 i know coco beach is is a primary leader in this work for us i
2:09:55 know mr trance familiar
2:09:57 but it’s uh it’s a really great extracurricular program and
2:10:01 those costs manage that
2:10:06 and district cte interns this is the one increase that i made
2:10:09 this year and this is the funds that cover
2:10:15 when our organization hires an intern so for example if
2:10:20 transportation has some mechanics
2:10:23 sues always use a variety of interns this helps cover those
2:10:27 costs in the past those were covered with lapse
2:10:32 and again in the effort to really charge the expense correctly
2:10:37 we’ve budgeted for it and um 25 000 is
2:10:41 closer to what is really required for the interns that we hire
2:10:46 in bps so those are for just the student
2:10:48 salary costs when they meet those requirements
2:10:53 cte supplies distributed to schools so a couple of the
2:10:58 categories of cte programs are eligible for
2:11:01 these funds and these are primarily like consumable materials so
2:11:05 for example a culinary
2:11:07 program needs food they need they need to be able to purchase
2:11:12 some food and some additional items that
2:11:14 can’t be spent in any other you can’t do that elsewhere and so
2:11:18 this is the bucket it goes to the schools they
2:11:21 get an allocation and then they use it on their consumable
2:11:25 materials again it’s allocated based on enrollment
2:11:28 we buy a lot of chicken a lot of chickens when i see those
2:11:32 purchase orders it takes me a minute
2:11:36 they’re not alive let me let me just throw that out there um
2:11:39 this is really the most impressive budget
2:11:41 of all um this is our district’s physical education k-12 budget
2:11:48 i’m just going to let that sink in for a second
2:11:53 so um again very lean operation this is one of those budgets
2:11:58 that has been uh cut over the years and
2:12:01 luckily our our content specialist in addition to doing driver’s
2:12:09 ed rtc and some other programs she
2:12:12 works really closely with health first and they give us a lot of
2:12:15 grant funds to support the equipment
2:12:18 needs and we’ve done a lot with esser to accelerate and uh
2:12:22 purchase materials and equipment for them
2:12:25 so i noted looking at the actuals the last year that was a
2:12:31 bigger budget and that was wasn’t huge
2:12:33 was 2020 and then of course ever since then we’ve had esser and
2:12:37 we did use esser to purchase to give
2:12:39 them to purchase uh you know pe equipment is that something that
2:12:44 next year when we’re doing this
2:12:46 process we’ll need to consider putting it back to where it was
2:12:49 or have we replaced that with other
2:12:51 funds that that will be up to the board those actuals i believe
2:12:56 represent the inclusion of how
2:12:59 the grant funds were handled that year this district budget has
2:13:03 been three thousand for
2:13:04 most of my time in this district okay so i think that’s where
2:13:09 they placed the grant funds that year
2:13:12 as opposed to now keeping it in a separate project so that wasn’t
2:13:16 typical before no um when i started
2:13:19 seven years ago it was about 9 000 and has been cut down to
2:13:23 three thousand okay thank you which is
2:13:26 which is going to take me to sort of our challenges and so every
2:13:30 one of these budgets has been cut
2:13:33 nearly every single year i can speak to the past seven years and
2:13:38 most of them have been either cut
2:13:41 or a couple of years of maintaining the same there’s been like i
2:13:45 said the first increase i’ve asked for
2:13:48 is for those interns so we are running a super lean operation
2:13:53 which normally doesn’t make me panic
2:13:56 because i just really believe in close financial management but
2:14:00 right now everything has increased
2:14:03 and you have actually heard a reference to it a little bit
2:14:07 earlier when i say everything i mean everything
2:14:10 so salaries remember i mentioned summer professional development
2:14:15 that costs us way more now because
2:14:17 the teacher pay rate has gone up and that’s a good thing i like
2:14:21 that not a bad thing but the pie has
2:14:24 stayed the same pie or gotten smaller and so things where we’ve
2:14:27 been able to do professional development
2:14:30 for maybe 30 teachers we can now do for 20 teachers same thing
2:14:34 with sub rates so when the budget stays
2:14:36 the same and sub rates have gone up that’s less we can do for
2:14:40 those teachers again it’s a good thing we
2:14:43 like that salary has gone up we like that the costs our teachers
2:14:47 are being compensated much more
2:14:49 but the pay that supports all of those increases on our end hasn’t
2:14:55 changed everything that you can imagine costs so much more money
2:15:01 you’ve heard from it over and over again so those science
2:15:04 supplies the music supplies we are constantly blindsided by the
2:15:09 impact of costs
2:15:11 and structural materials is definitely something that needs to
2:15:16 be on the board’s radar we have survived the
2:15:19 last three years of instructional materials because of esser and
2:15:23 so typically what happens is you would receive
2:15:28 a categorical allocation from the state and our categorical
2:15:32 allocation has been a total of about six million
2:15:35 then takeout charters has gotten us closer to in the fives dual
2:15:40 enrollment books cost about a million
2:15:43 and so that leaves about four and a half million towards an
2:15:48 adoption our ela adoption costs 15 million dollars
2:15:53 our math adoption was about eight or nine million dollars and we’ve
2:15:58 been able to fill the gap with esser
2:16:01 as we move forward this is going to become a bigger issue as
2:16:06 many of the board knows and our community knows the
2:16:09 state decides on the adoption cycle and so in the past we didn’t
2:16:14 have biggies back to back and when i say
2:16:17 biggies i mean we went from ela to math those are biggies we are
2:16:21 required by law to have an addition for every
2:16:24 single student so those are really big adoptions that we went
2:16:27 back to back on typically we try to recover
2:16:31 financially on the smaller adoption cycles uh social studies is
2:16:35 going to be our next adoption that’s
2:16:36 another biggie nearly every student our organization is going to
2:16:40 require an addition of something
2:16:41 and those book costs are soaring shipping costs of books are soaring
2:16:47 and so this is a problem that
2:16:50 is going to reveal itself even more over the next couple of
2:16:54 years to make it a little more challenging
2:16:59 for this next financial cycle it is coming out of a categorical
2:17:05 every year that i’ve worked in brevard
2:17:07 public schools it is a straight categorical on calc we look at
2:17:11 the calc you can look at calc i looked
2:17:14 at like 10 years of calc and it never changed barely it was
2:17:17 always still that six million or so despite
2:17:20 the change in books this year it’s coming out of calc out of its
2:17:24 own calc and going into the big pot and so
2:17:28 we’ll be working with cindy’s office to try to budget for this
2:17:32 year will be okay the next year when we’re
2:17:35 about to buy the entire social studies edition it’s going to
2:17:39 cost a lot and so i just want to get that on the
2:17:43 radar of the board when you’re dealing with state advocacy and
2:17:46 we’re looking at those issues the cost
2:17:49 of instructional materials is killing us and it’s just want to
2:17:54 get that at the forefront of your attention
2:17:57 right now we’re going to spend about four and a half million for
2:18:00 this next school year just on gap year
2:18:03 data just on gap year materials because the state switched up
2:18:08 the order we have books that are out of
2:18:10 adoption and we have to buy supplemental materials for those
2:18:14 years and that’s going to be about a four
2:18:16 and a half million dollar bill k-12 so a year from now minus esser
2:18:23 and the increasing cost of
2:18:26 instructional materials and the state law very clearly on a an
2:18:31 addition per child it’s going to hit a
2:18:34 pretty tough budget point so wanted to get that on your radar
2:18:38 another challenge is the complex
2:18:40 needs of teachers out of field or non-traditional we’ve talked
2:18:43 about this a lot our resource teachers
2:18:46 are content specialists let’s take nancy gray she has about 200
2:18:50 ela teachers under her has spent a
2:18:52 disproportionate amount of time and effort in trying to teach
2:18:56 kind of the how to be an english teacher
2:18:58 part which we love doing it is not problematic on our end it
2:19:03 just diminishes her ability to do other
2:19:06 things again we have single points of contact in every core area
2:19:10 when the demands on them continue to
2:19:13 increase we’re making it we’re managing not asking for anything
2:19:17 just an awareness that the landscape of
2:19:21 the teacher profile has changed and so we have to be responsive
2:19:25 to that as an organization and of course
2:19:27 legislative impacts to curriculum every year there are new
2:19:31 curricular mandates that aren’t necessarily funded maybe
2:19:36 that they don’t require big buckets but require our teachers you
2:19:39 know spending five days in the
2:19:40 summer developing curriculum all of that costs and all of that
2:19:44 costs more than it did before
2:19:46 and so just wanted to to put from an instructional side of the
2:19:52 house i know we’ve heard we’ve talked a
2:19:54 lot about facilities and technology but those same issues are
2:19:58 hitting us instructionally as well
2:20:00 and they’re good problems but after a year or so this is this is
2:20:06 going to be untenable because we have been
2:20:09 able to cover a lot with esser additional information for you if
2:20:14 you clicked that link to budget distribution
2:20:17 sheets you know how many times i said this goes out to the
2:20:20 school i’ve put samples of all of that on
2:20:23 there for you the calculations that we do the per cost the memo
2:20:27 that the schools get so that they are
2:20:31 indeed spending those funds as targeted we monitor them pretty
2:20:35 carefully because between principal
2:20:38 turnover bookkeeper turnover we want to make sure they’re spent
2:20:42 as intended and our schools have done
2:20:44 a terrific job of that sometimes our new principals we have to
2:20:47 give them a call we give them copies of
2:20:49 those memos when they get hired in january to make sure they
2:20:52 understand the resources available for their kids
2:20:55 because those monies are designed to support teachers in the
2:20:59 classroom for the most part
2:21:01 and we want them doing that because we understand those programs
2:21:06 are costly programs
2:21:11 that is all and so again for the sake of the oddity of our
2:21:16 budget i just put it all in there there are
2:21:19 no other sheets there are no other personnel i just thought it
2:21:22 would be easier because we do budget for
2:21:24 the schools directly thank you dr sullivan you’re welcome
2:21:28 anybody want to say anything to our presentation
2:21:32 ask questions i don’t have any questions dr sullivan but i just
2:21:36 want you to know that i appreciate you
2:21:38 and thank you for as quickly as possible uh throwing the immense
2:21:44 complicated
2:21:46 insane budget side of your job and that’s just one of the hats
2:21:50 that you’re wearing so thank you
2:21:52 and thank you to all of your staff that helps you put this
2:21:55 presentation together i know it’s not just
2:21:56 you i i appreciate we’re actually a pretty nerdy crew and we
2:21:59 love this stuff um so this this was not a
2:22:02 bad thing on our end all right miss campbell yeah i just want to
2:22:07 touch on three things so just making
2:22:09 sure i understand it’s a performance matters issue so the state
2:22:12 requires that we have one but it does
2:22:14 not have to be performance matters correct are there other
2:22:17 districts in the state here are using focus
2:22:19 already for this um i obviously there’s a lot of districts using
2:22:23 focus i don’t know if they’re using
2:22:25 it as their learning management requirement okay so i can’t
2:22:29 speak to that i know that we have a project
2:22:32 team working together looking at all of that this is the first
2:22:35 year they would have crossed because
2:22:37 remember we didn’t have the student information system before
2:22:40 right right and so we are with intentionality
2:22:43 walking them side by side the goal of the state law and
2:22:47 performance matters is to support the ease of
2:22:50 access for the teacher and so so a teacher to be able to have
2:22:54 just a couple clicks away from all their
2:22:57 data teachers can really quickly take their rosters and add all
2:23:01 kinds of information focus can do like
2:23:04 most of it but not all of it and so we’re looking at that we
2:23:08 also do a lot of metrics related to
2:23:11 common assessments using performance matters which focus doesn’t
2:23:14 have yet but our performance matters
2:23:18 expert is dr john carr you’ve seen his data analysis he uses
2:23:22 performance matters for that he is working
2:23:25 closely with russell’s team we are hoping uh that there is a win-win
2:23:30 in that space cool um second question
2:23:35 is um i you know have to see i see the music stuff in there and
2:23:39 i know the cost of running the kingston
2:23:41 has gone up i didn’t see any increases so when on things like
2:23:44 that not just on that but we know
2:23:45 like we’re building the budget this year you know my my thought
2:23:48 was when you guys did the zero-based
2:23:50 budgeting you’re like what is it going to cost us well if we
2:23:52 know it’s going to cost us more are we
2:23:55 budgeting for the more in theory we are asking for those more
2:23:59 when there are hard costs um however
2:24:04 if we are typically coming under budget we are also looking to
2:24:08 to defer that cost within budget in the
2:24:12 case of the king center for this next year and this next year
2:24:16 only we’re actually not confident we’re
2:24:18 going to get the king center okay they reneged on the dates that
2:24:22 we had um and so we may need to run
2:24:24 them out of our auditoriums in which case we’ll be able to
2:24:27 return some of those funds to the district
2:24:29 uh it’s we we definitely didn’t we’re not at the point of asking
2:24:33 for the more budget because we
2:24:34 don’t think they’re going to be able to host it this year so we’re
2:24:37 we’re pausing on that whole
2:24:38 chunk of budget to see a year from now they have guaranteed us
2:24:42 they’re giving us our dates back
2:24:43 then you will see a budget request for those increased costs as
2:24:48 you know miss campbell to pay
2:24:50 those bills this year it came out of the schools because all the
2:24:52 money goes to the schools and miss
2:24:54 campbell said did you really take the money from the schools i
2:24:56 was like i did um because we had to pay
2:24:58 the bill um so it would we’ve at sometimes we’ve asked for it
2:25:02 they’ve paused on it because of all
2:25:05 the other reasons with the budget right right no and i
2:25:07 appreciate the flexibility that we have
2:25:09 in working with outside entities um i just you know this is not
2:25:13 necessarily a question but i just had to
2:25:15 speak to the point of the content specialist becomes because
2:25:18 sometimes the rhetoric and i’m going to use
2:25:19 that word rhetoric is that we have so many people in the cubicle
2:25:23 farm right but when we talk about having
2:25:25 one content one math content specialist for all the secondary
2:25:30 math teachers in the entire district to
2:25:34 supervise you know implementing like for example this year brand
2:25:39 new math curriculum across the board
2:25:43 to help coordinate that with all the math teachers at every
2:25:46 school and to go in and and and handhold when
2:25:50 necessary brand new teachers one person yeah you know i just you
2:25:55 know it’s it’s good to remember that when we
2:25:59 have those conversations with people because that’s that’s a lot
2:26:02 of work for one one person to do and i know
2:26:05 we have mentor teachers who are kind of focused on a different
2:26:07 thing but when it comes to the content which
2:26:09 is the most important thing that they understand the content and
2:26:11 how to deliver that content when they might
2:26:13 have not be coming from an education background or maybe they do
2:26:17 but they’re brand new first year
2:26:18 it’s it’s a big job and um and like you said i just wanted to
2:26:23 appreciate the the leanness of it all
2:26:26 i i appreciate that i i have to say it gets done on how
2:26:30 exceptional they are it is a really incredible team
2:26:35 of teacher leaders that we have and they are at schools probably
2:26:40 you know there was some discussion
2:26:43 on 90 percent they’re like well we’re already there 85 percent
2:26:46 they’re typically monday through thursday
2:26:48 is not in the building and then on fridays we try to collaborate
2:26:51 they are a pretty incredible team
2:26:53 we prioritize their time in our tier two and tier three schools
2:26:58 addressing achievement gaps
2:27:01 so there are schools that probably haven’t seen a lot of them
2:27:05 because they’re an individual and we did
2:27:07 extensive walks and training for our tier two and tier three
2:27:11 schools on ela and math in particular
2:27:14 and so we are very careful at where they are spending their time
2:27:18 to make sure it’s in the district
2:27:20 priority needs and sometimes that means a no because we are
2:27:25 really focusing on tier two and tier three schools
2:27:29 thank you mr trump don’t have a lot of questions i i have a
2:27:35 feeling um the next two will so i’m gonna
2:27:39 give some time for them uh thank you for all uh all the
2:27:42 information it’s important and um yeah i do hope
2:27:46 you can see if we can take some of the away from the performance
2:27:50 matters and see if focus yeah i know
2:27:52 as a teacher we’ve always said we’ve got focus let’s use it too
2:27:55 um it’s top of mind absolutely so
2:28:00 but again thank you for what you’re doing yep no problem
2:28:11 yeah no thank you for for giving us this presentation and
2:28:14 breaking down each of the departments there’s
2:28:16 you know one of the things i tend to look at when i look at a
2:28:19 budget is how is it changing year by year
2:28:20 because that’s a good indicator of what we should be looking
2:28:23 forward yep to to allocate funds and so
2:28:26 one of the areas that you know i guess the professional
2:28:28 development the amount of money
2:28:30 that we’ve actually used versus what we’ve allocated i’m like
2:28:33 okay so that’s that’s a little discouraging
2:28:35 because we want to june it’s june okay it’s all coming all right
2:28:38 it’s almost all june okay and then
2:28:40 the other one that was drastically different there’s a couple
2:28:42 that are different um the post-secondary
2:28:45 remediation that one again i’m i’m banking on summer there um
2:28:49 one that’s on here that i noticed is the advanced
2:28:52 placement that was reduced by like almost two million dollars
2:28:55 two million or over two million dollars
2:28:57 what why was that i’m going to assume it might be how things
2:29:02 were charged because that budget
2:29:05 we had to increase the allocation for tests because we’re adding
2:29:08 advanced placement pre-algebra
2:29:10 let me just pull it up really quickly it’s on page 25 almost
2:29:14 there i’m on 24 there we go
2:29:16 um i’m not oh it looks like the teacher pay is was represented
2:29:27 more aggressively in the budget in the past
2:29:32 i can check on those differences the it’s salary and it’s we
2:29:36 have no more humans than we had before
2:29:39 in the schools right um so we’ll take a look at how it was done
2:29:42 the the budget process we changed a
2:29:44 couple years ago to have it all on one sheet where in the past
2:29:49 it wasn’t um but we’re not putting less
2:29:52 money there if if that eases your stress any i will figure out
2:29:56 why it looks like that okay it looks like
2:29:59 we’re putting a significantly uh less money yeah we’re not than
2:30:03 we have okay um other than that i’ll
2:30:05 double check with cindy’s team on why it looks different the
2:30:09 cost is essentially the test the cost
2:30:11 of the test and of course the bits of salary that go into bonus
2:30:16 fte it may be that they haven’t charged
2:30:18 bonus fte to that in the past i’ll have to look at it with ap
2:30:22 teachers also get a bonus and so teachers
2:30:25 get a burn bonus for pass rates that also comes out of bonus fte
2:30:30 so it’s really a self-funded operation
2:30:33 um so we’re definitely not decreasing it but i’ll find out why
2:30:36 it looks that way that’s a great catch
2:30:38 okay all right thank you yeah i mean what we as a board need to
2:30:41 have it on our radar as far as
2:30:43 curriculum for that’s coming up so that sounds like that’s going
2:30:45 to be a big expense that we’re going
2:30:46 to be needing to prepare for save our money for yes ma’am thank
2:30:51 you dr shell sullivan i i want to say
2:30:53 thank you to your uh group for putting this all together um i
2:30:57 love the organizational chart it was
2:30:59 really nice to put it down there see how everything plays out
2:31:01 that was really nice um great job on that
2:31:04 um and i wanted to say miss vega is awesome because uh she’s
2:31:08 taken over the athletics and we know that
2:31:10 that was an abrupt thing that happened and i appreciate her i
2:31:13 wanted to say that publicly i
2:31:14 appreciate that i mean i know you guys are uncovering stuff
2:31:17 everywhere she has a pretty
2:31:18 big caseload of responsibility so she’s amazing thank you for
2:31:21 saying that yep um she deserves that and then
2:31:24 you know internship increase um i think that’s a great
2:31:29 opportunity for not only us to to take on but
2:31:33 then also talk to when we go to the cities to talk to them about
2:31:37 coco coco gives is a great example of
2:31:39 giving i think it’s fifty thousand dollars a year to our
2:31:42 students to do internships and stuff like that
2:31:44 but many of our other cities have not jumped on board so i think
2:31:47 there’s a way to cross collaborate there
2:31:49 whereas we say this is what we do this is what you can do and
2:31:51 stuff like that so i wanted to say thank
2:31:53 you for increasing that and making that a part of the budget um
2:31:57 and then king center can you tell me
2:31:59 what’s going on there because i’m a little upset somebody tells
2:32:01 us no i’m gonna you know i’m live
2:32:05 i like to be politically correct here it’s okay so we had a set
2:32:11 of dates that was agreed upon
2:32:13 and we were surprised to find that they weren’t going to honor
2:32:17 this next year’s date
2:32:21 the king center who’s coming in town so we have prepared for a
2:32:27 backup plan um involving our schools
2:32:32 they just won’t be at the same location and so whereas typically
2:32:36 as a visitor um i know mrs
2:32:39 campbell is one of our most frequent visitors she would be able
2:32:42 to do all three concerts at the same
2:32:45 site that will not happen this year we will have a couple of
2:32:49 different sites so we are working with
2:32:51 them they have committed to getting back on track with us keep
2:32:56 in mind they have changing personnel
2:32:59 and ownership over these last couple years as well and every one
2:33:03 of our local organizations is in the
2:33:05 same boat as us with managing some of the challenges so we’re we’re
2:33:09 working it out i’ll let you know but
2:33:11 let me just get this straight we sent them dates and said hey
2:33:15 these are our dates they approved those dates
2:33:18 and then because they were able to book somebody else on those
2:33:21 dates they called us and said they’re not
2:33:23 able to do it that’s pretty much what happened right uh correct
2:33:27 um i i we book for years in advance so we
2:33:30 gave multiple years of dates that they approved okay and when we
2:33:34 went to do the contract for this year they
2:33:37 they couldn’t commit to those dates for this year okay there you
2:33:40 go okay makes sense and then um
2:33:42 kansas 50th anniversary that’s a good band um no i just i just
2:33:48 wanted to i’m sorry to sweat up here
2:33:51 i’m like oh no more i just you know i i think um i’ll do a
2:33:57 little bit of digging on that thank you very much
2:33:59 yes sir and then the one person per content specialists um i
2:34:04 agree with you miss campbell
2:34:06 it’s across the board like we have four people that do the uh
2:34:10 retention and recruitment and helping
2:34:12 there for 500 teachers you know we’re lean we’re making it
2:34:16 though we’re making it no no i get it and
2:34:18 when i was a teacher we used to see that content specialist come
2:34:21 in as a social studies would meet
2:34:23 with our department heads and then they would present on some
2:34:25 new stuff and then over the summer
2:34:27 we get an opportunity so a lot of hard work goes out to them and
2:34:31 um i did want to say that many of
2:34:32 you guys may have received the um budgetary expenditures over
2:34:37 500 per the secondary department
2:34:40 and we got that at like eight o’clock last night yeah it’s
2:34:43 pretty short as you see there’s not a lot
2:34:45 of money um and so the the bulk of the expenses were actually
2:34:49 cape related expenses the 80 of the
2:34:52 schools and the 20 of cape she went ahead and included those
2:34:56 even though they’re not budgeted expenses
2:34:59 but we could certainly answer any questions about that as well
2:35:03 as you can see a pretty short list
2:35:06 given the scope of work that we oversee no and i appreciate it i
2:35:09 just wanted to take a second and
2:35:11 say just make sure you take a look at those you know what they
2:35:13 are we’ll bring it back you know and
2:35:15 and miss lezinski’s team gets the credit for that that’s yep
2:35:18 yeah she does all that reporting and so we
2:35:20 really appreciate her getting that done in time and we’re happy
2:35:22 to answer any questions about that as
2:35:24 well nope that’s good for me anybody else got any other
2:35:27 questions thank you so much dr sullivan
2:35:28 you’re very welcome appreciate it it was our pleasure thank you
2:35:32 any questions um please don’t hesitate to
2:35:34 reach out yeah and once the budget’s final we’ll put all of it
2:35:37 online as well we like to have it on the
2:35:40 website for any community member who wants to go in and see it
2:35:43 as well love that transparency update
2:35:46 you’ve seen what we’ve done with career in tech ed we will
2:35:48 continue that with all the yeah we were
2:35:50 talking about that at the beginning like in november and she
2:35:52 said this is what we’re doing and they had
2:35:54 already moved on it and i was so proud of you guys for doing
2:35:57 that yeah and our other departments we were
2:35:59 going to post theirs for this year but at this point we were
2:36:01 like let’s just wait and get next year’s
2:36:02 online once it’s approved and all those budget sheets all of
2:36:05 that we’re going to put online
2:36:07 for any teacher who’s unclear on how something’s supported i
2:36:10 think it’s great like we looked at
2:36:12 that list that lisinski sent and there’s some stuff that like
2:36:15 titusville pays to the city of titusville
2:36:17 it’s probably for that field that they maintain and stuff like
2:36:20 that no that that’s probably for their
2:36:22 9-1-1 program no that’s for the sros oh it’s for the sros okay
2:36:26 figure something out but there’s just
2:36:27 some really good questions like hey where’s this going and we
2:36:30 can all it’s all transparency and
2:36:31 everything else so it’s great so we’re happy to help with any of
2:36:34 those questions don’t hesitate
2:36:35 thank you thank you anybody else all right here comes
2:36:39 mr wilson was in men’s warehouse and mr wilson walked in today
2:36:48 yeah i went into him at sam’s he has so
2:36:51 much style he has so much style he knows all the guys inside
2:36:54 there they were uh asking about his
2:36:56 bow tie which he uses it’s not a normal bow tie he uses a normal
2:36:58 tie it’s pretty good stuff
2:37:00 anytime you need any kind of uh
2:37:04 look at the dream team here yes this is my team oh man
2:37:12 i brought security with them i know yep look at neil giving me
2:37:18 the look here this guy
2:37:20 we’ve got a timeline did we are we extending neil’s contract is
2:37:22 that what we’re doing today about
2:37:24 six months he can never leave mr wilson it’s all you good
2:37:30 afternoon everyone
2:37:32 today we’re going to present um the operations budget um i heard
2:37:44 someone say the dream team this is
2:37:45 exactly what this team is this is my dream team um starting from
2:37:49 the far end major neil uh he
2:37:52 overseas is the director of district and school security he’s
2:37:57 going to be leaving us soon
2:38:00 but we’re going to be welcoming major klein uh to replace major
2:38:05 neil right next to major neil we have
2:38:07 dr michael miller he is the director of transportation next to
2:38:12 him we have kevin thornton the director of
2:38:15 food and nutrition services and last but definitely not least
2:38:19 christy rodriguez the director of procurement and
2:38:22 distribution so we’re going to go ahead and get started the
2:38:27 district operations division
2:38:28 provide pries itself in striving to achieve the following core
2:38:34 values commitment communication
2:38:37 integrity professionalism and teamwork our goal is to provide
2:38:42 safe transportation proper nutrition
2:38:46 a safe environment and procurement and distribution solutions
2:38:50 conducive to learning our why the operation
2:38:56 team is responsible for an array of non-instructional tasks
2:39:00 including transportation food services digital
2:39:04 security procurement and distribution and esf central services
2:39:09 the mail center however successful execution of
2:39:13 these distinct work streams is critical to the overall health of
2:39:18 our schools think about it a disorderly bus
2:39:22 arrival which we’ve had a few of those for example can lead to
2:39:26 an unruly first period class
2:39:28 likewise hungry students or those who arrive late due to a bus mishap
2:39:33 are less likely to succeed
2:39:35 academically a student who feels unsafe will have a harder time
2:39:40 paying attention and concentrating
2:39:43 in the classroom which will lead to lower grades schools overrun
2:39:47 with surplus furniture and equipment
2:39:50 leads to an unsafe and cluttered learning environment in this
2:39:55 case in this sense the work of the operations
2:39:58 team while formally separate from that of instructional
2:40:02 leadership and teachers is actually
2:40:05 that we are deeply entwined with students academic achievement
2:40:10 there are 10 department budgets there are 10 department budgets
2:40:18 within the operations division
2:40:19 transportation 9640 has the sub departments 9641 42 43 and 44
2:40:28 representing the individual bus depots throughout the county
2:40:32 procurement and distribution 9680 has the sub department 9865 esf
2:40:38 central services which is the mill room
2:40:41 all budgets receive monies from the general fund except food and
2:40:46 nutrition
2:40:50 the chief operating office provides oversight and integrated
2:40:53 management to drive operational efficiency district
2:40:56 wide including transportation food services district security
2:41:00 procurement distribution strategic plan process
2:41:03 management and project management that office houses myself my
2:41:07 project manager cynthia ran and my secretary linda gibson
2:41:11 we work in collaboration with facilities et and other divisions
2:41:15 to provide high quality equitable support services delivered
2:41:20 within budget to promote high performance in bps
2:41:24 moreover the office facilitates the cross-team communication and
2:41:29 coordination
2:41:30 during emergencies to ensure bps operations are performed
2:41:35 efficiently
2:41:36 department 9600 budget increases are highlighted in yellow on
2:41:48 your detailed proposed budget pdf provided on pages one and two
2:41:55 this has increased traveling county has increased 1250 due to
2:42:02 additional bevard county travel reimbursement for me
2:42:05 to perform assigned duties to ensure the safe operations of bps
2:42:09 travel out of county i am required to attend training and
2:42:14 statewide meetings by the florida department of
2:42:18 education office of safe schools such as the florida school
2:42:22 safety summit and school safety specialists and mental health
2:42:26 coordinators convention
2:42:27 the location of these meetings vary within the state
2:42:31 this line item has increased by one thousand three hundred
2:42:35 dollars
2:42:35 travel out of state this increase of five thousand dollars will
2:42:40 provide the opportunity for me
2:42:42 to attend conferences such as the council of great city schools
2:42:46 chief operating officer conference or national
2:42:49 student safety and security conferences and workshops during the
2:42:53 23-24 school year to better serve bps
2:42:56 printing binding and reproduction district operations provides
2:43:02 printing support for district security
2:43:05 such as school posters for speak out hotline and fortify florida
2:43:10 annual leadership conference and strategic plan documents this
2:43:14 has increased by seven hundred dollars
2:43:16 computer hardware the current hardware is outdated and
2:43:21 inefficient
2:43:21 the budget increase is three thousand dollars to purchase a
2:43:25 prometheum board
2:43:27 for the district operations conference room to increase
2:43:30 collaboration and engagement
2:43:31 dues and fees as a member i have i have increased community
2:43:37 involvement to include
2:43:39 civilian military community community relations council and
2:43:42 cocoa beach regional chamber of commerce
2:43:45 this line item has increased two hundred and twenty dollars
2:43:49 my goal in the operations division is to increase efficiency a
2:43:56 future initiative request would be to have
2:43:58 myself and my project manager be lean six sigma green belt
2:44:02 certified to become the agents of improvement for bps to reduce
2:44:07 waste and streamlining internal processes
2:44:10 transportation services transportation services
2:44:16 transportation services provide provides the students at bps
2:44:22 with a reliable safe and friendly ride to and from school
2:44:27 events and other district approved activities
2:44:29 additionally transportation services provide centralized fleet
2:44:35 management services which is the white fleet
2:44:37 transportation services that will require the use of district
2:44:41 owned or leased vehicles
2:44:44 as of may 22nd
2:44:46 we have 298 active spare buses active and spare buses with eight
2:44:54 technicians or helpers inspecting and servicing them
2:44:58 and repairing the 535 vehicles in our white fleet this is
2:45:07 excluding trailers and other off-road equipment
2:45:11 overall we have 18 technician vacancies out of 29 positions
2:45:18 everyone knows about the nationwide bus driver shortage
2:45:22 in august 2022 we had 272 bus drivers out of our par of 276 this
2:45:30 month we had 205 bus drivers so by the
2:45:34 end of school year 23 we had 205 bus drivers transporting almost
2:45:40 20 000 students district-wide
2:45:43 The only new outcome for HR in the vacancies are indeed to help
2:45:52 with recruitment.
2:45:56 Our traditional recruiting efforts such as parking buses
2:45:58 throughout the district, help
2:46:00 wanted signs will continue.
2:46:02 However, if the bus driver pay and bus discipline issues are not
2:46:06 resolved, we will likely continue
2:46:09 to lose bus drivers.
2:46:11 I know that 12 south area bus drivers have completed their
2:46:15 retirement paperwork for the
2:46:17 end of this year.
2:46:20 We are moving forward with the procurement process to possibly
2:46:24 outsource light repairs.
2:46:26 I know that was a biggie for you to mishand.
2:46:32 This 9640 transportation budget is the umbrella for all bus
2:46:36 drivers, mechanics, and shops that
2:46:39 are located at the bus depots.
2:46:42 With transportation sub-department budgets, 9641, 42, 43, and 44,
2:46:49 our bus depots are included
2:46:51 in your detailed proposed budgets PDF document and are almost
2:46:55 exclusively office staff salaries
2:46:58 and benefits with just a few hundred dollars in each budget for
2:47:02 phone and utilities.
2:47:03 they are not included in this slide.
2:47:10 Department 9640 transportation budget increases are highlighted
2:47:14 in yellow on your detailed proposed
2:47:17 budgets PDF provided on pages three through eight.
2:47:20 overall the transportation budget for fiscal year 24 has
2:47:26 decreased by over $268,000 from the fiscal
2:47:30 year 23 adopted budget.
2:47:32 Rentals.
2:47:33 This line item has increased by $1,116 based on projected rent
2:47:38 for Merritt Island bus parking
2:47:41 area.
2:47:42 Recycle.
2:47:44 Coastal oil picks up our used oil filters and coolant recovery
2:47:49 of waste products needs pick
2:47:51 up about every six weeks.
2:47:54 This line item increased by $132.
2:47:59 The projected increase is $138,000 based on diesel cost
2:48:03 projections.
2:48:04 Supplies.
2:48:07 This has increased by $228.
2:48:11 Oil and grease.
2:48:13 Newer buses require more diesel exhaust fluid and pricing has
2:48:19 increased.
2:48:20 This has increased by $10,950.
2:48:25 Repair other equipment.
2:48:27 This is a labor for subcontracted mechanics to make repairs on
2:48:31 vehicles our mechanics cannot fix.
2:48:34 This line item has increased by $2,000.
2:48:39 Gasoline.
2:48:40 The projected increase is just over $63,000 from fiscal year 23
2:48:46 adopted budget and based on
2:48:48 gasoline cost projections.
2:48:52 Transmapping system.
2:48:54 This is the edge log bus routing system.
2:48:57 Price has increased by almost $4,000 for next year.
2:49:03 Price has increased by $2,000.
2:49:08 I’d like to provide you a heads up on the 9640 transportation
2:49:13 initiatives that have been
2:49:15 requested but not yet approved for capital funding.
2:49:19 New school buses.
2:49:20 The district goal is to maintain 50% of the school bus fleet
2:49:25 under the industry standard of 10 years.
2:49:27 This helps the fleet to stay in good running condition and helps
2:49:32 to save the repair cost to the district through labor and parks.
2:49:37 This aligns with our BPS strategic plan operations goal.
2:49:42 This is the goal objective two to transport students safely,
2:49:46 efficiently, and on time.
2:49:47 This year’s capital outlay request is to purchase 30 replacements.
2:49:54 The cost is just over $4.5 million.
2:50:03 Athena bus routing system.
2:50:04 Our edulog routing system in transportation is being phased out
2:50:10 and retired.
2:50:11 The new cloud-based enterprise resource software by edulog is
2:50:16 the Athena bus routing system.
2:50:18 A routing system is critical for transportation to route all
2:50:22 students on buses throughout the district and provide
2:50:25 documentation for state-mandated reporting.
2:50:28 Additionally, the ET department has a goal of phasing out server-based
2:50:33 databases, which the current edulog routing system is for cloud-based
2:50:40 within two years.
2:50:42 Due to this goal, along with edulog being phased out,
2:50:49 transportation must find a new cloud-based system to use.
2:50:57 The cost for the first year, including implementation, would be
2:51:00 just under $140,000.
2:51:02 This includes an 11% discount due to BPS being a long-term
2:51:06 customer with edulog.
2:51:09 Each subsequent year, licensing fee would be just over $100,000.
2:51:14 Automotive tire machine.
2:51:18 The current equipment is outdated and is costing the district
2:51:22 money annually to repair.
2:51:24 Moreover, the new machines have better technologies to create a
2:51:28 safer environment for our bus and automotive technicians.
2:51:32 The cost is $8,500.
2:51:35 Diesel and gas pumps.
2:51:39 We need to replace the 30-year-old fuel dispensers’ pumps at
2:51:43 specific transportation fueling locations, including diesel and
2:51:48 gas pumps at the west side compound.
2:51:52 A diesel pump at the manatee compound.
2:51:55 A diesel pump at the manatee compound and a diesel pump at the
2:51:57 old courthouse.
2:51:58 The new pump technology will create a safer environment for
2:52:03 users while preventing BPS from receiving environment citations
2:52:07 from Brevard County environmental enforcement.
2:52:09 The cost is just over $35,000.
2:52:15 Floor jacks.
2:52:17 Transportation needs to replace two large 10 to 12-ton floor
2:52:21 jacks for their truck repair shop and central bus shop.
2:52:25 The new jacks will provide safety and security for fleet
2:52:29 technicians.
2:52:30 The cost is $2,718.
2:52:32 The new paint mixer and spray gun washer will save the district
2:52:40 funds by lowering the cost of premixed paint and spray gun loss.
2:52:48 Use of this equipment will help return vehicles to the road
2:52:54 faster so they can provide service to the district by
2:52:58 transporting materials and goods.
2:53:01 Moreover, it will aid to service the district as a whole and
2:53:06 create a safer environment for our technicians.
2:53:11 For the first time, the white fleet replacement, the white fleet
2:53:16 replacement, in March, with the support of finance,
2:53:20 transportation developed an annual 5% white fleet vehicle
2:53:24 replacement plan to optimize BPS white fleet strategy for both
2:53:29 budget and performance efficiency.
2:53:31 Every January, transportation services will rank the vehicles by
2:53:36 age, mileage, and maintenance costs as a basis to determine a
2:53:41 prioritized 5% replacement list for department vehicles.
2:53:46 Department directors will request vehicle replacement funds
2:53:49 during the capital budgeting process.
2:53:51 it is important that this plan is firmly adhered to in order to
2:53:57 reduce costs and ensure safe and reliable vehicles to drive to
2:54:03 deliver BPS services.
2:54:05 We have 535 vehicles in our white fleet, excluding trailer and
2:54:10 other off-road equipment, as I mentioned earlier.
2:54:13 27 vehicles in this March were identified in seven departments
2:54:19 as part of the 5% priority replacement list.
2:54:26 Department 9640 transportation had five vehicles identified for
2:54:30 replacement, including two trucks, two vans, and one sedan.
2:54:34 Total cost, $189,222.
2:54:40 District, school security, BPS contracts with the Brevard County
2:54:50 Sheriff’s Office to run the Office of District and School
2:54:56 Security.
2:54:57 Our partnership is a commitment to creating and maintaining a
2:55:01 safe and secure and productive learning environment for all BPS
2:55:05 students, staff, and visitors.
2:55:08 Our team provides customer service to 84 public schools, 3
2:55:12 alternative schools, 14 charter schools, and is the liaison
2:55:16 between the district and all law enforcement agencies in Brevard
2:55:20 County.
2:55:21 The Office of District and School Security conducts level 2
2:55:24 background screenings as mandated by Florida State statute to
2:55:28 include the electronic fingerprinting and processing of all
2:55:33 current employees.
2:55:35 New hires and volunteers in Brevard County public schools, new hires
2:55:37 and volunteers in Brevard County Public Schools.
2:55:39 The Office of District and School Security also works to capture
2:55:44 the fingerprints of all contractors working on BPS property as
2:55:50 mandated in the Jessica Lunsford Act.
2:55:53 Additionally, the sheriff’s office supervision assigned to the
2:55:58 Office of District and School Security oversees the School
2:56:02 Resource Officer Program, the Guardian Specialist Program, and
2:56:07 ensures compliance with the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School
2:56:12 Public Safety Act.
2:56:13 Salaries for District and School Security for school year 24 are
2:56:20 projected to be about $1.9 million.
2:56:24 This includes the school safety and security specialists and BPS
2:56:29 staff and district security.
2:56:32 It does not include the BCSO MOUs, which is captured in expenses
2:56:37 for over $1.3 million.
2:56:40 This expense is for one major, two lieutenants, one agent, two K-9
2:56:46 deputies, three sergeants, and two investigative analysts.
2:56:56 Department 9670 district security budget increases from the
2:57:02 fiscal year 23 adopted budget are highlighted in yellow on your
2:57:07 detailed proposed budgets PDF provided on pages 13 through 16.
2:57:12 The Office of District and School Security and School Security
2:57:15 and School Security and School Security and School Security and
2:57:17 School Security.
2:57:18 The Office of District and School Security is a $1,800 million.
2:57:32 fingerprinting retention in fiscal year 23 they moved the 120,000
2:57:39 from the line
2:57:40 item 9100 to this line this 30,000 for professional and
2:57:48 technical consultants
2:57:49 this 30,000 is a placeholder for the third party fingerprint
2:57:54 contract of
2:57:55 vendor for volunteers fingerprint volunteer retention fees 74,000
2:58:02 is the
2:58:03 estimated cost for the FDLE billing for volunteer fingerprint
2:58:08 retention this is
2:58:10 approximately 12,200 volunteer prints at $6 each professional
2:58:18 and technical
2:58:18 consultants this line item is purchased service increase of $415,372
2:58:27 for the
2:58:28 BCSO MOUs for fiscal year 24 professional and technical
2:58:33 consultants this line item
2:58:36 increased by 27,680 for additional deputy detail for school
2:58:43 board meetings
2:58:44 workshops and overtime as need these are the 9670 district
2:58:56 security initiatives
2:58:57 that have been requested for the operating budget but not yet
2:59:01 approved purchase and
2:59:04 install program access remotes this is for two remotes at 88
2:59:09 sites to lock and
2:59:10 unlock the front office doors planning and project management
2:59:14 has indicated they
2:59:15 will pay for this the cost is $52,800 workstation for a
2:59:22 lieutenant the district
2:59:23 security office needs a desk chair and computer for the
2:59:27 additional lieutenant per
2:59:28 the 24 BCSO MOU the cost is $2,000 active shooter reference
2:59:35 cards this is for
2:59:37 10,000 active shooter reference cards for all staff they will
2:59:41 provide an additional
2:59:42 opportunity to educate staff on active shooter responses they
2:59:47 will be printed by
2:59:48 the BPS print shop cost $1,600 TV monitors security needs to
2:59:55 replace 650 inch TV monitors in
2:59:57 the district office they would also like to purchase and install
3:00:01 one 43 inch TV monitor for the
3:00:03 superintendent’s office cost $7,200 short-term support this is
3:00:11 for additional support staff from
3:00:13 august 1st to all for August 1st to October 1st to process the
3:00:18 renewal and retention of
3:00:20 approximately 6,500 volunteer prints cost $5,000
3:00:29 procurement services procurement services provides a variety of
3:00:37 services including procurement of all
3:00:40 commodities and contractual services including construction
3:00:45 administration of all district P car program managing
3:00:49 of all vendor master records ensuring procurements are done
3:00:56 legally and ethically promoting fair and open competition
3:00:59 transparency and transparency and accountability and expedient
3:01:05 as expedient as expedientious of public funds distribution
3:01:09 services
3:01:09 provides a variety of services including courier services for
3:01:13 routes three days a week Monday Wednesday and Friday
3:01:17 surplus materials pick up repurpose disposal and sales moving
3:01:23 assistance testing materials receiving sorting and delivering of
3:01:29 materials
3:01:29 storage and distribution for the supply zone maintenance
3:01:35 for the supply zone maintenance thrive by five etc
3:01:37 stock supplies currently we have limited
3:01:39 most supplies have limited stock items most supplies have moved
3:01:48 to just-in-time delivery to minimize to minimize inventory and
3:01:48 increase efficiency
3:01:48 and efficiency assistance delivery of water hurricane kits and EOC
3:01:58 assistance
3:01:58 special events
3:01:58 assistance
3:01:59 delivery of tables chairs and rises for graduation art and
3:02:03 science fairs etc
3:02:04 in addition ESF central services the mail room processes all
3:02:13 official mail for ESF
3:02:14 including the sorting the sorting of ESF mail courier mail and
3:02:20 packages
3:02:20 there are no substantial increases to the 9680 or 9865
3:02:31 procurement and distribution and mail center budgets
3:02:36 and there are no capital requests for fiscal year 2024 a few
3:02:57 major aspects in these departments are important to continue
3:02:58 these aspects are highlighted in yellow on your detailed
3:03:05 proposed budget PDF provided on pages 17-19
3:03:11 some of those some of those aspects are travel and dues and fees
3:03:16 for memberships training and professional development
3:03:16 four out of eight of our procurement agents have been in their
3:03:19 position less than a year and need foundational training
3:03:21 and it’s important for all ages to understand stay current on
3:03:30 ever-changing laws trends and best practices and achieve or
3:03:37 maintain professional certifications
3:03:40 next is preventative maintenance and repairs for forklifts and
3:03:44 pallets we have been experiencing fewer major repairs as we’ve
3:03:49 updated equipment in recent years
3:03:50 through capital requests but it’s important to prolong their
3:03:56 life through preventative maintenance
3:03:57 the vendor leak procurement system is how we notify vendors
3:04:01 receive bids and evaluate solicitations
3:04:03 if we do not pay for this then vendors have to pay for the
3:04:08 access which could limit competition most government agencies
3:04:14 pay so that vendors do not have to
3:04:19 provide providing our staff with uniform shirts gloves and
3:04:25 protect the footwear helps boost morale and productivity
3:04:26 but more importantly it allows the public in our schools to
3:04:31 easily identify our staff and protects our staff while lifting
3:04:36 heavy equipment and operating machinery dues and fees for our
3:04:41 district ride Amazon Prime membership results in saving but more
3:04:48 importantly it allows us to have
3:04:48 insight into who access who has access and what they are buying
3:04:55 previously each school and department bought their own
3:04:58 membership now we have good reporting functionality for Amazon
3:05:02 purchases district-wide and finally the lease for the mail
3:05:07 machine is critical to continue to order to apply postage to
3:05:13 letters and parcels
3:05:17 Food and Nutrition Services.
3:05:24 Food and Nutrition Services is a nonprofit operation that
3:05:28 continues to be self-supportive
3:05:31 and receives no monies from the general fund.
3:05:35 In fact, FNS funds all its own operating expenses, payroll,
3:05:41 fringe, energy, food and
3:05:44 supplies, equipment and capital improvements, in addition to
3:05:48 paying indirect costs to BPS
3:05:50 annually.
3:05:51 All FNS revenues are restricted and are to be used for the sole
3:05:58 purpose of operating or
3:06:00 improving the food service operation.
3:06:04 FNS undergoes multiple audits annually to ensure fiscal
3:06:08 responsibility and program compliance.
3:06:13 For the past 16 years, audits have been exemplary with no
3:06:18 findings.
3:06:20 FNS predicted results for the school year 22-23 are as follows.
3:06:27 You can see total meals, 10.2 mil, 47.1 total revenue, 46.9 in
3:06:27 total expenses, and 5.5 million
3:06:27 being reinvested into our cafeterias.
3:06:34 This chart shows fiscal year 23 food and nutritional services
3:06:41 projected revenue sources.
3:06:41 The primary funding for FNS are through federal, state and local
3:06:46 sources.
3:06:47 The largest source of revenue is federal and state reimbursements,
3:06:53 including federal commodities
3:06:54 for a total of over $38.3 million.
3:06:56 The local sources of revenue provide over $8.7 million.
3:07:03 The local sources of revenue provide over $8.7 million, which
3:07:08 include a la carte foods and other
3:07:10 local sources, such as adult sales, special functions, Brevard
3:07:10 afterschool, and summer vending.
3:07:10 The total projected revenue for school year for fiscal year 23
3:07:17 is over $47.1 million.
3:07:17 Food and nutrition services operate eight federal child
3:07:26 nutrition programs and adheres to all
3:07:26 the services of the state.
3:07:27 We have access to these programs.
3:07:28 We have access to our social services, which include a la carte
3:07:30 foods and other local sources,
3:07:33 such as adult sales, special functions, Brevard afterschool, and
3:07:37 summer vending.
3:07:38 The total projected revenue for school year for fiscal year 23
3:07:40 is over $47.1 million.
3:07:41 Food and nutrition services operate eight federal child
3:07:45 nutrition programs and adheres to all
3:07:47 federal, state, and local program regulations.
3:07:51 Our registered and licensed dietitians plan and analyze 14 menus
3:07:56 to ensure FNS meets all
3:08:00 the federal nutrition standards by grade level.
3:08:03 This slide show shows the different programs we operate.
3:08:08 Give you a few seconds to take a look at it.
3:08:17 This shows the reinvestment in cafeteria by FNS over the last
3:08:26 six years with a total of over
3:08:30 $27.5 million being reinvested in our school cafeterias.
3:08:38 Upcoming projects for 2023 are renovations to Rockledge High
3:08:43 cafeteria,
3:08:44 McNair Middle, Meadow Lane Primary, and Endeavor Elementary.
3:08:48 We have walk-in cooler and freezer replacements at Anderson
3:08:52 Elementary, Lewis Carroll Elementary,
3:08:55 Madison Middle, Quest Elementary, Roosevelt Elementary.
3:09:00 And there’s a plethora of other schools in prior years that I
3:09:02 don’t, for the sake of time, I won’t get into.
3:09:07 But Food and Nutrition Services have done a phenomenal job in
3:09:10 reinvesting their dollars into our schools and cafeterias.
3:09:17 FNS pays the district annually for indirect costs, such as
3:09:23 phones, internet, and water, based on the rate approved by the
3:09:30 Florida Department of Education.
3:09:31 As you can see through the years, the number of dollars for
3:09:35 indirect costs that was given to the district by FNS.
3:09:38 The fiscal year 23 projected indirect costs would be just over $720,000.
3:09:53 FNS goals for 23-24 are the continued operation of the current
3:09:59 eight food programs.
3:10:01 We expect a federal reimbursement rates reduction of 40 cents
3:10:06 for lunch and 15 cents for breakfast.
3:10:09 This will result in an estimated $3 million drop in revenue.
3:10:15 FNS will continue to utilize the strict expense controls that
3:10:19 they have in place to remain fiscally sound.
3:10:23 As some legislation expires this year, such as the Keep Kids Fed
3:10:29 Act, a pandemic program, FNS will analyze additional revenue
3:10:35 growth opportunities for increased participation.
3:10:38 Furthermore, surplus dollars will continue to be reinvested into
3:10:42 capital improvements to cafeterias to include walk-in cooler
3:10:47 freezers and kitchen and dining room renovations.
3:10:52 This includes this afternoon’s presentations.
3:10:57 Are there any questions?
3:10:58 Thank you, Mr. Wilson.
3:11:00 Anybody wish to ask any questions?
3:11:01 I have a couple, and I’m going to go really fast because you’re
3:11:04 not up here for too long.
3:11:05 Thank you, Kevin, for the amazing job that you’re doing in food
3:11:07 services.
3:11:08 Honestly, that’s – you’re knocking it out of the park there.
3:11:11 Quick question on the third-party vendor for fingerprinting.
3:11:15 Is that – is – what is that?
3:11:17 Want me to jump in?
3:11:19 Yeah.
3:11:20 That was a conversation that Mr. Wilson, Ms. Hahn, and myself
3:11:24 started discussing for events you have such as job fairs.
3:11:29 Okay.
3:11:30 Community type events at the schools where we were trying to
3:11:34 find a way that you can use a third-party vendor to come out and
3:11:38 do those fingerprints on site.
3:11:39 Okay.
3:11:40 I know something that was near and dear to Ms. Campbell,
3:11:42 something that we were trying to do in-house.
3:11:44 It just got very difficult with current staffing to not only
3:11:47 maintain the function of this office during the day, but also
3:11:50 after hours, weekends, and things like that.
3:11:54 Okay.
3:11:55 Perfect.
3:11:56 That makes perfectly good sense.
3:11:57 To transportation, I’m going to hop over there real fast.
3:12:00 So, quick question.
3:12:02 On EPA citations, how much are those?
3:12:06 You kind of briefed over that quickly.
3:12:07 I did.
3:12:08 Pull it towards you.
3:12:09 I don’t think it’s on.
3:12:10 It’s probably just dead.
3:12:11 Budget cuts.
3:12:12 Can you hear me now?
3:12:13 Yeah.
3:12:14 Oh, okay.
3:12:15 There.
3:12:16 It depends on what the violation is.
3:12:17 Okay.
3:12:18 How many violations are we receiving?
3:12:19 Is this like an ongoing thing that we’re getting every year?
3:12:21 There hasn’t been that many.
3:12:22 Okay.
3:12:23 But working on the pumps will stop that.
3:12:24 Okay.
3:12:25 And then, Mr. Wilson, you spoke about the industry standard of a
3:12:27 bus being 10 years old.
3:12:43 What is the average age of our buses that we’re using right now?
3:12:46 We’re currently at 9.78 years.
3:12:51 That’s why we want to continue on with the purchasing 30 years,
3:12:55 30 buses every year to keep us in that, in that frame, that,
3:13:00 that, that age timeframe.
3:13:01 Okay.
3:13:02 Thank you.
3:13:03 That was the only questions I had.
3:13:04 Okay.
3:13:05 Ms. Campbell.
3:13:06 Yeah.
3:13:07 This one really quickly for Mr. Thornton.
3:13:10 Because I had gone back and to that presentation that you gave
3:13:14 three years ago, thinking about the, the title one thing.
3:13:18 I noticed when, I remember that we had that, in that
3:13:20 conversation about the federal reimbursement rates and how one
3:13:25 of the reasons why we had to raise our school lunch prices was
3:13:27 because there’s a ratio or amount.
3:13:30 Will that, are we still good with that?
3:13:32 If they drop their reimbursement rates, are we sitting at a good
3:13:35 point?
3:13:36 We’re still in a good place right now with regards to our lunch
3:13:39 prices.
3:13:40 So right now we’re not planning on doing anything with those
3:13:42 right now, just sitting tight with it.
3:13:44 There’s still a gap between our paid equity piece with regards
3:13:48 to our, what we’re getting from a free reimbursement rate, which
3:13:51 is the difference between the state looks at.
3:13:55 But right now with our fund balance where it’s at right now, we’re
3:13:58 just sitting still right now with regards to where we’re at.
3:14:01 Okay.
3:14:02 Thank you.
3:14:03 Mr. Campbell, or Ms. Jenkins.
3:14:05 Ms. Yeah.
3:14:06 Ms. Campbell stole my question.
3:14:08 But I just, no offense to everybody else up there, but I just
3:14:12 want to say hats off to Food and Nutrition Services.
3:14:15 Because every time we get a presentation, it’s just because it’s
3:14:18 so unique to all of our other budgets.
3:14:20 It’s really impressive to see that, you know, for some, for some
3:14:24 magical reason, you’re able to run the ship to where you’re not
3:14:27 in the negative.
3:14:28 When you have all these different kinds of constraints, and then
3:14:31 the reduction of the prices.
3:14:33 So, thank you.
3:14:34 Thank you.
3:14:35 Trent.
3:14:36 Just the same.
3:14:37 Great job with all the information.
3:14:38 Kevin, thank you so much for doing what you’re doing.
3:14:39 I do plan on diving into that a little bit more coming soon, but
3:14:47 I think you do a great job.
3:14:51 And then the rest of you, this is an area that it’s, you know,
3:14:54 the transparency is great.
3:14:56 I mean, we can be proud of putting you guys out there every day.
3:15:01 So, I appreciate it.
3:15:02 Thanks.
3:15:03 Thank you.
3:15:04 Anybody else?
3:15:05 No?
3:15:06 Thank you guys for everything.
3:15:07 So, thanks for coming forward.
3:15:08 We appreciate it.
3:15:09 I like the fact that you put all your little asks on there from
3:15:12 things that you needed, Mr. Listens.
3:15:14 That’s good stuff.
3:15:15 No surprise.
3:15:16 Ms. Hand, would you wish to say anything since this is kind of
3:15:18 your team?
3:15:19 No.
3:15:20 Just thank you very much.
3:15:21 You all are an awesome team.
3:15:22 We work very well together.
3:15:23 with our operations co-workers.
3:15:24 So, I appreciate you guys.
3:15:25 Thank you.
3:15:26 Thank you, as well.
3:15:27 Thank you, guys.
3:15:28 Appreciate it.
3:15:29 So, I’m looking at the time right now, and it’s 4:22.
3:15:31 I think that it’s probably – I don’t know how much time you
3:15:36 need for a discipline update
3:15:40 and related topics, but if it’s going to be more than eight
3:15:43 minutes, maybe we roll it
3:15:45 to tonight.
3:15:46 We’re going to have a good discussion, or it’s up to you.
3:15:48 As long as everyone’s aware, I don’t do my best work after 9:00
3:15:51 PM.
3:15:51 Same.
3:15:52 I noticed Campbell wanted to talk about policy 5771 that was
3:15:57 embedded in the discipline discussion.
3:15:58 Yep.
3:15:59 And then most of what I had is in the presentation, so there’s
3:16:05 not a lot that I’m going to add.
3:16:07 Sure.
3:16:08 So, I can do that either quickly tonight, quickly now, or you
3:16:11 can –
3:16:12 If we can – because I think you’re going to go into that
3:16:15 discussion.
3:16:16 I’m going to get in there.
3:16:17 I’m wondering, can we do like 20 minutes, like finish up in 20
3:16:20 minutes?
3:16:21 Do you think we can?
3:16:22 I don’t – I think we’re going to open up a can of worms here.
3:16:25 I think if we take eight minutes and we go.
3:16:27 I’m okay with – look, I’m okay with working all the way until 5:30.
3:16:30 I don’t care.
3:16:31 But the thing is, is that if we want to honor that piece, it’s
3:16:34 up to you guys.
3:16:35 What do you guys want to do?
3:16:36 Okay, let’s do it.
3:16:37 Let’s go.
3:16:39 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
3:16:40 Let’s go.
3:16:41 If you guys are okay with it.
3:16:42 I mean, I always just – I get yelled at one day for keeping
3:16:43 going and then the next day
3:16:43 you guys want to keep going.
3:16:44 So, I’m just like, hey, whatever you guys want to do.
3:16:45 It’s called work.
3:16:46 Get going on work.
3:16:47 Let’s go.
3:16:49 All right.
3:16:50 So, all right.
3:16:53 So, do you guys want to keep going?
3:16:56 So, I’m just like, hey, whatever you guys want to do.
3:16:59 It’s called work.
3:17:00 Get going on work.
3:17:01 Let’s go.
3:17:02 Okay.
3:17:03 So, all right.
3:17:05 So, just to start off, I have learned a lot.
3:17:08 Eight weeks ago, I didn’t know anything about discipline and I
3:17:11 knew a little bit about Gardendale.
3:17:12 And so, mostly what I want to tell you about is things that I’ve
3:17:16 learned.
3:17:17 First of all, regarding discipline, my opinion is that
3:17:21 discipline cannot be a silo topic.
3:17:25 It’s not the subject of discipline.
3:17:27 It’s discipline as it relates to all of the other things that we
3:17:30 are trying to accomplish
3:17:31 at Brevard Public Schools.
3:17:32 So, it really needs to be looked at in that context.
3:17:35 So, it’s a part of the learning environment and it’s very
3:17:39 important, but it is in partnership
3:17:44 with the other things that we need to look at.
3:17:46 So, this is where it’s sort of intersected with my facilities
3:17:50 world because I think discipline
3:17:52 has a similar framework in that there’s a preventative aspect,
3:17:57 right?
3:17:58 And there’s also a reactive aspect.
3:18:00 And we’ve been very focused on the reactive aspect, but I think
3:18:03 there’s also some investment
3:18:05 of resources that we can consider on the preventative side.
3:18:08 So, eventually we want to tip the scales where the reactive side
3:18:12 is not as significant
3:18:14 as our preventative side.
3:18:17 The significant thing that I learned through the last eight
3:18:21 weeks is that we really do have
3:18:23 a strong foundation for success.
3:18:24 We have some great partners and some very engaged people that
3:18:27 are very knowledgeable.
3:18:29 We’ve had numerous meetings in a variety of contexts with our BFT
3:18:34 and 1010 and VASA as well as
3:18:37 our own internal staff that work on discipline.
3:18:39 Like, these folks know a lot and they have a lot of great ideas
3:18:43 and we just need a framework
3:18:44 to get them to the surface and start to implement some of the
3:18:48 work that they’ve done.
3:18:50 The discipline audit was great in that it provided a guidebook
3:18:54 for our actions moving forward
3:18:55 and pointed out some areas where we really need to do better.
3:18:58 And so, I think we’re all ready to do better.
3:19:03 And everyone that’s on this team of people has been working
3:19:07 towards that.
3:19:08 We also have a great new data system with FOCUS and that is
3:19:12 helping us as well.
3:19:14 A lot of the issues that were noted in the audit, I think, will
3:19:18 be totally resolved
3:19:19 with folks using FOCUS with fidelity.
3:19:22 I feel very confident about that.
3:19:24 And there’s an add-on module that we’ve been talking about that
3:19:27 will allow us to do better
3:19:28 analytics as well as to have more public-facing information on
3:19:31 discipline
3:19:32 that weeds out the student identifier information but can
3:19:35 aggregate data.
3:19:37 So, the board and the public can track how we’re doing with
3:19:40 respect to discipline over time.
3:19:43 Again, we had numerous meetings with a variety of internal
3:19:47 stakeholders
3:19:48 in a couple of different committees that were somewhat
3:19:50 overlapping.
3:19:51 And I think one of our goals is to get to the point where we
3:19:55 have a discipline,
3:19:56 a district discipline committee.
3:19:58 The work that was done by this team identified a draft charter.
3:20:02 So, that is ready for our new student services folks to take a
3:20:07 look at
3:20:08 and make sure that that is in line with what we’d like to do.
3:20:10 But the charter, I think, is along the lines of what we have
3:20:14 been previously discussing.
3:20:16 They also did some work in response to the audit relative to the
3:20:20 discipline division.
3:20:21 And then there were a whole host of other things, some of which
3:20:24 were related to the audit.
3:20:25 Some are just best practices.
3:20:27 Talking about incorporating all of our discipline training,
3:20:31 including the assessor state training,
3:20:33 as well as our own training, into the HR system so that we know
3:20:37 who has been trained.
3:20:38 It’s part of the data that’s readily available.
3:20:41 And again, like I learned this by responding to questions that
3:20:45 came out of the state.
3:20:47 And that it was very difficult to determine who had been trained
3:20:50 and who hadn’t been trained.
3:20:51 So, it’s a systemic issue that we can fix.
3:20:55 And so, bringing in HR and working with our partners across
3:21:00 cross-functional lines,
3:21:01 we can really do a better job.
3:21:03 Talked about the lead mentor teacher program.
3:21:05 Mr. Seusson, you had mentioned that in terms of what’s done in
3:21:08 Escambia County.
3:21:09 We’ve looked at that.
3:21:11 That is part of our budget request.
3:21:12 And that was also advocated advocacy on behalf of the BFT.
3:21:17 They also brought that to the table as this is something that is
3:21:21 impactful if we utilize our teachers to mentor our new teachers.
3:21:26 And with our change from being a district with a lot of legacy
3:21:31 season teachers to a district with a lot of new teachers,
3:21:35 we really need to have that support in place.
3:21:37 So, again, cross-functional effort.
3:21:40 Obviously, everyone has talked about parent engagement.
3:21:43 And how can we do that better?
3:21:45 We can’t just talk about it.
3:21:46 We’ve got to come up with some really cool and innovative ways
3:21:49 to engage our parents.
3:21:50 And I think we have the teams in place.
3:21:52 We have the tools in place with focus, for example, to really
3:21:56 get that done.
3:21:57 Also, innovation in terms of the preventative strategies,
3:22:01 diversion programs.
3:22:03 Ms. Bland has done some great research in that respect.
3:22:06 Restorative practices.
3:22:08 Mr. Reid has done some great research in that respect.
3:22:11 I didn’t know what that was eight weeks ago.
3:22:13 And so it’s kind of cool to think that there are tools in place
3:22:17 that we can start to implement in our district that can really
3:22:21 be impactful.
3:22:22 And then the discipline audit did point out some areas that we
3:22:26 needed to work on relative to the ALC.
3:22:28 And that’s going to be a longer-term discussion with the board
3:22:31 in terms of how we want to use our alternative learning centers.
3:22:35 And I’ll talk a little bit more about that when I get to Gardendale.
3:22:38 We’ve got some things in progress.
3:22:40 We’ve got a lot of training that we’re teeing up for the summer
3:22:43 in preparation for starting school, updating the student code of
3:22:46 conduct.
3:22:47 And that is a board action.
3:22:51 So that will be coming to you later this year.
3:22:54 And then we’re implementing additional modules in the student
3:22:58 information system.
3:22:59 We’ve also tied this issue in with our budget process.
3:23:02 And a number of different divisions have been submitting budget
3:23:06 requests to support improving our practices around discipline,
3:23:12 including clerk specialists for discipline data entry so that
3:23:15 our deans can actually focus on discipline.
3:23:17 And we have the right person doing the right job.
3:23:20 Looking at some additional modules in focus, as I mentioned, the
3:23:24 lead mentor teacher program, the first-time drug offense
3:23:27 diversion program,
3:23:28 and then an organizational evaluation around the discipline
3:23:32 division that was discussed in the audit.
3:23:36 Board policy alignment, you all have been doing work regarding
3:23:39 policies that impact discipline.
3:23:41 And we’ve got those starting to get to a point where they’re
3:23:44 going to be packageable and can be incorporated into the data
3:23:48 that we provide to our families for the first of the year.
3:23:52 Ms. Campbell, this is where I intended to talk about the search
3:23:56 and seizure policy.
3:23:58 So that’s available for you all to discuss.
3:24:01 This is just a short summary of the items in the district – the
3:24:04 discipline audit.
3:24:06 And I’ve tried to touch on most of them as I’ve gone through the
3:24:08 presentation that we are on top of these.
3:24:11 And I feel very confident that we’ll be in a good place as we
3:24:14 move forward.
3:24:15 Resource deployment, that’s really the key.
3:24:18 I started to try to develop a graphic that showed, you know,
3:24:23 there’s trade-offs in terms of time, in terms of cost,
3:24:28 in terms of effectiveness.
3:24:31 All of these things kind of interrelate.
3:24:33 And so I’m trying to find some low-hanging fruit that we can do
3:24:36 quickly.
3:24:37 But I do think there are some things that we should be more
3:24:41 intentional about.
3:24:42 And looking longer term, for example, how our ALCs fit into our
3:24:47 system.
3:24:49 Are they in the right place?
3:24:51 Do we have the right programs?
3:24:53 What about the drug diversion program?
3:24:55 There are things that we can do differently that we can’t do
3:24:59 right now.
3:25:00 But some of those things will take resources, too.
3:25:02 So there really is a – this is kind of a puzzle.
3:25:06 And, you know, my engineer brain goes to some sort of, like,
3:25:09 five-year plan that has short-term things,
3:25:12 longer-term things that we can do to be impactful.
3:25:16 So our next steps really – we have great leadership coming in,
3:25:21 in terms of our new superintendent,
3:25:23 as well as our new assistant superintendent for student services.
3:25:27 I think filling those two positions are going to be key to
3:25:30 moving forward with discipline and the framework of how we
3:25:35 address discipline in our district.
3:25:36 So I’m really excited about that.
3:25:38 I’m excited to pass the baton.
3:25:40 And I love this quote because it talks about working together,
3:25:44 breaking down silos, and understanding who depends on us.
3:25:48 Like, discipline is not something that me and facilities can say,
3:25:52 hey, that’s an issue in student services.
3:25:54 I’ve got to be part of that solution, too.
3:25:57 I have a role to play.
3:25:58 We all have to know that we are part of this system, and we
3:26:02 contribute to making sure that we are serving every student with
3:26:06 excellence.
3:26:07 So that’s discipline in a very short nutshell.
3:26:13 Thank you, Sue.
3:26:18 So you – there’s a couple of things that I have regarding to
3:26:22 what you had put, but I’m going to give my former board members
3:26:26 –
3:26:26 I don’t know if this is an opportunity for you to bring up the
3:26:27 search and seizures component to it and discuss it.
3:26:31 However you’d like to proceed, Ms. Campbell, with questions to
3:26:33 the presentation, and then if you want to lead into that, too.
3:26:36 Sure.
3:26:37 Now, I don’t have any questions regarding the presentation, but
3:26:41 thank you to everyone for doing this work, because I know it’s
3:26:45 been – you’re talking about –
3:26:47 say that word cross-functional.
3:26:48 It’s definitely been cross-functional, and I appreciate your
3:26:52 leadership in that, Sue, through this whole process.
3:26:57 The 5771 is our search and seizure policy and board.
3:27:02 I hope we were able to take a few minutes today to read the memo
3:27:05 that came up from Mr. Gibbs today, or from – actually, Mary Jo,
3:27:09 from the legal office.
3:27:10 So we just need to – I feel like we need to provide some
3:27:13 clarification to staff, because there’s been some questions on
3:27:17 how that should go.
3:27:19 The memo supplied the legal opinion from our legal office as to
3:27:23 how it could run.
3:27:25 And one of the things – because drugs, in particular THC, is
3:27:29 becoming such a huge issue, and I don’t see – it’s not going
3:27:33 away anytime soon.
3:27:34 And honestly, looking out into the future, since our state is
3:27:37 likely to have an initiative on the ballot in 2024 to legalize
3:27:42 recreational use of marijuana, I see it only getting worse.
3:27:47 I don’t know what my personal opinion is.
3:27:48 I hope that fails, especially considering what we’re dealing
3:27:50 with.
3:27:51 But one of the things that has started to occur, particularly in
3:27:56 one school, but it could be across the board, is students are
3:27:59 starting to refuse to be searched.
3:28:01 According to the policy, the way it’s written, if you just read
3:28:04 the plain language, you know, we ask them to submit to a search,
3:28:08 but they don’t – they don’t actually – you know, even if they
3:28:11 say no, we can still do the search.
3:28:12 But to be quite honest, if we have a, you know, a dean that’s my
3:28:17 size, you know, 240-pound, 11th-grade boy, do I expect them to
3:28:23 actually chase the child around, you know, the student around,
3:28:26 grabbing the bag?
3:28:27 I mean, we don’t want to put people at risk.
3:28:29 So what the policy says in the plain language is that if you don’t
3:28:33 submit to the search, then you are basically, you’re, you know,
3:28:37 guilty of whatever that was that they suspected you to have.
3:28:40 In the past, it’s been downgraded to willful disobedience.
3:28:43 But I think the legal office has given us a strong opinion that
3:28:47 we can go ahead and proceed as the plain language says.
3:28:51 And that might mean in some cases we’re sending more kids to the
3:28:54 ALC or to the diversion program.
3:28:56 But students always have the opportunity to submit to the
3:29:01 seizure.
3:29:02 That’s their opportunity to prove that they’re innocent, that
3:29:04 they don’t have anything.
3:29:05 And there’s, you know, the potential to me is to create scenes
3:29:10 – I hate to say, bring this back, but I don’t know if y’all are
3:29:12 old enough to remember the movie Stand and Deliver.
3:29:14 But I’m picturing in my mind a high school scene like the ’80s
3:29:17 movies used to have, you know, where everything’s just going
3:29:20 crazy.
3:29:21 And we can’t have students saying, you know, refusing because
3:29:25 that means they’re only going home for a couple of days rather
3:29:28 than the drug offense, what it usually results in.
3:29:32 And so – because then we’re creating dangerous situations and
3:29:35 the drug problem in my eyes is just going to be exacerbated.
3:29:38 And just to give you some information, in the situation that I
3:29:41 investigated a little bit more, quite frequently, about half the
3:29:44 time, when parents were called, the parents also said, no, can’t
3:29:49 search my child.
3:29:51 So that’s why there was the – I think that’s why there was in
3:29:54 the memo the part about, you know, trying to have some kind of
3:29:57 form that the parents would document, that they understood the
3:30:01 consequences, that if they – their child did not submit to the
3:30:04 search, you know, and then they – they’re going to have to get
3:30:08 the consequences as if they were guilty, even if we can’t find
3:30:10 it and test it and all those kinds of things.
3:30:12 So I’m in support of the recommendations from the letter from
3:30:16 the legal office and the letter.
3:30:19 You know, of course, sometimes the parents won’t even come up,
3:30:21 but if there’s some way to document this, we’ve been able to
3:30:24 reach out and the parents understand the consequences.
3:30:27 We just need to be really clear where we stand on that policy so
3:30:31 that if it comes down and staff is, you know, starting to follow
3:30:35 through with that kind of discipline, you know, it may cause
3:30:40 legal pushback.
3:30:41 It may cause, you know, whatever, but I think that’s the right
3:30:45 thing to do to keep our, you know, our deans and our schools
3:30:48 able to discipline in the appropriate way and not let kids more
3:30:53 and more get away with – because once that gets out of the bag,
3:30:56 more and more kids will refuse to be searched.
3:30:58 And then they know it’s just a couple days suspension rather
3:31:01 than an expulsion, and we can’t allow the drug problem to blow
3:31:04 up in our bases like that.
3:31:06 So let me just kind of go through this.
3:31:09 It’s basically – we have a policy in place that says that –
3:31:13 and I’ve read all this, but I just want to kind of help sum it
3:31:15 up – that we have the right to search and seizure the kids,
3:31:19 search the kids, based on probable cause, and that what has
3:31:22 happened over the last couple of years is, is that when they’ve
3:31:25 refused, they’ve gotten a willful disobedience, or when they’ve
3:31:30 tried to reach out to their parents, their parents are saying no
3:31:32 and stuff like that, even though our policy says that we have
3:31:34 the right to do that.
3:31:35 Right? You’re just asking, hey, board, I’d like to reinforce
3:31:38 what we already have on the books, and hey, board, know that
3:31:42 this is probably going to create more kids going to ALC. Is that
3:31:46 kind of where we’re at?
3:31:47 It might.
3:31:48 Okay.
3:31:48 Or maybe – and it might temporarily.
3:31:50 I mean, I’m an optimist.
3:31:51 I like to think that after a while the message gets out and
3:31:53 people start doing better.
3:31:55 Yep.
3:31:56 Okay.
3:31:57 So let’s have that board discussion, because I have some points
3:32:00 on this, but feel free, Jean, and then we’ll go to Ms. Jenkins
3:32:03 if she has anything.
3:32:05 Well, I think this would be a good time to talk to Dr. Rendell
3:32:10 about this, too, being in the schools more recently than even us.
3:32:18 Because I know a situation like this had come up at his high
3:32:23 school.
3:32:24 But, yeah, I don’t fear of the consequences of doing the right
3:32:30 thing.
3:32:31 So if we’re able to, you know, give them the maximum sentence
3:32:38 for not, you know, submitting to a seizure, then so be it with
3:32:42 the consequences.
3:32:43 But I’m 100% for that.
3:32:45 So I hope we can move forward with that to make it clear that
3:32:49 that’s the case.
3:32:50 Ms. Jenkins, you got anything to say?
3:32:53 Okay.
3:32:54 Ms. Megan?
3:32:55 No.
3:32:56 I mean, honestly, I think we should just take the advice of our
3:32:58 legal counsel, which they gave us sound advice today.
3:33:01 And I think that that’s the direction I would go with what their
3:33:05 advice was.
3:33:06 So I think it’s a great point.
3:33:08 I think reinforcing what we’ve already done is one thing.
3:33:12 I think the other component is letting our parents know that we
3:33:16 are going to do this because there is no way for them.
3:33:19 Like, for me, I know for a fact that many of the students, our
3:33:23 staff, calls to parents and says, hey, try to get a hold of them.
3:33:27 They can’t get a hold of them.
3:33:28 Well, look, if the kid’s refusing and the number that we have on
3:33:31 is not able to get through, there needs to be a set, okay, we
3:33:35 tried.
3:33:36 I don’t know if that’s 30 minutes or whatever it is, but we
3:33:38 tried.
3:33:39 And now it’s, you know, you’re going to get searched or you’re
3:33:42 going to get charged with this.
3:33:44 And that’s what it is.
3:33:45 But we need to let the parents know so that they can tell the
3:33:48 kids that so that there’s no confusion at all across the board.
3:33:51 So I would say I agree with you, Ms. Campbell.
3:33:54 I think you not only initiate absolutely – because this was a
3:33:59 case that I saw.
3:34:00 I talked to the SRO at Space Coast.
3:34:03 The one down south reached out to us.
3:34:05 I think it was Bayside Heritage.
3:34:06 Like this is something that’s been popping around.
3:34:08 And I think that it’s not right.
3:34:10 If a student’s trying to hide what they’re doing, you said it
3:34:13 exactly, Ms. Campbell, then they have the right to tell them
3:34:18 that they didn’t do it by letting them search them.
3:34:20 And if not, then look, we’re not going to go through that.
3:34:22 You’re just going to get charged.
3:34:23 And we just need to hold the line on that.
3:34:25 And I’m sorry, like if your kid’s not wanting to be doing it,
3:34:27 that’s the way it’s going to be.
3:34:29 So I’m okay with that.
3:34:30 But the one piece that I do think, Ms. Hand, is that that time
3:34:35 period and how they’re connecting to the parents just needs to
3:34:38 be sort of a – and I’m just kind of speaking outside the box
3:34:42 for you, Ms. Campbell, is I would like that to just be like a 30-minute
3:34:45 period that if you can’t get a hold of the parents and the kid’s
3:34:47 refusing, then that’s the decision.
3:34:49 And we can’t continue to hold up our security and everything
3:34:51 else at the school district.
3:34:53 So just implement what the charge would have been or what they
3:34:56 were looking for.
3:34:57 Does that make sense?
3:34:58 MS.
3:34:59 I want to clarify, I think the parent phone call usually goes
3:35:01 out if the student’s not cooperating.
3:35:02 And they’ll try to call the parent to get them to help the
3:35:04 student cooperate.
3:35:05 They’re not necessarily waiting to do the search, I think.
3:35:08 MR.
3:35:09 And then if the parent says no, sorry, we’re still going to do
3:35:11 it.
3:35:11 Like, like you, you know, we’re just letting you know.
3:35:14 MS.
3:35:15 And again, I think clear communication is coming out on the, you
3:35:16 know, up front with them and saying this is the policy.
3:35:19 Again, reminding parents that we need your help in this aspect
3:35:22 that we’re seeing an increase here.
3:35:24 We need to communicate that from the district so that a parent’s
3:35:26 not going, what is happening?
3:35:27 You know?
3:35:28 MR.
3:35:29 Because you know some kid will say no and then go to his parents.
3:35:31 Well, I didn’t want to, back and forth.
3:35:32 And if that parent says, we know that you need to be searched,
3:35:34 that’s good.
3:35:35 MS.
3:35:36 Can I just add this?
3:35:37 Because, you know, one of the things that Ms. Hand put in the
3:35:40 presentation was reactive
3:35:42 and proactive.
3:35:43 MR.
3:35:44 I love that.
3:35:45 This is a reactive side of things.
3:35:46 MR.
3:35:47 Yeah.
3:35:48 But the proactive side is I think that we as a district need to
3:35:51 really push through in this
3:35:52 next year communication about THC, about, you know, we did it
3:35:56 with vaping a couple years ago
3:35:58 and now it’s just blown up in this way.
3:36:01 Student led, whatever.
3:36:03 I’ve got some ideas.
3:36:04 I want to ask Mr. –
3:36:06 Oh, there we go.
3:36:07 Ask Mr. Bruin to, you know, I’ve got plans for us to do some
3:36:12 kind of communication initiative
3:36:16 over this next year to really communicate with our students the
3:36:20 dangers.
3:36:21 I had a great conversation with Mr. Segek at the South ALC about
3:36:25 the conversations that
3:36:27 he’s had with students there and where they have, where they’ve
3:36:30 just realized, oh my gosh,
3:36:32 they’re going through, you know, five of these THC vapes a week
3:36:35 just like the equivalent of
3:36:37 100 marijuana cigarettes and the kid’s mind was blown, you know,
3:36:42 because they didn’t realize
3:36:43 how much they were doing and how much their lives can change and,
3:36:46 you know, in a positive
3:36:48 way if they stop.
3:36:49 And so as much as, you know, so I think we need to be on the –
3:36:53 we don’t need to just do
3:36:54 the reactive.
3:36:55 We have to do the reactive because this is becoming a huge
3:36:56 problem.
3:36:56 But I think we can be on board with a really proactive approach
3:36:59 on this particular issue,
3:37:01 among others, because it’s filling our ALCs.
3:37:04 It’s – it’s really destroying our students’ academic
3:37:07 performance.
3:37:08 It’s – it’s huge behavior issues that our deans are – and our
3:37:11 administrators are
3:37:12 having to deal with throughout the day, which is taking away
3:37:14 from their other focuses
3:37:15 they need to have.
3:37:16 So I – I totally agree and I believe we need to do both
3:37:20 approaches on this effort,
3:37:22 in particular this coming year.
3:37:24 Thank you.
3:37:26 Anybody else have anything to say about the – not only the
3:37:30 search and seizures, but about
3:37:31 Ms. Hand’s presentation or any questions on the update?
3:37:35 We’re good?
3:37:36 Thank you, Ms. Hand.
3:37:37 I do.
3:37:38 I have – there’s a lot of what we see here with the alternative
3:37:43 learning centers, with the
3:37:47 discipline committee, with all of these.
3:37:49 I feel like because of the transition to Dr. Rendell and
3:37:52 everything, that everything’s
3:37:53 kind of like, we’re almost there and we’re going to hand it off.
3:37:56 Is there a way to come back on the 12th and say, here’s how we
3:37:59 are going to implement this?
3:38:01 It’s the 13th, I think.
3:38:04 Whatever it is.
3:38:05 It’s like right in there.
3:38:06 You see what I mean?
3:38:08 Like, how are we going to integrate all the data systems?
3:38:10 Because my – what I would like to do is when we come back to
3:38:13 school, we have these things
3:38:15 in place and that’s only 45 days before we do.
3:38:17 I think we all agree with you.
3:38:19 I don’t know that you’ll get a comprehensive update on the 13th.
3:38:22 Ms. Dampier is already kind of overwhelmed with this next topic.
3:38:27 So I’ve got her on my agenda for Monday to focus on this, on
3:38:33 Gardendale.
3:38:35 The other pieces are moving as well.
3:38:38 So I think we can give you updates as we move through the summer.
3:38:42 It may just not be an update on everything on the 13th.
3:38:45 It’s just that like, so our overcrowding at the ALCs.
3:38:50 Right.
3:38:51 Like, what are we going to do?
3:38:52 Like, do we need direction from the board on the drug
3:38:54 rehabilitation?
3:38:55 We do.
3:38:57 And then –
3:38:58 Yep.
3:38:59 – are we going to expand to other locations, that kind of stuff?
3:39:00 Right.
3:39:01 So can we have that on the 13th or no?
3:39:03 I – did you –
3:39:05 I have a presentation and –
3:39:06 Yes.
3:39:07 The 13th is available for that topic.
3:39:09 Yes.
3:39:10 Okay.
3:39:11 And then the discipline committee is moving forward and we’ve
3:39:13 got that kind of –
3:39:14 We have that charter that’ll have to come back to the board.
3:39:16 So yes, I would like Ms. Dampier to kind of put her eyes on all
3:39:19 of this.
3:39:20 Yes.
3:39:21 So I think the 13th is good for an update on some of those
3:39:24 topics.
3:39:25 We just won’t have everything completely finished by then.
3:39:27 And even – I don’t think that like, even if we’re not
3:39:30 completely finished by then, the idea of how it’s going to come.
3:39:33 And if you need direction from us, we can do that.
3:39:36 You know what I mean?
3:39:37 And I think there was still an open-ended on the assistant
3:39:40 superintendent of discipline and how that component works and
3:39:44 all that other stuff.
3:39:45 So if we can try to get to a place where we touch each one of
3:39:49 them with an update and that, that would be great.
3:39:52 Not that you will be the person that we do that.
3:39:54 That will be Dr. Rendell, but kind of talking through you.
3:39:57 I’m assuming he’s nodding his head behind me.
3:39:59 Yes.
3:40:00 Okay.
3:40:01 He just said yes to everything back there.
3:40:02 You could feel it.
3:40:03 All right.
3:40:04 Well, thank you so much for your time, Ms. Hand.
3:40:05 Thank you.
3:40:06 I appreciate it.
3:40:07 Sure.
3:40:08 Do you want me to go through Gardendale quickly?
3:40:09 You guys – I mean, now we’re getting to 45 minutes.
3:40:12 Let’s go.
3:40:13 Yeah.
3:40:14 No, we’re just going to order pizza.
3:40:15 I’m going to order a war meeting.
3:40:16 I’ve got – I’ve got – Gardendale, I’ve got some stuff.
3:40:19 Pizza on Mr. Seusson.
3:40:20 Yeah.
3:40:21 Okay.
3:40:22 So you all know we have challenges relative to Gardendale.
3:40:25 We’ve got two functions at one site.
3:40:27 We have students with a wide variety of needs and ages.
3:40:31 And it’s complicated to do that all in one building.
3:40:36 The location is not ideal for a variety of reasons.
3:40:39 You all know that.
3:40:40 And trying to keep staff recruitment, retention are – continue
3:40:44 to be issues.
3:40:46 These are all things that I worry about.
3:40:48 These are all questions that a number of folks have raised.
3:40:53 And we’re not sure whether Gardendale is the right place for the
3:41:01 functions that we have there.
3:41:03 We’ve mapped the students in terms of who’s there now and their
3:41:07 locations.
3:41:08 Very few of them are anywhere near Merritt Island.
3:41:11 So we’ve got folks that need these services in the north end of
3:41:14 the county, south end of the county.
3:41:16 There’s some kind of west of Cocoa cluster.
3:41:19 But the students change all the time, too.
3:41:22 So it’s not – it’s not real clean to make a geographically
3:41:26 based decision.
3:41:27 But Merritt Island probably is not the right place.
3:41:30 So that leads to how much investment do we want to make given
3:41:33 that we have to operate while we figure out what we do in the
3:41:36 future.
3:41:37 So those are sort of the things that we’ve been wrestling with.
3:41:41 So where we are today, Ms. Bland and Procurement had put out an
3:41:46 RFQ.
3:41:47 We did not receive any interest from the private sector for an
3:41:51 operator for a separate day school.
3:41:53 So we are moving forward with that being our responsibility into
3:41:57 next school year.
3:41:59 We have a high number of staff vacancies.
3:42:02 Last time I reported on this, I think it was 29 out of 61.
3:42:05 And I don’t know that you’ve made progress since then.
3:42:08 And then we need a lot of – not a lot – we need a modest level
3:42:11 of investment to support the school.
3:42:13 And so we, myself, in facilities, Russ Cheatham in educational
3:42:18 technology, security,
3:42:20 we’re all kind of poised to move forward with some improvements
3:42:24 at the school.
3:42:25 So what we’re doing right now is, on Monday, we are going to
3:42:30 update Ms. Dampier on where we are with our construction
3:42:34 contract.
3:42:35 I have a contract that will be on your board agenda June 13th to
3:42:38 do some additional facility improvements.
3:42:40 Ms. Bland had requested some modifications to a larger office
3:42:44 space that would allow classrooms to be freed up and move some
3:42:48 of the office functions into the area that we’re renovating.
3:42:52 So we’ve got that on the agenda.
3:42:54 We’re doing some additional security improvements.
3:42:56 We are ready to purchase furniture, fixtures, and equipments.
3:43:01 Ms. Bland had provided a pretty comprehensive list of things
3:43:04 that she needs.
3:43:05 We’re ready to do that.
3:43:06 I just want to run through that with Ms. Dampier so she’s on
3:43:09 board.
3:43:10 And we’ll go ahead and make those purchases.
3:43:13 We are looking at playground equipment.
3:43:16 That’s one of the big asks.
3:43:18 I’m not sure that that’s funded.
3:43:20 I’m still kind of moodling around in our capital funding to see
3:43:23 if I can figure out a way to get that done.
3:43:25 But I want to – I want to confirm this is what we want to do.
3:43:28 This is where we want to put it.
3:43:30 But that’s probably a $100,000 investment by the time it’s all
3:43:33 said and done.
3:43:34 And then our facility work is in the $200,000 to $300,000 range.
3:43:39 So it’s a significant investment.
3:43:41 Not a bad investment for a school.
3:43:44 So even if it’s not going to be used as – with its current
3:43:48 functions, those things can all be used if it is used as a
3:43:53 school.
3:43:54 But nonetheless, it is a significant investment.
3:43:59 Shortly, Ms. Green – Dr. Green has looked at staff incentives.
3:44:04 So that piece is kind of ready to move forward for discussion.
3:44:08 We have leadership appointments coming up that Dr. Rendell will
3:44:12 be handling.
3:44:13 And then recruiting and onboarding positions as well as looking
3:44:17 at the position allocations for Gardendale given the type of
3:44:20 work that is done at that school.
3:44:22 So we have some capital resources left over from last year’s
3:44:26 reopening of Gardendale as a separate day school that we haven’t
3:44:30 used yet.
3:44:31 So that’s primarily what we’re using.
3:44:33 There’s some IDEA funds that may be available.
3:44:36 And there’s some capital allocation for student services, FF&E.
3:44:40 So most of what has been asked in terms of the facility FF&E
3:44:45 piece we can cover.
3:44:47 So we’re working on that.
3:44:49 And then the staff needs is another question.
3:44:51 And that’s going to require a little bit more detailed analysis.
3:44:55 And then in the future, I really do believe that we need to look
3:45:00 at the function of the ALCs and the location of Gardendale in
3:45:05 particular.
3:45:06 Is that really the best place to serve the needs of our students,
3:45:11 both for the ALC and for the separate day school?
3:45:14 But that’s not a today answer that’s going to require a bit more
3:45:18 work with, again, a cross-functional approach.
3:45:21 And I think that’s it.
3:45:23 So thank you.
3:45:25 All right.
3:45:27 I think anybody want to go on this topic first?
3:45:31 I have gone off about this three times, so I won’t do it again.
3:45:36 I don’t think there’s enough time to have this conversation.
3:45:39 Quite frankly, I think it needs to be way lengthier than this.
3:45:43 Number one, absolutely a priority to increase the supplements
3:45:48 offered to staff members who are making a decision to work with
3:45:53 our most vulnerable students,
3:45:54 or students with significant needs, because it is inconscionable
3:46:00 that we have 29 vacancies out of 60 in a school where our kids
3:46:04 need their staff the most.
3:46:07 Significant increase, because what we had in place already, we
3:46:11 already had vacancies in the first place.
3:46:13 It didn’t really ease the gap of staffing needs that we had at
3:46:16 that school.
3:46:17 But going further, again, I brought this up last time we were
3:46:21 talking about Gardendale.
3:46:23 We have significant deficits in the way that we’re servicing our
3:46:26 ESC students and huge vacancies in all of our ESC positions
3:46:29 across the district overall.
3:46:31 So if we’re going to have this conversation about this increase
3:46:33 of supplements at Gardendale, we need to have a conversation
3:46:36 about potentially doing that for all of our schools.
3:46:38 Some of our elementary schools have VE classrooms that are now
3:46:42 servicing not just K-3, but K-6, which is absurd.
3:46:46 We have kids with individualized education plans in a classroom
3:46:51 with 20, 25 other “individualized education plans” that
3:46:57 completely defeat the point of having these students in a
3:47:00 separate classroom.
3:47:01 Again, you know how passionately I feel about this.
3:47:05 We need way more than 30 minutes to have this conversation, but
3:47:08 people like to say money isn’t everything, but it absolutely is
3:47:12 when we’re talking about this.
3:47:14 That’s step one.
3:47:15 Step one.
3:47:16 We need bodies in that classroom.
3:47:17 We need qualified bodies in that classroom.
3:47:18 We need to pay them for the difficult job that they’re going to
3:47:20 sign up to do.
3:47:21 Hang on.
3:47:22 Ms. Jenkins, are you finished?
3:47:22 Because she said number one, and then I didn’t know if it was…
3:47:22 Ms. Jenkins, do you want me to bring this back up at the school
3:47:24 board meeting tonight so we can have a deeper conversation?
3:47:27 I don’t want you to feel like I know you’re passionate about
3:47:28 that.
3:47:28 No.
3:47:29 My point when we brought this up at the last workshop that we
3:47:32 were having is that this is not a simple conversation to have.
3:47:36 This is a significant problem that we have that needs to be
3:47:40 addressed in depth, and I had said to my fellow school board
3:47:42 members, we had a week left of school and I was hoping that
3:47:46 everyone would go and visit.
3:47:49 This is a serious problem that we have for our district that we
3:47:56 only have a small amount of time to resolve or at least put some
3:48:02 plan in place until we can resolve it.
3:48:07 So this should be a priority for us. We should be spending a
3:48:10 significant portion of the time of a workshop having this
3:48:14 conversation, not 30 minutes.
3:48:17 So what I’m saying is…
3:48:19 Ms. No, I don’t want to have it at the end of a school board
3:48:20 meeting. That doesn’t meet the needs of what I’m saying.
3:48:23 There should be a significant amount of time dedicated towards
3:48:26 this for us to have an in-depth conversation about what’s
3:48:29 happening, what is needed, and I’m not blaming the staff for
3:48:32 this at all.
3:48:33 This should be a priority for the board. This should be a
3:48:36 priority on a workshop. And everyone on this board should be
3:48:39 visiting that facility to understand the needs that are going to
3:48:42 be, need to be met.
3:48:43 So I would agree with you 100%. And what I’m trying to say is,
3:48:47 is that in the event that we have the timing of everything, we
3:48:50 don’t have a meeting until the 13th.
3:48:52 So some of the items that you have here, we may be able to roll
3:48:56 tonight to discuss some of them and you can get some of those
3:49:00 direction to them.
3:49:02 Because where I’m concerned is, is that you have 45 days from
3:49:06 the 13th until basically we’re starting school again, 45 to 65
3:49:10 days, and we may need to give direction a little bit ahead of
3:49:13 time.
3:49:13 So that’s why I was offering tonight. But if you don’t feel like
3:49:15 you want to move on tonight, then we can try to add it to the 13th
3:49:18 workshop.
3:49:19 So respectfully, this isn’t a problem that we’ve had as a
3:49:22 district just now. This is a problem we’ve had all school year
3:49:25 that I’ve been saying over and over and over again.
3:49:29 So the board sets the priority. The board sets the agenda. The
3:49:33 board needs to set a workshop time for our staff to come to us
3:49:38 and educate all of us on what’s going on there, what needs to
3:49:42 get done.
3:49:43 Again, this is not on the staff. We are setting the agenda and
3:49:46 the priority. So no, this can’t be addressed at the end of
3:49:48 tonight’s school board meeting.
3:49:50 We need to focus on this. And quite frankly, it should be our
3:49:53 number one priority going into our next meeting.
3:49:56 All right. I’m going to, I have a lot of stuff that I want to
3:50:00 discuss, so I’m going to do it anyway.
3:50:02 Are you ready? Ms. Campbell, you want to go?
3:50:05 So the good thing is the staff is not waiting for us to get
3:50:09 moving on it. They’ve already been working. Ms. Hand has
3:50:12 developed a plan.
3:50:14 Ms. Vland is continuing to work on it, I’m sure. And she said
3:50:16 she’s got a presentation. We are going to have a new leader of
3:50:20 that division on Monday.
3:50:23 And she needs some time to get her feet grounded in the issues.
3:50:29 And this has been priority one. And we said it, I believe Dr.
3:50:32 Rendell said somebody said it when she was introduced.
3:50:35 This is priority, one of her first priorities. And so, so I,
3:50:39 they’re not waiting on us to start working a plan. It’s going to,
3:50:44 all those things are going to come to us.
3:50:45 Sue’s already mentioned things that are going to come to us on
3:50:47 the facility side. And so they’re not stopping. But I, so, so
3:50:51 for me, the plea is, as a board member, bring us what you need
3:50:55 to have. This is priority one.
3:50:57 Um, and so how did I say that? And we have a whole bunch of
3:51:00 priority ones. That’s just part of our work that we do. But this
3:51:04 is, this is a huge priority. And so bring us what you need to,
3:51:09 what, what do you need us to do? And, um, and let us give the
3:51:14 approval and, and get done what needs to get done.
3:51:16 I don’t want staff to slow down, um, on the work towards us
3:51:20 because we do have a short timeframe.
3:51:23 Mr. Trent, Ms. Ms. Wright.
3:51:26 I, I know. I feel like this is giving it, not giving it adequate
3:51:28 time to speak about it. So honestly, I, I do think that we
3:51:31 should maybe even discuss, do we need to have a special workshop
3:51:35 that is 100% devoted just to Gardendale and the ALC so that we
3:51:39 can talk about this in depth.
3:51:41 Right. I hate to do that until, before we get the leadership in
3:51:44 place and give them time to get the plan because anything we
3:51:46 would do until then might be a little, would be a little
3:51:49 premature.
3:51:50 Okay. Well then I, I will summarize it by saying that I did go
3:51:53 and visit Gardendale. I spent time there and learned a lot of
3:51:55 things. Thank you, Ms. Bland, for touring me around the school,
3:51:58 um, on the ALC side and the Gardendale side, the separate day
3:52:02 program side.
3:52:04 So, um, there are drastic, drastic needs at that school and, and
3:52:08 honestly the staff that’s there a hundred percent support giving
3:52:13 them whatever we need to give them to make that school succeed.
3:52:17 Um, I know we don’t have an ideal situation there right now. Um,
3:52:20 this happened overnight. And so it’s kind of one of these, we
3:52:23 had to quickly jump in there. Thank you for the amazing job that
3:52:25 you’ve done. We have to grow on it.
3:52:28 So looking at that map and the fact that we are bussing kids
3:52:31 from literally Scottsmore to, to Grant, I think, or Valk area to
3:52:35 the same school in Merritt Island doesn’t make the most sense.
3:52:39 Um, so we, we have some things that we have to work through logistically,
3:52:42 but I’m in favor of giving you guys whatever you need to help
3:52:45 get that up and going.
3:52:46 I think we need a special session and, and really sit down and
3:52:49 talk about this in depth because this doesn’t feel very, um, I
3:52:52 feel like it’s the most beneficial to really advocate for it. So.
3:52:57 Mr. Trent.
3:52:58 Yeah, I’ll make this quick as well. Um, we have to have really
3:53:02 two, two kinds of discussions.
3:53:04 One is a longterm discussion. Are we going to, um, are we going
3:53:11 to take these kids, you know, for, for a long time forever and
3:53:15 not, not maybe next time put it out to bid again to maybe have
3:53:19 them go somewhere else.
3:53:20 And if that’s the case, then we really need to explore major
3:53:24 investment. You know, uh, go to Orange County, look at their, um,
3:53:28 facilities, go down south, look at their facilities. Um, from
3:53:31 what I’m hearing, they’re, they’re, they take care of those kids,
3:53:35 um, in a great way that we’re not.
3:53:38 Um, and at the same time, what do we need now? And just come
3:53:42 back with us, uh, or come back to us, excuse me.
3:53:45 Um, and, um, like the rest of us here, we, if it’s available, we,
3:53:49 we want to give what needs to be given. Uh, you know, many of
3:53:53 those vacancies, yes, we need them filled.
3:53:54 Some of them, it was because they got to a late start. I believe
3:53:57 it was in July or, um, and some of these, some of the staff
3:54:00 traveled a great distance to get there.
3:54:03 It really had no intention on, on, on coming back because of
3:54:06 that, that distance. Uh, but we need to talk about that pay
3:54:10 quickly, uh, because they, again, they absolutely deserve it.
3:54:15 And maybe that little incentive will, will, will keep some of
3:54:18 them, uh, around. Some of them are asking right now, what’s,
3:54:21 what’s happening?
3:54:21 And on the ALC side, what’s happening on, you know, the five day
3:54:24 versus the remote, uh, and on the Gardendale side.
3:54:27 Um, so there, there, there are, there are things we need answers
3:54:31 to and give them to, we owe it to them quickly.
3:54:34 Uh, but I do agree with, uh, spending, once we get the
3:54:37 leadership, new leadership in a place, we need to spend hours to,
3:54:41 to talk about this.
3:54:42 And as long as we’re presented with facts, um, our, our foot on
3:54:47 the feet on the ground on a, at a facility, isn’t the, the
3:54:52 absolute necessity.
3:54:53 We know how to make decisions with given facts.
3:54:55 But, uh, uh, I did get to spend some time over there on Thursday
3:54:58 in between the, the four graduations last week, uh, on both the
3:55:03 ALC and the Gardendale side.
3:55:04 And, uh, uh, I had spent some really good time, so we, it, we
3:55:08 need to spend some time on this.
3:55:10 Great.
3:55:11 I think one of, not many people know that you used to be a
3:55:14 teacher at one of the ALCs.
3:55:16 And, um, some of the staff, when I met there, they talked about
3:55:19 that.
3:55:20 Um, I’ll, I’ll just go through.
3:55:22 So I had 28 responses of individuals.
3:55:25 I went there, talked to them, went through, uh, took notes, um,
3:55:28 did some stuff.
3:55:29 And I just kind of wanted to put it in the ledger.
3:55:31 Um, maybe things that you guys already were working on.
3:55:33 I’ve wanted to take this time since we did the work.
3:55:36 Um, I condensed it because some of the notes were along.
3:55:39 Um, they need more mental health counselors, bonuses on signing
3:55:43 and retention bonuses for staying.
3:55:46 Those bonuses on both sides need to not come the next year.
3:55:51 But sometime, like they’re saying that if you start with it, you
3:55:55 don’t get it until the next year in like October.
3:55:57 And that wasn’t fair, even though they had already gone through
3:55:59 the whole year.
3:56:00 They need more IAs, trauma therapists, SROs in both the ALC and
3:56:04 the Gardendale.
3:56:06 We have a security officer.
3:56:08 Um, I’d like to look at that, you know what I mean, from a cost
3:56:10 perspective.
3:56:11 Because there’s some things that the SRO does.
3:56:13 Um, many people think, oh, well you have a security officer.
3:56:17 But the security guy is not for reacting to, um, he cannot
3:56:21 arrest.
3:56:22 He cannot do those things.
3:56:23 He’s only specific duties to a certain piece.
3:56:25 So that’s why having that extra one.
3:56:27 Um, part-time occupational therapist.
3:56:30 We need more RBTs on campus.
3:56:32 We need more BCBAs, more custodians.
3:56:34 Apparently there’s one custodian in the facility that changes
3:56:38 out twice a day.
3:56:39 Um, timing of bonus that is more IEP reporting support.
3:56:43 Um, another TOA or a dean inside there to support.
3:56:47 Testing coordinators.
3:56:49 Um, in some of the training that they’re needed is trauma-informed
3:56:53 care.
3:56:54 Crisis de-escalation.
3:56:56 ESC training.
3:56:57 Autism programs in pre-K.
3:56:59 Individual mental health sessions.
3:57:01 Trained in field of ABA to modify behavior.
3:57:05 And intervention training.
3:57:07 I know you guys all know all of these.
3:57:09 But for some reason the trainings weren’t across the board.
3:57:11 Um, there are some specific facility needs.
3:57:15 Um, divided rooms by grades or somewhere close to it.
3:57:19 You have multiple kids.
3:57:20 Like when I was there, there was a kid that was like 17.
3:57:23 And there was a kid in elementary school in the same room.
3:57:25 So, um, divided outdoor fences, which I know you, you had
3:57:28 mentioned there.
3:57:29 Um, playground equipment.
3:57:31 Um, some of them had mentioned having something that physically
3:57:33 exerts them.
3:57:34 So not just a swing, but climbing equipment.
3:57:37 A track.
3:57:38 That kind of stuff.
3:57:39 Sensory rooms.
3:57:40 Kind of like a galley’s example.
3:57:42 Water fountains.
3:57:43 They need water fountains.
3:57:44 Water.
3:57:45 There’s no water for the kids.
3:57:46 So.
3:57:47 Perfect.
3:57:48 Um, more larger, larger rooms.
3:57:51 Multiple assessments going on in the same room.
3:57:53 So that one of them had given an example where in one room they
3:57:56 have.
3:57:56 Behavioral assessment doing one.
3:57:58 Suicide assessment doing another.
3:57:59 And all that stuff all in the same room.
3:58:01 Because they just didn’t have enough rooms.
3:58:02 More storage space.
3:58:04 More technology for students and staff.
3:58:06 No trespassing signs on property.
3:58:08 Apparently kids from around the neighborhoods are jumping into
3:58:10 our field.
3:58:11 Using it as a crossover.
3:58:13 So we have people that aren’t like part of our schools that are
3:58:16 actually doing that.
3:58:17 Um, well, I’m gonna go arrest that guy if he’s coming on our
3:58:20 campus.
3:58:21 Um, start earlier.
3:58:23 Um, the start times because of the delay in the amount of time
3:58:27 that it hurts.
3:58:28 So let’s talk about this.
3:58:30 So if they start at an earlier time.
3:58:33 The issue is, is that it’s difficult to get the kids there
3:58:35 because they’re traveling from so far.
3:58:37 Some mentioned that students in MIMS are getting on.
3:58:41 Females in MIMS are getting on at 5:45 in the morning.
3:58:44 And what they’re doing is that might be, um, dangerous because
3:58:47 in many cases it’s still dark.
3:58:49 But the issue that they have is, is that even with those start
3:58:52 times because of the location, the later in the afternoon
3:58:56 increases behavioral problems.
3:58:58 So if we’re able to bring it to an earlier start time because of
3:59:01 geographical locations, then they’re able to control that later
3:59:05 discipline issue.
3:59:07 Some of them had said, can we go to less hours?
3:59:09 And I said, well, I don’t know.
3:59:10 Year round school might not be a bad thing if you could put them
3:59:12 to less hours and get them in the mornings and stuff like that.
3:59:15 Just something as a point of reference library.
3:59:19 For some reason there was a bunch of comments that came through
3:59:22 to my email about library.
3:59:24 I thought there was one in the center that I saw in the ALC, but
3:59:27 maybe not in Gardendale.
3:59:28 Let’s look at library services for the students because it seems
3:59:30 like that was one of the things they talked about.
3:59:32 Apparently there’s a basketball, basketball net thing that needs
3:59:36 to be fixed.
3:59:37 From the carfeteria, the portions for each one of the students
3:59:40 is different.
3:59:41 So like you have a pre-K kid or a kindergartner getting the same
3:59:45 portions that a 12th grader has.
3:59:48 And the issue that you have there is, is that we all know many
3:59:51 of these students starve.
3:59:53 Like many of them don’t have food at home.
3:59:56 So when they come there, it’s the only food that they get.
3:59:59 So having larger portions may not be such a bad thing.
4:00:02 Let me see here, hot breakfasts.
4:00:06 So the whole lunch options is a whole thing.
4:00:09 Like peanut butter and jelly is not acceptable in some cases.
4:00:12 Let’s bring normal cafeteria lunches to the kids and hot
4:00:16 breakfasts is what they’re asking for.
4:00:19 So I think a revamp of our entire cafeteria services would be
4:00:23 good.
4:00:24 Like transportations, students are on the bus too long.
4:00:29 One of them had mentioned to me that delivering kids at
4:00:32 different times would be a good thing.
4:00:34 Like all dumping them off at the same time, kids are interacting
4:00:38 and fighting.
4:00:39 So even if they have to wait until the other bus gets dropped
4:00:42 off, and then they wait, and then they drop off, I don’t know.
4:00:44 But that was a suggestion to do.
4:00:48 But many of them had said there needed to be possible multiple
4:00:51 sites.
4:00:52 And when I was looking at that, just as a suggestion, I kind of
4:00:55 thought deep about it.
4:00:57 If you have it on the site, then you can utilize some of the
4:01:00 resources from the school that’s already in existence.
4:01:02 Mental health counselors, deans, you know what I mean?
4:01:05 Those kind of things.
4:01:06 So if there’s a way to use that, that’s good.
4:01:09 Apparently Orange County has the greatest thing in the entire
4:01:11 world.
4:01:12 So like, I keep hearing that inside things.
4:01:15 Get kids so they do not, different start times, more locations.
4:01:20 Students are being rewarded for bad behavioral changes and they’re
4:01:24 gaming the system, meaning that they figured out that if they
4:01:27 just, that they can act inappropriately and then they will get
4:01:30 something in the end.
4:01:31 So they’re acting that way.
4:01:32 They had asked.
4:01:33 One of the big things is repeat offenders with consequences.
4:01:36 So apparently we have repeat offenders that don’t want to be in
4:01:39 there and they’re causing disruption with even the other kids
4:01:42 that are being disrupted.
4:01:44 And I think as a board, we need to come up with this when we
4:01:46 come to this conversation.
4:01:48 Our philosophy needs to be that we’re either going to punish or
4:01:52 we’re restorative.
4:01:53 Because if you look at what we’re doing inside the schools in
4:01:56 Gardendale and the ALCs, it’s a combination of both.
4:01:58 Like we’re saying you get a PB and J, but then we want to give
4:02:01 them supports.
4:02:02 So we need to figure out if we’re going to move to a restorative
4:02:04 type system, then we need to bring in the resources as far as
4:02:08 programs, art.
4:02:09 There was one in there that I didn’t put down.
4:02:11 It talks about bringing in art classes and drone programs and
4:02:14 engaging things, right?
4:02:16 If we want to do those things and we want a restorative, then we
4:02:18 go that direction, but if not.
4:02:19 So those are just some of the things I wanted to read them into
4:02:22 the, you know, minutes and stuff like that so that we knew them.
4:02:26 And if I have a bunch of notes, I have 28 comments.
4:02:29 I have all the stuff that I worked on, so.
4:02:31 And I wanted to honor you, Ms. Jenkins, for asking us all to go.
4:02:34 It was tough.
4:02:35 I mean, it was real tough to get there during the piece.
4:02:38 And I appreciate you asking us to do that.
4:02:41 And I wanted to let you know I came through for you.
4:02:43 So with that, anybody else have any questions?
4:02:45 So those discussion items that were the next two items are
4:02:49 important.
4:02:50 I think those we should probably get some – they were asking
4:02:52 for some consensus.
4:02:53 So I think we should push those to the board meeting, those two
4:02:55 items about the stipends and the media center.
4:02:58 Oh, yeah.
4:02:59 Everything else that’s on the thing is going to roll.
4:03:00 Let’s move that.
4:03:01 That’s not a problem.
4:03:02 Yeah.
4:03:03 Yeah, we’re going to do all those tonight.
4:03:04 So thank you, Ms. Hand, for all your work.
4:03:05 Thank you, sir.
4:03:06 We have about 20 minutes to grab something to eat.
4:03:09 So thank you very much.
4:03:36 Thank you.