Updates on the Fight for Quality Public Education in Brevard County, FL
6:05 Good morning. The June 13, 2023 board meeting is now in order. I’m happy to welcome my fellow board members and the public. I would like to take this opportunity to remind the public that his appropriate place for public participation in the meeting is during your individual public comment opportunity as identified in the agenda outside of your individual public comment opportunity.
6:22 Your role in this meeting is as an observer. Paul, roll call, please. Mister Susan.
6:27 Here. Miss Wright. Here.
6:29 Miss Campbell. Here. Miss Jenkins.
6:31 Here. Mister Trent. Here.
6:33 The board will now hold a moment of silent reflection and invite the audience to join. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the power of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for others.
7:16 At this time, I’d like to offer my fellow board members and Mister Rendell the opportunity to recognize students, staff, or members of the community. Who wants to go first? Miss Jenkins? Yeah. I had the opportunity to join members of the community at Eastern Florida State for the summit of Seven, which was a wonderful opportunity to be invited to an organization to support our males and our youth in the community by fostering them with love, support, and mentorship from male role models in the community as well.
7:53 And so the purpose of this organization is that you commit to coming and you commit to bringing seven others with you. So, unfortunately, I didn’t get to see most of the conference because it was restricted only to young, young males and adult males. But I wasn’t able to participate in the luncheon and as well as Summit of Seven, eastern Florida State and I believe community credit union had given out some scholarships to some of our seniors at O’Galley and Rockledge High, and I believe Coco High as well.
8:24 So thank you to everyone in our community who continues to support our students, just from the youngest of ages all the way up until they go to college. Thank you so much. Who wants to go next? Miss Campbell? First, I want to thank the children’s hunger project for hosting us last week when we had our offsite.
8:41 It was great to be there. And then we got a chance. Thank you, board, for jumping there on the assembly line and doing some packing for our kids.
8:48 They feed almost 4000 students weekend meals and with the goal of trying to eliminate childhood hunger in Brevard. And we are getting there. Also want to recognize, I’m going to steal everybody’s thunder, in case you were going to do this one, to recognize our 2023 congressional medal of Merit award winners that we got to celebrate a couple weeks ago.
9:07 I’m just going to read the list of names. Unfortunately, Congressman Posey wasn’t able to be there because he was busy voting on some really important things. But we want to recognize from astronaut high school, Ashlyn Foster from Bayside High School, Jaden Small.
9:21 And by the way, this is a really big deal, right? One student from every high school recognized by our, the congressman in each district. So it’s a really big deal. Cocoa High school.
9:30 Jaden Edgecomb, Cocoa beach junior senior high. Marissa Ricks, O’Galley High School. Anna Ferguson, Edgewood junior senior high.
9:37 Angelina I’m going to guess Heritage High School. Jonathan Chuang, Holy Trinity. Jose Montalvo, Melbourne Central Catholic.
9:47 Genevieve Lejeune, Melbourne High School. Adit Agarwal, Merritt Island Christian School. Thomas Barone, Merritt Island High.
9:54 Alyssa Pender, Odyssey junior senior. Christian Rivera, pombe magnet. Lila Owenofsky, Pineapple Cove.
10:02 Caleb Benfield, Rockledge High School. Anthony Lieb, satellite high school. Isabel Space Coast Junior senior high.
10:09 Hannah Kirby, Titusville. Hi, Alyssa. Trena, Viera High School.
10:12 Alyssa Blood and West shore junior senior lance Stern. Congratulations to all those graduates for this amazing award. Thank you, Miss Campbell.
10:22 I’ll hop in. Okay. I have the amazing opportunity to do something that was 100% outside of my comfort zone.
10:28 I did dancing for the Space coast on the third of this month, and what a stretch that was for me because I am not a dancer, but I said yes, and I am so grateful for it. So kind of piggybacking on the children’s Hunger project. That event raises funds for non for profits that are in our community.
10:44 So that event raised $350,000 for three different non for profits, one of which is the children’s hunger project. So it was an amazing opportunity. I’m super grateful for stretching myself physically, literally all the way around, but it was a great event and we raise a lot of money for a lot of good organizations.
11:02 So thank you for that opportunity to the sheriff, who convinced me to say yes. All right, so I, too, want to thank the children’s hunger project for hosting us this past week for our workshop. It was, if you haven’t been there, please contact them for volunteer hours and events.
11:26 I mean, they do a wonderful job for our kids here in Brevard. And I just want to have a shout out to all the teachers and staff that have the summers to regroup, recoup and re energize. The summer will be over before you know it.
11:43 We appreciate what you’re doing, and we’re thinking of you, and we’re excited to have you come back in August, so we’re ready. All right, so I just wanted to say also about the off site and the children’s hunger project. It’s a great organization.
11:58 Six years ago, Bob Barnes was the head of it, and when we were involved in it, him and I worked side by side. I don’t think you want to. Okay.
12:12 Anyways, I wanted to. The children’s hunger project was run by an individual named Bob Barnes, and his heart and soul was put into it. And he created it at a time when many schools didn’t even know what it was giving.
12:23 You know what I mean? The food to the children over the weekend took a lot of effort on his part. And seeing where it is now with all of the support checks and sponsorships, and we were there. After we got done, another group came in and was working inside there.
12:35 So hats off to Katie Campbell and her leadership. She’s very involved inside of that organization, and it’s taken off and done some amazing things. And I wanted to say thank you to Doctor Rendell and the board for the offsite.
12:46 It was great. We sort of got ourselves in a good direction. We heard from Doctor Rendell, who has just literally been on the case for what, it’s like, ten days now or something like that.
12:54 You had an offsite within five days. The two individuals presenting later on in the board workshop have been here for less than that, and we’re moving. So I wanted to say congratulations to the board and the direction from the offsite.
13:04 I wanted to say thank you. Many people, we may not discuss it, but the municipal sros are on here. Many of the individuals understand the security that we take.
13:15 Number one, inside of our school district is first and foremost. And part of that component is our guardian programs and everything else. But it’s cornered around the sros and that connection to the community, connection to their local kids that they know inside and out the school.
13:28 So today we’re going to be, you know, approving that. And I just wanted to say thank you to the Sros for what they do on a regular basis. There’s also some stuff about EMS program in Rockledge many of you don’t know, but we donated six years ago the location for Rockledge to build the emergency management system there, which is going to be a new facility that is upgraded and everything else.
13:49 If you visited the old facility for more than ten minutes, you’ll notice why they needed a new one. And we’re really excited to get moving on that. And then I want to say thank you to the city of Satellite beach.
13:58 We’re doing a joint use agreement with the basketball courts today. And what that really is going to do is open up an opportunity for many of our students. I watched a documentary, documentary this morning on Prince George county up in Maryland and they are, they put together a basketball program for their youth that was incredible 60 years ago and now they’ve had like over 70 people drafted into the NBA.
14:24 And at any given time they have close to 50 or 60 people division one basketball athletes playing. And it’s all because of providing basketball courts. That’s how it started.
14:34 So I think that what we should do for fun is locally all of our elementary schools challenge each other to basketball over around baseball. Like softball over here at the US S a stadium. I think it would be fun to have some of the elementary schools over beachside compete against each other for basketball.
14:54 Maybe even throw in middle school and high school teams and play like some three on three. I think we could develop a team here at the school district to come over there and maybe we give the proceeds to a charity. But I think it’s so nice that you guys had the opportunity to do this and coming forward and working with us.
15:08 So with that, I’m good. Doctor Rendell, you got the floor. Nothing to share at this point.
15:15 I’ll brag on some other stuff later. All right, that brings us to the adoption of the agenda. Doctor Rendell.
15:21 Thank you, Mister Susan. On this morning’s agenda we have administrative staff recommendations, 27 consent items, one public hearing item two action items and one board member report. Changes made to the agenda since release of the public include the addition of f 32 satellite high school construction management services and f 33 quest elementary chilled water pipe repair.
15:44 Also construction management services provisions were also made to phase seven administrative staff recommendations. F nine meeting minutes f 14, which is a memorandum of understanding with the municipalities for the sros and f 35 outside council contract. H 38 procurement solicitations and h 39 department school initiated agreements.
16:07 Do I hear a motion? Is there any discussion? All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed, motion passes.
16:18 Hang on, Doctor Rendell, before you go to administrative staff recommendations, Miss Wright had something to say. So we, we cannot let this meeting go without recognizing one very, very important individual that I know. Tammy’s going oh, why are you doing this? So Tammy has an amazing opportunity to advance her career and so she will not be our board assistant anymore.
16:44 And she is leaving us and we are absolutely heartbroken. I am absolutely heartbroken because she is so amazing. But I just want to thank you Tammy, you have been a rock.
16:52 You have been unbelievable. Honestly, you’ve ran around and done multiple people’s jobs and done it with excellence. So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much.
17:00 I wish you the very, very best on this next chapter. If it doesn’t go well and you want to come back, please, please, please call us, because we are going to miss you so, so much. I don’t know if my fellow board members want to take a moment and just recognize the amazing work that you’ve done, but we appreciate you.
17:14 And personally, I don’t think I could have gotten through the last seven months without you personally here to help me. So thank you so much for all that you’ve done. Miss Campbell, you mentioned you want to say something.
17:24 Yeah, I do. So, over the last four and a half years since I’ve been on the board, we have gone through some stuff, and there is one person who has specific influence, or I won’t say influence, not the right word, but just help to the board. A strong, steady rock who’s never phased.
17:43 If it’s great stuff, tough stuff, controversial stuff, you are just always so even keeled. And I always think that I’m the favorite. But you know what? Honestly, I wouldn’t be able to tell, because you treat each of us as if we’re your favorite and with such integrity and respect, and just.
18:03 There’s not anybody that I know in this organization that works as quickly and efficiently as you do. And so I appreciate you very, very, very much, and we wish you all the best. And I am also very, very sad that you’re leaving us.
18:20 But I am blessed to have known you for the last four and a half years. Years. Miss Jenkins.
18:29 Tammy. When I wasn’t able to be at the off site because I was sick, and Tammy gave me a call to let me know that she was not going to be with us any longer. And my response was not kind.
18:46 Jokingly, of course. I was so sad to hear the news that she would be leaving. Because you are not only remarkable in your skillset as a professional for us and keeping us afloat, I don’t know how we’re gonna continue without you, quite frankly.
19:05 But you are the most incredible, kind, sympathetic human being I have ever met. And I personally wouldn’t have made it through the past two years without somebody like you to walk into every single day. And I am so, so grateful for you.
19:21 But genuinely, I am so happy for you that you are going somewhere where you feel like you are going to be able to advance your career and do something that you love and you’re passionate about. And I’m happy for you and for your family. And I hope this isn’t a final goodbye.
19:37 I hope we get to see you some more. So, congratulations, Jane. You’re the type of person that’s somebody that’s in our shoes, that just got on a board like this, that we hoped there when we opened the door that you made everything, the transition, so easy.
19:59 It was so easy to ask you questions because honestly, even if you didn’t have the answer, the next thing was, I’ll have it for you very quickly. And you always did. Again, you made our transition under this board extremely easy, probably easier than it should have been.
20:17 You probably did way too much, and I appreciate you. So wherever you’re going, I hope they respect and understand and appreciate what they’re getting, because they’re getting a true professional. So just, job well done here.
20:31 Wish it could have been longer, and I’m sure we’ll cross paths again. Thanks, Tammy. Yeah, I think just by everybody can notice the overwhelming support that Tammy has given each individual.
20:42 And we have such great opportunities with her that in a board where we are so dynamic and being able to service all of us to where we feel like we are cared for and we do a great job, that goes a long way for you, Tammy and I personally have know that you have kept me out of trouble many times, and I really appreciate that. But you’ve also, when it was the right decisions, went out and got stuff done. And I really appreciate being unbiased, being hardworking, being all of those things.
21:14 And that’s a very rare character in today’s environment. And I wanted to say from the bottom of my heart, thank you for everything that you did, both for me, for the board, and everybody else inside the community. Many people don’t understand, but Tammy’s not our administrative assistant.
21:27 She’s actually our boss. And it’s a regular thing that she tells us, hey, here’s some ideas that. Ideas.
21:32 We don’t tell her what to do. She kind of tells us what to do. And I really appreciated that because it comes from a great place.
21:38 And your support of Doctor Blackburn, Doctor Mullins, and all of the things that you’ve done have always been top notch. So thank you so much. Doctor Rendell, do you have anything to say? I’m just at a loss.
21:50 I have been assured it has nothing to do with me arriving. I mean, Tammy’s the kind of person that keeps everything running behind the scenes. All the stuff that happens up here.
22:00 Looks like it happens so easily. It’s because all the work that she has done to prepare us and prepare the agenda and prepare all the materials that go along with it. So it’s a great thing for Tammy.
22:12 It’s a huge loss and hurdle will have to overcome. Big shoes to fill, extremely big shoes to fill. And we’ll have to find somebody that can hopefully in time, meet her job performance history.
22:27 Incredible. Yes. Job well done, Tammy.
22:41 I know, I know. And that was the, the reason that I hesitated earlier is because I know how much you are not a big fan of being like out in front, but when two of the women from up here tell me that this needs to happen, I don’t flinch, you know what I mean? It’s time to do it. So thank you so much for everything, Tammy.
22:57 Doctor Endell, will you please let us know about the administrative staff recommendations. Thank you, Mister Susan. The members of the board, there are eight items for your consideration.
23:05 Do I hear a motion? No. Two. Approved.
23:07 Second. Is there any discussion? All in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye.
23:13 Any opposed? Doctor Rendell? Thank you, Mister Chair. The arcade has got better today. There are several of those appointments that are going to make a big difference for our kids and our teachers.
23:25 Two of them. I want to highlight those individuals that are here today. The first is Doctor Colleen Lord.
23:30 She’ll be taking over as principal at Indian Atlantic Elementary. Doctor Lord spent a good portion of her career here in Brevard and we’re very lucky that she, she’s willing to come back and work with us again and lead one of our schools. Doctor Lord, Doctor Rendell, school board members, I want to thank you for the trust and confidence that you have of me to take over Indian Atlantic elementary.
23:56 I’m so excited to be returning home. I want to thank so many people that have crossed my path in the years. The principals, the assistant principals, especially the teachers who have made me a better educator and an instructional leader that I am today.
24:13 We have a couple here that I have worked with for many years. I’m just excited to be returning home and to bring something new, maybe different to Bavar, but I’m also looking to grow. And again, I believe that we impact one another each and every time that we cross paths as we’re seeing with tm me today, with the goodbyes that we’re hearing.
24:33 I want to say to the Indian Atlantic soaring eagles, I am so excited to be part of your community. I cannot wait to work with the teachers, to meet the parents, to work with the students. In fact, I’m ready for school to start.
24:48 So I know it’s not going to be very popular with the teachers right now. They just got off. But I’m just ready to get to the work of things.
24:56 I know there’s lots of things for us to accomplish prior to the students coming on board, but I truly am looking forward to being a soaring eagle. When you walk through the halls of Indian Atlantic, you see these beautiful murals and they started with a paintbrush, one stroke at a time. And then it comes with masterpiece.
25:04 When you walk by, it has an impact on you. I truly believe that the school year is the like that every lesson, every time we interact with this child, every time we interact with adults, we have that impact on one another. And that’s what I’m looking forward to with Indian Atlantic.
25:34 The Indian Atlantic Eagles are going to soar higher than they ever have. They are an amazing school and I am blessed to be there. And again, so grateful to be back here in Brevard county.
25:43 So thank you for this opportunity. I’d also like to recognize. They cut me off.
25:50 I’d also like to recognize Kevin Robinson. He’s being appointed to the position of county athletic director. He’s been most recently serving as athletic director at Cocoa Beach Junior senior High.
26:05 Kevin’s had a good history here in Brevard as well, serving as a teacher and coach, both at Bayside Heritage and then Coco beach junior senior high. He has all the qualifications necessary to lead us in the position of county athletic director. Mister Robinson, first of all, I’d like to thank the board and doctor Endell for your confidence in me and taking this position and leading our district to a different level in athletics here in sports.
26:38 Really excited to take over this position. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time and excited for all the, all the changes with me today. I’ve got my family here, my wife Michelle and my daughter Chloe.
26:51 They’ve sat through a lot of late nights over the past 18 years, so I really want to thank them. Chloe was with me since she was a toddler. You know, you’ll see her, you would see her running around on the wrestling mats and that kind of thing.
27:07 And as she grew older, she worked tables in wrestling tournaments. Even when I stopped coaching to take over the athletics director position, she was still working tables at wrestling tournaments. So it’s kind of been our blood.
27:21 It’s kind of what we do. They’re an awesome support system and I absolutely couldn’t do it without them. I also want to thank the people of Cocoa beach.
27:37 That community has opened me, has welcomed me with open arms, and they have been awesome since I’ve gotten there. The coaches have been great. The people are just fantastic.
27:48 The community is unbelievable. I can’t speak enough about those guys, and it’s just an awesome place to be. And that’s one of the things I’m kind of torn about leaving, but I’ll still be in the community and I’ll still be working with those guys.
28:05 I also want to pay tribute to some of the mentors that I’ve had that have retired John Tuttle, Craig McGrew, Tim Kool, and Francis Jester. So those are guys that have helped to shape me along the way. And I’ve really.
28:24 I surely want to mention that and pay tribute to those guys, but I’m really excited to get things going, moving things in a really good direction, and that’s it. Thanks. All right.
28:44 Thank you very much. We’re now at the public comments portion of the meeting. We have ten number of speakers and we will receive, they will all receive three minutes each.
28:50 I will call up three speakers at a time. The first speakers are Steve Rainey, Carl Sandberg, Deborah Goodwin. Before you start, I want to recognize that we do have some bus drivers here.
29:06 Many of them would have been here, but they’re running your summer school programs, your. Yeah, I’ll get them rec programs. Thank you.
29:14 Rec programs. And then we’ve got a slew of drivers that are off grinders. Summer jobs.
29:18 Can you hear me? Yeah. Should be good there. No, no, no.
29:24 It’s just the mic. It’s fine. If it starts doing it, we’ll grab the other mic.
29:28 So you’ve heard me many times. I’ve come to the board and talked about the driver shortage and the items that are the barrier entries to getting new hires. Well, today I’m coming to as a representative of many of the drivers who’ve asked me to.
29:43 To come here and with a grateful heart, say thank you. Thank you for the recognition of the program that you put in place in the last quarter to allow the drivers to be paid while they’re running these extra trip, multiple trips that they’ve been doing. We know that that goes away and hopefully we won’t have to use it again next year.
30:06 But they do want you to know that they’re very, very grateful for your support. Good. And what you’ve done, the bonuses, etcetera.
30:16 They also want you to know, in a plea to get more help, we need more drivers. You know, the barrier injuries, they don’t come without pay. A publicized pay rate, a significant portion that would allow the drivers, any driver to change jobs and come here, or any new driver to come and go through the training, the significant training that’s taking place.
30:40 And the other issue was discipline. You have attacked that in a very positive way. And we ask you to continue to encourage the principals and the deans and the teachers to work with the drivers to help implement consistent disciplinary policies that you’ve passed over the last summer.
31:04 It’s very important. Those two things are keeping drivers from saying, I don’t want to work, I just don’t want to work in Guvar county. Let’s break that barrier.
31:14 You guys can do that and you need to act quickly. If you don’t put in place something by July, we won’t have drivers trained and ready to go until September or October. Okay? It takes a while to do that.
31:28 So we’re asking you, put things aside, make this one of your top, top agendas. Give us that rate. And you’ve heard me say it many times before, you got to bust into that $25 an hour rate or you’re not going to attract anybody.
31:43 And you’ve got to continue to show the support for the application or the implementation of the disciplining policies that you put in place. It’s so key. Again, with a grateful heart.
31:56 With a grateful heart from myself personally and from the drivers that I’m representing, both union and non union, we say thank you, we appreciate it. You’ve heard us, you’ve listened to us, and we appreciate it. Thank you, Mister Rainey.
32:13 Can we do that? I don’t know. I’m gonna have him. I’m gonna shut this one off.
32:18 And I’ve asked, I texted him to see if he would come up with a different mic. Are we able to pick that up for the. This should still work.
32:25 Okay, good. Let’s just do that. All right, next up, Carl Sandberg, Jerebra Goodwin, and then Kitty Delaney.
32:38 Okay, sorry. Okay, that’s all right. So just bear with me.
32:48 This is my first time ever. Okay. I just want to thank you guys for what you did.
32:53 Okay, doctor Rendell and the board members, thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I’m Carl Sandberg, known as Mister C. I was employed by a local defense company for over 33 years. Being semi retired, I just completed my 8th year of our public school bus driving May 26.
33:11 I’m here to tell you, as a school bus driver and as a taxpayer citizen, it’s all about the money. School bus drivers don’t really get much respect. School bus drivers provide different roles every day, disciplinarian, mentor, surrogate, parent, and sometimes a janitor to sick students that get sick on the bus.
33:30 And by the way, we were delivering students during the entire COVID pandemic beginning November 2019, when Americans just learned the Wuhan virus. We dispense and sanitize masks and masks, handed out masks and sanitize after every route with a corrosive spray for over two and a half years. As a school bus driver, the public has no clue what’s involved in this job.
33:53 As professional CDL drivers, we are held to a higher standard and the penalties are stricter. If we’re involved in an accident, we’re not delivering toilet paper for Walmart. We’re responsible for safety.
34:03 Order thousands of students lives each day to get them to and from school safely. It takes a special person to do this job. But this past 22 23 school year, we’ve got a shortage of drivers.
34:13 It’s a real retention problem. The hourly pay needs to be increased to at least match stat drivers from 17 to 25 an hour. I witnessed a lot of drivers quitting due to student behavior and or leaving for better pay, using their ski deal license for retiring earlier than they planned.
34:30 It was so bad this past semester. A lot of drivers were driving double routes from the same school around 30 minutes to an hour late every day. I was one of them.
34:39 The teacher surveyed a while back asked why they were leaving the profession. I thought it was due to salaries. No, it was due to student behavior in classrooms.
34:47 And it’s a real issue on school buses, too. Why is this happening? There’s no consequences for repeat offenders in a classroom or on a school bus. And it’s abusive behavior and the behavior referral school policy.
34:59 I was told by a principal, okay, it was seven, seven write ups, but it should be three strikes in your out, not four to seven referrals. Person school policy needs to change this. But yes, it’s about money.
35:13 Now, I strongly suggest the following changes to improve student behavior. Number one, put God back in school. Meditation or prayer.
35:21 Just teach. Moral. Number two, workshops from teachers and bus drivers on how to handle student behavior.
35:29 It took me eight years to figure that one out. Number three, ban social media from ages 16 and under. Phone calls and testing allowed only for emergencies.
35:38 There are six days currently that pass age verification laws for pornography sites. Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Montana, Utah, Virginia. Please contact Governor Sanders.
35:47 Get this pass for our state. Social media is screwing up our youth and nobody is filtering the garbage, Mister Sandberg, it’s into the three minutes. If you can send that to us in an email, because what you’re just saying, I started writing down.
35:56 If you can do that, I’d greatly appreciate. Well, let me just say real quick. I will, thank you.
36:06 But social media is screwing up our kids. We are in the process. One more.
36:11 One school. Time’s up. Mister Sandberg, I appreciate exactly what you’re doing.
36:18 No, no, no, it can’t work that way. It’s just. Thank you, Mister Stanford.
36:25 I appreciate, thank you, Miss Goodwin. Before it started, I wanted to do something. Wanted to give you a stance.
36:39 You don’t have to sit here at the moment. Nope, this is a good one. All right, we’re good.
37:05 Hi again for all you did for us last year. And anyway, um, I’ll be here ten years in September and I’m not even making, I’m making major behalf of what I was making in New York. Do the same job.
37:33 It’s worse here than it is in New York. I have it so much easier in New York. Here the children, anything they say, the parents believe their child over us.
37:50 The school sticks up to the parent and then the kids, it just doesn’t matter. I had a, I had a problem with my microphone on my bus. I had 60 some odd kids for elementary school on my bus.
38:09 I used to have to shut my ace by active noise switch so they could hear me in the back and they’d still tell me they couldn’t hear me. Anyway, I got taken over my brat because I used to do that, but there was no way for me to communicate with them. The via was new, didn’t know, didn’t get training, and I was stuck doing almost everything.
38:39 We need the training, the lead ias, and we need dryer. I was doing double routes and that’s why I got into trouble, because the kids didn’t know me, my other kids knew me. And I got taken out of my school because of that and I’m just very upset about it.
39:06 We need more drivers so we don’t have to go through this. And then I get note run and I, I couldn’t even get to my next school on time with a single route. I was getting school over a half an hour late, just doing a regular route.
39:25 It’s just not fair to the high school and the middle school that I was late every day. We need help and we need money to get the people in to get the training to do this. And thank you for anything you could do, but soon, please, this school year was going to be horrible.
39:51 We’ve had so many drivers and, you know. Thank you, Miss Goodwin. Katie Campbell, or, I’m sorry, Katie Delaney.
40:05 Gregory Ross, Mike Mueller, up next. Good morning, board doctor Enel. I am so thankful and glad to see you on the dais.
40:16 Going forward, I cannot wait to see test scores go up, literacy and math skills skyrocket, graduation rates increase, safe schools, and an environment in which the schools are conducive to learning. I’m hoping something. I hope, I hope, I’m sorry.
40:43 Something that we need to do is start identifying what we’ve been doing in the classrooms and what’s not working and basically scrap it. We need to start from scratch. Find out new, innovative ways to help fill in these gaps that our kids have.
41:05 These learning holes. They were there before COVID and since COVID they’ve just gotten so much bigger. One thing that I did was I was in the classroom helping and I saw that this child was struggling with his math and this was a 6th grade kid.
41:31 And I said to him, what’s going on? He failed his irid test. And I went over to him and I asked him what was going on and he was adding extractions. This 6th grade kid, as I was going through the steps, I was breaking it down to the simplest level.
41:47 Turns out he had no idea what a denominator was. That’s such a simple, easy fix. Within five minutes, I taught this kid how to add mixed fractions and got a 100 on that irate fist the next time he did it.
42:08 Another thing we need to do is open up the schools back to parents. We need parents in those schools helping the teachers, you know, reading to them, helping little things like the story I just told you, teaching a kid what a denominator is. We all know that parents have always been a vital role to your children’s education and previous leadership.
42:34 Shut the doors. They didn’t want us in the schools. They didn’t want us to.
42:38 To see what was going on in the schools. And the only way that it’s going to get better is if the whole community comes together. We get parents back in the schools, we get the churches in the schools, we get retirees back in the schools helping the staff.
42:55 And once that community comes together, that’s when we’re going to go forward. So I’m really excited for the future of our education with our county and, and I’m so thankful for your leadership that’s going to be coming. Thank you.
43:10 Thank you, Miss Delaney. Mister Gregory Ross. Mike Mueller.
43:13 Rachel Jolly. Good morning, Lord. Thank you for, once again, a lot of public comment.
43:22 I’m here, Doctor Rendell, so I want to thank you for being here. It’s good to see that Lord hire somebody who at least has the right qualifications for the position. That being said, I want to tell you a little story.
43:36 I don’t know if you remember, Doctor Rendell, but I came up to you during the brief meetings, right? I asked you two questions. The first one was, now the US Supreme Court and Governor DeSantis are in place. How do we get the board to put God back in classrooms? Do you remember your answer to me? Right? Your answer was incrementally.
43:57 You’re going to recommend that the board incrementally bring godly christian values back into the classroom the same way they were removed. The kids want and need this. That’s what you told me.
44:10 I didn’t ask you a second question. How will we ensure the teachers are not teaching CRT or any of that crap? Black history in the BPS classroom? That’s the exact question I asked you. Once again, you have failed slip.
44:24 And you answered, we will have to monitor the teachers. We’ll have to have people in the classroom monitoring the teachers. I’m not sure if they can be trusted.
44:35 That’s exactly what you said to me. Know this. We are out here.
44:40 We are watching every hour of every day. We’re not going to allow this christian nationalism to creep as way into our schools. Okay? We see the faith based ministry that’s trying to do this.
44:53 We are aware. We will fight this, and it’s not going to happen. So again, welcome, doctor Rendell.
45:02 Please stick to what you’re qualified to do. Don’t be led by the three headed monster on this board. Thank you.
45:12 Mike Mueller. Rachel Jolly. Paul Rao, please.
45:22 Yeah, timer. Hello there. My name is Mike Muller, and I am gay.
45:28 I realize this is a weird way to introduce oneself, and usually I don’t roll this way. But as I continue, you will see that this is pertinent. A friend of mine yesterday made me aware of the following post made by a school board member.
45:42 I quote, seven years later, and those who lead us have learned nothing of the consequences of their words continuing to spread hate and lies towards the LGBTQ community. Let the memory of 49 innocent lives strengthen us as we relentlessly fight against bigotry. End quote.
46:03 Since this post is based on inaccuracies, here are the facts. The shooter, Omar Martin, was a us born Muslim and the son of two afghan immigrants. In 2013, he told co workers that he had ties to Hezbollah and al Qaeda.
46:22 He was put on a FBI watchlist. He originally intended to carry out an attack at Disney Springs, more precisely at the House of Blues. Video footage of him shows him being there that evening, but due to the police presence at the location, he had to find a new target where he could cause more loss of human life before being neutralized.
46:47 The next place he chose was the Pulse nightclub. Please note, the Pulse nightclub was not his first choice. It just turned out to be an easy target after his initial his initial plan for the House of Blues attack fell apart.
47:05 It is clear that this radicalized muslim man had a deep seated hatred for America. What unfolded at pulse was not an anti gay massacre, but a terrorist attack, plain and simple. In fact, anyone who claims otherwise is willfully ignoring facts, and the author of this post is clearly propagating falsehoods that suit their narrative.
47:34 Let me be clear. In no way do I want to diminish the polls tragedy, but it is beyond reprehensible to peddle a false narrative and use the LGB community’s grieving over 49 lives lost to further your own political agenda. Instead of parroting inaccurate platitudes, let’s focus on the job you were elected for to properly represent the people from district three by showing up for both school board meetings and workshops.
48:06 Less virtue signaling, more representing. Thank you. Thank you Mister Mueller.
48:15 Rachel Jolly, Paul Raub and Diana Haynes will round it out. Wait. And then we have Richard Bieber.
48:21 Sorry, my name is Rochelle Jolly. I am been living here in Brevard county for a long time. I’ve raised my daughter here.
48:35 My oldest child is 28 years old. She went through BPS, as have all of my children. I wanted to just say a few things today.
48:47 First, I wanted to cover recently, Mister Susan, you stated in public that we would be that BPS would be eliminating the diversity, inclusion and equity here in Brevard public schools. And as of July, that will be done. As we have had a resignation in that department.
49:13 I would like for the board, I would just like for you to go forward and encourage you to do some research on DEI and why it’s incredibly important for public schools, for any schools, or for any organization. There are many, many, many studies showing how beneficial it is. We have a discipline problem in Brevard public schools.
49:34 DEI is something that you can use to help implement some out of the box discipline solutions for our parents, for students, and for our teachers. So I would just encourage you this summer to use that time to do some proper research and really include that culture is important and understanding cultures are important. I also wanted to point out, I know that our state legislature is anti CRT.
50:02 This is a buzzword that’s been used, used in the media to create fear and stoke fear in our community. Apparently, it is against the law or it’s in litigation. Whether or not it’s against the law to teach that or to use that, I would like to say we don’t have to teach it in our classroom because brevard public school to set a fine example of it.
50:23 And we have Mister Trent and Mister Hearn’s situation to show that that is precisely what critical race theory is, is it is systems that are racially biased that make decisions that are different for white people as black people. And we have that exact situation. Both of those situations were exactly the same.
50:46 No, they weren’t. So please be aware that we don’t have to teach it. We’re setting a fine example for it for our public schools.
50:53 And then moving forward, I would like for you guys to so keep that in mind as you are investigating anyone that is working for brevard Public schools. The results should be the same, no matter what color you are. Thank you, Miss Jolly.
51:12 Paul Rao, Diana Haynes and Richard Weber, please. Morning. And it is morning.
51:27 Weekday mornings. I know this comes up a lot, but tough for a lot of people to get out to these meetings. 930 on a weekday.
51:34 So really, thanks to everybody that did. Looking over the new red line on the dress code grooming stuff, looks like the cat ears material seems to have been removed. Great.
51:48 Honestly, glad to see that sanity prevailed or pain thresholds prevailed, however that worked. And as we understand that if the behavioral urban legends ever come true, existing rules will take care of those without needing to worry about kids wearing cat ears. Also glad to see that the shoulder strap width restriction went away, which is something I’ve heard every mother of a daughter in particular, that I’ve ever known complain about that silliness.
52:16 And I’ve seen my kids and everyone else sent home because of a millimeter too far because that was the day that a dean was bored. Some things that are still in there are. There’s some things that could have been addressed while we were there.
52:31 There’s still the section that says teachers will express or promote. I forget the exact language, but there’s words like wholesome and propriety and modesty and good sense, which are not negative words, but boy, are they vague words. And, you know, so, left up to the discretion of, again, whoever’s paying attention, whoever feels like being punitive or not that day.
52:56 And the thing about vagueness in rules like this is, I mean obviously it leads to a chilling effect. You know, since you don’t really know if you could possibly be running a file of that. You know, you’re going to be.
53:10 You’re maybe err way on the side of caution. Just be nervous. We have crispness and clarity are useful.
53:17 Vagueness in rules is intimidating and can be chilling. It’s like when somebody doesn’t like something you’re saying, you know about them publicly and they have a lawyer send a letter saying cease and desist these unspecified comments about unspecified people in an unspecified situation. And we have anti slap laws to bat that kind of stuff down.
53:38 But it’s to create a chilling effect. Oh, I got a letter from a lawyer, now I’m scared I’d be quiet. And you can have the same effect on your teachers, which could be done away with by either clarifying or just removing that section.
53:48 You could say profession that would do it without all these judgments. As though somebody is a better or worse person, more or less wholesome because of the clothing they’re wearing. I’m the same person if I’m in jeans or a suit or shorts or a bathing suit or whatever.
54:04 Also unfortunate that the committee. There used to be a line in there about the committee of students parents that might set standards for the schools more specifically. That’s gone.
54:13 We’re going back to one size fits all again. Conformity is easy anyway. Something to think about.
54:20 And please, we can’t move forward by dragging ourselves back into bronze age, so let’s not do that. Thank you Mister Raub. Appreciate it.
54:26 Diane Haynes. Richard Bieber, please. Hi, good morning.
54:32 I would like to talk a little bit about public records requests and events that have to do with it. The material you requested does not exist. Therefore we have no records responsive to your request.
54:47 I have seen that more times than I care to talk about. But I’m going to talk about about it. Last year or earlier this year, there was an incident about a form, a public records form, where an individual filled it out for me and turned it in.
55:02 And it was on camera that this form was turned in. But somehow, miraculously, from outside to inside, this form completely and totally disappeared. The individual that filled the form out stood before you and told you that she filled the form out and turned it in.
55:19 I think you should review state statute 119 about maintaining public records. Then I would like to jump off to an incident that Mister Rob spoke about with the dress code and cute little furry cats and dogs running around our schools. Denial does not change the facts.
55:43 A student went home, home to their parent not once, but twice, and reported defecation in the school outside of the lavatory done by an individual who they believe was a furry. This was McNair in Rockledge. And the student is a very credible witness.
56:04 As a matter of fact, the one that occurred a couple of months ago was near the cafeteria, in the hallway. So I inquiring, put in our public’s records, request for incidents reports, because if somebody had to clean that up, I would assume human defecation would require some sort of OSHA or health department report. But nothing exists.
56:32 It didn’t happen. The form didn’t happen. The defecation in the school didn’t happen.
56:38 We don’t have furries in the school, but yet satellite high. I’ve got a posting I’ll be glad to share where a parent said that parents and students requested litter boxes, but that the principal shut it down. Thank God for that principle.
56:54 There’s reports of Cesar reports, non existent, but yet 911 calls or police reports that exist and so much more. And this all leads to two entities, one being your principals, I believe play a large part in literally cover ups. How does a student get their jaw broken and there’s no report? How does a student get their job broken in three places? And various times there was bullying on campus and the school calls it an accident.
57:28 It was an accident that he broke his jaw in three places caused by another student. You got a problem. Thank you, Miss Haynes.
57:36 Thank you. Appreciate you for coming out, mister. Richard Bieber, please to the podium.
57:51 Emerick Beaver. On April 11, a concerned parent took the position, took to the podium to call out concerns over the dress code. She said that terms like modest and reasonable were subjective and unenforceable.
58:06 What one school may consider to be modest may be considered immodest at a different school. She says that what we have been hearing from this board since November, since the November takeover, is that policies are meant to be, be universal and blatant only throughout the district. The board listened to this pair and agreed that the wording needed to be updated and moved it to the next meeting for forum view.
58:32 So imagine our shock when the board chose to move in the polar opposite direction by adding new subjective language. Now some of this has been updated. I understand the cat ears, but I have to go through this anyway.
58:49 When a dress code state students cannot dress to emulate non human characteristics. There is no clarity in that message from kitty cat heads. To cartoon bodies on hoodies.
59:02 What will and won’t be acceptable. We heard you talk about concerning behaviors. These are addressed in code of conduct and discipline policy accessories such as tails, leashes and cobbles.
59:12 Well, if you look up at our current dress code policy, we’re already addressed. Okay. This I understand you did address.
59:18 Now, this board is spending a lot of time and effort on non issues, which puts us back on the national platform in a negative light when bps cannot afford a second for bad publicity. Right now with HB one looming. Right now with HB one looming.
59:35 So if tails and dollars and leases are legitimate problem, then. Save that. I leave you with a quote from an elementary school principal whose left, whose letter of resignation is already in.
59:46 I’m asked to enforce that that is completely unenforceable at the elementary school level. What does that even mean? Do better for our teachers, administrators and staff, please. They need a board that.
1:00:03 Oops. What? I read the last page. Just be better for teachers and administrators, please.
1:00:09 Thank you. Thank you, Mister Weber. That concludes our public comments.
1:00:15 Thank you for your willingness to address us in this public manner. We are now on to the consent agenda. Doctor Rendell, there are 27 agenda items in this category.
1:00:28 Thank you, doctor Rendell. Does any board member wish to please any of these items? Hearing none. I will entertain a motion to accept the consent items with the exception of none polled, if applicable.
1:00:39 Do I hear a motion? So moved. 2nd. 2nd.
1:00:44 Okay. Is there any discussion? Hearing? None. All in favor, signify by saying aye.
1:00:50 Aye. All opposed? Six 50. We are now on to hold a public hearing to address g 37, public board policy 5511, dressing and grooming.
1:01:02 Is there anyone present who wishes to address this item? Yeah, we need to pull it. It’s the wrong one. I was like looking at it going something is.
1:01:09 This isn’t. I’ll push it to the next one. We have 90 days to get it approved.
1:01:13 So we’ll just have to move the final approval to the next meeting. So that’s okay? Yeah. All right.
1:01:20 So hearing that we’re going to pull it. You need a motion for that and everything else. Are we good? No, you can pull it.
1:01:27 Good deal. On to the action agenda. Doctor Rendell, can you please let us know about the items under the action portion of this? Can we just clarify that out loud to the public? What just happened? Yeah, just basically what ended up happening is that the incorrect policy was on our Internet site.
1:01:46 So that was published because it was incorrect. We have to publish the code, correct one to hear public policy. So what we did was we pulled it to go to the 28th.
1:01:54 We’ll bring it back, everybody. 27th. Okay.
1:01:58 All right. Doctor Rendell, would you please let us know about the items under the action portion of today’s agenda? The first item is h 38, procurement solicitations. Do I hear a motion? Move to approve.
1:02:11 Second, is there any discussion? Give me 1 second. Sorry, mine’s trying to load right now. There.
1:02:27 No, I didn’t have any on this one. Sorry. All in favor signified by.
1:02:32 All opposed, passes 50. The next item is age 39. Department school initiated agreements.
1:02:38 Do I hear a motion? Is there any discussion? Yeah, I have. I had one item I wanted to discuss, and I believe I clarified this with sue. Just.
1:02:49 I don’t see her in the room anywhere. Oh, there she is. On my.
1:02:52 Okay. In regards to the tow vehicle, I had raised some questions about this and the fact that it didn’t go out for invitation to bid, and she clarified the fact that it did correct. Is that right? But we did not receive any bids back, so.
1:03:06 Which is why we were using, because I was a little alarmed at the price of the tow truck. And so I was like, whoa, that’s a lot. So if there are no other vendors that are willing to obviously supply this.
1:03:16 So I just wanted to go on the record and say that that was the clarification on why it didn’t go out to bid. It did. We just didn’t get any bids back.
1:03:23 So. Sure. And I would say also, if you scroll down, you can see the picture, this isn’t your mama’s tow truck, you know, kind of thing.
1:03:29 This is. I can pull a bus type tow truck. So I. Maybe that’s another reason why it’s a little more expensive than we might imagine.
1:03:36 Many of you guys. It’s not only the school bus. We have some huge tractor equipment.
1:03:40 We have a lot of stuff that it pulls. And these aren’t something that you can go purchase used, because a lot of times when you go out and try to purchase them used, they were already worn out. So I saw that red flag, but did some research and found that it was appropriate.
1:03:55 So with that, anybody else have any questions? Any discussion? No? All in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye.
1:04:02 Any opposed passes 50. We’re now on to board members reports. Miss Campbell asked to add the FSBA update to the agenda.
1:04:11 I don’t know if you had any. I don’t know if you had anything, mister chairman, that you wanted to share, but I just thought when we go do some professional development, part of our board reports is just to report back some things that we learned. It was really, even though it was very short conference, this number one is like a day and a half.
1:04:26 We had some really great conversations that I’m happy to share. I’m just going to do some brief things, but if you want to have more conversations about what I learned, I’d be happy to do that. And I shared some things already with Doctor Rendell at our 101 this morning.
1:04:38 So we’ve had conversations about virtual tutoring. And Polk county was there with their superintendent to share some things that they did. It was really insightful to hear how they’d used it and they were able to get, to get their vendor to kind of do a customized approach.
1:04:53 And so that was a good session. Also had a session around creating positive school culture. There was a board certified behavior analyst who really talked about the importance we’re dealing with discipline, but it’s also important to focus on teaching the correct behaviors, rewarding, recognizing, motivating those correct behaviors so that we have less discipline that we have to deal with.
1:05:19 And so, shoot, that was very insightful and something, even though that’s more of like the people who are working on a daily basis are the teachers in the classroom and the bus drivers and ias and things like that. Administrators, it’s really important for us to recognize as a board too, so we can help keep the whole organization focused on the right thing. Doctor Paul Burns, who’s the new chancellor for the Florida Department of Education, was there.
1:05:41 He was an really able to give a lot of answers yet because the do, the state board of education has got to do some finalization of some of the rules. But one of the things he said, you know, part of HB one was they’re going to do a lot of deregulation. And I think there’s already a public portal open.
1:05:55 But he did tell us that there’s going to be a specific one for school board members. And so to be on the lookout for that. It’s not open yet, but as they start opening that, if there’s things that we think that, you know, this is really making our lives harder as a school district, if you could add this to the deregulation list, that would be fantastic.
1:06:11 I didn’t know if that might be one of the places where we could talk about the cost per student station. It would be nice to throw in there, sue. So maybe we can, I don’t know if that’s even on the table or maybe we put it on the table, but anything that we could do to make life.
1:06:25 They’re trying, they’re saying they’re trying to make life easier for our districts. They also said, and I think that Mister Wilson is apt to school security conference right now. But he told us that there are going to be changes coming to the FSAT, which is the Florida safe schools assessment tool that we have to do every year.
1:06:43 I hope that’s making it simpler and not more complicated because it’s really long. And then I asked him about frequently over the last several years in particular, the superintendents or the districts would get a memo from DoE, and you have to have it back to us by this Friday. And so I asked him, is there a possibility of reducing the amount of times that happens where you have to drop everything and do this right now without advance warning meetings and data? And so he actually looked at me and said, have you been talking to Commissioner Diaz? So actually that is a goal of theirs.
1:07:20 I don’t think they’re there yet. But he did say, if we see a lot of that happening to please let him know, because they are trying to reduce those instances of where they’re trying to send out directives that have to have that immediate response. It’s not really fair to all the district staff to have to do that.
1:07:37 We had a fantastic legislative update with Representative Kayleigh Tuck, who was the sponsor of HB one. She is just very well spoken, has educated herself on all the things. People still have some concerns, but some of the things that she shared was people as board members across the state were trying to get some clarification on the impact of HB one.
1:07:56 She did say, speaking of portals, that the DOE was going to be creating a portal for every county that will include the choice options. So when a parent comes to a principal or the district and says, what are my options? I want to do the scholarship. We don’t have to have all that information.
1:08:12 We can say, hey, go to the portal on the Doe and they’ll have all the schools. But the portal will not just include the private school options in the charter. It’s going to include our public schools and the options, and they’ll be able to see, you know, what each school can offer.
1:08:24 So that was a positive thing. I’ll be excited to see them do that. She also said, you know, with every legislation there’s going to be glitches.
1:08:33 And so next session she anticipates that there will be some glitch fixes doing with HB one and other things. And then she also answered a lot of other support specific questions about how the scholarships will work and what the impact could be on us. And so that was good.
1:08:47 I’ll be happy to fill you in some more with that. Doctor Endell and I both were able to attend some general sessions that had great information. One, they brought in this guy who’s just a leader in the field of artificial intelligence, and because that’s so relevant right now, and some of you may know, I think I shared with you, I used chat GPT to write as part of my graduation speech.
1:09:04 It went over real well, but he just used humor. But just really, we’re so skeptical, scared of what might come. And he said, as an education entity, here were some of the key points that I took away was, one, we don’t need to be afraid of it.
1:09:19 Two, we need to teach our students the proper use of it. And he already gave some examples, and I’ve seen some examples even in the last 24 hours, of teachers who used it to teach their kids a point, how do I use this to do research? It’s not just GPT, it’s other things that are going to open up this chat. GPT is just like the opening kind of the research model.
1:09:40 And then he also said, as a governance, governance body, our job is to set the guardrails of ethics and for the proper use of it. So as you know, I don’t know if you guys have seen them. We get all these vendor emails, there’s all kind of people, hey, hire us and we’ll put this thing so your students can’t use GPT.
1:09:58 I’m not sure that’s the answer. And he actually said he didn’t think that was the answer either. But it’s a matter of how do we use it.
1:10:03 It’s going to change how a lot of educators teach because it’s there, it’s not going away. And if we stomp out one, others will pop up. But how can we use it to improve education? And he said, you know, our role as school board members is really, like I said, to set those guard rails so it can be used properly and ethically.
1:10:21 So that was really fantastic session. And then Tim Weishire, who used to be on the school board, used to be the president of FSVA school board in Osceola county, did a fantastic session about strategic planning. And Doctor Normandela and I had a short conversation after that.
1:10:35 It was fantastic and I think it will do some. It will be really good to possibly, even if we can get him, have him come in to help work as we look at the next phase of our strategic plan with this one, the current one is over. I just have to do a little plug.
1:10:50 I will say it makes me sad sometimes when our whole school board’s not there. It’s never been that way. It’s not just now, it’s never been that way since I’ve been on the board.
1:10:58 But I hope if it’s not too late, I hope that some of you guys will reconsider, because there is so much that they would offer. And the session was great. And I know I haven’t always gone to every conference, but it’s just really good relevant information along with the networking.
1:11:13 I know Mister Susan does a lot of that, but you know, it’s really great networking and just good, good, good solid information. Like I said, that’s relevant. AI is, you know, you can’t go through the news every day without hearing some news story about how that is impacting our world.
1:11:30 And we want to be on the front edge of that rather than back edge. So that was my report to you from FSBA. And the next things, if you’re interested, that they’ll be doing in September, they do a professional development session on collective bargaining and human resources policy in particular.
1:11:48 And that’s always a good session, if you like to jump in there on that. I think they’re already starting to open the registration pretty soon. Thank you, mister chairman.
1:11:58 Yeah, thank you very much. I think a lot of what you said I concur with. There was some good overall presentations.
1:12:07 One or two of the breakout sessions were there. I think what we had discussed before about the board of directors, me doing the board of directors, and then Miss Campbell being the alternate. Alternate.
1:12:19 I think that’s a dual tangent thing. I don’t think that it’s like alternate. Like I go all the time and then just call her.
1:12:24 I think we’re going to work together on doing some of the things that you had spoken to is one of the biggest arguments, whether it is pertinent or not, is that the Florida school board association’s breakout sessions are not at as in depth and learning. Right. So the all idea is one, are they? And if that’s the case, then there’s a communications breakdown.
1:12:43 And if they’re not, then how do we as a board make that better? Because a lot of people follow the Florida school board association, and if you’ve ever been to any of the meetings, they get very political arguing over whether this is the right piece of legislation or that’s the right piece of legislation. But a true association is built there to educate their members on. On the best practices and policies back in their district.
1:13:04 So instead of engaging so much politically, I think it’s a good organization. And I’m going to go to the board of directors with the idea that we need to give more pertinent information and breakout sessions to our members on best practices, just like you said. I mean, Polk county had the presentation wrapped around as a polk around online tutoring.
1:13:24 So why is it, if that’s the best plan, that we’re not not packaged and given to all the board members? You know what I mean? Just how that process can maybe improve and then maybe that’s an opportunity for us to bring the other board members back together. So I agree with you 100% as far as the deregulation that was part of what was brought up. We had spoken before about this.
1:13:42 I would love to kind of try to go at this, really as a leader in the state. Doctor Rendell, we had spoken about this as a group about 60 days ago about when HB one was coming. We had this meeting and stuff like that.
1:13:54 And I spoke to getting us to present a proposal that has all of the ones that we could deregulate because we have all the way from ias, all the way from ESE to principals to. Everybody has a component that they can say, this was passed 20 years ago and it’s just causing this much work. We don’t need this.
1:14:11 This is a better practice. I think we could lead the state in that because we are kind of ahead of the curve. When I’m speaking to some of my other members, they’re like, yeah, we’re going to go back to our district and all that stuff, but we’re ready to do that.
1:14:22 So what I envisioned was, is that we had some sort of a advocacy type situation where you have principals, when they meet, put together a list. The teachers union could put together a list and we could package that, discuss it and then send it up as our district’s recommendation. Because I think there’s a lot here.
1:14:40 One of the issues we had is when my students went up to Tallahassee and passed the All American Flag act, the one hurdle that we kept hearing in the first two years was, this is an unfunded mandate. This is an unfunded mandate for them to purchase these flags from an american based company and all this stuff. And I was like, you passed 50 unfunded mandates on us every year from the state legislature down to us.
1:14:59 So we can talk through that process of how they identify if it’s an unfunded mandate, how we can regulate that and some other things. So I think there’s a great opportunity for us to make recommendations back to the state. And I wanted to say thank you for all your work over there.
1:15:12 Miss Campbell is well respected at Florida school board association with a lot of the members. We have a lot of the same friends, and I really appreciate you and your leadership there and appreciate you bringing it forward. I had a couple of things, but I always go last.
1:15:24 Anybody else have a topic that they want to discuss? Okay, Miss Jenkins. Yeah. So I’m going to ask for some clarification about something I brought up last time.
1:15:37 Because again, this has to be talked about in the sunshine. So I would like some clarification from you, Mister Susan, about the paying for the redistricting fees. Because I brought it up last time, it’s been brought to my attention that you’ve had discussions with Mister Tobiah, as well as on that committee.
1:16:00 Congressional Medal of Merit day. We don’t govern as individuals, we govern as a board. And so if you’re having those conversations, you should be coming back to the board and having that discussion with us as a whole, as an entity.
1:16:12 It’s been brought to my attention that it was discussed yesterday at a county commission meeting. I haven’t watched it yet. For it to potentially go to a vote next month for them to pay for it.
1:16:24 And again, these are conversations that you are apparently having on the sideline, outside of the board, knowing about it. We govern as a board, not as individuals. So if you can provide some clarification to us in the sunshine about it, I would appreciate it.
1:16:37 Yeah, I would just say that if the county commission wants to move forward and pass their legislation to pay part of what is impacting the county, that’s fine by them. I would also be careful, Miss Jenkins, as trying to find out information about what I do behind the scenes and talk to people may end up be sunshine violations when it may be something that we have to vote on. So when you’re going out and you’re asking people, well, what was your conversation with Mister Susan? What was the conversation here? You’re actually finding out what the thread is in the thought process of a school board member before you bring it forward to vote.
1:17:12 And the fact that they want to allocate funds to do their own thing is one thing. So I can bring back information if pertinent, but. But I would caution in the fact that trying to find information about a board member before we have something to vote is kind of very cautious, so.
1:17:29 And I would also remind you that inside of our ethics group that if there’s a question that you have for another board member, please let the board member know ahead of time prior to coming to the board meeting so that you can be prepared. Because, you know, if you want an evaluation, I don’t mind doing that, but it’s inappropriate to have it at this time. So I respect your concern.
1:17:48 However, if you did what we’re supposed to do according to our role as board members and came to us and had the conversation about these communications you’re having in the first place, one wouldn’t have to go ask a county commissioner what you’re discussing about spending district funds. You are making a deal with a county commissioner to pay for our redistricting a month prior to us voting on the redistricting. You denied it when I said it publicly.
1:18:17 There’s nothing wrong with me asking you that. And I can’t have a conversation with you and ask my questions. Put it on the agenda of order, Mister Susan.
1:18:26 If you’re worried about sunshine, I can’t ask you a question prior to a board meeting. Mister Susan. That doesn’t make any sense either, because it’s not in the sunshine.
1:18:37 I point blank asked you prior to asking other people what you discussed on the dais last meeting, and you were not forthcoming about it. You had a conversation a month ago before we voted on the redistricting about county commission paying for half of our fees to redistrict our school district. They’re not our fees, Miss Jenkins.
1:18:57 We don’t pay it. We’re not required to pay it. And I asked for clarification and you have circled around the conversation.
1:19:04 If you feel confident in that decision, then own it and discuss it to your fellow board members as well as the public. You are not being transparent. That is the problem.
1:19:15 Me trying to figure out what the actual facts are isn’t the problem. I’m not the one hiding something here. Be transparent and own it.
1:19:24 If you believe that’s the appropriate move, then talk about it. Convince me why it’s the appropriate move. I don’t think it’s right.
1:19:31 And when it was first brought up, it was Cares act money from the county commission. And I think that’s wrong and I want the public to be aware of it. If that’s what we’re doing.
1:19:41 Be transparent. Okay? That’s your job. Okay, Miss Jenkins, I’m going to say this.
1:19:48 Whatever the county does on their own to fund something that we are not required to pay for is their own entity, and they are allowed to do that. We don’t have any kind of issue with. They’re not offsetting our costs, we’re not required, which I stated in the last meeting and is true, we’re not required to offset those funds.
1:20:10 Now, whether we do or we don’t, out of the goodness of our heart, which is an argument we can make, but the argument is this, is that if the county wishes to pay for this, that’s theirs. So if everybody understands when you redistrict, if you have to pay money out of the county commission or the state of the supervisor of elections, the supervisor of elections is the one that pays the entity out of their money. If they can’t.
1:20:36 If they can’t pay for it, then the county commission offsets that loss and they go to it. So it’s six or one half dozen their decision. There’s no non transparency, that if they want to pay for it, they can.
1:20:48 Now, what I’m asking you to do is if, in the event that you want to bring one of these topics up, just put it on as board discussion so that you’re more prepared not getting hit with it. The other piece is, I would be very cautious in chasing after what a school board member does, that it may come into vote and may come into that. You’re trying to figure out what individual board members are doing behind the scenes, which is a direct violation of sunshine prior to something that’s coming to vote.
1:21:15 And I would caution you, Miss Jenkins, because the bottom line is, is that we may have to bring this before the boat, before the board to discuss. But I’m trying to figure out where the legalities of it are. And then I asked Paul and other staff to take a look at it for us.
1:21:29 So the fact is, is that we are not in any way required to make that payment, period. If the county commissioner meets, says something to me, says, hey, we might go pay for it. I don’t tell you guys about everything else that the county commission pays for for us.
1:21:43 I don’t have a conversation about the $3 million that the county commission pays for in conjunction with us for parks and recs and all that other stuff. They just do it. And there’s no sunshine violation, there’s no transparency violation, there’s no nothing.
1:21:55 So I would request that if you want this, put it on the board meeting for the next board meeting, and I’ll discuss it. Not a problem. By then, Paul can probably come back with more of the information that I requested.
1:22:06 Does that sound good? So I don’t have to put it on the agenda, Mister Susan. And I don’t need your caution or potential intimidation for me to find out information that I should be privy to as a board member. The county commission is not redistricting.
1:22:21 We are. The county commissioner didn’t just come to you and ask that and offer that you initiated conversations with that county commissioner who happens to be running for supervisor of elections. I blatantly asked you in public about it.
1:22:32 I blatantly asked you about it. And as you say, if we’re not required to pay for it, then it wouldn’t be coming before the board for a vote, would it? It doesn’t make sense. You’re speaking in circles, okay? You’re not being transparent about it.
1:22:49 I think I answered your question. No, you’re not. And the supervisor elections told you that they are not paying for it.
1:22:55 How do you. How do you know what the supervisor of elections tells me? I am not the one who is hiding anything and lying about that. No, there is no lying.
1:23:05 I just stated everything. But I want to make this clear. So you had a conversation with the supervisor of elections? Asking what? His conversation was with me and he told you something, is that correct? The supervisor of elections said they are not paying for it and that the board was aware.
1:23:24 Well, you’re saying one thing and another. You said you just had the conversation with the supervisor of elections. Will you confirm or deny if that was said to you? What are you talking about? Exactly? Thank you for proving my point, Mister Susan.
1:23:38 Thank you, Miss Jenkins. Let’s move on. So anyways, can I jump in with the discussion? Yeah, I’ve got something else too I wanted to talk about.
1:23:44 Go ahead. Okay, so I want to thank our transportation folks that are here today. From the bottom of my heart, I cannot thank you enough for the job that you do.
1:23:53 Because quite frankly, everything that we do up here doesn’t happen if we don’t have children at school. And you guys are the first stop on getting them to school. So with that being said, obviously you guys know that I have been advocating for you since day one.
1:24:08 I will continue to advocate for you guys. I have talked to doctor Rendell about this and I don’t know if this is the appropriate time to really bring this forward, but just moving towards how are we going to get you guys more money? It is on the radar. We are working on it.
1:24:21 I know the district is aware of it. I’m sure everyone up here has probably received messages. I know I have.
1:24:26 In regards to this. So it is on our radar. We are working on it.
1:24:30 I will not let off the gas until we see something that we can get done for you guys. But honestly, you are so critical to what we do here at our school district, because if we don’t have kids arriving to school, we don’t have school. And so we understand the importance of your role.
1:24:46 I want to thank you. I’m sorry that you haven’t been heard. I’m sorry that, you know, the time limit cut off.
1:24:50 But I just wanted to address that with you and let you guys know that I hear you. I’m advocating. We will not let up until we get this across the finish line for you.
1:24:57 Okay? Thank you, Miss Wright. I did want to bring up one thing, and I talked to doctor Rendell, and he said it would be a good idea. Miss Campbell, every year, comes out with a walking thought, right? Like, she always tries to get us to walk.
1:25:11 And mister. Mister Gibbs tends to put the. Put the walking meter on his dog so it runs around.
1:25:17 And then he claims all these, like, tens of thousands of steps. Right? Millions. But what I was thinking of.
1:25:22 Well, I mean, you gonna get in there and start talking some stuff? Yeah. I was gonna say, only. I was the only.
1:25:28 We didn’t. We didn’t move the golden trophy this year because nobody else. I didn’t do that.
1:25:33 Took advantage of it. So I. I’m calling you guys on the carpet next year. I thought about that, and I was thinking about that the other day, and I said to myself, I said, you know, I am somebody who didn’t participate and tried.
1:25:46 You know, I was not a good participant for you. So what I would like to do is because many people don’t know, but Miss Campbell sits on the insurance advisory committee, and it’s a way that she promotes us to be healthier. And if you’re healthier inside of your workforce, then the cost of your health care comes down.
1:26:05 And so one of the things she was trying to do, and here I was, like, kind of teasing about it, but I wasn’t being a part of it, and that was wrong. So what I wanted to do was, if it’s okay with you, work with you on putting together a health initiative that we can do maybe steps and something else. Because you do run, like, five ks and stuff like that, right? No, but I think there’s.
1:26:28 I think there’s an opportunity for us to collaboratively work together, to put something together so that we can go. So why don’t we. For the board, a challenge for the board and the superintendent and the board attorney.
1:26:37 She’s getting fired up. So I think that I would like to one say that I was. I mean, do we need to have a scale? Mister.
1:26:47 Mister. Susan, listen, I’m willing to work with you on anything. I just wanted to say I’m sorry that I wasn’t a good participant before and I’m willing to work forward with you.
1:26:55 I want to put something cool and move forward. So I just wanted to do that. I’m going to start trying to run some five k’s.
1:27:01 I’ll be walking them in the beginning, but I. I really appreciate it. So I just wanted to say that if you willing to work with me on it, I think it’ll be good. And then with that I’m okay.
1:27:11 Does anybody else have anything? No. Doctor Rendell? Yes, I have some stuff to share. So first of all, it’s summertime and most people think that during the summer teachers sit at home and do nothing.
1:27:25 And I want to give a big shout out to all the teachers who are teaching summer school and summer enrichment. For those of you that don’t know, we have standard summer school where kids maybe didn’t pass a class during the year and they’re making it up in summer. That’s summer school.
1:27:42 We all kind of know about that. But for the last, last summer and this summer, we have hundreds of kids participating in summer enrichment. So these are fun things for kids to do at school.
1:27:55 So teachers were given the opportunity to come up with some creative courses or activities or camps to have over the summer and students were allowed to sign up for those. We are transporting them to summer enrichment as well as summer school. We were feeding them at summer enrichment and the stuff that the kids are doing is just flat out awesome.
1:28:13 Elementary stem camps, elementary music and chorus camps and things like that. So our kids are actually going to school and having fun, which we would hope they would do all the time. But in the summer for sure, some of the secondary things are absolutely mind blowing.
1:28:30 Have water safety instructions. So you go to this camp and you get your water safety instructor certificates. You can go be a lifeguard.
1:28:37 We also have a scuba diving camp. Probably the one that’s probably the most utilitarian or useful for us is we have automotive tech 101 where students can sign up and they learn the basics about changing the tire checking oil and stuff like that. So I just want to give a big shout out to all the teachers that are doing that this summer, giving our kids another positive experience at school and, you know, keeping them off the streets and out of the video game console during the summer.
1:28:51 So I just want to give a big shout out to teachers that are doing that. And there’s one more week, right? One more week, yeah. And you can still get on the website after this week.
1:29:11 I think you can still register all the stuff’s on the website if you want to jump in. All right. Also, anybody else got anything? All right, there’s no further business.
1:29:24 This meeting is now adjourned. Sa.