Updates on the Fight for Quality Public Education in Brevard County, FL

2023-08-22 - School Board Work Session

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10:12 This is for the vision for athletics that we have and that I

10:15 have and that I share and

10:16 I’m trying to get out to the community is that athletics

10:20 represents a substantial part

10:21 of the overall educational experience in our schools in terms of

10:25 the hours of the day,

10:26 the attention that it’s given to, you know, from all the

10:30 stakeholders in the community,

10:32 from the administration at the schools to the community members,

10:37 the businesses, things

10:38 like that.

10:40 So I do believe that the strength of our community lies in the

10:44 skill set of the individuals

10:46 within our community.

10:48 So that strength can only affect change when the individual

10:51 skill set is put to use to achieve

10:53 a positive result within our community.

10:55 So there’s a famous African proverb that I’m sure that you’ve

11:01 all heard, it takes a village

11:03 to raise a child.

11:04 So I think that we need to get back to that concept by inviting

11:07 more community involvement

11:09 and reducing barriers to entry whenever possible.

11:12 So every high school, middle school and elementary school is a

11:16 village.

11:16 We need to value the unique skill set of each person within our

11:20 communities and through open

11:22 dialogue and conversations we can identify skill sets that are

11:25 valuable to the educational experiences

11:27 of our students and athletics provides the conduit to share

11:32 those skills.

11:33 So some of the benefits of sports participation, according to

11:40 peer-reviewed studies, students who

11:42 participate in sports and engage in physical activity tend to

11:45 benefit from higher academic achievement,

11:48 healthy lifestyle habits that extend into adulthood, increased

11:52 mental health benefits in the form

11:54 of higher self-esteem and confidence, and increased career and

11:58 employment success in the form

12:00 of higher average salaries.

12:02 So a typical athlete progression that you would see from youth

12:12 on up into adulthood.

12:15 So it starts out typically at the elementary school level, it

12:19 may be in an aftercare program,

12:21 it may be in a youth sports organization, but these are

12:25 typically going to be about six week programs,

12:28 because your younger kids don’t have the kind of attention span

12:31 that more of your high school

12:32 kids do.

12:34 So it would be about three days a week with typically about one

12:39 game per week, one competition per

12:41 week, and that would just kind of be like almost like a formative

12:44 assessment type competition.

12:45 So that’s the approach.

12:48 So there’s a variety of different age level sports that you

12:52 would play there, adaptations

12:54 like flag football, t-ball, basketball can be adapted as well in

12:59 terms of goal height, wrestling,

13:02 you can pretty much wrestle with anybody when it comes to that,

13:06 but you get the idea.

13:10 So at this stage, kids should be experimenting with a lot of

13:12 different sports to find out the

13:14 ones that they actually enjoy.

13:16 So that should be a big push at this age.

13:19 So the things that they enjoy, they’re going to want to do more

13:21 and they’re going to drag

13:22 their parents to more and that kind of thing.

13:25 So I do believe that there should be some sort of reward system

13:30 for participating in sports

13:32 and multiple sports and that being the focus.

13:38 So by the time they transition to middle school, you’re now

13:41 getting into more of the after school

13:44 sports type activities.

13:47 Those tend to be a little bit longer, nine week programs.

13:49 I know that we have nine week programs in our middle schools.

13:52 Those are going to be five days a week.

13:54 You’ll typically have about one to two games for a week during

13:58 that time, depending on the

13:59 week and whether you’re on a bye or whatever the case may be.

14:06 So the sports that are offered at that level really need to be

14:10 comparable to what they were

14:11 getting at the elementary school level in a lot of their youth

14:15 sports and programs like

14:17 that so that you can continue those interests.

14:22 And also to kind of mirror what you’re getting at the high

14:25 school level as well.

14:26 So that they can transition well into high school.

14:31 But your middle school kids are going to begin to gravitate to

14:33 sports that pique their interest.

14:35 At this stage, that might be three or four sports.

14:40 But they’re also going to start attending summer athletic skills

14:44 camps.

14:44 They will also experiment with club and travel teams, things

14:48 like that.

14:49 So that’s kind of what that stage of their athletic career looks

14:53 like.

14:53 And then when they transition into the high school level, you

14:56 got full FHSA seasons that

14:57 are anywhere from 12 to 16 weeks, depending on how far they go

15:02 in state series competition.

15:04 And we offer a full complement of sports.

15:08 I’ll get to that here in a little while.

15:11 All the sports that we offer, we’ve got 16 FHSA sponsored sports

15:15 that we offer at the high

15:16 school levels here in Brevard.

15:18 So by this stage athletes should know the sports that they enjoy

15:22 and they should be narrowing

15:24 it down to the ones that they could potentially excel at the

15:28 next level if they’re looking

15:29 to play in college.

15:32 So the focus on at that stage is going to be being competitive

15:38 at the state and possibly

15:40 the national level.

15:41 There’s a lot of opportunities to compete at the national level

15:43 as well.

15:44 By the time they get to college, the athletes should have chosen

15:48 the sport that is their

15:49 sport, that’s what they’re specializing in, and there should be

15:54 an unwavering passion for

15:55 that sport because they’re going to be devoting year-round time

16:00 to that sport.

16:01 So it’s important that that’s something that they love doing and

16:05 can excel at.

16:06 So the focus there is going to be on obviously for anybody who’s

16:10 ever competed in college,

16:12 it’s on winning national championships and gaining individual

16:17 All-American status.

16:19 And then if they’re lucky enough to move on to the professional

16:22 and Olympic level, then

16:26 once they reach that stage, they’re one of the nation’s and

16:29 world’s elite level athletes.

16:31 So this is their profession, it’s their job, it’s what they do.

16:37 So those athletes spend a majority of their time in pursuit of

16:42 perfection of their sport.

16:45 So a love and passion for that sport that would be unimaginable

16:51 to most, that’s required.

16:54 So in order to attain success in that sport, that’s actually

16:58 required.

16:59 So the focus there is going to be on winning world and Olympic

17:03 championships, plain and simple.

17:06 That’s what they do, that’s what they live for.

17:09 So kind of a review of some of the athletic accomplishments that

17:14 we’ve had in this past year.

17:18 So officially we’ve added three new FHSAA sponsored sports here

17:22 in Brevard.

17:23 We’ve added competitive cheer, we’ve added girls wrestling and

17:28 beach volleyball.

17:29 So moving things in a positive direction in terms of our

17:33 offerings there.

17:35 We’ve also been able to supply and purchase equipment for our

17:39 intramural sports at the middle school

17:41 level for all 11 of our middle schools.

17:44 And we’ll talk about those intramural sports in a minute.

17:47 But soccer and volleyball, for volleyball we just finished up

17:52 with the sleeve installation in July at all of our middle

17:56 schools.

17:56 That was quite an undertaking.

17:58 So many of our ongoing athletic facility grades, which Sue’s

18:04 going to talk about here in a minute in her portion of the

18:08 presentation.

18:08 But we were also able to negotiate a new MCOA contract.

18:15 And that is huge for our schools.

18:17 So it’s, but it’s also huge for our officials as well.

18:22 So now instead of dealing with the individual schools for each,

18:26 you know, in terms of the billing process,

18:28 we centralized the billing process here at the district so that

18:32 we can be more effective in terms of getting that bill paid.

18:38 But the biggest thing is that we picked up the cost and thanks

18:41 to the board for approving that.

18:43 They picked up the cost of that, the, the officials fees for all

18:47 the schools.

18:48 And that’s going to be huge because that means that they can,

18:51 they’re able to take that money that they,

18:53 that they make from their ticket sales and actually put that

18:56 back into equipment, supplies, all the things that they need.

19:00 You know, some schools are even, even looking at doing school

19:03 initiated projects that have been needed for, for quite some

19:07 time.

19:07 So, so, so it gives them a solution and a way, a way to do that.

19:11 So, so I also want to thank Dr. Sullivan and Molly Vega for

19:15 their work on that last spring,

19:17 because they, they were the ones who did a lot of work in

19:20 completing those negotiations and getting that contract approved.

19:23 So, I think I got this out of order a little bit.

19:31 Okay, so, so, so, so this is just kind of a summary of some of

19:35 our accomplished projects.

19:37 Some of our accomplishments that we had.

19:38 Um, in terms of our team championships, district wide, we had 35,

19:43 uh, district championship teams here in Brevard.

19:47 Um, 14 regional championships, uh, 41 state playoff appearances,

19:52 11 state finals appearances,

19:54 and three, uh, state championship teams, so pretty, pretty

19:58 tremendous as a county right there.

20:00 And it shows the strength of our, our, uh, athletic teams.

20:03 So, individually and, um, you know, in our individual sports

20:07 like cross country, swimming, uh, wrestling, um, track and field,

20:12 those kinds of, kind of sports like that where they can, they

20:15 can win individual titles.

20:17 We won 73 district championships, 49 region championships, 137

20:23 state tournament appearances,

20:25 and 60 state medalists, and overall we had, we took home, uh, 10

20:30 state championships, um, from our, our individuals.

20:34 So, so quite an accomplishment.

20:36 Um, and I’m always amazed by the, by the accomplishments of our,

20:40 our schools when it comes to that, um, reaching the state level.

20:45 So, um, okay, so where are we now?

20:52 Um, we’ve got 16 high schools that compete in the, um, in the FHSA

20:59 and the Cape Coast Conference in 16 different varsity and JV

21:02 sports.

21:03 Um, we also have 11 middle schools that compete in two interscholastic

21:07 sports, meaning that they compete against other schools.

21:11 Um, and then this year we’ve, now that we’ve secured all the

21:15 equipment, we can start with two intramural sports,

21:18 which are going to be soccer and volleyball, all right?

21:23 So that’s going to be a little bit of a new thing this year, um,

21:25 but that’s helping with the transition, uh, and in our expansion,

21:30 okay?

21:31 Uh, these, this is kind of a snapshot of what we offer here, uh,

21:36 in Brevard Public Schools,

21:38 and you’ll see those, those are 16 sports that are FHSA

21:42 sponsored sports that we offer.

21:44 Um, as you can see, there’s only actually three FHSA sports that

21:48 we currently don’t offer and that’s flag football, um, weightlifting,

21:53 and water polo.

21:54 Um, we even offer, um, out of the, the ones that are not offered

21:59 by the FHSA, but we do offer them in our, our communities and,

22:03 and they’re strongly linked to our high schools.

22:04 Um, we’ve got rugby, um, and I know some of our rugby people

22:08 here today, um, we have, um, surf that’s really big in our beachside

22:13 schools.

22:13 Um, and then we have crew down in Melbourne that, uh, that we

22:17 offer as well.

22:18 Um, so those are all, all, again, in line with giving

22:22 opportunities to kids to, to compete where their passion is.

22:25 Um, so, um, and again on the middle school and this is kind of

22:32 on a, on a scheduling type level, those are your interscholastic

22:37 sports.

22:37 So, uh, first nine weeks we are involved in basketball, so we’re

22:41 in the full, full basketball season right now.

22:44 Um, the, uh, September 5th will be, we’ll start our actual games,

22:48 they’re in practice phase right now.

22:50 Um, track and field will be the third nine weeks when they get

22:53 back from the winter break.

22:54 Um, soccer is the second nine weeks that will be at the

22:58 completion of basketball season.

23:01 Uh, so we try not to overlap too much when it comes to those

23:03 sports to give everybody opportunities.

23:06 Uh, but the volleyball is going to be a fourth nine weeks and,

23:09 and we kind of decided that because it’s an indoor sport and it’s

23:12 really, really hot during that fourth nine weeks.

23:14 So, um, so we get a lot of really good feedback from our middle

23:17 school athletic directors when it came to that, um, informing

23:20 those, uh, those schedules.

23:23 Okay.

23:24 Um, this is a little bit about our organizational chart.

23:28 Um, obviously, um, you know, the, at the top starts with me and

23:33 at the county athletic director.

23:35 And I, I want to say thanks to Dr. Rendell and the board for the

23:40 tremendous improvements that have been made in this position and

23:43 continue to be made, um, and elevating this position to, to, uh,

23:47 director level as well.

23:49 So, um, the feedback that I’ve gotten from my athletic directors

23:53 is that they, they really appreciate it because it shows a high

23:56 level of appreciation from the board to

23:58 athletics and what you guys are, are doing and your commitment

24:02 to the, to athletics in this county.

24:04 So I want to say really, uh, I appreciate that and on behalf of

24:08 all the athletic directors as well.

24:09 Um, so each, uh, individual high school and middle school has an

24:14 athletic director.

24:14 And, uh, those athletic directors are really the superstars of

24:18 our schools and they put in long hours to make sure that the,

24:21 the programs at the school are organized and are running

24:25 properly, um, under their, um, under their, uh, uh,

24:31 purview, they’ve got the, uh, athletic business manager, which

24:38 basically is in, in charge of, um, ticket sales, um, scheduling

24:42 ticket takers, things like that.

24:44 Um, but they’ve also got the coaches that they manage.

24:49 They’ve got, um, the officials, which they coordinate, um,

24:52 athletic trainers, which we’ll talk about here in a few minutes

24:54 as well.

24:55 Um, and they’re volunteers, they’re scorekeepers, they’re announcers,

24:59 all that kind of stuff.

25:00 So that’s a little bit of how our athletics, um, organizational

25:04 chart breaks down, uh, when it comes to our, our, uh, internal

25:10 structure.

25:11 Um, the governance structure is for, you know, for our sports,

25:15 um, at the national level, we are under the NFHS, the National

25:19 Federation of High School Associations.

25:21 At the state level, we are under the FHSA.

25:25 Um, that’s our governing body, and they are heavily influenced

25:28 by the state legislature, as you guys know.

25:31 So a lot of the rules that we get from the FHSA actually are as

25:36 a result of decisions made in the legislature.

25:40 So, um, it’s important that you, that I think people understand

25:44 that tie-in from the legislature to the FHSA.

25:46 Um, and then obviously on the local level, um, the school board,

25:50 you guys are, are a big part of, of, um,

25:53 of what we do in terms of how we implement those, um, policies

25:57 and procedures are implemented in our

26:00 schools and, and governed at the local level.

26:03 And then the Cape Coast Conference is, um, our conference here

26:06 in Brevard that, um,

26:08 that is made of a collective of the high school, uh, athletic

26:13 directors that, uh, is responsible for,

26:16 for sponsoring championships, our Cape Coast Conference

26:19 championships in all sports.

26:20 Um, and also the recognition programs within the Cape Coast

26:23 Conference for, uh, coaches, uh, athletes, uh, things like that.

26:28 So.

26:29 Okay, and in terms of our policies and procedures, and this kind

26:36 of goes along with our governance structure

26:38 as well, um, we, we go by the FHSA policies and handbook.

26:43 So, um, for people who are wondering, and I always get questions

26:47 about this too,

26:48 is, um, what’s, what’s the FHSA policy on this or that?

26:53 Well, it’s available on the FHSA.com website.

26:56 It’s under member services.

26:58 So if you go to member services and then you go to rules and

27:00 publications,

27:01 you’ll find the FHSA handbook right there.

27:04 Uh, so it’s, I think it’s important to, that everybody knows how

27:07 to access that information

27:09 so that we can all keep each other accountable in that respect.

27:13 Um, so a big impact on that FHSA policy, I will tell you, this

27:18 year is, um, House Bill 225.

27:20 And that, that’s regarding, um, mainly regarding non-traditional

27:25 students and open enrollment,

27:26 um, as it pertains to our schools.

27:29 So, um, so we have, we had to, we had to do a little bit of re-education

27:37 when it came to that

27:37 this summer, um, with our athletic directors and, um, and, you

27:42 know, in terms of compliance

27:44 and everything like that.

27:44 There’s, there’s about seven different, um, types of non-traditional

27:49 students now.

27:50 That can actually participate in our school teams under a

27:53 variety of different circumstances.

27:54 You’ve got home education, charters, um, special schools, which

28:00 here in Brevard is

28:01 the only special school in that category is Brevard Virtual.

28:04 Um, so it, it kind of ties in with us as well, but also our non-member

28:09 private schools,

28:10 which we have those here, um, full-time FLVS students, and then

28:15 even traditional public school

28:17 students, this is new this year, uh, whose school does not offer,

28:21 um, their sport.

28:23 So they were, are able to play that sport at another public

28:27 school that offers that sport.

28:29 So that was, that was something that’s new this year that we’re,

28:32 we’re, um, you know, getting on board with.

28:34 Um, so, uh, so a lot of changes in terms of policy and, and

28:40 those, those changes have come

28:41 out down and affected us at the school levels. Uh, so to make it

28:45 a little bit easier, if it can be easier,

28:49 um, the FHSA sent out a flow chart, which kind of defines, um,

28:55 where students can go based on their

28:57 non-traditional status. And there’s seven different types of non-traditional

29:00 students. So, um, that I

29:02 have posted on the student activities webpage under student

29:06 services. So that information is available

29:08 on our website, um, if people need to be able to, to look that,

29:12 look at that and see if it’s,

29:14 if it’s possible to compete at this school or that school, um,

29:17 and sort of the forms that they would

29:18 need. Um, BPS board policy governs us a lot as well. Obviously,

29:24 you know, a lot of policies are either

29:27 directly related to athletics, um, or indirectly related to

29:31 athletics when it comes to, um, those

29:34 board policies. And to kind of summarize that somewhat, we have

29:39 the BPS, uh, athletic handbook,

29:41 which is available again on that same student activities webpage.

29:45 Um, and that’s kind of what we

29:47 go by in terms of, um, our, our individual high schools. And,

29:51 and one of the things that I used to

29:53 always tell my, uh, my coaches when I was an athletic director

29:57 was, if you take that BPS athletic

29:59 handbook and you use that as a guide to do your own team handbook,

30:03 then you’re going to be in a good

30:05 position, you know? So, so that’s one of the things that we, we

30:09 do, um, and we stress at that level as

30:11 well. Okay. Um,

30:17 Okay. In terms of, uh, student athlete healthcare, part of that

30:21 packet that kids have to do, um,

30:24 in order to, as a, as a precondition to participating in any of

30:28 our athletic teams is they have to undergo,

30:30 um, an annual physical. Uh, so there’s a new EL2 form that was,

30:35 that was put in place by the FHSA

30:37 and, um, that EL2 form is now, that physical form is now five

30:43 pages long, but there’s only one page

30:45 that you actually have to turn into the school. And the intent

30:47 on that was just to, um, protect, uh,

30:51 protect student privacy. And that was the, the major intent for,

30:54 for that change in that form. So,

30:56 um, hopefully that answers questions. It’s actually page four

31:00 that is the only form that you need to

31:02 turn in, uh, to the schools. Okay. Um, do you have athletic

31:06 trainers in our school? I know that’s a hot topic.

31:09 Those are, those are in high demand. Um, it’s a high demand

31:13 profession, low supply. So that’s a little bit of a,

31:16 a little bit of an issue, a little bit of a problem. Um, we do

31:19 have athletic trainers within our schools

31:21 that are teachers, um, and they’re teaching six out of seven

31:25 classes and doing athletic trainers. So,

31:28 that’s another thing that I, I feel like needs to be revisited

31:32 as well. Um, you know, in terms of the

31:34 structure of their day, um, if, if we could make for a more

31:38 flexible, um, schedule that would, that would

31:40 certainly make the position more attractive. Um, and, uh, to

31:45 help we’ve, we’ve gotten, we’ve reached out

31:47 to the community and gotten contracted services with parish

31:51 medical, um, health first. Um, I think we’re,

31:54 we work, we’re working on conference, uh, contract negotiations

31:58 with, um, with 3D, um, and some of

32:01 those places like that. So there’s a, there’s a lot of solutions

32:04 that we’re working on with our athletic

32:06 trainers because it’s absolutely necessary within our schools to,

32:10 for proper health care of our students.

32:12 Um, there, there are even some programs, Heritage High School

32:16 has a really good sports medicine program

32:18 that uses students to assist the athletic trainer, um, in game

32:23 time activities and they can get volunteer

32:26 hours. So, uh, that’s a really awesome thing. And a lot of other

32:30 schools do that as well, um, kind of on a,

32:32 on a voluntary basis with athletic trainers that they work with.

32:35 Um, so as you, as you know,

32:38 all of our coaches are required to do AED, CPR and, and first

32:42 aid training. Um, so as part of that, we,

32:45 uh, we are looking to increase the amount of AEDs in our schools.

32:51 We have, uh, put in order,

32:53 placed in order for 52 new AED units. Um, that contract was

32:59 secured over the summer and, um, the,

33:03 who we play for actually got the bid for new AED units, as you

33:07 guys know. And then the maintenance,

33:09 um, uh, with the, the pads and battery replacement that have to,

33:14 to go on on a regular basis was with

33:16 School Health Corporation. Um, so that’s, you know, moving

33:20 forward. Those are, those are things that are

33:21 improving at the schools, uh, for our, our students, not just,

33:25 and that’s not just for our athletes,

33:26 that’s for everybody, you know. Um, that’s for everybody at our,

33:31 our, uh, our school sites. Um,

33:33 and then obviously as part of, part of board policy, 2431, um,

33:38 part screenings are a requirement of our

33:41 student athletes and, um, who we play for really does a really

33:44 good job with making sure that they set up,

33:47 um, screenings on a regular basis, onsite screenings at our

33:50 schools. Uh, so they, they, they do a fantastic job with that.

33:55 Right. Um, transportation, um, this is a, again, has, has been,

34:05 you know, kind of a hot topic within the

34:07 athletics, you know, community and, um, you know, getting teams

34:11 to and from competitions is, is certainly,

34:13 uh, an important part of the logistical operation of athletics

34:18 as well. So, uh, we, so we obviously need

34:21 more drivers, um, in order to expand sports offerings if, you

34:25 know, that being what we’re looking to do.

34:27 Uh, so we do certainly appreciate the board, uh, for approving

34:32 the recently approved pay raises for the

34:34 drivers because we do, in talking with transportation, we do

34:38 believe that’s going to increase our amount

34:40 of drivers that we have available and an increase in drivers is

34:43 going to be an increase in those activity

34:45 routes. And those are, there’s a huge, those are important for,

34:48 for our athletic teams to be able

34:50 to get to our games, get to our games on time, but also have

34:53 adequate warmup time before our games.

34:56 Uh, so those are, those are some concerns and, and hopefully

34:59 that is alleviating those concerns.

35:01 Um, some feedback that I’ve gotten when I go out to school sites

35:06 and, and talk to principals and athletic

35:08 directors. Um, vans for schools would certainly, uh, help with

35:12 the lighter transportation needs where you

35:14 may not necessarily need like, uh, you know, a huge bus, but you,

35:18 you know, maybe for like a cross country

35:20 team, a freshman volleyball team, um, you know, uh, wrestling

35:25 team, or maybe even a, um, your, your throwers and

35:30 track have to tend to be there earlier. Um, so smaller groups

35:34 that could fit, you know, within,

35:37 you know, one or two vans that would, uh, be able to get them to

35:41 their destination and, and, um, and,

35:45 in a safe capacity. Um, so obviously there’s, there’s compliance

35:49 with state law that has to happen

35:51 there. Um, and Rashad’s probably more of an expert on that than,

35:54 than I am when it comes to those law

35:56 changes and everything. Uh, so, um, but, but those are some

36:00 feedback that I’ve gotten when I go out to

36:03 schools. Okay. And, uh, so our Midcoast Officials Association,

36:10 um, we have kind of a symbiotic

36:13 relationship with those guys. Uh, we, long time partnership that’s,

36:17 that’s lasted over 55 years.

36:19 Um, so we want to certainly continue that. And, um, and as I

36:24 said, we have that, that new contract in

36:26 place, um, that, uh, that was, that gained board approval in, um,

36:32 in June. Uh, so, so that’s, that’s been

36:36 a huge help. Uh, it’s a massive windfall for our schools, you

36:39 know, in terms of getting things done.

36:41 Um, so the MCOA is certainly, I’ve been in talks with them. They

36:47 are certainly in support of expanding

36:48 sports opportunities, but that’s going to take a different level

36:52 of recruitment of officials in order

36:54 to be able to do that. So that’s something that they’re working

36:57 on, on their end. Um, the average

36:59 age of their officials is getting higher and higher. So we need

37:03 to do some things to, um, to recruit

37:07 some younger people. Uh, so one of the programs that, that, um,

37:11 that Steve Muzzy kind of, kind of

37:13 informed me about that I wasn’t aware of is that they actually

37:16 have a, um, a level in their recruitment program,

37:18 um, that’s part of the FHSA that allows them, allows 16 year old,

37:24 um, kids to register as officials.

37:27 Okay. So that’s an interesting kind of requirement. Now, the,

37:31 the thing that, the thing with that is

37:33 they can officiate like middle school competitions and JV

37:36 competitions, and they would be officiating

37:38 alongside a mentor official. Um, so, so that’s a really good

37:43 opportunity to tap into those kids, because here’s, what’s going

37:47 to happen is,

37:48 is if you get a kid started and you start training him at 16

37:51 years old, years old, him or her, then

37:54 what’s going to happen is they’re going to move into college.

37:57 They’re going to start officiating, um,

38:00 in college at, uh, intramurals, things like that. They’re, they’re

38:04 constantly needing help in, on the intramural level with, um,

38:07 with people who know the rules and can effectively officiate at

38:11 colleges. Um, so, then that gives them another four years of

38:15 experience.

38:15 Uh, if they trained six years, then by the time they actually

38:19 get out of college and then they get into their

38:22 profession, they might want to continue giving back as officials,

38:25 uh, when it comes to, when it comes to,

38:28 in their, their professional life. So, I think that’s a really

38:31 good program that we need to tap into. Um,

38:34 Um, so, so that was, that was something that I, I found to be

38:38 pretty, pretty interesting in, in my talks with, um,

38:41 with the MCOA. Um, policy 27, there’s, there’s been a focus on

38:46 that with our officials associations and that’s FHSA

38:49 and, and, and that’s something that we’re looking at, a renewed

38:54 focus on our, you know,

38:55 administrative duties and supervisions and things like that.

38:58 Crowd control, um, you know, hospitality to

39:02 our officials and schools and, and that kind of started last

39:05 year and, and obviously is continuing

39:07 on this year. It’s a big, big topic of conversation at the

39:09 compliance seminar in, in July. So, um,

39:14 so we want to work together with our officials to, to make sure

39:17 that, uh, we’re collaborating for the

39:19 best for our kids. Okay. And at this time, I’m going to hand

39:24 this over to Sue or her portion.

39:28 Yeah, I was going to say, Kevin, if it’s okay, if we work

39:30 through some questions with you.

39:31 Yeah. Before Ms. Sue, if that’s okay. Um,

39:35 So, um, I’ll go last, of course. Ms. Campbell, you had some

39:42 questions and then we’ll move around.

39:44 Yes. Thank you so much for, um, presenting the level of detail

39:47 that you have. I’ve got a few

39:49 questions. Um, on the, a couple of slides, you talked about the

39:53 11 middle schools and of course,

39:55 we have several junior, senior highs, but my question was

39:58 specifically for the intramurals.

40:00 So, at our schools that are junior, senior highs, do we, those

40:03 seventh and eighth graders have the

40:05 opportunity to participate on all of the sports? Am I, is that

40:09 why we’re not offering intramurals at

40:12 those because those students actually can participate on JB?

40:16 They have the opportunity,

40:16 maybe if they make the team. Yes. Yes. They have the opportunity

40:20 to compete. Okay. Like,

40:21 for example, soccer and volleyball, they have the opportunity to

40:25 compete at the junior,

40:25 senior high school level. Right. Um, at those sports. So, there’s

40:29 not the same level of need

40:30 for that. So, typically what you would have is like, like, let’s

40:33 say in a volleyball type situation,

40:35 somebody comes in as a seventh grader, eighth grader, they, they

40:38 would typically, in those

40:39 junior, senior high schools, they would be on the freshman team.

40:42 Right. You know,

40:43 um, so, I think you have a daughter on the freshman team. But

40:46 they have the opportunity to play.

40:46 You have a daughter on the freshman team. I do. Currently you

40:47 don’t yet.

40:47 Up to six years on, uh, FHSA levels. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

40:51 And just so you know, those other sports that aren’t on that

40:56 ladder, the soccers and stuff like

40:58 that, sometimes they, there may be some intramurals that are

41:00 played between that seventh and eighth

41:02 graders. Right. Yeah. I’m just, I guess I’m just, just trying to

41:05 get down to the reason why we’re only

41:06 offering those intramurals at the 11 standalone middle schools

41:09 is because they don’t have those

41:10 opportunities. They don’t have those opportunities. Um, so on

41:14 the org chart, you, you talked about the

41:16 athletic business manager. Does, do all of our high schools have

41:19 this position? That’s a supplemented

41:22 position. Yes. So it’s something that somebody has in on top. We

41:25 don’t have an athletic business

41:27 manager. That’s like their only job, but that’s like a stipend

41:30 or stipend position. Okay. So they’re doing

41:33 something else. They could be the bookkeeper who’s well,

41:35 probably not the bookkeeper, but someone

41:36 else who’s also getting that. They could be a regular teacher.

41:39 They wouldn’t be the bookkeeper.

41:40 Right. Um, cause that would be a conflict of interest. Um, so,

41:45 uh, they could be someone,

41:46 they could be, you know, a cafeteria staff person or whatever,

41:49 and they’re doing this also. Okay.

41:51 Thank you. Cause I was thinking, I don’t think we have a, that’s,

41:54 I’m not sure that’s a full-time job.

41:56 I’m sure sometimes it’s some weeks. It probably is. It could be

41:58 a full-time job. Um, I wanted to go back to the

42:03 school. Um, so if I, I actually thought that we already had this

42:06 in place, that if a school didn’t

42:07 offer, for example, West shore and Edgewood don’t have football,

42:10 that a kid wanting to play football

42:11 could actually play football for another school because you’re

42:13 telling me that’s new. That’s new.

42:15 Okay. So when it comes to, um, like charter school families that

42:22 some of our charter schools don’t

42:24 have a basketball team, an FHA, then they will be able to come

42:28 and try out for one of our traditional

42:31 public. Absolutely. Yes. Now there, I don’t know, are there

42:35 rules in place that you can’t like go from

42:36 school to school to school until you get on a team? Or is there

42:39 like, you got to pick one or you just can

42:41 just keep going? I mean, could it potentially could a charter

42:44 school or a homeschool family or whatever,

42:46 you know, go to every school’s tryout in their vicinity and

42:50 whichever one gets them?

42:52 So you have to register your intent with the school of

42:56 participation, which means that you would,

42:57 you know, you would, a lot of schools are on athletic clearance,

43:02 which is an online clearance.

43:03 So you would register on athletic clearance or you would turn in

43:07 the school’s athletic packet.

43:09 Right. That would be registering your intent to compete at that

43:12 school. And then, and then,

43:14 in which case also another level to this, um, with those non-traditional

43:19 students is once they’ve,

43:21 once, once the school has collected all those forms from them,

43:23 whether it be the EL, EL 14 form,

43:26 the EL 7 form, um, EL 12, whatever applies to them and that,

43:31 that, um, that flow chart, um,

43:34 the school would then register that athlete with the FHSA

43:39 through an EL 14 form that is online on home

43:44 campus. Home campus is our eligibility database that we have

43:48 with the FHSA. So then you’re with that

43:50 school? Yes. Right. And then you can’t go pick a different

43:53 school to be on a different team for that

43:55 school year at least. So if you, if you, um, so say, ask that

44:02 question again. I’m just, I’m just trying

44:04 to picture someone who, okay, well, my school doesn’t have, so

44:07 in the fall, I’m going to play

44:08 football for this school. In the spring, I’m going to run track

44:10 for this school and we’re running all

44:11 around. It just seems like a lot for our schools, but I’m just

44:13 trying to figure out how open did they

44:15 make this, um, for the schools that are coming, you know,

44:18 students are coming from a school that

44:20 doesn’t have a team. Um, you know, even. You play football at

44:23 Merritt Island and track at Coco

44:25 if you’re a homeschooler. If you’re a homeschool kid, you can do

44:28 that, but you’re going to have to

44:30 register your intent at every one of those schools and every one

44:32 of those schools is going to have to

44:34 go through that process again. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So, um, so I

44:39 mean, I like the ability to open up,

44:41 you know, I, I know our homeschoolers have had, had the

44:43 opportunity to do things like that, um,

44:45 for a while, but, uh, um, yeah, it’s, it, it can open up a, a

44:51 lot of string of worms, you know,

44:53 can of worms, excuse me, because of my metaphors there. Yeah. Um,

44:56 I love the idea of the officials

44:58 training. I wanted to ask, is this something that we could

45:01 potentially offer next summer,

45:02 even using ESSER funds? You know, we’ve had the summer camps.

45:05 Can we do a four week,

45:06 I don’t know how long the training, uh, uh, but hey, hey, we

45:08 will, we’re going to offer this

45:10 training to this age and up and then open the doors for

45:14 potential. I mean, honestly,

45:16 it’s a great, I, I have someone who’s almost my age and he’s, he’s

45:20 an engineer, but he works,

45:22 he does these on the, you know, just for a little side money.

45:24 Right. So it’s, it’s a great opportunity

45:26 for students in college, in high school or whatever, but I would

45:30 love to see us maybe explore the idea

45:31 of working with MCOA and offering that training, maybe with a

45:35 little bit of leftover, um, ESSER money

45:37 with our summer opportunities next summer to get to open those

45:40 doors because that’s a great

45:42 opportunity for kids to, to make some cash. And it’s to build

45:46 our own, our own farm of officials.

45:49 So that’s all I have. Thank you, Ms. Campbell. Um, Mr. Trent.

45:53 It’s already on. How about that? Uh, thank you so much for what

46:00 you’re doing. I, I, it’s,

46:02 it’s impressive to see all the things that are moving behind the

46:06 scenes. And, um, when you have the,

46:08 the right pieces in place, uh, it’s, it’s makes everyone’s job a

46:12 little bit easier, but, um, I, I,

46:14 too, I want to piggyback on the, uh, the officiating. I mean,

46:17 that pool has been dwindling. Um, and I,

46:19 I know you guys are going to be doing this because it really has,

46:22 um, I’m friends with many, uh,

46:25 officials like in high school basketball that, I mean, it’s, it’s

46:28 like a little sorority or fraternity

46:31 that’s really gotten small and that they’re, they’re concerned,

46:34 um, with that. So if we can,

46:36 you know, in any way, get a bigger pool early on getting kids,

46:41 it’s a great way to earn extra

46:43 money in summers. I’m talking about baseball, little league, and

46:46 it’s a lifelong, uh, passion for many

46:49 of these. Um, again, one of my good friends is an accountant and

46:52 he’s still, it’s, he’s in year 30,

46:54 um, and, and officiating basketball. And it’s just because of,

46:58 um, you know, not the money anymore,

47:00 uh, but any way we can put that out there and, um, you know,

47:04 with the, with the students understand

47:06 that, again, this could be something for them for life. I know

47:09 there’s a lot going on and I appreciate,

47:11 you know, exposing kids at an early age. I like the shortened

47:15 timeframe, obviously, uh, get a little

47:17 taste of everything. Um, specializing at early ages kind of

47:21 irritates me, you know, when I see that,

47:23 because it is a broad range of, um, activities is what, uh, what

47:28 we need. So I’m just,

47:30 I just want to stay out of your way. Keep going. I appreciate it.

47:33 If you need anything from us,

47:34 you know where we’re at. Thanks. Mr. Trent, thank you so much.

47:37 Um, it’s right. Okay. I’ll be really

47:39 quick. I, I had a couple of questions and I, and I know that

47:41 they’re probably going to require a

47:42 little bit of digging and information. If you could just get

47:44 this in the future to us, but, um, what

47:46 percentage of our secondary students are participating in

47:49 athletics of some sort? I would like to know what

47:52 that number is. Um, and then I also would like to know how many

47:55 of our students are receiving sports

47:56 scholarships on a yearly basis, just so that we have that

47:59 information as well. I, I am a hundred

48:02 percent in favor of expanding athletics into our elementary. Um,

48:05 I’m going to shout out to Port St.

48:06 John Little League right now because I, we’re Port St. John

48:08 Little League people and I can just tell

48:10 you, I have seen things happen on that field. I have seen

48:13 community shine at, at its best. I have seen kids

48:15 that came to us that struggled with mental health, that had

48:19 attempted to take their lives and be part

48:21 of a team and over the years just bloom into this person that

48:24 they needed. They needed that community.

48:27 They needed that team. And I’m like, if we could start getting

48:29 our kids at an elementary level

48:30 to buy into a sport like that, like what a difference that can

48:33 make for them all the way around. So

48:35 I am, um, a hundred percent in favor of this. The one thing I

48:38 wanted to also shout out to Parish

48:39 because I saw that you mentioned them, Dr. Allotta, uh, they do

48:42 health physicals in the north and they do

48:44 them for, I think it’s like 10 or 20 bucks. Um, I took my

48:47 daughter to participate in it because

48:49 I wanted to see what was going on. I’m like, let’s see what’s

48:50 happening here. I have never

48:52 seen anything like this in my entire life. I mean, they had kids

48:55 lined up everywhere and they had it

48:56 down to, you know, find science. And so shout out to Parish for,

48:59 for, you know, providing such a huge

49:01 need to our community like that. Um, the only other thing I

49:03 would say is when it comes to sports,

49:05 communication is key. Um, you know, I’m sure every one of us up

49:07 here has received emails and that

49:09 maybe communication isn’t given or it’s given through maybe a

49:13 club or

49:13 something outside of school. And so that is really, really

49:16 important is just to make sure that we’re

49:18 across the board. Um, that way every student has the ability or

49:21 a chance because, uh, we don’t want

49:22 them to miss it because they just didn’t hear about it. And then

49:24 they find out after the fact,

49:25 yeah, miss this really cool opportunity. But yeah, I’m excited

49:27 about this. This, this could be

49:29 really, really, really cool. Um, and set us apart from other

49:32 districts around the state. So thank you.

49:33 Thanks. So I have a couple of things. I saw I’m saying I thought

49:38 you’re getting there. Um,

49:39 I did want to say that across the board, athletic participation

49:42 over the last 20 years has gone

49:44 down. And when you look at some of the areas that they are very

49:48 successful is when they’ve put them

49:49 into the elementary schools to get the programs going. It’s been

49:52 become very easy for families to

49:54 be able to tell the kids, you know, stay there, watch TV, play

49:57 on the playground, you know what I mean?

49:59 Play on the video games and stuff like that. Because one of the

50:02 problems that Kevin and I

50:03 were looking at when this thing was coming together is, is that

50:06 our recreational leagues and our travel

50:07 ball leagues are so costly that they’re actually inhibiting many

50:11 of our low socioeconomic families

50:13 from participating. So what ends up happening is, is these

50:16 children are not given that opportunity.

50:18 And in some cases that’s where some of our discipline comes from

50:21 and stuff like that in middle school.

50:22 I’ll give you an example. Senator Montford, head of the

50:25 superintendent’s association,

50:26 told me that when I was telling him about what we were doing and

50:29 he said, Matt, when I was in school,

50:32 what ended up happening was, is I was a, I was a principal of a

50:35 middle school and I brought middle

50:36 school football back. And that’s part of what we’re going to be

50:39 talking about for next year.

50:40 But as he was doing that, um, he said that his discipline rates

50:44 went down significantly inside of

50:46 his school. And he said, he caught a lot of blowback in the

50:48 beginning, but his discipline rates went

50:50 down. His entire school took a school culture of team and unity

50:54 and everything else that he had never seen

50:56 before that happening. So part of what we’re doing is, is

50:59 training some of those, those attributes,

51:01 those self-esteem, build lifelong relationships, develop

51:04 character, teamwork and skills, kids getting

51:06 healthier academically. They perform higher. There’s actual

51:10 statistics that show about many of the

51:11 chemicals that are released during physical activity that

51:13 increase academic performance.

51:15 And there’s also the dream, which is what the tourism and tax

51:19 development is looking at this.

51:20 And they’re going to come on and support Kevin and everything

51:22 else is, is that they want to create

51:24 championship town USA here in Brevard. And what they want to do

51:27 is start hosting the public school

51:29 championships from across the state of Florida here. Kind of

51:31 like what we did with the AAU

51:33 National Olympics that we had years ago is to start doing that

51:37 kind of stuff, but we can’t get there.

51:39 That’s many years down the way, you can’t get there till you

51:41 start building the infrastructure and

51:42 everything else. That’s it. But I did want to talk through, um,

51:48 some of it, and you did an amazing

51:49 job of hitting like all of the components that we have, because

51:52 we’re in here today, we have people

51:53 from softball, people from fencing, people from rugby that are

51:56 here today. The issue that we have is,

51:58 is there’s so many other components that not many people think

52:00 about the transportation, the, you know,

52:02 I mean, the umpires and everything else. But I kind of wanted to

52:05 walk it through from a vision

52:06 perspective of what we were talking about is, is that if we have

52:09 a K through 12 vertical integration

52:12 program where the children are coming in, in kindergarten,

52:14 learning how to golf, learning how

52:16 to play soccer, learning how to play basketball, learning how to

52:19 do all of those on a six week

52:20 tournament type situation, then they’ll be turned on to that and

52:24 then move forward into middle school

52:26 and high school. The only way to accomplish that is, is like we

52:29 had said, some of the groups that are

52:30 here are to come in with our community based partners. The fast,

52:34 the fast pitch softball team

52:36 is here said he’s been, they’ve been a rec league in Brevard for

52:39 over 50 years. Those are the kind of

52:40 teams that you import St. John Little League and everything else

52:43 that would assist with those little

52:45 league programs in the six weeks, because we talked about, we

52:47 didn’t want these to become the thing

52:49 where they’re competing with the rec leagues, but actually

52:51 enhancing them. So those rec leagues would come

52:53 in perfect example. And Ms. Suhan worked out a facilities use

52:57 agreement recently, Sun Tree Elementary

53:00 or Sun Tree Elementary paired up with Sun Tree soccer, right?

53:04 And they’re using the facility. And what

53:06 he’s doing is, is he’s coming in, he’s mowing the grass, he’s

53:08 keeping everything down as part of it.

53:10 But then he’s also being able to utilize the students to start

53:14 playing soccer more often. And in return,

53:16 they become a part of his organization and he benefits, we

53:18 benefit, everybody goes through. And quite frankly,

53:21 our facility gets taken care of so that the guys don’t have to mow

53:23 it as much, right? So that’s kind

53:25 of the six week program in the beginning. And then moving into

53:27 the middle school and high school,

53:29 I mean, if you, the rowing in this community is very, very

53:32 competitive. And not many people know that.

53:34 We’ve had some of the best hockey players that have ever played

53:37 in the, in the collegiate level

53:38 have come out of here. There’s some of those things that are

53:41 happening that are outside the box of

53:42 what we normally offer, but through that club court, sport and

53:45 intramurals to be able to give them an honor

53:48 to be able to do that. And you never know, like kids that are up

53:51 in MIMS, there might be a kid that

53:52 one day has become one of the best hockey players, but he never

53:54 knew about it until he had an opportunity.

53:56 So I wanted to say thank you for all of those. And I kind of

53:58 wanted to set it through. The other thing

54:00 that we were speaking about is that we have a lot of kids that

54:03 they play the sports and then at the end

54:05 of the year, they don’t have an opportunity. They don’t know how

54:08 to promote themselves for college.

54:09 I had a student last night at the Vieira high school parent,

54:12 parental thing. What we were talking

54:14 about is, is we already have coaches inside the community that

54:17 are willing to host combines.

54:19 So say you have a football combine, we already have one that

54:22 goes on, but why is it that we don’t host

54:24 one for soccer for all of those things? Allow this, the coaches

54:27 to come from around the United States

54:29 to see our athletes and then be able to promote them right there.

54:31 It’s a great opportunity. So from

54:33 K through 12, all the way through the combine and everything

54:36 else, we have this structure where

54:38 we’re competing and bringing all of those benefits that we spoke

54:41 of earlier. I just, I want to say

54:43 thank you, Kevin. I know, I mean, I’ll be honest and everybody

54:46 else can, we’ve talked about it. Kevin’s

54:48 here until like seven, eight o’clock at night some nights. I

54:50 call him just to check in on something.

54:51 He says, I’m still here. And I’m like, this is insane. So I

54:54 really wanted to say thank you,

54:55 because I know that all of the other components that are part of

54:58 this are amazing. And I did want to say

55:01 thank you to some of the people that are in the, in the audience

55:03 that came today. My, uh, my rugby

55:05 team, they’re really excited. And to just so you guys know, in

55:08 2008, we formed a rugby team for high

55:10 school. They went, the men went out and won the state

55:13 championship first year. And I think, Ray,

55:16 did the women win that year too? I think the girls rugby team

55:18 won the state championship too.

55:19 Yeah. So one of them won the state championship. So in Brevard,

55:31 we held it well, Brevard school won

55:34 the state championship. So the thing is, is that, um, the, the

55:37 issue is, is that there’s so many

55:39 opportunities and I’ll be honest with you, a lot of the kids

55:41 that, and I’m trying to use this as an

55:42 example, that 2008, we had a lot of kids that were on our

55:45 football team that were not good at football.

55:47 They just weren’t right. But they fit that bill to play rugby

55:51 and then they won the state championship.

55:53 So giving those kids, those opportunities to compete. And, um, I

55:56 want to give you a personal

55:57 plug because we faced off in, uh, coaching against wrestling

55:59 against each other. And he was one of the

56:01 best coaches because his Bayside team was very technical and

56:03 they would wrestle and it would

56:05 always give us a hell of a time when we were trying to wrestle

56:07 them. So, um, Kevin, thank you so much

56:09 for this. I, I wanted to, uh, you know, just kind of walk

56:13 through that whole process of vision

56:15 of allowing that vertical integration so that the kids can start

56:18 getting into it for those that didn’t

56:19 know. Um, anyways, you have anything else to add to that? Yeah.

56:23 After Sue does her piece,

56:25 there’s a couple of more things. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I

56:28 think I felt like

56:29 this was a good place to put her facility stuff in good

56:33 afternoon, everybody. Um, so I just want to

56:37 start by saying what a great collaborator Kevin has been. Uh, I,

56:41 you may or may not know, but Kevin

56:43 is bunking in our office and we have gotten so much work done

56:47 together around athletics. It is just

56:49 really awesome to have him co-located with facilities and we’ve,

56:53 we’ve gotten through a whole lot of

56:55 issues together and we are planning together. So a lot of what I’ll

56:58 talk about today is, is or will

57:00 be a result of us collaborating. So appreciate the effort on

57:04 athletics and also want to say I’m,

57:06 I’m a product of the high school athletics system and all of the

57:09 benefits that you mentioned. I, I

57:11 validate every single one of them as a result of being involved

57:15 in athletics as a kid. It was just

57:17 an awesome experience. So, and I wish I was professional athlete,

57:20 but I’m not. So, so I want to

57:23 start a little bit about, uh, district funding for athletics and

57:26 you know, we’re, we’re in a space now

57:28 where you’re seeing a lot of, uh, construction projects around

57:32 athletics and it’s all looks great, but we

57:33 weren’t there like three years ago. So we, we literally had

57:38 almost no funding for athletics a few years ago.

57:41 So we’ve made a big leap into doing much better and supporting

57:46 our athletic endeavors.

57:47 So, uh, the two sources of funding for athletics right now are

57:51 sales surtax, the 2020 surtax,

57:53 as well as a portion of capital. And neither of these became

57:57 available until like 2021.

57:59 And here’s why on the capital side, you can kind of see how our,

58:03 our capital is based on our property

58:05 tax values and our property tax values were pretty low in the

58:09 early 2010s and such. So there really

58:12 was, there wasn’t enough available for facility renewal, much

58:15 less athletics. So nothing really was happening.

58:19 You see in 2019, 20, that’s when the sales surtax came into play

58:23 and our property values started to increase.

58:25 So a couple of things happened at the same time that are now

58:28 allowing us to do some better investments in athletics.

58:32 So the 2014 sales tax did not include athletics at all. We were

58:37 struggling from the lack of capital

58:39 and just needing to invest in air conditioning and some of our

58:41 building systems. 2020 program,

58:44 we did have some investment, uh, planned in the 2020 program, 7.6

58:49 million over six years.

58:51 But because we’ve had some really good revenue experience with

58:54 the 2020 sales tax, we’ve been able to add some

58:57 projects, a lot of which are in the athletics realm. And we’re

59:01 also able to kind of couple that money with

59:04 capital to do better projects. So the tracks, the rubberized

59:07 tracks are a great example of that,

59:08 where we use the surtax money for the renewal portion, and then

59:13 use the capital portion for

59:15 the rubberization. So it’s really been a nice way to leverage

59:18 our funds on either side of that equation.

59:20 So we do our capital programming. It’s data driven, and we get

59:27 data from a lot of sources. Our folks in

59:29 plant operations and maintenance have been doing assessments,

59:31 and I’ll show you some of the scary

59:33 assessments in a few slides. But we have gone through a lot of

59:36 our sports facilities and rated them

59:39 at each school. We’ve done playground assessments. Our outdoor

59:43 basketball assessment is new this year.

59:45 And that’s one of the scary bad slides. Elementary pavilions,

59:50 this is one of several circumstances

59:53 where you have schools that have covered play pavilions, and you

59:55 have schools that do not.

59:57 And on the elementary level, that’s been one of the big asks

1:00:00 from the elementary world is to try to get

1:00:03 every school a covered play pavilion. So I’ve been working kind

1:00:07 of on that project, and I’ll show you some of

1:00:10 the progression on that. And then just as I mentioned, the

1:00:14 collaboration with the county athletic director

1:00:16 is a huge, huge win for us. And I think that’s going to help us

1:00:20 do better work in the right order.

1:00:23 And we want to be a partner at the table as you’re talking about

1:00:26 expanding athletic opportunities for our

1:00:28 students, either at middle school or elementary level, there’s a

1:00:32 facility component to that. So when we

1:00:34 start middle school football, we got to think through, where are

1:00:37 they playing? Who’s buying the goalposts?

1:00:39 Who’s lining the fields? All of all of those things, probably

1:00:43 more maintenance on our part.

1:00:45 So a lot of things like that, we need to consider as we are

1:00:49 expanding our athletic opportunities.

1:00:51 So the next few slides are just an example of some of our

1:00:55 condition assessments. This is a just a

1:00:57 screenshot of gym floors. And we’ve been working on gym floors

1:01:02 for quite a while through our maintenance budget.

1:01:04 And it really kills our maintenance budget. So what I propose

1:01:08 this year in the capital plan

1:01:09 is a half a million dollars for athletics FF&E. And that’ll pick

1:01:13 up some things like scoreboards

1:01:15 and goalposts and some of those sort of miscellaneous things

1:01:19 that really haven’t been on our inventory,

1:01:21 but we’re starting to inventory now. And we’ll be able to

1:01:25 support having safe and appropriate athletic

1:01:29 facilities and not have to go through that painful experience of

1:01:32 my scoreboards broken,

1:01:33 and we’ll get it fixed in a year or two. So that’s been, I think,

1:01:38 is going to be a big improvement.

1:01:39 And then just to show you that we are sort of keeping track of

1:01:42 these things. The gym floors, again,

1:01:44 something we’ve been working on, and we can kind of see where we

1:01:47 need to go next. The gym acoustical panels,

1:01:51 this is a sort, a little bit of a different way. This one is

1:01:55 sorted just on conditions that are failed or poor.

1:01:59 So there is about 640,000 in the FY24 capital plan for gym

1:02:05 acoustical panels. That’s going to cover

1:02:08 probably two to three of these schools. So this is going to be

1:02:12 an ongoing project. And this is where

1:02:14 the collaboration with Kevin comes in that we can, you know, who’s

1:02:18 who’s first and who’s second and who’s

1:02:21 eighth in terms of the needs at the school. So again, another

1:02:25 example of our of our assessments,

1:02:28 middle school tracks. This is an area that has been requested

1:02:32 and emphasized by our middle schools. And

1:02:35 we’re about to embark upon a project to design all of the failed

1:02:39 middle school tracks. And then we’re going to

1:02:42 figure out how to do construction. I’m at the moment advocating

1:02:46 for one big project where we we put them

1:02:49 all under one contractor and we do one middle school track

1:02:52 project. Not funded for that yet. So we’ll be

1:02:55 talking through either some combination of sales tax and capital

1:02:59 for that program. But I want to see what

1:03:02 what the costs are. This originally started as kind of a resurfacing

1:03:07 type of project. And as we’ve done the

1:03:09 high school tracks, we’ve discovered all sorts of interesting

1:03:12 things, as you’ve seen in some of

1:03:14 our construction contracts. So it may be more than just resurfacing,

1:03:19 especially considering the

1:03:21 condition. So we may have to redo the base. So there may be more

1:03:24 to it. We probably will put in curbs just to

1:03:28 aid in preserving the track structure and making maintenance a

1:03:31 little bit easier. So anyway, we’re we want to do them all

1:03:36 together. So we’re doing the same approach for all of the middle

1:03:38 school tracks. So you’ll start to see

1:03:40 some work on that coming up here in the next several months.

1:03:43 This is the scary bad slide.

1:03:45 I noticed I was out of those I’ve been out of a couple schools

1:03:50 and I’ve seen some basketball hoops

1:03:52 that are kind of degraded. And it’s like, wow, we really need to

1:03:54 do something about that. So,

1:03:56 you know, let’s put some money in the program for, you know,

1:03:59 basketball hoop renewal.

1:04:00 I’m thinking we’re buying backboards and nets and rims. Well,

1:04:04 turns out we kind of need courts first

1:04:07 and then we need poles and then we need backboards and hoops and

1:04:10 rims. So this kind of gives you the

1:04:14 scope of what we looked at and what we need. And this is kind of

1:04:19 sorted by those that are in pretty bad

1:04:22 shape. But you can see there’s there’s a large number of schools

1:04:24 that are not in good shape with their outdoor

1:04:26 basketball courts. So I had programmed three hundred thousand

1:04:30 dollars and that’s not going to touch this

1:04:33 at all. So this is going to be an ongoing long-term program that

1:04:37 comes to you every year in the capital

1:04:40 program until we work our way through these schools. This is

1:04:43 just another snapshot that’s a little bit

1:04:46 more is probably where we’ll be starting. These are the the

1:04:50 worst of the worst schools and we’ll probably be

1:04:54 starting in the Johnson Middle School arena, you know, looking

1:04:57 at that one to see what we can do

1:04:59 with the resources that we have available. And then we’ll

1:05:02 probably start getting ahead of the game with

1:05:04 doing some design and trying to standardize what we’re putting

1:05:08 back. But this is this is an area that

1:05:10 has been neglected for a long time and I wanted you to see that

1:05:12 this is why we’re going to be emphasizing

1:05:14 this coming up in the future. This is an example of what caused

1:05:18 me to start looking

1:05:19 at this and like this is not uncommon. So if you’re out at your

1:05:25 schools and you’re out in the backyard

1:05:27 looking at at your basketball facilities this is what we have

1:05:30 and we need to do something about that.

1:05:31 So I just want you to know this is why I’m paying attention to

1:05:36 this.

1:05:37 Can I ask a question? Yes, ma’am. Just because I’m curious.

1:05:39 Of these schools that have the outdoor basketball courts, how

1:05:42 many of them have indoor basketball courts?

1:05:44 The all the middle schools and the high schools.

1:05:47 Okay, so I guess I’m just trying to most of them are using the

1:05:51 indoor basketball courts, obviously.

1:05:52 So if this becomes an area that looks like every single one of

1:05:56 our schools needs,

1:05:58 is it the highest and best use or should we focus on the indoor

1:06:02 area being what we use?

1:06:03 So we started started thinking about this on the elementary

1:06:07 level. Like that’s what got me going in this arena.

1:06:09 And then we did all of them and realized, wow, this is pretty

1:06:14 bad district wide.

1:06:15 So your point is well taken. And this is why collaboration with

1:06:19 Kevin’s and his athletic directors is so

1:06:21 important because we’ll get a sense of yes, Johnson Middle

1:06:24 School really uses that and really needs it.

1:06:26 Or yes, we would use it if we could. Stone was a good example.

1:06:31 Their court was a mess.

1:06:34 And we worked on this maybe two, three years ago, and it changed

1:06:38 the culture of the school.

1:06:39 So it was something that the principal brought up, you know,

1:06:43 through the chain.

1:06:44 And we talked about it and it was a game changer for Stone

1:06:47 Middle School.

1:06:48 So I think there’s a little bit of both.

1:06:49 Like, yes, elementary is absolutely where we need to do this.

1:06:53 But there may be some select secondary schools as well.

1:06:57 Okay. Thank you.

1:06:58 And if anybody, I didn’t, I wanted to come off the tail end of

1:07:01 that.

1:07:02 There’s a documentary, I think it’s on either Apple or it’s on

1:07:04 HBO,

1:07:05 that talks about Prince George County up in Maryland.

1:07:07 And what they did was in the 50s, they said,

1:07:11 we want to do something for the kids, the inner city kids.

1:07:13 And they put outdoor basketball courts.

1:07:15 And then the amount of children that became NF or NBA, I mean,

1:07:21 it is incredible what that little town.

1:07:23 It got to a point that for 20 years, their all star team played

1:07:27 the national all star team and beat them.

1:07:29 So the rest of the country played that one area.

1:07:31 And because of it, and then when the introduction of crack and

1:07:34 some of the other issues that happened inside the streets,

1:07:36 they made the commitment to move indoors.

1:07:38 And they continue to do that.

1:07:40 It was a, it’s a community.

1:07:41 And when you’re speaking to whether we should or shouldn’t have

1:07:45 them, I think it’s without a doubt.

1:07:47 But I think the other component is, is to like stone, utilize it

1:07:52 in a way that other principals will understand how to use it for

1:07:55 a school culture.

1:07:56 And being able to allow children to come in maybe after hours

1:07:59 and play on there too.

1:08:00 Because a lot of kids don’t have an opportunity to do anything,

1:08:03 right?

1:08:03 If you go to the Temple Terrace Boys and Girls Club, they got a

1:08:06 basketball in there.

1:08:07 Those kids are always playing there.

1:08:09 That’s all they can do.

1:08:10 They go grab a basketball and they go out there and play.

1:08:12 They have a great, and it’s amazing, right?

1:08:14 It’s a great outlet for them and everything else.

1:08:16 So providing this is amazing.

1:08:18 So I just wanted to say thank you because a lot of those

1:08:19 students really need to have that opportunity and would afford

1:08:22 it.

1:08:23 Well, thanks.

1:08:23 It will be a while before we get through what we need to do here.

1:08:26 I know, but you know what?

1:08:28 We’ve got to start.

1:08:28 It’s the beginning.

1:08:29 It’s the beginning of it.

1:08:30 You know what I mean?

1:08:31 And it takes a while to even speak to the principals about what

1:08:34 it means and talk to them about the, it is.

1:08:37 Kevin and I, like there’s, when I get all excited about this, I’m

1:08:41 not thinking this is going to happen in six months.

1:08:43 But it’s a long plan that might take five years before we start

1:08:46 seeing the true results, but they’re there.

1:08:48 You know, anyways, I’m sorry, go ahead.

1:08:50 Thanks.

1:08:51 And then I just wanted to, I think you all have seen most of

1:08:54 this slide previously.

1:08:55 But in terms of collaborating with our principals and our

1:08:58 athletic directors, Kevin and secondary and elementary leading

1:09:02 and learning.

1:09:02 These are some of the things that are either on deck or on the

1:09:06 radar that have come up that we’re trying to work towards as

1:09:09 best we can within the resources that we have.

1:09:12 And then again, I talked extensively about collaboration and as

1:09:17 you’ll see the capital plan this year and capital plans going

1:09:21 forward, there’ll be a strong collaboration with Kevin to make

1:09:25 sure that we are addressing the needs of the district as best we

1:09:28 can with the resources we have to support the athletic programs.

1:09:33 So kind of knowing what’s coming up in terms of expanding middle

1:09:38 school athletics or investments in elementary athletics, it’s

1:09:42 really important that we’re at the table too.

1:09:43 So we can make sure that we’re there to support whatever

1:09:47 programs we add to the to the district.

1:09:49 And then I just wanted to show you the this is a multi year

1:09:54 snapshot of our capital plan as it relates to athletics.

1:09:59 And so you a couple of things that I want to highlight the the

1:10:03 green projects are multi year projects that are actually done.

1:10:07 So we we finished getting AC in all of the high school locker

1:10:11 rooms.

1:10:12 We finished pool lighting project.

1:10:14 We’re finishing up the track rubberization project this year.

1:10:17 So this is an example of projects that are multi year in nature

1:10:21 that we we’re kind of getting to the end of of what we need to

1:10:24 do.

1:10:25 The blue highlights are multi year projects that are ongoing.

1:10:29 So these are things that you’re going to see again.

1:10:31 And you can see the progression from fiscal year 21 to 24 that

1:10:35 we making a substantial difference in the investments that we’re

1:10:40 making in athletics.

1:10:42 And then I wanted to highlight I mentioned earlier the athletics

1:10:45 FF and E that’s that’s going to be a game changer to help our

1:10:48 maintenance department as well as help the schools and get that

1:10:52 those support equipment that they need in terms of like goal

1:10:56 posts and scoreboards taken care of.

1:11:00 And I just wanted to highlight the Titus build baseball field

1:11:02 relocation that’s a project we’ve been talking about in North

1:11:05 Brevard for a while we’re going to start with design this year,

1:11:08 but that’s a 200 or I’m sorry 2 million to 2.5 million type of

1:11:12 projects.

1:11:12 So that’s going to be a multi year effort as well.

1:11:16 So some of the ones on the bottom of that list show you some of

1:11:20 the other projects that we’re thinking about that you’ll see in

1:11:25 future capital plans as well.

1:11:28 And then I just wanted to highlight for you the sales surtax

1:11:32 investments, as I mentioned earlier, we started with about 7.6

1:11:35 million, but we found that as time has gone on, we have

1:11:39 additional needs or didn’t really anticipate the scope of what

1:11:42 we needed to do.

1:11:43 So you see some pretty big investments in track renewal, the

1:11:46 bleachers, we’ve done the schools that were in the program and

1:11:50 have expanded to other schools that need the bleacher renewal,

1:11:53 the stadium projects, primarily Space Coast, and then did some

1:11:58 work at McLarty and Satellite.

1:12:00 We’ve added some additional resources to playgrounds, we redid

1:12:03 our playground assessment, and so more schools got playgrounds,

1:12:07 and some additional schools got tennis courts.

1:12:10 And there’s probably more work to do in that arena, but I just

1:12:13 wanted to show you that we are both using capital and surtax as

1:12:16 we have resources available for our athletic programs.

1:12:20 And bottom line, my opinion is that we’ve made a lot of progress

1:12:24 in the last couple of years, the board has been supportive of

1:12:27 athletic investments, and we’re putting them, those investments

1:12:31 to good use at our schools.

1:12:34 We’re also doing some forward thinking so that we’re looking

1:12:37 ahead three to five years and making sure that we’re prepared

1:12:40 for what’s on deck.

1:12:41 Our demands are increasing, so we have deferred maintenance as

1:12:45 well as expanding programs, so as both of those things come into

1:12:50 play, you’ll be seeing me asking you for more resources as time

1:12:53 goes on, and some of those resources will be in the maintenance

1:12:56 arena, not just in the capital arena.

1:12:59 Our funding is relatively stable, it has been eroding as a

1:13:03 result of sharing with charter schools, but with the economic

1:13:06 growth, we also see an increase in our funding.

1:13:10 So I feel like where we are now is probably pretty stable,

1:13:14 assuming most everything else remains the same.

1:13:18 And then just to remind everybody, sustainability always is a

1:13:21 concern, so as we build more facilities, that means we have more

1:13:24 facilities to maintain in the long term.

1:13:26 I wanted to say thank you.

1:13:28 I noticed one of the things that we have is Titusville is in bad

1:13:32 need.

1:13:33 There’s a couple of schools, just so everybody understands, that

1:13:36 may not have the same facilities that others.

1:13:38 Titusville’s baseball field is off campus, basically, and there’s

1:13:41 some safety concerns there.

1:13:43 So I appreciate you putting that together and moving that back

1:13:46 on.

1:13:46 If you guys notice, the Rockledge High School is the only high

1:13:49 school that actually has to travel to their home games, right?

1:13:53 McLarty Park.

1:13:54 That’s a big cost on all the athletic programs, on the bands, on

1:13:58 everything else, and it’s very difficult for them to get over

1:14:01 there.

1:14:02 And it’s become a very big issue, and I appreciate you putting

1:14:06 that on the scan of things.

1:14:08 And then also, Vieira High School has their own softball and

1:14:10 baseball fields are not a part of it.

1:14:12 And just so everybody understands, they play in the beautiful

1:14:15 stadium that’s over there.

1:14:16 The problem with that is that they can’t host state playoffs

1:14:19 there because they’re on the turf.

1:14:21 So then when they go to win into the state playoffs, they have

1:14:24 to shift and play over at the county park.

1:14:26 And when they play at the county park, it’s not their actual

1:14:28 park, and they’re not allowed to raise money with banners.

1:14:31 They’re not allowed to do all that stuff.

1:14:33 So if you ask them, because everybody thinks, oh, you’re playing

1:14:36 in the USSSA Stadium, there’s all this other stuff.

1:14:39 They’ll be like, we would give it up in a heartbeat because they

1:14:41 don’t have their own stadium to raise their own money to do all

1:14:43 those things.

1:14:44 And U-Trip’s really nice to work with us, and it is a beautiful

1:14:47 stadium.

1:14:47 But at the same time, eventually, we’re going to move towards

1:14:50 that direction.

1:14:52 And I know that’s one, three, five years out, but the idea that

1:14:54 they’re there is really nice.

1:14:56 So thank you so much.

1:14:57 Mr. Kevin.

1:15:01 Okay, so a little bit about where we’re going.

1:15:03 So again, like I said, we’re adding two new intramural sports to

1:15:07 our middle school program, soccer and volleyball.

1:15:11 And one thing I didn’t mention is that I talked to the middle

1:15:15 school ADs about jamborees at the end of the season.

1:15:18 So it’s typically like in an intramural type setting, you would

1:15:23 play against teams that you have within your school.

1:15:27 You might form like four teams, and then you’d play against

1:15:29 those four teams and that kind of thing.

1:15:31 So it’s just in a jamboree type setting, maybe you’ve got two or

1:15:35 three schools that they can kind of come together.

1:15:38 And then they can have like a little tournament type situation,

1:15:41 you know, like at the end of the season,

1:15:43 something for the kids to look forward to in the intramurals and

1:15:46 encourage them to go out and try that sport.

1:15:51 And again, you’ll hear me say this, you know, time and time

1:15:54 again, continue to expand sport offerings wherever feasible and

1:15:59 partnering with the community on ways to provide more

1:16:02 opportunities for all kids.

1:16:04 And that’s huge.

1:16:05 That’s important.

1:16:06 I think that, you know, we have a strong community and we need

1:16:09 to continue to take advantage of that strong community and

1:16:12 partner with each other’s skill sets.

1:16:17 Another thing that we’re looking at moving forward is increasing

1:16:20 event security.

1:16:21 And so what I’m talking about there is in terms of our badging,

1:16:25 making sure that our community coaches and volunteers, media are

1:16:30 badged at the district level.

1:16:31 You know, that it’s showing that they’ve got proper background

1:16:35 checks and, you know, clearance and everything like that.

1:16:38 So I think that’s huge, especially not only in like a game

1:16:42 situation, but also in a practice type situation, you know,

1:16:46 because your practices are after school, they’re on your

1:16:48 campuses and our kids are there.

1:16:50 So it’s important to, to make sure that the people that are

1:16:54 around our kids are, are, are fully vetted.

1:16:58 And in that game type situation too, we’re looking at a field

1:17:03 pass system, we’ve been devising a field pass system as well,

1:17:07 that we’re going to roll out to the athletic directors.

1:17:09 And so, so when you come into a game, obviously you come in

1:17:13 through the front gate, but then you’ve got an inner gate around

1:17:18 the field where we want to be able to control access on, on the

1:17:23 field.

1:17:23 So there would be a pass gate, a credential gate where people,

1:17:28 authorize people who could get past and get at field level would

1:17:32 be able to gain a credential.

1:17:34 It would be like a, just a created by the school, but it would

1:17:37 be a bright colored credential that I could see from a hundred

1:17:40 yards away.

1:17:41 If there was somebody who was, who didn’t have one, it’d be, it’d

1:17:45 be pretty obvious, but you’d be able to see those people and

1:17:49 they would be set up in different zones.

1:17:50 I mean, obviously you would have your home side zone, you would

1:17:53 have your visitor side zone, and then you would have like sort

1:17:57 of a VIP zone where they might be on the curves of the track,

1:18:00 but in designated areas, not necessarily having direct access to

1:18:05 our sideline and our, and our kids.

1:18:06 So that’s very important to us, you know, especially in light of,

1:18:10 you know, things that have happened in the past and things like

1:18:14 that.

1:18:14 Moving forward, we, we feel it’s a, it’s a, it’s an important

1:18:17 thing to be able to control that environment in that,

1:18:20 uh, in the event and, and on our sidelines.

1:18:23 Um, so, so that’s kind of what we’re looking at, you know,

1:18:27 moving forward where we would like to be, um, obviously

1:18:30 transitioning our intramural sports to interscholastic sports at

1:18:34 the, at the middle school level.

1:18:35 We’ve been talking about that.

1:18:36 Um, so as, as, as we go into the phase of intramurals and then

1:18:40 if your jamborees work out really good, then maybe we can start

1:18:45 to transition that into those seasons where they’re actually,

1:18:48 you know, schools are competing against each other in volleyball.

1:18:52 They’re competing against each other in soccer.

1:18:54 So those are, those are all things that we want to try to keep

1:18:57 moving in a positive direction.

1:18:59 Obviously that’s going to take additional resources.

1:19:01 It’s going to take additional infrastructure, you know, um, it,

1:19:05 all those things that we’ve just mentioned, it’s, it’s going to

1:19:08 increase those, you know, the, uh, the, the, the strains put on

1:19:12 those, those areas.

1:19:13 Um, so, and again, collaborating with our community

1:19:17 organizations, um, we want to continue to do that and to make

1:19:21 Brevard the destination for sports in Florida and the east coast

1:19:25 of the United States.

1:19:26 So that’s kind of where, where we want to be in terms of that.

1:19:30 Um, and I always, as I’m going out into the communities and, um,

1:19:34 and talking to people, uh, Dr. Rendell and myself and James Raymer

1:19:39 went to the, uh, football game last, uh, Friday at Ogeo.

1:19:43 When Ogeo played Titusville and so we got to see a lot of people,

1:19:47 um, got to talk to a lot of people.

1:19:49 So just that’s, that’s the stuff I live for.

1:19:52 It’s a, it’s a really good, uh, experience, but a lot of what

1:19:56 people will say to me is like, is what can I do to help, you

1:19:59 know, they want to get involved.

1:20:02 They want to know what they can do to help.

1:20:03 So, uh, so I want to, I want to say a couple of things there.

1:20:07 So if, in terms of our volunteers and community members, um, you

1:20:12 guys have an incredible skillset, diverse skillset.

1:20:16 Um, and so I think just communicate with the schools and get

1:20:20 involved and use that skillset in a positive way, um, to

1:20:24 contribute to, um, essentially raising that child, um, like we

1:20:28 said.

1:20:29 Um, so there’s a lot of different ways you can do that depending

1:20:32 on your skillset, you can become a coach, you can become an

1:20:35 official.

1:20:36 We need officials, um, announcer, scorekeepers.

1:20:40 We’re constantly indeed of announcers and scorekeepers and

1:20:44 things like that to, to help on kind of the back end of the

1:20:47 house operations, um, and all that kind of stuff.

1:20:50 So, so those are some things, uh, that, you know, in terms of

1:20:53 your volunteers, uh, parents and coaches, uh, what I would say

1:20:57 is mentor a child other than your own.

1:21:00 Um, and coaches do this a lot, um, I’ve seen parents do this a

1:21:04 lot, you know, take, take kids underneath their wing, um, you

1:21:08 know, a kid that that’s in high need, um, be a positive role

1:21:12 model.

1:21:12 You know, um, how are you reacting to bad calls, bad officiating

1:21:17 calls, you know, be a positive role model.

1:21:19 So that you’re, the kids can see, uh, what it’s supposed to look

1:21:23 like, what good sportsmanship is supposed to look like, um,

1:21:26 partner with our schools in a, in a collaborative manner, um,

1:21:30 you know, through constructive feedback, uh, and, uh, allow kids

1:21:35 to learn from mistakes and teach them through it, you know, and,

1:21:39 and use that as, as teaching tools and, um, and, and continue

1:21:43 that educational process because that’s what we’re here for.

1:21:46 Um, you know, I have a lot of teachers asking what they can do

1:21:50 and really the biggest feedback that I get from kids is that

1:21:53 they just want to see their teachers at their games, you know?

1:21:56 Um, so it, you, all teachers get in to the games for free with

1:22:00 their BPS badge, all right?

1:22:03 So at any, it doesn’t matter if it’s your school or somebody

1:22:05 else’s school, the BPS badge, you’re going to get in for free.

1:22:08 So I would say show up to games, you know, show up to games now

1:22:11 and then and, and the kids love to see you at games and that

1:22:15 just makes such a huge, uh, impact on them and a memorable

1:22:18 experience.

1:22:19 Um, so administrators, um, so administrators, I would say, um,

1:22:23 use that game supervision as an opportunity to build

1:22:26 relationships and increase your visibility in the community.

1:22:29 That’s huge, you know, um, you know, and that, that helps the

1:22:32 officials out, but that also you, you’re able to, to, you know,

1:22:37 talk to people and get feedback in, in kind of a, uh, a setting.

1:22:42 It’s a little bit more relaxed as opposed to like maybe the

1:22:45 principal’s office or, you know, coming in, you know, in the, in

1:22:48 the, um, with a complaint or something like that, you, you’re

1:22:50 able to get ahead of it.

1:22:52 Um, business owners, civic organizations, uh, look for ways to

1:22:56 provide assistance and support, not just to your own local

1:22:58 schools, but also to schools in high need as well.

1:23:01 And we’ve got a number of those throughout the community because

1:23:04 I can guarantee you that your, the kids and the families that

1:23:07 you help support, um, they will remember that for many years to

1:23:11 come.

1:23:11 Um, and, and they’ll show it in terms of their, um, customer

1:23:14 loyalty to your, to your organizations.

1:23:16 Um, and to the youth sports organizations, uh, I would say just,

1:23:20 you know, work in collaboration with us, you know, we’re, we’re

1:23:24 open to working in collaboration, um, and we want to do what’s

1:23:27 best for kids, you know?

1:23:29 So, um, so I’ll close with this and, and say that, um, you know,

1:23:33 it’s, it’s been said that character is who you are when no one’s

1:23:37 watching, but it’s also who you are when everybody else is

1:23:41 watching.

1:23:41 Um, excuse me.

1:23:44 Some say that sports builds character and I, I tend to disagree

1:23:51 with that.

1:23:52 Um, this is, uh, this is no more true than saying that getting a

1:23:56 mem, a gym membership, uh, builds muscle, you know?

1:24:00 Um, so, uh, what you do with the opportunity is what counts.

1:24:04 So, instead of sport, instead, sports reveals character.

1:24:07 So, how we self-reflect on our character is revealed, um, is

1:24:12 revealed, uh, will determine how we act with that information.

1:24:17 Sports provides repeated opportunities to have your character

1:24:21 tested.

1:24:22 So, how will you respond?

1:24:23 If you win, will you taunt your opponent and act in an arrogant

1:24:27 fashion, or will you help them up and commend them on a game

1:24:30 well played?

1:24:30 If you lose, will you complain about the officials and accuse

1:24:34 the other team of cheating?

1:24:35 Or will you congratulate your opponent and self-reflect on how

1:24:39 you can improve moving forward?

1:24:41 We all have a choice, uh, in how we respond when we meet, when

1:24:45 we’re met with adversity, and even with success.

1:24:50 So, sports simply gives us an opportunity to respond to these

1:24:54 scenarios often.

1:24:55 And I know that people are going to hear this, and they’re going

1:24:57 to, they’re going to think that I’m talking about them.

1:25:00 Um, well, that’s what self-reflection feels like.

1:25:04 So, the question is, how are you going to act on that

1:25:08 information?

1:25:09 And that right there, I believe, is the true value of sports.

1:25:12 Thanks.

1:25:13 Thank you.

1:25:15 Hey, Kevin, who won that game on Friday night?

1:25:19 Is that a gal, or is that funny?

1:25:20 That was a galley.

1:25:21 Hey, hey, hey, calm down, calm down.

1:25:25 You know, yeah.

1:25:26 They’re not used to the challenges.

1:25:28 The new school board members have not been a part of the Lockledge

1:25:32 Cocoa Challenge.

1:25:33 We usually all challenge each other and have some fun.

1:25:35 So, I’m just kind of stirring the pot a little bit.

1:25:37 Yeah, that’s all right.

1:25:40 Hey, Kevin, thank you so much.

1:25:41 Um, I think some of the people that are here are going to ask

1:25:43 the question, like, how do

1:25:45 we help get involved?

1:25:46 And I think what you had said before is, you’re going to contact,

1:25:49 like, all the softball rec

1:25:50 leagues and have a meeting and say, okay, we want to have some

1:25:53 involvement inside of our

1:25:54 schools.

1:25:55 How can we make this work?

1:25:56 And same thing, like, the rugby gentlemen that are here have got

1:25:59 the Florida Rugby Union

1:26:00 and the National Rugby Union ready to go with support.

1:26:02 And then you’re just going to meet with them and say, okay, how

1:26:05 do we make this go?

1:26:05 Put together a facilities plan.

1:26:07 Put together a, you know what I mean, one, two, three, four year

1:26:10 plan.

1:26:11 Whatever that is.

1:26:11 Is that kind of the direction that you’re giving?

1:26:13 Yeah.

1:26:14 Okay.

1:26:14 That’s the idea.

1:26:15 All right.

1:26:16 You make it sound so easy, Mr. Susan.

1:26:18 Yeah, I mean, because I hate to do what I do with my kids when

1:26:22 they ask me something that’s

1:26:24 kind of, you know, going to cost a lot of money and need some

1:26:26 more of that.

1:26:26 We’ll see.

1:26:27 So, we’ll see.

1:26:28 We’ve got to, we’ll see.

1:26:29 We’ll see the budget.

1:26:30 We’ll see how success, you know, because, I mean, you know,

1:26:32 obviously it’s, these are important

1:26:34 things and they, they have origin for our students, but I, um, I

1:26:39 appreciate the work

1:26:40 that you’ve done and the, the thoughtful way that both of you

1:26:44 and, or the leadership of

1:26:46 Dr. Rundell, of course, are, are leading us and, um, charge on

1:26:50 in that thoughtful, uh,

1:26:52 collaborative way.

1:26:53 I think that is, uh, is very positive.

1:26:55 All right, man.

1:26:58 Thank you.

1:26:58 Thank you guys so much.

1:27:00 Thanks.

1:27:00 Appreciate you.

1:27:00 Thank you.

1:27:01 You guys want to take a break for a second?

1:27:04 No.

1:27:04 Nah.

1:27:05 Okay.

1:27:05 Hey guys, that’s it.

1:27:07 That’s going to be the end of the episode.

1:27:08 No, that’s okay.

1:27:11 We were going to sit down, but if you can, guys can give your

1:27:13 contact information to Mr.

1:27:14 Kevin, and then we’ll start the process.

1:27:16 Um, we would have had you guys come up and speak a little bit,

1:27:19 but the time it’s, it’s

1:27:20 an hour and 15 minutes into the meeting and we have a bunch of

1:27:22 other presentations.

1:27:23 So if you guys can meet with him, give your contact information,

1:27:26 and then what we’ll do

1:27:27 is start meeting on the how and the why and everything else.

1:27:29 Okay, thank you guys.

1:27:30 Thanks guys.

1:27:31 Um, Ms. Bias, you have a, you’re next up.

1:27:35 Let me read this out.

1:27:37 Next topic is the presentation for comprehensive coordinated

1:27:41 early intervening services by Ms.

1:27:44 Bias.

1:27:45 You got this?

1:27:49 Yeah.

1:27:51 Sorry, I didn’t realize that you wanted to, I apologize, I didn’t

1:27:55 know that you wanted to

1:27:56 go talk to them, so.

1:27:57 I was thinking keep rolling because we have a lot still on here.

1:28:08 All right, I think I’m waiting.

1:28:29 I see testing.

1:28:38 Do you want to go?

1:28:40 Yeah, go ahead.

1:28:41 We don’t have to bang the gavel.

1:28:44 We didn’t release us.

1:28:45 We didn’t release us, so you’re good.

1:28:46 All right.

1:28:48 Um, so thank you very much.

1:28:50 Uh, today we’re going to talk about comprehensive coordinated

1:28:52 early intervening services, so I

1:28:54 appreciate the time here today to, uh, to speak to this.

1:28:57 Uh, really focuses on disproportionality, um, and simply, you

1:29:01 know, defined it’s over or

1:29:03 under representation of a particular population or group.

1:29:07 And so for the purpose of today, we’ll be speaking to our

1:29:09 students with disabilities and

1:29:11 an over or under representation of that group.

1:29:13 CCEIS is something that’s monitored by the state, uh, for us in

1:29:19 a couple of different categories.

1:29:21 There are three and they’re looking for.

1:29:23 Mr. Seusson, could y’all move it out to the hallway, Mr. Seusson?

1:29:27 Mr. Seusson.

1:29:28 Could you move it out to the hallway, please?

1:29:33 Thank you.

1:29:36 All right.

1:29:37 So for those three categories monitored, um, every district, uh,

1:29:42 from them, and they’re

1:29:43 looking for any inequitable practices for students with

1:29:47 disabilities by race, um, and ethnicity.

1:29:49 So those three categories are in identification.

1:29:52 And so we’re looking for ages three to 21, any over or under

1:29:57 representation of students with

1:29:59 disabilities by race and any of those six categories right there.

1:30:04 The next area they monitor is in placement, um, age six through

1:30:09 21.

1:30:10 And we’re looking at, again, an over or under representation in

1:30:14 any of our self-contained classrooms,

1:30:16 or those classrooms, uh, where students are inside a regular

1:30:19 class less than 40% of the day, or in separate schools.

1:30:25 And then the third category in which they monitor to look for

1:30:28 any, um, disproportionality, any

1:30:30 significant disproportionality is discipline.

1:30:32 And so in this area, they look at four different categories,

1:30:35 ages three through 21, and in regards

1:30:38 to out of school suspension.

1:30:40 they’ll look at you know 10 days or less out of school

1:30:43 suspension expulsions more

1:30:45 than 10 days in school suspension 10 days or less and school

1:30:49 suspension more

1:30:50 than 10 days and total disciplinary removal so as far as CCEIS

1:30:56 the area of

1:30:57 focus for us in Brevard is going to be in the area of discipline

1:31:03 there is some

1:31:05 difference between the two besides the C this one right here CEIS

1:31:11 is

1:31:11 coordinated and with that we have voluntary means of using IDA

1:31:17 funds to be

1:31:18 preventative to have early intervening supports in place so that

1:31:22 we do not get

1:31:23 to the place of CCEIS where we have significant disproportionality

1:31:28 so with

1:31:29 that it’s not significantly disproportionate and it is we can

1:31:33 use the

1:31:33 funds in IDA for children K to 12 without disabilities when we

1:31:38 get to the

1:31:39 place of CCEIS we are now required to use 15% of the IDA funds

1:31:45 to address the

1:31:47 disproportionality that has been identified by the state so for

1:31:51 this it can

1:31:53 be for students with or without disabilities and we again have

1:31:57 been

1:31:57 identified with significant disproportionality I thought it

1:32:01 would be

1:32:01 important that we have been spending funds IDA funds and the C E

1:32:06 I C E I S and a

1:32:08 voluntary basis and some of those items we’ve put some

1:32:11 instructional

1:32:12 assistance in place in kindergartens to support inclusion we

1:32:15 have some social

1:32:16 workers who’ve been trained on check and connect mentoring we

1:32:20 split fund three MTSS

1:32:22 trainers for problem solving we also have a split funded mental

1:32:26 health resource

1:32:27 teacher secondary content specialist who support secondary with

1:32:31 learning strategies

1:32:32 and CPI crisis prevention intervention is another thing that we

1:32:37 fund through IDA we

1:32:38 do all those not as a mandatory but again all prevention and

1:32:42 things that we can do

1:32:43 prior to being identified as disproportionate so as far as the

1:32:49 state

1:32:50 considers the highest level of disproportionality and

1:32:53 significant zone it’s

1:32:55 in anything over a three so for that particular area if that is

1:33:00 identified we

1:33:01 have that group being three times more the rate of any other subgroup

1:33:06 that we

1:33:06 have so if we look at this is our data for the last three years

1:33:11 for out of school

1:33:12 suspension and this is ten days or fewer and again this is all

1:33:16 students with

1:33:16 disabilities we have four different race categories there and

1:33:20 you can see from

1:33:20 2021 all the way to our last year in 22 23 we don’t have

1:33:27 anything in the red

1:33:27 zone for out of school suspension ten days or fewer when we look

1:33:35 at in school

1:33:35 suspension again ten days or fewer but the same races and then

1:33:40 going back three

1:33:41 years we also don’t have anything in that red critical zone from

1:33:45 the state as

1:33:46 significant where’s our opportunity to impact outcomes so for

1:33:55 this year school

1:33:57 year 23 24 we have been identified as CCEIS in the category of

1:34:02 out of school

1:34:03 suspension more than ten days for students with disabilities and

1:34:07 our

1:34:07 African-american category I think it’s important to note here

1:34:10 you’ll notice all

1:34:11 of those and the one category is highlighted in red and they use

1:34:18 two year

1:34:19 old data or lag data and I think that’s really important because

1:34:23 in 2021 22 that’s

1:34:25 what they use to identify us now in 23 24 with significant

1:34:30 disproportionality so I

1:34:32 highlight that because that was the data were at 3.27 in that

1:34:36 year so our students

1:34:37 with disabilities African-american were three more than three

1:34:41 times more likely to

1:34:42 get out of school suspension ten days or more and we had that in

1:34:47 the three range

1:34:48 for two years what’s important to note is I added 22 23 because

1:34:54 our target was to

1:34:55 reduce that by 0.3 to get to 2.97 but looking at our data from

1:35:00 last year we

1:35:01 actually have already dropped and then a 2.58 but the plan that

1:35:06 we submit to the

1:35:06 state is based on the 3.27

1:35:09 so we have six schools here that are identified because we

1:35:16 submit a CCEIS plan to the state and

1:35:19 identify exactly what we’re going to do to mitigate then the 3.27

1:35:24 but again it’s on two-year-old data so

1:35:27 when we look at the schools from last year we came up with we

1:35:31 have about 84 students I think that were

1:35:34 identified in that category over ten days 70 percent of them

1:35:39 came from these six

1:35:40 schools so when we submit the plan to the state we want to then

1:35:43 strategically

1:35:44 plan to support our six schools with the highest number of

1:35:47 students that’s not to

1:35:48 say that other schools didn’t have a student student with

1:35:52 disability who an

1:35:53 African-American over ten days but these were our schools that

1:35:56 had the highest

1:35:56 number for that for last school year the asterisk are actually

1:36:06 for two years ago we

1:36:08 had CCEIS for in-school suspension over ten days same subgroup

1:36:12 students with

1:36:13 disabilities African-American so thank you so now two years

1:36:17 later this is out of

1:36:18 school but the same subgroup so looking forward as far as the

1:36:25 plan three years ago or two years

1:36:27 ago when we did in-school suspension we did a three-prong

1:36:30 approach and it addressed the

1:36:33 tier three which is the immediate we have a number of students

1:36:36 who are in you know over

1:36:37 ten days we got to do something immediately to support and

1:36:40 assist and what we did two years ago

1:36:43 we’re gonna continue to replicate this as we had social workers

1:36:46 who were trained in

1:36:47 check and connect it’s a mentoring program research-based there

1:36:52 were four to

1:36:53 start and now we I think we have about 28 social workers who are

1:36:56 trained in this

1:36:56 but we’re gonna go back to we have a list of students that we

1:37:00 want to support in

1:37:01 that tier three and immediately sort of make that connection it’s

1:37:04 a two-year

1:37:05 process so any student that’s on there it’s not like you know we’ll

1:37:08 meet with

1:37:08 you and then nothing happens they meet with them on a weekly

1:37:12 basis and what’s

1:37:13 really great about check and connect as well as then they’re

1:37:15 developing the

1:37:16 relationships with the families and it’s it’s a pretty intense

1:37:19 process but they

1:37:20 meet like I said on a weekly basis and really create that family

1:37:24 network and so

1:37:25 we had some great successes a few years ago with in-school

1:37:29 suspension and

1:37:29 students maybe who weren’t even going to graduate who were able

1:37:32 to get

1:37:32 graduates they’re missing maybe one course or they’re just

1:37:35 something little

1:37:36 interesting oh that’s a tough one intricacies right where you’re

1:37:41 trying to

1:37:42 then figure out what’s missing in this equation so our social

1:37:45 workers really did

1:37:46 a fantastic job and we’ve expanded that to like I said more than

1:37:50 the four to 28 but

1:37:52 then now they’re going through the list of students finding out

1:37:54 where the

1:37:55 students are because some actually move from that school to

1:37:58 another school but we

1:37:59 want to start in September making those connections with our

1:38:03 students as far

1:38:06 as the tier two then so with our six schools and support we want

1:38:09 to go back

1:38:10 to helping them identify resources we have resource mapping we

1:38:16 have early

1:38:16 warning systems all of the discipline reports that are in focus

1:38:19 helping to

1:38:20 utilize those reports as a means to not have the students get

1:38:23 into that tier three

1:38:25 again but then you know how many students are in this out of

1:38:28 school

1:38:28 suspension what can we do to problem solve at the at the table

1:38:31 with a

1:38:32 problem-solving team at the school before we get back into the CCEIS

1:38:36 so we have

1:38:37 three split funded ones and they’re teaming up now to go out to

1:38:42 the six schools to

1:38:43 support them in the problem-solving process we also have the

1:38:46 mental health

1:38:48 content specialist who split funded who if there is a need for

1:38:51 mental health to

1:38:52 support in that problem solving they would also be a part of

1:38:55 that and then we

1:38:56 have a teacher trainer who does quality IPS who’s going to help

1:39:01 with the review of

1:39:02 IPS and accommodations make sure we’re aligning all of those

1:39:05 resources again

1:39:06 available we have several resources that maybe you know assistive

1:39:10 technology might

1:39:11 not not been anything on an IEP but that’s going to be the game

1:39:14 changer so it’s

1:39:15 all going through these you know problem-solving items to really

1:39:19 kind of

1:39:20 pinpoint where we might be missing the mark also behavior

1:39:24 intervention plans

1:39:25 reviewing those and one of the other items that is in the plan

1:39:29 is to go back

1:39:30 and look at Lexia as far as supporting students below grade

1:39:33 level so while the

1:39:34 six schools were all secondary what we found in the task

1:39:38 analysis and

1:39:39 understanding as many of our students actually left maybe not

1:39:42 reading on grade

1:39:43 level and so when you get into middle school in high school and

1:39:46 you start to

1:39:47 see the divide what you’re capable of doing there there’s

1:39:50 probably then

1:39:51 behaviors are going to follow right you know follow suit it’s

1:39:54 going back and

1:39:54 addressing that with some licenses early on to support the below

1:39:58 grade level

1:39:59 readers will also mitigate that so this one I wanted to bring up

1:40:05 because it is our

1:40:06 last year data and while I you know put a box around the 21 22

1:40:12 we can’t lose sight of

1:40:14 this in the problem-solving process because right now as of last

1:40:17 year for in

1:40:18 school suspension more than 10 days same subgroup so it could be

1:40:22 next year well I

1:40:23 just mentioned we are out of school suspension I think they’re

1:40:26 gonna come

1:40:27 back and for in school suspension as well so that I say that

1:40:30 because when the

1:40:30 problem-solving team is working and building capacity within the

1:40:34 schools we

1:40:35 don’t just focus on one as far as out of school suspension we

1:40:38 want to focus on

1:40:38 the other and school suspension so the tier one comes back to

1:40:45 the PBIS

1:40:45 specialists and supporting schools if that tier one is not you

1:40:49 know in the

1:40:50 infrastructure there we still have the kindergarten IA

1:40:54 supporting and inclusion

1:40:55 in elementary utilizing all the reports that we have within

1:40:59 focus there is also

1:41:01 another one in focus for students with disabilities that’s

1:41:04 created that gives

1:41:05 information about our placement as well as the federal index and

1:41:10 then just good

1:41:11 solid professional development for administrators and also for

1:41:15 staff

1:41:15 throughout the school year on different areas that we think can

1:41:19 have a huge impact

1:41:20 on decreasing the number of students that we have in their subgroup

1:41:24 I just thought

1:41:27 that was a great group quote every problem has a solution it may

1:41:30 sometimes just need

1:41:31 another perspective so I know that was a quick overview I try to

1:41:38 be very concise any

1:41:40 questions anybody have any questions

1:41:45 I do but I don’t know if this gamble does it’s really more of a

1:41:49 statement I I really

1:41:50 appreciate the work that you’re asking our social workers to do

1:41:55 and the work that

1:41:56 they’re doing for making those connections with the families and

1:41:59 really looking into

1:42:01 other things like the academics because so many of that goes

1:42:03 along with the

1:42:04 behaviors that we see and you talked about Lexia and being

1:42:07 behind grade level and

1:42:09 reading levels it just makes everything more challenging and so

1:42:12 looking at as a whole

1:42:13 you know this is this is one of those areas that when it comes

1:42:17 up there’s people in

1:42:18 the public who misunderstand this but first of all that we are

1:42:21 required by the

1:42:21 state mistake comes down and says thou shalt we have identified

1:42:25 this and thou

1:42:25 shalt work on this problem because this is not okay and so to

1:42:30 end basically what

1:42:31 they’re saying is thou shalt put more resources more time and

1:42:34 energy into fixing

1:42:35 this problem but it’s not about doing discipline differently

1:42:42 based on the color of

1:42:43 your skin just so that you you’re gonna get a lighter sense you

1:42:47 know we’re trying to

1:42:48 find solutions so the students don’t have the behaviors to begin

1:42:52 with and really

1:42:54 trying to support them because you know especially with our

1:42:56 students with

1:42:56 disabilities it’s such a such a challenging area for people to

1:43:01 understand and

1:43:01 to meet those IEP goals and all the things that are written into

1:43:06 those plans and so I

1:43:08 appreciate the kind of arms around all the things approach that

1:43:12 you guys are are

1:43:14 asking our schools to take and the training I love the mentor

1:43:18 process and I’m glad I’m

1:43:20 happy to hear that that has expanded over the last year so thank

1:43:23 you very much

1:43:24 Mr. Trent okay I do so I’m gonna I wanted to discuss this

1:43:31 because this is one of those

1:43:33 things where you look at these slides and it looks like we’re

1:43:36 disciplining in a

1:43:37 manner that is racist is what it looks like I mean that’s what

1:43:41 it looks like on

1:43:41 paper when we look at this and I had some questions so IDEA is

1:43:45 federal correct that

1:43:46 is not state so the federal government is the one that’s making

1:43:49 us collect this data do

1:43:50 we look at other factors such as are these children in a single-family

1:43:56 household are

1:43:57 they living in a foster care situation are they in a group home

1:43:59 situation do we

1:44:01 measure all that along with the other data so when we did the

1:44:06 task analyses it

1:44:07 really we did not get into the home life if you will right

1:44:11 sometimes you’re

1:44:12 looking at you know what’s alterable what’s unalterable and so

1:44:15 what again

1:44:16 support systems within the school so that’s where the check and

1:44:19 connect came

1:44:20 in so invaluable because they were making those connections

1:44:24 outside and

1:44:25 helping families but it wasn’t something as part of like the

1:44:28 initial drill down on

1:44:29 the root cause analysis right to understand then what might be

1:44:32 causing this

1:44:33 what we did come up with is the huge discrepancy and the

1:44:36 students reading levels

1:44:39 and so again that’s why some of the CEIS is happening because

1:44:43 what can we do you

1:44:44 know it’s access to kindergarten a 90-minute reading block what

1:44:47 can we do

1:44:47 to support you there so that you know as you move through you

1:44:51 have every

1:44:52 opportunity aligning all the resources and making sure our

1:44:55 quality IEPs have the

1:44:57 right accommodations assistive technology so all of that’s

1:45:00 happening but

1:45:00 really what it came down to for the root cause is that discrepancy

1:45:04 and then

1:45:05 students in you know middle school and high school may be acting

1:45:08 in a certain way

1:45:09 for a number of reasons to get out of more challenging academics

1:45:15 okay and just to

1:45:16 be clear to having an IEP qualifies having a 504 does that

1:45:20 qualify as well as a

1:45:21 student that you’d measure in this category IEPs just IEPs okay

1:45:24 all right and so

1:45:26 you know I understand the need of the 15% meaning hey we’re

1:45:28 gonna allocate 15%

1:45:29 additional funds towards this area because it needs additional

1:45:33 attention so I

1:45:33 think that’s a good thing what I don’t like about this is

1:45:37 because we’re just

1:45:38 measuring we’re measuring race that’s it and nothing else I’m

1:45:41 like there’s a lot

1:45:41 of factors that go into like you said I mean even looking at the

1:45:44 are they able to

1:45:45 read on grade level that’s not something that they’re asking for

1:45:48 here so to me I’m

1:45:49 like this I don’t like this because I’m like there’s many other

1:45:52 factors that go

1:45:53 into that and how we support that student sometimes those

1:45:56 factors are critical I

1:45:57 mean we have to know those things or else we can’t support that

1:45:59 student

1:45:59 adequately so I you know we look at this like part of this is

1:46:03 federal our hands

1:46:04 are tied I get it like we can’t but I’m like I would like us to

1:46:07 look at the other

1:46:08 factors because it’s not just their skin color that is not what

1:46:11 is making someone

1:46:12 have a higher ratio there it’s other factors and if we can look

1:46:15 at what those

1:46:16 are I know we can’t change them always but maybe we can find

1:46:19 ways to come

1:46:20 alongside to support them in a way that that helps so that we

1:46:23 can get to the

1:46:24 bottom of this and make sure ultimately you know you want to see

1:46:26 this at below one

1:46:28 zero I mean I want to see it at zero but that won’t happen that’s

1:46:30 a perfect world

1:46:31 so yeah but thank you for the for the information and thank you

1:46:35 for for the

1:46:36 slides that give us the data that is not very becoming of us so

1:46:39 but yeah thank

1:46:40 you you’re welcome Miss Campbell you already went right and you

1:46:44 didn’t have

1:46:44 anything mr. Trent you’re good yeah and I we do have that data

1:46:51 correct so we do

1:46:52 have some of the data points that miss Wright had spoken to as

1:46:56 far as the home

1:46:58 life and things like that I think that’s coming through and what

1:47:01 the weekly

1:47:02 monitoring is with our school social workers so they definitely

1:47:05 are making

1:47:05 connections with our students to be able to then figure out how

1:47:10 to assist along the

1:47:11 way is it you know there’s probably some data points that you

1:47:16 know with focus or

1:47:17 something along those lines but if we looked into that that wasn’t

1:47:23 like the

1:47:23 primary like data point we were using in the creation we knew

1:47:27 there was a concern

1:47:28 and so it’s going back and trying to figure out again within the

1:47:32 school system

1:47:32 what we can do to help alleviate and support our students that

1:47:37 seemed to be

1:47:37 having some difficult struggles here and I think to miss Wright’s

1:47:41 comments I think

1:47:42 some of those items are evaluated and then taken into

1:47:46 consideration it’s just

1:47:48 like when we had students when we taught when you I’m sure when

1:47:51 you spoke to

1:47:52 even taught students when you knew all of the aspects of their

1:47:55 life you were able to

1:47:57 create that relationship with them and then they would talk to

1:48:00 you and then you

1:48:01 could help them based on some of those other factors one of the

1:48:04 problems that I

1:48:05 there’s another level is not only identifying those because then

1:48:10 we could help

1:48:11 them support in those areas beyond it so you’re like here’s an

1:48:14 identifying factor

1:48:15 that we’re we have students with that are of a certain race that

1:48:19 are acting out

1:48:19 in a certain way okay that’s one and then we put this in place

1:48:23 but the reason

1:48:25 behind that could be they’re not getting fed right so you have a

1:48:29 way of finding

1:48:30 that they can you can you know what I mean you can do the

1:48:32 children’s hunger

1:48:33 project then you have families that may not may come from a

1:48:36 broken home where

1:48:37 grandmother’s taking care of them well let’s get them a mentor

1:48:39 through the you

1:48:40 know that I mean the rotary and all of those things like I think

1:48:44 what you’re

1:48:44 saying has a lot of validity and a lot of backup supports and I

1:48:48 think that it’s

1:48:49 being done in a way like with our our guidance counselors and

1:48:52 our mental health

1:48:53 counselors and stuff like that but it would be nice to know some

1:48:56 of those data

1:48:57 points to also assist with it because I think when they come in

1:49:00 and they say well

1:49:02 these children are of this you know to mean you’re having issues

1:49:05 here with this

1:49:05 this and this well it doesn’t really race is not the only factor

1:49:09 that makes those

1:49:10 happen and we know that right so um I that so what I was asking

1:49:15 is is the goal of the

1:49:16 data the reason that they’re coming out with the data saying

1:49:20 that African

1:49:20 Americans are at a higher rate and white people are not in

1:49:23 Hispanic are or whatever

1:49:25 those those components are the reason that they’re showing that

1:49:28 data is to say

1:49:31 that what what’s the fear behind that data like what is it that

1:49:33 they’re asking

1:49:35 us does that make sense to you I don’t think I understood the

1:49:38 question from the

1:49:40 state perspective yeah from the state’s perspective when they

1:49:42 ask us about risk

1:49:43 ratio when they ask us about all of that their fear is that

1:49:47 those students are

1:49:48 acting out because of a specific reason behind it right and they’re

1:49:51 asking us to

1:49:52 fix that reason does that make sense go ahead I’m getting I’m

1:49:57 getting there I just don’t

1:49:58 know how the hell to say it they’re worried about like we said

1:50:02 that they’re being disciplined

1:50:04 three times more than another race also as a part of our problem

1:50:09 solving is our MTSS process

1:50:11 where we do look at those students and a group with our school

1:50:15 counselors our

1:50:17 administration looking at attendance with academics behavior so

1:50:23 it’s not just one

1:50:23 factor so those kids who are on that list yes they’ve been

1:50:27 identified but then

1:50:27 we’re going to problem solve and they’re going to be noted at

1:50:31 the school we need to

1:50:32 do some interventions provide some more supports in place which

1:50:35 we’ve identified

1:50:35 but we’ll be monitoring those students along the way and

1:50:39 providing those supports like

1:50:40 you said homelessness if it’s identified that they’re homeless

1:50:44 we’ll make sure that

1:50:44 our SIT personnel or at that school and providing that support

1:50:49 if there’s attendance is an issue

1:50:51 what interventions are we going to put in place for you know for

1:50:55 attendance so it’s looking

1:50:56 at the whole child not just that one piece however we have been

1:51:03 identified but then we problem solve

1:51:04 what interventions can we put in place to make sure that those

1:51:09 students are successful that are on the

1:51:10 list and that’s why we’re given 15% more of those resources to

1:51:16 that to try to fix the problem

1:51:19 so there’s so there we go it’s easy to look at this and go okay

1:51:24 somebody could take this data

1:51:25 and say okay Brevard I think you were saying the perspective is

1:51:29 that Brevard is a racist school district

1:51:30 and whatever I I think that’s not the point of this data or the

1:51:35 presentation or the point is

1:51:36 these students are going to need some more supports and we don’t

1:51:40 we didn’t have them in place before

1:51:41 enough to try to get that but the goal is not zero the goal is

1:51:45 one yes right the goal is one

1:51:46 correct one is the the because it’s one to one that’s where

1:51:50 everybody is just as likely to

1:51:51 to have just be disciplined as any of everybody else yes but we’re

1:51:55 obviously these are going to

1:51:56 so that is where you’re getting at that is what the goal of this

1:51:59 is to get more supports for the

1:52:00 students who need more supports to try to help them be

1:52:03 successful to have good attendance to get those

1:52:06 reading levels up to so that all of that hopefully will result

1:52:10 in fewer discipline act actions so behaviors

1:52:15 and then it’s not we don’t want to do we don’t want our

1:52:17 principals our schools to do things that are going to

1:52:20 manipulate the numbers so that we can get our numbers nice and

1:52:22 under three that is absolutely what we

1:52:24 don’t want to do but we also don’t want to go out and go

1:52:27 everybody examine yourselves because you’re

1:52:29 you’re you’re you know you’re doing this in a biased way I’m not

1:52:33 saying there would never be that way there

1:52:34 there there can be that way but but we we have identified

1:52:38 students that need more support and we’re going to try to wrap

1:52:41 around them and all the that’s with the social workers so it’s

1:52:44 not just

1:52:44 and the deans and the assistant principals it’s the social

1:52:49 workers it’s the teachers everybody coming

1:52:50 around and trying to support them as much as we can so they can

1:52:52 be successful and just real fast just to hit on what you you

1:52:57 kind of mentioned it and I’ve heard this from multiple teachers

1:52:59 is that a lot of times when discipline is is looking looking at

1:53:01 writing a referral that this comes into play and they’re like oh

1:53:01 no wait can’t do that because we’re already over our numbers and

1:53:01 I’m like whoa whoa what does what does that mean when you say

1:53:01 you’re over your numbers and so again I think you have to look

1:53:01 at the whole

1:53:01 picture because we can’t just solve it based on one one factor I

1:53:19 wish that the federal government would look at the whole picture

1:53:19 and not just this one factor because it would be very nice to

1:53:19 say hey maybe it’s disproportionate here because of xyz and we’re

1:53:19 coming around and helping them and we could actually solve this

1:53:19 problem but when you have a

1:53:19 survey that’s literally just measuring one factor and saying hey

1:53:22 this one factor is disproportionate to the other factors well

1:53:25 there’s also other things that go into that so

1:53:26 that’s why I mean it’s not this is not your fault at all this is

1:53:44 just the survey the nature of this survey so and again the

1:53:46 ultimate goal is to make sure that we actually are helping these

1:53:49 students so a lot of times there’s so many factors that go here

1:53:52 so thank you for the clarification sorry I didn’t want to get on

1:53:55 my soapbox about this

1:53:56 so I just want to make sure that it’s not painted in a way in

1:53:58 the community that says hey like this is what’s going on there

1:54:01 no no no no this is this is the data I mean this is what it is

1:54:04 but there’s also other factors that go into this so and we’re

1:54:06 gonna help these students so and the other the other so I was

1:54:10 getting into first off the factors right but the second

1:54:13 component is is that do we do this per school and then do we do

1:54:18 this per percentage of people that are in there so the three is

1:54:22 a percentage

1:54:23 which or is that a number of referrals per hundred like what is

1:54:27 that three two it’s the likelihood of that group being suspended

1:54:31 more than other groups okay so it’s number come from total

1:54:38 referrals correct

1:54:38 no 10 days suspensions the things you did okay and and and when

1:54:44 we do the three times as much are we comparing district wide are

1:54:49 we comparing by school

1:54:50 right does that the district wide which is we but we can boil it

1:54:54 down to each school we do that

1:54:57 you do oh yeah we look at you oh yeah

1:54:58 right yeah the idea would be have one one one all ones so

1:55:07 theoretically no one group is more likely to be suspended any

1:55:12 more than any other group

1:55:14 i think what i’m going to do is dive into the the components and

1:55:19 the whys and all that other stuff to

1:55:21 learn right like i not to make any feedback or anything but i i

1:55:24 want to wrap my head around this because

1:55:26 you’re right like there’s a lot of because as we all were

1:55:29 teachers right and and i think that i’m sorry but

1:55:32 in order to understand a student you have to understand

1:55:35 everything about them right and it would help us when we’re

1:55:38 giving direction on strategic plans

1:55:39 and stuff like that if we knew and working in the community what

1:55:42 some of those components are missing right so if we know that

1:55:46 there’s a huge

1:55:47 need for you know what i mean mentors and we go out and we get

1:55:50 as many people that can help students you know what i mean like

1:55:53 we can do that

1:55:53 like we can do that and i think that’s what we’re missing when

1:55:56 we see that one file is is that like okay here’s a number well

1:56:00 it just tells us that there’s this but let’s let’s let’s

1:56:02 let’s us work to help and support that’s all so the other thing

1:56:06 the other yeah well sorry go ahead now that now now that we’re

1:56:09 talking about this

1:56:10 yes now i’m talking about well you mentioned teacher and in it

1:56:13 and it would be now as a teacher

1:56:15 this well not that’s great that slide the slide with the races

1:56:20 on it as a teacher means absolutely

1:56:22 nothing as a coach it means absolutely nothing i would love to

1:56:25 see some of these numbers on

1:56:26 the likelihoods uh when they’re at grade level reading one one

1:56:32 grade below reading level two grade

1:56:35 below and and and see where that is because i truly believe that’s

1:56:38 that’s going to paint the picture

1:56:40 and and as an educator that’s where we can support the child you

1:56:45 know the student in the classroom

1:56:48 i would love to see these subcategories because you know like it

1:56:52 or not this is going to be used

1:56:54 against any organization um for an agenda that doesn’t benefit

1:56:58 the student um so i i would have a hard

1:57:02 time except i was trying not to say anything but i would try to

1:57:07 to not have this slide where it just

1:57:09 breaks it down like the federal government wants us to do

1:57:12 without showing yes this is this is the big

1:57:14 picture because what we have but this is this is what’s more

1:57:17 important and and this is where we feel

1:57:19 we can it’s low-hanging fruit we got to get the kids to read at

1:57:22 an early level um i don’t care what

1:57:24 they look like when they come in they need to read on read read

1:57:27 i really truly believe and i could be

1:57:29 wrong if we see this statistic or the the data if it backs up

1:57:32 but i’m going to say that’s where we’re

1:57:35 going to find the root causes and i think for brevard we need to

1:57:39 make that known to say we we we know

1:57:42 why this is happening and you know we’re doing about everything

1:57:45 we possibly can and we’ll have it there

1:57:47 but it’s bigger than the story that some are going to run with

1:57:52 and you know we take that personally so

1:57:55 and and it really it goes against what why we’re all here and

1:57:58 that you guys put in the hours and the

1:58:01 efforts and and and it’s wrong but it’s going to happen so i i

1:58:04 would like to see if we could come out

1:58:06 with other data as well except i would say whether we whether we

1:58:11 like whether it be used

1:58:13 it incorrectly or not this is our data it’s our students and we

1:58:17 have to own it and there’s more

1:58:19 data also to fully paint the picture and it doesn’t mean we’re

1:58:22 not doing you know we’re going to do

1:58:24 everything we can just like i’m glad thank you for sharing i

1:58:26 mean obviously it looks like next year

1:58:28 we’re going to be on the list for this other thing but thank you

1:58:30 for sharing the data for the progress we

1:58:32 seem to have made in the out of school suspension because it

1:58:35 looks like at least maybe we can roll

1:58:37 off or whatever and and not that we don’t continue to support

1:58:40 because honestly you’re going to put the

1:58:41 same structures in place right it may be a different group of

1:58:43 schools but we’re going to put the same

1:58:45 structures in place to support those students so but this these

1:58:48 this is our data i like it or not and

1:58:50 and whether it’s the state or the federal government doesn’t

1:58:52 matter it’s these are our students

1:58:54 and it this identifies for us where we need a little extra tlc

1:58:57 um so we may not like what what kind of

1:59:00 picture it gets painted or how many people might use the picture

1:59:04 but it is our these are our students

1:59:07 and nobody made up this data it is what it is so um i don’t know

1:59:11 what nada always say data is just data

1:59:14 right and we have to use it i’m gonna totally mess up her quote

1:59:18 sorry nada um but you know what we do

1:59:22 with it is what’s most important and it sounds like you guys

1:59:24 have got some excellent structures in place

1:59:26 all i’m saying all i was saying miss kimball thought is that an

1:59:28 accurate diagnosis of the problem is

1:59:30 what will help us find the solution so that that is really and

1:59:33 this is one part of it but there are

1:59:35 more parts to that go to it so and i think that as long as we

1:59:40 put the why behind it then we’re able

1:59:42 to address it as a board and strategically set in you know to

1:59:46 mean some of the positives um moving a

1:59:49 little bit forward on some of my other questions is i’m so glad

1:59:52 that when i start bringing stuff

1:59:53 up you guys pop back in because no no no i’m okay with it and i

1:59:57 want that because i think that that’s

1:59:59 part of it um the other thing is is that uh we have these uh

2:00:03 registered behavioral texts and it’s been

2:00:06 kind of a in some of our schools it’s been a positive and a

2:00:09 negative in some schools the registered

2:00:11 behavioral texts that come in and work with some of our students

2:00:14 in those those areas that are in need

2:00:16 um have found very big barriers by our principals in coming in

2:00:21 so there’s some of our registered

2:00:23 behavioral tech um organizations have expressed an extreme need

2:00:27 for many of our students and would

2:00:29 like to expand their programs and just so everybody understands

2:00:32 um these are some of the texts that come

2:00:35 in and work with our students with disabilities and some of the

2:00:37 other components that are inside of

2:00:38 our classrooms that help assist the teacher who may not know and

2:00:42 how may not be able to deal with that

2:00:43 so we have a student who comes in and and if i do a bad job here

2:00:47 please please cut me off but a student

2:00:49 who has disabilities that’s um inside of a classroom the

2:00:53 behavioral tech will come in and work with them

2:00:55 and it’s a hundred percent funded by medicaid and so it’s not on

2:00:59 our school district at all they come

2:01:01 in they work with the student and in many cases they have um

2:01:05 very good results now one of the problems that

2:01:08 we ran into one of the problems that we ran into was is that

2:01:11 some of the behavioral texts were not

2:01:13 very good in some instances so they had some bad experiences

2:01:16 with the principals but then there are

2:01:18 some that are doing very good jobs so i didn’t know where we are

2:01:22 with the behavioral texts are we open to

2:01:24 expanding that and everything else and questions on that so

2:01:28 there is a process for outside providers that

2:01:30 they go through and it goes through student services now and

2:01:34 risk management and so if they meet all the

2:01:36 things within that outside portal then it goes to the principal

2:01:40 and the principal then will decide or it

2:01:43 could be in reverse so this one is new to my department but the

2:01:47 principal then decides the schedule that will

2:01:49 work so it’s not necessarily for the outside provider i want to

2:01:52 come every day it’s based on what then the

2:01:56 school needs the principal decides and then they put that

2:01:59 schedule in place so it just depends on where

2:02:01 the needs are for the student and then the principal can have

2:02:04 the autonomy to decide what that would

2:02:06 look like for their school and at what point in say there’s an

2:02:10 instance where there’s principals that

2:02:12 just don’t like the behavioral text and i’m not saying this is

2:02:16 happening and they the behavioral texts come in

2:02:19 and they say we have an opportunity and in many cases they’re

2:02:22 actually working with them after school already

2:02:25 we have an opportunity to work with the student inside the

2:02:27 classrooms and help out with the teachers

2:02:28 who’s overseeing like that decision by the principals on whether

2:02:32 they should or shouldn’t be in there

2:02:34 is their parental input the whole component right there that’s

2:02:37 where we ran into some issues over the

2:02:40 last couple of years that i saw how does that walk me through

2:02:43 that process my understanding is the

2:02:44 principal has the decision as the school-based you know leader

2:02:49 in that final decision so if it’s not working out on a

2:02:53 and that’s on the campus then the principal can decide so it’s

2:02:56 they go through the process to get vetted if

2:02:59 you will and then approve to come in but then they decide the

2:03:02 principal will at the school base if a teacher

2:03:06 requests a behavioral um tech the students parents are

2:03:10 requesting the behavioral tech and the principal says

2:03:13 no so i think we might be talking about two different things um

2:03:18 because you’ve got the outside providers

2:03:20 um but then we also have some behavior texts that are also

2:03:24 funded through ida but the outside providers

2:03:28 the parents are going through whatever means to say hey i want

2:03:31 you know so and so to come into the

2:03:33 school they fill out that information it goes through the portal

2:03:36 and then the principal decides yes you can

2:03:38 come at this point in time but this is not a good time maybe the

2:03:41 student has another you know related

2:03:44 service at that time so they really have to decide what’s going

2:03:47 to be most appropriate so if it’s an outside

2:03:49 provider that’s solely going through the principal and the

2:03:51 parent you know i have um a behavior tech

2:03:54 they work with me at home i think it’ll really help to make that

2:03:57 connection between home and school

2:03:59 and they do that on that side we do have some also that are

2:04:03 funded right school-based and they

2:04:05 also go out and support in some of our feeder classrooms and

2:04:08 things that need additional support there

2:04:10 and in some instances where the principal says no but you have a

2:04:14 teacher and a parent saying that this is

2:04:16 needed and the teacher is saying hey the student has some severe

2:04:20 behavioral problems inside my classroom

2:04:22 i need help and the principal blocks who’s responsible to make

2:04:26 that decision that may be part of a you

2:04:28 know what i mean an appeals process or something because that’s

2:04:31 what i was dealing with i had multiples

2:04:33 that were happening last year wasn’t even in my part of the

2:04:35 district but i started getting parents that

2:04:37 were emailing me and stuff like that who oversees that from the

2:04:40 from your department that i can just

2:04:42 direct them to when they come well it’s going to end up being

2:04:46 the area director okay you know that’s

2:04:50 that’s who would probably step in and marshal the resources okay

2:04:54 so the all right and that’s an area

2:04:56 director from chief of schools okay chief of schools okay i just

2:05:00 want to make sure i didn’t know if you

2:05:02 had internal area directors internally inside your department or

2:05:06 i’m sorry that’s right i was making it up

2:05:08 so but if it’s the idea if we’re paying for it in those

2:05:11 resources of course right we would be a part

2:05:14 of that because we’d want to know if those because it’s based on

2:05:17 the iep and it’s based on the needs

2:05:19 of that particular school what i’ll do is is i’ll show you the

2:05:22 information you can see what i’m talking

2:05:24 about you can make the judgments based on it so that way in the

2:05:26 future if we ever have that problem

2:05:28 again we know how to deal with it and there are providers out

2:05:30 there that are saying that they

2:05:32 would love to do more work with our school district but the

2:05:34 issue that they’re running into is is that

2:05:36 um there’s some blocks in there and i think that if we did a

2:05:39 better job than there we might be able

2:05:41 to so um that was all on that one let me make sure i got all of

2:05:44 this so following up hang on just but

2:05:48 following up um so we had requested that we wanted to try to

2:05:53 take a look at some of this stuff are you

2:05:55 making a formal request that says hey when we deal with this we

2:05:58 would like because it’s in there you

2:06:00 guys have that would you like to see that i would love to see

2:06:03 these other categories yeah we’ll be

2:06:05 able to bring back some other data and maybe cross-reference you

2:06:09 know do some data analysis some

2:06:11 comparisons to see what other factors might be contributing to a

2:06:16 certain group being sure they

2:06:18 already have identified them i’m sure they already know what

2:06:21 they are basically i mean i know i think

2:06:22 our community would love to see yeah i don’t know that we’ve run

2:06:25 the charts and tables based on all

2:06:27 those different factors so we’ll do that yeah thank you can can

2:06:30 you guys can you guys meet with them

2:06:34 to set those so that they’re not out in the line can you tell

2:06:36 them like send them an email saying we

2:06:38 would like to look at attendance yeah i’m absolutely sure they

2:06:42 they have everything we’re asking for

2:06:45 it it’s just not out but to make it more readily available all

2:06:48 right just want to make sure we get a

2:06:50 follow-up there all right um with that i wanted to thank you

2:06:53 guys thank you so much for all your work

2:06:55 and due diligence we really appreciate you guys in your

2:06:57 department thank you

2:07:01 all right next topic is presentation is on recruitment and

2:07:05 retention by ryan dufrain

2:07:07 what right and mike alba sorry you got me it’s actually gonna be

2:07:13 mike alba

2:07:13 today ryan dufrain is being played by hey listen i just read

2:07:19 what’s on the script just in case i’m

2:07:20 saying the wrong thing all right well thank you i’m not sure if

2:07:36 it’s an advantage to go last or not

2:07:38 i will find out i guess but appreciate dr vendell and members of

2:07:42 the board for providing me this

2:07:45 opportunity to update the board on recruitment activities from

2:07:49 just last spring over the summer

2:07:51 and what we’ve got plans coming up the rest of the school year

2:07:56 before i really delve into you know just

2:07:59 specific recruitment activities i felt it was important just to

2:08:02 go and provide you with some day some data

2:08:05 just because i you know i’m not sure what kind of data have you

2:08:08 seen in the past but you know data

2:08:09 tells a whole story we’ve talked about that through several uh

2:08:12 presentations already today

2:08:14 so this first slide what this is showing you is on the left hand

2:08:19 side is the survey that principles

2:08:22 fill out at the beginning of each year you may have seen i think

2:08:27 the florida dui sent out a press

2:08:29 release after they were comparing results across the state here

2:08:32 i think they did it last week or

2:08:35 in the previous week but we do have to report this data to the

2:08:39 state along with every other district

2:08:41 so i compared on the last several years of instructional vacancies

2:08:47 that principles reported

2:08:49 but then i thought it’d be interesting to look at was also

2:08:53 comparing their previous years

2:08:55 resignations and to see you know what the correlation is with

2:09:00 the increased number of classroom vacancies

2:09:04 that principles reported and then looking at the year prior to

2:09:08 let’s look at how many instructional

2:09:10 staff resigned and see if there’s a correlation so as you can

2:09:13 see you know and in school year 22

2:09:14 we had 83 classroom vacancies on day one and then the year prior

2:09:18 we had 268 instructional resignations

2:09:23 and then you can see and last year school year 23 you know you

2:09:27 know had a large increase in number of

2:09:29 vacancies first day and then you can kind of see on the on the

2:09:32 on the right hand side well we had

2:09:34 definitely an increase to 406 instructional uh resignations the

2:09:39 year prior and then this past uh school year

2:09:43 that you know principals just completed this uh so we had 147

2:09:47 classroom vacancies

2:09:49 uh certainly we we wish this number would be a lot lower you

2:09:52 know based on the the needs of the schools

2:09:54 uh you know is a little bit lower than uh you know the previous

2:09:58 school year but again you can see

2:10:01 the number of resignations um between last year we had 526 so it’s

2:10:05 121 additional uh resignations

2:10:09 compared to the year prior so um just wanted to to throw that

2:10:12 out there as far as you know data you

2:10:15 know that vacancies is just a one data element right it’s

2:10:18 everything is is kind of linked together so i

2:10:22 just wanted to kind of provide that picture um moving forward

2:10:27 with this first day counts um just number

2:10:31 of new teachers hired right i think that would be nothing that’s

2:10:33 considered how many teachers are we

2:10:35 hiring each and every school year so again went back three years

2:10:39 um so back in school year 21 we hired about

2:10:42 454 and really you know really anything uh prior to uh covid we

2:10:47 would hire around that much about 400

2:10:50 teachers a year is what we traditionally would see uh with with

2:10:53 number of teachers that needed to be

2:10:55 hired um and then you can see we went up to 603 and 677 last

2:11:00 school year as far as new teachers hired

2:11:03 this school year in case you’re curious uh we’re hired 481 so

2:11:08 far um this school year new teachers for

2:11:11 school year uh 24 uh again these numbers for the 21 22 and 23

2:11:16 that represents new hires for the entire

2:11:19 school year it wasn’t just you know that’s how we hired first

2:11:23 day so to have four 481 you know right

2:11:25 now in the middle of august um we’ll probably match uh for sure

2:11:30 the school year 22 or 23 totals uh by

2:11:33 time we get through this the school year and hire you know

2:11:36 teachers in and out during the school year

2:11:39 and i just thought it would be you know number of of temporary

2:11:42 certification teachers again if you’re

2:11:44 on a temporary certification that means you are hired um without

2:11:48 maybe receiving you know going

2:11:49 through a college of education program and you know that means

2:11:53 you probably didn’t have an internship

2:11:55 experience so as you can see our numbers um of teachers that are

2:11:59 hired on on attempt cert have

2:12:01 definitely increased uh so what that means for our schools and

2:12:04 really our district as we think about how we’re

2:12:07 supporting our new teachers is you know kind of looking at both

2:12:11 of them right because you know if you’re

2:12:13 new even if you have experience those those new teachers kind of

2:12:16 need support right from someone at

2:12:18 their school um but those individuals also uh you know a lot of

2:12:22 our new teachers are coming in on a

2:12:24 temporary uh teaching certificate which is wonderful right they’re

2:12:27 bringing lots of experience uh usually

2:12:29 either it’s a second career or third career and they’ve always

2:12:32 you know thought about being a teacher in the past and

2:12:35 now they decided to to go for it right so they’re in our schools

2:12:38 they did what they needed to do

2:12:40 but you know they need they need specific supports they need

2:12:43 additional supports that maybe we provided

2:12:46 teachers five years ago just because you know our staffing is

2:12:49 different so i just wanted to paint that

2:12:51 picture too that yes we are hiring more more and more teachers

2:12:54 but the teachers need different supports

2:12:57 that maybe they needed five years ago just based on how many are

2:13:00 coming in on a temporary certification

2:13:02 and then this is kind of a total you know i didn’t want to just

2:13:07 throw instructional so this is kind of

2:13:09 total count of of new uh positions for both instructional and

2:13:14 support over the last six years so you can kind of see

2:13:18 uh how we’re doing there as far as as um as new hires so you

2:13:23 know i i think you know all we hear about is

2:13:27 you know we have all these vacancies we have all these vacancies

2:13:30 we have all these vacancies so i i think

2:13:32 the danger in that is is that the perception could be well we’re

2:13:35 just not we’re not hiring enough people

2:13:37 to fill the slots and as you can see from the data it’s actually

2:13:41 not the case right we’re actually hiring more

2:13:43 people than we ever have hired in the past but we still have vacancies

2:13:48 um so

2:13:50 you know here’s here’s here’s the big picture right we all want

2:13:55 the we all want it’s in the

2:13:56 middle there we all that’s our goal we want to be fully staffed

2:13:59 right both instructional and support

2:14:01 but as you can see from the data we’re we’re not going to be

2:14:07 able to get to be fully staffed by just

2:14:09 focusing on the left hand side right you know recruitment is

2:14:12 absolutely an important piece

2:14:14 um and and and we own that but you know i i don’t want to get

2:14:18 into uh you know this presentation any

2:14:21 further with with this message being lost is that it really is

2:14:24 it’s it’s tied together right to be fully

2:14:26 staffed you really need a strong recruitment plan but you also

2:14:31 need strong retention in order to to achieve

2:14:33 our goals right um we’re we’re we’re not being able to keep up

2:14:38 with the amount of people um resigning

2:14:43 than we are to be able to hire them um so so thank you for

2:14:46 listening to my soapbox on on that one

2:14:49 so let’s get to the work um so i wanted to share uh you know as

2:14:53 we think about we’ll start off with

2:14:55 some teacher recruitment activities you know as you think about

2:14:57 when you’re trying to staff for the for

2:14:59 the next uh school year coming up you know you’re going to start

2:15:02 that work in in the spring prior uh so

2:15:05 here are uh some some typical fairs that we have put on through

2:15:09 the district uh we start off on in

2:15:12 in you know kind of the end of of march with the bps priority

2:15:15 school fair what does it mean to be

2:15:18 priority school we want to give we want to provide our school

2:15:21 principals who in our tier two or tier three

2:15:23 schools the first opportunity to connect and interview

2:15:27 applicants because traditionally uh those tier two

2:15:30 and tier three schools have have a more challenging time um you

2:15:33 know filling their staff um so we you

2:15:36 know we’ve kept on hearing from the principals well you know

2:15:39 what makes us a priority you tell us that

2:15:40 we’re a priority school but what makes us a priority so this is

2:15:43 one of the things at least through our

2:15:44 department that we can provide them is we’ll give them first

2:15:47 shot uh as far as establishing those

2:15:49 connections with the our applicants that are looking for to fill

2:15:52 positions for the upcoming school year

2:15:54 and then we follow that up with our our big event which is our

2:15:58 our school-wide uh district fair and

2:16:01 that usually happens around the april time frame um and all

2:16:04 principals are able to attend that fair

2:16:09 um we it’s it’s a virtual fair you know we we used to of course

2:16:12 it used to be in person you know and

2:16:15 then you know after kobe we learned some some new new tricks uh

2:16:18 with recruitment and uh i think it was

2:16:21 last year or the year before we actually said well let’s let’s

2:16:24 try to do a hybrid you know we’ll have

2:16:25 some people come in in person and then we’ll have some

2:16:27 opportunities for you know be out of state

2:16:29 people to do a virtual uh option so don’t lose those those

2:16:33 applicants and then we started polling the

2:16:36 applicants and the vast majority said they’d rather just do a

2:16:40 virtual interview it’s just easier more

2:16:42 convenient for them um so instead of you know pulling principals

2:16:46 out of their building to only talk to

2:16:48 a handful of people or pulling out somewhere just to talk to

2:16:51 someone on a computer we really just decided

2:16:54 to continue with just a full virtual teacher fair we use a

2:16:58 platform called career fair plus

2:17:02 it’s an opportunity for each principal to kind of have their own

2:17:06 virtual booth so when they’re

2:17:08 connecting um with with candidates you know it’s they have their

2:17:11 own virtual platform they they video

2:17:14 conference uh with them able to ask them uh questions they can

2:17:18 each each principal can kind of upload

2:17:20 information about their school you know here’s what here’s our

2:17:23 priority needs so we’ve gotten great feedback

2:17:26 on that platform from both the candidates and and the principals

2:17:29 they both enjoy uh using we’ve been using

2:17:31 the platform for about two two or three years so the principals

2:17:34 are are very comfortable using the

2:17:35 platform you know because they’ve used it for several years so

2:17:38 just making you aware of of kind of that

2:17:40 virtual affair and how that works mike can you explain what bindered

2:17:44 means yes thank you um so you

2:17:46 know in you know in you know in that springtime uh you know we

2:17:50 have we still have to it’s kind of a tricky

2:17:53 point within the teacher contract right we still we still have

2:17:56 you know at that time our our current

2:17:58 teachers right the teachers that have been working with us all

2:18:01 year have the opportunity to have that

2:18:02 transfer period right where they can apply to openings at other

2:18:06 schools before outside people can be

2:18:09 hired into those positions that’s built into our contract that’s

2:18:12 that’s something you know kind of a

2:18:14 privilege to our current teachers so um having a principal

2:18:19 provide a binder then provides assurance to

2:18:23 that teacher that they’re interviewing it’s like hey i’m really

2:18:26 interested in you i really you know

2:18:28 i have an opening i really want you to be here you know we’re

2:18:31 not i’m not able to open up that job

2:18:33 ad to the public just yet um they’re not able to do that until

2:18:36 may um because that’s when the transfer

2:18:38 period is over so that binder really just provides that

2:18:41 assurance to that uh the candidate that you

2:18:43 know you’re promised a job and um you know if there are any

2:18:47 advantages of having a lot of openings is

2:18:50 that that you know the one advantage is that there’s typically

2:18:54 not um teachers on overage or or somewhere

2:18:57 you know a teacher that needs to be placed in the school so that

2:19:00 you know that principal can say you

2:19:02 know i’m almost 99 sure uh that if i give you the binder i’m

2:19:05 going to be able to hire you to my school

2:19:08 because there’s probably not going to be a teacher on overage in

2:19:11 in your subject area uh so you know that’s what a

2:19:13 binder is for really is just to hopefully um provide that

2:19:17 assurance to that applicant and that they

2:19:19 won’t be looking at other districts um for for jobs during that

2:19:22 time when every other every other

2:19:24 district is hiring and doing fairs uh you know that’s our goal

2:19:27 right we’ve got in a binder they’ve

2:19:29 got a job so they’re like you know and they’ll they’ll just stop

2:19:32 looking so that’s that’s the idea

2:19:34 for the binder so worst case scenario for them in that situation

2:19:37 is their job might be at another school

2:19:39 correct and that’s what we tell them you know and we tell the

2:19:40 principals you know give that little caveat just

2:19:42 in that one percent uh you know chance that you a teacher might

2:19:45 have to be placed in that position

2:19:47 and the principal doesn’t have another open position for their

2:19:50 certification area they could be then

2:19:52 placed in another school you know either way we’ll we’ll give

2:19:55 them a job right we’ve got 147 of them

2:19:58 still looking so we’ll find a place for them that is not not

2:20:00 another concern any other questions on

2:20:04 those all right um the great florida teach-in if you’re not uh

2:20:07 aware of that that is the um fair that is

2:20:11 sponsored by the florida department of education so that is a

2:20:14 statewide fair that they promote

2:20:16 they market um and i can tell you it’s just been a challenge the

2:20:19 last several years you can see by

2:20:20 the number of people that we connected with um it’s it’s just

2:20:25 been um you know a lot of it most

2:20:27 districts still go to that just because it’s the state-sponsored

2:20:30 fair but we can see that it’s

2:20:32 it’s just been difficult to um connect and i just feel like you

2:20:35 know everyone knows that there’s

2:20:37 uh every district is hiring they’re hiring a lot of teachers so

2:20:40 they’re probably just saying you know

2:20:41 i don’t need to go to this i’ll just go interview directly with

2:20:44 the the districts and those principals

2:20:46 for those positions um and then we held a another virtual fair

2:20:51 uh in on june 7th to attract people

2:20:53 and then just to kind of in the bottom left corner you know i

2:20:57 get this question it’s probably the most

2:21:00 frequent question that i that i get is you know hey don’t we go

2:21:03 to to just you know visit colleges

2:21:05 don’t we visit other colleges and go to their recruitment fairs

2:21:08 and we do we do we still do

2:21:10 that so you know just i just picked six that we went to in in

2:21:13 the spring this past spring uh you know we

2:21:15 we we did connect with 41 people so not not bad to be able to

2:21:19 connect with that many individuals

2:21:21 uh but you can see that you know out of those 41 we actually

2:21:23 only ended up hiring one of those

2:21:25 individuals so um that’s kind of my hesitation when people say

2:21:28 you know we should just be out on the

2:21:30 road you know traveling and all that it’s you know we haven’t

2:21:33 seen that return on investment and when i

2:21:35 talk to other districts um you know we’re all in the same boat a

2:21:38 lot of districts have cut back on that kind

2:21:41 of travel uh just because we now we have you know we’re able to

2:21:44 leverage more of the virtual platforms

2:21:45 and maybe some some more uh you know use the money for for maybe

2:21:49 digital social media marketing

2:21:51 different things to be able to attract candidates to the area um

2:21:54 so just wanted to share just some some

2:21:57 numbers there um the next slide is you know we’re again we’re

2:22:00 not just focused on instructional openings

2:22:03 every you know we wouldn’t be hiring someone if we didn’t we

2:22:05 didn’t it wasn’t important for that

2:22:07 school or that district to function uh so we do um certainly uh

2:22:12 you know support and participate in

2:22:15 different fairs to to attract support staff into our district

2:22:18 you see we you know we’ve got a combination

2:22:21 of ones that either we held as as recruitment team or we also

2:22:25 partner with career source as well they’ve

2:22:28 been an incredible partner with us to be able to market

2:22:30 different recruitment activities um you know

2:22:34 throughout the year you know for when we have our own fairs we

2:22:38 we have um individuals from food nutrition

2:22:41 before and after care esol department comes as well educational

2:22:44 technology transportation facility and

2:22:47 maintenance and adult education are typically the individuals or

2:22:50 departments that kind of show up

2:22:51 that way again the goal for any of these fairs is to start start

2:22:55 establishing connections and

2:22:57 relationships with people so that way they’ll actually take the

2:23:00 time necessary to complete that beacon

2:23:02 application i also want um to to emphasize that you know

2:23:06 especially in the support fairs we were

2:23:08 finding that a lot of our applicants they were just having a

2:23:11 hard time completing the beacon application

2:23:13 you know i don’t know if you had to complete the beacon

2:23:16 application anytime soon but it’s it’s it’s not fun

2:23:19 and so what we do in our fairs we have laptops set up so you

2:23:22 know that’s one thing we encourage them to do

2:23:25 they get to connect with people in different departments

2:23:27 hopefully get excited about an opportunity

2:23:29 and then we have them sit down with one of our employment

2:23:32 specialists in hr and they help them

2:23:35 just step by step let’s complete this application because um

2:23:38 what we don’t want to happen is they get

2:23:40 you know they go home they start filling out the application get

2:23:43 frustrated and then they just stop the

2:23:45 process um so we want to you know try to eliminate as many

2:23:48 barriers as possible uh provide by providing that

2:23:51 support um we also um ensure that we have uh you know spanish

2:23:55 speakers at our career fairs and we’ve

2:23:58 worked with the esau department too sometimes to uh depending on

2:24:01 the area that we’re at um to have

2:24:04 someone that that speaks to haitian creole as well so we try to

2:24:07 provide support wherever possible try to

2:24:09 identify those barriers i have another question sorry i’m gonna

2:24:11 jump in there um our conversion ratio is

2:24:14 pretty low here on how many applicants versus hires is that just

2:24:16 because they’re not qualified for the

2:24:18 position they’re hiring for or what is the reason on why it

2:24:21 could it could be lots of different reasons

2:24:23 right either either come and like i said maybe they don’t fill

2:24:26 out the the beacon application and they

2:24:28 don’t get that far in the process or maybe they’re not qualified

2:24:31 for the position um okay there could

2:24:34 be blocks it could be they’re applying to multiple employers and

2:24:40 they pick somebody else yeah it’s just

2:24:42 i’m like i would love to see it i know 50 is probably

2:24:45 unrealistic but we’re below 20 right now sure

2:24:48 and i have to say just with the data i’ll just say it out you

2:24:51 know all all this data that you’ll see

2:24:53 you know from the previous size to these slides i mean it is it

2:24:56 is a manual process

2:24:58 just based on our current systems that we have you know beacon

2:25:01 is not the easiest um applicant tracking

2:25:05 system um or probably it’s hard to even call it that you know

2:25:08 compared to other things that are out

2:25:10 there so it is incredibly difficult to get any kind of um quick

2:25:14 meaningful data and then to track that

2:25:17 data to monitor that data as you go on is difficult right

2:25:20 because everyone’s super busy right whether

2:25:22 it’s educational technology or people in hr they have to stop

2:25:25 what they’re doing and and redo these

2:25:27 reports and start literally manually um uh you know uh computating

2:25:33 these these numbers so hopefully we’ll

2:25:35 see that change i i i hope so yes um any other other questions

2:25:40 while we’re going hi and so these are

2:25:45 these are additional fares that we tried um throughout the

2:25:48 summer again we always track numbers so we say hey

2:25:51 we need to get out there so these uh instead of having them

2:25:54 always come to here at esf we wanted to take the

2:25:56 show on the road so we do that a lot of times we go to we go to

2:25:59 different places and uh you know we try

2:26:02 and see what happens so it was interesting this summer you know

2:26:05 you see the the first one that we did on

2:26:07 june 28th um you know it was the week right before july 4th

2:26:11 break you know for us we want to we want to

2:26:13 fill as many positions as we can during the summer um but it

2:26:17 seemed to be that people maybe who wants to

2:26:20 work at the district may and certainly support staff maybe it’s

2:26:23 too early in the summer for them to come

2:26:24 out i mean there’s hardly anybody there was just was no interest

2:26:27 in that fair um and then you look

2:26:29 compared to our most successful fair was what we did just last

2:26:33 week on and it was here at esf and we

2:26:35 had 126 people um come and apply it it only says one hired it’s

2:26:40 still too early we’re still tracking that

2:26:42 yeah the only reason it has the one hired i just put it in there

2:26:45 just because i know food service

2:26:46 was bragging that we hired the first one out of the 126 so that

2:26:49 person’s already started um so we are

2:26:52 still tracking the 126 it’s just you know it’s too early in the

2:26:56 process yes i saw that there will

2:26:58 definitely be more uh coming but we were we were certainly very

2:27:01 pleased with the turnout so it’s just

2:27:03 in you know again the all these fairs were advertised and

2:27:06 marketed the same exact way um gcr is a huge

2:27:09 partner and and getting the word out and that might be another

2:27:12 thing why the august 17th fair

2:27:14 um was more successful is you know uh mr bruin his department he

2:27:19 sends out the focus email

2:27:21 saying to everybody that we have you know a lot of recruitment

2:27:24 is word of mouth that’s typically the

2:27:26 highest return on investment is word of mouth is and he sends it

2:27:30 out so perhaps people just weren’t

2:27:32 looking at their focus emails because school hasn’t started so

2:27:35 yeah i don’t know but they came right

2:27:38 and it was funny the other affairs we held from three to five

2:27:40 just thinking well if people are working

2:27:42 you know we’ll give them opportunities to come oh the one on the

2:27:45 17th that was from 9 30 to 11 30 in

2:27:48 the morning so you know we again we keep trying to see you know

2:27:51 what is are we having our own barriers

2:27:53 uh what is stopping people from coming to our fairs um and then

2:27:56 we we’ve tried different things uh

2:27:59 like you know you see different businesses around the county

2:28:01 where they’ll have like open interview days

2:28:03 hey tuesdays our open interview so we tried that at some schools

2:28:06 to see how that worked um you know

2:28:08 some of the schools said it was fine you know they had dedicated

2:28:10 like two hours of their time just

2:28:12 just to have it you know they said uh the school principals that

2:28:15 we connected to afterward they said

2:28:17 you know they were connecting to some people they were able to

2:28:20 hire a few support staff based on those

2:28:22 open interview days again we try a little bit of everything i

2:28:25 think what we find is there’s really no um

2:28:28 there’s no silver bullet there’s no magic solution there’s no

2:28:31 huge pot of people that we haven’t

2:28:33 connected with it really is just kind of a daily grind of you

2:28:37 know you get a few people here you get a few

2:28:39 people through this initiative and just over the course of the

2:28:43 year you end up um you know filling some

2:28:45 positions some upcoming career fairs just so you know the work

2:28:48 doesn’t stop just because the summer’s over

2:28:50 right our recruiters are still uh super busy so these are

2:28:50 upcoming career fairs that we have in the fall

2:28:57 we’ll see that we also um try you know we try to participate in

2:29:01 even community events you can see

2:29:03 the puerto rican day parade we’ve always had a table there again

2:29:06 just to connect with people and to

2:29:07 ensure that they understand that we are hiring we’ve got

2:29:10 positions for all sorts of individuals

2:29:12 we also attended the indian kite festival we attended the divine

2:29:17 nine day at eastern florida state college

2:29:20 so we try to not just go to just recruiting fairs we try to do

2:29:24 community events too just to get the word out

2:29:27 uh we have some informational nights uh this the steps to

2:29:32 certification there is we have a link and

2:29:35 this has actually been a you know a successful event as far as

2:29:38 just trying to inform people a lot of

2:29:40 people uh i guess they have that perception that if if you want

2:29:45 to become a teacher then you have to go

2:29:47 back to school to get a you know a teaching degree and that’s

2:29:51 not the case if you have a bachelor’s degree

2:29:54 or higher and you’re interested in teaching there’s a pathway

2:29:57 for you right so that’s exactly what these

2:29:59 meetings are for us we hold we hold them monthly we have a link

2:30:02 on our career page that says interested

2:30:04 in teaching and they click on that and then they connect with

2:30:07 our recruiters and they invite them to

2:30:09 this meeting and they’ll show them the pathways right they can

2:30:12 either get a temporary certificate just

2:30:14 based on their major and their coursework they took or they have

2:30:17 to take a subject area exam

2:30:19 you know if they do those two things they become certified to to

2:30:22 teach and we will help them through

2:30:23 that process so again it’s just breaking down those perceptions

2:30:27 there’s misunderstandings of being a

2:30:30 teacher and sometimes people feel like there’s there’s a barrier

2:30:33 that’s really not there so we try to

2:30:35 ensure that we connect with them and making sure they understand

2:30:39 the process so again we’re still even

2:30:42 though you saw the numbers in a couple of slides ago we’re still

2:30:44 we’re still going to go and visit some

2:30:46 colleges so these are the colleges that have some career fairs

2:30:49 uh there in the fall so those are

2:30:51 just a list of of colleges that we are going to to visit um then

2:30:55 certainly also use utilize handshake and

2:30:57 then the college career centers too to promote and advertise our

2:31:01 openings and our career fairs as

2:31:02 well and that reaches out to to hundreds of universities

2:31:05 throughout the school year

2:31:07 you know just the normal job board platforms have been

2:31:12 really a big benefit when we started advertising more on indeed

2:31:17 and circa linkedin again we’ve seen

2:31:19 more um more success for support ads uh or for support openings

2:31:25 for these these these job sites but

2:31:27 we’ve we’ve we’ve had some um some traction with teachers as

2:31:30 well but you know feedback we get from

2:31:32 principals is that um you know they seem to get more and more

2:31:36 applicants through indeed because again

2:31:39 somebody might not be actively looking at for brevard public

2:31:42 schools in beacon we want to we want to

2:31:43 expand our reach and ensure that people under know of our

2:31:47 openings and again it’s not just teachers

2:31:49 that we need we need lots of different individuals so indeed in

2:31:52 these different platforms that again just

2:31:54 helps enhance their awareness of the kinds of openings we need

2:31:57 and again just kind of looking at the

2:31:59 numbers those 50 ads that you see on indeed 112 and the in the

2:32:04 50 on circa these all have to be manually

2:32:07 entered by our recruiters so it’s a lot of work to get these in

2:32:10 here but they’ll do it because you

2:32:12 know they feel it’s important right there’s nothing automated

2:32:15 the only thing one the one that’s

2:32:17 automated is the ed week one they have on the bottom right that

2:32:20 is able to read our ads on beacon

2:32:23 the only challenge to that is that you’ll if you go on there on

2:32:26 that week you’ll start seeing that

2:32:28 there’s like coaching openings and things like that just because

2:32:31 it’s just picking up anything that’s on

2:32:32 beacon it’s not just picking up the job as that we would

2:32:35 hopefully want to advertise on ed week but

2:32:38 but at least one thing we don’t have to do manually

2:32:41 some other efforts that you may not be aware of that our recruiters

2:32:46 do is

2:32:47 they they look at beacon accounts we talked about individuals

2:32:51 that maybe start their beacon accounts

2:32:53 but don’t finish so this is uh actually it’s it does pay off it’s

2:32:57 work but it does pay off

2:32:58 based on what our recruiters do so they’ll start off with people

2:33:01 that have incomplete beacon accounts

2:33:03 and then just call them up and reach out to them or email them

2:33:06 say hey you started this account you

2:33:08 know what can we do to help you know did you did you experience

2:33:11 any problems so it kind of helps

2:33:12 eliminate some of those barriers and then we also actively reach

2:33:16 out to individuals who have a beacon

2:33:18 account but what we see that they haven’t applied for any

2:33:21 specific jobs and we just reach out to

2:33:23 them is hey i noticed you haven’t applied for jobs there’s an

2:33:25 opening here that’s that’s specific to

2:33:27 your uh the qualifications so that has paid off um we try to

2:33:32 leverage who we have already right

2:33:34 substitutes or we have a lot of substitutes we have like seven

2:33:37 or eight hundred substitutes within

2:33:39 our system how many of those have bachelor’s degrees where those

2:33:42 individuals like to become teachers so

2:33:44 we reach out to them and see you know we invite them to our

2:33:47 certification evenings as well to help them

2:33:49 understand how they become certified uh the state of florida um

2:33:53 gives us an email it gives us email

2:33:56 addresses for those that recently have applied to the doe for a

2:34:00 teaching certificate um we reach out

2:34:03 to those individuals every single day right through constant

2:34:06 contact so that way people uh understand

2:34:08 where openings are we give them information about our district

2:34:11 we give them information about the millage

2:34:13 right and what it advantage is for to work in brevard now that

2:34:16 we have that millage

2:34:18 we send postcards to bps teachers we reach out to eastern florida

2:34:23 state graduates that have an aa and

2:34:25 a bachelor’s degree we network with other districts we have a

2:34:29 skill bridge program if you’re not aware

2:34:32 for that those are individuals who are active are still active

2:34:36 military but they are in when they’re in

2:34:38 their last year of service they can do a paid internship through

2:34:41 the department of defense if they want to

2:34:43 become a teacher then they can internship they can intern in one

2:34:47 of our schools just like our college of

2:34:48 education students are and they’ll actually get paid for to do

2:34:51 it through the department of defense

2:34:53 so we have individuals take part in that we have connections

2:34:56 with the space force to try to

2:34:59 get those individuals that maybe are transitioning out or maybe

2:35:02 their spouses and again gcr is a huge

2:35:07 supporter of trying to help market our our um our career fairs

2:35:12 and so forth i know russ has secured some

2:35:15 s for funding and he’s going to have some um you know he’s going

2:35:21 to run some billboards he’s going

2:35:22 to do some uh marketing you know maybe tv radio whatever he

2:35:26 could use the funds to help market our october

2:35:29 the teacher fair for this upcoming school year social media is

2:35:33 again one thing that we we try to leverage

2:35:36 a lot um so again we we leverage the openings that priority

2:35:41 schools have and just get the information

2:35:45 out so get increase that word of mouth we do also do paid ads

2:35:48 through either facebook or um instagram just

2:35:52 again to expand the reach of our ads to again just get that as

2:35:56 much as we can out there

2:35:57 again we we not only post just positions but we try to

2:36:05 communicate just the culture of bps i think

2:36:08 that’s important right people aren’t just applying to a job they’re

2:36:11 they’re they’re they’re saying they

2:36:12 want to be part of our culture so we try to um you know also

2:36:16 showcase some fun things that happen

2:36:19 so if you uh if you are not following our recruitment on on our

2:36:23 social media ads i welcome you to to take

2:36:25 part of it especially instagram and facebook it’s different from

2:36:29 the the general bps one we have a

2:36:31 recruitment specific one a career specific one and you can kind

2:36:35 of see some of the neat videos and

2:36:36 marketing that they do for that again we really tried to market

2:36:41 the millage and leverage that

2:36:43 and there’s our friend russ brun there on the right hand side if

2:36:47 you don’t recognize him that was

2:36:49 at the middle school conference just welcoming and do our middle

2:36:52 school teachers as they came in he was

2:36:54 a trooper it was like 5 000 degrees that morning and he’s

2:36:56 wearing a jacket and all that kind of fun

2:36:58 stuff but he did a great job and him and his team one one thing

2:37:02 i do want to highlight is our grow your

2:37:05 own program as we try to encourage our current employees and a

2:37:08 lot of districts are doing this because

2:37:10 they see that it’s such a challenge to try to recruit new people

2:37:14 we know that the individuals that are

2:37:16 uh going to college of education programs um they’re just fewer

2:37:20 and fewer people seeking that degree

2:37:22 so who who do we have who do we have that is interested in in

2:37:25 being in the classroom well those

2:37:27 are our very own ias so we try to create programs to help um

2:37:32 inform them of how to become a teacher

2:37:35 so we reach out to those we directly connect with those that

2:37:38 have already have an aa degree

2:37:40 we have we have a good number of ias that already have a

2:37:43 bachelor’s even we even had some that had

2:37:45 master’s degrees so in connecting with them and giving them here’s

2:37:48 the pathway here’s the pathway to

2:37:50 become teachers and we have zoom meetings we we send them the

2:37:54 recordings for those that cannot come

2:37:56 and then we also have worked really closely with ucf and our

2:38:00 university partners right we don’t want to

2:38:02 direct them to a program and then they find out it doesn’t work

2:38:05 for them right because they’re working

2:38:06 adults right they’re not college kids so ucf has been wonderful

2:38:10 in creating specific cohorts for our

2:38:13 support staff so that they can take classes in the evening they

2:38:16 and or they’ll take classes maybe on

2:38:18 every other saturday things like that so that they can continue

2:38:21 with their degree

2:38:22 um and not and not affect their work um we’ve also ensured that

2:38:27 you know a lot of people probably have

2:38:29 their perception is like well i just can’t afford to go back to

2:38:33 school you know we we push really hard

2:38:34 for our students to complete the fafsa and allow open up for

2:38:38 those opportunities where our adults also

2:38:41 have the same opportunities there’s no age limit for a fafsa

2:38:44 applications in college so a lot of our ias

2:38:46 probably would qualify for pell grants that they wouldn’t have

2:38:50 to pay back so just giving them that

2:38:51 opportunity to know that those um those chances are there and i

2:38:55 also presented at the ia super saturday

2:38:58 where we had you know over 100 ia’s just making sure they’re

2:39:01 aware of the different opportunities

2:39:03 and lastly we support them all the way through the process right

2:39:06 to say if they need help

2:39:07 maybe studying for the general knowledge test or subject dairy

2:39:11 test to get certified we have

2:39:12 study platforms available to them either 240 tutoring is one of

2:39:17 those platforms we use we and if and if they did

2:39:21 pass the subject area exam and paid to add you know to for their

2:39:25 teaching certificate we use title ii funds

2:39:27 to reimburse them right so say hey great job and here here’s

2:39:31 your money back for taking the test and

2:39:33 applying to the doe so we try to make it as easy as possible and

2:39:36 it’s the last number there you know

2:39:38 so you know what’s the payoff well we’ve had 70 ia’s become

2:39:41 teachers the last two years

2:39:45 so that’s a good number so if you’re curious you know here’s i

2:39:47 you know i know i’ve talked a lot

2:39:49 about ias but there’s actually been other support staff that

2:39:52 have become teachers as well so you can

2:39:54 kind of see the total number of our um either instructional

2:39:58 assistants along with the support staff

2:40:00 that have become teachers so you know last year was our highest

2:40:03 at 60 so we’re very proud of them

2:40:05 very proud of that fact of that number but again you know it

2:40:08 makes sense right these are people that are

2:40:10 already invested in the community they they live here they their

2:40:13 families here we don’t have to

2:40:15 convince them to move here they’re already here so why not

2:40:17 leverage the people that we already have

2:40:19 working in our district and can you know eliminate those

2:40:22 barriers for them to become become teachers

2:40:25 and support our schools in that way again just some other

2:40:28 efforts that i want to highlight many of you

2:40:32 well you know because you you guys uh approve the contracts we

2:40:35 have some cultural exchange teachers

2:40:37 noah has 50 i think we have uh 48 or 49 so we’re not quite at 50

2:40:41 but we’re close to that

2:40:42 they’re at um some priority schools so again we were deliberate

2:40:46 about where they were placed

2:40:47 because we want to make sure we were helping those priority

2:40:50 schools fill their vacancies

2:40:51 i believe palm bay elementary has like nine teachers this year

2:40:56 so i think they have the highest out of

2:40:57 all of them feedback we’ve gotten from from all the principals

2:41:01 is that it’s very positive you know

2:41:03 they’re very excited to be here they’ve been great within the

2:41:06 classroom so very positive feedback from

2:41:08 the principals based on that we connect with ucf i speak to the

2:41:12 150 seniors every semester at their now

2:41:15 that you’re graduating event so it’s a nice way for for us to

2:41:18 connect with them and again share those

2:41:20 opportunities that we have in brevard the careers page just

2:41:24 continues to be revamped again we don’t even have a

2:41:27 careers page five years ago and now it’s now it’s it’s i feel

2:41:29 like it’s pretty robust and we’re

2:41:31 continually trying to get feedback and making it better we had a

2:41:35 fun uh field trip with our bethune

2:41:37 cookman students we actually got a charter bus and we chartered

2:41:40 25 of their students to um two of our

2:41:43 schools in the north area last spring so that was awesome event

2:41:47 it was a lot of fun and again hopefully

2:41:49 that’s going to be that they’ll either internship early intern

2:41:52 intern with our schools or they’ll decide to

2:41:54 come teach with us when they finally graduate and then the last

2:41:58 one i want to highlight is the waves

2:42:00 program this was this happened in the spring of last year fau

2:42:04 reached out to us and say hey we’ve got

2:42:06 this grant do you want to participate for for school counselor

2:42:09 certification of course the answer is

2:42:11 yes so we currently have 14 of our teachers pursuing this

2:42:16 opportunity for school counseling certification

2:42:20 the grant will pay for 70 of their tuition 100 of their books

2:42:24 100 of fees so it’s a great deal they

2:42:27 can also qualify for our district tuition reimbursement on top

2:42:30 of that so almost probably their whole

2:42:32 education would be of no cost to them and then we have another

2:42:36 16 people that have the opportunity to

2:42:39 apply for the spring cohort so we should have at least 30 of our

2:42:43 bps teachers going through our school

2:42:45 counseling certification program to help fill that need within

2:42:48 the district so we’re super excited about

2:42:50 that new employer orientation we have that just about every week

2:42:53 just so you know the numbers we

2:42:55 had you know 1268 people attend last year and then we also piggyback

2:43:00 that morning training with the

2:43:01 youth mental health training so that’s nice because that’s a

2:43:03 required training as you probably know for

2:43:05 our staff so that’s a nice way since we’ve got them here we’re

2:43:08 giving them some consistent messages

2:43:11 they can get trained on that too so thank you uh yeah so i

2:43:16 appreciate it yeah i try to be as quick as i

2:43:19 can but also didn’t want to shortchange the work of our recruiters

2:43:22 so you know i like to publicly thank

2:43:24 them i don’t get that opportunity to do a lot you know susan kirk

2:43:27 and tori huss are our two recruiters

2:43:29 they do an amazing job working with our principals working with

2:43:32 the people that are trying to get jobs

2:43:34 within our district um you know they do incredible work so i

2:43:38 just wanted to thank them for all that they

2:43:40 do to support our schools any questions i have a few yeah i’ll

2:43:45 go first first of all i i would just

2:43:48 echo your remarks about our recruiting team they do a great job

2:43:53 um i when you look at the number of

2:43:55 resignations this last year with the the numbers of vacancies

2:43:59 the vacancies went down but the numbers

2:44:01 it just demonstrates the herculean effort that that all of you

2:44:05 undertook to get those filled otherwise

2:44:08 that number would have even been higher in the vacancy so kudos

2:44:11 to you guys um i appreciate they

2:44:13 they’re even going to the small events i you know was i was

2:44:16 about to reach out to them about uh

2:44:18 something that love inc is doing a work life program they’re

2:44:21 helping people and and before i then i

2:44:23 see pictures and they were there and i’m like i didn’t even you

2:44:25 must have been reading my mind because

2:44:27 i never sent the email but you showed up anyway so i just

2:44:30 appreciate that and i think that when

2:44:32 you talk about the need we have to support our new teachers

2:44:34 because the huge numbers i think that

2:44:36 was definitely justified justified the the request for more peer

2:44:41 mentor teachers and so i’m glad we’re

2:44:43 able to to work on that and for this coming year’s budget i don’t

2:44:47 see that going down anytime soon until

2:44:49 the education programs um have a revival across the country

2:44:52 because that’s not just a brevard specific

2:44:54 issuer florida that’s a nationwide um thank you for answering my

2:44:57 question do we participate in other

2:44:59 job fairs um i know it may not be a return on investment always

2:45:03 like an immediate but every touch

2:45:05 we’re out in the community we’re constantly we’re keeping in

2:45:07 people’s minds hey brevard public schools

2:45:09 is an option for you if you’re looking for a new job um every

2:45:13 you know it somebody who comes and picks up

2:45:15 a flyer may not count as as an applicant in the event but they

2:45:19 it still may be planting the seed for

2:45:21 something where they’re going to come work for us later and that

2:45:23 may not be reflected in the data

2:45:24 or they might share it with us somebody else you never know yes

2:45:27 absolutely and i i still think

2:45:29 that one of our undertapped resources for employees is parents

2:45:32 um especially when we think about our

2:45:34 volunteer poor people i i see volunteers all the time who are

2:45:37 like pretty much at the school so much

2:45:39 they might as well just come work there um and to be subs that’s

2:45:42 what i thought about subs but i still

2:45:44 think we have a lot of parents who are just you know now that

2:45:47 maybe they stayed home or had a more

2:45:49 flexible job but now the kids are all in school that’s a that’s

2:45:52 a good resource and and and i know

2:45:53 we do that through our social media pages you can’t be a parent

2:45:57 on social media in vps and not

2:45:58 constantly see the hey we’re hiring we’re hiring at your school

2:46:02 i want definitely on that point i want

2:46:03 to give a shout out to our principals as well because they do a

2:46:07 phenomenal job of just like what

2:46:08 you’re saying right there’s that parent volunteer that’s there

2:46:11 all the time and they find out that

2:46:13 they’re they have a bachelor’s degree i mean they’re on it right

2:46:15 they’re like hey uh you know you could

2:46:17 become a teacher uh or they connect with the substitutes and

2:46:20 they’re in building i mean

2:46:21 principals are a great job you know if they if they see a new

2:46:23 substitute that’s never been there before

2:46:25 they’re going to intentionally make connections with them and

2:46:28 just kind of hear a little bit about

2:46:29 their story and if again if they they get to the point where

2:46:32 they see that they have a bachelor’s or

2:46:34 interested in teaching they’ll make those connections so a lot

2:46:37 of the openings you know the only reason we

2:46:39 got to the 677 new hires was you know it was all of us right it

2:46:43 was it was it wasn’t just the recruiters

2:46:45 i mean the principals uh were doing some really hard work above

2:46:49 everything else that they do and

2:46:51 responsible for uh to try to fill their openings right they were

2:46:54 also going on beacon and looking for

2:46:56 people that had just applied and um so what you’re saying is

2:47:00 recruiting is all of our jobs

2:47:01 recruiting really is uh all of us right i mean it’s it is it is

2:47:05 not just bps it is the parents it’s our

2:47:07 community organizations you know they’re they’re always very

2:47:10 interested in what we’re doing and

2:47:11 our hiring um so it’s it’s never what are you doing is what are

2:47:14 we doing because we all need to to get

2:47:16 involved in this work there’s there’s pieces that we could all

2:47:19 contribute to this and really the last

2:47:21 thing i would just jump in there with is i got to meet three of

2:47:24 our teachers from jamaica three of

2:47:25 our cultural exchange teachers from jamaica uh last week and um

2:47:29 the school’s excited the students are

2:47:31 excited they’re doing good work and it’s an interesting venture

2:47:34 for them i mean that and i i i just want to

2:47:37 thank our communities because some of these schools these

2:47:39 teachers have come over with either their

2:47:41 housing they help them with the housing but they’ve come in

2:47:44 without a lot of the things i needed to

2:47:45 kind of set up house and so our school communities have

2:47:48 surrounded those schools and asked for help

2:47:51 and providing furniture and and kitchenwares and things like

2:47:54 that and so but it’s exciting for our

2:47:56 students to get to experience that having a teacher from another

2:48:00 country too so i’m glad we’re able to

2:48:01 to start that thank you thank you thank you miss campbell mr

2:48:07 trump

2:48:08 thanks for all you guys doing it is a team effort um i know we’re

2:48:11 running short in time so i won’t

2:48:13 repeat a lot but the main thing i wanted to hit you to touch on

2:48:16 this campbell is getting the parents

2:48:18 into the classrooms getting them into the schools a lot of

2:48:21 success stories there so we keep doing that

2:48:25 and make it very easy for our volunteer process obviously i don’t

2:48:30 but we need to get parents into

2:48:32 our schools i think that’s a big help but everything else you

2:48:35 guys are just doing all you can do thank you

2:48:37 thank you mr wright yeah thank you i’m gonna be quick as well um

2:48:40 i you know good job kudos you’re doing

2:48:42 amazing things uh the only thing i would like to say is anything

2:48:44 we can do to make it easier to hire

2:48:46 like getting away from beacon i have heard that that is a

2:48:49 nightmare from everybody that has ever

2:48:50 had to go through it nobody says anything great about that

2:48:53 program unfortunately so whatever that

2:48:55 looks like so that we can make life easier for hr to get those

2:48:57 people in and get them through the

2:48:59 process um i’m i support that 100 so yeah that’s on mr dufrane’s

2:49:03 list i mean it was the first thing on

2:49:05 his list i’m sure we’ll get it done okay thank you thank you mr

2:49:10 alba um thank you so much for all the

2:49:12 stuff that you’re doing i’m going to try to move quickly we we

2:49:15 hired a number of recruiters um i

2:49:17 think we had agreed to 10 but they agreed to four how’s that

2:49:20 going how many do you have we ended up

2:49:22 with uh um the district peer mentor teachers is what you’re

2:49:25 referring to right i think you mentioned

2:49:27 recruiters i just want to make sure it’s clear to everyone that

2:49:29 just heard however i’ll take 10 recruiters

2:49:31 um so after the interview process uh we ended up selecting two

2:49:36 so they’re they’re already in the

2:49:38 schools they’re they’re they’ve been they’re being trained up by

2:49:41 our current district peer mentor

2:49:43 teachers they have they’ve connected uh with the the principals

2:49:46 at the schools that they are supporting

2:49:48 they’ve already you know connecting with the teachers that they’re

2:49:51 going to work with uh so yeah

2:49:52 they’re they’ve they’re they’re they’re hitting the ground

2:49:55 running um supporting teachers so uh so we

2:49:57 have a total of uh five right now uh you know we had three we

2:50:01 have two two more um additional ones

2:50:04 that that you all uh approved so we almost doubled to what we

2:50:08 had the year before so are you are you

2:50:10 actively trying to fill those other two spots we were funded for

2:50:13 two well i thought we funded four

2:50:16 four was the number that we had talked about yeah four is the

2:50:22 number we said we would fund you know i

2:50:26 think just with the timing of when they add and the approval

2:50:31 happens i i i think it would have been a

2:50:33 challenge even to have filled those four um how many applicants

2:50:37 did you have uh we ended up interviewing

2:50:39 like six okay and they weren’t qualified you could but you know

2:50:43 it it’s it’s just uh you know i hate to

2:50:46 say that they’re not qualified i mean they’re they were all

2:50:48 phenomenal teachers right if not they would

2:50:50 i’m sure they wouldn’t have applied it’s just it’s it’s just

2:50:53 unique work right it’s just different uh

2:50:55 of having to give feedback to your colleagues didn’t give that

2:50:58 feedback to your peers and that the fact

2:51:00 that they support teachers in the k-12 setting you know it’s not

2:51:03 just elementary it’s not just secondary

2:51:05 you’re gonna have to support every school um so i you know i

2:51:09 think if maybe if it was advertised in

2:51:11 the spring or something like that when teachers hadn’t left i

2:51:13 might have gotten a greater pool of

2:51:15 applicants um to just to to fill it but uh you know and then

2:51:19 again challenges you know you still have

2:51:22 to train those teachers to make sure they’re doing a good job so

2:51:24 that the more you hire then the more

2:51:26 difficulty the more difficult it is to train them well um and to

2:51:30 really model what those expectations are

2:51:33 so that they can go off and be successful and earn that trust of

2:51:36 the teachers they’re working with

2:51:37 earn that trust of the school administration that they’re

2:51:40 working with um so i you know i think i

2:51:44 think too was it was a good number to start off with and i just

2:51:47 know we had we had all those numbers

2:51:49 yes if that need uh you know i think the need will still be

2:51:52 there so maybe if we want to then if we

2:51:54 have budget for maybe two additional ones later on um that can

2:51:59 certainly be an option okay i think we’ve

2:52:02 budgeted for but we’re not a big deal the school campus um fairs

2:52:07 i know that you had spoken about

2:52:09 it i do know that the number of students going through

2:52:12 educational programs is significantly lower

2:52:14 um i do know that when you go there there’s like a thousand

2:52:17 people and getting access to them

2:52:19 um and i agree with you uh thank you for for at least trying but

2:52:23 i do know that that’s not a very

2:52:24 productive way of doing it you know what i mean so thank you for

2:52:27 at least trying now there was one that

2:52:29 said florida tech you know that kind of caught me did they have

2:52:32 a teaching fair do they have teaching

2:52:34 program they don’t have they’ll have um sometimes we don’t go

2:52:38 just to um educational fairs some some

2:52:41 colleges will have like an all majors fair okay so you know

2:52:43 certainly we’re thinking of more of our

2:52:45 secondary our secondary classrooms maybe they’re graduating with

2:52:49 psychology or biology degrees who

2:52:52 maybe don’t want to or chemistry or do you know maybe don’t want

2:52:55 to go to get a master’s or you

2:52:56 know uh you know or they just always thought maybe you know they

2:52:59 had in their back of the mind they

2:53:00 wanted to be a teacher so again we we don’t we try to look under

2:53:03 every single rock possible to fill

2:53:05 openings you know we we have a lot of needs uh secondary science

2:53:09 is definitely a need right now no it

2:53:11 it makes total sense appreciate that um the reason i was asking

2:53:14 that is is that um ucf and i got into a

2:53:17 little tussle about six years ago when eastern florida state was

2:53:21 requesting to create their educational

2:53:24 program and ucf was vetoing it because by law they’re allowed to

2:53:28 veto any new applications within a

2:53:31 certain amount of miles and just so you know what ucf does is

2:53:35 they were taking in the applications and then

2:53:38 they were vetoing us to create our own homegrown teaching

2:53:42 college right the secondary college they

2:53:45 vetoed it so i went over and talked to the president and what

2:53:47 they’re doing is is they’re trying to take

2:53:49 the students once they get through they do their internships in

2:53:52 orlando and then they get hired in

2:53:54 orlando because once they’re over there look i’m a student i

2:53:57 would rather be in orlando nice downtown

2:53:59 right and then on top of that they’re making more money so i

2:54:01 could see why they did it i’m not beat

2:54:03 but one of the problems that we have locally is is that the l

2:54:07 the school districts co the college

2:54:10 program that’s local only has i think it’s like science or

2:54:13 something science correct right so it’s

2:54:16 like and is that elementary is that secondary it’s like

2:54:19 elementary it is it’s secondary i mean i think

2:54:21 if you come out certified um with the science uh teaching

2:54:24 certificate you could certainly then maybe

2:54:26 just take the the elementary subject area exam and then just be

2:54:29 certified in elementary as well or teach

2:54:31 out of field for the first year so that we could use it as a

2:54:34 vehicle to get yes it could at least get

2:54:35 them uh entryway right a foot in the door as you know with a

2:54:39 teaching certificate eastern florida has

2:54:41 has been working with us the district um to also start an esc

2:54:44 program as well because they see that’s

2:54:45 a big need so hopefully that will that will be an option for

2:54:48 students in the you know next year or two

2:54:50 so it won’t be just science so they are trying to expand that

2:54:54 offering which i think is wonderful um

2:54:56 and then that way uh because you’re right once if they go out

2:54:59 and they start making friendships

2:55:01 they start you know living somewhere else it’s very hard to kind

2:55:04 of bring them back just because

2:55:05 financially it’s it’s difficult no it’s it’s great thank you and

2:55:09 um quick question we have those we

2:55:11 have those teaching programs i think one’s at bayside um and

2:55:15 then there’s one at uh space coast i was a

2:55:17 part of creating that what is the fidelity and numbers coming

2:55:21 out of those like because we want to

2:55:23 create our homegrown but like i remember i still have students

2:55:26 that are now that were part of that

2:55:28 original class at space coast that are now teachers i run into

2:55:30 them all the time are they producing like

2:55:33 how is that the space coast program um is is you know just more

2:55:37 more well um there’s there’s greater

2:55:39 participation student participation in the space coast one i

2:55:42 know bayside because it’s got that

2:55:44 elementary school attached to it so they have the experience of

2:55:47 going back yeah i i think um you know

2:55:49 that teacher at space coast uh francine drabek she does an

2:55:53 amazing job um so you know a lot of it is

2:55:55 driven by the teacher who’s on the program you know because it’s

2:55:58 elective at the end of the day

2:55:59 students are you know uh they want that relationship with

2:56:03 teachers so you know if you get that right

2:56:05 person in there uh that program could really grow so they they’ve

2:56:09 they have uh definitely the largest

2:56:10 program i know bayside they’ve made some changes um over this

2:56:14 past summer so we’re hopeful through

2:56:16 those changes and working with um is it the same instructor ct

2:56:20 uh no i think they they changed uh

2:56:22 instructor okay at bayside um so i hopefully with those changes

2:56:25 that additional support with cte

2:56:27 that they’ll get that program a little bit more robust and i

2:56:31 didn’t i didn’t know the reason is is

2:56:33 that those are usually locally run so that like the only the

2:56:36 kids at space coast are attending that

2:56:39 and if it is that this is a high need for the next you know what

2:56:41 i mean we may want to look at

2:56:43 actually opening up some other little centers for that because

2:56:46 if you can you can you know what i mean draw

2:56:48 them in yeah that makes sense the goal for those programs is

2:56:50 after they graduate high school is

2:56:52 then they would they would be hired on as an instructional

2:56:54 assistant while they’re going

2:56:56 working you know maybe going to eastern florida and getting

2:56:59 their four-year degree um you know still

2:57:01 working for us and and all that and then when they finally

2:57:04 graduate then they can become a classroom

2:57:06 teacher so that that’s kind of the progression uh with with

2:57:09 those two programs which is another thing is is

2:57:12 that we may want to look at and there’s a couple of things that

2:57:14 i wanted to propose

2:57:15 we have ap when kids graduate we give them when we graduate the

2:57:19 ap we get 50 right maybe there’s

2:57:23 an opportunity to incentivize those instructors to actually have

2:57:26 them become a part of our homegrown

2:57:28 eastern florida state college program and give them 50 when they

2:57:32 apply and they get accepted so that

2:57:33 there’s a pathway does that make sense to you like incentivizing

2:57:36 with the yeah i’m not sure i know

2:57:38 that’s all through driven driven like through cape funding

2:57:41 because there’s you know those individuals

2:57:43 that uh pass you know can can achieve some industry certifications

2:57:46 they’re also eligible for the 50

2:57:48 dollars just like ap teachers are i’m just not sure if um there’s

2:57:51 there’s a there’s a test with those

2:57:54 programs okay um that qualify for that yeah rachel rutledge

2:57:57 would be the one just an idea the other thing i was

2:58:00 going to say is is that in many other areas and i would like to

2:58:03 propose this all of our teacher

2:58:05 friends know other teachers they’re all friends like my wife

2:58:08 knows probably 20 teachers that are

2:58:10 staying at home moms that no longer have their children like

2:58:12 staying at home they’re they’re actually

2:58:14 in school if you could incentivize those individuals um not my

2:58:18 wife of course but others that you could say

2:58:20 that um if you were able to get somebody to apply and become a

2:58:24 teacher we would be willing to give you

2:58:26 x amount of dollars i think that that would probably produce a

2:58:29 significant amount of opportunities and

2:58:31 applicants because you have the opportunity for them to actually

2:58:34 do that i think that i’d like to

2:58:36 propose that dr rendell i think that it’s something that if we

2:58:38 were able to do that you would have

2:58:40 like instead of us having to hire 20 recruiters you could just

2:58:43 have your recruiters literally out

2:58:45 there and i think that that would incentivize it because there’s

2:58:47 a significant number of them i have

2:58:49 a bunch of other stuff that i’ll follow up but i just wanted to

2:58:51 say thank you so much for your time

2:58:53 the board members are really ready to go they keep packing their

2:58:57 handles and we’re going

2:58:57 they got to clear this room and so these have been some really

2:59:00 good conversations but we do

2:59:01 have four things i was going to suggest if they’re not urgent

2:59:03 that we toss them to the

2:59:04 next workshop unless it’s really short it’s really short we can

2:59:09 put them tonight but if it doesn’t

2:59:10 no we we need to yeah we need to go through them i don’t think

2:59:13 the drug-free workplace

2:59:14 the performance review i don’t think any of these are real long

2:59:18 they’re like real quick

2:59:19 they’re not very long no the drug-free workplace is just a

2:59:22 matter of a head nods from you guys whether

2:59:24 you want to move forward with that yeah revision of the policy

2:59:27 with me so yeah yeah so these should

2:59:29 all take less than five minutes did you want to try to do it now

2:59:31 is what you’re telling me because

2:59:32 i’m about to get beat here well i think i defer to paul but if

2:59:35 we don’t discuss it tonight it stays

2:59:38 it halts it in the process correct we’ll do it tonight this is

2:59:42 the work session one so we can actually

2:59:44 move this to tuesday when we’re doing the other policy review

2:59:47 well we can move it to we’ll still

2:59:49 be on track stay on calendar yeah we’ll stay on track because it’s

2:59:52 advertised today and then it comes

2:59:53 back for public hearing at the next board meeting in september

2:59:56 we can do it tonight we can do it tonight

2:59:59 is it is it can we do it tonight you can move it to tonight you

3:00:02 can move it to tuesday we got all

3:00:04 the six thousands on tuesday so let’s just do it tonight in

3:00:06 there we’ll do it tonight we’ll do all

3:00:08 these tonight they’re not going to be a deal we’re good time

3:00:10 four all right we’re good back at be back

3:00:13 back at 5 30. yeah be back in 30 minutes all right

3:00:43 you