Updates on the Fight for Quality Public Education in Brevard County, FL
0:00 Thank you.
3:00 Good afternoon, January 23rd, 2024, board work session is now in
3:18 order.
3:19 Roll call, roll call, please.
3:20 Ms. Wright?
3:21 Present.
3:22 Mr. Trent?
3:22 Here.
3:23 Mr. Susan?
3:24 Present.
3:25 Ms. Campbell?
3:25 Here.
3:26 Ms. Jenkins?
3:28 All right.
3:29 Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.
3:30 I believe.
3:30 I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
3:39 and to the republic for which
3:41 it stands, one nation, one God, indivisible, liberty, and
3:45 justice for all.
3:50 Okay, board.
3:51 We have a couple of presentations that are going to be given
3:53 today.
3:54 I know we also have a board meeting this afternoon, so I think
3:57 to honor everyone’s time, if we
3:59 can just go ahead and establish a time certain stopping point
4:02 for 430, if that’s okay with the
4:04 board.
4:04 That way we’ll have a break in between the one from one to the
4:07 other.
4:08 Is everyone in favor of that?
4:09 All right.
4:10 Good.
4:11 Thank you.
4:11 Just wanted to clear that up.
4:12 All right.
4:12 So the first presentation we have is for the long-term facility
4:16 planning update.
4:17 Ms. Sue.
4:18 Good afternoon, everyone.
4:19 Thank you, Mrs. Wright.
4:20 So this is a follow-on to a workshop that we had back in
4:25 September of 2023 with Ms. Black and
4:29 Dr. Meyer talking about our parental choice and how that relates
4:32 to utilization of our facilities.
4:34 And our recommendation at the time was to engage our planning
4:37 consultant, WXY, to kind of do
4:39 a little deeper dive into some of the drivers of facility use.
4:44 And so we have done that.
4:45 And today’s presentation, they will debrief what they have found
4:49 in their work, and then
4:51 I’ll be making some recommendations for additional work going
4:53 forward.
4:53 So with that, I’m going to turn it over to Adam Lubinsky with WXY.
4:57 Thank you so much, Sue.
5:02 Adam Lubinsky, partner at WXY Studio, here with Sara Lee Morrissey
5:07 of Sara Lee Morrissey Consulting.
5:09 Real pleasure to be here in person, and it’s been a pleasure to
5:13 have met with you throughout
5:15 this process.
5:16 So we have very straightforward presentation, which is really a
5:20 synthesis of the conversations
5:23 that we’ve had with the Provine Public School board members.
5:26 Simple enough, we interviewed each of you to discuss and
5:30 summarize short and medium-term priorities
5:34 for BPS facilities.
5:36 So what we’ve done is assembled your comments into four basic
5:42 topic areas.
5:44 There’s obviously overlap, interrelationship between them, but
5:48 we summarized the priorities
5:51 we understood from you under programming, aging facilities,
5:55 utilization, and enrollment, and
5:58 financing approaches.
5:59 And so what we will do, I’ll run through the first three themes
6:03 and then I’ll turn it over
6:05 to Sara Lee to talk through financing approaches.
6:08 We’ve constructed a very basic summary of the comments that we
6:12 received from you.
6:13 We’ve kept it high level, obviously it could have gone for quite
6:18 some time, and we’ve categorized
6:21 your comments into four basic categories.
6:24 First, not a priority or opposed, second, neutral, weak priority,
6:31 third, strong priority, and fourth,
6:34 it wasn’t really discussed on the call.
6:37 We went into this not with pointed questions, but really as an
6:41 open-ended discussion to get
6:43 your ideas and thoughts on priorities.
6:46 So some members covered issues that were not covered by other
6:51 members.
6:52 So just to kick off with discussing programming, that was a key
6:58 theme.
6:59 It was discussed in many forms by all of you throughout these
7:02 calls, very interesting feedback.
7:05 And we’ll begin by talking about career and technical education,
7:10 and just as an opening,
7:12 opening category, it was very clear from all of you that this
7:17 was seen as a real strength of
7:19 Brevard Public Schools.
7:22 And that was something that we had a number of follow-up
7:26 questions around in terms of how
7:28 that could be explored further.
7:31 One item that came up amongst four of you in strong agreement
7:36 that there was a desire to cite
7:39 new CTE programs in repurposed buildings.
7:44 That’s something that, as you’ll know, in some CTE programs,
7:48 that’s an easy thing to accomplish.
7:50 And then in other cases where there may be more complicated
7:52 equipment, it may be a larger challenge.
7:55 But it was clear thinking that that would be important to
7:59 explore among four board members.
8:02 Now, thinking about where those CTE programs should be located,
8:08 there was a thought that those should
8:10 be spread throughout the district rather than in a centralized
8:13 location.
8:14 That was a perspective shared by three of you, and one person,
8:18 it didn’t come up in that conversation.
8:21 One person didn’t have strong feelings about it one way or the
8:25 other.
8:25 But clearly a lot to think about in terms of CTE programming.
8:31 We also heard from all of the board members about the ESE
8:37 programming.
8:38 I should let you know we spent most of today traveling around
8:42 the district, and we did spend
8:44 significant time at Gardendale as well, which was really
8:48 important for us to see.
8:49 And so commentary we received on ESE programming.
8:54 We heard clear from all five board members that the ESE programs
8:59 are lacking and more investment
9:01 is needed.
9:04 Going on from that, there was a clear desire to address
9:07 conditions at Gardendale and consider
9:10 easing the pressure by developing new campuses or a new campus,
9:15 I would add, that it could
9:17 be singular or plural there.
9:20 So yeah, really clear responses.
9:23 Really important for us to spend time there and see the work
9:26 that they are doing out there.
9:28 Alternative learning centers, just to follow on from the ESE,
9:31 alternative learning center offering
9:34 should be expanded to allow for more age-specific programming.
9:39 This is something that we heard from two of the members.
9:42 It didn’t come up actually in three of those conversations, but
9:46 it was prominent enough that
9:47 we wanted to note it from those two conversations.
9:52 We did ask folks about STEM and the idea of citing STEM programs
9:58 in every school.
10:00 This is something that there was one person felt like that was a
10:04 very good idea.
10:05 Two people didn’t express an opinion about it.
10:10 One person felt neutrally about it and one person was opposed to
10:15 that.
10:16 And then finally, on this slide, looking at choice programming,
10:21 there was some interest expressed
10:24 by two board members to open a new choice school in the southern
10:30 part of the county.
10:32 And then to follow on with a few more points on programming, we
10:37 can pause after that.
10:38 And if there are questions or thoughts about the programming
10:42 slides, we can dive in a little bit.
10:45 On athletics programming, there was one board member who
10:49 expressed a strong opinion about
10:52 expanding the availability and quality of athletic programs to
10:57 make Brevard Public Schools more competitive.
10:59 So that’s something that it didn’t come up in those other
11:03 conversations with board members,
11:04 but we wanted to relay that.
11:05 Yeah.
11:06 I think because I’m a couple of these topics, I’m like, we know
11:11 exactly who the athletics and the year-round schools,
11:14 like where those came from.
11:15 Yes.
11:18 And we understand with this next point year-round schools that
11:20 there has been some follow-up conversation.
11:22 I think maybe a workshop on year-round schools, so it was
11:26 something that came up from one board member.
11:29 The other four board members did not at that time express an
11:33 opinion about it.
11:35 And then this last point on programmatic feeder patterns, there
11:40 was a thought that there might
11:42 be different feeder patterns across the county that may
11:46 specialize, tie in with perhaps career and technical
11:49 education programs or other specific kinds of programming.
11:53 There were three board members who thought that was a very good
11:57 idea, and two board members didn’t express
11:59 an opinion on that one way or the other.
12:01 So I will pause there and open it up for any thoughts or
12:05 questions or follow-ups on these points.
12:08 And if there are none, I can move on to the aging facilities.
12:13 I don’t have any at this time.
12:16 Board members, no?
12:17 No?
12:17 You’re good.
12:18 Keep on going.
12:18 Okay.
12:20 So we wanted to talk about facility program, facility issues
12:29 related to aging buildings.
12:32 And so this first point around co-locations and repurposing, the
12:36 district should prioritize
12:39 ESE and/or alternative learning center programs for co-locations.
12:44 Four people agreed that was a very good idea and one person was
12:50 neutral about it.
12:53 And just to be clear on co-locations, we didn’t get highly
12:56 specific as to what that could mean.
12:58 It could mean a school campus that has a lot of space or it
13:02 could mean repurposing a portion
13:04 of that school building.
13:05 And then the second point, underutilized facilities could offer
13:10 opportunity to expand CTE or pre-K
13:14 and/or other program offerings.
13:16 That was something that four board members felt quite strongly
13:20 about and a fifth board member
13:22 didn’t express an opinion on.
13:24 And then the final point, under aging facilities, looking at
13:30 closures and consolidation.
13:31 Considering consolidation and co-location prior to considering
13:38 closure as part of a unified,
13:40 community-driven strategy to right-sized schools across the
13:44 district.
13:44 All of the board members agreed that that was a good idea.
13:48 Any follow-up on these items on aging facilities?
13:55 I don’t have any.
13:57 It looks like we’re pretty much in agreement, which is good.
13:59 So.
13:59 Great.
14:00 And so looking at utilization and enrollment.
14:05 First, considering new schools.
14:09 Constructing a new school in the southern part of the county or
14:14 Palm Bay,
14:15 potentially a K-8 school.
14:17 This, in some ways, may link to the discussion around a choice
14:22 school in the south county as well.
14:24 Three people were in agreement with this.
14:28 Two did not express an opinion.
14:30 And then thinking about grade configurations.
14:35 This was something that came up in all of our conversations.
14:39 Everyone had an opinion one way or the other.
14:42 Considering additional grade K-8 schools is a worthy
14:47 consideration.
14:49 Two people felt like that was a good idea.
14:52 Two people were neutral about it.
14:56 One person was opposed to the idea.
15:00 And the way people were looking at K-8 schools varied in terms
15:03 of whether it related to offerings or
15:06 programs or capacity and utilization.
15:10 Additional grades 7 through 12 schools are worthy of
15:14 consideration.
15:15 Three people felt that was a very good idea.
15:19 Two people were opposed to that.
15:21 And then thinking about co-location and repurposing.
15:26 Again, linking back to the previous note about aging facilities.
15:32 Consider co-location, repurposing, and/or consolidation as part
15:36 of a unified,
15:37 community-driven strategy to right-size offerings across the
15:41 district.
15:41 All were in agreement with that as a goal.
15:44 And then finally, improving the perception of Brevard Public
15:51 Schools as a way of
15:53 addressing enrollment.
15:54 This could include improved marketing of existing school
15:59 offerings,
16:00 which could help drive enrollment in existing schools.
16:03 Four people discussed that or in agreement with that.
16:07 There were some really creative ideas about how to do that as
16:11 well, which we thought was very interesting.
16:13 Any questions or comments on the utilization and enrollment?
16:21 Okay, I’ll turn it over to Sara Lee.
16:22 Sara Lee: All righty.
16:24 Good afternoon.
16:28 So we did think it was important to ask you a couple of specific
16:35 questions
16:35 as it related to financing your capital program.
16:39 Obviously, all of these different themes, whether we’re talking
16:44 about expanding programs,
16:46 particularly ESE programs and/or career and technical education,
16:51 whether we’re talking about taking care of our aging facilities
16:56 or building new schools,
16:58 whether they be replacement schools for the aging facilities or
17:02 new schools for growth,
17:04 all of those have financial implications.
17:07 And while you may not be considered a large district by the top
17:13 10 in the country
17:14 or even Florida standards, you are a large district and you do
17:18 have a large inventory,
17:20 which requires some significant capital to manage.
17:27 So that being said, we did hear some strong opinions about debt.
17:34 You are carrying significant debt at the moment.
17:38 It’s using a lot of your LCIF to repay it.
17:42 And there was some strong feelings amongst three board members
17:47 that no additional debt should be considered.
17:51 The one board member did not bring up the issue or respond to a
17:57 question about additional debt.
17:59 And then there was a board member that did not have a strong
18:02 feeling one way or the other about additional debt.
18:07 And we asked a little bit about the sales tax.
18:10 And we did that because your sales tax program, as you know it
18:15 today, the term expires at the end of 2026.
18:20 So certainly all of you were aware of that, knowing that it’s a
18:25 significant part of your capital program
18:28 and that a renewal was something that should be considered, I
18:33 would like to be able to say
18:38 on the record here that all board members felt like your staff
18:44 does a great job with facilities
18:49 and in particular managing the sales tax program.
18:53 And I think that’s an important thing to recognize.
18:57 We did, particularly because we were talking about a variety of
19:01 different issues
19:02 and knowing that the term will be coming up and you’ll be
19:06 preparing a new program,
19:08 we asked about how you felt about a longer term than six years.
19:15 It’s our understanding that you’re in your third six-year term
19:20 of the sales tax.
19:21 And many of you were unaware that the term of the sales tax was
19:26 something that you could consider
19:29 differently than the six years.
19:32 I think it’s important for you to know that as of not last year,
19:39 2022,
19:40 30 school districts in Florida are implementing a half-cent
19:45 sales tax program.
19:47 That’s almost half of the school districts in our state.
19:50 And that’s up considerably from 2010 when 16 school districts
19:55 had a half-cent program.
19:57 So the half-cent is important to many districts across our state.
20:02 And I would say that amongst those 30 schools, the term of the
20:06 program varies considerably.
20:09 Six years is the shortest term, but there is a school district
20:16 in the state
20:16 that has implemented a 30-year term.
20:20 And there are districts that are doing 10 years, 15 years, 20
20:25 years, and then six and 30.
20:28 So I think that’s important for you all to know.
20:31 When we brought the issue up, the question about the term,
20:36 several were unaware and weren’t really sure how they felt about
20:44 it,
20:44 would need to give it more thought.
20:47 And one board member thought that that might in fact be a good
20:51 idea for consideration.
20:53 With another board member having no thought or no current
20:58 opinion on the question.
21:01 And then lastly, your sales tax program has to date been focused
21:08 on renovations,
21:10 a lot of system replacement issues.
21:14 There was a question and discussion about whether or not your
21:18 sales tax could be considered
21:20 for something beyond that.
21:21 And you can see that three of you thought that that was
21:25 something that should be considered in particular
21:28 as you look at new school construction, whether or not that’s
21:33 new capacity for growth
21:36 and or new replacement capacity for your aging facilities.
21:42 And with that, I believe we’re turning it over to Sue.
21:55 I just not really a question, but just a comment on this because
21:59 I, this conversation around the sales tax
22:01 and the debt, you know, is going to be an important one over the
22:04 coming years as we consider.
22:06 I think one of the, when I, just for historical perspective, the,
22:09 that six-year term, especially
22:12 the first year, I think was something that was kind of
22:14 negotiated down because our public,
22:15 the public didn’t really know what we’re going to do with it.
22:17 If I think if we talk, if we continue to see the growth that our
22:21 community is seeing
22:23 and then the public, the second time around passed it even
22:26 higher than the first time around,
22:27 with pretty confident, you know, like a 61% passing rate.
22:30 I think that’s something that the community would understand
22:34 probably more than ever before,
22:36 if we were able to incorporate, not spend the whole thing on
22:39 schools.
22:39 Cause that would, you know, if you, you talk about that, I mean,
22:42 how many schools can you build?
22:43 You know, nowadays with the way, but we, to, to really help with
22:47 that, you know,
22:48 we have a choice to build new schools.
22:50 We can go into debt, impact fees can get us so far and we were
22:54 very thankful for them.
22:55 But you can go into debt or you can fund it with a surtax.
22:59 And I’m concerned, we still have $300 million worth of debt.
23:01 And I just, that’s something we really want to think about over
23:04 the next couple of years,
23:04 because those are really our options.
23:06 We don’t really have the option to not build something.
23:11 And that’s why we’re having this conversation today.
23:13 So, you know, again, something we’re just going to really have
23:16 to think about over the next,
23:17 really about two years before we have to make decisions on that.
23:20 Sorry.
23:22 Thanks a little interlude there.
23:24 All right, Sue.
23:27 Thank you.
23:28 And Ms. Campbell, that was a great introduction to what I’m
23:31 going to talk about,
23:32 because really this work, in my opinion, is foundational to that
23:36 conversation of the 2026
23:38 renewal of the surtax.
23:39 So what is in there in terms of capital project scope, all will
23:44 be fleshed out over the next
23:47 year and a half or so.
23:48 And so that’s why I wanted to get started on this now,
23:50 so that we can determine what we do want to do in 2026.
23:55 And this is really kind of a foundational piece for that.
23:57 So I appreciate the work that WXY did to kind of narrow this
24:01 down to what are the things that we
24:03 really should be focusing on in terms of our staff work.
24:06 And so I feel like there were four main focus areas for our work.
24:11 And these are the four that I’m going to be recommending to you.
24:13 The first is we’ve got to wrap our arms around how we serve our
24:19 ESE students,
24:20 and specifically how we serve the students who need the services
24:23 of a separate day school.
24:25 And so that is something that we really are going to need some
24:28 help with.
24:29 Secondly, the bullet that says strengthen cross-functional
24:33 approach to facility
24:34 planning is kind of vague.
24:35 And that kind of encompasses where do we have our pre-K programs?
24:39 Where do we have our CTE programs?
24:41 What mix of space and programming is right short-term, mid-term,
24:47 long-term?
24:47 And that’s going to require a lot of analysis.
24:51 Because we have so many variables both on our side and then we’re
24:55 in a competitive educational
24:57 marketplace too.
24:58 So where we are today with enrollment is also affected by
25:04 parents making choices,
25:05 legislative actions, schools that other entities are building or
25:09 opening.
25:10 So there’s a lot of variables that play into these decisions.
25:14 And we’re going to have to be adaptable and we’re going to have
25:17 to be forward-thinking.
25:19 So I want to set us up for success.
25:21 And so that bullet is kind of vague and all-encompassing.
25:25 But I feel like we have a path to get there if we use our
25:30 consulting services as well as our staff
25:32 to do some good data gathering analysis and bringing back some
25:35 solid proposals and alternatives to the board.
25:38 The third bullet is a little bit more actionable.
25:40 We’ve been talking with the board about the transportation
25:44 maintenance facility at Pineapple
25:45 and relocating that.
25:46 And I think we have an option that will work as well as using
25:52 the site on San Filippo
25:54 as a co-location with a new school.
25:56 So I’ll talk about that in a little bit more detail.
25:58 And then the fourth bullet is around strategic promotion of BPS
26:02 services and programs.
26:04 And that came through in the conversations that you all had with
26:07 WXY.
26:07 So dive in, talking about Gardendale and ESE planning.
26:11 We really need to do some collaborative work with our partners
26:16 on the educational side of the house.
26:17 And we would like to bring WXY in to facilitate that
26:21 conversation and develop a scope of work
26:24 that will get us to a solid recommendation on what we do with a
26:28 separate day school function at BPS,
26:31 as well as other ESE needs that we may not even know in
26:34 facilities.
26:35 We typically run across these as we are doing projects in
26:39 schools.
26:40 But I think it would be a good opportunity right now to really
26:43 understand the whole ESE landscape
26:45 and what might be appropriate for us to think about as we move
26:48 forward with new schools and renovation of schools.
26:51 You’ll see on your board agenda February 6th is a pretty robust
26:56 new building at Mila Elementary
26:58 that is focused around ESE. And I’m really proud of our team. We
27:01 did what I think is a good job
27:03 collaborating with our educational side of the house to really
27:07 make sure that we are meeting the needs of the students.
27:10 And I think we in facilities can do more of that as we work
27:15 through this process with our partners.
27:17 So I’m excited about this opportunity. But again, there’s a lot
27:21 of different variables. Transportation is involved.
27:24 The location of the children changes over time. The services
27:29 that other providers may offer or not offer fall into the
27:33 equation.
27:34 So we really need to sit down and kind of look at the universe
27:37 of this problem and figure out how to best attack it
27:41 or what are the two or three different options that we might
27:43 have to address these issues.
27:45 So we agree with the board in terms of Gardendale and ESE are
27:50 critical functions and needs that we need to address.
27:52 And we’d like to focus on doing that.
27:54 Our second bullet, I talked a little bit about the cross-functional
27:59 facility planning.
28:00 We have great data in facilities. We did our facility assessment
28:05 that’s coming up on a five years ago now.
28:07 You’ll probably see a budget request from me for FY25 to update
28:11 that information.
28:12 We have a much better work order system. So we do have really
28:17 good work order data now.
28:19 And we’re starting to be able to look at trends. So, for example,
28:22 we look at our chillers and we see
28:24 where our work orders are happening on our chillers. And we can
28:27 predict this group of chillers
28:29 probably should be next on the agenda. So really working towards
28:33 having that like five-ish year
28:35 capital plan for some of our major assets and building systems.
28:39 Looking at the educational marketplace, we really need to bring
28:44 in GCR and what’s happening
28:46 in the world of competitive educational business.
28:51 looking at our facilities and where we have capacity. So we have
28:55 some schools that are underutilized,
28:57 some schools that are overutilized. Redistricting has not really
29:01 been a successful strategy in Brevard
29:05 Public Schools. So we have to look at our community and bring
29:08 the community into the conversation
29:11 around how we match up our spaces and our programming needs. So
29:17 this, too, is kind of a big undertaking.
29:21 And it requires some strategic thought and some facilitation. So
29:24 I would propose to also engage WXY
29:28 and develop a scope of work and bring that back to the board to
29:32 review with me. But I feel like we really
29:35 need some facilitation assistance to get to get this to the end.
29:41 And the end would be a program of work
29:43 that we can start to execute in 2026. And some of which would be
29:47 sooner.
29:48 The San Filippo site is the third item. And just to orient
29:54 everybody, this is the location of the site.
29:57 It’s about two miles south of Bayside, which is right about in
30:00 here. This is De Groot. This is Minton Road.
30:07 This is Malabar Road. So it’s pretty far south. You see Grant
30:10 Road. The parkway, new parkway interchange
30:14 is right about in this location. So in talking with
30:16 transportation, they felt that this site could
30:18 could really work for them because it is in a growth hub as well
30:23 as very close to the new interchange.
30:26 So it’s accessible to good transportation. So this is a site in
30:31 a little bit more detail.
30:33 We did talk to the Palm Bay city manager and their utilities
30:38 director and a few other staff people
30:40 just to kind of see if there were any significant concerns about
30:44 this site. And they felt that they
30:47 could both accommodate us with utilities and would work with us
30:50 on the site development process. So this
30:53 is something that I think we have this asset we can easily move
30:56 forward because we’ve really been
30:58 struggling to find a site elsewhere in the county that is not
31:02 completely underwater or prohibitively
31:05 expensive. Those are kind of the two choices. And so this seemed
31:08 like a good compromise.
31:10 We also have been watching our enrollment trends in the Palm Bay
31:14 area, and they’re going up for for all grades.
31:17 And we’re talking with Dr. Rendell and the educational side of
31:22 the house. We think this might be a good place
31:25 to co-locate middle school. And so we had asked our civil
31:28 engineering consultant to take his layout for the
31:33 transportation maintenance facility as well as just take the
31:37 exact layout for the Viera Middle School and see if both of
31:40 those will fit on this site.
31:42 And the answer is they do. And as we get into the details of
31:49 site development, we’ll have to make sure
31:52 that all of this fits, and I’m sure we’ll have to modify a
31:54 little bit. But the overview is that it does fit.
31:58 There are some wetlands on the site in this area, so we’ll have
32:02 to address that. There’s another one
32:04 kind of the middle here. But, you know, these are not insurmountable
32:08 obstacles. And so what I would like
32:11 to propose is that we move forward with kind of the site
32:15 planning and potentially design aspects of this
32:19 so that we can get a little farther along. We don’t have the
32:23 budget for another new middle school.
32:26 Obviously, that’s going to take a while before we get there. But
32:29 I’d like us to get prepared.
32:31 And so I think the time right now would be spent on engaging
32:36 appropriate consultants to start site
32:39 planning, start design work. We’re going to have some
32:42 procurement processes around this that’ll take
32:44 some time. But I feel like it’s important that we get started so
32:49 that we are ready when we need these
32:51 facilities. So this is what’s proposed for San Filippo. And then
32:56 the final slide is just talking about
32:59 about the strategic promotion of Brevard Public Schools. And in
33:02 talking with Mr. Bruhn about this,
33:05 there certainly are consultant resources that can assist us in
33:10 doing more strategic promotion and more
33:14 thorough promotion of BPS. But that involves an investment. So,
33:20 you know, he would have to look at
33:22 the cost of doing something like that versus the estimated
33:25 return on investment in terms of enrollment.
33:27 But if we can talk about all the great things we’re doing and
33:31 help that or help us drive our
33:34 enrollment, this might be a good investment of some funds to
33:37 consider trying this in a little bit more
33:41 robust way. So I think that’s it. And happy to take any
33:45 questions.
33:46 All right. Board? Mr. Susan, do you want to start? Any questions?
33:53 If you’re looking for directions, I agree with you, I agree with
33:57 you, looking forward with
34:00 the site plans together and everything else. I know, being the
34:04 fact that it took us like 22 years to
34:05 build a middle school in Vieira, I appreciate you moving ahead
34:08 of time to get that taken care of,
34:10 because I know Ms. Campbell’s district down there is really in
34:13 need of a middle school. And I promoted 100%,
34:15 so you have my support in doing so. Thank you.
34:19 Mr. Trapp? Same. Thanks. Good job.
34:22 Man, a few words. Yeah, yeah. Sounds like he’s kind of stuffed
34:27 up today.
34:27 Okay, that’s good. So I just had a couple of questions, just so
34:34 I can follow where you’re
34:35 thinking, because I guess I was a little surprised at the idea
34:39 of a middle school right there.
34:40 Because we’re not quite capacity, but we’re going to get there
34:43 really fast. So I guess just kind of,
34:45 what was this thinking about starting with the middle school? Or
34:48 is it just because if we’re going
34:50 to build something in that location, that is because I know we’re
34:52 going to need an elementary school,
34:54 maybe that’s on the other side of the highway. So about that,
34:57 and then also with the bus situation,
35:00 then where are our main hubs so that we because we’re looking
35:03 somewhere central, and this is obviously
35:06 very south and not accessible to the central and north part of
35:08 the county. So kind of what,
35:10 where are we left with if we do it just down there and don’t do
35:14 something in the middle?
35:15 Okay, so let me start with the transportation question. So if I
35:20 understand Mr. Wilson’s
35:22 team’s view on this, that they will be relocating their Pineapple
35:26 Avenue functions down to the
35:29 facility that’s on Monroe adjacent to Stone. So that’ll pick up
35:34 kind of that central piece and then
35:36 some of those functions would end up being farther south. So I
35:40 think it distributes the transportation
35:43 functions appropriately throughout the district. So we won’t
35:47 lose that central piece.
35:48 Right, because I think that Monroe is our farthest south main
35:52 hub. Everything else is like a little small,
35:54 like a shack with some buses, for lack of it. Yeah, there’s West
36:01 Side Bus Compound, but West Side
36:03 is one of our, West Side and Sunrise are our two elementaries
36:06 that are growing exponentially.
36:09 Right, but that’s what I’m saying. West Side is a shack with
36:11 some buses. There’s no facilities that,
36:14 you know, there’s not a, no repair. I mean, everything has to,
36:19 would have to come. So that makes sense.
36:20 And then the other half of your question about why middle school,
36:25 literally every grade is stressed
36:29 in that area. But we think there’s going to be some
36:31 opportunities for developer-driven partnerships,
36:34 kind of in that area, in the vicinity of the Parkway interchange.
36:38 That might be an opportunity to
36:41 entertain the K-8 conversation. So I think that the elementary
36:46 piece will also be on the table at
36:48 some point. But we felt like this would be a solution in the
36:52 middle school arena. High school’s a whole
36:54 nother ballgame and we’re going to need to be thinking about
36:57 that as well. So if we’re not, we’re also not
37:00 locked in. So if we go, we move forward with the site
37:04 development with a plan to build a middle school,
37:06 but something happens later on and we say, no, we need another
37:09 elementary school on that spot, or,
37:10 or K-8 in that spot or whatever, we can redevelop.
37:13 Exactly. At the rate that we do these projects, like it will be
37:19 six months from now before you see
37:21 anything that’s a little bit more concrete than this, because we
37:24 have to go through a procurement
37:25 process. We do the engagement, we do design work. It’s going to
37:30 take a little while before we have
37:32 a go or no-go decision on the school part. Transportation-wise,
37:37 how fast can we move?
37:39 Transportation, we’re going to try to move a little bit faster.
37:42 We’re trying to figure out how to
37:45 co-manage the two procurement processes, because we have one
37:50 process for the middle school that would
37:52 probably focus around the prototype use. And then we have
37:55 another process for transportation and we’re going to
37:58 figure out how to best manage those together. So we’re not
38:01 duplicating work and we have consultants
38:04 that are talking to one another. So that challenge is something
38:08 we’re talking about this week.
38:10 Right. And then of course, we’ve got the great savings that we’re
38:13 not having to purchase a piece
38:14 of property so we can utilize the funds from the sale of the
38:17 property, the pineapple property towards
38:19 Correct. And the board has put, I think we’ve got about $3
38:23 million reserved for transportation
38:25 already that’s been kind of set aside for that project. So we
38:28 have the resources to get started
38:30 and we’ll get a better handle on, you know, if we need to phase,
38:34 which we probably will phase the
38:36 transportation project ahead of the school project. But I want
38:40 to make sure that it’s done in a logical
38:42 sequence. So, you know, if we’re going to co-locate a chiller,
38:44 for example, like we size the chiller
38:46 appropriately, or we phase the chiller, the civil work really
38:50 has to be done like all at once so that
38:52 we don’t do something on part A that precludes part B. Right. So
38:56 it really has to be thought of
38:58 kind of as a one project and then we will, we can phase the
39:01 pieces as we build it. Thanks.
39:04 Yeah, thank you. I, Sue, you’re so good that you’ve answered
39:07 most of the questions I had,
39:08 honestly, we’re just talking. So, um, what do you, as far as
39:11 your expected timeline of where you’re
39:13 looking at for the transportation depot, what are you thinking
39:16 that looks like for completion?
39:18 I would say off the top of my head, probably in the two year
39:25 timeframe,
39:25 one and a half to two years. Okay. All right. And then for the
39:29 school,
39:30 that would be long, longer term. So maybe it will be dependent
39:33 on the funding sources that we choose
39:35 to use. Okay. And so I’ll, I will come back to you with some
39:39 ideas on that once we have a little
39:41 better plan in mind. Um, so probably, um, early in 25 or late in
39:47 24, we’ll be talking about what are the
39:49 options. I’d like to look at our, our educational impact fee, um,
39:54 accrual patterns and how that’s
39:57 going, um, as well as potential, um, sales tax renewal and how
40:00 that might fit. But I really want to be a
40:03 little farther along before I make a commitment on that. Okay.
40:06 If we won’t hold you to it. Those are
40:07 kind of like, you know, where are we just a, just a general idea.
40:11 So, um, no, you have my support.
40:12 Honestly, I think us owning that land is, is tremendous. That’s
40:15 a huge amount of savings.
40:16 And I know you, you guys have been searching for a spot and this
40:20 has been a hurdle that has been
40:21 very hard to overcome. So if this is a solution to that problem,
40:24 um, and it saves us having to acquire
40:27 another piece of land or property, I think that’s a good
40:29 solution all the way around.
40:30 Okay. Thank you, Tom. Ms. Jenkins, I know you just came in.
40:34 No, um, I’m going to make a wild assumption since I just walked
40:38 in and I apologize. Um,
40:39 and I’ll explain why I was, uh, missing later tonight, uh, for
40:43 good reasons, but, um, I’m going
40:44 to assume that we are going with the San Filippo site and moving
40:49 forward with it. Okay.
40:51 So moving forward, just to clarify for everybody that’s watching
40:54 right now as well, moving forward
40:56 is just we’re given Sue’s team, the authority, the, the green
41:00 light to continue the planning process.
41:05 Right.
41:05 You know, more detailed plans, more, um, site analysis. Uh, can
41:10 we fit these two different
41:12 projects on that site? How much will it cost? What funding
41:16 mechanisms do we have? That kind of thing.
41:17 So, you know, we don’t need a headline that says we’re building
41:21 a new school or whatever yet.
41:22 Um, but, um, to go back to the question about why a middle
41:25 school versus maybe another elementary school
41:27 or a K eight, um, Southwest and central are both pretty much at
41:31 capacity. And so if we were going
41:35 to do, if we had, if we had the opportunity to build just one
41:38 building in that South area,
41:40 you know, a larger middle school, not larger, but basically we,
41:45 I don’t know if you could tell,
41:46 but on the site plan that was on slide 16, it’s Vera middle
41:51 school. So basically we wouldn’t have to pay
41:53 any design fees or anything. We already know already paid all
41:56 that. We just take that design and put it
41:58 down there. Um, we would see more relief, you know, at the
42:02 middle school level for Southwest and central
42:05 with the, with that one building, then we would see relief if we
42:08 were to build another elementary school.
42:10 You know, we, the numbers just, we don’t yield as much relief,
42:14 you know, so, you know, now I’m not
42:17 saying that we’re only going to build one building down there,
42:19 you know, probably gonna have to build
42:21 more, but I think this is the first step, you know, I, I very
42:24 much appreciate that. You know,
42:25 and I’ve, I’ve brought to the conversation before that the
42:28 biggest city in the county of Palm Bay has
42:30 one middle school in its city limits. So that’s why we’re bussing
42:33 kids to central, bussing kids to stone,
42:35 right. You know, but it, it definitely makes sense. Yeah. This
42:38 location we think can service that really
42:40 south part of the county pretty, pretty well. Yeah. Yeah. No, I
42:43 agree. I’m gonna have to drive down
42:44 there so I can take a look at it. And the other thing that’s
42:48 consistent is, is that this is what we did
42:50 with Viera Elementary. Um, everybody was screaming for the
42:53 middle school, but it was the need of what was
42:55 at the time here in Viera. And then also just so everybody knows
42:58 that if you ever did need to move to
43:00 a K through eight model, those rooms are big enough to both
43:02 service the middle school and the elementary school
43:04 school to say. So Viera Elementary has the larger rooms to do
43:08 the same thing too. So it’s good build,
43:10 good idea. All right. Do you feel like you have third direction
43:13 as far as, as moving forward and
43:15 Yes, ma’am. Thank you. You’ll, you’ll see several contract
43:18 documents coming your way in the next
43:20 30 to 60 days. Okay. All right. Thank you so much for the
43:24 presentation. Thank you.
43:25 All right. So we’ll give them just a moment. Our second
43:30 presentation is a discipline update
43:32 from Ms. Stampierre and her team.
43:36 I don’t know. Is that Rena?
43:40 She put snacks on here.
44:00 There’s there’s, there’s, there’s a fruit line.
44:08 Here we go.
44:26 I don’t know what it is.
44:30 All right.
44:32 Miss Stampier.
44:34 Good afternoon. Thank you Mrs. Bright and board members and Dr.
44:38 Randell. I am pleased that my team and I will provide a
44:40 district discipline update for the second quarter. As promised
44:45 our last update was on October 3rd.
44:48 And so we’re going to provide you an update as to what has
45:00 happened comparing last quarter.
45:01 And so we’re going to provide you an update as to what has
45:04 happened, comparing last quarter to the
45:09 last semester, last semester, first semester versus this year’s
45:24 first semester as far as the discipline.
45:25 And then for a title nine and bullion, we’ll provide that
45:29 information as well.
45:30 The agenda today, we’re also just going to review the
45:37 organizational structure for discipline.
45:40 And then we’re going to provide some highlights of actions taken
45:44 thus far to improve discipline
45:47 within our district. An overview of the discipline data, next
45:51 steps for discipline,
45:53 and then our title nine and bullion update. And then we’ll
45:56 entertain questions at that point in time.
45:58 Just wanted to remind everyone about our structure. We have a
46:03 unique structure that’s been working
46:05 very well. It’s a collaboration between student services
46:09 division and the chief of schools division.
46:11 Student services really is in charge of the training, the
46:17 processes and procedures,
46:19 the monitoring to make sure that we’re coding our discipline infractions
46:24 correctly, as well as
46:26 the processes for the expulsion process. Our chief of schools,
46:31 if we see trends, if we see that
46:34 referrals are not being processed in a timely manner, we meet
46:39 with Mr. Reed and Mr. Reimer,
46:42 meet weekly to review that data to make sure that we’re in
46:45 compliance. Because if we’re not monitoring
46:48 what we expect, then of course, we can’t wait until the end of
46:51 the semester for that. So we monitor
46:53 that on a weekly basis to make sure we are implementing with
46:56 fidelity.
46:57 I’m going to turn it over to Mr. Reed to review some of the
47:02 positive impacts as well as move on with
47:04 the discipline. All right, good afternoon, everyone. I want to
47:10 just spotlight some of the highlights
47:11 so far this year. We’ve been seeing a very positive impact with
47:16 the discipline
47:17 referrals being processed in a timely manner. The expectation is
47:21 24 hours and we do hit that mark
47:23 the majority of the time and intervene when necessary. But that
47:27 is a significant change that
47:29 incidents are handled in a very timely manner, both for the
47:32 learning opportunity and for closure of the event.
47:36 We also started this year a new meeting with the supervisors of
47:41 the areas at district transportation
47:44 and that has become very productive in our meetings throughout
47:48 the month. So we meet once a month with
47:50 those leads and we discuss problems and solutions at those
47:54 meetings. Another big win was transportation supervisors
48:00 entering discipline referrals rather than a bus driver writing a
48:04 referral, delivering it to the assistant
48:07 principal after two routes had already happened, right? And so
48:11 now that driver at the end of an AM or a PM
48:14 route is writing a referral, delivering it to their supervisor,
48:18 and it’s also a touch point for the
48:20 supervisor and the bus driver, right? They can talk about maybe
48:24 some things within their ability on the bus to handle.
48:28 So it’s a coachable moment for the driver and the supervisor as
48:32 well much more timely. So again,
48:34 if there’s a PM referral, the expectation is that when the dean
48:38 or assistant principal arrives at school
48:40 that they would pull that data so that they can intervene
48:43 immediately with the driver’s referral.
48:46 And again, we’ve seen those being closed as well in that 24 hour
48:50 window.
48:50 We have continued with the district discipline work group. We
48:55 have our upcoming meeting, I believe,
48:57 on February 8th. And again, those were a diverse group of
49:01 members across our commit our community,
49:03 two of which you each appointed. And then we also hold monthly
49:08 meetings with BFT to address concerns and
49:11 questions. And again, have had great productivity in solving
49:16 problems in the moment rather than waiting
49:19 for them to brew into bigger problems. All right, we’re going to
49:24 dive into some of the data.
49:26 Again, as Ms. Dampier shared, this is semester one of this year
49:30 comparing semester one of last year.
49:32 On this slide on the left, we have discipline referrals. You can
49:37 see that we were at roughly 35,000
49:40 at this point last year versus 45,000 this year. So we do have
49:44 an increase in referrals as we did the last
49:48 time we gave this presentation to you. On the right is an
49:52 interesting data point that is similar to last
49:55 year as well. And that is the number of students that are
49:58 receiving those office discipline referrals.
50:00 So looking at 23, 24, you would look at that as 15,000 students
50:07 received those 45,000 referrals.
50:12 And so that could be, you also could look at that as one third,
50:15 right? So if we look at 22, 23 as well,
50:18 it’s not exactly a third, but it’s pretty darn close, right? So
50:22 again, trends along the same lines are good.
50:26 Trends along the same lines also are good to say what could we
50:30 do that’s different so that we don’t
50:32 produce the same trend. But again, we can see a third of the
50:35 students are getting those referrals.
50:42 There, yep, three referrals apiece. Could be one way, yep. All
50:47 right, so now what we’d like to share
50:49 here is the top 10 highest discipline codes. And again, we have
50:53 2020, 22, 23 on the left and 23, 24 on
50:57 the right. Going to be some similarities and a few differences.
51:00 And that comes down to some of
51:01 what we’re kind of shining a light on and focusing on this year
51:05 compared to last. Willful disobedience
51:08 has maintained that number one position. It is a bit of a catch
51:12 all. So many things do fall into that.
51:15 And so rightfully so that that would be in the number one spot.
51:18 But we can see as we move on to
51:21 position number three, we do start to see some some minor
51:25 changes, but just reversing the order.
51:27 At number five position electronic device misuse, the number is
51:32 significantly different at 4,126.
51:35 And that has been something that we focused on. And that’s
51:38 evident that what we’ve we’ve made clearer
51:40 and we’ve set as a focus is being focused on at our local level
51:44 at our schools.
51:44 Where that that number six and seven this year, there is some
51:51 some split of that that data,
51:53 there were some changes between last year and this year. And so
51:56 that does make
51:57 mean, explaining the big picture a little difficult, but you can
52:01 see there was roughly 4,200 in all between
52:06 physical aggression pre-K through 12. Okay, so that number is
52:11 significantly higher. The younger grades
52:15 in 22, 23 didn’t even make the chart, right? So we are seeing
52:19 instances, higher instances of physical
52:22 aggression would be the generalization that I would say. Again,
52:26 it’s not in a mirror from last year to
52:28 this year, because we made some changes to those grade level
52:32 ranges. But again, to summarize 23, 24,
52:36 physical aggression incidents are higher in all when looking at
52:40 all grades.
52:41 Fighting is another one that you’ll see that’s not even on this
52:46 list, right? On 23, 24,
52:49 where it was in the number eight position in 22, 23. The number
52:54 of incidents to date on the end of the
52:57 semester for this year for that same code were 1,031. So again,
53:02 it was several hundred away from even
53:06 making our top 10 chart this year. And the other change that’s
53:09 on this slide for 23, 24 that I want to
53:12 spotlight, again, stemming from those transportation meetings
53:15 and those referrals is the number nine
53:17 position. We had 1,445 bus violations minor or referrals that
53:23 were processed and handled, whereas
53:26 that didn’t even make the board last year. And there’s many
53:29 reasons why, but probably writing,
53:32 submitting and processing was a big one of those. So before we
53:35 leave this slide, I just want to clarify
53:37 a couple things. So Mr. Reed mentioned that the physical
53:40 aggression numbers are up. And you might say,
53:43 oh my gosh, more physical aggression. Well, the codes for
53:47 physical aggression are up. The codes for
53:50 fighting are down. So in other words, we’re coding things
53:53 differently. You know, so may not be any more
53:56 instances of misbehavior involving physical contact between
54:00 students, but we’re coding it differently.
54:03 And by coding it differently, we’re able to address it
54:06 differently to make sure we’re addressing the right
54:08 type of behavior with the right consequence. So just, you know,
54:11 when he’s like physical aggression’s up,
54:13 the codes for physical aggression are up. I mean, the number of
54:18 physical, you know, activities,
54:20 you know, involving two or more students is up, especially when
54:24 fighting is down,
54:25 it means we’re probably coding things slightly differently.
54:27 Well, education, better options. One of the things that I, you
54:31 know, obviously it’s very blatant right
54:33 here, but physical aggression third through 12th grade is down
54:36 significantly. 700. Yeah. I mean,
54:40 if that’s a, that’s a huge drop that we’ve seen that that’s been
54:42 reduced there. It’s interesting now
54:45 looking at that pre-k through second grade to be able to
54:48 identify that there’s more physical aggression
54:50 happening at those younger ages than they are at the older ages,
54:54 which is a good point for us to look at
54:55 and considering how are we going to handle this and make sure
54:58 that we we stop and get under control.
54:59 So, but those incidents may have been coded as fighting in the
55:04 previous year.
55:04 So I would look at, yeah. So if you look at noncessor fighting
55:09 1279,
55:10 um, it doesn’t even make the list now though. Right. So Ms. Pam,
55:15 do you know that number,
55:16 what that noncessor is now by any chance? It’s 1031. 1031. So
55:21 you’re down. So if you look at it from a
55:23 teaching’s perspective, I was amazed. So I printed this out last
55:27 night and I was going through it over
55:28 and over again. So your main areas that our work groups came to
55:32 us about were that there was physical
55:34 harm. There was all these things that were going on. And if you
55:36 look across this fighting is down 1031.
55:39 elect fighting physical aggression through third through 12 is
55:44 down 700. And what you see here is,
55:48 is that, yeah, there might be 10,000 new referrals or higher
55:51 referrals, 2500 more electronic device misuse
55:56 minors. Right. So I’m showing that the teachers feel the
55:59 capacity and the power to write the kids in the
56:01 referrals. They’re now doing it. Look at this classroom
56:04 disruption and minor. They’re able to write 500 more
56:07 referrals because they feel like they can do it. Those were huge
56:10 indicators last year that our staff
56:12 was telling us that weren’t. When I went around to the schools
56:14 recently and spoke to some of the bus
56:16 drivers and some of the teachers and even the admin, they are ecstatic
56:19 about the power that they have
56:20 inside their classrooms about what we were able to do for them.
56:23 The administrators, the teachers were in
56:25 such a good feeling. And those, I tell you, the bus drivers, it
56:27 was like the greatest feeling to talk to
56:29 them about how much they now have the ability and then the
56:32 respect because you’re talking to their
56:34 people. This, this right here, I was looking at it like out of a
56:38 signed area. I don’t know if you guys
56:39 remember, but last year, um, they were told that in some cases
56:42 they couldn’t even write a referral for
56:44 out of a signed area because of the way that it was. And the
56:46 principals were all upset about that. So
56:47 there’s, these are all in line with everything we’re saying. But
56:50 what we’re seeing is, is that they,
56:52 the trend that the teachers are writing the referrals in are
56:56 inconsistent with having control of that
56:58 classroom. And then the physical violence that we saw is down.
57:02 So I just wanted to say thank you. Like
57:03 this is, when I read this yesterday, I was ecstatic. So thank
57:06 you. I just want to add to that. It’s, it’s, it’s not
57:10 the sign of them having control of their classroom is not going
57:15 to be true until we get to where these
57:16 never start dropping. Because yes, it’s, it shows that they have,
57:19 they can do that. But until the behavior
57:21 starts, unless it’s showing that a behavior is changing. So that’s
57:24 why I hope you’re going to
57:25 continue on after the third quarter and the fourth quarter,
57:27 because, because what I want to see,
57:29 what we all want to see is there was a spike, which we expected
57:32 because we tightened some things up,
57:34 but then it starts to fall off, you know, and the, especially
57:37 with electronic, you know,
57:39 device misuse, that, that should fall off as the students really
57:44 get the hang of, no, we are serious.
57:45 You can’t, you can’t use your cell phones on campus. Same thing
57:48 with the tardy to class. I, I think
57:50 that, that number is kind of funny. It’s like up 2,400. That
57:53 could be one middle school who spent
57:55 the semester locking doors and we’re going to get this because
57:57 you have a school, middle school is
57:59 like 700 kids. And they do a few weeks of writing detentions for
58:03 tardies because they, you know,
58:04 you could rack up hundreds right there. But I mean, the, as, but
58:09 they need to start falling off.
58:11 That’s the sign of the true success that Mr. Susan was talking
58:14 about.
58:14 Not that it keeps going up that, that eventually then we start
58:17 going down the hill. So I, I can,
58:20 I would like for us to continue. I mean, that may be already
58:22 planned every quarter. I want
58:23 to see these numbers.
58:24 Yeah. I mean, we, we, we, we were going to do this every quarter
58:26 as long as we’re doing this.
58:28 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
58:29 Yeah. Speaking to that, when I, I just want to throw a shout out
58:32 when I was at Viera High School,
58:33 the first day, Legate locked the doors and all the kids were
58:36 like, what do you, after the bell ring,
58:38 like, what is this? What are you doing? She’s like, nope, go to
58:40 the front. Because she held them accountable. And the, and the
58:43 parents are really
58:44 I think they were having an issue with that. 2,500 tardies to
58:47 class more. I mean, like you look at two categories,
58:50 cell phone and tardy to class, that’s 5,000. That’s half of the
58:53 increase of referrals in just those two
58:55 places. It’s incredible. So we’re doing it. Thank you.
58:58 So I want to second what Ms. Campbell said. I think it’s
59:02 important for us to recognize that it is going up.
59:05 And again, reiterate that that that’s not necessarily the worst
59:10 thing in the world. The other thing that no one’s
59:13 really touched upon is we didn’t really reflect on the honesty
59:17 of what the numbers really looked like
59:19 last year, that they were naturally deflated from user error,
59:22 right? We had a whole new system in
59:23 place. We had a lot of staff and teachers that were saying it
59:26 was difficult for them to figure out how
59:28 to code it or multiple codes and things of that nature. And
59:30 through this conversation that has been
59:32 clarified and retrained and retaught to our staff to feel
59:35 compelled to correctly identify certain
59:38 incidences that are happening in their classrooms. So naturally,
59:40 those numbers are going to go up.
59:42 And maybe more accurate, hopefully. That’s what that’s what we
59:46 hope for. And so I’m with Ms.
59:48 Campbell, you know, we’re not really going to see the effects of
59:51 is our discipline and our consequences
59:54 actually helping to diminish this behavior or modify that
59:57 behavior for at least another year or two.
59:59 And the other thing too, I just want to say about the pre-k, pre-k
1:00:05 to second grade physical
1:00:06 aggression. I know that, you know, we’ve got different codes
1:00:09 going on and changes in that nature.
1:00:10 But another thing to recognize too is not that it’s a
1:00:14 developmentally appropriate behavior,
1:00:17 because we don’t want kids being physically aggressive, but it
1:00:19 is a very natural response
1:00:21 to students who are in crisis or students who are struggling or
1:00:24 frustrated and things of that nature.
1:00:25 And so I would love for us to always be paying attention to that
1:00:29 number to make sure
1:00:31 we either see a decline or it stays pretty consistent. So we can
1:00:34 make sure that we’re
1:00:34 helping those kiddos out from pre-k to third in case it’s linked
1:00:38 to some academic deficits.
1:00:43 Thanks. All right. I’d like to chime in there. Thanks for all
1:00:47 this work. And some of these,
1:00:50 I’m okay with them going up. I mean, the minor things, tardy,
1:00:57 classroom disruption minor, electronic
1:01:00 devices, it appears, you’re going to stop looking at my notes,
1:01:04 but it appears classroom teachers are
1:01:06 taking controls, control of their classroom. And when that
1:01:09 happens, the big things start to go down,
1:01:12 the fighting, major aggression, because schools start to take
1:01:17 control and the students start to
1:01:20 understand why they’re there. And it’s, it’s to be in the
1:01:22 classroom when the bell rings.
1:01:24 And that’s when a lot of things get, get out of control when we’re
1:01:28 not paying attention to the small
1:01:30 things. So I, I don’t mind that. Why? There’s lots of reasons.
1:01:33 Well, I mean, you want to say morale?
1:01:35 Remember a year ago we had teachers walking out, teachers emailing
1:01:39 and calling us saying that
1:01:41 they’re not being able to do the things that they went to school
1:01:44 to do, which is teach.
1:01:44 They’re not writing referrals because they didn’t think it was
1:01:47 going to be processed or wasn’t going to be
1:01:49 handled. Things have changed. Those are the phone calls I get
1:01:53 now when I’m out. And when I’m out in
1:01:55 the schools is teachers and principals saying things are
1:01:58 starting to change. Teachers are taking a little
1:02:00 bit more ownership in their classroom and we see it. And, and
1:02:03 you can’t fool a kid and, and they see this. And when teachers
1:02:07 are more
1:02:07 involved in their classroom, then they’ll be more involved in
1:02:10 their classroom and doing the
1:02:11 things that they’re supposed to be doing. So I, I don’t mind the
1:02:14 small things, you know,
1:02:15 the tardy to classes like running extra sprints and sports. It’s
1:02:18 okay. That stuff will, that’ll pay off.
1:02:20 Maybe some of the, the incidents were just not reported. We, we
1:02:25 saw that in the audit. I mean,
1:02:26 so these numbers really are not going to be, you know, side by
1:02:30 side when we’re coding things differently
1:02:32 from one year to the next, you know, it’s like our new fast
1:02:35 testing data. It’s not the same for
1:02:37 a couple of years. We’ll, we’ll see how it goes, but this is,
1:02:40 this is really promising.
1:02:41 And what, if I may, um, what’s really incredible is, is there
1:02:46 was absolutely a, uh, aura of teachers
1:02:50 who said, we can’t write referrals because they just come back.
1:02:54 We write a referral. It’s not being
1:02:55 processed. The kids are coming back. We dealt with that. The
1:02:59 other issue is, is that what, what’s
1:03:00 amazing about this number being low for fighting physical
1:03:04 aggression and stuff like that is that many
1:03:06 of those were sent up. Remember our principles didn’t have
1:03:09 control over what they did for their
1:03:11 suspensions past a certain number of days. So they would send up
1:03:13 the request for fighting for all
1:03:16 these other things. And then they would be asked to research
1:03:18 those and change those, which also lowered
1:03:21 those numbers. So there was a lot of stuff that went on and that’s
1:03:24 in part of the data that we uncovered
1:03:26 that we went through that this numbers being down in those
1:03:29 categories is even more significant because
1:03:31 the numbers that we’re seeing over here weren’t even as high as
1:03:34 they should have been.
1:03:35 So I’m just ecstatic in the fact that our, our morale is
1:03:38 starting to turn and everything else.
1:03:40 So thank you. Thank you for all your work.
1:03:42 They have more data to share.
1:03:43 Let’s keep going. I know. I know. I know.
1:03:46 I got more notes.
1:03:46 Go ahead.
1:03:48 This is a new slide that we put together by, um, request to try
1:03:55 and, um, spotlight some of the
1:03:57 demographic differences through some of those top five, um,
1:04:01 discipline codes. So what you can see here on the
1:04:03 bottom is the color code of willful disobedience out of a signed
1:04:07 area, tardy disruption and electronic
1:04:10 misuse. And we’ll use willful disobedience as kind of our guide
1:04:13 to, to review the data.
1:04:15 Going from the bottom up, we can see that, um, our black African
1:04:20 Americans, that, that piece of the bar
1:04:22 is the amount of the referrals written for that demographic
1:04:26 group. Um, the table above would show
1:04:28 you again, the, the precise number. So of the 6,329 willful
1:04:35 disobedience, um, referrals written,
1:04:38 2,343 or written for our black African American students, 2,544
1:04:44 for our white and so on down the,
1:04:47 the other demographic groups. So again, you can use the size of
1:04:51 the bar and going up with the demographic
1:04:54 groups to compare either of the top, any of the top five, um,
1:04:59 incidents that were reported that we
1:05:01 just reviewed a moment ago broken down by demographics.
1:05:05 Corrective actions on the flip side. Now what students were
1:05:15 doing and now what we’re doing
1:05:17 as a corrective measure to help with that. Again, 2022, 23 is on
1:05:21 the left, 23, 24 is on the right.
1:05:24 Admin detention still is in that number one position. We can see
1:05:29 that, um, out of school
1:05:31 suspension is in the number two slot where it was in the number
1:05:34 three spot the previous year. I do need
1:05:37 to explain briefly, uh, that we had three out of school
1:05:41 suspension codes last year. Okay. We had one to
1:05:45 three days. We had three to five days and we had a two to 10. We
1:05:49 realized the errors in that for data.
1:05:52 Um, hence me only reporting one data point, the highest of the
1:05:56 suspensions last year, right?
1:05:58 So of course, if three different data points now are smooshed
1:06:02 into one, it’s going to be higher.
1:06:03 Um, the data, um, last year for all available suspension codes,
1:06:09 um, at this point,
1:06:11 last year was 6,709. So we still are ahead of that, what last
1:06:18 year was, but I did want to put a disclaimer
1:06:21 out there that that data is somewhat misrepresented because it
1:06:25 is only reporting on the 22, 23, one of
1:06:28 the suspension codes. And again, this is not days. It’s number
1:06:33 of times that out of school suspension
1:06:35 was used, right? And the same with any of these. So again, as we,
1:06:39 we go down the list again, conference
1:06:41 student obviously is, is the reverse in school suspension
1:06:45 mirrors, um, lunch detention though,
1:06:47 interestingly, is on the chart where it was not before. That
1:06:51 goes with the tardies.
1:06:52 It goes with one. Yeah. Very well said. Yes. Yes. Okay. Um, and
1:07:00 thank you. Uh, lunch detention
1:07:02 wasn’t an official code. So last year, right? So, um, again, our,
1:07:08 our work of revising the code of
1:07:10 conduct, right? We put something in place that’s being utilized,
1:07:12 right? Um, it was, it was probably
1:07:15 needed because tardies were always happening, right? Um, but now
1:07:18 we gave them a tool for that.
1:07:19 Um, and again, very similar, uh, things with the exception of
1:07:24 teach and reteach. It was as a,
1:07:26 in a little different position, but very similar, um, pieces
1:07:30 that you can see there with the exception
1:07:32 of the restorative practice is, is lesser, uh, or is not, did
1:07:36 not make the board do the, the higher
1:07:38 numbers. You can see that we were in the 2000s this year where a
1:07:42 700 made the board last year, right?
1:07:44 - Right. I just have to say this, this slide, you know, because
1:07:48 the stories I’m talking about,
1:07:49 it comes out, we’re just going to suspend more kids, we’re going
1:07:51 to, and there are some numbers
1:07:52 that have gone up, but I’m very happy to see the number of phone
1:07:55 conferences going up significantly,
1:07:57 the number of parent, uh, conferences with parents going up
1:08:01 significantly, and conferences with students,
1:08:03 um, you know, it’s, it’s up there still, you know, because it’s,
1:08:07 we’re doing more than just
1:08:08 getting out, we’re having this conference, communications home,
1:08:11 which is really important to,
1:08:13 you know, to get in the solutions. So even though it didn’t, you
1:08:17 can’t just look at where it moved on
1:08:19 the thing, you have to look, you know, looking at the raw
1:08:21 numbers, thank you for putting those on
1:08:22 there because it was really important for me to see those
1:08:24 numbers going up too.
1:08:25 - Now we will look at, um, in school suspension and out of
1:08:32 school suspension from a number of days
1:08:34 rather than a number of instances that that was used. So, um, in
1:08:38 school suspension, we’ve had a slight
1:08:40 decrease this year compared to last year, um, 4,800 versus 5,011.
1:08:45 Out of school suspensions,
1:08:47 as we just saw, are shared, um, for instances, we have number of
1:08:52 days at 1,000 or 15,358 compared to
1:08:56 14,000 roughly. Um, the in school suspension decrease, you know,
1:09:01 some schools have the personnel
1:09:03 and, and to do that, some schools don’t. So that, that is, you
1:09:06 know, a tough number to say,
1:09:08 let’s hypothesize about that. But those that do have it, that
1:09:12 the number has decreased. One could
1:09:13 say there’s less personnel that are doing that. That’s a
1:09:16 question mark that, that we don’t know.
1:09:17 But again, the number of days that are there, um, you can see
1:09:21 for both in and out of school
1:09:22 suspension for semester comparing years.
1:09:27 I was asked to kind of give a orientation to, um, risk ratio.
1:09:33 And this is going to be my attempt to do
1:09:34 that to kind of norm the group here. Um, so we’re going to start
1:09:38 here with just an overall slide that,
1:09:40 that sets a, uh, uh, what a, what a 1.0. Again, with risk ratio,
1:09:46 I want to remind everyone that 2.5 is
1:09:48 kind of that alert status when we have a risk ratio of 2.5 and 3.0
1:09:52 is kind of that, that must take action,
1:09:54 uh, with regard to that, that particular subgroup. So in this,
1:10:00 this infographic here on the top,
1:10:02 we’ve got, uh, 10 African-American students and five of them
1:10:06 have at least one referral. Okay.
1:10:08 So five of the 10 have a referral and you can see that visually
1:10:12 represented by the students holding
1:10:13 their, their referral in front of them. The rest of this tiny
1:10:16 school has 20 other students, right. And for,
1:10:20 and of those 20 other students in, in all demographic classes,
1:10:25 10 of those students have at least one referral.
1:10:27 So when we take a look at that, what we would say with the
1:10:30 African-American students is five out of 10
1:10:33 students of the African-American students had a referral or 50%.
1:10:36 When we look at the 10 of the other category
1:10:41 of all others had, uh, referrals out of those 20, we would say
1:10:45 that’s 50%. When we put those two numbers
1:10:49 over one another, we would say that our African-American student
1:10:53 risk ratio would be 1.0. Okay.
1:10:56 And so that’s equal, right. 1.0 is, is that number that says we’re,
1:11:00 we’re the same across when comparing one,
1:11:03 one demographic class to another. Now let’s take a look at that
1:11:09 data and we’re going to manipulate a
1:11:11 little bit to just see what the impact of changes. So same data
1:11:14 on the top for our African-Americans,
1:11:17 we’re going to go with five students had referrals out of the 10
1:11:20 African-American students. We’re going
1:11:23 to make a change though, to the all, all other demographics. And
1:11:27 we’re going to change those 20
1:11:29 students to five instead of 10. Okay. So I’m going to start to
1:11:33 erase students from there. I’ll erase
1:11:36 five of them. And now we’re left with a total of five students.
1:11:39 Okay. So again, same math at the top,
1:11:42 we had five African-American students with referrals out of 10
1:11:45 at 50%. Now five of all others with one
1:11:48 referral out of the 20 giving us 25%. Again, when we, we put
1:11:53 those two numbers over what we would have
1:11:56 there is a 2.0 for our African-American students or an African-American
1:12:01 student in this data set
1:12:03 on this infographic would be two times more likely to have a
1:12:07 referral than the other students in the
1:12:10 school is how you would, how you would state that representation
1:12:13 of that data.
1:12:14 We do that orientation to share with you our risk ratio, um,
1:12:20 here in Brevard at the semester.
1:12:22 And so you can see the different demographics that we’ve pulled
1:12:26 and we’ve got the greenish bar for
1:12:28 22, 23 and the blue bar for 23, 24. We can see we have a slight
1:12:34 decrease in the students with disabilities.
1:12:37 Um, we can see we have slight increases in other, other areas.
1:12:40 What’s important to know is time is on your
1:12:43 side when you are looking at this data because every day the
1:12:47 data does change. Um, very much so at an
1:12:51 individual site, not as much so at the district when we’re
1:12:55 comparing all students. And again, we have some,
1:12:59 some, some slight increases and some slight decreases. Um, but,
1:13:04 uh, the data, the data is there again for,
1:13:05 for the semester. Mr. Susan.
1:13:08 - Are you finished with your experience?
1:13:10 - Yes, sir.
1:13:10 - Free and reduced lunch where code is not a zero or an end. Can
1:13:14 you explain that component?
1:13:16 What that means? Like, is that the free and reduced district
1:13:19 risk ratio?
1:13:21 - That is our, just like that, that mirrors the DOE’s definition
1:13:26 is what we use. We don’t use a
1:13:27 different definition. We mirror what the state would mirror if
1:13:31 we were to be asked to, to fix that.
1:13:33 - What’s the zero or an end?
1:13:35 - When you look at, when you look at, um, yeah, I mean, I was,
1:13:40 uh, Ms. Campbell can go after me,
1:13:42 but, um, that’s a significant increase, right? And if you look
1:13:47 down at some of the trends,
1:13:50 you notice that multiracial went down, Hispanic a little up,
1:13:54 white went down, right? So that can,
1:13:57 is, if you, is there a way that you can send that to me that’s
1:14:01 broken down by race? Because I would
1:14:03 wonder if, you know what I mean? If the increase was also spread
1:14:08 out among the races, does that make
1:14:10 sense to you? - It does. Um, you are either free and reduced or
1:14:15 not. Now in the SWD category and Dr.
1:14:18 Bias’s ESE world, she’s required to break down that SWD category
1:14:24 by ethnicity. So if one could try to
1:14:28 problem solve, which may be ethnicity that’s in free and reduced
1:14:31 lunch is higher. Um, I don’t know. We
1:14:35 don’t have any reporting to do that. We only have that for SWD.
1:14:39 It would be raw data that would have to
1:14:41 be done and calculated. Um, the reason I’m getting to it is the
1:14:45 next layer, which would be to divide it
1:14:47 between male and female. And I, I think that there’s, I think
1:14:50 there’s a significant amount. Um, I spend a lot of
1:14:54 time in, in a lot of different areas and I have, um, boys that
1:14:57 are white, African American, Hispanic,
1:15:00 that are, that are, uh, students that have situations. And I,
1:15:05 and I feel that, um, having mentors for those
1:15:08 children would be definitely beneficial to helping them with
1:15:10 some of the discipline and stuff like
1:15:12 that. So just a theory that I have. That’s all. Ms. Gamble, did
1:15:17 you have something else?
1:15:17 Oh, I just didn’t know what the zero or n is. That’s right.
1:15:21 Okay. I’m not an expert on free and reduced lunch. That’s, that’s
1:15:26 how it’s reported. I, I can
1:15:28 look into that and get that, get you that information. That is,
1:15:30 that is not my domain.
1:15:32 Yeah, it’s basically just free and reduced lunch, just general.
1:15:34 Okay.
1:15:34 Correct. Curiosity kills me sometimes.
1:15:37 Yeah, nothing wrong with that.
1:15:39 So moving on to the Alternative Learning Center, um, reporting
1:15:45 some of the, the, the number of
1:15:48 students that haven’t had an expellable offense that have gone,
1:15:51 that we have offered placement at
1:15:53 the Alternative Learning Center. So I’ll begin at the bottom. We
1:15:56 can see that this year we have
1:15:58 offered or have an incident has happened that was expellable and
1:16:03 we have offered a student the
1:16:05 opportunity to attend the ALC in lieu of an expulsion. When
1:16:08 looking at that number 325,
1:16:11 your, your instinct is to say it’s less, right? We’re sending
1:16:15 less kids to the Alternative Learning
1:16:16 Center. Um, that number comes with a, with an asterisk. So at
1:16:21 the bottom shows you that the 135
1:16:24 students students students at the end of the semester had been
1:16:28 offered drug diversion. So last year,
1:16:31 any instance of drugs would have resulted in potentially the ALC.
1:16:36 So, or alcohol. So one would,
1:16:39 to have an accurate number, you would add those two numbers
1:16:42 together. 135 and 325. We don’t report them
1:16:46 that way because our students aren’t going to the Alternative
1:16:49 Learning Center, but I didn’t want,
1:16:50 I want to celebrate that number. I’m happy that we’re decreasing
1:16:53 those numbers and giving students
1:16:55 the opportunity to stay at their school and learn from their
1:16:57 mistakes. But I did want to make sure
1:16:59 there was clarity with regard to that, that overall number that
1:17:03 that wasn’t taken out of context.
1:17:05 Just, I just have a quick question on that. I’m assuming that
1:17:08 you’re tracking these, the 135 that, that shows the drug
1:17:11 diversion. Do you have any data on how many of those have
1:17:14 offended and possibly ended up at the ALC versus
1:17:17 stayed the path of how successful is the drug diversion program?
1:17:20 We, we have that data. Mr. Armstrong
1:17:24 pulled it for me yesterday. Um, I’m going to have him pull it up
1:17:28 because I can’t remember what it was.
1:17:30 Okay. So those are students. What I believe you’re asking is
1:17:33 they enrolled in drug diversion. Right.
1:17:35 There’s two drug diversion. Um, there’s two ways to fail drug
1:17:41 diversion. Right. One is you use drugs again.
1:17:45 Right. And the other is you violate the stipulation agreement.
1:17:49 Right. So let’s just say while you’re
1:17:50 on drug diversion at your school, you fight. That’s a violation
1:17:54 of the stipulation agreement as well. Right.
1:17:57 So we do try to look at those in two ways. And Mr. Armstrong’s
1:18:01 going to apply and pull that out for
1:18:02 me because I, I didn’t write it on that, that, that to, to have
1:18:05 that in hand. Okay. I just would like
1:18:07 to see that and how successful that was because that was the
1:18:10 number one offense that we saw that
1:18:11 was sending kids to the ALC when we were looking at what offense
1:18:15 was, was committed. Sure. So, um,
1:18:18 we believe and we’re pretty darn close, but I don’t have that
1:18:21 split up to, but it’s six,
1:18:24 six students have been offered drug diversion, been on drug
1:18:27 diversion and have violated their stipulation.
1:18:29 That’s pretty successful then. 100%. 129 that haven’t. Correct.
1:18:33 Yes. I’ll take that.
1:18:34 All day. Yes. Thank you. I think it’s also needs to be said that
1:18:39 there’s a lot of our principals
1:18:40 last year that were saying that they were not able to send kids
1:18:44 to the ALCs based upon some of the
1:18:46 ramifications of the discipline policies that we had prior. And
1:18:49 so the numbers here also are at a
1:18:51 deficit from what we may have seen had they had that opportunity
1:18:54 last year. So even though it would be
1:18:57 similar cases, they were not sent up, they were reversed and
1:19:00 changed and sent back. So I know that’s
1:19:02 that for a fact, all of my principals were screaming
1:19:05 about that when it was coming.
1:19:06 So I wanted to say thank you, but I wanted us
1:19:08 to also remember that one of the reasons
1:19:10 that that is where it is and it should be significantly higher
1:19:13 from the year before is because of that.
1:19:15 Thank you.
1:19:16 - Yep, and I do just wanna remind everyone again
1:19:18 that the demographics are there as well,
1:19:19 but also a change from ALC this year, last year,
1:19:23 is we used to have earned return.
1:19:25 And now we have windows of time for each,
1:19:29 at the semester or more, you would be able to come back in.
1:19:33 So that number is six for drug diversion, yes, thank you.
1:19:37 - And also with that, the concern last year,
1:19:41 even from the principal at the Alternative Center
1:19:45 is that there wasn’t enough time to provide interventions
1:19:49 because by the time they were there only for six weeks,
1:19:52 five weeks, they were just starting to get counseling
1:19:55 and then they were going back to their school.
1:19:57 And now there’s time for those students
1:20:00 to get that at the Alternative Center.
1:20:02 - Question would be if our, if that component
1:20:08 of what we’re doing is right,
1:20:10 then we would have less kids repeating doing it this year,
1:20:13 which will be an interesting factor
1:20:15 to see at the end of the year is if our interventions
1:20:16 are working and you’ll see less of those kids doing,
1:20:19 which is another metric that I think will nail.
1:20:21 Yeah, I’m really excited.
1:20:22 - All right, good deal.
1:20:26 - Good job.
1:20:27 - All right, this one’s good too.
1:20:29 - All right, so what this data is showing you is again,
1:20:32 the reasons why students are being offered the placement
1:20:36 at the ALC in lieu of expulsion.
1:20:38 And again, I won’t spotlight a ton of these numbers,
1:20:44 but one number to see there is the decrease
1:20:48 in the drugs for going to ALC.
1:20:50 And again, the number for drug diversion,
1:20:55 choosing that is on the bottom there
1:20:57 to help keep that in perspective.
1:21:00 Now, one thing that we’ve talked about today, fighting,
1:21:07 there is a difference between the fighting
1:21:08 that is at 75 students going to the ALC
1:21:11 to the fighting that we talked about before.
1:21:13 So this is the assessor version of fighting
1:21:16 that’s on this versus the local level fighting
1:21:19 that is a lesser incident.
1:21:21 So I wanna make sure there’s clarity on that.
1:21:24 - Sorry, the assessor fighting violation
1:21:27 is for the 23-24, correct?
1:21:29 - Well, you can see, yeah, so you can,
1:21:31 just because we spoke of fighting today,
1:21:33 fighting there are 75 incidents
1:21:36 that students went to the ALC
1:21:39 under the assessor defined definition.
1:21:41 Last year, we had 37.
1:21:44 I just didn’t want there to be confusion that,
1:21:46 you know, the number I gave you a minute ago
1:21:48 for last year was 1,031 incidents.
1:21:51 - Right, not all five of them goes to–
1:21:53 - There’s assessor fighting
1:21:55 and there’s non-sessor fighting.
1:21:56 One is more aggressive and doesn’t stop.
1:21:59 The other is a lesser.
1:22:01 - I thought it’s pretty interesting
1:22:02 that I printed this off of your print
1:22:05 and it said 69, but up there it says 75.
1:22:08 So you’re updating that quickly.
1:22:10 - We are, yep, we were, you know,
1:22:12 I had the opportunity to present the cabinet,
1:22:14 have some discussion,
1:22:15 we’re making sure we keep this on point.
1:22:17 - That’s pretty impressive, I just wanna say.
1:22:19 - So this slide goes on to spotlight for us,
1:22:27 the sites, and again, it’s 22-23 in the middle column
1:22:32 of each slide and 23-24.
1:22:34 So this slide is to show you what sites are sending students
1:22:37 to the ALC for the various expelable fences
1:22:41 that were on the previous slides.
1:22:43 Some schools are sending more,
1:22:44 some schools are sending less.
1:22:46 There is no necessary rationale,
1:22:47 but again, it’s back to the conversation
1:22:50 that we had a few minutes ago
1:22:51 that principals are driving those decisions
1:22:53 at their schools, they’re handling their investigations.
1:22:56 When there’s questions on what does this meet that definition
1:23:01 or this definition, there’s conversation
1:23:03 between Mr. Armstrong, myself, and Mr. Raymer
1:23:07 on an ongoing basis, but we’re not giving permission,
1:23:09 we’re not telling them what it is.
1:23:12 We are guiding them to make those decisions themselves
1:23:15 through the definitions that are in our code of conduct.
1:23:18 So lots of times a day we say, let’s pull up page two
1:23:22 and look at definition 12 and 75,
1:23:24 and let’s see which one that most represents.
1:23:28 Again, though, these are the sites at the semester
1:23:32 that have made a recommendation
1:23:33 for the Alternative Learning Center.
1:23:35 So last quarter, you had asked some questions
1:23:42 about the data for all, we only offer
1:23:47 the Alternative Learning Center, then parents may choose
1:23:51 in lieu of that to pursue home education
1:23:54 and then they may also pursue private school
1:23:56 or may pursue Florida Virtual School.
1:24:00 To our knowledge, we have none that have pursued
1:24:01 the private school and sometimes that’s very difficult
1:24:04 for us to know, but we do keep tabs
1:24:07 on who pursues home education and sometimes that’s home ed
1:24:12 and Brevard Virtual or sometimes it’s just home ed.
1:24:15 So for our data purposes, we just track home ed, okay?
1:24:18 You may do it home ed style,
1:24:20 but you may also enroll in some Florida Virtual, okay?
1:24:24 We are a pass-through for Florida Virtual as well
1:24:28 to help get them enrolled.
1:24:29 But again, you start with home ed
1:24:31 and then also enroll in Florida Virtual.
1:24:33 So we only track the home ed.
1:24:36 You can see last year, 8% of our students
1:24:39 or 32 of them at this point
1:24:41 that were offered ALC, elected to go to choose home ed.
1:24:45 Whereas this year, 14% of the 325 or 47
1:24:51 have pursued home education
1:24:54 or have enrolled in home education of some form.
1:24:56 We then were asked about some data
1:25:00 on the demographics of that as well.
1:25:02 And so we’re providing that to you this time
1:25:04 for both last year and this year.
1:25:07 Looking at 23, 24, 45% of the white students
1:25:11 or 21 of those 47 have pursued home ed in lieu of ALC.
1:25:18 Our black, African-American 34%
1:25:21 or 16 of the 47 have pursued home ed in lieu of ALC.
1:25:27 So again, those were questions that came up last time.
1:25:30 So we decided to give you the answers
1:25:31 and give you current data as well.
1:25:33 So talking a little bit about some next steps.
1:25:40 Again, some are similar, but others are different.
1:25:43 We are continuing to monitor those sites
1:25:45 that are at 2.5 and working on some monitoring plans with them.
1:25:50 We’re working for always for data completeness.
1:25:53 We’re always going to be growing on accuracy
1:25:56 with the sheer volume of those referrals.
1:25:58 It’s a tough task to always work on accuracy,
1:26:02 but monitoring of that processing in a timely manner
1:26:05 is an easy task that we’ve really been working hard
1:26:08 to keep up on and is very evident in our schools.
1:26:12 We’ve continued trainings.
1:26:14 We’re excited to say that 114 staff members
1:26:18 have attended the MTSS behavior training
1:26:21 and the four sessions that we’ve offered
1:26:23 and we’re going to continue to offer monthly.
1:26:25 110 staff have attended the functional behavioral assessment
1:26:30 and behavior intervention plan development training
1:26:33 in an effort to try and norm that practice
1:26:35 and how we do that and when to do that, right?
1:26:38 It’s not something we want them to jump to immediately.
1:26:40 So we’re providing quality, consistent training.
1:26:45 We’ve also continued to offer behavior intervention toolbox.
1:26:48 We refer to that as bit box.
1:26:50 PBIS is an ongoing work that we train
1:26:53 in more depth in the summer,
1:26:54 but we have offered some trainings.
1:26:57 We have training monthly.
1:26:59 The principals see me once a month in front of them
1:27:02 and we get to talk about what we’ve learned
1:27:04 over the course of the last month to make improvements,
1:27:07 as well if that’s needed with assistant principals.
1:27:10 We continue to coach and mentor teams,
1:27:12 whether that be our MTSS team
1:27:14 or that be Justin and I working with teams
1:27:17 to problem solve and be consistent.
1:27:19 And the development of the MTSS behavior website
1:27:22 is a continued resource for all of our staff.
1:27:27 We’ll be providing an update to the RSM audit on the 26th.
1:27:33 So we look forward to sharing those pieces,
1:27:36 all of which are really showing through on this data
1:27:40 that’s clearer, it’s more accurate.
1:27:44 And then we also wanted to share
1:27:45 that we have begun uploading into focus
1:27:50 in the referral student statements
1:27:54 so that they are attached to the referral.
1:27:55 So it’s a kind of a one-stop shop.
1:27:58 We have aspirations to start to have expulsion packets
1:28:02 be there as well, so that we can always be able
1:28:03 to easily reference that.
1:28:05 We’ve begun uploading statements,
1:28:07 so we’re growing from where we were.
1:28:10 And we’re working on corrective action alignment and focus
1:28:13 so that when you pick a certain incident,
1:28:16 you only can pick from certain corrective actions.
1:28:19 That is the most difficult thing to get right right now.
1:28:22 So if we can lock it down or limit it,
1:28:25 it will help us ensure that we have as accurate data
1:28:29 and everyone following the code of conduct in every instance.
1:28:35 - And last, we are going to be developing
1:28:38 and launching a survey for administrators
1:28:41 and bus drivers on how they’re feeling
1:28:44 about the discipline procedures.
1:28:45 And we’ll work on that going out to them next month.
1:28:49 - Before we move on to the next section, can I, yeah.
1:29:03 I was waiting just ‘cause there was things
1:29:04 that are all kind of intertwined.
1:29:05 So I don’t want to move on to this next section
1:29:09 without saying my piece about the uncomfortable part
1:29:14 that nobody ever wants to talk about out loud.
1:29:15 And some of this stuff ended up in this presentation
1:29:18 because I, quite frankly, requested it.
1:29:22 I’ve requested it time and time again.
1:29:23 And I think that we are doing it a disservice
1:29:26 when we don’t identify what is happening in our schools
1:29:32 and we’re doing it a disservice
1:29:33 when we don’t change what we’re doing.
1:29:35 So it’s still very alarming to me
1:29:40 because I presented this information
1:29:43 almost a year ago now, at this point,
1:29:46 the disproportionality by race
1:29:49 in how we’re disciplining our students.
1:29:51 And I was told that that data wasn’t accurate.
1:29:54 And here we are today,
1:29:54 we have almost the same exact data.
1:29:57 And the data I presented was a three-year trend.
1:29:59 So now we have four years of the exact same data
1:30:02 that shows the exact same trends,
1:30:04 which are very, very alarming to me.
1:30:06 So black students make up 14% of the population
1:30:10 in Brevard County.
1:30:12 And what we saw here was they continue to represent
1:30:17 at least 30% of our discipline referrals.
1:30:21 And they continue to represent more than that
1:30:24 when it comes to ALC placements.
1:30:27 And that should be concerning to us
1:30:30 because when you look at the types of behaviors,
1:30:35 when you break it down to the types of behaviors,
1:30:40 for instance, willful disobedience,
1:30:42 there’s almost the exact same number
1:30:46 of black students identified as white students.
1:30:49 And that’s not how that works.
1:30:50 That’s why risk ratio exists.
1:30:53 That’s why our black students are over 2.5,
1:30:55 which is bad.
1:30:56 It’s not good.
1:30:57 It’s really, really bad.
1:30:59 And our white students are below one,
1:31:02 which is also bad
1:31:04 because it means we’re under referring those students.
1:31:07 One is the one number we want to achieve.
1:31:09 We don’t want zero.
1:31:10 I mean, that’s just not realistic either,
1:31:12 but we want one because it means it’s happening equitably.
1:31:15 It’s happening with some sort of balance within the system.
1:31:19 And I just, I’m so tired of us
1:31:24 like not really paying attention to that
1:31:26 and thinking about ways that we can address that.
1:31:29 And I know, I know staff is, I know staff pays attention to that
1:31:32 number.
1:31:32 And I know that we are paying attention to the risk ratio at
1:31:36 certain schools.
1:31:37 But I think as a district, we need to be honest about it
1:31:40 and we need to be doing something about it
1:31:41 and be forward thinking and forward talking about it
1:31:45 because it will never change.
1:31:47 Because ultimately, we are not doing the right thing by our
1:31:51 students.
1:31:52 But when we look at, I asked about, you know, when we look at
1:31:57 the certain schools
1:31:58 that have those risk ratios by race, what are those trends?
1:32:02 Are they, is there a trend perhaps that those are happening at
1:32:05 schools
1:32:05 that have higher populations of black students?
1:32:08 Or are those trends that are happening at schools
1:32:10 where maybe that isn’t the case?
1:32:11 And, you know, clearly we don’t want to say the names of those
1:32:15 schools out loud
1:32:16 and identify them.
1:32:18 But I would, I would advise you to ask those questions
1:32:21 and just kind of take an internal thought about that.
1:32:25 When we look at the ALC, we have more black students in the ALC
1:32:34 than we do white students.
1:32:35 But when we look at every single referral,
1:32:41 we don’t have referrals that more black students are doing
1:32:45 than white students.
1:32:46 And so, you’d have to have a very extreme scenario
1:32:51 where you can justify that number to me,
1:32:54 that we’re treating those students equitably.
1:32:57 And I don’t know how anyone could justify that for me.
1:33:02 That would be a significant amount of black students
1:33:05 doing egregious behaviors over white students.
1:33:08 And I’ve never seen that data to make that make sense to me.
1:33:12 And one of the things that we discussed last time I brought this
1:33:15 up
1:33:15 was the potential that students were choosing home education,
1:33:18 but we just saw the data there
1:33:20 that that doesn’t justify that switch in number either.
1:33:23 So, again, I think it’s an obligation of this school system,
1:33:29 but also of this school board,
1:33:32 to really care about that number,
1:33:35 and have honest conversations about how we’re going to change
1:33:38 that.
1:33:40 Because having data is great,
1:33:42 but if we don’t do anything with it, what’s the point of it?
1:33:44 We’ve had the same data, at least that I’m aware of,
1:33:47 for four years, and it’s increasing.
1:33:50 It’s not even getting better.
1:33:52 What are we going to do about it?
1:33:54 And sure, there’s a multitude of factors
1:33:57 that could influence behavior in students,
1:34:02 but there are only so many factors
1:34:03 that we also could have control over.
1:34:05 And when you break it down by race
1:34:07 and the numbers are so, so different from one another,
1:34:11 bias is clearly one of them.
1:34:13 It’s not all of it, but it’s one of them.
1:34:16 And we can’t ignore that.
1:34:17 We have an obligation to do right by our students.
1:34:20 And quite frankly, by our staff too.
1:34:22 ‘Cause sometimes there’s unconscious biases happening as well.
1:34:26 It’s not always something super negative.
1:34:27 So again, I appreciate you for being honest.
1:34:31 I appreciate you for breaking down
1:34:34 what that risk ratio means too, right?
1:34:35 Because again, nobody’s alarmed by the fact
1:34:38 that we’re under one in certain demographics,
1:34:40 but we should be alarmed by that.
1:34:41 That’s not good.
1:34:42 That’s not a good number.
1:34:43 So I just, I don’t know.
1:34:46 I got 10 months left here.
1:34:48 I’ve talked about this for the past three years.
1:34:51 I’m not gonna let this go because it bothers me.
1:34:55 It bothers me so much that it’s presented
1:34:57 in front of us for four years
1:34:58 and we do nothing about it.
1:34:59 - I do wanna address what Ms. Jenkins brought up
1:35:07 because I don’t agree with you with all of the why.
1:35:16 But I see the numbers and I have seen them.
1:35:19 And I agree that they’re different.
1:35:21 I don’t, something being less than one is not something,
1:35:25 maybe you just miss, but you said something about,
1:35:26 that’s alarming, that’s not right.
1:35:28 It means we’re under-discipline.
1:35:29 I don’t necessarily think it means we’re under-disciplining.
1:35:32 We, and I don’t, and the other thing is,
1:35:35 bias is gonna be really hard to measure.
1:35:38 And could it factor in?
1:35:40 Yes.
1:35:42 But without, you know, when Mr. Reid talked about,
1:35:46 when we get in focus where if this is the infraction,
1:35:49 here are your choices.
1:35:51 That could potentially limit some of that
1:35:54 because you can’t give certain students lighter,
1:35:58 I mean, it has to be something
1:35:59 from this multiple choice, right?
1:36:01 This is the offense, here are your options.
1:36:03 You know, if we see students of different race
1:36:08 committing the same infraction
1:36:09 and getting two different results,
1:36:11 that’s where the bias could potentially come in.
1:36:15 But if we see students committing different, you know,
1:36:19 it needs to be the punishment fits the crime, right?
1:36:25 And we can’t, I wouldn’t, won’t ever be in favor,
1:36:29 I’m gonna tell you what I am in favor of
1:36:31 and what I have been supporting all along,
1:36:33 which will make a difference, I believe,
1:36:35 in the data points that we’re looking at today.
1:36:38 What I won’t be in favor of is trying to do things
1:36:40 to artificially manipulate the data,
1:36:42 and I don’t think that’s necessarily what you’re saying,
1:36:44 but trying to do things so that we can tell schools,
1:36:47 ‘cause we have had this problem in the past.
1:36:50 You know, don’t, the district came down
1:36:53 and talked to a school because the risk ratios were off
1:36:56 and there was pressure to not discipline
1:36:59 certain groups of students,
1:37:01 and, you know, to try to get those numbers right.
1:37:04 That’s not the right way to do it.
1:37:05 What I will support is making sure
1:37:07 that our schools that have those numbers,
1:37:10 that you guys are, that they are coming in
1:37:11 and helping problem solve and try,
1:37:13 and those are the kinds of things
1:37:14 that those teams are tackling
1:37:16 by those broken down demographics.
1:37:20 Making sure that we have given staff permission
1:37:22 to go in those schools and help them problem solve,
1:37:24 do all of that, making sure that our Title I schools
1:37:26 have the supports that they need because, you know,
1:37:28 we’ve seen more than anything free and reduced lunch
1:37:31 has a greater impact on the behavior risks than anything else.
1:37:36 Making sure that those lower income schools
1:37:38 have all the supports that they need.
1:37:40 If there’s more that we need, you let us know
1:37:43 because I will absolutely support that.
1:37:44 I support our mentoring, especially in schools like that,
1:37:47 so that we’ve got people from outside the community coming in
1:37:51 because students that are mentored
1:37:52 and have more people loving on them
1:37:54 and speaking into their lives
1:37:55 are going to be more successful at all races.
1:37:59 All of those things I will support,
1:38:01 but I, you know, we have to deal with the students
1:38:04 who come to us and we have to deal with the behaviors
1:38:07 that happen and if we can teach teachers strategies
1:38:11 to be more successful in a diverse environment,
1:38:14 meaning not just African-American, white, Hispanic,
1:38:17 but also ESC, non-ESC, free, reduced lunch,
1:38:20 not, you know, to be aware of student circumstances.
1:38:23 Let’s do that.
1:38:24 Let’s give them all the supports as possible
1:38:26 and the goal of that is to right size those.
1:38:30 But just to see how do we fix this data,
1:38:34 I don’t think the answer is going to be having some kind
1:38:37 of a bias inventory, I think it’s going to be a matter
1:38:41 of support for the teachers, support for the students
1:38:44 and the schools, so that we can reduce the behaviors
1:38:51 and then making sure that we are consistent regardless
1:38:54 with when the behaviors do happen
1:38:57 in doling out the discipline.
1:38:59 I think that’s the fair way of doing it.
1:39:01 I don’t like those numbers any more than you do,
1:39:03 but I do have a different perspective on what we do with them
1:39:07 and, you know, and where we are with that.
1:39:10 So I actually would say we don’t really have
1:39:13 a different perspective.
1:39:14 I mean, there’s just a part in there that is different.
1:39:17 You can’t, I’m not asking anyone to measure bias.
1:39:23 I am arguing bias has already been measured because again,
1:39:26 the risk ratio should be equal and even.
1:39:29 And there are certain demographics
1:39:31 that are way off from others.
1:39:34 The only other answer for that would be
1:39:38 that African American students are more bad
1:39:41 than white kids, which is clearly not true.
1:39:43 So one of the major factors is clearly a bias of some sort.
1:39:48 But what I agree with with you is when we see these numbers,
1:39:53 first of all, we have to accept them as reality
1:39:55 and we have to acknowledge that they’re true
1:39:57 and they exist and the potential whys of they exist
1:39:59 in order to even effectively make the change
1:40:03 that you’re suggesting.
1:40:04 So to target the fact that we have these over referrals
1:40:10 of these students in certain schools, yeah, we go in and no,
1:40:14 nobody wants to go in and artificially manipulate numbers
1:40:17 or tell people they can’t do things for certain kids.
1:40:19 But when we don’t first acknowledge the numbers
1:40:22 and why they’re happening in the first place,
1:40:23 we can’t fix them correctly.
1:40:25 Clearly, there’s a bias, but that’s not all of it.
1:40:29 There’s also the potential of other things going on,
1:40:32 like the needs of these students aren’t being met.
1:40:34 How can we meet the needs of these students?
1:40:36 Because when their needs aren’t being met,
1:40:38 their behaviors increase.
1:40:40 For me, this isn’t, it’s not just a race thing
1:40:43 and it’s not just about bias.
1:40:44 For me, deep down, when you take a look at these numbers,
1:40:47 it means we’re not meeting the needs
1:40:50 of certain groups of students and that’s our job.
1:40:53 That’s what matters to me.
1:40:54 - All right, so I’d like to say something.
1:40:59 I would agree with everybody and I think everybody
1:41:02 in this room would agree that our African-American population
1:41:06 of students has a higher disproportionate ability
1:41:11 or statistics that show that they’re being put into ALCs
1:41:17 and having higher discipline.
1:41:18 But I think that where we end up in a problem is that one,
1:41:21 I do not believe that there is a extreme bias
1:41:24 that’s creating all of this.
1:41:25 That, I don’t.
1:41:26 What I believe is it’s a holistic problem
1:41:29 that we have with society.
1:41:30 If you look at the incarceration rates of African-Americans
1:41:33 compared to white individuals in the same area,
1:41:36 you see the discrepancy.
1:41:37 You look, when you walk around and you do all of the other
1:41:40 metrics that go on between family and everything else,
1:41:43 we run into that problem.
1:41:44 And I think one of the issues that we run into
1:41:46 is that BPS is forced to deal with all of these problems
1:41:51 in this narrow scope.
1:41:52 And it’s unfair to say that it’s BPS’s problem,
1:41:55 it’s BPS that needs to do this.
1:41:56 And what I think it needs is a holistic approach.
1:41:59 And you see it in the COCO areas.
1:42:02 You see it in some of the other areas
1:42:03 where you see the city officials.
1:42:05 You see community groups.
1:42:07 And you see them coming together.
1:42:08 And then we don’t have it in other areas.
1:42:10 And I think that that’s the main problem
1:42:12 when we look at supporting not only
1:42:13 the African-American children,
1:42:15 but other children that are having problems
1:42:17 with discipline and other things,
1:42:19 is that they’re in, some of them have the same needs,
1:42:22 but our communities are not communicating together
1:42:24 and we’re not working together.
1:42:25 It’s one of the reasons we’re going to see the cities
1:42:27 is to find out how we can actively work together,
1:42:29 because we’re all spending the same dollar
1:42:31 on the same thing.
1:42:32 So you say, take Melbourne.
1:42:33 They have housing development,
1:42:35 has money that they spend after school programs.
1:42:38 They actually spend that.
1:42:39 Are we coordinating our after school programs
1:42:42 to be in line with them?
1:42:43 Or is there an ability to coordinate those dollars,
1:42:46 those efforts, those volunteers?
1:42:48 We have a million volunteers in the Vieira area
1:42:51 that are willing to go to the point
1:42:53 where they have to restrict the amount of parents
1:42:54 to go to lunches.
1:42:55 How do we, but we don’t even have enough individuals
1:42:58 and PTOs inside of our schools
1:43:00 that are involved in like our inner area,
1:43:03 like Sable and others.
1:43:04 We have teachers that are actually the PTO presidents.
1:43:07 So it’s a societal issue that I think we need to grab.
1:43:11 And I think that’s where, when I’m walking through a lot
1:43:13 of my housing projects along Aurora
1:43:16 or inside the, and many of the parking
1:43:20 or the trailer parks and stuff like that, I see it.
1:43:24 And it’s a societal problem that we need to fix.
1:43:27 And I think that we as a community,
1:43:28 we would do much better in these regards
1:43:30 when we were able to work with our community partners to help.
1:43:34 But I think that it’s, it is, I would say,
1:43:36 I’ve sat alongside of a lot of teachers.
1:43:39 And I would say that, to say that the numbers
1:43:41 are increased here and say that bias is a large part of it,
1:43:45 I would disagree.
1:43:45 I would put more of it on us as a society working together
1:43:49 to help those children in general.
1:43:51 So I just wanted to say that.
1:43:53 Jean.
1:43:54 - Mr. Trent, do you have anything to say?
1:43:55 Add to this.
1:43:57 - Well, between the three that have spoken,
1:44:00 it would just be a repeat.
1:44:04 But I guess I will.
1:44:05 I mean, to say that our teachers have a bias,
1:44:09 ‘cause that’s who you’re talking about is the discipline.
1:44:12 That’s where it starts in the classrooms.
1:44:14 Is, it’s disingenuous.
1:44:18 I mean, for the ones that we’re saying that we trust you
1:44:21 to teach our kids and house our kids,
1:44:24 to say that they are purposely targeting a group of kids.
1:44:28 I can’t go there.
1:44:31 Could it happen?
1:44:31 Sure.
1:44:32 I would sit here and not to have any specifics
1:44:34 and say that that’s obviously what’s happening.
1:44:37 Can’t go there.
1:44:38 So this is, obviously there’s deep, deep issues
1:44:43 and problems that Matt had brought up there
1:44:44 with the community.
1:44:46 We’re hoping that that’s where we can lean on.
1:44:49 I spent some time in a Title I school’s principal’s office
1:44:53 this week and he described situations where,
1:44:57 I mean, our district said, “Your numbers are off.”
1:44:59 And he’s like, “Look at me, look at my students.
1:45:03 Obviously, there’s no bias here.
1:45:05 We’re doing the best we possibly can.”
1:45:07 Is your mic on there?
1:45:08 It is?
1:45:08 It is.
1:45:09 It’s not close to it.
1:45:10 So I would just assume that that’s gonna be the same
1:45:14 throughout our district, that these principals
1:45:16 and these administrators and these teachers
1:45:18 are doing their absolute best on a daily basis
1:45:22 to keep above water.
1:45:24 And if we want to continue to train and retrain
1:45:27 or emphasize areas that they can think situations through,
1:45:32 so be it.
1:45:34 But to walk the halls of our ALCs and to sit and talk to each
1:45:39 one,
1:45:39 which ones don’t belong there?
1:45:40 I don’t know.
1:45:43 I think that’s another place you could start.
1:45:46 How many, raise your hand if you don’t feel
1:45:48 you deserve to be here.
1:45:49 I was in those classrooms.
1:45:50 And it’s just like in our corrections centers,
1:45:53 of course, they’re all innocent.
1:45:57 There’s a lot more than just saying it’s numbers
1:46:00 that we’ve got to deal with.
1:46:02 It’s society.
1:46:03 And I’m not at that point to just assume our teachers
1:46:07 and educators are not doing what they’re there to do.
1:46:12 I just can’t go there.
1:46:13 Sorry, we have three slides.
1:46:15 That’s flying around the face.
1:46:16 All right, thank you, Mr. Trent.
1:46:18 Here’s what I’ll say about this.
1:46:20 And I just wanna ask you this.
1:46:21 I appreciate the slides that you put here
1:46:23 because honestly, as someone coming in from the outside
1:46:26 and trying to understand and grasp the risk ratio
1:46:28 and what this means, one of your slides was brilliant
1:46:32 and it explains it perfectly.
1:46:33 And that really is, you know,
1:46:34 I think it was slide number 10, 10 and 11,
1:46:38 where you break this down for us.
1:46:39 So I appreciate you giving us this data.
1:46:43 What, ultimately what happens when the risk ratio
1:46:47 is over 2.5, can you explain to me what that happens?
1:46:50 ‘Cause there’s a funding aspect of this
1:46:52 that changes within the school, is that correct?
1:46:56 - It’s not 2.5.
1:46:58 - No?
1:46:59 - 3.5.
1:47:00 - 3.5, okay.
1:47:01 - It’s when you can be sanctioned by the state.
1:47:03 - Okay, but isn’t there federal dollars
1:47:06 that also go into play here?
1:47:08 - We have to set aside 15% when we’re on the CCEIS list,
1:47:13 but those are resources.
1:47:15 - Right.
1:47:16 - So we set aside resources to make sure those schools
1:47:19 who have been identified–
1:47:21 - Right.
1:47:22 - That additional support goes to that school
1:47:25 to problem solve–
1:47:26 - Exactly.
1:47:27 - Strategies and, you know, interventions–
1:47:30 - Right.
1:47:31 - To make sure that number decreases.
1:47:33 We’re obligated to do that.
1:47:33 - That’s what I was getting at with that,
1:47:35 is that if these numbers are truly what they are,
1:47:37 and there are federal dollars that are saying,
1:47:40 “Hey, our numbers are out of whack.
1:47:41 “We need to figure out how are we gonna get
1:47:42 “some additional supports in there
1:47:43 “and help different students.”
1:47:45 So I understand, I hear you, Ms. Jenkins,
1:47:49 I hear everyone up here.
1:47:50 I do not believe that our staff is looking
1:47:52 at individual students and disciplining different
1:47:55 based on race, I really don’t.
1:47:57 Unfortunately, an offense is an offense,
1:47:59 and I don’t like that we even have to collect all of that.
1:48:02 So to me, it just seems like that should be
1:48:04 almost colorblind, this is the offense that was committed.
1:48:06 It doesn’t matter what color you are
1:48:08 that you committed this offense,
1:48:10 this is the offense, this is the outcome of that.
1:48:13 And so that is, it’s one of those things
1:48:16 that we collect the data, I understand why we’re doing it,
1:48:18 and I get it, but it’s also frustrating at times.
1:48:21 I will say this, last year when we looked at our quarter one,
1:48:25 we had 179 white students that were in the ALC
1:48:29 compared to 114 black students that were in the ALC.
1:48:32 So when you look at numbers and you kind of go back and forth,
1:48:34 right now there’s 16 more African American students
1:48:36 that are at the ALC than our white students.
1:48:39 And that’s something we’re just gonna continually
1:48:41 have to keep on looking at and address
1:48:43 and figure out how do we change this?
1:48:44 Is this a problem with society?
1:48:46 Is this a problem with our district?
1:48:48 Where is the root of the problem?
1:48:49 The human element, we can never control.
1:48:51 That is the reality of it.
1:48:52 So we are gonna have to just continually
1:48:54 keep trying to improve it.
1:48:57 To me, I think it is improving, maybe that’s being naive,
1:49:00 but I think we are on the right track
1:49:01 with a lot of the things that we’ve implemented
1:49:03 and we’re gonna see some dividends paid,
1:49:04 but it is going to take time, unfortunately,
1:49:07 to see those results.
1:49:08 So I appreciate you presenting this data to us.
1:49:10 I know we’re moving on to Title IX now.
1:49:11 They were, she was chomping at the bit with her microphone.
1:49:13 So if you will go ahead and.
1:49:16 - Can I just say something to that though?
1:49:19 - Well, the only thing is we have a time start and stop,
1:49:21 Ms. Jenkins, at 4:30.
1:49:23 - I understand, this is really important.
1:49:24 This is really important.
1:49:25 - Go right ahead.
1:49:26 - So, it should be colorblind, but it’s not.
1:49:36 That’s exactly what the data is saying.
1:49:39 It’s not, and it’s not getting better.
1:49:41 The number is increasing.
1:49:43 It’s getting worse.
1:49:44 And the feeling that this is a problem with society,
1:49:53 yeah, it sure is, but we’re a reflection of society.
1:49:56 We build society with the schools that we have.
1:49:59 And so, if we are not willing to be honest about it
1:50:02 and to address it and change it,
1:50:05 that will never change either.
1:50:07 So I am just going to ask again
1:50:10 that you ask individually,
1:50:13 have a conversation with Ms. Dampierre.
1:50:16 Take a look at where it’s happening
1:50:18 and the schools that it’s happening,
1:50:19 ‘cause I heard a whole lot of assumptions
1:50:22 about neighborhoods and schools and race.
1:50:24 Take a look at it, because it will open your eyes.
1:50:28 This is a blanket problem.
1:50:30 It’s not just in certain communities.
1:50:32 It’s a blanket problem.
1:50:33 But I do want to have one clarifying question answered.
1:50:36 Can you please explain to me, and if I’m wrong,
1:50:40 so 1.0 is really the neutral number we’re looking for.
1:50:45 What does it mean when you’re under 1.0 for risk ratio?
1:50:50 And thank you, Ms. Wright.
1:50:51 - Sure, just again, mathematically,
1:50:54 less than one would be your,
1:50:57 less referrals, less whatever it is you’re evaluating
1:51:02 for that particular demographic group
1:51:05 would be receiving referrals when compared to the masses
1:51:08 or the other demographic groups.
1:51:09 So less than, less likely for that to happen.
1:51:12 - All right, thank you.
1:51:16 All right, we’ll move on to the Title IX section of this.
1:51:18 I know we’re running out of time, so.
1:51:23 Is your mic on?
1:51:24 - I’m not sure if it’s on.
1:51:29 Is it on now? - It’s on, yes.
1:51:31 - So I’m gonna go over last year’s cases again
1:51:34 and just sort of talk about where we were
1:51:36 last time I presented.
1:51:37 So just a reminder, when I came on board,
1:51:42 we had 25 open cases from last year.
1:51:45 So we’ve been working really hard to streamline our process
1:51:49 and improve that so that we could get these cases closed out.
1:51:54 And I think that you’ll see when we get to this year’s data
1:51:57 that our updated processes are working.
1:52:02 So we had a total, this isn’t, so the way this is laid out
1:52:09 is different than how Mr. Reeds is laid out.
1:52:11 So I just wanna say this is,
1:52:13 we had 60 formal complaints total last year.
1:52:16 So in October, I broke them down for you
1:52:19 where they were at that time.
1:52:21 And I’m gonna now break them down in January for you,
1:52:24 where those 60 cases are at this time.
1:52:27 So you can see that we are down to only six
1:52:31 that are still open and those are,
1:52:35 many of those are very, very close to closing.
1:52:38 So we have six that are still open.
1:52:42 One of them is waiting for a decision maker.
1:52:44 Three of them are with decision makers.
1:52:46 One is still in the investigation process,
1:52:49 but it is very close to wrapping up.
1:52:52 And then one of those is with labor relations.
1:52:55 Now this year, we’ve had a total of 17 formal complaints.
1:53:02 And we have seven of those.
1:53:07 So you can see in October, we had 12.
1:53:10 We’ve already closed out some of our cases from last year,
1:53:16 or from this year, I mean, which is great.
1:53:19 So we’re doing a much better job
1:53:21 staying in that 60 day timeline.
1:53:23 We also have rolled out the decision maker
1:53:28 being the part we’ve partnered our schools,
1:53:30 so that the decision makers no longer up here,
1:53:34 where, because we really were,
1:53:37 we really disconnected our school principals
1:53:40 from this whole process.
1:53:42 And we’ve seen just by engaging them back in the process,
1:53:47 it’s already going smoother.
1:53:49 - So when you say we disconnected them from the process,
1:53:52 that was last year?
1:53:53 - That was last year.
1:53:54 - Right. - Right.
1:53:54 - Well, in the beginning of this year.
1:53:56 - I just want to clarify.
1:53:57 - But the change has been made that they are–
1:53:58 - Change has been made where now they are serving
1:54:01 in the decision maker role.
1:54:03 So they have a partner school,
1:54:05 and they are the decision maker for each other.
1:54:08 So we tried to pair schools up that were similar.
1:54:13 Similar in size, similar in maybe, you know,
1:54:17 how many cases they had last year,
1:54:20 just trying to not overload, you know,
1:54:22 where one of the partners is gonna be overloaded
1:54:27 with, you know, doing a lot of work
1:54:30 and not really contributing to those, the need.
1:54:34 So we have, right now we have seven of the 17
1:54:39 are in the investigation process.
1:54:42 Four of them are with decision makers,
1:54:45 and that’s our principals.
1:54:47 And two of those went through
1:54:50 the informal resolution process,
1:54:53 which is the best case scenario.
1:54:55 That means that everybody comes to the table,
1:54:56 and they come to an agreement
1:54:59 of how it’s gonna be solved,
1:55:02 and the case is closed,
1:55:04 and everybody, you know, moves on.
1:55:06 Three have been dismissed.
1:55:10 And we’ve had zero be substantiated at this point,
1:55:16 and one was unsubstantiated.
1:55:20 It’s really the verbiage for Title IX
1:55:21 is really more unfounded.
1:55:24 A lot of times, there’s not enough evidence.
1:55:26 But right now, we currently have 11 cases that are open.
1:55:30 And so you can see that we’ve successfully closed out cases,
1:55:35 and we have three of them that are set to the,
1:55:40 so after the decision maker,
1:55:44 after the family’s notified of the decision maker’s decision,
1:55:48 they have five days to appeal that.
1:55:49 So the beginning of next week,
1:55:51 three more cases will make it through
1:55:55 the five-day window of that.
1:55:57 So, oh, that fly just made it through.
1:56:01 Did it go in your mouth?
1:56:02 No, you caught it, you caught it.
1:56:04 In my mouth.
1:56:05 I’m so sorry.
1:56:07 Hopefully, I got a little protein out of it, I guess.
1:56:09 We’re sorry, but you’re our girl.
1:56:11 I know, I’m like, thank you, but I’m sorry.
1:56:14 And I left my water back there.
1:56:15 It’s been flying around us,
1:56:18 so if you see us, if you’re swatting.
1:56:19 Actually, I just got it out, so.
1:56:22 Sorry.
1:56:23 All right.
1:56:24 There’s one of my microphones right now.
1:56:26 Oh, Lord.
1:56:27 Yeah.
1:56:27 We’re Sue.
1:56:28 Okay, so total, that’s 17 cases that are open,
1:56:33 but, oh, thank you.
1:56:34 But you can see clearly that our new process is,
1:56:40 is, it’s improved.
1:56:45 So, before I move on from that,
1:56:46 we also, one thing that we have just started doing
1:56:55 is tracking that window,
1:56:59 so we can start seeing schools that are struggling
1:57:04 to stay in that window,
1:57:05 that we can go out and do some coaching.
1:57:08 We are also taking our process that we came up with
1:57:10 for tracking the windows,
1:57:13 and we’re looking at old data to kind of go back
1:57:17 and kind of analyze where some of,
1:57:19 some of that support can come into play
1:57:22 and how we can adjust our training
1:57:24 as we move forward, as well.
1:57:26 We also, you all approved the contract
1:57:30 for a new consulting company, ICS,
1:57:33 and we are extremely happy with that new company.
1:57:38 So, their advice is,
1:57:44 you can sense an experience in a K-12 situation
1:57:51 where it’s, you know,
1:57:54 K-12 programming is very different than higher education.
1:57:59 And so, you really need people that are experiencing that
1:58:07 and really giving advice that’s practical
1:58:09 for what our administrators are trying to, you know,
1:58:12 navigate in this process.
1:58:14 ‘Cause it is not an easy process.
1:58:16 So, our bullying data.
1:58:19 - Can I ask a question real fast?
1:58:20 - Yeah.
1:58:21 - Just real fast, I know we’re time certain.
1:58:23 So, on the previous slide, what you’re saying is,
1:58:26 is that one, we changed the company
1:58:28 that we were dealing with that was giving us the supports,
1:58:30 giving the presentations to the staff and everything else,
1:58:33 and you feel better about that, that this is better.
1:58:35 And then the other one you said was that now,
1:58:38 our principals have more involved in the process.
1:58:42 - Yes.
1:58:43 - Are there any other factors that assisted this
1:58:45 to be a reduced number of Title IX or anything else?
1:58:47 - So, we created a flow chart
1:58:49 that really outlined the steps,
1:58:50 how many days they need to be at each step.
1:58:53 - Okay.
1:58:54 - That, I think, was very helpful to see it visually.
1:58:56 - Speed up the process.
1:58:57 - To see it visually.
1:58:58 I don’t even, you know,
1:59:00 a lot of times when you have a lot of words on a paper,
1:59:03 I don’t even know if they realized
1:59:06 how out of compliance they were.
1:59:08 - Okay.
1:59:09 - And it became very difficult to,
1:59:13 because, I mean, 60 cases, if they,
1:59:16 let’s just say they all end up needing a decision maker,
1:59:19 and our decision makers are up here,
1:59:20 that is really hard to find.
1:59:24 Oh, no.
1:59:25 - No, not another one.
1:59:26 - I’m not.
1:59:27 - Thank you.
1:59:27 Thank you for that.
1:59:28 - So, yes.
1:59:29 - I appreciate it.
1:59:30 Thank you.
1:59:31 - I know.
1:59:32 - Yeah.
1:59:33 - Okay, so our bullying data,
1:59:34 now this is comparing how many we had at the same time.
1:59:40 So, how many, you know,
1:59:41 last time we talked about at quarter one,
1:59:44 how many we had last year compared to quarter one this year,
1:59:47 and now I’m breaking it down for quarter two.
1:59:51 So, you can see we’ve had a very, you know, a big increase.
1:59:57 Last time we met on these numbers,
2:00:00 we were, we didn’t see a huge increase from last year
2:00:05 to this year on the substantiated cases,
2:00:08 but that has changed now in quarter two.
2:00:12 So, that’s a little concerning.
2:00:14 You can see that our substantiated cases
2:00:19 from this time last year to this time this year
2:00:22 is up 52% as well as our unsubstantiated cases are 56%.
2:00:27 That’s a lot of extra work
2:00:31 that is burdening our administrators.
2:00:35 We know that there is a huge need for prevention,
2:00:41 but I’ll be honest with you,
2:00:44 we are buried in supporting these numbers as well.
2:00:49 So, we’re trying to dig ourselves out
2:00:52 and we’ve done some things to try to
2:00:59 really support our administrators through the process
2:01:01 where it’s not quite as labor intensive on us
2:01:03 so we can free up our prevention,
2:01:06 our person who does prevention.
2:01:08 But, so in the past, risk management
2:01:10 really reviewed these investigations
2:01:13 and made sure they were accurate.
2:01:15 And now our person who is,
2:01:18 she reviews the investigations,
2:01:21 does the training, provides the support,
2:01:22 and also is responsible for the prevention.
2:01:25 So, you can see where that is a struggle.
2:01:30 So, right now we’re doing a really great job
2:01:34 of streamlining our Title IX investigations
2:01:39 and our next focus is really digging
2:01:42 into this bullying process
2:01:44 to hopefully free up our prevention person
2:01:48 to, you know, get her on out in the schools.
2:01:52 And we’ve looked at the data
2:01:53 to see which schools are,
2:01:55 which schools are, have a lot of cases.
2:01:59 So, we know that they need
2:02:01 to be our priority with prevention.
2:02:03 We also have some ideas that we’re working on
2:02:06 to roll out some easy messaging
2:02:09 to put on, you know, graphics
2:02:11 that our schools can put on their website,
2:02:12 that they can put on their marquees,
2:02:14 they can put in their newsletters
2:02:16 if they are sending those out,
2:02:17 they can put it on social media,
2:02:20 really helping families and students
2:02:22 understand the difference between conflict
2:02:24 and bullying because we, I mean,
2:02:27 and we talked about this some last time.
2:02:30 Our plans are still there.
2:02:34 It’s just, you know, we’re slow and steady attacking it.
2:02:38 And we are, as these numbers increase,
2:02:40 it’s making it harder to take that on.
2:02:43 But, um, we’re, we’re getting there.
2:02:48 So, we’re, we’re seeing, we, we can see the,
2:02:50 the light at the end of the tunnel
2:02:52 with, um, some different shifts
2:02:54 and roles of individuals and, um, staff
2:02:58 to try to, you know,
2:03:00 really sort of shift who is helping with the,
2:03:05 some of the burden of the investigations.
2:03:08 So, we can free up, um, Ms. Elam,
2:03:10 who is wonderful at the prevention piece.
2:03:13 So, and that is, that’s it.
2:03:17 If you have any questions.
2:03:18 All right, Lauren, do you have any questions?
2:03:20 Anyone?
2:03:21 I think I’ve used up all my time.
2:03:22 You’ve used up all your question time?
2:03:24 Uh, Ms. Jenkins, do you have questions?
2:03:26 Yeah. I mean, is there, um, do you see a trend in,
2:03:31 uh, for the bullying complaints, like, what,
2:03:34 what they’re being bullied for, or how?
2:03:38 Um, so, Lisa reads all of those.
2:03:43 So, I don’t know if you want to come up here.
2:03:45 I don’t know if you’re, if you’re seeing a trend
2:03:48 in specifics.
2:03:50 - Or do you feel like it’s just kind of,
2:03:53 the increase is equal because the increase overall?
2:03:55 - I would say that it is across the board.
2:04:03 We will see a lot, it’s also age-specific.
2:04:05 When you’re looking at elementary school
2:04:07 versus middle or high school,
2:04:08 you’re going to see different reasons.
2:04:09 A lot of times, um, meanness.
2:04:12 Then you do have the protective classes.
2:04:13 It could be race-related.
2:04:14 It could be LGBTQ+ status-related.
2:04:17 So, it is across the spectrum.
2:04:19 Um, a lot of times it’s conflict.
2:04:22 And going back to what, um, Julie said,
2:04:25 it, it really needs that we, um,
2:04:28 have our families involved, we have our students involved,
2:04:30 and we’re teaching, and we’re, we’re,
2:04:32 we’re advocating and helping our teachers,
2:04:34 um, when they’re seeing the behaviors,
2:04:36 to, to minimize at the conflict stage
2:04:38 so it doesn’t grow and develop.
2:04:40 - Do you feel like, um,
2:04:43 I, I feel like we always make an assumption,
2:04:45 which is, it’s probably an accurate assumption,
2:04:46 but we always make an assumption
2:04:47 that this often happens outside of school.
2:04:50 It carries outside of school.
2:04:52 Social media, things of that nature.
2:04:54 Are you feeling like that’s pretty consistent
2:04:56 and continuously happening?
2:04:57 - Yeah, and we do see a lot of that.
2:04:58 Social media is absolutely, um, a, a, a trend that is there
2:05:03 and has been there.
2:05:04 And even more so, um, and, in our, uh, state statute
2:05:08 and policy, cyberbullying doesn’t have to be repeated,
2:05:12 that, to, to be defined as, um, uh, substantiated for bullying.
2:05:17 So again, that becomes the education piece
2:05:19 to let our kiddos know, let the parents know,
2:05:21 let our staff know, um, that anything that’s happening
2:05:24 on social media, when you hit that button once,
2:05:26 it goes to the masses.
2:05:27 So that’s an excellent point.
2:05:29 - Thanks, I was just curious.
2:05:30 - Sure.
2:05:30 - And that’s one change that we just made
2:05:34 to help our principals, um, we added the definition
2:05:37 of cyberbullying right next to, um,
2:05:40 where they’re going through and marking.
2:05:42 So, because that is a little bit of a misconception
2:05:46 that it has to be repeated.
2:05:48 It, it escalates online very quickly.
2:05:50 All right, we’re just hearing no further questions.
2:05:57 I think we’re good, thank you.
2:05:58 - Thank you.
2:06:00 - All right, good job.
2:06:02 All right, so, our last presentation
2:06:08 is a Guardian program informational update.
2:06:12 I think they’re clearing out.
2:06:13 This one only has three slides, so.
2:06:17 I don’t know.
2:06:18 I’m sure there will be a lot of conversation, though.
2:06:22 - Uh-huh.
2:06:23 - Thank you guys for patiently waiting.
2:06:38 I know I see you over there, so.
2:06:40 - Thank you for having me.
2:06:41 - No problem.
2:06:42 - Just be prepared that there might be fruit flies
2:07:01 that are going to fly into your mouth, so just.
2:07:02 - It’s over there.
2:07:03 - Okay, disclaimer, I’m making you aware.
2:07:07 You’re going to get a little extra protein today.
2:07:09 - Far away.
2:07:10 - Yeah.
2:07:24 - Okay, are we, are we waiting, are we, are we still–
2:07:30 - I’d say go ahead.
2:07:31 - Okay, all right.
2:07:33 All right, good afternoon, Board Chair Wright,
2:07:36 Board members, and Dr. Rendell in his absence.
2:07:39 On the October 24th board meeting,
2:07:43 Mrs. Wright, as well as I think Mrs. Campbell,
2:07:47 asked Dr. Rendell would he have staff reach out
2:07:51 to the counties in regards to the guardian program.
2:07:56 At that time, after the meeting, he and I met,
2:08:00 he gave me my marching orders,
2:08:01 and I reached out to 10 counties.
2:08:04 And I got in contact with nine of the 10.
2:08:11 The last county, I was unable to make contact
2:08:14 with my colleague.
2:08:16 But, I’ll go ahead and get started.
2:08:17 These are the counties that I contacted.
2:08:22 And on November 2nd, I provided you with an update
2:08:26 of those conversations to those counties.
2:08:30 And this update is, just added the two,
2:08:35 Okaloosa and Marion.
2:08:36 And in Volusia County, I reached out to my colleague,
2:08:39 and he shared that they have 66 schools,
2:08:43 105 guardians, one in each elementary school,
2:08:48 one in each middle school, and two in each high school.
2:08:52 No school-based employees are guardians.
2:08:57 Guardians are employed by the district.
2:09:02 Guardians are also assigned to charter
2:09:05 and alternate site schools.
2:09:08 There are SROs and SRDs in every high school
2:09:14 and most middle schools.
2:09:16 Guardians in Volusia County also respond to after-hour calls
2:09:22 related to facilities instead of the admin.
2:09:26 Typically, your admin would be the first one to respond,
2:09:28 to go to a school and to see what’s going on.
2:09:30 But in Volusia County, the guardian takes that responsibility.
2:09:34 Okay.
2:09:35 In Miami-Dade, reached out to my colleague,
2:09:35 and he shared with me that they have 516 schools.
2:09:39 They do not have a guardian program.
2:09:40 They have an internal police department
2:09:43 with 500-plus officers and deputies.
2:09:47 Okay?
2:09:48 In Lee County, my colleague shared that they have 92 schools.
2:09:53 They started with 300 employees to participate in the guardian
2:09:58 program,
2:09:58 but only four came through the program successfully.
2:10:02 300 participated in four companies to participate
2:10:07 in the guardian program.
2:10:08 And so, you know, we’re going to be a part of this.
2:10:10 We’re going to be a part of this.
2:16:09 We have 106 campuses.
2:16:12 We have 58 elementary, 29 secondary schools.
2:16:17 That’s middle and high.
2:16:18 Four alt sites and 15 charters.
2:16:21 Of that, we have 76 total SROs between BCSO and our local
2:16:31 municipalities.
2:16:32 We also have 34 specialists and two K-9s.
2:16:37 We have four charter schools that participate in the guardian
2:16:42 program.
2:16:44 Oh, contracted services, excuse me.
2:16:46 That’s Odyssey Charter, Palm Bay Academy, Palm Bay Academy
2:16:51 Middle, and Pineapple Classic,
2:16:54 Classical Academy.
2:16:55 Pineapple Cove Classical Academy.
2:16:57 What was the last four?
2:16:59 Contracted services, not guardians.
2:17:02 We still have a lot of our scholarships.
2:17:05 So to clarify, we don’t have any guardians.
2:17:08 We do not have any guardians.
2:17:09 Correct.
2:17:10 The pure guardian?
2:17:12 Correct.
2:17:16 All right.
2:17:17 Thank you.
2:17:18 Are there any questions?
2:17:19 Thank you.
2:17:20 I’m going to go ahead and let my-
2:17:21 Short and sweet.
2:17:22 I have a question.
2:17:24 I’ll wrap it up.
2:17:25 The-
2:17:28 So the numbers for Brevard, just to clarify, when you say-
2:17:31 So there’s 76 SROs and 34 school security specialists.
2:17:35 Do the municipalities that we use instead of the sheriff’s
2:17:40 office fall in the SRO total?
2:17:42 Yes.
2:17:43 Okay.
2:17:44 Correct.
2:17:45 Yes, ma’am.
2:17:46 Okay.
2:17:47 I’m not going to dive deep into this conversation because we
2:17:49 started it last time and I don’t
2:17:50 know where we’re going here today, but everyone knows where I
2:17:54 stand on this issue.
2:17:55 The one thing that I’ve always said that I totally would be okay
2:18:00 with is increasing our high school campuses that are larger and
2:18:05 complex and inside-outside to more than one person seems logical
2:18:10 to me.
2:18:12 But I also know that that’s not so simple, right?
2:18:15 I know it was probably two years ago when the sheriff came and
2:18:19 spoke about this, but it was difficult staffing, period.
2:18:24 So I don’t even know if that’s a need that could be met with
2:18:27 personnel, but that’s something I’m open to.
2:18:33 Sorry.
2:18:34 Did you get it?
2:18:35 Yeah.
2:18:36 All right.
2:18:37 Ms. Campbell.
2:18:38 Sorry, we’re getting violent.
2:18:39 Yeah.
2:18:41 So one of the-
2:18:43 My phone.
2:18:44 So over the last few months have tried to have this conversation
2:18:49 with every principal that I visited and different school visits
2:18:52 and even just as late as
2:18:53 yesterday having their conversation and also talking to other
2:18:56 counties.
2:18:57 And I know, Mary, you didn’t get to talk to them, but I talked
2:18:59 to one of their school board members and I knew that now they
2:19:01 have principals who,
2:19:02 assistant principals who are serving.
2:19:04 So I don’t know if that’s the only ones who can serve, but I don’t
2:19:07 know if they’re known or unknown.
2:19:08 They’re known to that school board member, so I don’t know.
2:19:11 But I, you know, as I’ve had this conversation, you know, I
2:19:16 remember that conversation when we talked about previously if we
2:19:22 could hire more security specialists,
2:19:24 could we find them?
2:19:25 Because we do sometimes sit with some vacancies and they try to
2:19:28 hire them as soon as possible.
2:19:29 But if they, if we have that vacancy and they hire them, they
2:19:32 have to go through the process of the four, four to five weeks
2:19:35 of training before we can get them up and running.
2:19:37 And they’re not going to do that class just for one person.
2:19:40 We try to make till we have a critical mass.
2:19:42 So in other words, there are plenty of times when we are short
2:19:46 staffed and we have people who get, we get guys and gals that
2:19:48 get pulled away because they have duties or training or whatever.
2:19:51 Then we move our security specialists around to cover and we are
2:19:55 very, very, very often left with one person per campus on some
2:19:59 big campuses, high population schools, high needs schools, high
2:20:04 incidence schools.
2:20:05 And so, you know, it, that is where it comes down to what is the
2:20:11 other solution.
2:20:13 And this is a solution that I appreciate you doing the research
2:20:16 that other school districts are doing.
2:20:18 Thank you for being, for getting this, this good sample.
2:20:22 I think this is probably a good sample from across the state
2:20:24 because I think we have a few others probably, but there are
2:20:26 districts who are not using any kind of guardian security
2:20:30 specialist situation at all.
2:20:31 There’s some are using mix in the exact same way we are as a
2:20:34 supplement.
2:20:35 There are some who are doing the undercover people don’t know
2:20:40 kind of ways.
2:20:41 And there are people who are using teachers and there’s, you
2:20:43 know, there’s wait, once we’re using only admin.
2:20:45 So there’s lots for us to look at and some of them have been
2:20:50 doing it now for five and a half years.
2:20:54 As I mentioned last time, that makes me a little more
2:20:56 comfortable.
2:20:57 All of my principals were pretty much in agreement that if, if
2:21:00 we did this and we did it right, there would be something that
2:21:03 they could see as valuable on their campus.
2:21:04 I mean, one even went so far as to say, why wouldn’t we do it?
2:21:07 Here are the concerns that I would have if we start hashing it
2:21:12 out.
2:21:12 Here’s some things that I would want, I would want to see in
2:21:16 place.
2:21:16 One, everybody needs to understand that these people have to go
2:21:19 through the same rigorous training, which our sheriff is
2:21:21 requiring more than the state mandate in 132 hours.
2:21:24 I think it’s 176 hours, 177, somewhere like, because Rivard has
2:21:27 to be bigger.
2:21:28 This is an area where I want us to be bigger and better than
2:21:31 everybody.
2:21:31 I also think we have for our security specialists, we have the
2:21:35 requirement that they either have to have military law
2:21:37 enforcement or security background, correct?
2:21:40 Preferred.
2:21:42 I would like to, if we move forward with this as someone who’s
2:21:45 in another position, I would like to maintain that standard,
2:21:48 that it has to be someone who has that background, that that’s
2:21:52 what we’re really looking for as people who are military,
2:21:54 military law enforcement or security background.
2:21:56 Sometimes that’s hard to find in, you know, in this, you know,
2:22:00 group of a population of employees, but it can be found.
2:22:04 Another concern, I think we’ve just, because it comes up every
2:22:09 time that the articles pop up, it’s come out a couple times.
2:22:13 We’re not talking about classroom teachers.
2:22:15 I don’t believe we need, you know, I think we’re probably in
2:22:17 agreement with that because a classroom teacher in a critical
2:22:19 incident has one job.
2:22:20 And that job is to keep those students in that classroom.
2:22:23 It’s not to leave them.
2:22:24 I could see if the union was amenable to it, maybe a TOA who
2:22:28 moves around or another teacher that is assigned a movement type
2:22:33 situation.
2:22:33 You know, but I, if, that would be up to, if the union is agreeable
2:22:39 to that.
2:22:40 And again, if somebody who would want to do that.
2:22:43 As I’ve talked, really the number one concern that was
2:22:45 consistent with every administrator that I talked to is, it
2:22:48 would depend on the person.
2:22:50 And so what I got from that is, I think our principals need to
2:22:53 have strong input into this because they know the character of
2:22:56 the employee.
2:22:57 I don’t think they need to have the final say because there
2:23:00 could be a principal who is absolutely opposed to this and would
2:23:03 say no, no, no, no to anybody who might be a really good
2:23:05 qualified candidate.
2:23:06 But they need, we need to definitely have their input as to who,
2:23:12 who would be, if the person who was applying would be a good fit
2:23:18 for that role.
2:23:19 And another concern that I had from last time, this is just
2:23:22 leftover from last time is there was, there was some concern
2:23:24 because we were, the board, this was before I got on, but the,
2:23:27 the board at the time was considering using this as the, we didn’t
2:23:30 have the funding, we didn’t have the SROs.
2:23:32 We have to have, we have to have, we have to have an armed
2:23:35 person on every campus.
2:23:37 This was an option to get an armed person on every campus until
2:23:40 the board put extra money into getting SROs and doing the
2:23:43 security specialist.
2:23:44 So there was the, the possibility that people might be moved
2:23:47 around from school to school.
2:23:48 They might not want to volunteer for it because then I might get
2:23:51 reassigned because this school doesn’t have one and they, they
2:23:53 would move me.
2:23:54 I don’t want that to be a part of it.
2:23:56 To be honest, we might have some schools who have zero.
2:23:58 We might have some schools that have five.
2:24:00 What the person who would mean to do harm to our students and to
2:24:05 our schools, they won’t know where they are.
2:24:08 They’ll just know we have them.
2:24:09 It would be, is my thought about that.
2:24:11 And so I’m not really interested in moving people around to, you
2:24:16 know, to meet a quota necessarily.
2:24:18 But, you know, that, but just if we’re going to have them, it’s
2:24:23 just known that we have them and people won’t know from the
2:24:26 public that obviously the administrators need to know, the law
2:24:29 enforcement needs to know, you know, need to know basis, right?
2:24:32 The people who need to know would know and nobody else would.
2:24:35 That’s, that’s kind of where I am on that.
2:24:36 But I just want to make sure that those factors as we move
2:24:39 forward.
2:24:39 I really would like to see us hold that, that requirement or
2:24:43 preference that they have the, the, the important background
2:24:46 knowledge.
2:24:47 One thing to consider board on that particular issue is there’s
2:24:50 legislation going through right now and I don’t know where it’ll,
2:24:53 where it’ll go.
2:24:54 Sessions still has another month and a half to go.
2:24:56 But our legislators are considering tweak to the guardian
2:24:59 program.
2:25:00 And that is, if someone comes in, the sheriff has the, the
2:25:05 flexibility, the sheriff would have the flexibility if it passes
2:25:09 to, if someone is retired law enforcement, for them not to have
2:25:13 to complete the entire 177 hours, that could be shortened.
2:25:16 That could be shortened if the sheriff chose to because they
2:25:19 just, let’s say they just retired from law enforcement.
2:25:21 They could not have that part of the training, which they would
2:25:25 already have had as a retired law enforcement officer.
2:25:28 And so that’s just something to keep our eye on.
2:25:30 Wouldn’t be something that the sheriff would have to do, but
2:25:32 they’d have that option to move those people through the
2:25:34 training a little faster.
2:25:35 And then they would just have to refinish the parts that was
2:25:38 specific to working in a school setting.
2:25:40 So that was, that’s my input I’ve collected over the last few
2:25:44 months.
2:25:45 All right.
2:25:46 Thank you, Ms. Campbell.
2:25:47 Mr. Susan.
2:25:48 Yeah, I want to say thank you.
2:25:50 You’re right, Ms. Campbell.
2:25:51 When we had this conversation before, it was again, I think
2:25:56 every year we deal with another major issue, right?
2:25:58 So this one was where we were dealing with the security and we
2:26:03 did, we have two municipalities that I know of for a fact that
2:26:06 have very hard time filling those positions.
2:26:08 So we had our elementary schools needed to fill them and we
2:26:12 filled them with our security specialists, which I will tell you
2:26:16 in the beginning, there were a lot of concerns, but I will tell
2:26:19 you now that many of my elementary schools love their
2:26:22 specialists to the point where when we try to move them around,
2:26:25 they go crazy.
2:26:25 And there’s a lot of positives towards that.
2:26:28 So that was there.
2:26:30 Let me ask you something, Officer Klein and Mr. Wilson.
2:26:35 Do we have a capacity issue in dealing with, like if we were to
2:26:39 say we wanted 15 more specialists, would we be able to fill
2:26:44 those positions or are we at a spot where that’s a 34, 35, 40 is
2:26:49 a tough area?
2:26:50 It’s been difficult to fill.
2:26:52 It has.
2:26:53 There is a limit to it.
2:26:55 And the reason for that is, as you saw in the numbers, yes, it
2:26:59 is a very rigorous training, but before they even get to the
2:27:03 training, they go through a background check.
2:27:04 Yep.
2:27:05 It comes from the school and it also comes from the sheriff’s
2:27:08 office.
2:27:08 And then they even go as far as a review board and then they go
2:27:11 through a psychological before we even send them to the training.
2:27:14 Right.
2:27:15 So sometimes by the end of the review process, we’ve nixed, on
2:27:19 the last group we had, we nixed quite a few.
2:27:21 So it’s not the, how do I put this, this is not a job for the
2:27:25 faint of heart because of what we put them in the schools for.
2:27:29 What they’re there for is for safety, to protect the staff and
2:27:32 the children and you have to have someone that’s able to fulfill
2:27:34 that job.
2:27:35 And sometimes we get people in there that are ready to do it,
2:27:39 but they just will not match that.
2:27:41 So to be truly honest with you, it would depend to fill 15 extra
2:27:47 specialists.
2:27:48 I was just, yeah, throwing the number out there.
2:27:50 I think the last class was like four or five that graduated.
2:27:54 Okay.
2:27:55 Yes.
2:27:56 We were at capacity and now we are two, fixing to be three.
2:27:58 Fixing to be three.
2:27:59 Yeah.
2:28:01 Okay.
2:28:02 Thank you.
2:28:03 Mr. Tratton.
2:28:04 No, great.
2:28:05 Thanks for the information.
2:28:06 It’s really nice to see what other districts are doing and that
2:28:09 it wasn’t outlandish for us to even bring this up to talk about
2:28:13 it because security is at the utmost important.
2:28:15 I trust the two of you to come back also in this process to say
2:28:20 this is, this is what I think we need and then we’ll take it
2:28:24 from there.
2:28:24 Yeah.
2:28:25 I see like Ms. Campbell said that it’s all over the board of
2:28:29 solutions.
2:28:30 And like we’ve said from the beginning, everything’s got to be
2:28:33 out on the table for the security of our students and staff.
2:28:36 That’s, that’s what’s important.
2:28:37 So we, I think we’re all committed to that here and thank you
2:28:41 for, for reaching out and getting those details.
2:28:44 I mean, for us, I mean, we kind of knew that already, but I
2:28:46 think it’s good for the public to see that and to hear that we’re
2:28:51 not coming up with something that other districts are not.
2:28:54 already doing.
2:28:55 So thank you.
2:28:56 Yeah.
2:28:57 Thank you guys.
2:28:58 I appreciate you guys taking this deep dive into this.
2:28:59 Um, you know, every district’s a little bit different, which is,
2:29:02 that’s great.
2:29:03 That’s, that’s what, that’s what makes us all unique.
2:29:05 Right.
2:29:06 Uh, but what I’m seeing a kind of as a pattern, a reoccurring
2:29:10 pattern is that most of the high schools have more than one
2:29:13 officer in most districts that are using these programs.
2:29:16 Uh, we typically have one and maybe sometimes a security
2:29:19 specialist, sometimes not.
2:29:21 So we currently have vacancies with security specialists.
2:29:24 Um, you know, when I brought this forward, everyone thought, Oh,
2:29:26 we’re arming teachers.
2:29:27 Let me be very clear.
2:29:28 100% that was never on the table for me.
2:29:30 As far as a recommendation, never wanted to arm a school teacher.
2:29:34 That’s teaching children in the classroom.
2:29:36 Um, my, my thought process behind the guardian program.
2:29:40 And I think what is so great about it is that number one, the
2:29:43 element of surprise, like you had spoke about Ms. Campbell with
2:29:46 some of these counties that we don’t necessarily, the public
2:29:49 doesn’t know who they are or where they are.
2:29:50 But they’re there, they’re there to protect should the need ever
2:29:54 arise.
2:29:54 Um, the guardian program also, I feel like is a great solution
2:29:59 to some of our security needs because we are having trouble
2:30:03 staffing the other security specialist and in a perfect world,
2:30:06 we could hire another 100 SROs.
2:30:08 But the reality is that’s probably not going to happen.
2:30:11 Um, so, I mean, I, what I would like to see ultimately, as we
2:30:15 move forward with these conversations is, again, the principal
2:30:19 having a safety.
2:30:19 I think that’s a great idea.
2:30:20 I honestly, I love that.
2:30:22 Maybe not the final say, but then actually having input into
2:30:25 this person should or should not be part of this program should
2:30:28 they choose to.
2:30:29 Um, and again, when I said the principal having a say, again,
2:30:32 these are not classroom teachers.
2:30:33 These are people that are serving in capacity of like an
2:30:35 administrator or a dean or things of that nature, but they’re
2:30:38 not in the classroom with the, with students all the time.
2:30:40 Um, but I think we should at least at a very bare minimum move
2:30:44 in a direction where we’re placing a couple guardians at each
2:30:48 high school location, a guardian at each middle school location
2:30:52 and a guardian at each elementary.
2:30:54 Um, that’s what I would love to see.
2:30:55 I know that that’s a huge ask.
2:30:57 And I know that that comes with some dollars.
2:30:58 So, so I guess the next task that I would just ask you to do is
2:31:02 to find out if what would that cost?
2:31:04 What would that look like if we added two guardians to every
2:31:06 high school?
2:31:07 Cause there’s a training fee that’s associated with that.
2:31:10 Right.
2:31:11 Okay.
2:31:12 So the, the two guardians at each high school, one at our middle
2:31:16 schools and then one at our elementary schools.
2:31:19 It’s a lot of guardians to train and I’m sure.
2:31:21 Yeah.
2:31:22 So to be clear, this would be an employee already on staff.
2:31:25 Correct.
2:31:26 So we’re not adding a security specialist position.
2:31:29 We’re adding a guardian cost.
2:31:32 It would be the training and the supplement cost.
2:31:35 The training is, the training has been in the past covered by
2:31:39 the security funds from the state.
2:31:42 Unless they have done away with that.
2:31:44 No, they’re there, but there’s not quite enough there to train
2:31:47 the amount of guardians that.
2:31:48 That money is dwindling.
2:31:49 Yeah.
2:31:50 Well, the bottom line is we would figure out how much it would
2:31:52 cost and we could show you what could be covered by existing
2:31:55 security funds and what we’d have to go find.
2:31:57 Okay.
2:31:58 And equipment costs.
2:31:59 Could you repeat two at every high school?
2:32:01 One at every middle school and one at every elementary school.
2:32:04 Two there, whatever it costs.
2:32:06 And then I would be curious to know what our vacancies are for
2:32:09 the specialists.
2:32:10 We have three, you said right?
2:32:11 Or two?
2:32:12 Two, fixing to be a third one.
2:32:13 Okay.
2:32:14 And all right.
2:32:15 And the specialists move around, correct?
2:32:18 Do you move them sometimes depending on if somebody calls out?
2:32:21 Some move, yes.
2:32:22 Okay.
2:32:23 Some of them stay stationary.
2:32:24 And what about SROs?
2:32:25 Same scenario or no?
2:32:26 Those are always the same.
2:32:27 I mean, I see mine.
2:32:28 Mine tend to be all the same ones.
2:32:30 They’re assigned to that same school unless there’s a certain
2:32:32 need that comes up like a therapy dog deployment.
2:32:34 Okay.
2:32:35 Or something along those lines.
2:32:36 We do shuffle them occasionally.
2:32:37 Okay.
2:32:38 All right.
2:32:39 We do have a couple of our high schools that have security
2:32:42 specialists in addition to an SRO or an SRD.
2:32:46 And so that’s who usually we pull when we have a vacancy at
2:32:49 another school.
2:32:50 At another school.
2:32:51 Okay.
2:32:52 And I mean, in the event that we had to pull those, I think it
2:32:54 would also help as far as, hey, there’s a couple guardians that
2:32:58 are on campus that are there to fill in should they need to.
2:33:01 And God willing, they never need to.
2:33:03 That’s what we hope for.
2:33:04 But that’s what I would like to see, board, if you’re in favor
2:33:07 of that, just getting the data back on how much will it cost to
2:33:10 add these additional guardians.
2:33:11 And then working with the sheriff on, I know we had talked about
2:33:15 this before, some on like securing some of the funding that you
2:33:18 have to grab from the state for the training.
2:33:20 I don’t know if that has been initiated or where we’re at with
2:33:23 that.
2:33:23 We are in the process of working out all the logistics on it.
2:33:27 One of the issues that came up is that the sheriff’s office is
2:33:30 required to carry an extra liability insurance.
2:33:32 Right.
2:33:33 On each one of those specialists and guardians that go through
2:33:36 the program.
2:33:36 And currently that’s around $1,300 annually on each person.
2:33:41 Okay.
2:33:42 So the funds have been able in the past to help mitigate those
2:33:46 costs.
2:33:47 Unfortunately, because there’s more sheriffs that are now
2:33:50 participating in this program than there were a couple years ago,
2:33:54 the funding has gotten a lot more tighter.
2:33:56 Okay.
2:33:57 So we’re in the process of working all those details on that.
2:33:59 Okay.
2:34:00 All right.
2:34:01 And that may be something that the district needs to look at.
2:34:03 Is the state statute required the sheriff to pay that?
2:34:06 It doesn’t?
2:34:07 Okay.
2:34:08 Because he’s responsible for the training.
2:34:09 For the training.
2:34:10 It kind of goes hand in hand with it.
2:34:12 And then it goes to the Florida Sheriff’s Risks program.
2:34:16 And then they pretty much take care of it from there.
2:34:18 Something happens.
2:34:19 Okay.
2:34:20 All right.
2:34:21 Well, I would, obviously, we need to know what the cost looks
2:34:23 like.
2:34:23 And then, you know, as a voluntary program, we don’t know how
2:34:26 successful this will be.
2:34:27 Because you don’t know who’s going to apply.
2:34:29 Yeah.
2:34:30 That’s why I’m not really interested in a quota so much.
2:34:32 I think we might have, but if you look at Sewanee, Sewanee has
2:34:35 60 and they only have 11 schools.
2:34:38 If you kind of, I don’t know how big those schools are, but, you
2:34:41 know, we have seven times as many schools as that.
2:34:44 I mean, we, you know, I don’t know that we’ll have 420 people
2:34:48 volunteered to do it.
2:34:49 But, you know, I mean, then going, weeding out through the
2:34:53 process.
2:34:54 It could be a lot.
2:34:55 It could be a little, you know, we just need to see what people
2:34:58 walk through the door.
2:34:59 Right.
2:35:00 I do think that that is going to be, that’ll be really telling
2:35:04 of how successful this will be or not.
2:35:05 If we have the people that are interested in it and that can
2:35:09 pass the rigorous testing and things that got to go through to
2:35:12 be a part of this program, which is good.
2:35:13 Those are all good things.
2:35:14 So if you’re able to get, gather that and bring it back to us, I
2:35:17 think that will help us as a board to be able to make a decision
2:35:20 on how we move forward from here.
2:35:22 If that’s okay.
2:35:23 Yeah.
2:35:24 So some next steps is the cost associated with that number of
2:35:29 additional or guardians and maybe a survey of the people who
2:35:34 might be eligible to see if they’re interested.
2:35:38 Okay.
2:35:39 So we see what kind of numbers you might have.
2:35:41 And then we need to put together a timeline because this
2:35:44 training would probably take place this summer if we were going
2:35:47 to launch this next year.
2:35:48 Okay.
2:35:49 So we have to kind of backwards plan with the sheriff’s
2:35:51 department to see if this, you know, when we have to make a
2:35:54 decision.
2:35:54 Okay.
2:35:55 One of the things we haven’t done is get the input of the
2:35:58 sheriff.
2:35:58 I think I know what it will be, but can we get input on timeline
2:36:03 costs, you know, numbers?
2:36:05 I think that would be good to hear specifically.
2:36:08 If we can.
2:36:09 I mean, I can pick up the phone and call him, but you know, for
2:36:12 us as an organization.
2:36:13 Right.
2:36:15 Give us input.
2:36:16 If we can also find out what the knockouts are in the other
2:36:19 places, meaning like Swanee, did they say only law enforcement,
2:36:22 only former military, you know what I mean?
2:36:23 If there’s some sort of knockouts that they would do that said
2:36:26 only these people inside those classifications qualify, that
2:36:31 would be helpful too.
2:36:32 And so.
2:36:33 And I mean, I like that, I like that, but I also realize that we
2:36:37 may not have a whole bunch of law enforcement or military.
2:36:40 Yep.
2:36:41 So maybe the preferential being part of it, but not necessarily
2:36:44 a mandate.
2:36:45 I just want to see what they were throwing out.
2:36:47 That’s all.
2:36:48 Yeah.
2:36:49 Because sometimes there’s some interesting stuff in there.
2:36:50 Okay.
2:36:51 Does anybody else have any other questions?
2:36:52 No?
2:36:53 No.
2:36:54 No?
2:36:55 Okay.
2:36:56 No.
2:36:57 All right.
2:36:58 I’m going to honor the 4:30 stop time because.
2:36:59 We did it.
2:37:00 Yeah.
2:37:01 We’re really close.
2:37:02 We’re going to honor the 4:30 stop time.