Updates on the Fight for Quality Public Education in Brevard County, FL
0:00 . I’m going to be using the
10:30 So, um,
31:00 outro music plays
34:18 Good morning, the April 16th, 2024 board work session is now in order. Paul, roll call, please. Miss Wright. Here. Mr. Trent. Here. Mr. Susan. Here. Miss Campbell. Here. Miss Jenkins. Will you please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands,
34:48 All right, so we have a relatively short agenda this morning, but one that I think will warrant quite a bit of conversation. So the first, uh, the first and only item on our agenda is the presentation data, uh, update for discipline. Ms. Dampierre, we’ll turn it over to you.
35:08 Good morning. Madam Chair, board members, and Mr., Dr. Rendell, we’re so pleased to provide a third quarter discipline data update, um, as we promise every quarter, we’re going to give you an update to see how we’re doing, so then we can problem solve if we see any areas that we need to make some concessions.
35:28 I have, um, Mr. Reed and Mrs. Cashion Schmidt here, both directors of the Institute of Student Services that will assist with the presentation. I’m going to, uh, really review the first couple of slides, which is the discipline organization structure, our survey data. As well as Mr. Reed will review the actual discipline data itself and Mrs.
35:54 Cashion Schmidt will review the Title IX and Boolean data. And at that time we ask that you ask questions at that time, uh, so we’re, we can really do the presentation in a timely manner and be able to allow for adequate time for that.
36:15 As we’ve stated throughout the year, the district’s discipline organizational structure is a, actually a two prong. There’s collaboration with the chief of schools division as well as student services. We’re working with the principals. The student services part of this, Uh, organizational is to provide PD processes, make sure our processes and procedures and policies are updated and we’ll provide training for that.
36:44 Um, and then we’re also looking at, uh, data and looking at trends and make sure that, um, what we put in place as far as referrals being completed within a 24 hour, uh, timeline that that’s being done with fidelity. And then there’s a collaboration with the chief of schools, uh, if that is not occurring, um.
37:03 Um, he, um, or she, uh, will make sure that there is, um, problem solving with the principals, working with the principals, because we know that the principals are responsible for the implementation of all of these processes, procedures, and any type of PD that they are provided. So, it’s really a collaboration, making sure it’s being done with fidelity, because that’s the main key.
37:27 Because you can provide training, but if it’s not being done with fidelity, then it’s very, very ineffective.
37:36 Some of the positive impacts from last time we said that Discipline referrals were being processed within the 24 hour timeline. We consistently meet that expectations. We continue with our monthly transportation meetings. We want to hit whatever concerns Uh, and provide training as well as to make those changes if there are changes that need to be made, uh, on a monthly basis.
38:03 So we’re not waiting until things really get, um, out of hand. And we also provided, uh, actually we collaborate with our BFT, and we have Mr. Colucci, um, here this morning, monthly to make sure that we problem solve any type of, um, uh, issues. questions or any issues that are occurring at the schools. Also, we also collaborate if there’s an issue with, you know, at a school, he’ll or his team will call me and call my team and we try to problem solve those concerns and actually make school visits.
38:36 So, it’s really collaborative. We want to make sure that we’re implementing with fidelity again. And we’re very pleased that we had our monthly, uh, actually it was quarterly district discipline work group, uh, meetings and we finished that in February and we brought to the board the code of student conduct for 24 25.
38:56 It will be on our, uh, board agenda for next Tuesday, April 23rd for us to move forward with that so we can get training started. Some feedback. We constantly want to make sure that we’re getting feedback so we can improve our practices and a lot of times We’ve talked to like the top layer. It’s very important to Get in input from those people who are on the you know Who are actually implemented and haven’t been responsible for the work.
39:28 So we sent out a survey to our Um Um, bus drivers in March, and this is, uh, these are the results that they sent back. We had 102 responses, um, overall, uh, our discipline referrals being processed faster than in the past. We had, uh, 89 percent agree with that. What we did before, it used to be where the bus drivers would take the referral and give it to an administrator.
39:55 That’s the first thing we heard when we had a meeting with the team in, I think it was July. And that was easy to fix. What we did was, uh, with some collaboration with the bus drivers, is their supervisors, instead of giving the referral to the school, And then, there’s questions about whether there was a timeline of getting it, uh, in a timely manner.
40:16 They give the referral to their supervisor, and the supervisor handles it from then, um, input it in the computer, and then the clock starts ticking for that 24 hour timeline. So that has really worked very well with the bus drivers. We consistently hear positive, uh, feedback about that process, so that was something new that we implemented.
40:37 Um, it says, what do I do if a referral disciplinary event on the bus? They know what to do. Uh, we went over, we provided two trainings, one in July, where we did a training. We actually went to their meeting in July and did answer questions and went over the new processes and procedures, as well as in September, we paid for bus drivers to come and do a two hour, uh, training.
40:59 Uh, training on de escalation strategies and they found that it was very, very helpful and we plan to do that again. We already have it. Um, we haven’t scheduled it yet, but we have funding source, a funding source to provide that training again in July, um, for our bus drivers to make sure that they, uh, everyone knows what the expectations are and that we’re all on the same page and then also training them what interventions and, uh, that they can, you know, implement on the bus to ensure that, uh, everyone’s safe.
41:29 Um, reporting incidents to my supervisor is a better process for turning in discipline referrals out of the 102 and we had 86 percent say yes. So very pleased with that.
41:43 It’s very important that we get administrator from our, uh, get feedback from our administrators. We provide monthly PD to our school based administrators. Every month we look at trend data, what is occurring, what type of questions are coming in, uh, to our office, um, looking at processes and procedures, if there are being implemented with Fidelity, then that determines some of the training that, um, we provide on a monthly basis.
42:07 And then also, uh, if There’s a concern or there is, uh, new training that we think that they need to, you know, uh, be provided. So with that, we had 153 responses out of, uh, about 200, 200 plus, uh, administrators. Discipline procedures are clearer than in the past. We had 85 percent agree with that. I’m able to understand the disciplinary rules and corrective strategies.
42:32 We did a lot of training on that 85 percent agreed on that Monthly training updates are adequate for ensuring that they you know are familiar with the policies and procedures. We had 87 percent for that Uh as well as I have when I have a question about the discipline processes and procedures They can reach someone at the district office Um, we Oh, sorry.
42:56 We had, uh, 94 percent, uh, say that, uh, they agree with that. And this was very important because this is going to help us with making sure, as we’re planning for next year, my teachers rely heavily on adult imposed corrective strategies such as detention, suspensions, and other consequences when responding to challenging behavior.
43:16 And, um, we’re going to be looking at data to determine what type of training that would also be, benefit our teachers as they start the school year as well, uh, as well as training our administrators. So, uh, we have a plan in place and, um, for training all of our stakeholders. So with that, I’m going to turn it over to Mr.
43:34 Reed and he is actually going to go over the discipline data. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thank you. We’re going to start off with our discipline referrals. This presentation should look very familiar to you. It’s been very consistent over the quarters. Um, so I will, I’ll begin with, again, total discipline referrals.
43:51 On the left, we can see that we had, uh, 72, 399 discipline referrals from the first day of school through the end of the third quarter. Uh, we’re a little over 10, 000 more compared to last year. Um, We’ve also been consistently sharing with you on the right side the number of students that have been receiving those office discipline referrals.
44:13 So when we look at those two bar graphs, we would say 18, 000, a little over 18, 000 students have received those 72, 000 referrals and we have that same data point for the, um, Next, we have the highest discipline codes, uh, that have the highest disciplinary infractions. On the left, we’ve got 2022 and on the right, we have 2324.
44:48 We can see some similarities, but we also again, just as last. Quarter we had some differences, right? So, with Willfull Disobedience and Out of Assigned Area are continuing to have that number one and number two position as they always have. But Tardy to Class is taking that number three spot where it used to live in that number five position.
45:08 Uh, classroom disruptions are now being utilized at the, at that number four spot where they were in the number three position before. So very, very similar. Um, some things that are different though, uh, as I said, I think the last time if we shine a light on something, we’re going to have more of it and we definitely shined a light on the electronic device misuse minor.
45:28 And so we can see that at six, a little over 6, 000 incidents this year where it didn’t even make the chart last year. Uh, to go along, um, with that, we also have physical aggression. Um, we’ve got pre K through 2 and 3 through 12 broken apart now. So we can see there’s roughly a little over 6, 000 of those incidents, where last year we had 4, 500 in that number 4 position.
45:54 Um, the other one that is new, uh, we, we’ve also then have, uh, horseplay and profane language, which did make, Uh, the chart before, but that bus transportation, uh, violation minor again, same thing. We provided, um, a bunch of bunch bus driver training. We provided new procedures for reporting referrals. And so we would have expected an uptick in that area again, making our top 10 chart.
46:24 There’s been some slight adjustments to, um, this, this chart from the last presentation. Um, this, this chart is designed to take those top five infractions. Again, that’s willful disobedience, out of assigned error, typing, class disruption and electronic misuse. It, we then broke it down by, um, demographics to see what what demographic is receiving the majority of those, those infractions.
46:51 So if we take a look at the, The graph, and we start at the bottom, the, the bottom, there’s a small B there, and that, that’s, that represents our black students. So in combination with the table, we can see there was 10, 000 willful disobedience, incidents of willful disobedience. The blue bar represents the 3, 739 that were given to our, our black or African American students.
47:15 Just above that represents the. Um, 4043 that were given to our white students. So I won’t go down the demographics of all, but you can see the various sizes of the bars for each ethnic group. What we did include this time is the pie chart at the top to kind of give you a baseline of what is the demographic makeup of the Brevard public school student population.
47:39 So 58 percent of our population is white, 16 percent of our population is. Is, um, black, African American, 10% multiracial, 13 Hispanic, and 3% Asian, making that up. So you can analyze that table now and or that, that, um, graph to see, um, the, where the majority of those are fractions are coming and the, the majority for each ethnic group.
48:10 Okay, just as with, um, incidents, we also have the top 10 for corrective actions. Again, very, very similar, um, again, a, a couple of things to notate is, is we did make some changes this year to suspensions. Um, so what, what’s not on the left is it just has the suspension data for days one through three. It doesn’t have, um, four through five.
48:31 It doesn’t have one through 10. So the data is a little off because we changed some coding, but we do see that the suspensions Transcribed by Which encompasses all of those this year is the number two position at 12, 303. Um, I would assume that that would be in the number two position last year as well if we added those other pieces.
48:49 So, very similar ebb and detention followed by suspension as being in the front running. Um, that conference piece is being more, more frequently used than in the past as well as the in school suspension as you can see. Lunch detention, if you remember, we created that and put that into place this year. So that’s a new corrective strategy that has been a popular use or an effective use, would be my hypothesis based on the amount of time that has been used.
49:18 The other one that’s an interesting data point that is on the chart is the number nine position. That confiscation of item device, again, we shined a light on the electronic misuse, so I’d expect that a confiscation of a device goes hand in hand with the appropriate corrective strategy there. So, I’m glad to see that that is getting logged and it’s in alignment with instance and corrective strategies.
49:45 This next slide represents, um, in school and out of school suspension data again through the end of the third quarter. Um, in school suspension, we’ve had a decrease, dropping from 9, 000 to 7, 200. Again, um, there’s lots of reasons that could happen but, What’s important to notate is not all of our schools do have in school suspension and that could be one of the reasons for that decrease.
50:08 In the in, in the out of school suspension, we can see that data has started to equalize more so, um, from last year to this year where in past presentations, it hasn’t been as, as equal. So you can see there’s a very small, um, gap in those numbers where in past presentations, the gap has been much larger.
50:33 Our next slide is our risk ratio and the slide is designed to, um, shine a light on each, uh, demographic to tell us if one is being overly suspended versus the others. Um, this data again is through the third quarter and it is focused solely on out of school suspension. We can see, um, with the data there that we have a slight decrease this year with the green bar representing 2324.
50:59 Uh, in our students with disabilities again encompassing all students except for gifted Our free and reduced lunch. We’ve had a slight uptick from two five to two six eight Our elo population is maintained very similar Our white um data has had a a slight drop Our multiracial data has had a slight drop.
51:22 Our Hispanic data has had a slight drop. Our black African American has had a slight increase, as well as our Asian and our American Indian and Alaskan Native.
51:36 We also have continuously shown you our, our Alternative Learning Center data. Uh, we have this year had, so the blue bar in the, I’ll start at the bottom of this graph. We’ve got, had, as of the date that we processed this data, 523 students, um, that we have made that decision to offer Alternative Learning Center in lieu of expulsion, whereas the previous year was 692.
52:00 Now what’s important to notate is we did not have drug diversion before. So drug diversion is provided in the bottom right there at 237. So if this were last year, it would be 523 plus 237, right? So you got to kind of have to keep those numbers in perspective. We’ve also included the demographic data, um, for last year and this year for all demographics.
52:23 Um, going to the alternative learning center again, 523 versus 692, um, at the alternative learning center.
52:37 So this data is, is hard, visually hard to see, um, but we feel it’s important so that you can see the reasons why individuals are being, um, given the opportunity to go to the Alternative Learning Center in lieu of expulsion. Um, we can see that. If we were to compare drug possession last year to this year, this year we have 86, whereas last year we had 330.
52:58 Again drug diversion is, is making up that gap. So that number looks like we, we’ve dramatically decreased. You need to add those drug diversions in, um, because this is just those that went to the alternative learning center. We’ve still got, um, fighting high on the, on the charts and simple battery is high on the charts as well.
53:16 So you can see there’s a variety of reasons that, um, students are, uh, Um, going to the Alternative Learning Center, some are similar, some are different, but the majority continue to be that, that fighting simple battery and, and drug possession, um, for reasons that we send the bulk of students to the Alternative Learning Center.
53:40 We then break that data down by school to again, kind of analyze that data to look for for hotspots. Um, again, I’m not going to read all the data to you, but you can look. Some schools did have an uptick. Some schools were never on the board. But a lot of schools had significant have had significant decreases from last year to this year.
54:02 So I’m I’m excited for that. Someone could say that that was due to drug diversion as well. But again, I I’m seeing a definite difference of, you know, Less students are being sent to our learning, alternative learning center from a lot of our sites and more students are staying in, in that, that rich learning environment.
54:23 Next slide is, um, the breakdown. We were, we began showing this slide, uh, last year that, um, Who is opting for home instruction versus the Alternative Learning Center? So last year, roughly 10 percent of those that were offered the Alternative Learning Center, um, 10 percent opted for home instruction.
54:46 Whereas this year, 20 percent are opting for that home instruction. So 102 students this year have chose home instruction out of the 520 that have been offered the Alternative Learning Center.
55:02 Or a 10 percent increase. We also then began breaking that down by ethnicity to ask, okay, so which demographic group is choosing home ed over, um, the LC? And you can see the data there is provided for you. Roughly 45 percent of our, our white students are making up that 20 percent or um, um, Or 45 of the 102 are choosing home ed and 34 percent of our black and 13 percent of our Hispanic students are choosing that.
55:42 Okay, as Miss Dan Pierce spotlighted, we’ve done a lot already to put things in place to help, um, Be preventative and be, be clear of what our disciplinary expectations are. First off though for next steps is continued compliance and completeness of accuracy of that data and referrals being processed in a timely manner.
56:01 Can’t emphasize enough how important that timely manner is. It’s those teachable moments. that you, you learn from your mistakes once they’ve happened. We’re going to continue with trainings. We have trained 124 staff in the MTSS behavior modules, which is strictly designed on problem solving and being preventative in nature.
56:20 So I’m very excited to do that. We’re going to continue that work next year. 164 individuals have participated in our FBA BIP training. I’m a big believer that if you learn, Um, some tier three practices for some of our most, um, profound behaviors when you learn quality practices and writing plans for those types of those students exhibiting those behaviors.
56:45 It makes simplicity happen for those with less, less of those behaviors. It makes you stronger in the lesser, uh, side of things in the tiers one and two. So I’m excited that we have that many people normed and proper ways to write behavior intervention plans. Monthly, we’ve continued to hold out of Dr.
57:01 Bias division, the Behavior Intervention Toolbox or Bitbox training. We have three new sites signed up for our PBIS training this summer. We continue to give disciplinary updates, as Ms. Dampier mentioned, monthly to our administrative teams. We coach and mentor new teams as needed. as we start to see consistent problems, we will make ourselves available to them.
57:25 And then we’re further developing that MTSS website that’s designed strictly to help schools with that problem solving process. We have begun uploading disciplinary documents such as student statements into Focus, and that will be a mandate for next year so that we have a one stop shop for analyzing and incidents.
57:47 We’re working on a, I’ve spent a lot of time with ET working to try and make it, um, error free for inputting. Some things will be restricted as far as if this incident happens. These are the only actions you can put in. Um, also some reporting to inspect that work, um, more easily next year. And then we’ve, as surveyed our administrators, as Ms.
58:11 Dempier shared, and we’re continuing, we are starting the development of training modules live and digital right now, and that’s exciting because we have a almost approved code of conduct, maybe, um, but as soon as it is, like, modules are going to get made like crazy, so we will be prepared like no other year, um, with the, the, the, the information that our sites need to be prepared.
58:34 But also the training that we need to develop to have them be prepared.
58:46 Good morning. So, we’re going to start with our bullying data. And um, Um, We’re going to go ahead and look at quarter three and compare from last school year to this school year. And, um, so this data is where, where we’re at from the beginning of the school year through quarter three. So, um, if you look at the substantiated cases, last school year at this time we had 103 substantiated bullying cases and this year we have 135.
59:20 So that is an increase of 31%, um, at the quarter two mark that, that, um, from last year to this year was more closer to like 50 something percent. So that has, that gap has narrowed a little bit for the substantiated cases. Um, for the unsubstantiated cases, we’re still seeing that, you know, Spread of about 58 percent right now.
59:47 Um, so last school year at this time, we had 269 unsubstantiated cases. And, um, this year we’re at 425. And we talked about last time how that’s really a lot of work for our administrators. You know, that’s a big increase in their load of work. And so as Mr. Reed said, we are also in the process, our team is really working on Those training modules for all of our stakeholders, including our um, being able to push out training like videos for our parents and students and just really making sure everybody understands what, what should be reported as bullying or what would need to just, you know, maybe be conflict and dealt with through the code of conduct in a different way.
1:00:34 Um, and then. So our Title IX data, you know, when I started, we had those 25 open cases from the previous year that we’ve really been working hard on, and I’m really excited to say that, um, we’re down to just one case that’s still open. It’s a labor relation case, and so as far as the student services cases, all of those are closed at this time.
1:00:59 So we are really, really, um, excited about that piece. Thanks. Thanks. Um, and you can kind of see the breakdown of how, how those turned out.
1:01:12 And then our cases from this year. So we have had 23 actually go through the investigation, um, process and right now we have eight that are open. Five of those are currently with the, the investigator and three of those are with the decision maker. And, um, so all of these cases are in our new process where they are, the decision maker is the partnered school, the principal at the school that we partnered with.
1:01:46 And so that process has been, been going, um, smoothly. Um, we’ve had three this year that have gone to informal resolution, which is wonderful. And we are actually, one of the things that we’re, We’re working on with our training modules is really helping our administrators get trained in that informal resolution process because that’s the best case scenario.
1:02:11 If you really can sit down and come to some type of a resolution that everybody can agree with, um, and go on and, you know, close that case out and get those supportive measures in place and all of that. So that’s we’re going to just make sure the school’s administrators are very comfortable doing those.
1:02:30 Informal resolutions. And, um, we’ve had six that were dismissed. We’ve had one that was substantiated, five that were unsubstantiated, and then we have still the eight that are open that we’ve already talked about. So that’s a total of nine current open Title IX, um, cases. And so, that is it. We’re out of questions.
1:02:55 Thank you. Thank you for presenting all the data. I’m sure I’m, I can see Ms. Campbell’s doing the same thing. I am writing questions and I’m sure we’ll all have some questions to, to reflect. Um, I wanted, I wanted to turn it to Mr. Colucci a little bit because, uh, Anthony, I really appreciate you being here.
1:03:08 A lot of times when this data comes out, what is reflected on paper doesn’t necessarily depict the picture of how that translates out into our classrooms, right? Uh, so Mr. Colucci is the, the first stop. If there’s an issue with the teacher, they’re going to call the union and say, Hey, we have a problem going on in our school.
1:03:22 And so I’m glad that Ms. Dampier, your office is working closely with them. But I, I would really like to hear from you, Anthony, on what you’re hearing from, from your teachers. Um, how are those classrooms look this year versus last school year? Well, first of all, uh, thank you for having me here today. And Dr.
1:03:38 Rendell, thank you for the invite. Um, it is super important to hear from, from the teachers. So I, you know, I want to start out by, uh, saying this, make sure that, that this isn’t missed. You know, the disciplinary challenges that our students are facing, um, it’s not just here in Brevard, it’s statewide, it’s a national issue.
1:04:00 You know, it’s, it’s unprecedented what our, our teachers are, um, working with in, in the classroom. So, um, I would say the biggest change this year is that our teachers feel more supported. Uh, for a few years we’ve been trying to shed the light on, hey, you know, these behaviors in the classrooms are becoming increasingly challenging.
1:04:23 And, you know, I just want to compliment this board and the superintendent for setting the tone that, hey, we’re going to take discipline seriously in Brevard Public Schools, and it has worked its way into the classroom. So I think that was the biggest thing that our teachers felt that they needed was just the recognition and the support that what I’m experiencing is real, is valid, and is something that I need support with.
1:04:52 And for the most part, we feel that that has been there. Um, you know, I think that With that said, it doesn’t mean there’s not pockets of, of issues. You know, one thing that stood out to me is in the survey of administrators, um, 15 percent still said they are, they’re struggling. Uh, to understand the rules and corrective strategies.
1:05:15 And, you know, though we have 85 percent of our administrators who do understand that, 15 percent that could be impacting hundreds of our teachers and thousands of our students. Um, So, we really need to, to, to focus on, on those pockets. I actually went back and reviewed our, every call that came into our office this year to, to see what was going on.
1:05:42 And it was not like last year where it was, you know, nonstop, every day, this incident, that incident. The cases that came in, I realize those were issues that made it to Ms. Gampier, uh, Dr. Rendell, or, um, Mr. Raymer. So those were things that were on all our, our radars. Um, I’m seeing that the issues often, uh, times, uh, are in our ESE classrooms.
1:06:12 Where we’re, we’re short staffed or just dealing with extremely challenging behaviors. Uh, we have been meeting with Ms. Dampierre and Mr. Reed each month and they have been excellent about, uh, being responsive to, to issues. So I say, hey, this teacher from whatever school called me, this is what’s going on there.
1:06:35 They will send the, the team in, oftentimes they’re, they’re on that team. You know, they’re, they’re validating what our teachers are experiencing and not just blowing it off saying, Oh, you know, read the read this and you’ll be fine. They got their team in there oftentimes for for a couple weeks and making sure that that’s able to, uh, to get resolved and those teachers are feeling better.
1:07:01 Um, you know, another thing I, I noticed was, um, K2 physical aggression, uh, pre K through second had made it onto our, our, our top 10. That’s always been, you know, one, one of our hot spots is those, those little ones that are still learning expectations. Um, you know, more likely to put their hands on a teacher, other students, and, and so on.
1:07:33 Um, one thing that, you know, I know we, um, we’re, it’s my understanding we’re still planning on doing, uh, was when we went out for, for millage, um, we were discussing getting a K to 2 assistant in, in every pod. I think that would be very helpful if we, um, can get that staffed. Um, I, I do just, I have some suggestions, Ms.
1:08:02 Wright, if you’re That goes a long way. That’s fine. We want to hear it. So, um, you know, first and foremost, I think we got to just keep our foot on the gas pedal. You know, that this continues to be an important issue. We need to, administrators, teachers, students, parents, all need to hear that same message that when you’re in Brevard Public Schools, this is what’s expected of you, and if you’re not meeting those expectations, there will be corrective actions.
1:08:33 Um, we need to continue to work on getting fully staffed, right, because when we’re not fully staffed, we, we have larger classrooms, which make it harder to, to deal with, uh, where. We need many more ESE teachers where I noticed that more of the issues are occurring. Reiterating the referral process, not just to our administrators, but to teachers.
1:09:00 We have a tremendous amount of teachers who are alternative certification, who have little formal training, you know, don’t, Perhaps they’re not very familiar with the referral process, when to write it, how to write it, and, and so on. We need to keep working on that 15 percent of, uh, of administrators who are struggling to, to understand.
1:09:26 And then you saw that a survey was done of bus drivers and administrators. I think it would be great if we could work on a survey of teachers, a collaborative survey. But I think, you know, most important, But most importantly, we need to focus on each discipline issue one at a time, one student at a time.
1:09:49 Why is this one student not meeting classroom expectations? And what can we do to help that student to meet classroom expectations? And that’s something that Mr. Reid and Ms. Dampierre and I have thought about. And I think if we focus on the one student at a time, Um, some of the other issues that we’re seeing will correct themselves.
1:10:13 Um, because you don’t, uh, The, uh, there’s always a desire to look for that silver bullet strategy, right? That thing that’s gonna You know, uh, we’re going to implement and everything’s going to be fine and dandy, but that’s, that’s not the way it works. It’s about doing the hard work one at a time, and then by working on that, overall, the whole picture will, will, will get better.
1:10:45 So that, that’s where, where we’re at. Um, you know, not saying the discipline issues still aren’t there, but we are feeling Um, and more supported, um, by, by our administration, by our board and, and superintendent and, uh, we look forward to, to continued support. Thank you, Mr. Colucci. Oh, did I turn my microphone off?
1:11:05 No. Okay. Ms. Campbell, I see you writing, uh, over there. And so I’m like, do you, would you like to go first with questions? Cause I see you making. Actually, I was going to suggest that Mr. Trent goes first because there’s never anything left to say when we get to him. Ah, okay. Mr. Trent, you’re up then. I like it.
1:11:20 You got to push it towards you. All right. All right, so, uh, Anthony, you took mine on the administrators. That, that was, uh, that was concerning. If we have 23 administrators out there that are not, uh, understanding the, the discipline rules. Uh, but the more I read that it says as written in the code of conduct.
1:11:42 So there could just be. So clarity issues with the code of conduct. I’m hoping, I mean, if this was our police force and 23 officers don’t know the law and they’re out there every day, that would be concerning. So that, that was big. Um, also on the, uh, the ALC, Um, data, uh, last year it was about 53 students that was there for fighting, now it’s 124.
1:12:08 That’s a little concerning. I don’t know if we’ve changed, uh, coding or whatever, but, um, hopefully that isn’t something. I mean, maybe I got it wrong, but, uh, that would be concerning. Um, I Yeah, I think that’s probably a result of freeing up the administrators with those decisions. That’s very serious. Yep.
1:12:29 Physical infraction and recognition for ALC. Okay. In the past, they may have been discouraged from doing that. They were. It wasn’t if, it was. Perfect. I knew there would be an explanation on that. I’m actually pleased by seeing the, The, the small little tickets written, you know, the tardies, uh, you know, the, the, the cell phones, because again, if you take, if you take care of those small things or pay attention, it, it, it stops the bigger things from happening and you can see that in the data.
1:13:01 So, uh, uh, hopefully as, as we continue on, those numbers will get smaller, uh, because those students will not, you And they’ll do that any longer. They’ll learn from that. And they’ll understand the consequences and the devices being taken. So, uh, we knew this was going to happen. It’s, I mean, we could have written this out.
1:13:20 Um, I would also have written here, uh, that the survey for the teachers, uh, because ultimately they’re the, they’re, the ones on the, On the battlefield out there and we’d like to hear back. I, I, I’ve had to check my email a few times to see if it was still working because I’m not getting those, uh, endless emails about please help me.
1:13:40 I’m, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m dying in my classroom with the discipline issues. Uh, same thing with the bus drivers. So, uh, we’re doing something. Right. And, uh, and I, and I appreciate that. Um, same thing with parents. Uh, I’m hearing that as well. So, uh, lots of good things. I know you guys are continuing. Um, the, uh, the continuation of the getting our message across the parents is, is just huge.
1:14:09 Uh, I, I think starting at the, the early, you know, the K two data, uh, and, uh, it, it’s, That was the biggest surprise when we dove into the data, uh, the discipline data, uh, last year was, um, it was almost like we didn’t want to hear that from the K2 teachers. And now that we are listening, um, I mean, it’s a big deal.
1:14:32 I mean, we were, we were losing a lot of those teachers for that, for that one reason. And, and, you know, the only ones that were suffering and that was our students. So, um, I feel we’ve all learned a lot. address that and, um, you know, it’s making Brevard better. So, I think that’s it. All right. Thank you, Mr.
1:14:51 Trent. Mr. Susan, do you want to go next? Can you go to Ms. Campbell? You want to go to Ms. Campbell? I’m just tallying some numbers. Go ahead. He’s still taking his notes. No, I’m just tallying some stuff. All right. Um, so, thank you guys all for the work that you’ve done and everybody Because it’s not just that this department kind of, kind of job, and it also includes the people that you represent, Mr.
1:15:11 Cloche. So we’ve been all having to work together. I very much appreciate that. So back on slide seven on the survey, one of the last question was that, uh, that you were reported their responses. My teachers rely heavily on adult imposed corrective strategies. Um, I, you know, most of these, it’s very clear what the goals we’re trying to move to, but I’m assuming that’s a number we want to see go down.
1:15:37 Am I correct? We talked about there’s training upcoming because not, I mean, you’re always going to have adult imposed corrective strategies, but the goal is we want students to self correct. So, um, when you talked about training upcoming, is that, I mean, is that where we’re, we’re, what, what might that look like?
1:15:54 On a very general level. If you look in our student code of conduct, you will notice that we did put in at the beginning of our student code of conduct, expectations. of how we expect students to behave, uh, in our schools. Uh, next year we will, um, be teaching those strategies. Um, we also put a behavior in, uh, behavior tech at our elementary schools.
1:16:25 Uh, some will share, but the majority of them will have a full time person that will also be able to help with those behaviors K 5. Previously, when we We put behavior texts in schools. It was just for our ESE population. This position is for all, uh, for the entire school, so we will be utilizing that. We also are moving towards more of the video format and modules because we have year round school and because we want to make sure that the word gets out.
1:16:55 So we want to make sure that we have um, training for all of our stakeholders, which will include our parents. This is how, what we expect our parents, how we need support from them on these particular areas. What we need for our students, what we expect for our students, as well as our administrators, we will reinforce that.
1:17:14 Um, but there’s going to be a lot of training that we’re training up. We also have merged our MTSS. One at, uh, this past year it was part, part was in CNI. The behavior side was over in my division. We are now merging and now they’re both, those two positions will be up under the student services side of the house and they will be MTSS academic and behavior.
1:17:43 So it won’t be just one or the other, they will be looking at the whole child. So we’re front lining, um, Front loading a lot of that training for preventative and we’re still in the work process of working on that because um, our code of conduct has not been um, approved yet, but that is the plan to have a lot of support and training for all of our stakeholders, which will include our students because sometimes we just skip them and just say, Oh, I went to the code of conduct.
1:18:10 No, this is what we expect our students. This is what we expect and we have to explicitly teach that. So, um, we have, um, We have a whole list of PDs that will be, uh, Good. Going out. I think Mr. Reed and I met last week and this is Cassian Schmidt and I think he was like, all the training that has to take place before he leaves.
1:18:33 But um, we will be ready. Good, good. I, and I asked that question because I wanted you to have the opportunity to share what’s coming. And that’s positive because people say, what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do about these numbers? This is, this is not just rewriting the rules, but active processes for everybody.
1:18:51 Um, I just wanted, as you were starting to talk, I pulled up the January presentation because I know when I was looking at the office referrals on the next slide, Uh, I think it’s the next slide, Um, it’s still higher this year, but I just wanted to, I was like, How much higher is it from after the second quarter?
1:19:07 So, after the second quarter, this year’s total referrals were 28. 5 percent higher. Now they’re 8%. 18. 7 percent higher. So we are starting to see that trend improve. And then the same thing on the right hand side. Um, the number of students receiving office discipline referrals after the second, after quarter two was 33.
1:19:25 5 percent and now it’s 18. 8 percent higher. So again, I’m just, I had to share that because. You know, got to do the math and see the trend, because it still looks higher, but we’re, we’re moving in the right direction, which is what I asked you after quarter one and quarter two. How, how are we documenting that?
1:19:40 Same thing with the ISS, um, days. I didn’t get a chance to do the math there, but the, the trend, they’re widening, right? The drop in ISS is widening and, and that little sliver higher of out of school suspension, um, is, is smaller than it was after quarter two. Okay. And actually on the risk ratio data, um, if you want to go to that slide, I don’t remember which slide it is.
1:20:02 Um, the risk ratio data actually in a couple places is just a tiny bit better. Um, just because we, we got to make sure we’re moving in the right direction. Our, I’m, Seeing after quarter two, um, our students with disabilities, the risk ratio for this year was 2. 01, and now it’s 1. 07, so that’s positive because that’s one of our areas we really try to watch.
1:20:25 Free reduced lunch after quarter two is 2. 75, and now it’s 2. 69, rounded. And then our African American students, it’s still higher than last year, but it, um, after quarter two it was 2. 57, and now it’s 2. 53. So, um, That is Again, trending. We wanted to see those trending in a better direction, so I was pleased to see that.
1:20:50 See, this is what, y’all need to do all this math stuff for me next time, so I don’t have to sit here with my calculator. Um, I had a question on the Alternative Center. We talked about the diversion program. Alcohol is also, we are also using that for alcohol as well, correct? Okay. Because there was a pretty good drop for that.
1:21:08 And was, I was thinking I’d already seen that, but I just wanted to make sure. Um, when it came to the different schools, um, I did notice the big drops. And some of them were kind of expected where I know that we have in the past. Um, and then we had a couple schools that had some big jumps up, and I know sometimes that can be a change of administrator, but one of them was one of our charter schools, Odyssey Charter.
1:21:33 And, uh, you know, offline, could you send me some information on that? Like why? Because last year it’s showing they only sent four, and this year they’ve sent 23. Um, so, and it could just be the way, because alternative schools have some choices on how they handle that. So, um, I’d love to just get some more specific information as to why that one’s gone up.
1:21:53 And Sorry. So, when, going to the Title IX stuff, super excited to see, after quarter two we had seventeen open cases, now we’re down to nine, yee haw, yay, you’re just going to work your way out of a job, right? No, I’m just kidding, I know all this is a time intensive process that, um, you and the teams that you work with on that are, um, You know, it’s difficult work added on to what everybody else is already doing.
1:22:30 But when, when something isn’t, is unsubstantiated, because people need to understand the difference, sometimes you just need to really get in there and find out. But a lot of it is, someone was mean to me, they’re bullying, right? Someone said something I didn’t like, they’re bullying me, and it really is an education piece.
1:22:45 What, what are we doing? Um, and so I think it’s really important for us to think about how do we, when we find something’s unsubstantiated, how do we communicate that back to, I know in general we need to educate students and families as to that process, but what are we doing for those specific students, those specific families, because I imagine it doesn’t feel real good, um, because I get those emails sometimes, you know, on, you know, I, I told the school this is going on and they didn’t, usually their friends, they didn’t do anything.
1:23:08 Well, I know that’s not necessarily true, but what are we doing to support those families who, They get the answer. It’s unsubstantiated. So, there is definitely a need for more of training in that area of what are, what should we do? And really just, I can see where there is a lot of, um, need for them to really understand The difference between, you know, bullying versus the conflict.
1:23:40 And I know you started out saying Title IX, but I think you kind of switched a little. Sorry, I did. So I just want to make sure I’m answering correctly. Um, because those are just because it’s not, doesn’t, maybe it’s not bullying. It doesn’t mean that it’s not. something that needs to be addressed. It doesn’t mean that the behavior isn’t mean, or, um, you know, and some of that stuff that Mr.
1:24:08 Reed is doing with, you know, some of those de escalation things, and just, um, The PBIS stuff, which is, you know, his team, but all of that, really those, making sure students really understand the expectation in the classroom, the reteaching of the rules, which I was actually really excited to see that the corrective part of the reteaching is high on the list of things that they’re utilizing, because, I mean, that’s huge, is really just making sure that students Kids understand the expectation and then really when they’re not meeting that expectation that reteaching But as far as like really getting to the families, I I can’t answer what is actually happening at the school level and we know that With as we’re creating the trainings, which we are my team has talked about A lot about how can we really get those messages to the families, um, and really just empowering our administrators with making sure that it’s not just, here’s a referral or here is the results of our investigation, but.
1:25:20 What can we do about it? And you know, with Title IX, there’s built in the supportive measures, and so there is a lot of discussion that does happen with the family along the way for that, as well as the um, bullying stuff. Like even if it’s unsubstantiated, it doesn’t mean that supportive measures aren’t put in place.
1:25:40 With the Title IX process, that’s the first thing that you do. Before you even dive into what, is it substantiated, is it not, supportive measures need to happen within the first few days of you getting, um, information on that, you know, so, and that is sitting down with the families and, you know, trying to figure out how to, you And that’s not just the, that’s not just the person who is saying something’s been done to me or, you know, I’m, it’s also sitting down with the person who has been accused of doing, you know, doing something because it takes, it takes both, you got to support both sides because you, they need to know what they need to change in their behavior if there is something, you know, that’s going on.
1:26:28 Um, so. I know that was kind of like around, you know, but it is a big, it’s a big thing, but there’s definitely, definitely a need to get that message to parents. And I think that is a good thing to, I mean, once we start teaching those expectations of the Code of Conduct, hopefully some of that will just naturally resolve.
1:26:44 But I know sometimes when we find out those are unsubstantiated, we find out there’s There’s something going on on both sides, you know, so that’s, yes, that is, um, good for our administrators to have that. Um, I had a, uh, thank you, Anthony, for what you shared. I very much appreciate that, the emphasis on one student at a time.
1:27:04 Even though there may have been. In the last little bit been some resistance to some of the changes that Miss Dampier and her department are having store for next year For example, like making sure that we have social worker surfaces at every school I think that is going to be a big part because when we when we drill down to why is this particular student?
1:27:21 Um, as an individual, we, we do that on their academic level. Why is this, what is keeping this, what are, what is this particular student’s academic weaknesses? How do we support that particular student? Whether they have an IEP or, we have, I’ve been in the war rooms, right, the principals have their data wall, right, and they’re down granular to the student and the subject.
1:27:39 Um, how are we going to get this student to improve? I think that on the discipline level is really important and us having the opportunity to have. Those different tiers in place for mental health supports for, um, different, you know, uh, discipline supports. All of that is going to really help. And so I am I’m really pleased to see what we’re going to do, even even E.
1:28:00 S. C. Because students often act out. When they are not being supported academically or they’re frustrated because they’re not learning and so there’s academic support changes that we have coming up this next year. Change is hard, but we’ve got a goal and all of it is moving our students up. So very much appreciate that.
1:28:14 I did want to ask you. So, um, because we’ve talked about training, have you been able to, um, you know, like when they did the bus drivers, they did a specific training on de escalation, which is really specific to them, and one specific aspect of being a bus driver with discipline. Is there, is there a way, if you haven’t already, to, To send out a survey to find out what are the specific, like, what, what are our teachers really want to hone in on, maybe split secondary to elementary, like, I would really like to have, you know, a training on this aspect of classroom management or this aspect of whatever, because we want to make sure that the trainings that we’re providing, um, and we do them all kind of, like, You know, um, professional learning development.
1:28:56 Does some, you know, student services does, some you guys do trainings at, at SVFT? Have you been able to do a survey like that to find out specifically what they’d like? Um, we’ve not done a specific survey. We can certainly make that a part of a survey. Um, I would just add that as, as you mentioned, um, we’re currently doing a, a classroom management.
1:29:19 Um, professional development along with, uh, the district peer mentor teachers. Um, and I think that’s a lot of our, our alternative certification teachers are going through that or, or teachers who are, who are struggling with classroom management. Um, I have always been a proponent of, of CPI and the, the de escalation piece to that.
1:29:39 Um, I think some of our teachers are, are nervous about CPI because they think that automatically makes them part of the, the crisis team. So. You know, they’re going to have to be pulled out of their classrooms to deal with an incident and that’s, that’s not, um, accurate. So, um, I, I’d always like to see more CPI training.
1:30:00 I appreciate that. Yeah. I would love to see that question on it just so we make sure that we’re getting to the heart of what they feel like they need, um, um, in the different avenues that they can provide that training. So thank you. Thank you, Ms. Campbell. Mr. Susan, you are still writing. Are you good? Yeah, I’m good.
1:30:17 I just. I’m really excited about the numbers. I think everybody’s not looking at them the correct way. And I just really was spending some time pounding through them one last time. First off, I want to say, Anthony, thank you so much for being here today. It means the world after what we went through over the last 14 months that you come back to the table and say that we’ve, Succeeded in many ways, and we still have some stuff to work through, but I did want to say some of those questions that Miss Campbell was asking have been addressed inside the discipline committee, and that’s the Avenue that they have been is asking for more training and stuff like that, which is one of the positives that we built.
1:30:49 Um, I kind of wanted to. Lay it down the way that it was when we came in 22 of November of 22. Many people are questioning, Oh, these numbers are a little bit lower and higher and all this other stuff. No, they weren’t. There is no question that the numbers that we had inside of our district were extremely lower than what they should have been.
1:31:10 Let me paint a little bit of a picture. The first thing, Title IX, we knew was being utilized as an opportunity to stop discipline from occurring and sending kids to the expulsions. There were investigations that never occurred, and it allowed individuals who acted inappropriately to be moved by bus, moved to different locations, and not be sent to the discipline that they were supposed to.
1:31:32 Our principals were routinely sending kids to be expelled, and were being refused to be expelled. That’s the truth. There’s a lot of emails that go through and explain that for people to sit and say, look, these numbers are a little bit higher. We’re not even close to what those numbers would have been.
1:31:51 Period. The other thing we had bus drivers and teachers walking out the night in November of 22 when we took over and made some corrections, we had 42 teachers and eight bus drivers drop, walk out. Do you know what that is? We were down 20 percent in bus drivers. We also had bus drivers that were having things thrown at their heads.
1:32:11 We had a pandemic that we could not get kids to school on time. We had principals that were screaming they had no control over the expulsions. We had instances and we had things that were going on inside of our district. That we’re inhibiting less discipline being enacted and hoping that if you just did certain things for kids that they would just come back and not, not be disciplined again.
1:32:32 Completely wrong. Let’s look at what we have now. I’m looking at some of these, and I’ll come back to this. But if you look at the alternative center numbers that you guys have, they’re actually lower. And I’ll explain in just a second. Some of the math that may have been used may be a little bit off.
1:32:47 Referrals being processed faster. Check. Person in charge of discipline. Raymer. Check. Discipline committee reinstated and working. Check. Zero tolerance being effectively in it worked on and effectively being processed. Check. Cell phone ban that was supposed to be in but wasn’t being implemented. Check.
1:33:09 Principals in charge of discipline and holding their students accountable. Check. Decrease violent acts on staff and students. Check. Staff feeling safe. Check. Holding students who are acting inappropriately accountable. Check. Parents and students, which are not a part of this, spent saying they feel safer and have more control inside their classroom today.
1:33:34 We don’t have the administrators sitting here. They feel it. We don’t have 1010 here. They feel it. You can see it inside of their surveys. This is working. And our numbers are better. Because let me tell you something that was not happening. This is working. We came out of COVID and we were running into the most massive train wreck you guys have ever seen in your entire life.
1:33:54 Had we not course corrected and gone 180 degrees, the numbers that would have happened today would be double. And we would have instances that were happening inside of our schools that are incomprehensible to public education. I will tell you right now how proud I am of Dan Pierre and your team. You guys have dug in, held it accountable, and you’re producing the numbers the way that they should be.
1:34:16 There was a culture of people that were at this district that did not want to hold individuals accountable for a variety of reasons, and it was the shuffle card game. We haven’t talked about this because we were trying to focus on the thing, but when people are going to sit here and call out the district for saying that the discipline numbers are higher, I call farce.
1:34:34 I say BS. I say that that’s not true. And I’m willing to go on the, on the, on the point to say it. I feel this is the most incredible numbers that we’ve seen. I can’t tell you how proud I am. It is leveling off when you look at it. And I just wanted to say, thank you for. Anthony and for the team being here now I wanted to go back a little bit because there’s some stuff that I, after I get on my little soapbox, you getting fired up over that, that I wanted to do.
1:34:59 If you look at recommended for placement at a LC, am I assuming that those are just recommendations or are they actual numbers of people that went, those are the actual number of people that people went. So if you add placement. Placement, okay. So if you, if you place, if you add up 22 and 23 in both columns.
1:35:16 It actually comes to 731. I did the numbers three times just to make sure. And if you do the other numbers where you add all of the 23 and 24, and you add all of them together, they come to 523. So if you look at that document alone and add each one of them, The numbers are almost equal to what it was we in the previous.
1:35:38 In the previous slide. If you look at it, sorry, I was doing these numbers. If you look at the numbers that are on page 12 where it says 692, total number in 22, 23, and 523 and 2324, yes. I found that your numbers were accurate for the 2324, but in the 2223, they should have been increased by almost. Um, 40, which if you take and add in the 237 on top of the 523, it’s almost pretty close to being, let me do this real quick, 523 close.
1:36:15 Yeah, 7 60. So you’re 30 off. So basically saying that we are not only holding kids accountable, but our numbers are almost equal. Now, the other thing that we can say is the one thing that’s not talked about here right now is that our in school suspensions are making sure that our kids are learning.
1:36:32 That’s probably one of the great star points of what we’re doing here. Students are actually not losing or, or going to the ALC and possibly not learning at the rate they can. That’s a huge focus that our school district put on. That’s 237 people that are not going to be at the ALC that will be learning inside of their schools that are able to get the information that they need immediately.
1:36:53 It’s massive. I just wanted to kind of point those things out because I think that if you look at it overall, our numbers are starting to trend into the positives. At a time when we don’t even know what the numbers should have been. And if you look at those Title IX, if you look at what the principals were asking for and you were able to tally those up, it would get close to a thousand, I would say.
1:37:14 This is incredible data and I’m really proud of it being out in front. I know Miss, Miss, Miss Wright, I know, but like we’ve been, but there’s been a lot of people that keep saying things that just aren’t true and I’m tired of it. If you look back at the top 10 discipline codes on page five. There’s one in here that we had asked for.
1:37:35 You had put in here fighting for non cessor at 1, 955. What is, what is that at in 2324? Because it seems to drop off. You had mentioned something, Mr. Reed, around 15 it might have dropped to somewhere in there. Yeah, I’m going to pull that data for you. I don’t have it at hand, but yeah, so that fighting non cessor is that less egregious incident coding.
1:37:58 And again, not seeing it here, it means there, you could, one would say there’s less incidents of fighting. The local code that you see on the 2223 and the FIT code that’s more egregious. So just so everybody understands, the reason that I point that out is that last, when we came and made this a point to do inside of our district, we had teachers that were screaming at us and, and Mr.
1:38:21 Trent had said we were getting emails on a regular basis that I can’t control my class. I’ve got kids inside here that are acting inappropriately. I’m writing them up and they’re coming back into my class 10 minutes later and our principals were throwing up their hands saying, we tried, but we’re not able to do it.
1:38:34 And that’s what was going on before and to say that now we actually have it to where they have control and that noncessor has dropped is pretty significant. I also wanted to make you to take a look at suspensions out of school in 2022 and 23. And suspensions in school, right? That suspension out of school is one to three days that we have on the 22 and 23 on page seven.
1:38:58 If you tally the two of those up, it’s basically 19, 500. If you move over to where we have. Suspensions in school and suspension out of school one to 10 days. You tally that it’s 19, 800. So when you look at wherever the suspension of four to seven days is somewhere down here, and you add it, I promise you, it is going to total tally more for the suspension days out than it would be in 2223 which is a massive victory when we have kids that are not being suspended for days as much.
1:39:33 The data that we have here is incredible. The data that we have is, is showing that what we’re doing is doing it right. And I just wanted to say thank you. I’m sorry, Mr. Wright. I know I might have taken some of your thunder, but when it gets to data and it starts talking about our people feeling good about being inside the classroom on top of the bus, we have bus drivers now fully staffed in the first time in 20 years.
1:39:51 It’s incredible. It’s incredible. I’m just this, this staff and this board and everybody else has been doing an amazing job and we appreciate the support of the unions and the administrators. That’s it. I’m done. All right. All right. All right. Mr. Susan, you are fired up this morning. So, okay. I have questions.
1:40:07 A couple questions and I have a couple suggestions as well. So, I’m going to, um, I’m going to take you to slide number five. I think this might have just been a typo, but one of these reports is only showing 97 percent on the pie chart. Uh, and is that because we, they chose not to respond to the question on, I think it’s slide seven.
1:40:24 Maybe it’s, no, it’s the slide before it. Uh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That one, that one, so, um. Yeah, the far right. It’s just that’s that’s only totaling 97%. So I just wondered is that because they chose not to To submit an answer to that question or yeah, I mean, I would have to go and look at the actual individual one by one response Okay.
1:40:45 All right. They may not may not have chose to answer that question. Okay, give an answer right now Okay, no problem on the total office discipline referrals slide which should be two slides down I think, one more, uh, that one, correct. Um, is it possible for you to report back to the board how many students comprise of maybe five plus referrals and ten plus referrals?
1:41:07 So I know we looked at this and said, hey, well this is on average roughly almost four referrals per student is what it’s looking like, uh, but I want to know what, who are our frequent flyers? Because some of these students might have only got one referral or you may have some students that have ten referrals and obviously that messes up your average, so I’m just trying to look in there to see, can we see that data?
1:41:24 Um, and then I know, obviously, you’re tracking along where these are coming from, so I know as far as the school, but I think it would be wise of us also to track the classroom. I assume maybe you are on, we’re looking at that data just as, if there’s a teacher who’s continually writing referrals and maybe needs to be retrained on some things, can we identify that through this reporting mechanism?
1:41:51 Yeah, we actually can pull those reports in focus and administrators do it all the time. Okay, perfect. So I would like to see the 5 plus, 10 plus if possible. Um, one of the things, on the top 10 corrective actions, just for clarification purposes, some of these, uh, corrective actions could possibly more than one corrective action be assigned to a student.
1:42:14 So say you had a parent conference and it still ended up resulting in an out of school suspension. Okay. How does that work? How is that coded in the system? So, cause in essence two things took place there. So are both coded and does that correlate to any kind of numbers that would change basically? Do you see what I’m saying?
1:42:32 So if you, if you had a parent teacher conference and it still resulted in another discipline code that shows up here, would that show up twice for the same offense, same student, or? No. So the way that it’s supposed to work, and again, you, you only get, figure it out when you really, really analyze at a specific student, but you’re always supposed to only report on the highest corrective, the incident, or the highest corrective action.
1:42:58 The highest corrective. The highest corrective. Okay, so it shouldn’t mess with our numbers at all. So again, that’s what you’re typically looking at. Okay. All right. Good. That’s, I wanted to know the answer to that. Um. All right. One area that I have had teachers come up and say that would be beneficial is, and I think I spoke to you Ms.
1:43:15 Stampier, I know I spoke to you about this Dr. Rendell, uh, was for the teacher to have the ability. So a teacher is writing a referral in their classroom over an incident that took place and so a lot of times they’re pulling up the code of conduct or discipline code and they’re looking at the offense and saying, hey, where does this fall?
1:43:28 What do I think this should be coded as, right? Uh, and so they write a referral, but they don’t necessarily get to make a recommendation on what that offense is. So, one idea that was brought forward was in focus next year, is there a line where they can make a recommendation? Obviously we understand that they’re not going to be the final say all on this.
1:43:47 This would just be something that would coincide with the referral that is written.
1:43:57 We’re actually working on that. Um, when I spoke with you, we can do that. I know Mr. Reed was working with focus. That is something that we will have implemented for next year. Okay. That’s very exciting. So, and I think it’ll help us at the district level too, to be able to track and see a couple of things.
1:44:11 So if. Uh, constant referrals are being recommended as this and it’s getting downgraded, then maybe there’s some training that needs to happen there with an assistant principal or dean at a school. Or the teacher. Correct. Or the teacher. Yeah, exactly. So those are just areas for us to focus on and be able to, to make this process a little bit better.
1:44:27 Um. One area that constantly comes up as an area of a hot spot in a school is the bathrooms. This is where kids are terrified to go. This is where the incidents take place and this is an area I think that our district needs to focus on. How we make our bathrooms safer. I personally have a student who’s in a junior high, junior senior and will not go to the bathroom because she said that’s where everything bad happens.
1:44:51 And I don’t know whether that’s her perception or not, but that’s, that is a common thing that you’ll hear from many, many students. So I think it would be wise of us just to, to look at that process of, um, how do we make those bathroom areas safer, whether that be monitors of some sort, and I know logistically that’s probably a nightmare as I say this out loud, but, um, Our children need to feel safe when they go to the restroom.
1:45:11 Um, and we don’t want our children to not go to the restroom because they don’t feel safe in the restroom. And that is a reality that happens in a lot of our schools. So I think it’s something that we need to look at and try to figure out how do we make that a better process for our schools. Um, I don’t have a whole lot more.
1:45:25 I mean than what you guys have provided. I appreciate it. I fully anticipated this data to reflect higher numbers because We did set a precedence and say, hey, no more. We’re not going to allow these things to take place. And we also implemented some new things, like no cell phones. So our students were used to having their cell phones and using them on a regular basis.
1:45:41 Um, we had schools that weren’t necessarily reporting tardies or writing them as a referral. So, of course, that’s going to cause an uptick on that, on that offense. So I expected these numbers, honestly, to look a little worse than they look right now. Truth be told, I figured we were going to have 18 months of really setting the precedence that we no longer will accept what we have been accepting.
1:45:59 And then we’ll start to see them taper off. So it’s exciting to me to see it moving a lot faster than I anticipated. But I think that’s just a testimony to two things. One, our staff is obviously implementing this, uh, to children are resilient and they understand. And so if we set the perimeter and the guidelines.
1:46:13 They tend to to fall into that structure a whole heck of a lot better, so I appreciate the work I’m I look forward to looking at the next update. Dr. Rindell. Do you have anything you would like to add to this? Yeah, thank you madam chair. I have several things I want to kind of highlight many have been hit on by board members or in the presentation a couple of slides Again, the ISS and OSS days So anytime you assign a student ISS or OSS, they’re going to miss live classroom instruction.
1:46:39 You really don’t want that. And when you look at the chart, um, you know, the ISS numbers are reduced. The OSS numbers are slightly higher than they were at this point last year. But when you add them all together, it’s actually fewer days. You know, when you add last year’s ISS and OSS together, and then compare it to this year’s ISS and OSS together, it’s fewer days.
1:47:02 In fact, It’s 1, 399 fewer days of missed classroom instruction. So, even though we laid down the law, so to speak, at the beginning of the year, and we said, we’re not going to tolerate these things, and we’re going to code these things, and we’re going to implement the Student Code of Conduct, and we’re going to, you know, hold everybody accountable, and our numbers started to skyrocket, and, well, not skyrocket, but they increased, and the headline was, you know, we say the discipline plan is working, But the numbers are higher.
1:47:28 How can it be working? Well, it’s working because we’re doing it, you know And then for a comment to be made that we don’t have a plan. Obviously we have a plan And we’ve been working the plan all year And so the numbers of incidences and everything starting to level off or about where we were last year Which means we’re actually in a better place because we’re enforcing rules more strictly and this is cumulative numbers you know from the first day of school to now and for us to be at the same about the same number of incidences and Referrals and things And we’ve been, there were so much higher at the year, that means we’re, you know, we’re starting to get to a leveling place, whereas last year we were just all over the place.
1:48:05 Um, you know, so that’s one thing is less, much, much fewer days of missed classroom instruction even though we’re enforcing a lot of the rules. I want to commend the board for taking the bold step with the diversion program. So when you look at those numbers. As was pointed out by Mrs. Campbell, it’s drug and alcohol offenses.
1:48:24 So the number of drug offenses resulting in placement at the ALC, so going to ALC, dropped from 330 to 86, and 23 to 8. So those are students who would have been in the ALC for those infractions in the past and instead, because of the Diversion Program, were able to stay enrolled at their home school in their classes.
1:48:45 So that was kind of a bold step for the board. I applaud you guys for doing it because those kids are remaining on campus and receiving their instruction and Even though we’re still enforcing all these other rules, you know, so it’s still you know positive I think you know, the headline should read we’re in a much better place now than we were at this time last year Yep, you know, that’s what it should read and we’ve implemented these changes.
1:49:07 We’ve redesigned how we support schools and Changed a lot of things. I agree the administrator responses should be a hundred percent. I know how all to do all this. I you know, so we’ll be working towards a hundred percent But um, I feel like we’re in so much a better place at this point this year than we were a year ago And not that long ago.
1:49:26 I was one of those building level principals. And so I know what the differences are And I really appreciate all the hard work of student services and the chief of schools department the supervisors, but really it’s Thank you the frontline personnel. So the teachers are feeling supported, so they’re doing their job.
1:49:42 They’re teaching, and if there’s a disruption, they’re writing a referral, and the administrators are handling the referral, they’re processing it quickly, they’re implementing consequences. You know, so overall, the learning environment should be in a much better place this year than it was at this time last year, and that’s the goal.
1:49:59 So hopefully, you know, people understand what the numbers reflect. You know that we’re enforcing the rules, that’s why some numbers might be higher, but in reality our days of misconstruction and for certain offenses resulting in being removed from your school are down. And that’s a, that’s a goal. All positive changes, moving in the right direction, right?
1:50:19 All right, anybody else have any other further comments at this point? No? All right, I’m going to turn our attention over to the board attorney, Mr. Gibbs. Thank you. Uh, board members, I’m notifying you that advice is needed regarding the DOA case. Star Star, who’s the petitioner, versus the school board of Brevard County, Florida, who’s the respondent in case number 24 1374E.
1:50:44 Pursuant to 286. 011 of Florida statute known as the Government and the Sunshine Act, I am requesting an attorney client session with the board for purposes of discussing the strategy expenditures and or compromise of said case. I will ask the board’s clerk to cause reasonable public notice of the time and date of this attorney client session and the names of the persons attending to be published.
1:51:05 If the board approves, I will work with the board clerk to coordinate dates for the attorney client session working with our council’s availability and provide notice of the meeting inclusive of scheduling a court reporter. As required by the statute, only the following individuals will be allowed to be present.
1:51:21 School board members Katie Campbell, Jennifer Jenkins, Matt Susan, Jeanne Trent, Megan Wright, Superintendent, Dr. Mark Rendell, Paul Gibbs, General Counsel, Amy Pitch, Esquire, Sniffin Spellman. I will ask a court reporter to record the session also as required by statute. Their notes will be fully transcribed and filed with the clerk of the school board.
1:51:42 Upon conclusion of any litigation and or settlement of all claims arising out of this case, the transcript will be made public record as much as necessary. Education records could be public record. Thank you. I recommend the board hold an attorney client session pursuant to section 286. 011 of Florida statutes to discuss strategy expenditures and compromise of a former federal case and expected state case to be filed immediately.
1:52:07 If there are no, uh, sorry, imminently, not immediately. If there are no objections, I will instruct our attorney to work with the board clerk and schedule as soon thereafter. As the matter may be heard, board, any objections? Hearing none. Okay. And we have no further business. This meeting is now adjourned.