2024-02-06 - School Board Meeting

0:28 SA good evening. The February 6, 2024 board meeting is now in order. I would to like to welcome my fellow board members and the public. Let me just say how encouraging it is to see so many people that are involved in local governance.

2:52 I would politely ask all of the audience that their time for public speaking is during the public comments. So if you would just please refrain from any type of speaking, loud disruptions, distractions, or other forms of communication that could hinder the business of the board. Paul, roll call, please.

3:07 Miss Wright. Present. Mister Trent.

3:09 Here. Mister Susan. Here.

3:11 Miss Campbell. Here. Miss Jenkins.

3:13 Here. At this time, the board would like to hold a moment of silence and I invite the audience to join. Thank you.

3:37 We are going to stand for the pledge of allegiance, I believe. Ricky, are you there? You’re ready to lead us in the pledge? Awesome. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, with liberty and justice for all.

4:06 We are thrilled. One of the fun things we get to do every board meeting is we open up with some type of recognition or performance from our students. So tonight we have quest elementary string students and we’re going to go ahead and turn the floor over to you guys.

11:35 All right. Thank you guys so much. I think there’s a couple students.

11:39 Do we have victoria and summer, that we’re going to answer a couple questions that the board might have. Can you guys go over to the microphone? All right, my fellow board members, I’ll open it up to you. Miss Jenkins, you want to start with any questions you may have? Yeah.

11:59 1st first and foremost, I want to say hats off to your teacher. I know you were stressing over there for a minute on song number two, but when you walked away and they were doing it on their own, I mean, that’s just, that is just the perfect example of what you’ve done for them so far throughout this year and any other years you may have had them. For them to be able to have the confidence and the courage to continue and do that without you standing right there in front of them is really incredible.

12:23 So hats off to you. That was great. So my question is, by a show of hands, for how many of you, is this your favorite moment of your week or day going to this class? Not this moment.

12:40 Not this moment right now, but when you go to class and you’re working on streaming for how many of you? Awesome. Awesome. That’s good, Miss Campbell.

12:51 All right, so that song had some pretty fun things in it, and I always had to put my glasses on. I was trying to figure out what the name of it was. So that was my first question.

12:58 What is the name of that last piece that you did with the little slides in it? It’s called spotted pony. All right. Okay.

13:05 So I’m leaving to my imagination with the little slide part maybe where somebody slid off the pony. I think so I’m going to ask how many times, how much do you guys practice every week? Do you practice every day or just a couple times a week? We practice twice a week. Twice a week? You know, I just want everybody to think about that for just a minute.

13:25 Fifth and 6th graders only practicing two times a week for that. This is a lot of progress. So I’m going to add on that.

13:32 You guys are so talented and I hope that next year for those of you who are 6th grade heading into middle school that you will consider sticking with strings, going to orchestras or band or like people in my family. Both. You can do both.

13:48 Right? Because you are so talented. And we just got to go to the all county concert for the middle schoolers and high schoolers weekend before last. And you get to see when they start getting to practice every day for 45 minutes a day.

14:01 Man, the progressive. You guys have already made this much progress with just a couple times a week. I am incredibly impressed.

14:07 Good job. Good job. Thank you.

14:11 Mister Susan. I wanted to say thank you to the parents. Thank you for having such amazing children.

14:19 And thank you being a part of our school district. We really appreciate you. This allows us to get grounded when children come in here and play for us and everything else.

14:27 And we just appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to be here with us. And thank you to everybody here. Miss Castillo, your principal is an amazing principal who’s taken the time out and done a good job at leadership inside of your school.

14:40 And we really appreciate it. So my question to you is that I say this to every group and the same answer has always happened. If Doctor Rendell and I and a couple of my other board members came by would you guys let us play your instruments and try to work with you guys on playing it all because we’re trying to take takers on.

14:56 Oh wait. She said yes. She’s the first one ever.

14:57 She said yes. She said yes. All right.

15:01 So she won’t hand you hers. I think it would be great for you to see how bad we really are and how good you really are. So I just wanted to say from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

15:18 We’ll be by to see you pretty soon I’m going to try to make this thing happen because you’re the first school to ever do this, and we get in a presentation every week. So thank you so much for opening it. But we really appreciate you and thank you for doing such a good job with the children.

15:29 We appreciate you being the tip of the spear for us at Brevard public schools. So thank you. Thank you, mister Trance.

15:34 All right, well, it might have to do with. This is the first group of instruments that don’t go to the mouth that they say yes. That’s true.

15:42 You’ve asked everything. That’s true. That’s true.

15:44 So the question I have for you is, this is going to be an easy one here. You guys know you’re the cool kids, right? This is. That is so neat.

15:51 And such a talent you guys have here. Like Miss Campbell had said, I hope you can tell just the fact that you can read music. That’s where I’m illiterate.

16:01 It’s amazing. So just keep up that talent. I think you have it on the practice.

16:06 It’s obviously quality over quantity, but when you can put both of those together and practice and have this as a daily event, you guys are going to the sky’s the limit, so just keep it up. You guys sound great now and we appreciate what you’re doing. And thanks again, family, for having them here.

16:23 Thank you. All right, so my question is, have any of you guys broken any of your strings? If you broke a string, raise your hand. Okay.

16:37 A couple more going up slowly. Okay. Awesome.

16:41 Well, thank you guys so much for coming out this evening and putting on a performance for us. Were you guys nervous coming in here? A little bit. There’s a lot of people, huh? Yeah.

16:49 Well, we appreciate it, though, honestly. And parents, thank you for bringing them out here. Obviously, this is a task for you as well, but we appreciate you and your investment into your children’s educational career and them learning a skill so important as music, honestly.

17:03 So we appreciate you guys tremendously. Doctor Rendell, do you have anything you would like to add? I did not. Okay.

17:09 All right. All right. I didn’t think about that.

17:10 All right, thank you. We’re gonna take a quick break, so can we take a picture with you guys before you leave? Is that okay with your instruments? Would you be okay with that? Okay. All right, we’re gonna take a quick photo and then we’ll come back.

17:39 Sa sa. Three, two. Thank you for that small break that we had.

20:52 At this time, I’m going to offer my fellow board members an opportunity to thank or recognize student staff or members of the community. Would anybody like to go first? All right, Miss Jenkins, you have the floor, first and foremost. Hi, speechies.

21:11 I want to say thank you to Rockledge High School as well as the horror scholarship event that was held there. It was absolutely incredible. And I know, I believe that I didn’t actually see them yet, but I believe someone was coming tonight to tell us the total amount of scholarships that were awarded to our high school students.

21:30 I don’t know that number. I’m really excited. It’s really, really, really, really high.

21:36 So I cannot wait for that. But my favorite moment of that night was before the students left. Michael Kador wouldn’t let them leave without being interviewed and asking them where they got accepted to college and how much money they were awarded.

21:49 And then he would always ask them, how do you feel? And their responses just, like, melted my heart and just. It was the most incredible moment. Every single student left there feeling so accomplished, like a winner, and like, the future was the limit.

22:04 So I’m so excited and grateful for that opportunity. And hopefully he pops in and tells us a number. Tonight, I also had an opportunity to be attending the teacher of the year summit again.

22:15 I appreciate the opportunity to be there, sit amongst teachers who are grounded in their why and their true purpose of education and service. And I’m grateful for them to give me the opportunity to share that with them as well. And congratulations to the teacher of the year, Debra Price.

22:37 Miss Price teaches 6th grade at Riviera elementary, and she is loved and adored by her colleagues and her students. And she also shared her personal story when she won, of overcoming adversity and the intentional push that her teacher gave her. I believe it was in third grade, forgive me if I’m wrong, to help her persevere and keep going.

22:56 And that was what inspired her to become an educator herself. So, congratulations, Miss Price, and thank you for sharing that moment with us. I also had an opportunity to attend the Melbourne Founders Prayer Breakfast.

23:09 And what this was, was hosted by the community and concerned citizens group to raise money to build a monument to honor the original founders of Green Creek, which many people don’t know, were three freed slaves who were given the land which was once mosquito infested swampland, and developed it into the community that is Melbourne today. And so we had the first grocery store, the first church, which is still here to this day, and the first postmen for this area. And they’re often forgotten, unknown.

23:39 And their stories are untold. And so this group has been fighting for the past seven years to put a memorial park together so that we can learn our own history and really how Melbourne was founded. So thank you for that opportunity and I look forward to you accomplishing your financial goal.

23:55 And if anyone wants to learn more about it, it’s foundersmonument.org dot. It’s really incredible.

23:59 And the history of that story is really remarkable. And I’m hoping one day, and I know that they are too, that this could be another opportunity with brevard public schools where we can field trip our students there to learn more about Brevard county and the people who actually originated and started this county. And last but not least, tomorrow is the HBCU fair at Vera elementary at 06:00 p.

24:27 m. And two years ago we had 500 people in attendance. Last year we had 1000 people in attendance.

24:37 So I’m going to go ahead and challenge this community and make sure we can get like 1500 people in attendance tomorrow. So please show up. Thank you, Miss Jenkins.

24:57 All right. Well, as I mentioned a little while ago, Doctor Randall and I had the privilege of getting to watch all four of the all county concerts, two choir concerts, an orchestra concert, a band concert, all in different locations while the choir was in the same location. It was just a fabulous day to be a part of BPS and just to see our middle school and high school fine arts students performing.

25:10 Art students have just the best of the best representing us so well. And it was a joy to be there. And kudos to all the teachers who did the hard work of preparing them, especially the teachers who do more than one, like band and orchestra.

25:31 Or we have one teacher at Pompeii who does chorus, band and orchestra and ran all over the county with us going following his students. So it was a great day last week on Monday. And I’m sure most of the public saw the hype last week we brought 22 6th graders from across the district to the Clementi center at Fitzgerald or Florida Tech.

25:35 Excuse me. And to see John and Gordon. It was a fabulous day.

25:44 It took so much to get him there and even more to get him back home. But thank you to all the district staff. I walked in the door and there’s Paul holding the door open.

25:54 I’m like, they let you out. So I don’t know who was left up at ESF except for Pat answering the phones because everybody seemed to be down there just logistically handling everything. So.

26:28 And thank you, Doctor Rendell, for your leadership in that and, and getting the ball rolling so that each of our 6th grade students could get a copy of the coffee bean book, could get there, and everybody who was not there was all the 6th graders were watching back in their classroom, thanks to the media team at Florida Tech and also GCR and everybody else. So it was a great day. Then the next day, we followed up with doing the same thing with our 9th graders, 1800 9th graders, same place, same logistical preparations and execution.

26:45 And to see Eric Weinmeyer, our, the guy who climbed the seven summits and kayaked the Grand Canyon, the Colorado through the Grand Canyon blind. And so it was a really inspirational couple of days. And again, thank you for setting those up.

26:56 I wanted last Friday, I did a visit to Turner Elementary. I just have to say this because we’re always challenged. Make sure we visit our head start classrooms.

27:16 And so I asked Doctor Tola, I said, make sure I get some time to spend in the head start pre k. And so I sat on the carpet for 30 minutes doing the morning routine with Miss Grogan’s VPK. And I’m telling you what, if you just ever need your heart melted, a VPK classroom at the beginning of the day is the day to do it.

27:28 I shared with the board members between off time in the workshop, you know, the kids who were absent. I just have to share this one little detail. The kids who are absent, they have this little song that they sing when they come back.

27:31 It is the sweetest thing. And I wish I could remember how it goes. I was singing to you.

27:48 And then they sing a song for the kids who were not there that day, and they scoop them up and put them in their heart and oh, my gosh, I just melted. So what I have to share. I shared that on my Facebook page and I had a pew say talking about Miss Grogan, who is the teacher there.

27:54 She said she’s our favorite. So glad she came out of retirement. We’re grateful for all she does for our baby.

28:03 She makes our little pre k girl beg to go to school on the weekends. So, and I’m telling you what, if I were in her class, I would beg to go to school on the weekends, too. It was such a wonderful day.

28:13 And then board. I want to challenge you and any of our other employees who have our employees who have not jumped in on this spring’s wedding walking challenge. It is not too late.

28:26 We do this because it’s good for our bodies. It builds a healthier workforce, but it’s also fun and you get rewarded. The beaches around the world walking challenge started last week, but it’s not too late to register.

28:37 You can do that by checking your emails from Miss Cypio’s department. You’ve already gotten them. If you need me to forward it to you, I will.

28:46 It’s not a team challenge, but I want to encourage all our employees to jump in because it’s fun. It’s more fun to get healthy when other people are doing it with you. And like I said, we want a healthy workforce.

28:57 It’s not just good for our bottom line, but it’s just good for our attitudes and just making life better for all of us. And so. But it’s more fun when we’re all doing it together.

29:02 So. And you do get rewards. So jump in there and sign up for the beaches around the world walking challenge.

29:06 Thank you. Do we have to walk on the beach? Thank you. All right, mister Susan.

29:22 I wanted, I just wanted to take a second and brag on this board and the superintendent for a second because some of the most amazing things have happened over the last six months that we’re not. Don’t ever really make it out there. We’re the first time in 20 years we’re fully staffed, staffed on our bus drivers, which is incredible.

29:42 I have school districts across the state of Florida that can’t even get kids to their schools on time. And everything else that in our school district, we’re now fully staffed and moving towards repair, placing some of the other areas that we can fill in so that we can get those kids there on time every single day. I also wanted to say, last time we were here, grad rates increased for the highest rate in the last 20 years.

29:50 That’s phenomenal. We went from like 37th or 36th all the way down to 23rd. We jumped that many school districts in our graduation rates.

30:00 And when I met with Doctor Rendell on Monday, I said, man, that was great. He goes, wait until next year. So the other thing that we’ve got going on, as we heard today, our achievement data, our ELA improvements are off the charts.

30:10 We’re seeing numbers coming back to Brevard to put us on the map. And that’s not just white kids, that’s african american kids, that’s hispanic children, that’s everybody together. We rise together in Brevard.

30:28 And I just wanted to take a second and thank them, thank Doctor Rendell and thank the rest of this board for the commitment that you guys have done to making it, to get to where it is today. I also wanted to shoot out and make a shout out because we have a CTE, I guess I would call it the program summit on February 10 up in Cocoa. What we’re having is it’s at the.

30:39 What is it? The Cocoa Convention center. What’s the official space? Coast convention center. It’s where we’re showing off many of the career and technical programs inside of our county for many of the youth to come and see them.

31:23 And if you don’t know anything about our career and technical programs, get ready, because we’re number one in the state with aviation and automotive and many of these other programs to attract kids to take a path that may not be, may not every kid go to college, but actually take a job in the workforce and start producing at 18 years old. I just wanted to take a second and also say that we have a military summit on February 16 at 530 at the Veterans Memorial center, where we’re going to be pulling together all of the american legions, vfws, and everybody else to coordinate all of their resources, their energies, their support, to come in on not only veterans speaking projects, but essays and everything else. They’re also going to be putting out certificates for individuals who visit our, all of our local museums.

31:37 We have 21 museums, five of them that are, you know, military backed and supported. So they’re going to be giving out certificates. So that’s going to be a summit that’s going to produce some really good stuff where we start bridging the gaps between the veterans and our community and our schools.

31:46 But I just wanted to take a second, man, and say, Doctor Rendell had a great week with his two presentations that he had. This was his direction, was to bring in these speakers. And I heard a lot.

31:57 I’ve heard people from the community that have come out to me, and they’ve said over and over again, man, that was really good, those presentations that we had on Monday and Tuesday. And I just wanted to say, thanks, man. Your direction has been really good.

32:10 I feel very confident with where we’re going, and the numbers are starting to show. And then I wanted to leave it on one thing. I was driving home, and there was a bus driver, and she had stopped off, and she was sweeping out the back of her bus, and she was just, it wasn’t anything bad.

32:17 It was just that she was taking a second to sweep it out and take it. And I took a second and I told her, and I said, thank you. Thank you for what you do every day.

32:25 Because we had a situation last year where many of our bus drivers were leaving, and now they’re here. And she said, I’m so proud to work for brevard Public schools. And that meant a lot to me.

32:27 So that’s it. That’s all I got. Thank you.

32:29 Thank you. Mister Susan, Mister Trent. All right.

32:47 Well some of this will be repeat but I continue and I’m going to say it. But I’ll start with the teacher of the year awards. And it was, it’s my second one in this manner here is being on the school board and it’s just an amazing evening.

33:06 It’s more than just us being up at the board shaking hands with it seemed like hundreds and hundreds of teachers but from, from all over the district. It really is an honor to shake the hands of those who do that on a daily basis. We know, you know, most of us up here and even Megan, I think you’re getting to realize what these teachers do on a daily basis.

33:19 And we thank you. You are the true heroes of our district and it makes, makes our job a lot easier when you come through with what you’ve done. So congratulations to miss Price.

33:48 She’s the perfect, the perfect person for that prize and that position. But also the nominees that were put up there also that night we got the new them and know them a little bit when we all went out to lunch one day and surprised them in their classrooms. And what an amazing group of teachers from a diverse group of, you know, from home Ec to you know, working here at district to being in the classroom as a 6th grade teacher.

34:09 So it was a, it’s, it’s a great night. So thank you for all who participated in that and I look forward to it, it next year. Also the leadership and the vision that Doctor Rendell has shown from the very beginning with suggesting the students to read the book the coffee bean and I’ve heard nothing like Matt said.

34:28 I’m going to repeat it though. I’ve heard nothing but great things about the presentations those couple days, the amount of, I mean just the coordination of getting students there, the thousands of students. I was out visiting schools during that time and the schools were completely excited about the whole process.

34:41 So it wasn’t like, you know, here’s another thing we need to go to. And then after, afterwards I had a couple parents reach out and just say what a great time and that their students were actually talking about it. So thank you again, Doctor Rendell for your vision on that.

34:58 And then yes, the fast test data, that’s something, that’s that. I mean as a, as an ex testing coordinator, I like to see, I’m a data geek on that. And it, the presentation, if you can see it it was just here, here, then here.

35:01 It started here, went up pm 02:00 p.m. Three was up there.

35:11 And that, I mean, it certainly takes a village. We are on the right trajectory, but it’s, again, it’s everyone. This is students buying into the testing.

35:26 It’s the parents, and then ultimately, as the teachers and the administration out there, you guys are getting it. We’re excited. We have some growth that we’re excited to look forward to on the math end of things, but things are still looking up.

35:38 We are in a great place here in Brevard, but it’s all the thanks to you parents, teachers, and the board here. So congrats. It’s a little bit of all of that tonight.

35:43 Thank you. All right, thank you. One of the fun parts about going last is a lot of these events we all attend together.

35:50 So by the time it gets down there, you’re like, oh, okay, you went through all of them. So I’m gonna do my best to highlight a couple that you guys did not. Tonight.

36:10 I want to give a shot to space Florida. Space Florida is working diligently right now to connect the private space industry. So the blue origins, all of our SpaceX, all those companies that are here with our schools and really kind of figure out what can we do within our career, technical education, to give these kids a career immediately leaving our high schools and then work on building those skills.

36:32 And so we’ve gone through two summits now at this point where we brought these major corporations in, sat down with a lot of the schools in the surrounding county in central Florida, and just figuring out, hey, can we specialize in a few different unique things that will give them a skill that they can take right away from high school and go right into a career. So I want to give them a shout out for coordinating that. I’m looking forward to how that develops and what that translates for our students.

36:37 We also had a very exciting, groundbreaking, which you didn’t get this. You didn’t take this one. Thank you.

36:40 I appreciate it. You let me have it. So the CDL.

36:53 So we are going to have a CDL course in Brevard county, which is tremendous for probably all of Florida, honestly, maybe all of the east coast. So that is coming, and that is very, very exciting. We broke the ground on the actual track that they will be training on.

36:59 I don’t know how that works. I’m not a CDL driver, so it should be exciting to see. But that’s very good stuff coming out of our adult education.

37:05 So look for that coming in the near future, I’m also going to give a shot to astronaut. Hi. I see Miss Miller over there.

37:14 So thank you for spending time with us last week. Really, to walk through your school and just see all the amazing things. One of the really, I think the highlights was obviously the welding department.

37:29 So there’s a welding course at astronaut that would make literally any kid just ecstatic to go into this class. So it is absolutely amazing walking in there. Just thought, this is mind blowing that kids get this opportunity and they’re here in our high school doing this.

37:35 So I want to thank you for the time that you spent with us. It was very encouraging and lots of good stuff to come. So I’m going to turn it over to Doctor Rendell.

37:40 If there’s anything that we have missed. I don’t know. To see if you have any recognition.

37:41 Madam chair. Yeah. I’ll follow up on a couple things.

38:00 First of all, the big speaker events that we had last Monday and Tuesday, they were really large events. And so I need to share the gratitude and the congratulations with a lot of people, because a lot of people, you know, did the work to make that happen. First of all, the classroom teachers had to teach the kids and have them read the books.

38:09 6th grade, the coffee bean. 9th grade, the no barriers booked by Eric Weinmayer. So they had to incorporate that into their time and instruction and do that.

38:36 And then the administrative staff at the schools, everybody that was involved in coordinating who’s going on the bus, on the field trip, who’s staying behind, where they are, how they watch the video, all that kind of thing. And then a lot of district level staff at the Clemente center at Fit, doing the organizing and the logistics there, transportation for transporting them there and back on time and everything. Food services for feeding the kids when they got back to school.

38:48 Just a lot of people involved in making that happen. Huge thank you to fit the Clemente center and fit for opening their doors to us and really helping us put on the show. It was great.

38:59 It was an incredible partnership. We look forward to doing more things with them. So we hope that the kids really got the messages in 6th grade and 9th grade from the coffee bean and the new Barriers book.

39:07 And just a huge thank you to everybody involved. I mean, I got some thanks up here, but it really wasn’t me. It was all these other people.

39:21 Also want to give a shout out to all the science fair winners. Last weekend, we had one of our science fair competitions for one group of our schools. So congratulations to all the students who and parents who won ribbons.

39:32 You know what I mean? So congratulations to all the science fair winners from this past weekend. We have another science fair coming up this weekend, so good luck to everybody competing in that. Last thing I want to follow up on.

39:49 What Mister Susan was talking about is the career and technical education. So, vocational education programs that we have in our schools, in our high schools, are being showcased this Saturday, February 10. This Saturday at the Space Coast Convention center, which is the old Holiday Inn off of 520.

40:05 So Saturday morning, if you want to see what we have to offer in the terms of vocational education, come out to the Space Coast Convention center off of 520 and you can see all the different things we have going on in all of our high schools. A lot of good stuff, including the welding program at Astronaut High School. That’s it.

40:19 Thank you, Doctor Rendell. All right, this brings us to our bookkeeper recognition. Our chief financial officer, Miss Cindy Lazinski, will introduce each of our bookkeepers, their respective principals whose school received no findings in the internal accounts audit report.

40:43 That’s a huge success. Miss Lucynski, I’m going to go ahead and turn the floor over to you, okay? So tonight we are pleased to honor and celebrate the outstanding achievements of our district schools in the area of financial management and accountability. Every year, our schools are required by state law to undergo an internal accounts audit.

41:22 This audit examines how our schools manage and account for the funds that are raised, collected, and spent for student activities such as field trips, clubs, team, academic teams, athletic teams, and other events. These funds are vital for enriching the educational experience of our students, but they also pose a high risk of fraud, misuse, or error. That is why we need to ensure that our schools follow the best practices of internal controls and comply with the state statutes and board policy.

41:47 And no kidding, this is just a fraction of what the bookkeepers do is the internal accounts. Hundreds, hundreds of thousands of transactions that they, and they do and to get zero findings is absolutely amazing. Our accounting firm, RSM, audited the financial records and procedures at each of our schools.

42:28 They checked for accuracy, timeliness, completeness, authorization, documentation, and compliance in various areas such as receipts, deposit expenditures, fundraisers, sales tax, and petty cash. Can you imagine trying to gather all this from all the teachers and all the fundraisers? RSM also issued a final report for each school which indicated if there were any audit findings. So a report of no audit findings means that the auditors did did not find any issues or errors in the areas noted above.

42:53 This is a remarkable achievement, and it reflects the highest level of professionalism, integrity, and excellence that our school leaders and staff demonstrate every day. The research is clear. Leaders of schools who demonstrate the highest level of financial stewardship and spend money wisely have a significant impact on positive student outcomes.

43:19 It is also extremely important that we provide confidence to the board and the community that our schools maintain rigorous internal controls and make every dollar count. So I would like to invite doctor Rendell and our chair, Miss Wright, to come down for the award presentation. You’re in control.

43:55 Okay, so our first school is astronaut high. The bookkeeper, Lori Clifton and principal Krista Miller. Cambridge elementary bookkeeper is Rebecca Kinney and principal Regina Teigi.

44:00 Fair Glen Elementary Deborah. The bookkeeper is. I’m sorry.

44:43 Debbie Demira and principal is Christy Mares. Endeavor elementary bookkeeper, Vanessa Keys and principal Kathleen Murphy. Stevenson elementary bookkeeper is Alyssa Seifert and principal Tiffany Flieger.

44:52 Madison Middle School. The bookkeeper is Kelly da Vinci. Devinco.

44:56 I’m sorry. I practiced that, too. I practiced it.

45:10 I have it. And principal Travis Diesel. So.

46:08 Titusville High School bookkeeper is Heather Cook Joseph and principal Jennifer Gonzalez. Tropical elementary bookkeeper is Susan Ziegler and the principal there is Nell Ephraim Marshall. Audubon elementary is Ashley Lightley and principal Candice Jones.

47:32 Edgewood Junior senior high bookkeeper is Valerie Lance and principal Jackie Ingreda. Gulfview elementary bookkeeper is Elaine Higgins and principal Jeffrey Coverdale. McAuliffe elementary the principals accepting for Jeanette Bender, Principal Victoria Finston.

48:36 Manatee elementary bookkeeper is Leslie Dinar and principal Shannon Daley. Mims elementary the bookkeeper is Jennifer Griffin and principal Cherie Cochrane. Saturn elementary bookkeeper is Cece Branham and Principal Corey Hurst.

49:05 Space Coast Junior Senior high bookkeeper, Kristen George and principal Joseph Flora. Con Bay elementary the principal is Michael Mall and bookkeeper can tell us. Boy, Flora, way to take initiative here.

49:24 Good to see you, man. Good to see you. Get them to come up here, too.

49:47 Wow. Riviera elementary. The principal is Mary Myers and bookkeeper, Laurie Boyer.

50:12 Viera elementary principal is Adrian Schwab and bookkeeper, Lindsay. Lindsay Cunningham. Okay.

50:22 Hoover Middle School. The principal is Palama Ferreira. Paloma.

50:44 Okay. And bookkeeper is Christina Gilbert. She’s almost as bad as I am.

50:51 Good job, Paloma. Good job. Good job.

51:35 Roy Allen elementary principal is Kelly Grugen and bookkeeper, Claudia Sprague. Discovery elementary principal Scott Corso and bookkeeper, Ariana Viger. Thank you.

52:22 Quest elementary principal Carrie Costello and bookkeeper, Patty Langen. Westside elementary principal Stephanie Woodbury and bookkeeper, Susan Galt. All right.

52:28 And again, thank. Congratulations. We’re going to take a picture.

52:40 Okay. That is everyone. And I just wanted to thank all the bookkeepers and principals again, because, again, all this work is a fraction of what they do every day.

57:15 It’s absolutely amazing and eye watering, actually, of everything that the bookkeepers do. So, thank you. Thank you.

57:23 That’s exciting. I want to give my fellow board members a moment. And Miss Campbell has expressed a desire to say something about the perfect audit findings, which is a very rare thing.

57:29 So if you would like to go ahead. Well, I just want to take a moment. I know most of them cleared out, but maybe they’ll come back and watch later.

57:42 And these are truly the behind the scenes people that sometimes never see the light of day by the time they walk on campus, at the time they leave. And it’s just we have so many of those kinds of positions that are the. Those behind the scenes.

57:55 Their job is crucial to the success of our students, success of our schools and our staff. And so I just very much appreciate them. And thank you, Miss Licinski and team, for taking the time to acknowledge and recognize all these employees and my time on the board.

58:07 I don’t think we’ve ever done that. I think it was really awesome to get these people who don’t like to be out in front, out front, make them uncomfortable for a few minutes so we can recognize them. So I hope we get to do that again in later years.

58:11 So, thanks. Yes, thank you. Does anybody else want to say anything? Are we okay to.

58:21 Okay, madam chair, just for a point of clarification, that wasn’t all of them. We have another batch of perfect audits that we’re bringing at the next evening meeting. Yeah, that wasn’t quite all of them.

58:24 Yay. All right, so. That’s amazing.

58:30 All right. Very excited. All right.

58:35 So this will bring us to the adoption of the agenda. Doctor Rendell. Thank you, madam chair.

58:45 On this evening’s agenda, we have administrative staff recommendations, 18 consent items, two action items and one information. Information item. Changes made to the agenda since released to the public include the following.

58:57 The addition of item. There’s no additions. Revised items, f 18 school year calendar standards and proposals for 2024 25 and the 25 26 school years.

59:06 Do I hear a motion? Move to approve second any discussion? Paul, roll call, please. Miss Jenkins? Aye. Miss Campbell.

59:08 Aye. Miss Wright. Aye.

59:11 Mister Trent. Mister sue. Aye.

59:38 All right, we now have administrative staff recommendations. Do I have a motion? Move to approve second any discussion? Yes, I know. Yes, I’m gonna vote against this there are two incredible, incredible servants to brevard public schools who are officially retiring.

59:43 It really just like, feels dirty to vote for this. I just. I just can’t.

1:00:07 Miss Diaz, you and I, we’ve only met a couple of times, but I heard about you when I started here at BPs, when I worked at Harbor City elementary. Because often our students would go back and forth from one another. And I’ve heard nothing but praise and accolades for the way that you treat people’s children, and the children that would come from University park and come to Harbor City and vice versa.

1:00:12 I respect everything that you do. And I know. I know that you truly love what you do every single day.

1:00:30 And I’m pretty sure when the community gets the word that this is happening, there’s going to be a lot of crying and broken hearts from those people who trusted you with their children for years after years after years. So I’m happy for you, sort of. But I respect you.

1:00:42 And I appreciate all that you’ve done for our kiddos. And Mister Fleming. I just love when I get to spend time with you.

1:00:50 You’re always a jokester. You always have a smile on your face. You have such a genuine relationship with your students and with your staff, and of course, course, your community as well.

1:01:03 I appreciate all that you do. And Mister Fleming just told me that because it’s his last year at graduation and it’s technically mine too, we can have like, pyrotechnics on the stage this year for graduation. So I’m really, really excited.

1:01:06 Thanks for that. Mister Fleming. Risk management.

1:01:35 But no, I’ve already heard from him that he’s only gonna take a year off and then he’s gonna get back in the game and support students and kids any way he’s laughing. Not that he’s coming back to be a principal by any means, but he’s looking to help his students just after he takes a tiny break. So, thank you guys, and congratulations on your retirement.

1:01:58 I have to say, I think there’s one word that encompasses the impact of both of these principles. And that is legacy. And both of you leave such a legacy in this district of excellence, of heart, of dedication, and the thousands of students lives that you’ve been a part of.

1:02:02 Touching. And the way you led your staff. Mister Fleming.

1:02:08 The first time I got to meet you, I was. I get to meet you. I was just know of who you were.

1:02:27 I was a parent, sitting in the bleachers, trying to decide if my daughter was going to apply to West Shore, you know, and it was just so fun to sit there. And I remember you specifically talking about your own kids and the decision that you had to make about whether it was the right fit for them. And your honesty from the get go and the way you support your staff and students is, has been so important.

1:02:35 And you have huge shoes to fill for whoever follows you. But I appreciate so much that you didn’t surprise people. It.

1:02:49 You’ve been kind of saying this was coming. So that’s a great way to kind of have a succession plan, is to make sure that your team is built up around you. And the many leaders who have come through your school, not just students, but faculty and administrators, is a testament to your good work.

1:03:14 And then, Miss Diaz, there’s not a time that I. It’s been a privilege to be your school board member. And there’s not a time that I have walked on that campus that you haven’t advocated passionately for your school and for your students. And you are never going to let us let up on meeting the needs of our most needy learners, our families that come from broken homes.

1:03:30 It breaks your heart and we’ve cried tears together. You are such a passionate person for meeting the needs of every child. And you, you represent this mission statement to your core.

1:03:44 And so I love you and I’m so glad you’re sticking out to the end of the year. And again, huge shoes to fill. But it has been my honor and blessing to know you and I wish you both the very, very best in the coming years.

1:03:56 Thank you. I know this is a little, little out of the norm because we’re, you know, we’re going through this, this process of the retirements. And so I’m going to go ahead and we’ll continue on.

1:04:02 Mister Susan, would you like to say anything to these? Yeah, I’ll just say something real quick. Mister Fleming, thank you for being an amazing principal. Where you are.

1:04:21 I had two, two great stories that I wanted to share with you when I was the head coach to the O’Galley inaugural year for La Crosse. I told all my kids, we can count on a win against West Shore because we’ll beat them, right? And so we were all excited to go down there and beat on you guys because you guys were the champions choice school. And then we ended up getting our butts beat.

1:04:33 So I wanted to congratulate you on putting together not only sports programs, but I also had the honor to come and attend one of your meetings with your parents. And I was like, well, you know, see if we get a meeting here and everything. And we went in there, and that was full.

1:04:48 And your interactions with your parents shows your direction inside of your school and how much you have a connection to your people. And it’s something of magic and something of stories that people will talk about forever. Those kids will always come back, and you’ll be able to run into them and everything else in the future.

1:05:03 So I just wanted to say thank you for that. And then, Miss Diaz, the stories that I hear coming out of where you’re at every time, you know what I mean? You have people that come here to advocate for more, and you’ve done such an amazing job ever since you left the district to go take that position. It was amazing what you’ve done since down there.

1:05:10 And I look forward to seeing some things in the future, too. So thank you. Thank you, Mister Souza and Mister Trent.

1:05:35 Yeah, I’ll be quick on this. This is a time that you probably only thought might eventually come, but maybe didn’t even believe it yourself. When replacing, say, employees, you never think about the ones that, how are we ever going to replace these employees? Or these two? You guys are much more than that.

1:05:46 You are family members here at BPS. It’s going to be very challenging. You’ve made our jobs very difficult, or at least somebody other, some other person’s job difficult to find that replacement for the two of you.

1:05:52 You’ve really set the bar high. And thank you. Thank you for the years of service.

1:06:00 I don’t have the history, as some of these do appear, but that’s my loss. So congratulations. Thank you.

1:06:05 All right. It’s bittersweet, right? Because retirement is just such a time of celebration. It’s a rite of passage.

1:06:17 You’ve earned that rite of passage, both of you, as exceptional leaders in our community. And I just want to thank you for the years of dedication that you’ve given to Brevard. You have left a legacy that will be felt.

1:06:25 Miss Diaz, you made me fall in love with you, and then you’re turning around and retiring. No, I appreciate the time I got to spend with you at the school, but I just. I cannot say thank you.

1:06:39 Doesn’t even seem like a big enough word, honestly, when you talk about the years of service that you have given to this county and to our children, we. I don’t know that we’ll ever be able to replace you, quite frankly. So I wish you nothing but the best in the next chapter.

1:06:50 I hope that it is a time of relaxation and enjoyment and finding joy in all the things that you love the most. So, thank you for what you have given to Brevard county. And we will miss you tremendously.

1:07:01 Doctor Rendell, would you like to say anything? I’m not going to say anything about them tonight because they still have to work for three or four more months. I’ll get them at the last principals meeting. That’s when I’ll roast them.

1:07:12 Oh, man. I’ve known Mister Fleming for quite some time. He and I taught summer school together in Dolores in 1990 something.

1:07:18 Okay, we’ll chat about that later. But no. Well, all right.

1:07:24 We have the motion and the approval. I know it does seem wrong to vote for this, but. Go ahead, Paul, roll call.

1:07:28 Miss Jenkins. Aye. Miss Campbell.

1:07:30 Aye. Miss Wright. Aye.

1:07:34 Mister Trent. Mister Susan. Aye.

1:07:39 All right. Do you want that? Do you want to give them any time to speak or anything? I know we. Absolutely.

1:07:52 So, madam Chair, I’d like to recognize two individuals who are in attendance this evening. First, the retirement of Rick Fleming from position of principal at West Shore Junior Senior high, effective June 30, 2024. Mister Fleming.

1:08:05 Fleming, you have the podium. All right. Miss Wright, you’re going to have to put the timer on for this one.

1:08:16 No way. Yeah, Miss Jenkins, she said, I never saw a microphone I didn’t like. Anyway, I want to thank the board for recognizing the retirement and the very nice word that she said this evening.

1:08:29 I also want to recognize my wife, who’s here sitting with me, who’s a BPS teacher of 31 years. And she is. She’s been with me every step of the way.

1:08:41 And I also am the proud parent of four children that grew up and went to Bevara county public schools. All of them have college degrees. One is a doctor, Malabar chiropractic, if you need any back work.

1:08:56 I also have three grandchildren, lovely grandchildren, two of them twins, at Longleaf Elementary. Mister Sherburne takes great care of them, so I’ll be excited to spend more time with them when I retire. But I’m going to do some fishing, and I really appreciate this opportunity.

1:09:10 BPS is home, and despite our differences in our community, it is an amazing place for our children to go to school. We have the most amazing employees and teachers across the district. In my career in Brevard, I’ve been at five different schools in every one of those communities.

1:09:17 It’s unique and special. So this is a great place for our kids in every level. And I thank the board for your commitment.

1:09:25 And I also thank the community and all the schools I’ve worked at and all the amazing people I’ve met. Throughout the years, and I’ll still be in the community. I’ll be a grandpop, though.

1:10:02 So thank you very much. Appreciate it. So we’d also like to recognize Anna Diaz, who is retiring from the position of principal at University Park elementary, effective June 30, 2024.

1:10:30 Anna, uh, have the podium. Well, thank you so much for taking time to recognize me and thank you for your kind words, each and every one of you. I really appreciate the time that you have spent chatting with me, getting information to learn more about the community we serve.

1:10:47 But I’m going to take a little bit more time than Mister fleming. And this is because, in the words of Alex Haley, every time you see a turtle open a fence post, you know, I had help getting there. So I have a lot of people to thank.

1:11:12 And first and foremost, I want to thank my creator and counselor, for only a higher power could have orchestrated my life in the way that it has gone. And I am a learner and a teacher by choice, but I think a higher power had their hand than that. I want to thank my amazing family.

1:11:49 And with me today, I have my beautiful daughter who spent many time, many, many years stamping books and doing all kinds of things to get ready for pre planning and helping me out, and has been my counselor and friend in the last and most recent years. And I have my niece and her husband that I consider my nephew and their son, my great nephew, who are all part of EPs as educators and students. And then with me today is the guy responsible for me making this decision.

1:12:00 And that is my grandson, Jordan, who I need to spend more time being splinter. And he’s Leonardo, his sister’s Donatello. And I got you, Jordan.

1:12:03 I got your back. Okay. He’s got that.

1:12:09 We got that robe going. And I get to do a lot of fun things with him. And now we get to do more of that.

1:12:31 And at home, I have some very special people that are watching up in Michigan. My son and his beautiful wife and my son in law here in Melbourne. And my granddaughter I have to thank because they, on their love and their care, has carried me through many difficult days.

1:12:39 And they’re great counselors and great friends, not just my children. So. And they also are the fuel that keep me going.

1:13:14 And they also are the standard by which I define the word excellence. So whatever I want for them, I want for the children that I serve. And of course, to my amazing community partners and local leaders who have locked arms with me to open doors and knock down barriers for the students and for understanding and sharing the sense of urgency and the need to bring hope to the university park community.

1:13:23 And I know some of these people are here. Bernard Bryan, Mister and Misses Jackson are probably watching from home. Mister Molinaris is watching from home.

1:13:33 Mister T, Miss Joe. Joe Tully Ecker Grumman, Phi Beta Sigma fraternity brothers and the children’s hunger project. You get it.

1:13:48 I look forward to continuing to La Carm with you on the other side. We’re going to do this together. And now we’re going to surround the entire Babar public schools and in a bare hug and take care of them as we move forward.

1:13:56 Because as I told my family, I’m not really retiring. I’m doing the Serena Williams thing. I’m evolving.

1:14:23 So to the amazing educators who have made me who I am today, too many to mention. But I’m going to start with those who welcomed me as a nine year old immigrant from the Dominican Republic who did not speak English and had every single risk factor that we are concerned about. And we always say that child is going to have a difficult time learning because of this risk factor.

1:14:39 That was Ana Diaz as a child. Back then I was Ana Sanchez. And at the age of ten, for those students that were out there, I was reading Cienos de Soledad 100 years of solitude by Garcia Marquez.

1:15:03 And I’ve never wanted to read anything that didn’t challenge my thinking since then. So for seeing the possibilities in me, those teachers at P’s 161 in Harlem, New York, I thank them so much. And they were the ones that became my heroes and inspired me to be a teacher someday.

1:15:50 And between them and the community that I serve today and the staff that I have today, there were so many people, so many people that encouraged me and pushed me along and asked me to do a little more, to do a little better. But the community of teachers that I work with today and the staff, from the custodial staff to the instructional assistant, everybody in that school that really loves children and cares about children and wants to be better and wants to do better every single day, they say that I’m the person that inspired them, but they are the people that inspire me. So finally, I want to thank my students.

1:15:53 Oh my goodness, there were so many of them. Sometimes I find them at Chick fil A. Sometimes I found them at the Georgia airport. Everywhere.

1:16:16 I find them everywhere. But there have been so many. And I’m just so grateful to them and their families for giving me the opportunity to be in their lives.

1:16:37 You have been the reason why I get up every morning and the reason why I have the courage to speak up and stand up and say what’s right for his children. You are the reason why I decide that sometimes it’s more important to do the right thing. Thing every time.

1:16:47 It is more important to do the right thing than to be right. You are the reason why I’ve learned to turn the other cheek. It’s the best place.

1:16:56 If you want to learn how to turn the other cheek, this is the job. To learn how to do it. Yeah.

1:17:21 So I just want you to remember that your principle values you, respects you. You, and loves you. And to our board, Doctor Rendell, and the BPS staff, I pray that you are blessed with the wisdom and the courage to do all things with love.

1:17:40 That’s what we’re charged to do. Do it with love for all children. In spite of their color, in spite of what they sound like, in spite of what they look like, in spite of their economic status, in spite of what they feel, in spite of what they think, in spite of their behavior.

1:18:04 It is all children who need us. And it is important that we continue to do and think about what is the best thing for our children. And that we continue to do what is right and not and let the need to be right get the best of us.

1:18:21 So I pray for you. I will continue to lock arms with the rest of the community and continue to support all of bps as now my grandchildren are going to be part of the whole legend. Thank you so much.

1:18:51 Thank you. Oh, man. All right, we are now at the public comments portion of the meeting.

1:18:56 Paul, we have 24 still. Is that correct? We might be getting more. I don’t know.

1:19:01 We have 25. All right, we have 25. Number of speakers this evening.

1:19:12 Each one will get three minutes. In an effort to remain unbiased, the speakers at the podium will be called by our parliamentarian, which is Mister Gibbs, to announce the speakers. I will and manage the time close.

1:19:18 I would like to take this opportunity to remind the public of the rules written out in board policy. Zero one six 9.1.

1:19:26 All members should or. Sorry, excuse me. All comments should be directed at the board or individual board members, staff members or other individuals shall not be addressed by name.

1:19:38 Abusive, obscene or irrelevant comments will not be permitted. Orderly conduct is expected from all participants and the presiding officer may interrupt, warn or terminate the participants. Public comment opportunity.

1:20:02 Mister Gibbs, can you please call up the first three speakers? Natalie Twine, Bernard Bryan, Valerie Kelly. When you’re ready. Okay.

1:20:15 Hello, my name is Natalie Twine. I’m a mother of two bps graduates who are registered voters in district four. As my husband and I are, I first want to congratulate the students here tonight.

1:20:37 Board these students are your stakeholders who are direct, have been directly harmed by your culture war policies. They are mobilized and ready to determine your political fates as they vote. So with that said, bear with me as I share this true story with I’m sure parents can relate to one evening, I bolted awake out of a deep sleep to the sound of screams.

1:20:51 Barely conscious, I shouted the children as I ran down the hallway towards their rooms. Halfway there, the sounds of my husband laughing made me realize the screams were coming from our tv. Our children were safe.

1:21:13 I think most parents will agree, believing your child is in danger brings out a primitive protective response prior to assessing the true danger. Today, some very vocal individuals are tapping into that innate response. Years ago, I found my child who lacked interest in reading with a book that, at glance, looked like a stupid comic book with no literary value.

1:21:23 I contacted their teacher with her advice. I decided this book was appropriate for my child. Recently, I discovered this award winning book that skyrocketed.

1:22:27 My child’s love for reading was listed as one of the most challenged books, a book that would have remained unknown to me without a dedicated public school teacher invested in my child’s educational needs with access to a diverse library. So how could one parent’s decision for every child override not only my decision, but my child’s success? How will you defend the value of book challenges to your constituents beyond the battle cry to protect the children? Because parents have always had the right to opt out their child. Has the removal of books improved students behavior, mental health, and the learning gap? Has drug use, teen pregnancy, gun violence, sexual assault, or trafficking decreased? Are students better prepared to enter a diverse workplace? Have the lives of marginalized students improved? Have these censoring policies recruited more teachers? In my opinion, if you have no significant positive results, the battle cry to protect the children comes merely from fear.

1:22:47 The children are safely reading, and the nation is laughing as you are running down the hallway because we all know books are not the problem. Thank you, audience. I’m going to ask that you refrain from clapping so that you can hear the next speaker being called Mister Gibbs.

1:22:51 Bernard Bryan. Valerie Kelly. Julie Bywater.

1:23:11 Thank you. My name is Bernard Bryan and I’m a community partner. I’m kind of touched right now, listening to misses Diaz, there are two people that I can tell you now that drives me to help children.

1:23:18 The first one is my wife, Miss Thelma Bryant. She’s a wonderful educator. She loves children.

1:23:34 And she motivates me all the time not to quit. And the other person is Misses Diaz. That’s why you see me standing up here and said, you know, we need to do all we can to support University park.

1:23:45 She is a jewelry. She loved children and I can’t tell you how much those kids love her. So that is the reason why I’m here.

1:24:02 And that is why you see me asking you to do what you can to support University park. Make sure all of her air conditioning system works. Make sure all of her grass yard look nice.

1:24:16 That is the reason why I do that. But I just want to say, I will never forget a couple young men came to me and said, mister Bryant, I need someone to teach me how to read and teach me how to do math. And I just want to compliment Doctor Rendell and this board tonight based on what I heard today at your workshop.

1:24:47 And I just want to encourage you that every child in our communities, especially in the marginalized community, every child should get an opportunity to attend VPK. Not one or two, but every child. So I’m asking VPK, I’m asking this board to look at, to do things differently.

1:25:03 Because we had 85 students that had open seat. 85 children that had an opportunity to go because they were open seats. And then the other thing I want to mention to you is that I am begging you.

1:25:37 I know you guys are looking at building a new middle school down in Pompeii, but I really need you to consider some of the old schools that are old and that are not attractive to students, that are causing our students to leave public schools to go to the private schools. So I’m asking you to share with this community your strategic plan on your capital expenditures for the next five to ten years. I listened to your maintenance capital plan today.

1:26:00 You’re spending almost $18 million in 2025 to old stuff that’s not going to last. So I’m just asking this board to share with the community your strategic plan. How are you going to upgrade University park? How are you going to update stone those schools that are old as well as Dolores? So please, do what you can to help.

1:26:06 Thank you. All right. Valerie Kelly.

1:26:12 Julie Bywater. Delaney Moroni. What is the speaker’s name? Sorry.

1:26:17 Valerie Kelly. Thank you. Good evening, Doctor Randall and esteemed board members.

1:26:31 I’m representing quite a few people in the audience. All my speechies out there. Hey, we asked to take this moment to thank you very much.

1:26:45 Let’s talk about each word I heard from our slps. Validated, valued, recognized, appreciated. Respected, accomplished, exceptionally qualified professionals.

1:26:56 Now, let’s talk about gratitude. Gratitude to our honorable members of the school board. The gratitude at hearing the pleas of our slps in our county.

1:27:12 The work is still ongoing, and we have more to go on this journey toward equity in the profession of speech language pathologists. Appreciative. We are definitely appreciative of our community for everything they did with this milledge project to help the slps.

1:27:33 I can’t even tell you what it’s meant to all of us. And our deepest thanks. In closing, deepest thanks to our union, the brevard Federation of Teachers, for the tenacious support of this profession and all the professionals at BPS who work tirelessly to serve every student with excellence as a standard.

1:27:40 Once again, my deepest thanks to all of you. Thank you. Thank you.

1:27:52 Julie Bywater, Delaney Moroni, and then Kennedy Dwyer. Good evening, board and doctor Rendell. I am Julie Bywater.

1:28:09 I have shared with you, but also for the public. Tonight, I am the new acting chair for the Brevard county chapter of Moms for Liberty. So even though you’ve seen me many times, you will be seeing more of me.

1:28:23 First of all, I’d like to give a little introduction. I am a parent of two children at Rockledge High School. I have a sophomore and a junior, and I also had two kids that graduated from Rockledge High School.

1:28:40 I love Rockledge schools. This is the first time in their lives that they actually attended a school more than one year at a time. As military kids, they moved around a lot, and we really appreciated the community here and the teachers here and the schools here.

1:29:02 They came up through quest, they came up through Anderson, into Kennedy, and then into Rockledge. And we have loved our experience here. And I want to give a shout out to the slps as well, because my youngest son has received so much from these slps, not just here, but in our other places as well.

1:29:23 He had a lot of issues with speech, and I just cannot say enough good things about how they all helped him become better at speaking, become better at reading, because reading is so tied to speech. So, thank you so, so much to you guys. Much love you all.

1:29:53 And I just wanted to say, as a side note, at the very end, to just discuss books, because we just can’t ever not discuss books. I’d love to talk about a lot of other things, but we do support the committee’s recommendation, and that’s pretty much it, because we have so many more things to talk about. One of the previous speakers brought up talking about the older school buildings that need attention.

1:30:01 And he also brought up VPK. These are things that we really should be talking about. This is what our focus should be on.

1:30:09 Let the committee do its job. There’s processes in place for the books. Let’s really start focusing on the things that really matter here.

1:30:19 And that’s our reading score, our math scores, how we’re supporting our students. Loved the CTE programs. My kids have benefited greatly from them.

1:30:33 We got a lot of great things going on in the school district and we’re not focusing on them because we’re stuck on books. We’re stuck on talking about books. So.

1:30:52 And again, I know the audience is really upset about that, but the reality is, is that’s the only thing they’re talking about. We should be talking about all of the things that are important to this school district. And I challenge the board, I challenge the audience, I challenge the parents watching at home.

1:31:05 Who’s our next speaker? Delaney Moroni. Kennedy Dwyer. And then Monet Payne.

1:31:14 Good evening. My name is Delaney Moroney. I’m a senior at Cocoa Beach Junior senior High school and I’m here to talk about banned books.

1:31:38 I’m an IB student and I take HL English, which is two years of English, and I had to write a 4000 page paper, but I was limited on what books I could talk about due to arguments against the content of them in an international program. I should not be told what I can talk about in a book. It’s limiting what I’m allowed to do academically, writing wise.

1:31:57 And it wouldn’t be a problem unless we were starting the problem. For a long time, the content of books were not an issue until they were just recently brought up. And advocacy for students to be independent in what they should choose to read is now, the issue wasn’t started by the students, started by the parents.

1:32:01 We all believe that we should have the independence to choose what we want to read. And I would like to be able to go into my library and choose the type of content I could read, but I’m not allowed to do that anymore. And I would like to choose what I can write about in class and books I could write about in class, but I’m not allowed to do that anymore.

1:32:40 And I would like to advocate that we look into what is actually the problem in school and it’s not the books that we should be worrying about. Thank you. Next speaker, Kennedy Dwyer, followed by Monet Payne and Anjuni Sharma.

1:32:43 Hello. Hello. I am Kennedy Dwyer.

1:32:54 I go to Viera High school and I read every day. I am a future speech pathologist. I’m going to be in early admission.

1:33:13 I have friends and family in the LGBTQ community that are being erased from the library and having these books taken off the shelf. They are erasing the history of people of color and the people in the queer community. I should be able to read about the history that I choose to learn about.

1:33:36 If other people don’t want their kids to read about it, they should be able to choose what they censor but not what the other students want to learn about. I want to be able to learn about it in school and not have to do my own education outside of school. I have done hours of research just to learn about other communities that I have not been taught about in school.

1:34:13 I have gone to a lot of years of public high school and just education in general and I have done so much research just so I could have friends that I could talk about their culture I didn’t know about. I feel like we’re erasing a lot of people and it scares me that there are going to be future generations that don’t know anything that’s happening around them. We are erasing so much and I feel like people don’t have a safe space.

1:34:36 There are so many other issues that we could talk about in schools, but this is affecting so many people that are just being shut out. Thank you for your time. Monet Payne followed by Anjuni Sharma and Aidan McFadden, members of the board.

1:34:54 Doctor Rendell good evening. My name is Monet Payne and I’m a speech language pathologist at Ralph Williams elementary. Back in July, a group of my fellow colleagues and I came before the board to speak and present on what a speech language pathologist is and the importance of our profession, skills and services.

1:35:14 We asked the board to please reconsider BFT’s proposed supplement increase for all speech language pathologists in BPS. Today, we are gathering to show our appreciation for being recognized with an increased supplement supplement amount. We are extremely grateful for BFT and the school board for their negotiation efforts in coming to an agreement.

1:35:32 I watched the negotiations when they were streamed on YouTube and I am beyond impressed with the efforts put forth by BFT and the BPS staff. It is no small feat and it was noticed by us all. We are also thankful to our community for passing the millage that allowed supplements to be given to well deserving educators.

1:35:51 I said this in July and I will say it again. An increase in our annual supplement will truly benefit the approximately 160 speech language pathologists in our district who work diligently changing the lives of the many students in Brevard county. This increase will also help to close the gap on a shortage of sops in our school.

1:36:00 You heard us. You heard us, and we want to say thank you. Have a good evening.

1:36:33 Anjuni Sharma, Aidan McFadden, Paige St. Marie so, good evening, members of the board and doctor Rendell. First of all, I want to start by saying special thank you to Jennifer Jenkins and Doctor Rendell for helping so much with our advocacy efforts, whether it be for students, whether it be for mental health, whether it be for education, and it means so much to so many students across Brevard county. I’m currently working on a research paper regarding the academic censorship that goes on in our nation, and I want to share some key points.

1:36:43 I also want to note that this is not a political issue to me. This is simply education. And I’ve done a lot of research, and I just want to share some points that I’ve, you know, accumulated.

1:36:57 So starting with my first talking points, every parent has the right to set restrictions for their own children, but not all children. Data from across the state proves parental restrictions in the library are unpopular. Less than 10% of students are restricted by their parents.

1:37:16 Most parents prefer students seek out information on difficult subjects in books selected by educational professionals instead of searching the Internet for answers and are being unaware of what they find. Banning a book based on its parts rather than the entirety of the work reinforces ignorance over critical thinking. Ignorance does not protect innocence.

1:37:31 Our state standards include teaching about the risks of premarital sex, drug and alcohol use, and violent behavior. Library books that address these topics in an age relevant way support the curriculum. And just like the curriculum, parents can restrict access to this information.

1:37:56 Media specialists are being asked to carry the weight of the district on their shoulders as they make these decisions. They are instructed that when in doubt, on the side of caution, which often means either aging up the book or removing it entirely from the library. As stresses on the profession rise, there is also an effort to deny media specialists access to associations like ALA, AASL, and fame that supports them with community grant opportunities and professional development.

1:38:09 Selecting a book to read quietly to yourself is not the same as forcing a captive audience of various ages and sensibilities to listen to you read aloud. Library books are not unsolicited. A reader chooses the book and can stop reading at any time.

1:38:21 This is apparently parent approved. Voluntary reading and learning beyond the classroom in school districts should, in fact, encourage it. It’s not okay to fast track infringement on access to spare a dollar or a month’s work.

1:38:41 This moment must be met with a thoughtful, consistent process to ensure decisions are student centered. Context matters in same ways we understand why including racial slurs for historical accuracy and a lesson about Ruby Bridges is necessary. Books that address the impact of sexual assault will need to include sexual conduct that does not make them pornography or explicit content.

1:38:54 Again, going on back to the note and my fellow students, we don’t want to be here talking about books. There’s so many issues that matter to us and I’m so passionate about so many issues. I respect all of you and I hope to be in one of your chairs one day.

1:39:01 But listen to us. You know, we really care about these issues. And to me, again, it’s not politics, it’s our education.

1:39:09 I love learning about so many different perspectives and I want to use this to go out and make a change in the world. And I credit that to BPS schools. So thank you so much.

1:39:28 Thank you. Aiden McFadden, followed by Paige St. Marie and Ava Wolfencohler. Hello, I’m Aiden McFadden.

1:39:45 For those of you who don’t know me, I’m here a lot. I just want to thank everyone for showing up tonight, especially all the students of BPF schools. And we had a little get together before this and there were a lot of people that showed up and I was really surprised about.

1:40:08 Well, not surprised, but excited about that. I want to point out that a student is running for school board and he’s being praised, but he can’t pick out the books that he wants to read in the school. Yeah.

1:40:28 Thank you. Paige St. Marie, followed by Ava Wolfencohler and Dan Jordan. Who is this? Paige St. Marie.

1:40:46 Hi there. You might recognize me from last meeting, but I’m a student and I’m here to speak my mind and hopefully you’ll listen. You can keep saying that banning books is for the students own good, but you don’t seem to care about the good of the students who can’t afford to buy a book or don’t have a way to get to the public library.

1:40:58 You’re erasing representation for so many students that might feel alone or different. And having all these stories accessible for all students is so important. By restricting them, you are taking them out of the hands of these students.

1:41:10 Which makes me wonder if it’s about our own good or about control and about. And as Julie Bywater just pointed out, yeah, we are stuck on books. I’m going to ask for you, if you please refrain from using people’s names.

1:41:18 Thank you. My bad. Anyway, yeah, we’re stuck on books, so maybe we should stop trying to ban them.

1:41:27 You’re running from an imaginary villain here. Books aren’t the villains at this point, you are. Thank you.

1:41:49 Ava Wolfenkohler, followed by Dan Jordan and Janice Crisp. Hi, I’m Ava and I’m a senior at satellite. I’d just like to emphasize the fact that so many people before me have said that there are much, much bigger problems in schools than books.

1:41:59 So please stop wasting your time. These books are not hurting anyone. Ask the students and listen, because we are here to tell you.

1:42:06 Yes, we are stuck on books because people like you are. Are taking them away. It’s wrong, and we’re going to stand up for ourselves.

1:42:21 Can you direct your comments, Ava, please, to the board? Thank you. If there are any problems regarding books, it’s that students don’t read them enough and removing them isn’t encouraging. If we don’t learn mistakes from others like in books, we’re left to make those mistakes for ourselves.

1:42:40 So maybe rape isn’t a pleasant thing to read about, but it’s better than not knowing the signs of a predator and being raped. Trust me, you don’t need to censor things because of bad words or substances or sex. What do you think teenagers talk about? And yeah, some of them are gay.

1:42:52 Just take time to remember what you knew when you were in middle school and high school. Because we’re not dumb. Thank you, Dan Jordan.

1:43:09 Followed by Janice Crisp and Declan. Megan. Am I on my time? Hello? Excuse me.

1:43:16 Hello. My name is Dan Jordan. I am the parent of a Viera high school baseball player.

1:43:45 I’m here today to speak in support of the Viera high school baseball team and its coaches, who unfortunately, have been under attack following the conclusion of tryouts two weeks ago. Last season, I watched as the Viera High school baseball team made an impressive run to the six a state championship finals, finishing runner up. This was the second time in three years Viera has made it to the six A final four.

1:44:04 The program has also won seven district titles. Since 2013, Viera players have gone on to play baseball at division one colleges and several have been drafted to major leagues. I say this to show how competitive baseball is at Viera High School.

1:44:25 We are the largest high school in Brevard, and we have the largest little league in the county. The Florida High School Athletic association defines the number of roster players permitted this season. More than 50, and I think that number is a little low.

1:44:55 More than 50 players came out for tryouts. Not all of them could make the roster and at this level, not everyone gets a jersey. For the past couple of seasons, the Viera baseball team, its coaches, booster club officers and the Viera High School administration have been subject of wild accusations and conspiracy theories put forth by a family who was upset their player did not make the team.

1:45:33 This season we have an entirely new coaching staff, an entirely new booster club, and an almost entirely new roster, having graduated over 13 seniors last year. Yet here we are once again feeling the same accusations. The individuals they are attacking are volunteers with respected baseball credentials who have put in hundreds of hours of their own time to work with these players and help continue the program’s success.

1:46:08 The conclusion of tryouts and the announcement of the varsity and JV rosters has led to harassing of the coaches and administration, showing up to practice fields, videotaping players without permission, and disrupting practices and team meetings. One family or individual should not be allowed to disparage the reputation of an entire team, coaches, administration and supporters who have helped build this into a winning program year after year. This nonsense has continued for too long and needs to stop.

1:46:13 Thank you Dan. Your time is done. You can email the board the rest of your speech.

1:46:30 Dan is crisp followed by Declan Meaghan and Julie Monteone. Good evening board. Can you hear me? Is this on? Okay 1 second.

1:46:47 Let me just get my words up here. I’m glad I came behind the gentleman before me. There is indeed a problem at Viera High School and it is embedded like a tick.

1:47:10 Matt Susan has asked Viera High School principal to create a file on parents. I won’t mention her name but he knows who she is standing behind me because she brought claims of issues happening at the school. He wanted all the claims she made and all the investigations done by the school put in a report.

1:47:29 I have the emails right here. This is no different than when he was screaming about Miss Jenkins supporting the Biden administration keeping track of parents who protested at school board meetings. Except to my knowledge it didn’t happen from the Biden administration, but it did from him.

1:47:51 The tracks this track. He is creating his own little Hoover FBI here at the school system which currently tracks to what the current speaker was saying about harassment at Viera High School. Now we know he is working with Randy Fine and Gene Trent to make sure Mister Trent and Megan right got elected.

1:48:04 Because I was there when it happened so he could install Mister Rendell and fire whoever in the administration they wanted. Because I was there when it was said. As everybody knows, I was helping with that election.

1:48:25 I vividly recall his being ecstatic during Mister Trent’s victory party. And the pictures are there to show talking about him saying these. These words under Mister Susan Vieira has allowed violent terrorist threats against other children to be swept under the rug.

1:48:34 Now, we know if the same threats came in here, those people would be arrested. But they were not arrested. And under his words, they were not a crime.

1:48:45 But they were. When reported to Brevard County Sheriff’s office, they were sent right back to the security office here. This is exactly what happened at Parkland.

1:48:53 And don’t shake your head, sir. We know it happened. This is what happened at Parkland, and we know how that resulted.

1:49:04 And this is happening here in Viera school. We have children who are having to go to counseling. We have children who are having to seek therapy because they are being harassed.

1:49:18 They are being taken out of school. They are being harassed by sros, taken out of class, by administration. And as the gentleman before me, harassed in their sports.

1:49:32 They’re not being allowed to play the sports that they want. The football scenario that we had, that was swept under the rug by Mister Rendell and Mister Susan. Speech to the board.

1:49:43 Thank you. Declan Meegan. Followed by Julie Mantel and Mia Vargo.

1:49:54 Don’t elect me, folks. Yeah, everything. School board.

1:50:06 Sorry, give me 1 second. I am Declan Majo of Melbourne High School. I am here to represent many diverse communities among those being students, queers and neurodivergent people.

1:50:13 But I am here to represent one people above all. America. We are gathered here because we know the same thing.

1:50:23 Knowledge is power. Among us are those who wish to acquire conformity for those without power, a la moms, for liberty. And there are those without power.

1:50:29 Us. I am here to ask you one thing. Is this the America you desire? A sheltered people.

1:50:51 Do you want our people to cower in fear or to have a voice gaining power for the people like our founding fathers before us? When I ask you now to stop banning books, I am not only asking for those who hold my own opinions, but for the students and for the future of America. That is all. Thank you.

1:51:05 Julie Montione, Mia Vargo and Gregory Ross. Hi. Good evening.

1:51:21 I was actually planning to yield my time as I had thought. So many things were going so well. And then as a 30 year teacher and lifelong learner, I realized that there was a huge teachable moment that needed to be addressed.

1:52:08 I think a lot of people, myself included, have struggled with what the term gaslighting means. You know, it’s become part of the zeitgeist, but nobody knows exactly what it means. But we had earlier, just a few speakers earlier, the best example of gaslighting I have ever experienced, when someone from moms for Liberty says it’s so frustrating that all we can do is talk about books because they’re the ones initiating trying to ban the books and then scold us for saying stop trying to remove the books.

1:52:24 That’s gaslighting, that’s creating. And I’m sorry. It was in November when school board member Jean Trent had a list of 300 books and said, I’m going to keep trying to get these books removed.

1:52:55 I’m very pleased that you guys have been listening to us and making, you know, and hopefully have realized that maybe that’s not the best thing to do. But, you know, say you’ve grown and mom’s for liberty say, hey, we no longer want to pursue banning books. And then guess what? Those of us who love books and love learning will go back to talking about books in their natural habitats of classroom and book clubs.

1:53:17 And we can talk about things like what I was so inspired Ava Diaz and the communities, the marginalized communities. I’ve read a lot of things on y’all’s websites and it seems like so many of you are inspired by your faith. And it’s so perplexing because your faith talks about helping marginalized communities.

1:53:33 That’s what Christianity should be, and I’m not always seeing that reflected. So I love if we have this new turn of events where we no longer try to ban the books. Yeah, let’s do it.

1:53:59 Woo hoo. Amia Vargo followed by Gregory Ross and Paul Raub. Mia Vargo, last call.

1:54:11 Mia Vargo. All right, next up is Gregory Ross, followed by Paul Raub and Amy Raub. Good evening, board.

1:54:24 Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. As always, appreciate the board allowing this. Just real quick since I know you guys can’t see because the feed has been adjusted so people can’t see the public commenters.

1:54:33 I want to tell you what my shirt says. Moms for liberty are fascists. Just so you guys know what it says.

1:54:43 Last time I spoke, I talked about the things this board has done that I consider extremists. I have a long list. I only got about five things read off last time.

1:54:49 I’m going to continue that list. Here we go. Mister Susan.

1:55:06 Having disagreement and discussion between board members is not extremist. Deliberately failing to follow Robert’s rules of order and ignoring public records requests in an effort to silence other board members you disagree with is extremist. Mister Susan.

1:55:18 Being politically savvy is not extremist. Using your position as a board chair to further your political ambitions is extremist. Miss Wright, Mister Susan, Mister Trent.

1:55:35 Disagreeing with public commenters opinions is not extremist. Publicly belittling, mocking, and even threatening public commenters, some of who are BPS students is extremist. Miss Wright, Mister Susan, Mister Trent.

1:56:04 Making business decisions on business issues within BPS is not extremist. Trying to run a school district as a business where you devalue students, parents, teachers and staff into customers and their relationships into profit exchanges is extremist. Miss Wright, Mister Susan, and Mister Trent, using your morals is just one of many considerations to guide your decision making process is not extremist.

1:56:22 Singularly, using your morals in the decision making process while ignoring data, logic, empathy, and the morals of others is extremely. Miss Wright, Mister Susan, and Mister Trent. Making unpopular policy decisions is not extremist.

1:56:43 Putting politics over students is extremist. The last thing I want to say is, I was so proud to see the students here today and all the parents that showed up as well. Miss Diaz tonight spoke as well.

1:56:55 And I just want you to hear what they’re saying. The students are telling you stop censoring their education. It’s not what they want.

1:56:59 Okay. Respect the students opinion. Do better.

1:57:17 Thank you, Paul Raub. Followed by Amy Raub and Allison Curvin. I’m just still reeling from.

1:57:36 Just imagine like the new chair of the Society of Serial Arsonist showed up and said, I really wish people would quit talking about all the arson. Can we talk about something other than all the libraries we’ve set on fire? I mean, there’s an easy fix. Quit setting fire to quick burning books, if you will.

1:57:59 Anyway, all right, let me be really pretentious for a second and quote Goethe while also definitely mispronouncing that name. You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him. Most students can’t vote, yet most students can’t.

1:58:18 Aren’t donating to political campaigns. Parents who are not on your side are of no particular benefit to you. And I guess I shouldn’t say a name, but our governor is sort of the champion of that.

1:58:23 It’s pretty much his whole deal. Poor immigrants, not of any use. Let’s use them as props.

1:58:27 Chip them up somewhere cold. We own the libs. We’re so cool.

1:58:31 Trans kids. What? They’re not going to vote for them anyway. Easy, punching bags.

1:58:40 Let’s just knock them down a few pegs and that’s it. That is this whole thing. Punching down the absolute opposite of courage.

1:59:12 Bullying is the opposite of courage. And, you know, let’s cut down all speech that might make certain white folks feel uncomfortable, and then let’s have the nerve to write a book called the courage to be free. And for an educator to promote that book by this charlatan whose primary legacy is going to be the massive willful damage he’s inflicted on our state’s educational system, that’s going to take years to unwind.

1:59:31 Years of the many, many losses that will happen at higher courts with these incredibly uncomfortable constitutional rules. But for an educator to champion that is shocking. You know, I mean, I don’t expect you to be an expert on things that aren’t your field on, you know, biology, epidemiology, things like that.

1:59:35 I mean, learn a little. But here, this is your. You can do better.

2:00:00 You know, better. But for literacy week is right, the courage to be free is the book you chose to promote. And we wonder why students and parents keep getting up here and talking about how the marginalized don’t feel protected and how we feel like the bullies are being enabled.

2:00:16 Well, you know, we’ve elected one to run the state, and apparently we’re fans of him. And these students who can do nothing for you deserve better. Amy Raub.

2:00:28 Followed by Alison Curvin and Samantha Kirvin. Hi, I’m Amy Raub. I didn’t really.

2:00:37 I have, like, a million different. Just thoughts written down here. How’s my camera angle? Better now.

2:00:57 So, Megan, I was wondering if you wanted me to go back and add up, like, the speeches since you were sworn in. You know, like, how many people have told you to stop doing the stupid shit that you do? Miss Rob, I’m going to ask you to not curse. That will be warning number one.

2:01:04 Thank you. Encourage you to stop. Hey, Jean.

2:01:10 Jean, where are you going? I’m talking to you, honey. Come on back. You gotta go.

2:01:19 Poopies. Okay. I mean, stop assuming all children are heterosexual.

2:01:27 Hey, Matt, I’m talking to you, too, up here, bud. Stop assuming that there are gay kids. Megan and Katie.

2:01:43 Do you know that? So, parental rights, whatever that means. I just want to talk about, like, the student’s rights. You know, each student is a whole person.

2:02:02 Each child has their own brain, their own heart, their own thoughts, their own path, their own life, which will eventually be their sex life, their grown up life. Why are you trying to control that so hard? Like, stop it. Let them have their own thoughts.

2:02:09 Let them read the books they want. Stop trying to make everything sexualized. Everything.

2:02:25 The chair of moms for liberty in Indian river county is banning books because of little goblin butts on children’s books. We all have butts. Just so you know, just words out.

2:02:54 And stop assuming that every set of parents is great and we need to just depend on the parental rights. Were you a daddy’s girl? Daddy’s girl? I wasn’t. You ever want to know what it’s like to have a really mean dad? Ask me where you can’t talk, where your mom is terrified that you’re all going to die if she leaves.

2:03:07 I’m in catholic school. Can’t talk to anybody there. Where should I have gone? Parental rights, not children’s rights.

2:03:26 Come on, show a little respect for them. Really? Thank you. Allison Kervin, followed by Samantha Kervin and Kendra Thompson.

2:03:44 So it’s Samantha Kirvin, Kendra Thompson and Kelly Kervin. All right. Good evening.

2:04:01 I’m here to talk to you. I’m here to talk to you about educational censorship. Who does it help? Not me, not my friends, not the people I care about.

2:04:08 You know, not the students you’re supposed to represent. None of them. It doesn’t help.

2:04:25 Honestly. You harm me and my friends. Education, when you put a lack of information, ignorance kills.

2:04:56 Whether you like it or not, it is a fact. Ignorance kills. Also, doctor Rendell, respectfully, I mean this in the nicest way possible, but when you make a joke about science faith fair, insinuating that my parent did all the work for me, I won third place on my own.

2:05:13 I’ll give props to my dad for helping me and teaching me how to use certain tools to build an hho generator. Hho means oxyhydrogen, which is just oxidized hydrogen. I did an entire project myself.

2:05:31 I had assistance from my parents to help me write because that is not my strong suit, but I did it myself. Do not assume that my parents did it for me. Is rude and disrespectful.

2:05:44 Thank you and good night. Followed by Kelly Kervin and Donna Herring. Sorry, who was this? Sorry.

2:05:57 Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I’m Kendra Thompson, a brevard native and a candidate for Melbourne City council. I’m here tonight to speak on an issue that’s near and dear to my heart, and that’s book banning in public schools.

2:06:28 First, I would like to say how grateful I am to all of the BPS staff and educators who played a vital role in shaping my academic journey as a former student in the Brevard public schools. Coming from a marginalized community, I was equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge to pursue higher education, eventually attaining a master’s degree. Education is the key to a brighter future, and books play a vital role in that process.

2:06:58 By banning books, we are not only sitting stifling creativity and ignorance, but we are also promoting the ignorance were disassociating the creativity and the imagination of our youth. Our youth deserves to be exposed to the diverse perspectives and ideas, even if they challenge our own beliefs. It is through this exposure that they learn critical thinking, empathy and acceptance for all.

2:07:26 I believe in the importance of fostering an inclusive and diverse community that promotes intellectual freedom. By banning books, we are taking a step backwards and hindering our children’s ability to think for themselves. We must trust our youth to navigate the complexities of life by equipping them with the tools they need, including open minded and informed point of views.

2:07:45 Florida has always been a state that has valued freedom and independence. Let us not forget these principles when it comes to education of our children. Let us stand together for equal rights, freedoms for our youth, for a right to read, to explore and to shape their own minds.

2:08:12 Thank you, Kelly Kervin, followed by Donna herring good evening, board. Two weeks ago, I told you I’d be back to talk to you about bias. So this speech today is about the work session conversation surrounding discipline and risk ratios from January 23.

2:08:34 Acknowledgement defined as the acceptance of truth or existence of something. Miss gamble, your ability to justify and manipulate discipline data so that it meets your explicit bias would be impressive if it didn’t mean harming our students, too. You’ve sat on this board for too long to pretend not to know what risk ratios are and how to interpret that data.

2:08:53 So when the risk ratio for black and brown students is 2.57 and 2.75 for our students living in poverty, but our risk ratio for our white students is 0.

2:09:04 55, that’s a problem. And the first step to solving any problem is acknowledgement. Matt Susan, you said this isn’t a Bps problem.

2:09:24 It’s a community problem. It’s a societal problem. You use the word holistic, but when community leaders and advocates have asked for an equity audit, you’ve scoffed in their faces.

2:09:40 How can anyone from the community come together to brainstorm solutions when you withhold the biggest piece of data needed to see the role BPS plays in the problem? Furthermore, it’s your job. It’s laziness to continue to pass the buck off like you’ve done for the past eight years. Jean Trent, you said Jennifer was blaming our teachers, and I’m here to tell you that, no, she’s not.

2:09:51 And your inability to see bigger pictures is alarming. The blame lies in the system designed to put both students and teachers in impossible positions where no one is coming out of a winner. And instead of looking at the bigger system to help both our students and teachers, you focus on culture wars.

2:10:12 And to be clear, I’m not blaming you or anyone on this board for the system itself. I’m blaming your lack of commitment and making changes to better the outcomes. Megan Wright, what you said was even worse.

2:10:27 You claim that you don’t understand why we collect disciplined data by race, yet the data presented was a perfect example of why we must. Then you use the term colorblind in relation to race, which perpetuates an ideal ideology rooted in racism. The colorblind approach means that you’re not just ignoring the whole person, but also the history of racial inequality.

2:10:43 The term is continuously used against BIPOC communities to limit their voices and make them doubt their own experiences and feelings. Racism is more than just burning crosses and lynchings. It goes far beyond telling a black or brown person where they can sit or what water fountain they could use.

2:11:09 Racism has looked like many different things throughout the history of our country, from the days of slavery until now. Racism can be loud and in your face, but it can also be quiet and subtle. It may take the form of microaggressions or a stereotype or tokenisms or jokes.

2:11:16 Unfortunately for Bavaria public schools, racism is four individuals sitting on a school board holding years of data proving that there is a problem for our marginalized communities and refusing to find a solution. No, some were marked off. They withdrew.

2:11:35 Members of the board and doctor Rendell. My name is Donna Herring from Cocoa Beach. I was.

2:12:01 It’s been a couple of months before since I’ve been to one of these meetings, and I was very gratified to hear the amount of common ground we seem to have found since I was here last. The fact that books are not what we should be worried about. It is.

2:12:15 It’s always been so frustrating to me to come here and listen to book discussions ad nauseam, which is why I really started coming to these meetings, that we should all start focusing on other issues and stop wasting our time on books. So I hope we do that. Just another observation.

2:12:38 And maybe it’s because I haven’t been to enough of these meetings, but I only heard one person refer to anything in this meeting. About higher education. I heard a lot about vocational education.

2:12:50 And I’m all for plumbers, carpenters, new troops for the military, and expanding preparation for jobs right out of high school. But I also think we need architects to go with the plumbers and electricians. We need doctors to go along with the CNAs.

2:19:47 We need officers to go with the marching troops. We need people who are prepared to go on to higher education. And a lot of times that means reading challenging books.

2:19:52 Thank you. Is everyone into you? Good. You want to take a break? Okay, can we take a five minute break so we can go to the restroom? And we will come back at 745.

2:19:55 All right. Thank you for the small break. We are.

2:20:01 Yep. Oh, sorry. I’m just trying to make sure I’m in the right spot.

2:20:09 We’re at the consent agenda, Doctor Rendell. Thank you, madam chair. There are 18 items under this category.

2:20:15 Thank you, Doctor Rendell. Does any member have any items they wish to pull? Hearing, none. I will entertain a motion.

2:20:17 Move to approve second any discussion this party started. Paul, roll call. Miss Jenkins? Aye.

2:20:19 Miss Campbell. Aye. Miss Wright.

2:20:25 Aye. Mister Trent. Aye.

2:20:33 Mister Susan. Aye. Doctor rendell, will you please let us know about the items under the action portion of today’s agenda? Thank you, madam chair.

2:20:45 The first action item. Item is h 30 procurement solicitations. Do I hear a motion? Move to approve.

2:20:54 Second. Any discussion? Okay, I actually am going to have some discussion on one of the procurement items here. So I had the chance today to speak with Miss Harris and her team.

2:21:15 Hang on 1 second. Let me pull it up. And I was asked about this in the community, so I’m going to ask Miss Harris, if she doesn’t mind, to come forward for just a moment to talk about the third party tutoring.

2:21:30 This was asked by a couple different people saying, what is this? Why are we spending this money? Can somebody please elaborate? It seemed like it was a lot, and so we sat down. She had a great explanation on how this all works, and so she will present this in a much more informative fashion than I would. So I’m going to ask you, if you don’t mind just going ahead and sharing with the public so they’re aware.

2:21:49 Good evening, board and doctor Randell. It is. I’m actually thrilled to be here discussing this because I think there are some misconceptions with stakeholders that we actually are required to provide title one services to students that are being served at a private school.

2:22:21 So private schools have two ways of receiving their funding for title one. One way is that they participate in the national school lunch program. So if they do, then the free or reduced student that is earning the free or reduced lunch gets an allocation, a per pupil allocation.

2:22:31 We actually only have three of the 28 schools we partner with that receive, that participate in the national lunch program. So the majority of our private schools receive their allocation through an income verification survey that all students at the private school complete. And then if they are identified by an income bracket and they are zoned for a public school that is title one, then they earn an allocation towards their school.

2:22:53 So we have an allocation going out to our 28 private schools to the tune of 1.2 million. And I just think that our community is maybe not aware that we are required to do that.

2:22:58 The difference between allocations that maybe go to a charter school, we can provide either an allocation of funding to the charter school, or they can opt into our program. But if they opt into their allocation, then they own that, you know, they get that allocation to do with as they choose on their school site. For private schools, that is not the case.

2:23:14 They are not allowed. We cannot give them the funding. It doesn’t go directly to them.

2:23:44 So they earn an allocation. And so what Brevard has done in the past is, is contract with services. They go through the RFP, and they have a vendor that provides services to our title one schools, which is the contract you see before you this evening.

2:23:51 If we were not to use that route, what this would look like is we would actually be hiring teachers that would only serve in private schools. So right now, we have one BPS employee that candy Pohill, back in our title one office that serves our private schools. This would be hiring our teachers not to do outside or extra duty pay in our private schools, but actually hiring them to go perform services during the school day.

2:24:05 For some schools, their allocation is over 100,000. So they might earn 1.5 teaching units.

2:24:31 That we would hire BPS teachers. We would be responsible for evaluating, we would be tracking their time. All of we’d have to provide those resources, professional development, parent engagement at those private schools.

2:24:56 At some schools, they earn maybe 4000. So we could, we would have potentially BPS employees that only serve in private schools, serving four or five schools, based on the allocation earned for that individual school. So the contract you have tonight, it shows that we are paying a company $72 an hour, the teachers providing the services to students.

2:25:08 Unlike our public schools, where they push in a lot of times into our classrooms and do small group instruction in the back of the room in a private school, title one services must pull the children out into another room. And so the teachers that have previously performed services through this catapult contract have pulled students out. The teachers are not paid the $72 an hour.

2:25:21 They’re paid closer to $25 an hour. But we’re paying the company for that oversight, the evaluation they provide, the curriculum, the professional learning for that contract. So it is.

2:25:44 It’s very different than other. Like, if we share other federal fund allocations with non traditional schools such as our charters, the private school is very different. Thank you, Miss Harris.

2:25:54 I appreciate the clarification. I don’t know if any of my other board members were addressed with questions in the community about this, but I was. And so I felt like I needed to get some clarification so that the community understands and that we’re being transparent, because the first thing that I saw was $72 an hour, $1.

2:25:58 2 million, and there were some major red flags that went up and questions asked. So once the process was explained to me, I felt a lot better. And I feel like hopefully our community will feel as feel better as well.

2:26:10 So does anybody else have any other questions from Miss Harris in regards to this? No, just that I had similar questions and I was going to bring it up if you didn’t handle it. So you did. So.

2:26:12 Thank you. Perfect. That’s what I thought.

2:26:21 I do have something unrelated to that procurement, the bus procurement that occurred. I just wanted to kind of say something that was inside there. So she goes, that’s not me.

2:27:00 And this is not. Has anything to do with Sarah. Thank you.

2:27:02 Yeah, thank you. All it is, is that I wanted to let everybody know. We just had this procurement where we put a bunch of the bus companies on there.

2:27:07 There was some extreme concern a couple of years ago and even last year where some of the bus companies were saying that there weren’t seatbelts on all the buses that were being provided, there weren’t gps tracking, and that we weren’t doing site visits to find out that some of the buses that we were doing, and this is for third party vendors to do bus trips for our kids. So I just wanted to say some of those things are just mandatory as a school district that we have. So I just wanted to let you guys know that I was just going to meet with staff and kind of make sure that some of the things that we have mandatory here for our buses is also what we have for the kids when they’re traveling there and then make sure that we’re going keeping to them to the standard that we have that’s all.

2:27:09 Thank you. Thank you, Mister Susan. All right.

2:27:10 Any other discussion? No. No. Roll call.

2:27:15 Miss Jenkins. Miss Campbell. Aye.

2:27:24 Miss Wright. Aye. Mister Trent.

2:27:33 Aye. Mister Susan. Aye.

2:27:37 Doctor Rendell. Madam chair. The next action item is H 31, book review and challenges a court of thorns and roses.

2:27:58 Do I hear a motion? Move to approve second any discussion? Yeah, sorry, Miss Jenkins. Yes. Yep.

2:28:31 Okay. Sorry, go ahead. Sorry, I thought the mic was.

2:28:46 So before I say something specifically about this item, I just have to address something relevant to it. Really frustrating. After we sat in a work session that was very, very public about changing the perception of this board to see two board members walk out.

2:28:56 And no one’s saying that Miss Jenkins are track with what we’re talking about. So it is Miss right. No one is saying it is right for people to speak a certain way, but when they’re addressing a certain topic, which happens to be about book banning, and you can’t handle the position that you have on that topic and stand strong in that position, or you can’t be held accountable for the words that you’ve chosen on that topic.

2:29:03 It is so disrespectful to walk out on people. I’ve literally sat in a room with people who have spat in my face, showed up at my house, threatened my life, threatened to take my daughter away from me. And I sit here and I take it and it’s not right.

2:29:09 What I do is just. Just for clarification, can we move this to the discussion? Right, because this isn’t pertaining to this particular item. Okay, but it is because.

2:29:22 No, it’s an issue you’re having with the board and no one was here to listen to it. We were all listening. Point.

2:29:25 No, I’m asking you for point of order. Right, I am in point of order. People can came here to speak about this issue and they left the room for it.

2:29:42 They left the room for it. Am I correct in the fact that this is not pertaining to the fact of court of thrones that we are discussing right now? So this is more of an issue that you’re currently having with other people, then I’m gonna finish it at the end. Grace.

2:29:51 Thank you. I’m gonna finish it at the end. Does anyone else have any other questions? Well, I’m not done.

2:30:04 I do have a discussion about this. Okay, go right ahead. So the whole issue about the book review and challenges and what, why we changed this policy 100 times and now it comes to the board to vote was about parental rights and parental choice.

2:30:32 And we’ve always had a choice as a parent when it comes to what our children can and cannot read in our school system, we have always had it. There’s an opt out form that everyone was well aware of. It is on our district website.

2:30:51 It is on every single school’s website. And every single member on this board has a child in brevard public schools. I want you to ask yourself, if you filled out one of those forms.

2:31:00 If the answer is you haven’t, then how much do you truly believe that this is a harm to students if you haven’t even done it for your own children? And I’ve asked our staff to inquire about how many of these forms have been filled out for limited use. And the answer so far is we haven’t gotten anything back yet that says we have any. So parents have the choice to limit what their children read already, and they’re not using it.

2:31:19 So why are we making that choice for them? It doesn’t make sense. All right, thank you. Miss Campbell, do you have any discussion on this? Just very quickly, I just wanted to clarify, and maybe when we have these on the agenda in the future, just.

2:31:45 They’re under the recommendation. It doesn’t give a specific recommendation, but just to clarify. So tonight the motion is to approve the recommendation of the committee, which is to remove this book from our libraries.

2:31:54 I appreciate all the students who came out. I know most of them had to go home because it’s school night and they probably have things to study for. I do appreciate the students coming out and sharing their voices with us, especially the ones who found a way to do it in a respectful way that is always, some of you set a good example for other speakers tonight.

2:32:03 I do. This book in particular, we have to take each one, as you know, as it is, this book, the books that we approved the last time, and I think this committee has done a good job, I think, of really, and if anybody’s watching, is just being really intentional, thoughtful and going through the process. There was no question in the discussion of the committee, the majority of the committee, four out of five, and the fifth one is made very clear.

2:32:12 You know, where, who stands on this? And it doesn’t surprised me, his decision. He’s been consistent. But four out of five members were very clear about the explicit nature of this particular three.

2:32:36 I’m sorry, one was not there. Three out of four were very clear about the explicit nature of this book. And I think this is very different.

2:32:45 The statutes are clear. I think we’re being consistent. And for those who have expressed problems at the last meeting about the whole process.

2:32:54 This process, like it or not, ensures that it’s not one piece making decisions for the whole entire district. It is one parent starting the process, or one community member, which the law requires us to take those from the person who is a member or a resident of our county, as well as parents. But it goes through the teacher, the media specialist at the school, and the principal.

2:33:03 And then if it gets past that, it goes to the district. We have a district committee that Miss Harris is leading up to go through. It goes to the committee of people that the board has appointed.

2:33:14 Then it comes to the board and the people of the public. So we’re making sure that this process doesn’t mean, it certainly doesn’t. That one person gets to make the decision for everybody.

2:33:37 And as I’ve said many times before, and at the risk of repeating myself again, the responsibility lies with us, the five of us. The buck stops here. And I take that role very seriously.

2:33:42 And just as seriously as I proved the kite runner in Slaughterhouse five to go back into the school’s last meeting. Just as seriously. I will approve this committee’s recommendation to remove a court of thorns and roses.

2:33:54 Because, as I’ve said before, there is a big difference between, you know, acts that are vaguely described. That because we are adults and we have context, we know what was going on, but it wasn’t. And then a blow by blow, body part, body part by body part description of a sex act, that is what is in this book and some of the other books that are remaining on the list.

2:34:28 And so that is the responsibility. That is the law. I take that seriously.

2:34:30 And I think that we’re going to do the right thing tonight when we make this decision. And again, each book, we’re going to take each book seriously. The committee is taking it seriously.

2:34:45 We’re looking at each one, the merits and the faults of each one as it relates to the law. And, you know, I just have to express my frustration at some of the things that were expressed tonight by the students because I think there’s a misconception of what we’re actually doing here. And I hope that those who have those issues will take the time to reach out to us individually so that we can respond to them and hear their concerns, but really get down to the bottom of where some of it’s coming from, because I don’t think I know tonight was more than just about this one book.

2:34:50 It was about beyond it. So we need to listen. Bored.

2:35:05 But when it comes to this book in particular, there’s really not a lot of defense. And I actually didn’t hear a single person come to the defense of this book tonight. There are people who came to the defense because they don’t want to ban books in general, but nobody came to the defense of this one, not like last time.

2:35:18 And I think that says a lot about our community and their desires. Thank you. Thank you.

2:35:29 Any other discussion in regards to. Yeah, I’ll speak to it real quick. You know, it’s a funny process that we’re under in the fact that one week we have a group of people that come in and yell at us that we didn’t ban a book, and then the very next week we have a bunch of people that come in and say you banned the book.

2:35:40 And it’s just this seesaw. And I think it’s been said multiple times inside by the public and other groups that we do so many other things. We’ve done so many great things inside this district recently, but this just seems to be the narrative everybody’s hung up on.

2:35:53 So I did want to just kind of say the system that we’re in is just this. It’s insanity, but when you look at it. I did want to say one thing before I talked about the court of thorns and roses.

2:36:05 The author is not bad. This just is inappropriate for the time period that we’re here. This author has a book that might be appropriate for a later age, might be appropriate for other readers, just not appropriate for our schools.

2:36:23 And so when you look at this, as a former teacher, there is literally no educational value in this book at all. There’s just not. On top of that, it’s a romantic novel and it has explicit things inside of it, which you referenced, Miss Campbell.

2:36:28 So I’ll be supporting the recommendation of the committee under those premises. And I look forward to every week from this point on, going back and forth on the seesaw. That’s it.

2:36:31 All right, Mister Trent, do you have any discussion topics on this? You know, it’s going to. It’s going to include the speakers and maybe some misinformation how it came up, but I would rather just get past this and then I’ll save the discussion for the end. Okay.

2:36:33 I felt the exact same way, so. All right, we have the motion on the floor. Paul, roll call, please.

2:36:44 Miss Jenkins? Nay. Miss Campbell. Aye.

2:37:07 Miss Wright. Aye. Mister Trent.

2:37:18 Mister Susan. Aye. All right, we are moving on to the information agenda, which includes one item for the board to review and may be brought back for action at a subsequent meeting.

2:37:30 No action should be taken on this item today, does any board member wish to discuss the one information item? No? Okay, Mister Susan, you were kind enough. We ran out of time today at our workshop, and you had two points that you were discussion topics that you would like to talk with us about. So I’m going to go ahead and give you the floor first to go over those two topics.

2:37:52 Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity. The two that we had are dealing with brevard pediatrics and our healthcare plan and the trademark logos. The first one I wanted to let you know is the Brevard pediatrics has now gotten.

2:38:22 I’m on my 7th person as of today, that they started reaching out to me. Here’s what ended up happening. So last year, in the middle of the year, Brevard pediatric districts went directly under the health first TPA.

2:38:37 Like, you know, they became part of the health first network. At that point, we had a decision to make whether they had vacated. So what had happened was the school district was making the recommendation to take the brevard pediatrics out of tier one, which is, you have a dollar 35 copay, or whatever it is, and move it to tier two.

2:39:02 And what that meant was, is that you had to continue to pay until you met your deductible, whatever the total visit was. So what they did was they took the Brevard pediatrics, made it a tier two for the silver plan, and kept it a tier one for the health first plan. Okay, the question, there was questions inside the minutes that I read from the meeting was, as they were asking, can we engage with Cigna to possibly move that to just continue as a tier one until the end of the year? That is an option that is available.

2:39:40 It is something that we could have done. But here’s what ended up happening, is that we continued to go down for the next six months. We waited for the communication to come out of brevard pediatrics, which did not communicate to our people very well.

2:39:56 So we had a lot of people that started going to their doctor’s visits, finding out that they were no longer a network and were being impacted a higher cost. Now, whether that’s our fault or not, that’s not the issue. The issue is that we, in the middle of the school year, after people had been already decided to purchase these items or have this plan decided to go and change their network, which caused them a little bit extra money to exacerbate that situation.

2:40:25 The brevard pediatrics, when people would call to try to find out information, as of three weeks ago, was telling individuals that not only were they not on the plan for the silver plan, but they were also not on the plan for the health first plan. So I immediately called our health department or our health team over there and I asked them to reach out, and they verified that Brevard pediatrics was under the understanding that they were no longer a part of Brevard School’s plan. So what ended up happening is they requested them to start communicating to all six of their branches that they are in and kind of explain the difference between the two.

2:40:48 Now, here’s the problem with the back end of all of that and where I was getting at, and I’m sure Miss Campbell, who’s on the committee, can attest to some of this stuff. The bottom line is, is that we have a bunch of people out there that have made doctors decisions and changes based upon the fact that these were out. These changes have been made.

2:41:00 I feel like had I known back, you know, during the middle of the year, last year, that this was an option to do, that we just go to Cigna and ask them to put it into the network that we should have just done that. So what I would like to do is ask the health care committee or the healthcare group to recommend, to ask Cigna how they could put them back in and if it would cost any money. Because if you watch the process, what happened is they went from a tier one to a tier two.

2:41:13 So Cigna had to make the change inside of their billing. What I would ask is that Cigna looks at what the difference it would take to move them to tier one till the end of the year, when we can properly communicate to the people the changes that have been made and go through there. There should be no difference in price, because all we did was basically take and charge people on their backs the difference in the cost.

2:41:27 Does that make sense? So go ahead, Miss Kimball. No. So basically what happened is that when the change was made, now, all of a sudden, instead of paying $35 per visit until I got to my deductible, I’m now paying the full amount.

2:41:41 So people who, with their babies, sometimes two, three at a time, were going to the doctor’s office paying more money for what they had. So the issue, I would say, and it is possible, I know this because I’ve seen it in other plans. I’ve actually done it in other plans.

2:42:14 When there’s a plan change, you can go to the TPA or you can direct bill. There’s two options that you can do. And I would just ask that we look into how that would work and have them make a recommendation back to us and then we make a decision whether we want to move that way or not.

2:42:46 That’s all. Yeah, I just want to clarify a couple of things, because I was not only on PSIAC when we were going through this, I was actually the first insurance user to bring this forward to our staff because it happened to me. So I just want to clarify a couple things.

2:42:55 First of all, this happened in the middle of 2022, not 2023. And to be quite honest, in my investigation of this, Mister Susan, in that late last quarter of the year, in 2022, when it hit, you know, when I first discovered it, pediatrics and brevard actually didn’t even understand when they were changing over. They made all the clients aware, their customers aware that they were switching to privia without understanding that priviage, that automatically would put them in the health first network.

2:43:08 And they didn’t understand what was going to happen when people started getting the bills in the fall, after the change was fully made. And it only affects the people on the silver plan. I have not heard that they’ve been telling people on the gold plan that, because when they finally were made aware, I specifically asked their offices, would you please make sure that you’re communicating with people? So they were, as they were coming in before they treated them, or as they were calling and making phone calls, they were saying, hey, which art plan are you on? Gold? Silver? You need to understand, you’re going to have to pay up to your deductible or whatever.

2:43:27 So. But I also wanted to say, and this is probably just slip of the tongue or whatever, but it wasn’t the district that made the decision, it was. It was Cigna.

2:43:38 Because Cigna has to go with their contract prices with health first. And unfortunately this does. If you go on your Cigna website and you log in and you put in one of the documents in this practice, it’ll actually list them as a health first medical group doctor.

2:43:48 Even though they’re technically, they’re not in health first medical group, they’re part of privia, but it’s all the same contract price. So I say that because it’s not just been the middle of last year, now we’ve actually had the last half of 2022 and all of 2023 are. I’m not sure how much can be done because it’s now been over.

2:44:10 It’s been over a year and a half. And so we need to make sure that their office is communicating clearly with our employees. And people on our plan that, you know, this is.

2:44:37 You need to make sure, you know, if you’re on the gold plan, it won’t affect you at all. If you’re on the silver plan, you need to make your decision. Our families made our decisions on how we’re going to handle it, you know, because we’re on the silver plan.

2:44:46 But I, you know, so I don’t mind us going back, but I just want to make sure we’re getting the correct information out there because I talked to some health first. People didn’t actually intend to call them, actually, I was trying to get to hold the pediatrics in Brevard, and health first stepped in and intervened. But I finally got a hold of pediatrics and have talked to our staff and they’ve done everything they could at that point.

2:45:14 Went around and around with privia, ran around with Cigna on my own issue, recognizing every step along the way that I was representing our staff and the people on this Liverpool plan. So it’s a little bit more complicated than that. I’m not, again, I’m not sure what we can do at this point because we are a year and a half worth of claims, but at the very least, their offices need to be communicating clearly to our employees on the plan.

2:45:23 So it wasn’t a slip of the tongue. The school district can turn to Cigna and say, we want them to be tier one. Cigna can put it on the TPA and make it happen.

2:45:40 Now, sometimes there’s a minor cost associated with that, but what I would make the argument, and what I’m willing to bet is that they moved them from tier one to tier two with no issue, no question, no nothing, there’s no problem going back to Cigna and saying, how much would it take for you guys to move them to tier one? Now, in the event that Cigna comes back and says, oh, man, this is going to cost so much money, I would recommend that we just direct bill them. And we can do that. We don’t have to go through the TPA.

2:45:45 They can send us a bill and we can offset it. There’s possibilities. And all I’m asking is to engage with Cigna and our carrier and brevard pediatrics to see what’s possible and come back.

2:46:00 But I do know you can request the TPA to do anything. If you turned around and said, we want to give everybody inside of our district, both healthcare plans, the ability to go in and have biometrics for free, whatever we want to do, we want to give free testing for heart, diabetes, whatever. We can make that happen overnight.

2:46:10 Okay. That is a possibility. The only problem is sometimes with the billing, there’s an extra charge because they have to work on it.

2:46:55 That’s all I do know. That wasn’t a slip of the tongue, and I verified that when I spoke to staff was who is the ultimate decision is that? And she said, we can request to Cigna, but Cigna has a cost associated with it. So I would just like to engage and see what that cost is and then go from there.

2:47:06 That’s all. Well, I can appreciate that. And certainly this, this is the biggest pediatric practice in our county, and it really has affected a lot of our employees.

2:47:15 No doubt. I would recommend that we ask doctor Mendel and staff to engage with locked in and to kind of help guide us on this, a path of whatever, you know, how much is it going to cost, how complicated it’s going to be, understanding that we do have limited staff in that department, and we’re going to make sure so we know what we’re asking and what we may have to be, you know, if we have to hire an additional person to manage some of this extra stuff, I mean, we need to know what all the pieces are and how much it’s going to cost and what it’s going to involve. I mean, I absolutely would love to see this particular practice, not just for my home family, because I almost, I’m almost done with pediatrics, but, you know, get back onto our silver plants that everybody has equal access, and it’s not costing people an arm and leg to go to their favorite doctor.

2:47:24 So I’m in support of us, of taking options, but I want to know kind of all the details. And just so you know, it’ll just be a quick call to Cigna and say, we want to move them to tier one. What are the costs and benefits? We don’t have to have a person and staff.

2:47:33 We don’t have to do any of that stuff. It’s as easy as when they went from tier one to tier two. And all they have to do is say, here’s what we have now.

2:47:37 And that’s all I’m asking. I didn’t want to go run around and start demanding you got information with the, them being one of the largest pediatrics in Brevard. Obviously, that’s the name of the company.

2:47:44 It obviously is impacting a lot of our families. So finding out the information and bringing it back to us, I can see no harm in doing that. And if it can help our families I think that would be extremely beneficial.

2:47:49 It sounds like a lot of people are caught in the middle of this one. Good. Everybody else.

2:47:56 Okay. Does anybody else have any objections to him researching it and bringing it back to us? Okay. No.

2:48:13 Okay. I did want to tail in that thing. I got six people that.

2:48:19 Three people. I’m sorry, there’s six on the other one, then seven today. Mental health providers, apparently Cigna is charging for our.

2:48:28 And I had three providers, not just like individuals that I verified this with today, where our individuals are going to get their mental health screening or sessions and are being charged the full amount instead of the 35, the 90. So I would like to ask. I’m trying to come to the board prior to giving staff direction.

2:48:32 Right. But I would like to ask that investigated and if there’s a reason for that, have it corrected. That’s all.

2:48:38 I checked with the health plan and they said that that was not part of any change. So that would be a little different. But I literally have documents now that have been sent to me while we were at the board meeting.

2:48:54 So. All right, I guess I need clarification on this one because I’m not. So as a.

2:49:05 You go to a mental health provider, normally you pay $35 copay. Copay. Right.

2:49:14 What’s happening? 30. I’m sorry. What ends up happening is we now have three providers that have reached out that have said that they are being sending in the $35 copay to be offset the cost for their people and it’s coming back that they’re not paying and to pay the full $99.

2:49:24 So what ends up happening is you have to continue to pay a dollar 99 fee until you hit your deductible. That’s what the form said that I was sent and that came from Cigna and a return back to them. So I have it.

2:49:30 I would just like to be able to bring this to staff and show them and then have them recorrected if there’s not an issue. That’s all. And they already said that they didn’t make any changes.

2:49:36 I need to make sure our employees know, too, that they can call. Is it Laresha? And I got that lady’s number and I already. Or the EAP, if they’re having problems saying they can call the EAP who should be helping.

2:49:53 And I forwarded that information to all three of them and they’re providing that information. Information. And they’re working towards that.

2:50:01 I found that out today. So I just wanted to kind of let you guys know, that’s all. And then you had one other topic.

2:50:08 All right, so the trademark logos I requested. So this is this thing, this darn thing has been going on for like a couple of years, I think. And I asked Paul a while ago, hey, can you research into how much it’s going to get charged to quote, for a trademark.

2:50:35 Right. Of all the schools? And I think, Paul, did you get a chance to run that down? You were going to provide me some attorneys that do this locally. You said, yeah.

2:50:47 So I didn’t know if you had called like, and been, hey, guys, we got like 86 logos and all this elite stuff. We have a lot of logos. Okay.

2:51:03 It depends on, do you just want to do high school or that are in sports right now and then move on further time or do you want all of them done? So, yeah, good question. So here’s what it is, is that we have right now, when you go to Walmart, target and all of those places, they’re providing and selling our merchandise. When I was a coach, 20% to 30% of my revenue came from the sales of the things at the schools or in a way to sell it.

2:51:12 Right. If you go to Walmart or target or any other provider that sells college made stuff, they don’t print them because they literally have to pay a fee and go through and organization. Organization to be clearance.

2:51:41 Right. So what my request that there’s that component, the other thing that we’re seeing is that I ran across last year, and one of the reasons it prompted it again is there was a penny jar at our gas stations that had Rockledge on the front of it and said, give money for scholarships. And I called up Burt Clark.

2:51:56 I’m like, you doing this? He’s like, no. So there’s people out there that will take our logos, use them as fundraising techniques and other things. So there’s that reason.

2:52:13 The other component is that at the beginning of this week, there was a meeting, or last week over at the property appraiser where they were presenting to say that with a lot of the information officers, that a lot of logos are being taken by AI and being used as opportunities for illegal things and utilize them for sales and everything else. So what she said was, and what the consensus was is that they’re going to look to trademark their logos. So there’s the reasons why.

2:52:27 Very easy, right? I talked to all of my principals in the high schools. I called them last weekend, today, and I said, hey, what’s going on? And they said it upsets them very much when they go to a Walgreens a CV’s and they see this. So there’s the reason behind it.

2:52:32 Now, what I did was I was just like, hey, Paul, let’s get an attorney and let’s go do that. But what transpired in the process was this, which is very interesting. I called three of the attorneys locally and said, hey, would you be interested in talking to my general counsel about how this all works, right.

2:53:12 In that process, they told me a couple of things. One, they’re all on board. In fact, they’re so excited to work on this project that they’re going to bring the Brevard Bar association into it and do it as their like, community project that they have so big support.

2:53:40 Right. So I think they’re going to work with us and fees and stuff like that. That might be very minimal.

2:53:49 But what they did was they said, Matt, you have to understand you have trademark ability right now. He said that your schools can right now put a TM, which means trademark, as long as it’s 10% different than any other logo that has been trademarked or registered trademark in the past, which means that if you have like, and I talked to Burt, Clark and Burke said that they had to change theirs 10% because they were mimicking somebody else and somebody was chasing after him saying, you’re using our trademark. So if a logo is not the same as any other trademarked logo, like a pirate or whatever, we can put a TM on it right now and send a letter to Walmart and target and say, stop, I can do that.

2:53:59 So he told me that the other thing he said is that the process is twelve to 18 months, but the issue is that, and it’s very minimal cost. So what they said was, hey, why don’t we do this? This was their idea and this is what I’d like to engage Paul with. They said, let’s go ahead and get together and put together a process for each school to apply, meaning you get the students together to write the demand letter or whatever to send over to target.

2:54:06 Let’s get the process of getting the logo, applying for it and all of those things. They can apply for it from the school. School and that they, with the bar association, would assist in the process.

2:54:10 I was like, that’s a great idea. So it’s, no, it’s very liminal cost to us. We can give the power back to each one of the schools for their logos and we can start the process.

2:54:17 I would just like to work with Paul and some of the local attorneys in the bar association to get it done. I think. I’m not opposed to trademark.

2:54:21 I mean, I’m more. So from the scamming perspective of things. I would want to know what it costs.

2:54:29 I know that there is a fee associated $79. I’m pretty sure it’s more than that. Only reason my best friend went through this with her old skydiving business.

2:54:48 It was a whole debacle. She had to go after another company. It was like a whole thing.

2:55:00 And so that’s why I’m like, it wasn’t. It wasn’t exactly easy. So I just would like to know, what does it look like? Because we have a lot of different sites with a lot of different logos, and.

2:55:07 And then what happens if we find out that one of our logos is too close to one of the other logos? We got to have a school completely rebrand themselves, which could be, you know, those are just the things that we need to have those answers before we go down the whole. I agree with you 100%. What I would like to do is put together a plan and come back with total costs and framework and everything else.

2:55:17 I would also like to say for the public, that Walmart and target and them are not bad people just printing out. And I feel that if we engage with them and talk to them about this, they’ll be more than happy to work with us on that. I just.

2:55:21 I did want it, so that’s all. So those were the two things. As long as I can engage with him on our master plan to logo our trademark, I’m fine with that.

2:55:29 If you want to bring back information again, I don’t see any harm in that. Does anybody have any objections to him getting the information together to bring it back before we look at trademarking anything? No objections. No objections.

2:55:43 Sweet. All right. Thank you, madam chair, for my opportunity.

2:55:50 No worries, Miss Jenkins. You. I’m going to go ahead and ask if you would like to pick up where you left off in regards to your discussion topic.

2:55:56 Yeah, I just. I just can’t be quiet about the hypocrisy that happens up here. And when we make comments about people in the audience, we don’t have the guts to sit here and take it ourselves.

2:56:06 It’s just hypocritical and it’s disrespectful comments. Like, I’m gonna do that at his job. Does he even have a job? Yes.

2:56:39 People can hear you, board members. It’s just ridiculous. Own it.

2:56:52 Man up. Take it. You know, I’m gonna reiterate the fact that there is an opt out form and I’m pretty confident that no one up here has filled one out themselves.

2:57:04 And I’m pretty confident that no one who advocates to get books removed from schools or challenges them has filled one out themselves. Because again, I asked and I haven’t had that, but I just want to remind people that the first 40 books that were challenged, that person doesn’t even live here anymore, nor did they fill out a form to stop their child from reading those books. We had ten to 15 people come here and read at a podium to get books banned immediately who don’t live here, nor have they filled out a form because they don’t live here.

2:57:25 And so it’s frustrating to me that we pretend to care about wasting time, but that’s literally what we’re doing. So practice what you preach. If you’re worried about these books yourselves, fill up the form.

2:57:45 Practice what you preach. If you’re worried that it’s going to take too long and we’ve got to ban a list of 300 books all in one sitting, limit your children from reading them right away. Don’t wait for the process to go through.

2:57:53 And I hear when you say it’s not one person making this decision, but ultimately it’s three people making the decision for 70,000 students and families across this district. Again, it’s just frustrating to me, and I’m not going to have this conversation every single time a book comes up here. The one thing I respect is that I think it’s ridiculous we took the votes away from the committee.

2:58:05 I appreciate you honoring those people’s votes from the last time. And this time I’m not judging you for voting this book down because your committee members had to do that, because I ultimately believe that they should have been the ones having the vote in the first place, which, again, is my argument as to why I don’t even understand why it’s coming to us. It’s, again, a waste of time.

2:58:18 It’s creating a platform for people to come here and get angry and protest. It’s just silly. The whole thing is silly.

2:58:22 But just stop the hypocrisy. If you believe in something and you believe that so strongly, then stay here, say it and take it. Stop the combating with people and the audience.

2:58:44 Take it and move on. All right. Any other further questions? I think there was a, I think there was an accusation that, I don’t know, I heard.

2:58:53 Man up. Take it. Practice what you preach.

2:59:08 All these kind of grandstanding type things, not governing. But what it basically comes down to is I was accused of getting up to leave during somebody’s speech, which you can hear out in the courtyard, you can hear out in the everywhere else. I think it’s disrespectful to assume and to make accusations prior to just asking.

2:59:23 Once you say, hey, mister, Susan, why did you go, I don’t have a problem. I grabbed Bernard Bryant out in the hallway, and here’s what I did. I said, you know what? I’ve been doing a lot of research lately.

2:59:46 And I said, listen to me. I said, one of the problems we have is we don’t have enough affluence, african american teachers. And I literally told him, I said, why is that, Bernard? And can you help me? He said, you know what? He said, one of the things we don’t do as a district is we don’t go into the schools.

2:59:55 The historically black colleges create a relationship, and they know that we’re there. I said, well, what about the other schools that have African Americans in them, too? And he says, we could do a better job. I said, well, would you do me a favor on that aspect? Work with me to go to the historically black colleges and others.

3:00:28 I will drive there with you to try to attract african american teachers, and I’ll tell you why. Desmond Blackburn was a teacher here years ago or a superintendent here years ago, and one of the things he kept saying to the NAACP and others is, he’s like, you’re right. There is a lot of statistics that show that if you have african american teachers and african american schools, it’s definitely a positive.

3:00:39 So what I felt like. But he kept saying to them, we need applicants. So what I was doing was engaging with Bernard Bryant on how to successfully do that.

3:00:54 I also had the conversation with him wrapped around going into these communities and talking to some of the leaders in the communities about becoming teachers, because we have a lot of people that may not have a degree or maybe close to a degree or maybe working in somewhere else that may not know the opportunity. But I think after listening to Miss Diaz, there’s a rally cry to help out our endeavors, our ups, our creels, and all of these. Why don’t we go get, try to get more applicants in hispanic communities, in african american communities, and stuff like that? And it’s in line with what I said when we brought Pruitt on.

3:00:56 I was going to meet with him in January to do so. So that’s literally, I saw him leaving with my schedule and everybody else’s. It’s difficult to have a face to face comment like that, and that’s the reason that I went out there.

3:01:02 Not because I couldn’t man up, not because I couldn’t take it, not because I needed to practice what I preached, because I was trying to identify a specific problem that we had with one of our community leaders to make sure that we could solve it. And that’s why I did it. So, just so you know, ask me before you start making accusations.

3:01:17 Miss Jenkins. Thank you. Thank you, Mister Susan.

3:01:22 Mister Trent. All right. Well, I did not think I would have to defend my bladder.

3:01:39 However, Matt, I can attest he was talking to Mister Bryant out there. I myself, at my advanced age, I could not wait any longer to go to the restroom. I waited till after the students were done and just picked a relevant time.

3:01:50 Sorry, just had to go and do that. But you had a much better reason to leave than I did. I needed to get to him.

3:02:07 So I am going to take this time for a brief moment. I am going to talk about some of the things that came up during public comment. And when it involves kids, I get a little emotional behind that.

3:02:18 And here’s why. First of all, I’m going to talk about the books in general. You know, we publish just in the United States, 600,000 to a million books every single year get published in the United States.

3:02:39 If you take self published books, we’re close to 4 million books. In no universe do we, we have that many books available to our children inside our libraries. There’s many books that are not in our libraries that we’re not allowed in the libraries.

3:02:48 They’re just not looked at on probably all types of topics. So the amount of books that are actually under review is so small. Okay.

3:03:02 So these students, the handful that were out here, I am so happy they’re being involved. It’s better than sitting around, you know, playing video games, most likely, you know, I like them to be involved, but they need to be informed. I had a student up here that said, why now? Well, there’s state statute that’s involved now and we’re responsible for it.

3:03:10 So that’s something that we need, we can’t, we can’t ignore. That’s why we formed a committee. It didn’t go in my favor.

3:03:26 Right, the last three times or three books. And I was hoping that when it does go a different way, we would think the same about it. That it’s a committee, that’s the policy now, and that’s what we’re going to go with and that’s what we’re doing.

3:03:39 I’m not for sitting up here and reading books or excerpts out of these books. It’s not planned if that’s what you think we want. We don’t want that.

3:03:48 So I did take a few notes, and I’m sorry, I’m going to go through a few here. But again, when the students come, get up here and talk, you know, facts matter. You know, we talk about gaslighting, but we also talk about using, using students and as parents and teachers.

3:03:52 When I was in the classroom, the biggest thing I would tell my students is I’m not here to tell you how to think. I’m here to help you learn or what to think. I’m not going to tell you what to think, but how to think.

3:04:16 I want you to learn on your own. I want you to question authority and these students out here, please ask questions. I don’t think any of us were approached by.

3:04:28 Didn’t get one email. They didn’t get one email. Did not get approached.

3:04:39 Think about it. When we have a student up here saying we’re banning history books, that’s disturbing. I would join together with anybody out there that if we’re banning a book based on what we don’t like about the history or about their lifestyle, and we have a student here thinking that that’s the case, and I’m not giving them that information.

3:04:56 So hopefully it’s not the teachers, but they’re getting it somehow, and that’s wrong. Question, question and question. That’s what I’m going to get back to these students.

3:05:07 And if you’re watching, you know, please do that. Reach out, talk to the district, see what books that we’re actually talking about and why. I don’t think you need a sexually explicit book to do a research paper.

3:05:35 Those aren’t the topics I was asked to write a research paper on in school. So that’s important. But it’s very important that these students continue to ask questions, because, again, I would rather them be part of the process, and then maybe they can do the research right there.

3:05:43 We take a lot of heat from the podium, three of us, four of us, claiming that we’re political. Okay. You know, to get elected, any office, it’s political.

3:05:47 But once you’re in that office, in that position, you’re doing what’s best for, in this case, students in the district. If it’s not political, on your, on the other end, where are all the tv cameras? Why did they leave after the clickbait videos are gone? Where did the people in the audience go and not ask us questions? How come we were not approached by the tv cameras out there. Only the ones who wanted clickbait.

3:05:55 Have a conversation. You can’t keep going with this narrative when it’s one sided. Have the conversation.

3:06:03 I’d love to have that conversation. Have no problem with that whatsoever. Sorry.

3:06:12 When I hear students talk about age relevant, I hear, I agree with you, but it’s age appropriate. That’s what I hear. And that is our job.

3:06:20 We’re the ones responsible for that. Community groups. It’s obviously two sides out there.

3:06:36 You guys have a lot more in common than you have apart, and we have one get up here to talk about. Hey, books are just one part of this. There’s a lot.

3:06:42 Student achievement is huge, and then they get mocked for the rest of the evening. I hope you feel good about yourselves. We need to do better.

3:06:50 Name calling is not the answer. I think that’s about it. I think I had one.

3:07:08 Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. It’s pretty amazing. It’s only 830.

3:07:17 Yeah, that’s right. That was earlier. Again, dialogue is very important. I wish more of you groups would get together and say, what are we going to do about student achievement and not be mocked? All right. If we’re going to talk about what we’re putting on the table for the committees, at least be honest about it. I just hope we take something from this and go forward. On that note, I have to say that volunteer fingerprinting is still free through the end of the year. All right. I don’t have any other further discussions or report. Doctor Rendell, do you have anything to report? No, madam chair, I do not. All right, seeing there’s no further business, this meeting is adjourned.