Updates on the Fight for Quality Public Education in Brevard County, FL
0:00 Good morning and welcome to the April 2nd, 2024 Board Work Session. It is now in order. Paul, roll call, please. Ms. Wright. Here. Mr. Trent. Here. Ms. Jenkins. Here. Ms. Campbell. Here. Mr. Susan. Mr. Susan, are you with us still? I am. I’m here. Okay. Thank you. We will stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, please. Pledge of Allegiance.
4:13 Welcome back board we were off for spring break so we’re kicking off our first first time together with the work session our first topic that we’re gonna have is the open gate presentation dr. Rindell would you like to introduce yeah thank you madam chair in just a few minutes we’re gonna see a presentation get a presentation on the open gate um, weapons detection system For the audience and for the people watching media This is an information gathering event today This is a security tool.
4:42 We’re always looking to at ways we can improve the safety and security of our buildings for our Students and our staff. So we’re just doing some information gathering today. We’re going to get this presentation and if the board wants us to pursue this type of thing, then we would You know, probably look at some other systems, cost it out and that kind of thing, but we’re not making a commitment to buying any of these systems today.
5:07 Um, the headline does not need to read Brevard Public Schools buying metal detectors or, you know, we’re gathering information today and, um, we’re excited to, to learn about this tool. Um, we’ve heard about it from other districts that do use it, so, um, not just in Florida but around the country. So, again, it’s a safety and security tool.
5:28 And we’re always looking to improve safety and security at our school. So looking forward to getting this information, but no commitments today. So no headlines today about buying metal detectors and all that kind of thing, but possibly down the road, but we’ll see. So I’m going to turn it over to our chief of operations, Rashad Wilson, and he’s going to introduce our presenters.
5:48 Good morning, madam chair, board members, and Dr. Rendell. This morning we have with us Chris Olseman and Dave Childs from Communications Technology. Chris Olseman is the Regional Account Manager for K 12 Security and Communications. And Dave Childs is the Vice President of Sales. Communication Technologies are experts in concealed weapons detection, video surveillance, and access control.
6:20 They are here to demonstrate OpenGate, as previously mentioned by Dr. Rundell, a weapons detection system designed for the automatic screening of people in transit, including backpacks for the detection of mass casualty metal threats, such as high caliber assault weapons and IED devices. Without further ado, Chris Olsen and Dave Childs.
6:52 Madam Chair, Dr. Rendell, members of the board, and Mr. Wilson, thank you very much for this opportunity. We appreciate it. Um, we do this, uh, quite frequently and we’re excited to be here because, uh, you know, I think you’re, you guys are in very good company, uh, considering this and, uh, hopefully moving forward.
7:08 We’d love the opportunity, uh, to help out in any way. So, uh, we’ll, uh, go through a few slides here. Uh, we have, uh, uh, this basic agenda, and we also brought the unit here to, uh, show you, obviously, in person. Uh, we’ll touch on, uh, who the manufacturer is, CHEA, and who we are. We’ll talk about, uh, the OpenGate itself, obviously, how it works.
7:31 Uh, we will discuss who is using these, uh, around the state and the country. Uh, we’ll bring up a few videos of other schools and how these are being, uh, used, so you can, uh, see that for yourself. Uh, we’ll talk about the best, uh, open gate to student ratio, when you’re thinking about how many of these, you know, do we need in particular scenarios, uh, detection standards, which is, uh, important, you know, um, uh, these are the standards that, uh, the Secret Service and the TSA use as well, um, and we’ll talk about what you’re actually detecting, and then we can also mention the, uh, the pricing and, and discuss the training as well.
8:10 So this is a brief video I like to play just to give you a quick overview.
8:30 So you can see they’re just walking through. That’s the difference. You’re not stopping, you’re not emptying your pockets. It’s looking for weapons. It knows the difference between keys and a cell phone and a pistol. They’re lightweight, they’re made to be portable, they’re weatherproof. Now this guy could have played linebacker with Mr.
8:50 Wilson, but don’t let that fool you. These are only 25 pounds per tower. Freeze and super flexible. And these will be ready to set up in a minute or so, depending on where you wanna set ‘em. Nuisance alarms are very low. That’s why a lot of the districts in Florida are going this direction. These are run on a, uh, secure app, which we will, uh, talk about.
9:19 Here. You can see things like the battery, uh, power, which battery is draining or empty. signal strength, and you can change the, uh, settings and the tone and the sound kind of like your ring ring tone on your cell phone.
9:43 All right. And then to give you an idea of the throughput and part of the reason these were designed by CHEA. Okay.
10:00 This is an amusement park in Southern California, and these are all kids. They’ve got backpacks. They’ve got, Who knows what in those backpacks? But this is looking for weapons. If someone does alarm, he simply asked them to step across to the side for secondary screening, and he’s a traffic cop. Just keep coming.
10:17 Keep coming. So relative to a football game, this is, you know, you’re looking at 2000 people per hour that you can get through these. So for a football game or a morning arrival, the throughput is significant, and it’s there. And That’s the feedback we’re getting, uh, in the K 12 sector too, a lot of success with that feedback, with the throughput.
10:40 Alright, ChEA. Who is ChEA? It’s, it looks like SIA, but it’s pronounced ChEA. It’s an Italian company. They are, uh, experts at detection. They’ve been in the detection business for more than 50 years. They’ve got security and transportation detection, uh, ground search, military applications, and industrial, uh, applications as well.
11:01 See if I can just, oh, I hit the wrong one. Let’s do that. I’m trying to figure out the best way to advance these slides. Uh, these guys are based in Italy and everything’s made in Italy and then shipped over here. Uh, they’re a very, very large corporation. They’re experts at this, and it’s part of the reason we, uh, partnered with them to deliver these to the K 12 sector.
11:25 Um, TSA is their largest customer. And, uh, they’re exclusively contracted with the Secret Service and have been since about 1987. So, um, their, their pedigree, their capability, their technology is, is the top. And, uh, and that’s why it’s important, uh, for the K 12 sector to, to know that and to, uh, benefit from that.
11:47 Uh, Dave and I are with, uh, CTI, Communications Technologies, um, National K 12, uh, Open Gate, and Chia Vendors. Um. And we’ve, we’ve been in the K 12 sector for a long time. We had a lot of, uh, school districts coming to us saying, Hey, you know, we’ve got video surveillance, we’ve got the access control, but there’s got to be something else out there to help keep these weapons out of the schools.
12:09 And we started investigating the industry, um, three or four years ago to figure out the playing field and who’s out there. Um, and obviously what we’ll talk about today are the reasons why we went with CHEA and the OpenGate.
12:26 Alright, the open gate. Dave, you want to go fire it up? Talk just a little bit about the technology part. He’s going to get you a
12:51 microphone since we’re recording it. There we go.
13:00 Test, test. So, essentially, you’re using over 300 detection zones, which is basically collecting the data as the metal passes through so it can tell the difference between a hardened steel, like a slide of a handgun, or a blade of a, like a tactical knife. So Essentially, the setup is less than two minutes.
13:18 You space it around 34 to 35 inches apart. It doesn’t have to be precise. And as Chris mentioned, it does run off of batteries. And it’s not your, it’s not a proprietary battery. So it’s your standard Milwaukee battery. The same battery you can purchase at Home Depot, Lowe’s, Amazon, which a lot of districts will do.
13:38 So they’ll go out and purchase spares so they always have a charger and some spare batteries on hand. However, it only runs off of one at a time, but you’ll see at the base of the tower, there’s two slots. So essentially you could put two batteries in each tower, but it only runs off of one. So once that battery depletes, it’ll automatically fail over to that secondary battery.
13:59 But you don’t have to have your app up to see if you’re missing a battery, if it’s depleted. What you’re going to see, because we’re only going to run it off of one, is there’ll be a flashing light at the top of the tower, that visually you’ll know if It needs to be replaced or, or another one inserted.
14:15 But with all four batteries, you’re going to get up to 14 hours of run time. So that’s powering it on in the morning, getting all the students through in 15 20 minutes, powering it down, moving it off to the side, or, you know, for a football game, you know, power it on an hour before the football game starts, keep it up throughout the entire game, power it down, move it off to the side.
14:35 But as Chris mentioned, they’re only 25 pounds, so they’re extremely portable. So whether you’re having it at the entrance of. You know, a school in the morning or whether you want to move it to an auditorium for a basketball game or we have districts that are putting them outside of the lunchroom as the kids are passing back and forth because what we’re constantly doing is screening for those types of, of potential threats.
14:55 So as far as the setup again, I’ve got it probably about 34, 35 inches apart,
15:04 I insert my battery, power it on.
15:14 So what’s happening now is it’s basically pulling the attributes. When we set the detectors up, we’re setting, you know, the volume level. We’re setting the tone. You’re going to hear a tone today, but there’s, I think, up to 40 different tones. And then the duration of the tone, right? So how long you want that alert to play when an object is detected as it passes through.
15:35 So that’s what it’s doing now. So about 45 seconds. It will actually self calibrate and it will idle at green. Now we’re good to go. That’s as easy as it is to set it up. You know, so as far as moving it around, whatever the scenario may be when you’re, whether it’s a, you know, see something, say something, and you’re having to react to that to where now you’re going to have some type of random scenario, that’s as quick as it is to set it up.
16:01 And that’s a good point, Dave. And that’s a, a, uh, Significant reason or a, you know, a great benefit of using these, and that’s why K 12 has really gotten into these, is that, uh, that random capability that, uh, see something, say something, you get a tip, and you can dispatch, uh, a security team and empty out a classroom.
16:23 Uh, you can set these up in the hall, and you can take care of those random threats. Uh, the feedback we’re getting, the stories we’re getting from school districts is that when these are used in those random settings. Uh, there is a significant amount of either paraphernalia or other items being discovered or being discarded by the students, uh, because they see these and they know, uh, something’s coming.
16:45 I’ll give you an example. Lee County Schools, they, uh, they did a full deployment, uh, they’ve covered all their schools right now. And on the initial deployment, they had, uh, probably 30 schools. Excuse me. Uh, they had a social media threat at one of the other high schools, um, that had not been deployed yet.
17:07 So, uh, Dave Newland down there said, all right, we’re going to grab a few of these from one of the schools that has them, transport them over to the school that had the threat. They set them up at the bus drop off that morning. And when they sit, when the buses came up, he said, Chris, all the windows came down and paraphernalia started coming, getting thrown out of the buses.
17:27 It was crazy. And he said. That’s what we want. That’s what we want. And you have another story, I think, similar to that. Um, I don’t know if it’s the one you’re thinking, but I had a scenario to where a district had a student walk through, the detector went off, which now you’ve got probable cause, now they’re taking him off to secondary screening, and he had an item in his bag that actually, it was a nuisance alarm.
17:49 I think it might have been a hardened steel eyeglass case, but they found a large amount of drugs. Um, I think it So, based on the fact that it was a nuisance alarm, so it didn’t capture a weapon, but it captured, obviously, something that wasn’t supposed to be in the district as well. So, but, as you’ve seen in the video and as Chris has been talking, you can pass through with cell phones, keys, jewelry.
18:10 You don’t have to divest. Um, there’s multiple settings, which we’re getting ready to show you. Yeah, I’ll, uh, I’ll show this video real quick. And this shows an individual, uh, walking through with a lot of things on his person and a, uh, pistol, subcompact. And we’ll just show this real quick here. If it plays, there we go.
18:34 And this is good to see because obviously we don’t have a pistol with us here today. Well, we have one. Oh, we got, we got some, we got some firearms. But also, since this is being recorded, it will benefit some folks.
18:51 Alright, so he’s going to take his, uh, Glock off. And these are, uh, good both ways, both directions. Which is also nice.
19:05 Alright, now he’s going to empty his pockets. Wait a minute. Hang on.
19:31 He’s got a lot of depth, a lot of depth, a lot of cell phones. All right, so none of that alarmed. This is where you’ll see it work in both directions as well, because he puts it back in his waistband.
20:00 Any questions on that? Okay. Great. Um, one of the other items that you can get with the open gate, and a lot of districts do this for football games or um, even outside drop offs, which obviously we’re going to have here in Florida, um, we’ve got base plates, uh, to help stabilize the unit, uh, if it’s windy outside and these towers start to move, you will get an interruption in that field.
20:25 And they will alarm. So we want to keep ‘em stable and steady and we wanna keep that from happening. Um, and then along with the base plate, you can put sandbags on the base as well to even help stabilize it even further. Um, alright. The secure app, uh, Dave touched on that We’re talking about, uh, operational status.
20:43 You can monitor the batteries, uh, check the signal strength. Um. Um, change the detection settings, we’ll get into that. It will show you on the app the distance those pillars are apart from one another, so you can either, uh, you know, use a piece of string, which, you know, some districts do, but it will tell you on the app.
21:03 And then, uh, as far as, uh, being able to access this, you’ll have a, uh, super user, and that super user will then dictate what users, uh, have access to, uh, which units and what type of access they have. So, if we have a security team at Viera High School over here, uh, you know, you guys can say, alright, this is the, uh, you know, the lead, I guess, user, and this person would have access to everything, but then the folks that work for that individual, they would only have access to maybe two things.
21:33 Alright, so we can, we can limit that down to specific, uh, serial numbers of the units and the locations that these are located in. So, there’s no, uh, shenanigans going on.
21:45 Alright, so the applications, um, for K 12, we’re talking about school entrances, in the mornings, football games, random checks, gymnasiums for a long weekend tournament, special events, graduations, and the ever popular school board meetings.
22:03 And then, obviously, you know, we’re wondering who else is using these, how popular are these, Uh, this is Florida, um, and a lot of our neighbors here in the area, uh, either have the OpenGate already or are actively evaluating them and seeking funding right now. So there’s about, um, it’s close to 25 now I think, um, but you can see the districts on the left there that, that have the OpenGate already.
22:29 Uh, not all the districts are using them the same way. Some of them are using them at, at every school for morning drop offs. Uh, and then moving them around as needed and then also for sporting events and weekend special events. Some districts are simply saying we just want these right now for sporting events and special events and then we’ve got them on hand if there’s a threat and we can move them around as needed, which is great.
22:57 So it just depends on, you know, how, you know, it depends on how you want to approach it basically. But it gives you that flexibility. This is a video and this is kind of best practice for notifying your community, notifying your student body about this new program, what’s coming. This is done by Lee County Schools just on the other side of the state here.
23:22 This is a really nice video. Let’s watch this.
23:30 This video will inform students and visitors about the school district’s new weapons detection system, OpenGate, and how it works. OpenGate is designed for the automatic screening of people with backpacks and bags for threat detection. It will also identify other contraband items that are not allowed on school property.
23:50 OpenGate screening is fast and automatic, requires no removal of backpacks, bags, or purses, and it’s designed for easy walk through flow. Students, when you arrive on campus, you should have your Chromebook out and ready to hand to a staff member before walking through. Retrieve your belongings and continue on to your destination.
24:12 However, if the light at the top of the pillars turns red, a staff member will pull you into the search area and perform a search of your person and backpack or any other bags you may have on you. If a weapon or a contraband is found, law enforcement will be notified. Reminder, all students and all visitors to campus during regular school hours will be required to enter through the open gate detection system and are subject to search.
24:40 Your safety while at school is our top priority. We thank you for your patience and understanding as we implement this new security system. So that’s a very nice video, very well done. Any questions on that? I think the first thing that obviously stands out is the laptops and the Chromebooks, right? So laptops and Chromebooks, uh, divesting those around the open gate, it is the same throughout the industry.
25:08 It’s the same with any unit out there. It has to do with how Chromebooks and laptops are made. They’ve got a very strong metal hinge and that metal is very hard and it gives a signature that’s very similar to an edge weapon. So, the OpenGate and everything else out there sees that and says, hey, you know, this could be a weapon.
25:28 So, the workaround is, uh, there’s a couple of ways. You can do the pass around method, uh, which I’ll show you a little video of. And then there’s another method, there’s, schools are having students actually hold the, uh, the laptop up above their head as they walk through. So, this is a, uh, and I’ll just kind of.
25:48 set this up a little bit here. This is a school district in Pennsylvania. Um, they’re actually using these in a random nature. So they’re moving these around the high school in the middle school in the elementary on a random schedule. They’re setting up, they move these things in, they set up the stanchions and everything.
26:05 And this was a bus drop off of a middle school. Um, randomly, they were, let me think here, 600 students got off the buses and they got them through these open gates in eight minutes. So, it works and what they’re finding in all the feedback we’re getting is that when districts set these up, uh, the first week you’re gonna see a little bit of fluctuation, uh, a little choppiness and then everyone figures out, oh, I need to have my laptop out and ready.
26:36 Oh, and, and all the staff that are manning these, everything gets, uh, smooth and the operation really gets clean and, uh, by the time. That first week is over. Everybody’s getting into class, smooth as silk and and the speeds really, really pick up. So let’s watch this. I’ll play it a couple of times. It’s short.
26:57 And that’s day one after the training, Chris. Well, this is after this is different. So there’s another secondary screening station over there off to the side. So There’s a couple things in the video here to mention. So this school decided to staff it with a couple of administrators per tower. They’re handing over the laptops, they’re passing them around, they’re saying hi to the students, good morning, how you doing, how’d you do on that test, hey I saw you at the game the other day, good job.
27:26 They’re interacting with the students and there’s a lot of good feedback from that. And that’s something that we didn’t initially anticipate, but that’s something that we’re We’re getting consistent feedback on, uh, if, if they decide to do it this way. Um, the other thing is that secondary screening off to the side over here.
27:44 So the students are coming through, they’re passing everything around. If someone does alarm, you simply ask them, hey, head over there and see Mr. Jones at the secondary screening. They set their bag on that table. You can see it off on the left. He has the student walk through that particular open gate there.
28:03 When it does not alarm, he knows to focus on the bag. There’s something in the bag. Now if that student walks through that and does alarm at the secondary screening, then you know you have a threat item on that student’s person, and then you take those appropriate steps in your standard operating procedure there.
28:21 Okay, and this is a, uh, news story out of Indianapolis. I’ll spare you the first bit, but this shows you the other method districts are using to have students get through, uh, with the laptops. We’ll get this. The new weapon detectors that students must walk through now before they go to class. These detectors are calibrated so that students don’t have to empty their pockets or bags.
28:47 The open gate system alerts to sharp mental objects. and metals used in guns. As of last friday, all 2400 school must walk through when they arrive every morning. I feel like it definitely makes us a lot safer and it like gives me like makes me feel safer like coming into L. N. Like as a school because I feel like I don’t really have to worry this test block with metals like a weapon was put in this to demonstrate how the detectors work.
29:15 I think it is a positive stuff that says to our kids And our community that we take safety seriously. Those weapon detectors are now in place at not just the high schools, but also the middle schools in Lawrence Township. So that every student, grades 7 through 12, is now screened when they arrive at school every day.
29:36 The school district spent 350, 000 to buy the detectors. In Indianapolis, Rich Nye, 13 News. And here’s a, uh, school. This is a bus drop off over, again, Lee County. We, we were over there to help them with the deployment. So, you know, we got a lot of stuff with them. But, um, just another example. Outdoor setting.
29:58 Uh, Portable set them up. There’s a couple of these units at the bus drop off. Uh, you can see the staffing. There’s secondary screening in the background. And, they’re just doing the pass around method. This was the second morning that these students had ever walked through. So, uh, Davis said since then things have, uh, smoothed out, uh, significantly and everyone’s getting to, getting through there, like, super fast.
30:21 And then you’ve got an administrator over here on the right, the guy in the green shirt. He’s just kind of floating around, watching everything. At the high schools you’re going to have SROs, uh, kind of in the background watching everything as well. Oops. Let’s see.
30:37 Okay. And this is a, uh, football game, just another, uh, this is a kind of a demo we did at a football game. So these folks have never been through this. Football games tend to be a little different. This guy’s got a, he’s got a stadium chair. He walks through. Of course, that’s all metal and that, that went off.
30:56 So, gotta ask him to go back through, but it’s, it’s a slightly different beast because you’re dealing with a lot of adults. You know, everybody’s got blankets and big bags and you’ve got folks coming into your campus from a different community. So, you want to use a different setting, um, and we’ll talk about that here in a minute.
31:16 And then here is a professional.
31:22 So again, it’s just trying to get the people through. Come on through. If you alarm, step aside. So, you get the point. But these are all over the place. Alright, uh, the best ratio, um, you know, the question comes up, how many, how many of these do we need? For morning arrivals, the best ratio they found is about 300 students to one open gate.
31:41 Uh, here’s a couple of examples. This university high school, 1, 300 students. 1, 300 students. They’ve got five open gates, they’ve got four at a main entrance, and one at a banned entrance. Uh, day one, thirty minutes to get the students in the building, uh, but since then they’re averaging about fifteen minutes to get the students in.
31:58 And this other, Morgantown’s a bigger high school, uh, six open gates, so they’ve got the two entrances, three open gates at each. Some of the students were five minutes late on the first day, but since then, they’re getting that many students in, in twelve to fifteen minutes.
32:16 Alright, let’s talk about detection standards. So the National Institute for Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice, uh, they determine uh, detection standards that are used uh, by TSA, Secret Service, federal buildings, etc. And that is uh, the level two detection standard. And Dave, do you have that? Yeah. Great.
32:37 So that’s a test piece. And, uh, they alluded to that in that news story, but, uh, that has components inside of it that simulate a subcompact and full size, uh, pistol. And so you basically want that through, uh, the open gate to, just to make sure it’s detecting what it’s supposed to be detecting. And you can do that every few days or every week.
32:58 Um, and we recommend one per campus. We don’t need one every single open gate. All right. And. As far as what you’re trying to detect, now, CHEA is the only company out there that leverages these international, uh, standards for their settings. And that’s important. Uh, these are the same detection standards that, again, the White House uses, the federal buildings, the Pentagon, all the military bases, and the TSA.
33:27 You want that to work. You want that standard. You don’t want something else that does not meet that standard. So these settings can easily be changed, like we said, on the app, and you can adjust the sensitivity within each of those as well. Um, again, these are the current NILACJ standards for compact and large frame handguns and larger weapons than that as well.
33:50 Uh, so, uh, the Glock 43 or the Glock 19, something similar to that, and then larger pistols, rifles. Uh, shotguns, even, uh, weapon parts, if, uh, they’re trying to break down weapons and sneak them in in different bags, it’ll find that, uh, and tactical knives, and we’re talking about knives that are designed for killing, so, uh, the Ka Bar knife, um, which is, um, Very well known, the K Bar, I think the Marines have that, but larger knives like that will be detected.
34:22 So, uh, on these typical settings that the high, that the uh, school districts use, um, you’re looking at 90%, 98 percent of handguns ever commercially made, uh, for football games and morning arrivals. That’s what you’re, you’re detecting. There’s other settings that we have that we go through in training, which are much more sensitive.
34:42 Thank you. And when you employ those settings, and sometimes districts will use those at alternative schools, uh, or random checks, for example. So those settings get very sensitive. And you can increase the sensitivity so it’s more like a metal detector, a traditional detector. And, um, that’s, that’s typically what they’re using at these, um, uh, random checks.
35:07 Because then you’re able to find these smaller threat items, these smaller knives, the pocket knives. Uh, even those tiny, uh, one shot Derringer pistols, you’ll be able to pick those up as well as other paraphernalia. All right, we’ve got a few videos here, uh, which we can show you, uh, how some of this is working.
35:29 Let’s see. Boy, these are a little touchy here. It seems like you’ve got to click on it twice.
35:43 Hm. That
35:47 one’s wanted to work and then it stopped. It stopped.
35:54 Well, Dave, do you want to adjust the setting to, uh, walk through the different, we’ve got at least the test piece, then we can walk through the knives. So basically the setting that I have it on now, you can walk through cell phones, keys, jewelry. Sorry. Um, the setting I have it on now, you can walk through with cell phone, keys, jewelry, you don’t have to divest anything out of your pockets or purses, um, it’s just right now it’s looking for firearms and large tactical knives.
36:24 So, as Chris was saying, this right here is simulating the metal signature of a slide of a large frame handgun and a compact handgun. So if I go through So,
36:54 multiple cell phones, car keys,
37:03 a test piece, and again, in either direction,
37:18 it could be at the top, the middle,
37:31 Yeah, you want to show the more sensitive setting. And then So again, that’s the setting we had it on. But for that particular setting, we’re not looking for smaller threats. Because one of the things that we emphasize is when you increase the sensitivity, you will increase your nuisance slumps. Because now you’re comparing the metal signature of a smaller, smaller threat.
37:54 So what I’m going to do now is I’m going to put it on
38:02 a higher sensitivity.
38:09 Then it’s just recalibrating. And once you change the sensitivity, it’s recalibrating.
38:30 A little box cutter.
38:37 Again, high setting pickup apparatus, but not that you all would ever need to do that. But just the versatility of the sensitivity based off of the threat item that you’re looking at. Yeah. Thank you, Vanna White. Yeah, I don’t know why these aren’t working, but, But this video in particular right here, this one’s, you know, you’ve got a pistol and he breaks it down, okay?
39:03 And he walks through the slide, picks up the slide, walks through the grip, which is all polymer. It does not go off because it’s, you know, that’s how pistols are made now. A lot of it’s plastic, all right? But those key components, uh, will be detected. And this is kind of that same video with the, uh, sliding the piece across the floor, which we already saw.
39:25 So nuisance alarms. What are they? This is what we’ve seen. This is what you can expect. Glass cases is a big one. They’re very hardened metal. You’d be surprised, but those will set it off. Eso football games particular. Everybody’s coming through the purses and, you know, there’s a lot of those out there, so don’t be surprised.
39:45 But over time, you start to realize, Hey, you know, is this, uh, Have you got a glass case? Yeah? Okay. And then you search a little bit more. Just make sure it’s nothing else. But you can narrow it down. Binoculars. We’ve seen those. Umbrellas. Obviously, those are, uh, those are going to do it. Especially if they’re, you know, compressed down like that.
40:01 Uh, in a school setting though, you’re going to, you know, if, if little Joey comes through with, with an umbrella and it’s not raining, say, hey, you know what, either pass that across to me next time with the laptop or if it’s not raining, just don’t bring it because you don’t need it. Okay. And kids will figure that out.
40:17 Uh, we’ve also seen stacked soup cans set this off, and when you unstack them, it does not. Because in that stacked signature, it could be a pipe bomb, for instance, so. And then here is a, uh, a K bar next to the spine of one of those large three ring binders. Uh, and, uh, Che has addressed the three ring binder.
40:39 Uh, there’s been a lot of talk about those, setting, setting these things off, but, but, and, uh. The OpenGate can tell the difference between a three ring binder and a K bar knife. Another question you will get is whether or not this is safe for medical devices and people. And it is, and it’s lab tested and certified.
40:59 Everything that CHEA makes for humans, uh, is safe for those medical devices and people. Okay, and we’ll have documentation. Uh, that we, we give as well. Um, fabric covers, uh, obviously you’re looking at this and they do not always come, uh, green with fluorescent yellow H, uh, with Central Warriors plastered all over it.
41:23 Uh, but these are fabric covers that you can have designed for each school. It just, it’s a great way to add to the look and to. De emphasize what it is. And really I think when you put these on there for each particular school, I mean it’s, what a great, what a great way to dress it up for a K 12 environment.
41:44 I think, I don’t think a lot of people say enough about that and the impact on mental health. Um, it just, it’s a nice touch. Um, the playing field, that’s what I call this, and the price. So, on the right. We’ve got traditional metal detectors. Those are going to fall in that price range, but we’re trying to get away from that.
42:09 We want the throughput. We don’t want that stigma. We don’t want the long lines. So the open gate is 17, 765 and that’s a capital purchase. It’s one time. There’s no ongoing fees. There’s no contracts. Nothing like that, which is the feedback we get is great. That’s what we want. Uh, as you move further to the left, you can see, um, what I, out on the far left, I call that La La Land.
42:38 Um, that’s our competitor and, um, you’re looking at a couple hundred thousand dollars for four year subscription. And when that’s over, you gotta pony up again and you don’t own it. So, uh, it’s pretty stark contrast and when you factor in the pedigree. The technology, the detection standards, which that other competitor does not follow, uh, the lightweight, the portability, the flexibility, uh, that’s why you’re seeing so many districts in Florida and around the country go with the OpenGate when you go head to head.
43:19 Um, so, I’ve got a, kind of a price, pricing and options list, I can share this with Mr. Wilson, I think I have in the past. But, uh, you know, very transparent. I mean, this is pretty much it. This is all you’re going to need. Just a few, uh, basic items, shipping, no recurring fees. There’s a two year warranty included with the open gate.
43:43 Uh, and then the other nice thing is, uh, Milwaukee, the batteries that come with this, they give you the warranty pass through. So these come with a three year warranty on the batteries and a five year warranty on the charger. And then the training is one time on site. And that’s 2, 500 and we come here, we spend the night.
44:06 Uh, it’s a couple of, it’s two or three hours on the afternoon of day one. Where we, kind of a classroom setting, training, getting everyone, uh, informed. You know, the, the team that’s gonna, you know, uh, man these and employ, deploy these. Uh, getting them up to speed on the technology, how it works. Thanks. And the best practices of setting these up, what locations, how to deal with laptops and secondary screenings.
44:32 And then day two, the next morning we come back and we train that, uh, the staff there in a live environment with students. And this is meant to be a train the trainer evolution, so we want that real time training so we’re not just shipping these to you and say, here’s a video online, go watch this and hopefully you’re trained in doing this right.
44:54 There’s, there’s too much at stake, right? So we want to do this right, and get you trained. Dave, anything else, uh, No, I just was gonna see if we could open it up for any questions or if anybody would like to come down and walk through. Thank you guys so much. We appreciate you. Um, you guys have done such a thorough job.
45:16 I’m writing questions and as you’re presenting, I can check them off. I’m like, oh, that question just got answered, so thank you. Uh, board, I’ll turn it over to you. Does anybody have any specific questions that they would like to start off with? Ms. Jenkins has none. Ms. Campbell, did you have any? Yeah, mine mainly got checked off too, but I was thinking about the things that it catches and doesn’t catch, and the practicality of everyday drop off.
45:40 You know, um, what about instruments? Um, because that’s the world I move in. Are we stopping the trombone players every day as they walk through? Right. Because, you know, you could put something in a case, right, but is it going to catch something like that? So, uh, what we tell, uh, districts is walk through with the instruments.
46:00 Some will not set it off, surprisingly. Others will. But the reality is with those, the large containers that have the trombones and things in them, you’re probably going to have to. Have those students just go to secondary screening right off the bat because they’ve got to open up this thing and just check the space.
46:15 Make sure there’s nothing else in there. We’ve had some other districts where they actually have a cart and as they come through they stack the instruments on the cart. And then the cart’s taken into the band room where they’ll, they’ll go through the, the instrument cases. Right. That’s the only one that I have.
46:33 Yeah. Good question. Yeah. Yeah. Great presentation, guys. Thank you. But, uh, how about 3D printed guns? I can, I can touch on that. So, yeah, there’s, you know, we talk about 3D printed gun, and then we hear ghost guns. Um, obviously, ghost guns are, they’re real firearms. They just don’t have a serial number. Uh, 3D printed guns are essentially going, in order for an ammunition to fire, there’s an explosion that actually occurs.
47:01 So, in order for that to happen, there has to be some type of hardened steel slide. And as we, well, the video didn’t play, but I took that gun apart to where all I had was the slide of that firearm. It’s going to pick up on that slide. And typically 3D printed guns are a single shot. So if they do not have a hardened steel slide, it will explode.
47:22 So that, that bullet will not make it to its target or it’s just going to explode, you know, upon release. Good question. It is a good question. It’s something that even TSA has to deal with and struggle with. So it’s, it’s, it is a reality. Mr. Susan, are you still with us? Yes, I am, Madam Chair. And I’m, I’m good.
47:46 I’ve listened to the presentation and did a little bit of background checks while we were, while we were discussing it. So I am perfectly confident with, um, you know what I mean? The presentation and everything else. I’m good. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Uh, what about, what about Stanley cups or metal cups, do those trigger that?
48:03 So we’ve, we did a test where we probably took maybe 25 metal water bottles through, I think it hit on two, but you wanna test it? Sure. Yeah. Most of ‘em, most of ‘em don’t. But there’s, there’s a couple, like, I’m just curious on it if it’s gonna work or not. If it’s gonna set it off. Because it’s a common thing that a lot of our students in high school are carrying.
48:21 So, um, this one is some, we’re gonna set it off, some won’t. Yep. Let’s see. I mean, that is the easy thing to check. Alright. Alright, that one’s safe. Okay. Alright. Most of them. Yeah. Most of them. Alright, thank you. Alright. Um, I don’t, honestly, you guys covered every question that I had written down. You answered them with the presentation.
48:45 So, it was very, very thorough. I’ve talked to a couple people in other districts and they rave about the portability of these units being such a huge, huge asset. So, they can move them around. So maybe it’s not something that you put in at every single location, but there might be times when it warrants, hey, we need this there for a particular reason.
49:01 One of the things and one of the reasons that I asked Mr. Wilson to, hey, get them here and let’s present this is, I was a little alarmed when I went over and watched the county commission meeting to walk through metal detectors. I thought, wow, that’s really bizarre. And I’m like, why don’t we have metal detectors?
49:13 In brevard county at our schools or even at our school board meetings being a government facility Um, so I really really really appreciate you guys taking the time to present this to us I think it’s a great safety measure. I think it’s something that would make parents feel safer with their kids knowing Hey, they’re passing through them And even as that one student got up there and said hey I feel safer knowing that everyone’s coming through here and they’re checking to make sure that there are no weapons on Any of these students so I really really appreciate the good work that you guys are doing I’m looking forward to this conversation expanding.
49:41 I think it’s something that this board would be smart to Consider in the future, um, maybe not looking at going all in on every single school. Cause I think that’s gonna be very hard to do, I think logistically speaking. Uh, but I think it’s a conversation that we need to continue to have and explore, uh, the possibility of looking at contracting with you guys to, to implement some of these.
49:59 So. softer roundel, do you have anything else that you would like to add? No, I think, uh, if the board wanted to pursue this, we would look at the other districts that are using these in the state of Florida to see how they rolled it out, to what level, you know, like was said in the presentation, some of the districts have them at some schools, not all schools, some districts use them, you know, periodically they rotate them around and that kind of thing.
50:26 Cause to put one at every gate or every entrance at every one of our schools, that would be very costly and also require a lot of manpower. So we have to look at that. But it seems to be a very effective tool and like I said earlier, you know, we need to make sure that we’re availing ourselves of any tool that we can to make sure our students and staff are safe.
50:49 Agreed. Yes. For Paul, um, as far as I know today it’s just a presentation. But as far as when we start making decisions on You have asking questions about how we’ll use them. Those, that would be something that would qualify for a shade meeting. Is that correct? If you’re just deploying them everywhere, you’re going to want it broadcast anyway, so I don’t think you would do it.
51:13 I mean, if you just have a couple that you’re doing at football games, I think you would be fine. Um, and random searches are always fine. So, I don’t know that you would need a shade session. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Alright, thank you guys so much. We really appreciate you guys looking forward to this conversation expanding.
51:29 Right. Thank you. We appreciate you having us out. Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you. We’ll give you a couple minutes to clear out the detectors and get ready for the next presenter. Okay.
51:45 Are we taking a recess? Well, I guess. Yeah.
58:29 Thank you. We are now on to the next topic on our agenda, which is the board update for the social studies instructional materials adoption. Ms. Harris. Good morning. This is probably our most, uh, brief conversation we’ve had, uh, since I moved into this position, but this is more for informational, um, purposes.
58:46 We just wanted the board to be aware. That we went through our 30 day timeline. So after board approval, we have a window of 30 days where, um, residents or parents can object to the adoption, uh, so we did not receive any appeals or objections during that window. So there’s no need for the board to hold a public hearing and we will move forward with ordering those materials.
59:08 So we just wanted you to know what next step in our process will be. Any questions? I don’t have any. Thank you for the wonderful update. Okay. Thank you. Any questions board members? No, I don’t hear anything. You always wonder how things are going out and, you know, timeline of the people who are making them.
59:26 Do we think that we’ll, they’ll be able to procure them in a timely fashion and have them before school starts? We, we do. Um, what we will be doing is we did some amendments of ESSER funding and so we’ll be able to move forward with some of the purchases now and then we’re waiting on another ESSER amendment, um, to make the remaining purchases.
59:45 So our goal is to by the end of April have, have, um, Ordered everything and then we’ve been guaranteed that if we order by that timeline, we should be able to receive them in July so that we have them. Fantastic. And by the way, no shipping issues or any of those barriers we’ve had in previous years.
1:00:01 Right, right. Good, good. Thank you. And, um, I think, thank you for diving into, I had that conversation with Dr. Rendell yesterday about the use of ESSER funds. Thank you for doing that so we get, you know, the most bang for our buck and, uh, because instructional materials are very expensive and we never get enough funding for what we have to pay for.
1:00:16 So, thank you. Thank you. Madam Chair, if I could just add a comment. I want to thank the members of the. Committee that reviewed all the instructional materials. The reason there were no objections is because we involve our community in the beginning. Whenever we’re looking to, you know, purchase new instructional materials, textbooks really is what we’re talking about.
1:00:37 Um, when we do have to do a textbook series, a subject like math, social studies in this case, um, the public is part of the selection process. Um, you know, different stakeholders are on the review committee, so they all had input. Okay. They reviewed the materials, they made selections, recommendations, that kind of thing.
1:00:55 So, I feel like the fact that we haven’t had any objections or concerns raised by the community is because the community was already involved in the process, so. But I want to thank everybody who took the time to be on that committee because it is, uh, voluntary. There’s no pay involved. And so, you know, it looks like we’ve selected some good instructional materials, so just need to go buy them.
1:01:15 Yes. Thank you. Good work. Good work to all involved. All right. And our last topic for today is the Supervisor of Elections Presentation, so I’m very excited about this. Mr. Tim Bobonik is here to present. I think you have a slideshow. Is that right? Or a PowerPoint? Yes, I do. Thank you. Let me just bring it up here.
1:01:30 And, and Tim is so tall, we need to show him how to raise the, um, This is as high as it goes. Is it? No, it’ll go up. I think it’ll go a little higher. We, we got you covered. We got, we got something. Russ has got you. Well thank you very much for the opportunity to come out here. Are we good? Oh, look at this.
1:01:46 Yeah. Fancy. This is what I’m talking about. I bet nobody else needs to have that done, right? Well, thank you guys very much for letting me come out here today. My name is Tim Bobanek. I am the Brevard County Supervisor of Elections, and I’m very excited to discuss a proposal that I have, and I’ve discussed, uh, discussed this with some of the board members and Dr.
1:02:07 Rendell. And, uh, the genesis of this, uh, is, really was from, uh, Um, school board member, uh, Susan and I have spoken many times in prior years about what we can do to engage, uh, the high school students to get out and vote and get registered to vote. And this year, going into this presidential year, I wanted to do something a little bit different and I wanted to create a joint supervisor of elections and school board program and we’re calling it Your Vote is Your Voice.
1:02:37 And, it’s an active, uh, campaign to get students out. And get them registered to vote or pre registered to vote. In Florida, if you’re 16 or 17, you can pre register to vote, and then as soon as you turn 18, my office will activate your voter registration, you’ll get a voter information card in the mail, and then you’ll be eligible to vote in that next election after your 18th birthday.
1:03:00 So, I’m gonna This is all done in kind of cooperation with Florida statute 98 255, which mandates voter education programs. The Department of State adopts rules with minimum standards for nonpartisan voter education and rule Florida administrative rule 1 s dash dash 2 dot 033 mandates that the supervisor of elections must conduct voter registration drives at least once a year in each public high school in the county.
1:03:27 Okay, now they don’t specify school year or calendar year. Uh, so I don’t believe in doing something by the bare minimum. We’ve already done a voter registration drive in fall, but I would like to do one before school gets out this year. That’s the most important thing to me here. And the reason for that, let me first, let me get into some statistics here.
1:03:46 I pulled the data for the 2022 and 2020 general elections, and I’m, I apologize if this is kind of small. And then the 2022 primary and 2020 primary election. And you will notice here that while the age group of 18 to 25 has decent registration numbers, and it can always improve, the turnout is the worst of the turnout that we have of all of the age brackets.
1:04:11 The only exception to that is the 2020 general. We had a slight uptick versus the 26 to 30 age bracket. But in every other one, you will see they are lower or at least tied with the lowest bracket. You know, that really bothers me because you have a lot of kids who have very strong opinions about the direction our country is going, how they feel about our elected officials, and the old adage, well, you can’t complain if you don’t vote.
1:04:35 You know, we really want to drive a point home to them that whoever your candidate is, whatever your party affiliation is, or no party affiliation, we just want you to register to get out and vote and participate, uh, and let’s get that percentage and let’s get that number up.
1:04:52 So the first step on doing that is engagement with the young people to get them registered. And what really made me think about this is when we are finishing the school year, um, this, uh, this coming May, uh, when the students are on summer break, they’re not going to be paying attention to this. And when they come back to school in the fall, it’s going to be too late to register to vote and to be eligible for the August primary election.
1:05:17 Uh, because that deadline is 29 days before August 20th, and school gets in session after that point. So, the goal is to get them registered now, in this last, uh, month or two of the school session so that they don’t have to worry about it in the summer. We’re not going to have any interaction with them like we will, and we get them kind of like a going way, especially the seniors, before they graduate, let’s make sure everybody’s registered to vote, let’s make sure everybody’s participating.
1:05:44 Um, the next, and then after that, we got to get them to show up at the polls. Hence the name, Your Vote is Your Voice. We really want to drive home, if you want to have a voice in how this country is run, if you want a voice in how local politics in the county, then your vote is your voice. And we want to remind students that the best way to affect change is to become involved in the process.
1:06:05 Whatever issues matter to them, there’s a level of government that impacts it, and an elected official who creates laws or rules that impact it. It’s around that issue. So when visiting the high schools, we would plan on registering students to vote and we would provide the digital we would provide a digital generation way to register online by using a QR code.
1:06:27 So we developed a palm card here because let’s face it, all the kids are digital. Now, you know, you give them a piece of paper to have them fill out something, they’re going to take it home. They’re gonna stuff it in their backpacks. They’re gonna throw it away, But they all know how to use a QR code. And so we will have these printed out, and if the, we will have the paper applications, we’ll try to get as many registered, and it will be my staff that will be going out to all 16 of the high schools, uh, the public high schools, to do the voter registration.
1:06:53 So we, we already created this, it has my logo on it, it has the Brevard County School Board logo, because this is a joint venture between the two of us. I think that’s what’s really important to get out there is that this is not a partisan group. This is not any third party group. This is the supervisor of elections in the school board trying to get students registered to vote.
1:07:11 By scanning this QR code, it takes them to the Florida online voter registration system. Now you do have to have a driver’s license or state ID card to use the online voter registration system. However, if you don’t, the system will then prompt them to print a paper application, which they can still fill out and mail in.
1:07:30 Uh, by having my office at the locations for the high schools, you don’t have to worry about third party voter registration organizations who have a lot of accountability for making sure that, uh, all the forms are filled out correctly, that they’re turned in on time, there are steep fines and penalties.
1:07:46 This is my office, my staff, and literally these two ladies here behind me, my communications director and my outreach coordinator here, uh, will be spearheading this, uh, under, under my name here. Um, The other thing that we want to do is we want to promote our vote in honor of a veteran program. This is a program that I started, uh, right after I was appointed, and it showcases the veterans in Brevard County.
1:08:08 Every month we highlight a Brevard veteran, we talk about their history, we ask them why is voting important, and we hope that by sharing the stories of the veterans, it inspires younger people to come out and vote to honor the sacrifices that the men and women of our military and armed services. It’s, you know, sacrifice to make sure they have that right to vote.
1:08:28 And so, stressing the impact that their vote on issues, they really need to vote on the issues that matter to them. So, this is a timeline here that we’ve created and between April 10th and May 17th is when we will have our voter registration drives in the high schools. And then we have, we don’t want to do anything that interferes with any of the BPS exams, obviously we’re very cognizant of that.
1:08:52 The last day of school is May 24th for the students. And if you look here, the book closing deadline, that registration deadline is July 22nd. But the kids don’t come back to school until August 12th. So we want to make sure we get them registered so they can participate in that August primary election.
1:09:10 Which is on August 20th. And then obviously everybody will be eligible for the November 5th election, which is our biggest one. It’s our presidential election. Uh, but we want to get more kids involved. I’m trying to do everything I can. You know, we average overall county wide between 25 and 30 percent in primary elections.
1:09:26 Well, as you all know, school board is one of the races that appears in those primary elections. And so we want to boost that participation in all elections, not just, you know, general elections when the president or the governor is on the ballot.
1:09:40 And with that, I just, I want to thank you for your time. My team and I, we look forward to our productive partnership that successfully reaches the maximum number of students so that we can motivate their engagement in this electoral process. And, uh, with that, I’m more than happy to answer any questions that the board might have.
1:09:56 Thank you so much. We really appreciate you. Board, do you have questions? Ms. Jenkins? Um, I don’t really have a question. I just, well, I guess I do. Uh, first, I have a statement. Um, Thank you for being here today and presenting it just clear and concise and as neutral as possible. Um, for the past three and a half years I’ve been trying to have this conversation and it’s been stonewalled for multiple reasons, but also just because it’s difficult because we are in a very divisive, politically dynamic, uh, community and just nationally.
1:10:27 Um, so getting those third parties in always is a scary controversy for people to take over. So, um, I appreciate you being here. Um, I do want to highlight the Supervisor Elections itself is technically a partisan office. Um, but I am confident, uh, that our Supervisor Elections, at least for the past couple years that I’ve been an active engaged voter, um, is as nonpartisan as I, I believe it can possibly be.
1:10:54 So I appreciate that and I appreciate you being here. Um, and I hope, I hope we take this on and we do engage our students more. Um, I guess I do have a question. So, what, I haven’t been to any of our schools when these are happening. So, what does that look like? You know, if they are using a QR code and they’re sitting down and they’re, and they’re registering, you’re not really having that one on one engagement because you don’t want to influence their decision and their registration.
1:11:15 Is it, are they coming in a room? Like, could we make it happen quicker where they just come in a room and they do the QR code type thing? Or, is that not allowed? The way we’ve done it in the past, the way I envision it, is to have a, we will have a table set up with our staff, and we will have laptops, we will have, uh, paper applications, but we’ll also have these.
1:11:31 Cause you got the students that are gonna come by, they’re too busy, they need to get to another class, or they need to get something done. We’d like to really do this in more of a, of a, uh, an assembly type of format where they all can come in and they can get the information here, whatever format works best.
1:11:46 And every high school is a little bit different on how their schedules run and the layout of the schools and so forth. So we would work directly with the principals of each of the high schools to determine how that works best. And Dr. Rendell obviously as well. And, and the board staff, so, you know, for us, it’s just trying to get them all.
1:12:02 This isn’t, I want to do more than just, we’re just sitting in a hallway as people walk by, hey, do you want to register? Hey, do you want to register? I’d like to do this more, but we bring everybody in. You know, similar, one of the events that I’m very, very dear to is the Tied Together event that we’ve been doing in the high schools, where we bring people in and we sit them down.
1:12:18 I’d like to do that, because then we have an opportunity not only to register the voters, but talk to them about why voting is important. And how, you know, how to vote. A lot of these kids, they’ve, you know, they’ve never voted before. So what do they need to do? How do they, how do they, do they want to mail ballot?
1:12:31 Do they want to early vote? Do they want to go on election day? You know, so we want to educate them on the three methods of voting, what the requirements are and things like that. So I appreciate that. That’s kind of what I was getting at is I don’t really, it wouldn’t be great to be sitting in a hallway just passing out papers, throw it in the trash.
1:12:45 Um, and also like you talked about the education piece, it’s important. Sorry, there’s like mosquitoes everywhere up here. Um, the education piece about how they can vote, um, especially how certain legislation has changed, mail ballots disappear if you’re not using them, you have to register every year. So, um, lots of important information for them to know.
1:13:02 And then they can bring it home to their parents.
1:13:07 I’ve been out like crazy trying to educate all voters across the county with, there’s been a lot of recent legislation. That’s changed a lot of voters have gone inactive. The mail ballot requests were all wiped out at the end. Yeah. Let me, let me rephrase that. I didn’t mean literally disappear. There’s no conspiracy I meant go inactive.
1:13:27 I do strive to operate, I do very much strive to operate my office in a very nonpartisan manner, but I do appreciate you bringing it up Miss Jane. Thank you, Ms. Jenkins. Ms. Campbell. Yes, so thank you, uh, Mr. Bobanek for coming and for taking the initiative to do this in this very important year and for recognizing August as an important election for, for our organization because that is when school board, um, elections happen.
1:13:51 Reminding everybody, school board elections happen in August. Um, so I have, so, I was not as familiar with, like, they could register when they’re 16, pre register. Um, I think until my oldest got her, got her driver’s license, right? And so when you go in, but, And those numbers, those 18 to 25 numbers have always been low.
1:14:12 But I’m wondering how much they’re impacted in that over the last 8 to 10 years, a lot of students are not going out and giving their driver’s license. And we’ve noticed that, yes. Right. So, so if, so if a student comes, when you go out to the schools, I’m assuming you’re going to put something that says 16 and up, so it’s, it’s, it’s, It’s, everybody knows it’s not just the seniors that can do it.
1:14:30 Yeah. So it would be 16 and up. And if they don’t have a driver’s license, they can still use the last four digits of their social security number to register to vote as well. Okay. So they don’t already have to have the state ID to register. That makes it easier. If they have that, then they can do it online and there’s no paper whatsoever.
1:14:45 And the signature that goes on file for their voter record will be whatever’s on their driver’s license or state ID card. But we’ve seen the same thing. I’ve, you know, I’ve seen it. Kids are these days. I mean, when we were 16, that’s all we could think about was getting our driver’s right. And I’m shocked that kids these days are not an 18 year olds who still don’t have it.
1:15:02 I know a few, but motor voter still continues to be the number one source of voter registrations for All the supervisors across the state because they’re presented that when they go to Lisa Cullen’s office and the tax collectors who handles our DMV transactions, they are all presented with the opportunity to register to vote as well or update their registration.
1:15:20 Yeah, which I think is really smart to do because when they turn 18, they get that reminder. Oh yeah, I’m a voter now. Um, so thank you for doing that. Can you give us a little more information about the Vote in Honor of a Veteran program? Will that be like a social media campaign or? It’s something that we’ve done.
1:15:33 We just like to mention it. So every month, again, we highlight the veterans of the month. They’re on my website and they’re also in the lobbies of the TVs in our four offices. And we just, and our, and our social media pages to where we just, we just highlight their service and their history. And again, I’m a big pro veteran, uh, you know, person.
1:15:50 That’s why I created the program. But a number of other counties, supervisors across the state have done this. And just with our large veteran population, people don’t realize we have a significantly larger veteran population than any other county in the state. So I want to make sure we’re highlighting those and honoring those veterans as much as possible.
1:16:06 I appreciate that. Um, so do you anticipate then this, this will be like a two time a year thing now or I’d like to do two times a year. What I’d like to do is fall and spring. You know, so when they come back in school, let’s make sure that they’re ready for the November elections. We get it in time, and then we also hit them at the end of the school year before they go on summer break.
1:16:23 I, again, I’m not about doing the bare minimum. I, I would really like to expand this to twice a year. I like that. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Trent. Thanks again for coming, and, uh, your vision is, is brilliant. Perfect for this situation. All thumbs up. You guys asked all the pertinent questions.
1:16:44 And, uh, I look forward to, uh, seeing this in our schools. I appreciate it. I appreciate your support. Mr. Susan, are you still there? Yeah, I am. So thank you so much, um, Tim, for coming in. A little bit of past history. In 2006 at Space Coast, we created the Space Coast Institute of Politics. And what we did was we registered the students To vote there, and they actually, um, had a mass vote where they had all voted in what ended up happening is, is that, uh, County Commissioner Robin Fisher, um, I think the only one is election by like 200 and something votes and over 300 kids voted at Space Coast, and he was the only candidate to show up and actually talk to them and stuff like that.
1:17:23 So this has been a passion of mine for a while. Board members, you know that this has come up a couple of times in 2000 and 20. When we tried to make this thing happen, um, what ended up happening is, is that we pulled all of the student data and handed it over to the supervisor of elections. They crossed it to who had already registered.
1:17:43 That way we were able to provide each school a list of the students that were available for the target. And the reason to do that is that what many people aren’t understanding is that most of our students are actually dual enrolled. And they’re not on campus as much and they don’t go as much to the cafeterias and the areas that you may target.
1:18:01 So having the students have a list of individuals that may need to register to vote or working some sort of a system where our schools do it to notify the parents is going to be the most effective way to do it. Um, getting in there and actually saying, Hey, this is a great program. You know, register yourself to vote.
1:18:16 It’s great. But if you want the true numbers on registrations and drive true, Um, support. That’s the way that you have to do it. You have to identify him. Tim, are you able to give us once they register, are you able to give us the fact that they did register? Um, just like you do for the other votes or how does that work?
1:18:33 I know that there’s some sort of restrictions to pre 18 year olds. Can you give us some of that information? So, uh, Florida law prohibits the release of any voter registration information for pre registered voters who are 16 or 17. But as soon as they turn 18, they are on the active voter rolls and that is public registration.
1:18:49 So that would be available to you. Okay, so say for instance, um, a kid pre registers at 16 years old, we would not be able to find out until the day that they turn 18 for the registration. That’s when it would kick in. Is that correct? That is correct, yes. Because of the Florida law. Okay, so we wouldn’t know probably until two weeks out from the election.
1:19:10 What kind of numbers we have as far as driving this support, because we really wouldn’t be able to, you know what I mean, know until, you know, probably two weeks is what you would see. Okay. All right. Hey, man, I really appreciate you. We’ve, we’ve gone around and tried to do this before. Um, and I really appreciate you taking it on as a, as an initiative.
1:19:27 Um, I’m going to try to use some communications that we can utilize through the school district to support your effort, um, to try to drive some of those kids that, you know, Don’t show up because they’re dual enrolled are on different, you know work programs and stuff like that So that we can make sure we’re there.
1:19:43 So I truly appreciate it. Thanks for coming over I appreciate it madam chair for you setting this up. This is a big thing You know, it’s one of the cornerstones to what we do Um in our education system is make sure that these kids know how to vote. I appreciate you. Thank you Thank you, and I just I wanted to add one comment if it’s okay, um, mr Susan’s comment, you know, um Uh, one of the things I hear all the time is from the younger kids about why they don’t vote is like, well, my one vote really doesn’t matter or what’s what’s one vote going to make a difference?
1:20:10 Well, I’ve been doing elections for 15 years. I’ve overseen 31 elections and I’ve had two of them with an exact tie. I had one of them in my time when I was in Hillsborough County elections office and I had one here in Brevard County. Uh, the one here in Brevard County was a referendum for the town of Malabar.
1:20:26 It was an exact tie. When we did the recounts, it still came out to an exact tie. And so, per their charter, it had to have a majority vote for that referendum to pass. Majority vote is 50 percent plus one vote. It was 50 50, so the referendum failed because one person didn’t vote yes or, you know, or no. Uh, the other example was a candidate race that I had in Hillsborough County.
1:20:51 And we had an exact tie we did the recounts. It was still an exact tie and for candidate races the This florida statute says you do a game of chance That actually says that in the statute and so we did a coin toss and the winner for that community development district seat Was that what came down to a coin toss and again, so don’t ever tell me that one vote Doesn’t make a difference because I can assure you I can give you two examples where it actually did Oh, wow, this was that was amazing It’s very educational.
1:21:18 I did not know that you guys could potentially have to flip a coin in order for something to be signed. Flip a coin, roll dice, draw straws. I have a special silver dollar coin on my desk just, just ready to go for any, any incident like that. Just in case. Just in case. We’ll pray you don’t have to use it.
1:21:32 Yeah, let’s, let’s. Let’s turn out the voters and then you won’t have to use it. I think this is a really, really important initiative. I think a lot of our students do feel like they’re removed from this ability to vote or make a difference or have a voice when it comes to these things. Sometimes they’re just not informed on the topic.
1:21:45 Um, so I’m really excited in my mind I think what would be a really cool way to kick this off because really we’re targeting our high schools obviously is if we were to couple this with our vote in honor of a veteran and Look at our school leaders to say hey, can you tell me can you identify one veteran within the community here of your school?
1:22:04 That would will be willing to come alongside us and let’s go in and have an assembly type meeting Conversation with the students, have the veteran speak, right? Because I think that’s very, very impactful. I love that. Um, and then again, it, it, that speaks volumes. I think a student will look at a veteran that has served their country and some of them given the ultimate sacrifice.
1:22:21 Um, and I think it would be very hard for them to say, oh, it doesn’t matter to vote. And I, and a veteran will drive that message home like no other. I believe that wholeheartedly. So I’m looking forward to this. Tim, you have my utmost support with this. I will come alongside you at any of the schools. So you are welcome to invite the board.
1:22:36 I would challenge board members. Let’s go to these schools. Let’s be a part of this. We would love to have the board members standing side by side. If you want to visit the high schools in your district, we will certainly once we get the schedule and we coordinate with the principals, I think it’s a great idea to be standing next to each school board members for those.
1:22:51 Absolutely. Well, I’m very, very excited. I’m excited to see how this changes things and moves the needle a little bit, and, you know, get some more people out for the, uh, the primaries specifically, because that is very discouraging, I think, for a lot of candidates, specifically us speaking, when we campaign.
1:23:04 You’re only getting, you know, 10 percent of the voters out. You’re going, oh man, that’s a lot. Like guys, these issues matter. So very, very excited, looking forward to working alongside you and figuring out how we can turn out the vote for our student population. So thank you, Tim. Really appreciate you. Dr.
1:23:19 Rendell, do you have anything else you’d like to add to this? I do not. You do not. Okay. All right. Thank you. Um, is there, at this point, I don’t think there’s any other further business that we have adjourned. Madam Chair. Oh, Mr. Susan. Okay. I forgot, there’s the voice in the ceiling. Uh, yes, go ahead. And I apologize for that.
1:23:36 Um, we had a red flag that kind of came out dealing with the permission slips from some of our military. Um, we had our, some of our, um, we have an organization that comes in from, I think it was the Army. Um, and Dr. Rendell got the same email, I think. Basically requesting to that they were starting that their permissions were being requested for them to show You know what?
1:23:58 I mean the military careers and stuff like that I don’t know if they officially did the right process as far as organization as far as setting up with the principal and stuff Like that, but what I would like to do is the board We had also moved before with ja And tied together. I think that the military should follow that So I didn’t know if you guys wanted to think about it and have dr Reach out to you But I would, I would think that the military should not have to have permission slips to give a, uh, you know what I mean, a presentation.
1:24:25 So, um, just something I wanted to put on your radar. I’m going to ask Dr. Riddell to reach out to you guys to get your thoughts and, you know what I mean, move forward with allowing them to be a part of the J a and the, um, and the tied together groups. That’s all. So, I, Mr. Susan, yeah, Mr. Susan, um, that letter, we, we got that letter and I actually sent it straight to the DOE, um, but also talked to Dr.
1:24:49 Rendell about it, but I think that letter, it’s my understanding from hearing from different people, was it was actually sent to school districts across the state, whether or not it actually had happened, so I think Dr. Rendell had already handled, yeah, it’s not the same letter, it’s a whole different situation.
1:25:04 There’s, right now, they have presentations that they’re getting blocked. From providing to the students at, um, Space Coast, COCO, and I think one other school. And they’re, they kind of, and, and, to be honest with everybody on the call, I’m not sure if they did the proper process of setting it up. You know what I mean?
1:25:19 Contacting the principal and all that stuff. But the inhibiting factor that they have is that they’re being told that they have permission slips. So, just wanted to make sure it was on everybody’s radar. Just have Dr. Liddell look at it, and then reach out appropriately to make sure that they’re not being inhibited.
1:25:33 That’s all. That’s it. Thank you, Mr. Susan. Madam Chair, I just want to clarify a little bit. So, the letter that was referenced was one, from one branch of service, you know, claiming that they didn’t have as much access as they would like, partly because of the permission slips, really because of the permission slips.
1:25:55 And then, the, The, the, the, the request or the issue that Mr. Susan is talking about was a different branch of service who has set up some demonstrations this week at our high schools. But the high schools were still requiring permission slips because that was our direction at this point. So, I think what Mr.
1:26:11 Susan is asking is, do we want to add the military to the list of district approved present, presenters, so it’s an opt out permission, not a permission slip required to participate. So I think that’s what he’s indicating. Yeah. That’s it, Dr. Rendell. And the reason that this did not, uh, Madam Chair, I apologize about it taking, you know, being coming like this, but it literally was sent to us late yesterday in an email, and I did not have the appropriate time to, you know what I mean, forward it to you as part of the discussion.
1:26:45 But it’s something that I think they have two more, um, that they’re trying to get to. So if you guys are willing to kind of voice your, your support to take at it, or if you would like to have discussions with Dr. Rendell, whatever you guys feel. Thank you, Mr. Susan. Board, I’ll let you weigh in on this conversation.
1:27:04 I’m fine with that. And I think when it comes down to this state, um, with the DOE providing guidance in the future, I think that’s probably going to be something that they Give their approval to as well. All right. Yeah, I, um, as long as it’s just treated exactly the same as there’s notification. ‘cause I don’t, I don’t know what this is.
1:27:24 If it, if it’s recruitment, what is, what is it for? Um, as long as there’s notification to parents, I, I’m the last one who wants permission slips all over the place. Okay, Mr. Trent. All right. I feel the same. Uh, can we go ahead and just further expand that to notification for this joint venture with the supervisor of elections?
1:27:40 This is a different issue, uh, but it’s. Similar because we are going to have a veteran there. So can we go ahead and have that discussion board? Are you comfortable with notification? I can’t hear anything. I don’t my microphone muted. I apologize. Sorry All right um It sounds like you have consensus when it comes to any kind of military venture that this board is obviously in support of the military And wants to do whatever we can there.
1:27:59 Uh, i’m asking can we go ahead? This is a different topic But board are you comfortable with us doing the same type of notification process when it comes to? You And then we have a student body supervisor of elections working in conjunction with the school board to go in and try to educate our students on registering to vote.
1:28:14 And waiving the permission slip. So, I, just, just for clarification’s sake, I feel like we were in agreement already that any district wide event, we would send out a notification and not require permission slips. And I just, I feel like we should have that conversation as a board. If it’s a district wide event, I mean, it has to be notified.
1:28:33 Period. My recollection, my recollection of the guidance was those two specific JA and tied together. Because they were district approved, they were now going to be an opt in. Right. I mean, an opt out rather. Not a permission slip required. So, I can apply that to all district wide events, but that wasn’t, I don’t think that was the guidance I was given before.
1:28:58 I’ll give it, that would be my guidance. We were all in agreement that day, and we were, except for those two things, is what I remember. That is right. So, certainly, I think Supervisory of Elections, uh, Assemblies, you know, they’re, that’s something that’s, you know, required by law, not to do the Assembly, but to do the, um, the voter drive.
1:29:17 That education piece, I think, is important, so again, not something I think we would run afoul of state board guidelines, um, in those events, so I give a wholehearted thumbs up for that. But my, my preference would be towards any, to give that permission to any district wide event with good notification.
1:29:36 Yeah. Right. So still require the notification and an opt out. Right. Right. Right. I know, I know that’s an expansion of what you said, Ms. Wright, but I just feel like we should have that conversation, because if, first of all, if it’s happening across our district, we’re well aware of it. And, clearly, we would be in favor of it happening, right?
1:29:53 Um, so, to me, it would be a lot less work for our staff and for our administrators and for our teachers to deal with, and, quite frankly, our parents, who are getting papers every single day, um, if we just have that conversation now. I’m looking at Mr. Gibbs down there. Mr. Gibbs? He’s not making eye contact with anybody when we’re having this conversation.
1:30:10 Can you weigh in on this conversation, please, and just My interpretation’s been out there. If you’re going to go by what it’s written on the paper, then it says you need permission forms. Um, it comes down to how much risk the board wants to take on these things. If I may, I think, Yeah, if I may, I think Ms.
1:30:34 Campbell made a really good point. Um, these are, the two that are up for discussion right now are, you know what I mean, military preparedness and career readiness, which is inside of our curriculum. Um, Along with inside of our schools, along with the, um, citizenry of registering to vote and voting are two of the things that are cornerstones inside of our education system.
1:30:54 Some of the other things are great. Um, but, you know, for my purposes today would be to support both of those, have Dr. Rindell bring back, you know what I mean, a look at some of the other things, because I didn’t, I don’t feel comfortable blanketly saying all district, um, approved events and stuff like that, because with, it might get Paul some heartburn and it might bog down the two that we’re trying to get off the ground today.
1:31:16 Um, if I may just say, you know, if there’s consensus to get The supervisor of elections and the R. O. T. Or the military opportunities to visit our schools without the permission for us to think that’s appropriate. And then we review and have discussion about it at the next board meeting for the district wide events for the other ones.
1:31:33 Thank you, Mr. Susan. Um, I, I was the one who kind of sounded the alarm with this one, and said I was not comfortable saying 100 percent with the district wide approval, but I think there are instances when we are doing things that, that make sense, and, and go in line with a lot of our curriculum. And, um, so I, I tend to lean with you because I, Mr.
1:31:49 Susan, because I would like to research and talk to the DOE specifically in regards to this. I, I love the idea that there’s never anything that could possibly come across, but I think um, we need to be cautious. If the DOE is looking at updating this, this may be a non point in the very near future for us.
1:32:04 Um, I’m not sure if they are, but I would anticipate they’re probably hearing from multiple districts. But I think, you know, you have consensus, it sounds like, if I’m correct, Board, on moving forward with the supervisor of elections and the military, uh, coming in. Is that correct? Everyone is in agreement there?
1:32:18 Yes. It’s in the grants, and if Dr. Rendell can reach out to those schools that were under their impression for those presentations, and if they’ve gone through the appropriate process to have those presentations, it might be an opportunity for us to allow them to do so, too. So, thank you so much. I just want to put it out there, though, um, just to think about this for a second.
1:32:39 I don’t, I don’t understand the hesitation, because if it’s a district wide event It’s obviously curriculum based and some educational value. We would never be sponsoring a district wide event as Brevard Public Schools if it wasn’t. I don’t know anything that we do district wide that wouldn’t fall underneath that umbrella.
1:32:55 Um, so just, I’m still speaking. Let her go ahead and talk for finish, please. Um, so just, just think about that. Um, and if it’s something that we’re going to discuss in the future, uh, you know, Um, I don’t know if staff can think of something off the top of head to present to us that like would be a concern like, Hey, by the way, we do something like this.
1:33:12 That doesn’t really make sense to do that. That I would appreciate knowing about that because I just I don’t have knowledge of that. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Susan. Go ahead. No, I just, you know, I think the idea that we want to be able to, um, allow, you know, organizations that are part of our school systems and stuff like that.
1:33:31 But for me, it was just a blanketed dish wide event. Could be interpreted different ways and we just need to have our staff take a look at it for appropriate measure and then have them make a recommendation to us in the future. That’s all. That’s all I was saying. So thank you so much. Appreciate it.
1:33:44 Thank you, Mr. Susan. I am in agreement. I think that needs to come back honestly and just I would like to research with the D O before I say yes to a blanket statement on anything for district wide. But it sounds we have consensus for today. Moving forward, Supervisor of elections and military based. Uh, Functions that are happening, so, all right, hearing no, Madam Chair, sorry about bringing it at the last minute, I apologize.
1:34:03 It’s okay, no worries, all right, uh, hearing no other further business, this meeting is adjourned.