Updates on the Fight for Quality Public Education in Brevard County, FL
3:22 Good evening. The December 10, 2024 board meeting is now in order. I would like to welcome my fellow board members and the public. It is encouraging to see the public active and participating in local governance of our school district.
3:36 I politely ask the public to help our board meetings go more smoothly by following a few simple housekeeping rules. The public’s opportunity to address the board is during the public comment portion of the meeting. I ask that the public refrain from speaking loud disruptions, distractions or other forms of communication that hinder the business of the board.
3:55 Paul, Roll call, please. Here, Mr. Susan. Here, here, here.
4:02 At this time, the board would like to hold a moment of silence. I invite the audience to. At this time, I would like to invite Kaitlyn Sims to the podium.
4:40 Please rise 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. One nation under God and invisible, with liberty and justice for all.
5:12 Tonight we have a real treat. We have the Rockledge Show Choir. They will be performing she Used To Be Mine from Waitress and Abba Gold from Mamma Mia.
5:45 These shoes and this apron this place and its aprons have pain more than I dream it’s not easy to know I’m not anything I used to be Although it’s true. She’s in tries she is good but she lies. Most of the time she’s all of this mixed up and baked in a beautiful.
7:11 Ram who wants reckless just enough who gets hur but who learns how to tackle when she screws and gets used by a man who can’t know and then she’ll get stuck Every of the light that’s inside her Getting stronger each day Till it finally reminds her to fight just a little to bring back the fire in her eyes. He used to be. There’s a fire within my soul Just one looking at the hero Love me one more looking at forgetting.
10:17 Here I go again My my how can I resist now Mama mia does it show again my mind Just how much I miss. I mean in the distance from the. Air that night the stars were bright Fernando There was shining there for you and me what liberty, Fernando Though we never thought that we could lo there’s only.
12:00 My friend. See. Dancing queen.
13:43 Thank you for that wonderful performance. If you could please welcome Sophia Martz Kroninger and Nix Dass to the podium board. If we can have some questions for these.
13:55 Who wants to go first? Absolutely. Okay. And who would like to go first? I just like to ask you those.
14:10 First of all, you guys are very talented. And it’s amazing. I was just curious, out of those two songs, which one did you guys like performing the best? Me personally, I like she Used to be Mine.
14:22 Just because I really like the musical and the actual story behind the piece. And I do really enjoy doing my solo. You did it very well.
14:32 I enjoy the Mamma Mia. One a lot better, but I like faster music anyway, so it’s more entertaining. Awesome.
14:39 Thank you, guys. That is awesome. So great job.
14:43 And you guys look so cute. Thank you. So cute.
14:48 So I know a lot of the girls had to go off. If you didn’t hear Ms. McGivney, the people who are listening at home, a lot of these girls had to run off because they had ball games and band concerts. So multi talented in this group.
14:57 But about how many would you say are like, seniors, juniors, freshmen, sophomores? I think majority seniors. There’s only like, how many? Two. There’s like two underclassmen, maybe three.
15:13 The majority of us are seniors. So this is an elite group. Yes, it’s an elite group.
15:17 All right, great. Love to hear it. I just have to say, Ms. McGivney, I have seen you do multiple things over my time on the board, and I just.
15:25 Kudos to you for this group. They did a fantastic job. And I know it’s hard as a teacher to step back and, like, let them just take over, but they just sounded so good.
15:35 Harmonies were beautiful. Ladies, so proud of you. Thank you.
15:40 All right, Mr. Susan. Yeah. I just want to say thank you for coming down.
15:43 One of the greatest things is having students come and keep us level on what it is that we’re here for today. So I just wanted to say thank you for coming. My favorite’s Ave Marie.
15:53 You know what I mean? The other one that you liked. But anyways, I want to say thank you for you guys being here. Thank you.
15:59 Thank you. All right, doctor, you want to add anything? Yeah. I think it’s wonderful anytime you guys can come and share your talents with us and the world, because now you guys are on YouTube, TV.
16:11 So broadcast. That’s the world. But no, my wife’s a big ABBA mamma Mia.
16:16 Fan, so I know that one very well. I’m never going to sing it, and I’m never going to do the dance. Thank you guys for sharing your talents with us.
16:24 Thank you. I’ll wrap it up by saying, you guys, it’s amazing. I mean, this is the biggest, best part of our board meetings is to, you know, to put the display of our talent in Brevard up In front of us.
16:38 I’m surprised Mr. Susan didn’t suggest to come out and sing with you. He’s wonderful at that. Anybody say that they want us to come, but I’ve been kind of upset because we always offer to come sing and Dr. Rendell always says no.
16:50 He shakes his head, and then I always get no. So I just stopped after a while. Absolutely.
16:53 And we all know that Ms. Campbell could be. Could be out here joining you. She is the singer of the group for sure.
16:59 But you guys are talented. We love seeing you guys keep it up. I’m sure you’ve got a whole group of underclassmen waiting to take your spots, hopefully.
17:08 And Ms. McGivney, thank you so much for continuing your effort. So thank you, girls. Thank you.
17:20 Do we want to take a picture? Ms. McGivney, can we grab a picture with the ones that are left? Yeah, that’d be great. We’ll recess for a couple minutes. Sam, sa.
18:54 At this time, I would like to offer my fellow board members and Dr. Rendell an opportunity to recognize students, staff, or members of the community. Well, since there’s only two of you up here, who would like to go first? Okay, Ms. Kim. All right.
19:09 We, this time of year have so many of our schools out in the community highlighting their talents in other ways, and just wanted to share my congratulations to a couple of schools. I was at the Palm Bay Christmas Tree Lighting on Friday night, and Palm Bay elementary had their chorus and a little dancer group. I can’t remember what they called them, but they were so cute.
19:28 And they helped the city of Palm Bay ring in the holiday season by their great performances. And right before the Christmas tree was lit, I couldn’t attend the West Melbourne Christmas Tree Lighting, which was the same night, but I know that our central music programs were performing there. So thank you to those schools and their music programs, their teachers, for just bringing extra joy to our community during this time of year.
19:49 On Saturday board, we had our Jingle Bell Dash 2 Miler, which is a wellness activity. And we had. I don’t know what the final count was, but we had like 250 people at least.
20:01 And I got to stand out in the course. I didn’t walk at this time and just cheer people on and shake our bells and whatever. But great job to our wellness team, who’s doing so much more than ever before as far as having activities for our employees and their families to get out and be healthy.
20:15 And it was super fun. It was also super cold. So thank you to everybody who came out and they had great fun prizes for everybody, too.
20:23 And then the final thing I wanted to share is that this morning I was up at Kennedy Space center, and this time of year, our sixth graders from across the district are experiencing destination space where they’re doing a couple of weeks of pre trip lessons and they’ll do a post trip lesson, but they’re going to Kennedy Space center, some of our students, for the first time, maybe the only time that they would ever go, especially those who live in the very far south end of the county. It’s a long drive for us, but today our sponsors were invited to come and participate and get to see. See what the kids are doing.
20:56 Thank you, Ms. Kershaw, for having us up there. And it was such a great day. And so I just really want to thank our sponsors because without the schools foundation, without those sponsors who do this, our sixth graders don’t get to experience this really important highlight of not just STEM education, but STEM career fields.
21:14 And just getting to know why we’re called the Space coast, you’d think they would know it when they step out and can see a launch just, you know, every other week or every week. But it’s really exciting and I just thank you for that opportunity that, that our students get to have. Thank you.
21:29 All right, Mr. Thomas, I’d like to congratulate the Eau Gallie High School varsity football team for going 12 and two this season and making it to the state semifinals. It takes a tremendous amount of work from the head coach and his staff to prepare the kids to get to that level. So a huge season for Eau Gallie.
21:48 I believe it was the best one in their history. Not to steal your thunder, Mr. Susan. Sorry if I did.
21:53 And I also like to congratulate Cocoa High School, their varsity football team coach, Ryan Schneider, and his staff for advancing to the Class 2A state championships that’s played this Thursday down in Miami. So wish them the best of luck and thank you. Okay.
22:08 Mr. Susan? Yeah. First off, I wanted to say thank you to Brooke from the water safety initiative that we have. Many people don’t know, but every year we lose students to drownings.
22:20 And Brooke has taken on with her water safety program, has been literally every day she’s in a different school talking about the ins and outs of making the proper decisions on when somebody may go down and how to CPR and everything else. And you should see the way that she engages with the elementary school students at Sherwood Elementary. I got a chance to catch up with her and they had the entire School was coming out and doing CPR on the dummies, shifting from infant to other to adults.
22:49 And then they were finding out what would happen if somebody was drowning and you pull them out and everything else. It was incredible. And she makes it so much fun and she makes it so interactive with music and everything else that the kids were just so excited.
23:01 So I wanted to say thank you to that. There’s a goal is to have those students also now, after they do that, learn how to actually swim. So there’s a big opportunity for many of our students to not fall into the.
23:11 To the perils of having a drowning with a family and stuff like that. So I want to say thank you to Brooke. And yes, the Cocoa Tigers are on their way at noon on Thursday.
23:19 They’re going to be playing down south. It’s going to be a good one. We’re going to go for historic three peat.
23:24 Many people. As I keep saying, we have more football championships in Brevard than any school district across the Central Florida region, all the way to Hillsborough. So Polk, Pasco, all the way over here, we have more football championships from our high schools than any other county that’s out there.
23:38 So good job. Also, Eau Gallie won over my opponent who was supposed to be here to wear her shirt. So, Megan, if you’re out there, you got the next one that you’re going to be doing.
23:49 We made a bet at the last school board meeting that if Eau Gallie won, that she would wear the shirt of Eau Gallie, and they ended up beating Titusville. So now she has to wear that. So Eau Gallie had a great season.
23:58 Many of you don’t know, but Eau Gallie had never won a district championship before. And Coach Sands has brought that program to an amazing height, where they won their first district title last year, and this year they’re going on. We look forward to have some great sports inside of our community.
24:12 The other thing is, I had the beautiful opportunity to be at Kennedy Space center yesterday. Many of you know that we have the best career and technical programs in the state of Florida. And the question is, what do those students do after they have those career and technical certifications? So one of the greatest programs is set up by the Astronaut Memorial foundation, where they bring in all of the aerospace partners of Boeing, Lockheed, SpaceX and all the rest of them.
24:37 Blue Origins. And they tell the kids, this is what you need to do in order to have a strong resume. This is what certifications you need.
24:44 And when you come back, these are some of the jobs you were talking about. And one of the things they were talking about was. Is when we talk about space, we’re not just talking about the people that fly the jet or the people that work on the jet.
24:55 We’re also talking about the doctors, the nurses, the plumbers, everybody else that are going to be going. And so once you start having that conceptual understanding of what we need and what we’re trying to produce here in Brevard, it becomes a mission for all the kids. And they got it.
25:10 Winston Scott and others were at the meeting and they just kind of went over it. It was Heritage High School. The kids were amazing.
25:15 And I’m very proud of those individuals that at how intelligent they are and how they’re going to represent our next generation. And that’s it. Thank you.
25:23 All right, great. Dr. Rendell. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
25:26 Hot off the presses. Just last night we had a great event that I want to tell everybody about. We had about a thousand student athletes at FIT in the Clemente center to hear from an inspirational speaker.
25:37 His name is Damon West. He’s co author of the book the Coffee Bean. He’s actually the Coffee Bean.
25:43 The book is written about some struggles that he had to overcome to be in the position that he is today. So he’s a renowned speaker, usually speaks to professional sports teams, college sports teams, organizations, all about his message about overcoming adversity. So we had about 1,000 student athletes in the Clemente center last night to hear his message.
26:03 So I want to thank the coaches, administrators, athletic directors at the schools who helped organize that. I want to thank Mr. Ramer for being the guy behind the scenes organizing it. I want to thank Dr. Millen, the Transportation department, for getting the kids there.
26:18 We actually had them meet at their schools and we bussed them there that we made sure they got there when they were supposed to get there and got home or at least back to their school safely. But it was an incredible event. Thank you to FIT for hosting.
26:33 Really, really an incredible message for our kids to hear as they get ready to go out of high school and off to college or wherever they’re going. Anytime they over they come, come up to any adversity or obstacles they have within them to overcome those challenges. So if you don’t know who Damon west is, you can google him.
26:51 If you don’t know about the Coffee Bean, you can google that. It’s an incredible message, and it was great to see so many of our students there last night hearing that message. That’s it.
27:00 Great. If you didn’t have a chance to see any of the students see that last night. Please do exactly what Dr. Mandel said.
27:10 Google that name. Damian West. It’s a wonderful book.
27:13 Be a great stocking stuffer if you don’t have that already. We were fortunate enough to see him up and close in person this past week in Tampa at our FSBA conference. An amazing.
27:23 An amazing story. So that was a special gift that was given to our athletes last night. So when I heard the numbers coming in at 1,000 athletes, that’s truly amazing.
27:35 So thank you, Dr. Rundell. You’re the one that spearheaded this to begin with. So very important.
27:41 All right, that brings us to tonight. We are honored to highlight the heroic actions of two wonderful individuals from Freedom 7 elementary School. Together, the guidance counselor and the second grade students sprung into action to help save the life of another student.
27:56 Principal Kathryn Lott is here today to help us honor this heroic student and staff member from Brevard Public Schools. Principal Lott, will you please continue coming up to the podium. Thank you, Mr. Trent.
28:08 I heard my cue. Yes. Yes.
28:10 I’m very honored to be here to recognize. First, I’m going to start with Zeke Burton. He is one of our second grade students at our school.
28:19 He was sitting with his classmates. As our students, we know those cafeteria tables can be a little rowdy, a little loud. And he noticed one of his friends struggling with that.
28:28 He did what he’s supposed to do. He raised his hand and, you know, the teachers were busy. And when he realized he couldn’t get his attention, he quickly ran over to our guidance counselor, Ms. Kathleen Lucas, who quickly went into action and was able to do the Heimlich maneuver and save that child and get the food from being lodged.
28:46 So you never want to hear that call in the walkie talkie. As a principal, the tone is something, you know, you just have to run. Corporal Kent and I met each other on opposite sides of the cafeteria.
28:57 This is our sro, Corporal Kent, to get in there. And luckily, by the time we got in there, he was crying, which was the best thing you could see. I’m like, oh, good, he’s crying.
29:06 We’re okay. So Corporal Kent also put Zeke in for the Great Kid Award with Sheriff Ivey. So he’s been recognized that way.
29:13 And as a school, we’ve recognized Ms. Lucas also. So if Ms. Should I have them come up? Ms. Lucas and Z. Come on.
29:20 You don’t want to. That’s okay. This is Ms. Luthis, our guidance.
29:46 So can I just say Something. What I want to say is, you know, I feel humbled about the whole experience, and I’m just grateful that we have a student that recognized and that was, you know, to me, just a great action in itself. So our theme at our school this year is the butterfly.
30:07 And. And I. This whole time I’ve been thinking this is the butterfly effect, because truly it was. So I’m just.
30:14 I’m grateful for the outcome and I just truly feel humbled by the whole experience. Thank you. Let’s see if we can get Zeke up for a picture.
30:30 Yeah, maybe he has some family support. Yeah, we maybe buy the Christmas. Dad, if you want to carry him, you can.
30:37 I get it. Or we can come to him. I’ve got an eight year old.
30:39 We can come out there. Let’s go do this. All right, we’ll recess for a minute.
30:42 We’ll come to you. Four, three, two. All right, that brings us to the adoption of the agenda, Dr. Rendell.
32:52 Thank you, Mr. Chair. On this evening’s agenda, we have administrative staff recommendations, a proclamation, a presentation. We don’t have a proclamation.
33:01 A presentation. 29 consent items, two action items and three information items. Changes made to the agenda since released to the public include the following.
33:10 We added a seven, recognition of visitors, guests, staff and F18. Job description, director of communications revised item B5, entertainment. Item C9, administrative staff recommendations.
33:25 Item F, 13 minutes. Item F28, Space Coast Junior Senior High School educational technology, security and facility renewal design build services from the sales surtax renewal. And we moved F39, Viera High School licensing agreement with Florida Sports Management Group to a later board meeting date.
33:45 Okay, do I hear a motion move to approve second follow roll call, please. Mr. Thomas? Aye. Ms. Campbell? Aye.
33:53 Mr. Trent? Aye. Mr. Susan? Aye. We are now at the administrative staff recommendations.
34:02 Do I hear a motion move to approve second. Paul? Roll call, please. Mr. Thomas? Aye.
34:07 Ms. Campbell. Aye. Mr. Trent.
34:09 Aye. Mr. Susan. Aye.
34:13 Mr. Chair, I’d like to take a moment to recognize someone who just got approved and is joining us in our administrative ranks. I want to welcome and congratulate Martha McFarland to the position of assistant principal at Viera High School. Martha, if you can make your way to the podium.
34:25 Martha is. Martha is actually coming home. She’s a Brevard county native and she’s been over in Hillsborough county for a while, but she’s coming home, so congratulations.
34:38 Thank you. Thank you for having me. It’s a tough act to follow with Zeke.
34:42 I mean, I’m gonna try my best, so. Good evening, all. Thank you.
34:46 Thank you all for coming tonight. I would like to begin by sincerely thanking the Brevard county school board and Dr. Rendell, who I just learned was one of the deans when I was at Melbourne High School School. So I’m sure he has some stories to tell, but we’ll just gloss over that.
35:02 So anyway, thank you for providing me this opportunity. I’m really excited to join the new team in Brevard County. I’m excited to see what I can do and to see the things that you can teach me.
35:12 I would also like to extend my gratitude to Principal Legate for her trust and faith in my abilities and welcoming me to her admin team. So thank you for that. And I wanted to just let you guys know that I was born and raised here and I’m now back home.
35:27 So I’m excited to take this to the next level. I’m excited to help the students succeed and move forward and see where I can leave my mark. I cannot wait to meet the students and I can’t wait to meet the staff of Viera High School.
35:40 And I’m looking forward to making a big difference. And last but not least, I would like to thank my family, my dad, my two brothers, my sister in law, my nephew and my two sons for coming and supporting me through this endeavor. It’s love and support and I want to say cheers to new beginnings and go Hawks.
36:07 I just want you to know that I met your nephew out in the hallway and he was genuinely excited for you. Normally the teenagers that come here like, oh my gosh, I gotta be here. And this is ridiculous.
36:17 But he was like, genuinely like, I’m here for my aunt. I’m so excited. So gotta give him the kudos, man.
36:23 He did say that Melbourne was still a better school than Viera, just so you know. Congratulations. All right, so if you guys can stick around after this next presentation, we’ll do some photos stick just for a few minutes, okay? All right.
36:41 Next up on tonight’s agenda is the Teacher Leadership Council Fellowship program cohort pinning. Dr. Andell. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
36:48 The next item is a presentation and pinning ceremony which is part of the Teacher Leadership Council Fellowship program. The program, now in its fourth year, is a Brevard Schools foundation teaching quality initiative, supported in part by a legislative appropriation, that’s money from the State of Florida School District Education foundation matching grant program in collaboration with the Teacher Leadership Council and Brevard Public Schools. The Brevard Schools foundation seeks to elevate the concept of the teacher leader and Inspect and expand on teacher leadership as a practice.
37:24 Here to tell us more, Janice Kershaw, President and CEO of Brevard Schools foundation, and Danielle Lavelle, Assistant Principal at Sherwood and Fellowship Director, and Mickey Coravo, Literacy Coach at Endeavor elementary and Fellowship Senior Group. Janice. Thank you, Dr. Grundel.
37:40 And good evening, board members. As you know, Brevard Schools foundation helps fill educational, funding and opportunity gaps throughout the district by supporting innovation, engaging communities and changing lives. And it was about five years ago that we looked for innovative ways to support the development of teacher leaders that align with the district’s strategic objectives under Exceptional Workforce.
38:05 So we brought forth the idea of creating and funding a research fellowship program. The Teacher Leadership Council embraced the idea, adopted it, and the program has grown organically, even creating its own teacher leadership ecosystem within the council. So, as one of several of the Foundation’s teaching quality initiatives, the fellowship program has captured the attention of state leaders and is seen as not only a way to advance teacher leadership, but to also support teacher retention.
38:39 So Fellowship Director Danielle Lavelle is going to share a little bit more about the program before we introduce the fellows. Thank you so much, Janice. Well, good evening, Dr. Rendell and members of the board.
38:54 I want to begin just by extending extending my appreciation for the support and recognition we are provided this evening as part of our mission of the fellowship program. We strive to further develop teacher leaders and increase student achievement through meaningful action research. Before you this evening are our cohort of teacher leaders who have been engaging in the process of selecting their own inquiry.
39:20 They are dedicated to bringing their passion for education into their practice. Teacher inquiry is a vehicle that can be used by teachers to collaborate with their peers while exploring and uncovering their current wondering. As shown in the model provided through educators own personal passions, wonderings or questions are discovered, established and pursued.
39:48 After wonderings are recognized, goals are established and research exploration is conducted through literature and peer collaboration amongst other resources. Armed with these resources, our fellows dive deep into their own curiosities while collecting, analyzing and interpreting data throughout the process. Consistent reflection, collaboration are two critical points for both growth and change.
40:20 Within this process, our participating educators are seeking innovative ways to engage their students and increase student achievement. This program would not be possible if not for the dedication of our leadership team. I would like to introduce to you the TLC Fellowship Coordinator and the Teacher Leadership Council Chair, Mickey Corvo.
40:47 Good evening. The Fellowship leadership team is focused on ensuring we are building teacher retention through increasing the capacity of our teacher leaders across bps. Each year our program grows as we accept A new cohort of fellows who are competitively selected through an application process.
41:03 This process includes recommendations from both their administration and peers and responding to a selection of questions that focus on their knowledge of inquiry and how it can impact school improvement, management of other teacher leadership roles, strength in their personal practices, as well as opportunities for growth. They they are educators from across Brevard Public Schools, connected with the same mindset that anything is possible when striving for excellence for our students. Our efforts would not be successful.
41:32 It was not for our incredible group leads. We would like to recognize our group leads. Ruby Rivera from Discovery elementary, Alex Stewart from West Shore Junior Senior High School, Jenny laham, a current 2425 Teacher of the Year finalist from Bayside High School, and Rhonda Ritberger from South Lake Elementary.
42:00 Dr. Rendell and Mr. Trent, will you please join us? Without further delay, here are our fellows who will receive their pin from their administrator, Casey Baez from Cocoa High School with her principal, Principal Denise Stewart. Michelle Fitner from Discovery elementary with her principal, Christine Rosado. Also from Discovery elementary, we have Alexandria Robertson, who is joined by the assistant principal, Angela Granzini.
42:56 Also from discovery elementary, jason simmons. And the last one from Discovery Elementary, Jessica Spicer. The next school that we have honored here tonight is Bayside High School, Megan Belsitt with her principal, Holly Zander.
43:27 We have Sarah Reslow, also from Bayside, Molly whiteman, also from bayside high school. And from Quest Elementary, Kimberly Haggard, who will be pinned tonight by a 2324 fellowship member, Melissa McKee. At this time, principals, please stand out and you may pin your fellow.
44:13 This is a recognition. Recognition of their commitment and leadership toward future action research. All right, welcome back.
49:17 Now we have a presentation on the Sales Surtax Independent Citizens Oversight committee annual report. Dr. Rendell. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
49:25 I’d like to invite Ms. Margaret Gowdlock, the vice chair of the Sales Surtax Independent Citizens Oversight Committee, and she will be making a presentation on behalf of the icoc. Margaret. Good evening, board members.
49:46 I’ll be presenting this evening on behalf of John Hoppingarten, who is our chairman and who is also ill this evening. This is the 10th presentation of our annual report of the Independent Citizens Oversight Committee. We have been in existence Since February of 2015, shortly after the sales surs tax program was approved by Brevard county voters.
50:13 Since that time, our program, and thanks to our community has invested over $390 million in facility renewal, educational technology and security at our schools. This program is a critical part of the district’s ongoing capital investment strategy that improves the learning environment for our students and teachers. Through this program, our schools have current technology, safer campuses, improved athletic facilities, and increasingly reliable and functional building systems.
50:58 Our annual report document covers the sales surtax program through September 30th of 2024. However, the revenues and expenditures that you’ll see in this report tonight are updated through November. The written report and the detailed appendix that goes along with this report gives you all of the information I think that you’ll need to know about this program, but I’ll be happy to take any questions at the end of the presentation.
51:33 Here is a list of our ICOC members. Currently, the charter requires at least seven members and no more than 11 new members, and member appointments are first considered by this board and then presented and recommended to the school board for your approval. Our purpose is to provide an oversight of the district’s sales tax program.
52:05 In this presentation, we regularly review financial data, project reports, program audits and construction progress. Our members visit schools with our project managers and see how surtax dollars are applied. In 2024, the iCock made charter changes for term limits and regular member attendance requirements, which your board recently approved.
52:42 As of November 30, 2024, the sales tax revenue from the 2020 referendum was $240 million, of which 28.33 was distributed to district charter schools. As you can see by the graph, We anticipate that the sales tax revenue will remain consistent, as you can see from the calendar year to calendar year from 2020, we’ve had significant increases in 2021 and 2022.
53:08 We anticipate that revenue and programs will remain consistent and despite issues that we’ve had with suppliers and supply chain issues, we will and increase costs. Of course, we will continue to provide services and construction projects to the schools. We were lucky this year to receive a program report that indicated that the monies that have come in have earned interest.
54:06 That was a total through June 30th of 2024 of $13.2 million. 10.
55:17 7 of this has been allocated to projects such as the open classrooms at Anderson elementary, canopy renewal at Stone Middle School, roof fire alarm and electrical upgrades at Madison Middle School, and this interest has also been allocated to additional technology and security projects. This slide shows the monies that are allocated to charter schools, but I will remind the board that the ICOC does not have any purview over this revenue. We have a graph here that shows sales tax encumbrances and expenses, expenditures that totaled $390 million through September.
56:51 We have still been working through the financial reports of both the 2014 and the 2020 sales tax programs. We will continue to update you on both of these revenues projects until those are completed. For the fiscal year 2024 sales surtax expenditures were $56.
57:13 7 million, which has exceeded all prior years, partially due to investments in more costly roof H VAC and classroom renovation projects. Let’s see, for all of the fiscal year 2024 expenditures, we have allocated a more significant share to security and we have increased this significantly with the 2020 program, as you can see. All right, so we have money that is encumbered for different projects and we have had owner direct purchases of $55.
57:35 4 million, which has saved $3.5 million and is reinvested back into the program. Now soon.
57:57 We’re getting to my favorite part this evening, which is a lot more than numbers because you guys hear that all the time. We’re going to see some of the things that the ICOC has actually done. This is a slide that shows the projects that are implemented or underway.
58:23 We have invested in air conditioning. We have been very proactive about maintenance. We have invested in roofs, electrical projects, classroom upgrades, athletic facilities, educational technology, modernizing classrooms and security all across the district.
58:47 That is our special focus and what we are very concerned about, as all other parents in the district are. All right, before and after this is Sable Elementary. You can see what the classroom looked like before and what it looks like now.
58:56 This was wholly funded through sales, surtax and with additional federal funds and capital resources. Our next slide, James Madison Middle School, the roof renewal. This is a project for a roof, fire alarms and intercoms that were completed this year.
59:17 Next is Anderson Elementary. This was updating classrooms. And this was a wonderful example of the expenditure of what we do for before and after Oak Park Elementary.
59:44 This is a security upgrade in the front office. Let’s see. Yes, Oak Park Elementary.
59:56 And then our next one is Stone Magnet Middle School Canopy renewal. This has been a multi year project that has vastly improved the aesthetics. Apollo elementary roof renewal.
1:00:25 Also H Vac plumbing, fire alarms and more renewal and different projects that are planned for completion this year and next year. McNair Middle School track. We have used capital money to support our middle school athletic programs for tracks, outdoor basketball courts.
1:00:54 And this is a great example. Here’s Central Middle School. And then next we have Heritage High tennis courts.
1:01:17 There’s no doubt that this money is well used, especially when our families and children can see such a difference Especially in projects like this with the playground renewal. Much like everybody else in the district, we are subject to audits. We have had 17 audits performed within the scope of the last few years.
1:01:39 The last one was in June of 2024. All of our audits have been very positive and are available for the public to review. As a matter of fact, our meetings are public and we would certainly invite any one of the parents or members of the community to come in and tell us about projects or different things, hear about the good work that we’re doing.
1:01:47 And so finally, this is pretty much the end of my presentation. It is our honor and pleasure to serve the children and families of the district. And I would be happy to report that Brevard Public Schools has been an A rated district for 2024.
1:02:03 And we look forward to keeping on supporting our families and staff and anyone that comes to us with a need or a project. Thank you, sue, for helping. Well, thank you so much.
1:02:12 Does anyone have any questions? Ford questions? I don’t have a question. That’s a comment. Just thank you to you and all the members of the committee for all your work.
1:02:24 And obviously the sales surtax is critical to providing safe facilities and given sue the ability to do what she does so well. So just very much appreciate it and couldn’t do it without you. Well, I appreciate yalls time.
1:02:38 John was got sick about noon today and I was like, okay, all right. Thank y’ all for bearing with me. Well, I just want to jump in there and say thank you.
1:02:54 Margaret is one of our longest serving members on the icoc. Appreciate your years of, you know, that extra labor, layer of accountability. This is a group of people that really, other than the icoc, aren’t affiliated with bps at all.
1:03:10 You get one retired principal on there. But so it’s really important for the community and for us to know that there’s an extra set of eyes, really important, thoughtful eyes. And so I appreciate, and I know you guys appreciate Sue Hann and the way she makes her job easier.
1:03:16 Well, I’m actually stumbling over the millions because I’m used to, like looking at the different contracts or scrutinizing different details or going into the schools and saying, hey, wait a minute. So thank you for bearing with me. We really do try to do a great job for the community.
1:03:23 Thank you. Yes, Margaret, thank you so much for coming at the last minute and being up here and I appreciate you. We’ve known each other for a long time and you’ve been a very constant tip of the spear on the ICOC to support and help us make sure that all of the dollars that are spent there are spent wisely.
1:03:28 So I want to tell you, thank you for your service. I think we have a. Ms. Tammy’s inside the.
1:03:31 And you’re also a part of the icoc. I wanted to take a second and honor the fact that she’s here. We appreciate everything that you guys are doing.
1:03:45 We appreciate the time that you take to come here and do what you do. So thank you so much. That’s it.
1:03:52 Very nice. Thank you, guys. Merry Christmas.
1:04:07 No, again, I would like to say just keep those before and after pictures coming. That’s a lovely addition to our email. Not that we don’t like the other emails, but we certainly like those before and after.
1:04:17 So thank you so much for all that. Well, that was the best and most colorful part. Thanks again.
1:04:28 Thank you, guys. Thank you. Dr. Rendell, Where are we at now? I thought we were.
1:04:47 Sue, are you adding something? No, sir, I’m just clearing off the podium. Oh, you are? Okay, well, you look like you are ready to go there, so we do not step on your toes. Trust me.
1:04:58 All right, so we are now at the public comments portion of the meeting. Paul, how many do we have so far? Five. So we have five speakers and each will receive three minutes.
1:05:06 Our attorney will call the speakers to the podium and the order in which which they signed up to speak. I would like to take this opportunity to remind the public of the rules written out in Board Policy 01691. All comments should be directed at the board or individual board members, staff members, or individuals shall not be addressed by name.
1:05:26 Abusive, obscene or irrelevant comments will not be permitted. Orderly conduct is expected from all public comment participants. The presiding officers may interrupt, warn, or terminate the participants.
1:05:35 Public comment opportunity. Mr. Gibbs, please call the first three speakers. Anthony Colucci.
1:05:57 Crystal Casey. Bernard. Bryan.
1:06:13 My name is Anthony Clutche. I’m the president of the Brevard Federation of Teachers. Tonight I want to discuss two of the same topics that I discussed last meeting.
1:06:25 First of all, I want to ask you a fundamental question. Do you believe an employee should be paid for doing another person’s job in addition to their own? We believe they should. Specifically, we believe our ESE teachers and others that provide ESE services should be paid, compensated when they’re picking up additional work due to a vacant position at their schools.
1:06:54 Some of our resource teachers are seeing their caseload increase by 20 or more students when another teacher leaves, creating a vacancy. We’re typically not talking about chipping in and helping for a week or two. These positions often go unfilled for an entire year.
1:07:07 It’s not an easy task to find qualified ESE teachers. In fact, some of the SLP positions haven’t been filled in three years. This is a self perpetuating problem.
1:07:29 One vacancy increases the workload of another teacher who then quits, leading to yet another teacher to have the undue pressure of doing more than one job. BFT is asking that you act on this issue and sign an MOU authorizing vacancy pay to all our impacted ESE teach teachers and those that provide ESE services. At the last meeting I noted there were 50 ESE vacancies and 132 vacancies.
1:07:54 Even though I had the list in my hand, I was questioned as to where I was getting those numbers from. Board Figuring out the number of vacancies is very simple. Go to the website, click Careers, click View Current Openings, click Instructional and count.
1:08:01 You’ll see for yourself. If you ask rather than look, you will only be provided with classroom teachers ignoring school counselors, Title 1 SLPs, behavioral analysts, teachers of students who are hearing or visually impaired, ot social workers, etc. Ignoring those positions is injustice to our most neediest students.
1:08:10 Finally, I spoke about the projection provided by our health insurance consultant being way off. We now have data through October and are still in the black while they projected we would be $12 million in the hole by the end of the year. So, like the vacancy situation, if you ask rather than look for yourself, you’re going to get a convoluted answer that somehow makes a horrific projection look like there’s no issue at all.
1:08:29 I can send you the document. You can see for yourself. BPS is getting bad advice on the management of our health plan.
1:08:47 We need a change. Additionally, the superintendent needs to regularly convene siac. Hard questions need to be asked and answered.
1:09:14 There was a time when each board member had an industry expert on the committee, another practice that ended, in my opinion, because some did not like to be questioned or challenged. Board Bring back your reps on CYAC and start paying attention to what’s going on. You’ll likely realize there are millions of of dollars that can be spent elsewhere.
1:09:21 Thank you. Crystal Casey Bernard Bryan Valerie White. Good evening ladies and gentlemen.
1:09:34 I’m going to begin by saying that I do have a relevant question questions at the end of my commentary, so please do not interrupt my constitutionally protected speech. I’m going to quote from the sworn deposition of Matthew Susan on 1117 2023. This is Jennifer Jenkins versus the Brevard County School Board, starting with page 51.
1:09:37 Okay, and then you’re not making calls through an app, are you, Matt? Susan? No. No. Okay.
1:09:41 I don’t do that. But it’s possible that you have then called or sent text messages using your personal phone to John Tobia, Correct? Is it possible that I have used my cell phone? Yeah. Let me rephrase that.
1:10:08 And text messages to call John Tobia. Have you called John Tobia using your personal cell phone? Yes. Have you texted John Tobiah using your personal cell phone? Yes.
1:10:17 Have you called Randy Fine using your personal cell phone? Yes. Have you texted Randy Fine using your personal cell phone? Yes. Have you called Wayne Ivey from your personal cell phone? Yes.
1:10:30 Have you texted Wayne Ivey from your personal cell phone? Yes. What about Bailey Gallaghan? Do you know who she is? Yes. Reported for the Florida today.
1:10:39 Okay. Have you called Bailey Gilligan in the past from your personal cell phone? Yes. Have you texted her from your personal cell phone? Yes.
1:10:53 What about Tim Bonik? Have you called him from your personal cell phone? Yes. Have you texted him from your personal cell phone? Yes. What about anybody else related to bco? Do you know who Laura Moody is? No, I’m not friends.
1:11:11 Is that the Attorney general? No, that’s Ashley Moody, but Laura Moody is the sheriff’s attorney. Do you know who she is? I don’t know her. Okay, what about.
1:11:15 Since you don’t know who she is, would you not have called or texted her from your personal cell phone? Is that a safe assumption? I would assume so. Okay, what about John Dittmore? Have you called him from your personal cell phone? Yes. Have you texted him from your personal cell phone? Yes.
1:11:23 What about Morris Richardson? Yes. Have you called him from your personal cell phone? Yes. Have you texted him from your personal cell phone? I don’t know if I’ve texted him, but I have called, talked to him on the phone and I’m going to skip forward to page 54.
1:11:50 Okay. Now when. How now? Just in your day to day, first become.
1:11:59 Oh, actually, do you know who Major Neal is? Yes. Who is that? He was head of security for Burrard Public Schools. Do you think you’ve called Major Neal from your personal cell phone? Yes.
1:12:13 Do you think you’ve texted Major Neal from your personal cell phone? Yes. My question, Matt, Susan, is if you vacate your position as school board member, are the taxpayers going to be on the hook for your continued litigation with this lawsuit or not? And also, is Brian Neal still. All right, thank you so much for your time, Ms. Casey.
1:12:45 Bernard Bryan. Valerie White. Alberta Clinkscales.
1:13:03 I’m worried. Good evening, board. First of all, my name is Bernard Bryant and I represent the concerned citizens of South Brevard as well as the South Brevard branch of the NAACP.
1:13:13 I just want to personally thank Dr. Rendell and this board for the workshop that you had today. I really appreciate your forward thinking towards solutions that I believe was critical to our children. And we learn a lot today, especially about what is a great educational environment and what we were taught today, that facilities, enrollment and programs are very important for a child to be the best that that child can be.
1:13:33 And we do understand now that the environment is so critical on how well a child learns. So I just want to say thank you for taking the time to listen. And you know, we have our heart on a couple of schools that we are very close with.
1:13:37 University Park, Stone, Delora. Those are my schools as well as Central. And I see some opportunities there this week.
1:13:59 And I’m just looking forward to the solution that was going to come in the next few years. And we do understand that we are just beginning, but we have our eyes on a great prize at the end. And again, thank you so much for what you’re doing and we look forward to good solutions at our schools.
1:14:26 Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Bernard. Valerie White.
1:14:59 Alberta Clinkscales. Valerie white. Okay.
1:15:18 My name is Valerie White. My email address is bpsassoltmail.com On April 4, 2024, I was notified by Pineapple Cove Classical Academy administration that there was an incident involving my child Thomas. When I arrived at school, multiple parents were discussing that their kids were being questioned by administration without parents being present.
1:15:48 During the questioning, my son told me that Lucia Gonzalez, a student from Columbia, had sexually assaulted him while he was in class in the presence of teachers, while teaching and other students. One of these witnesses said she does this in every class. Even when my child repeatedly told her no, she ignored him and continued to to assault him.
1:16:21 My son also has an IEP with bps. Initially, BPS suspended my child while they investigated. They then held administrative hearing on April 15 in which they wanted me to sign their documents.
1:16:36 I refused to sign because Pineapple Cove administration lied about whether or not I chose to pursue a Title 9 investigation. I specifically stated in an email that I wish to proceed with a Title IX investigation. I have evidence that BPS employees had prior knowledge of these students, of the students behavior, yet deliberately, intentionally allowed the sexual assaults to occur to multiple victims.
1:17:02 On May 28, 2024 Chair Megan Wright and Superintendent Mark Randall signed off on expulsion of my son from bps. He was a victim of sexual assault while attending school and was expelled after I filed a police report with Palm Bay Police Department on 11-12-24. Within a few days, I regained access to my son’s focus account and discovered.
1:17:23 And it shocked me each day BPS was changing my son’s records and fraudulently changing which I documented, which is right here. Absent when he wasn’t present. When he wasn’t.
1:17:27 Your signature on these. As my son suffered tremendous harm, I’m reaching out to ask any other parents whose kids have been victims of sexual assault at PCCA to please contact me@bpsassaultmail.com together we can hold. Thank you so much for your time.
1:17:41 Thank you, Alberta. Clink scales. You want to say something? Actually, I don’t know what to say.
1:17:50 Well, I just wanted. Would you mind. No, go ahead.
1:17:54 Mr. Chair, if we could just share with the parent. I just wanted to clarify. While expulsions would have to ultimately, ultimately come to superintendent for signature, PCCA is not a BPS school.
1:18:04 We can’t have a back and forth conversation, but if you will send us. Ma’, am, Ma’, am, I’m sorry, we can’t reopen public comment. But I just wanted to clarify that it’s not a.
1:18:09 Hang on, hang on. You are. I hope you’ll.
1:18:13 If you will please send us an email so we can do some further investigation. I, I, I’m going to. Again, we can’t reopen public comment for.
1:18:19 You had your three minutes. But there are other ways to reach to us out to. I’ll hand you my business card.
1:18:35 I will One of you. No, ma’, am, I have not. Armstrong, I will.
1:18:40 Okay, again, we can’t reopen public comment. I’m sorry. Reopen a can of worms before.
1:18:50 When, when I’m done talking, I will hand you my card and, and you can email me personally and we’ll make sure. But I just want to clarify for you and for the public. PCCA Pineapple Clove Classical Academy is a charter school and they have their own governing board and they handle their discipline.
1:19:07 And then it goes up only for final. Whatever decision they make goes to the superintendent. Yes, but.
1:19:16 And they also handle their own Title 9 investigations. They’re legally responsible to do that. So I will hand you my card and you can email me and we’ll see if we can get you some more answers.
1:19:33 But I just want to clarify that. That’s it. Thank you.
1:20:10 Okay, you can go ahead Good evening. My name is Alberta Clingscales. I’m the chief executive officer for the Community Revitalization Alliance.
1:20:23 And we have an initiative, Historic South Melbourne Rise. And that is an initiative resident led. And we’re using the same model of revitalization as Lyft Orlando, if you ever heard of Lyft Orlando.
1:20:39 And so we have under our cradle to career education pillar, we’ll be focusing on three schools, taking them from C schools to A schools with the assistance of our experienced consultants. And I’m here today to speak because I would like to have a partnership with Brevard Public Schools as it relates to that. We also want to focus on Stone becoming a or living up to its magnet as a steam which the S would go for space and Science Magnus School of Excellence.
1:20:47 We do have. We may be able to leverage some funds as it relates to that. I know you’re talking about a new strategy, but I do want to say that I learned much at the informative facilities workshop.
1:20:55 So I’m hoping that as you move forward, we could help with programs, we could help with facilities, and I’m looking forward to a relationship. So we’re getting your stats, all of the stats that you provided to our consultants. We’re already sending that stuff out starting today.
1:21:15 And so. Well, thank you and thank you for that wonderful presentation from the WXY Company. That was excellent.
1:21:25 Thank you. Thank you so much for your time. One more thing about Bernard Bryant.
1:21:41 So under the alliance, we do have the South Brevard naacp, and we also have the. The Concerned Citizens Committee of South Brevard. And Bernard Bryant is our chair for the cradle to career education pillar.
1:21:48 Thanks once again, Mr. Gibbs. Is that all of them? That is all. All right, that concludes public comments.
1:21:53 We thank you for taking the time out of your schedule to address the board with your concerns and suggestions. I would like to remind the public that the board is accessible for further conversations outside our business meetings through scheduling a meeting. That means email, call and such.
1:22:03 So thank you so much for that. All right, we are now at a consent agenda portion of our meeting. Dr. Rendell.
1:22:05 Thank you, Mr. Chair. There are 29 agenda items under this category. Thank you.
1:22:07 Dr. Rendell. Does any board member wish to please pull any items? Okay, I’ll entertain a motion move to approve. Second Paul, roll call, please.
1:22:13 Mr. Thomas. Aye. Ms. Campbell.
1:22:20 Aye. Mr. Trent. Aye.
1:22:23 Mr. Susan. Aye. Dr. Rondelli, please let us know about the items under the action portion of tonight’s agenda.
1:22:25 Thank you, Mr. Chair. The first action item is H43 department and school initiated agreements. I hear a motion move to approve.
1:22:27 Approved. Second. Paul Rocco.
1:22:34 Mr. Thomas. Aye. Ms. Campbell.
1:22:40 Aye. Mr. Trent? Aye. Mr. Susan.
1:22:43 Aye. Dr. Nadelli, please let us know about the items under the action portion of tonight’s agenda. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
1:22:45 The last action item is H44 procurement solicitations. Do I hear a motion move to approved. Second.
1:23:00 Paul. Mr. Thomas. Aye.
1:23:12 Ms. Campbell. Aye. Mr. Trent? Aye.
1:23:23 Mr. Susan? Aye. All right, we will move on to the information agenda which includes three items for board review and may be brought back for attention at a subsequent meeting. No action will be taken on these items tonight.
1:23:53 Does any board member wish to discuss these items? We’re now at the board member reports. Who would like to go first? Mr. Susan. Jungle for some of the splice.
1:24:05 All right. I just wanted to make the board aware of a project I’ve been working on with the Astronaut Memorial foundation and our team here at bps. The superintendent’s aware of it.
1:24:08 It’s at the exploratory stage, not ready to bring back to you guys yet. But it involves introducing STEM and CTE to our elementary, junior high and high school kids at all, at those at various grade levels. And hopefully it will expose those kids to the opportunities at the Space center, not just in engineering, but all the fields across the board and hopefully will be paid for through sponsorships.
1:24:15 So we’re working on a broad, you know, a broad program to put it all together. We have a meeting tomorrow. I’ll keep you guys informed when there’s something to bring back to you for consideration.
1:24:25 I just want to make you aware that we’re working on it. Great. Thank you.
1:24:30 Ms. Campbell. I don’t have any. Don’t have any reports tonight, but we did have a great conference last week.
1:24:35 It’s good to have almost all of us there and maybe we’ll have some things to share out later with the community, the things we learned from fsba. But not tonight, right? I agree. Good.
1:24:56 It was a good week. Yeah. So I. I had the.
1:25:04 Oh, oh, I did, I did. Sorry, sorry. I forgot I was going to do that.
1:25:23 So I have a couple of positions that it’s under my purview to nominate for some planning and zoning committees. Indialantic, which is going to be a new area for my district, but then also the city of Palm Bay, which I had a representative who was a good person, but they, they rotate off and it’s hard sometimes to recruit people to do that because it’s a non voting position. And I just wanted to.
1:25:27 Because it’s a sunshine issue. We do vote on them. Just wanted to publicly ask for Mr. Thomas because of his area of expertise, for his assistance, if he had anybody to recommend.
1:25:48 I’ll also be asking the public for anybody who would be interested to send in some words and recon interview. But because it is a sunshine issue, I wanted to ask him in the public for Mr. Thomas’s assistance in filling those particular roles, especially since we share the city of Palm Bay. That was it.
1:26:09 Great. Thanks, Paul. All right.
1:26:28 So I had the honor of meeting with the Audit committee, and one of the things that they were putting together is next year’s schedule of audits and what they were asking us to do. They went over a lot of different things all the way from currently where we are as far as audited, many of the different factions. But what they were looking for for is what we’re going to audit next.
1:26:38 Right? And we have to be careful because we want the Audit committee to work independently of us and not take direction from us saying, hey, this is who we would like to audit. We can make those recommendations, but they have to make those decisions and move forward. So what they were asking is, is like employee discipline, employee onboarding, focus on online payments and stuff like that.
1:26:52 So what I was going to say is if you guys can reach out to your audit committee members, have a discussion with them, it’s not so much to tell them what you want to be, but in regards to each one of those things, what you see happening, and maybe you can give them some light. That’s all. And then, John, I know that Mr. Thomas, the Ms. Colbert is your representative on there.
1:27:10 She is absolutely phenomenal. Like, she is somebody that I think you may want to continue with that. But she was asking, she said, hey, you know, is.
1:27:30 And she thought she was mine because of the district changes, but she’s yours. So I would make the recommendation to keep her if you can, but you should meet with her and if you have anybody for that position. So I think if you guys will reach out to your audit committee chair or your members and kind of discuss those things.
1:27:37 The other thing that I’m seeing is that we have, in some of our discipline areas, we have some areas where we may have, you know what I mean, response times and stuff like that sometimes are getting a little bit lagged and stuff like that. So what I’d like to do is I’m going to talk to Dr. Rendell about it. I’d like to put together a discipline metric where it says, like, okay, if our.
1:27:37 If Our referrals that we have are supposed to be responded to within 24 hours. What is it that we actually respond to? Because we can run a report that says this school responds to referrals in this amount of time and everything else, maybe a staff survey or something that we can just at the end of the year say, we know that the discipline inside that school is pretty strong because the staff is saying yes. And here’s some of the metrics available to it.
1:27:37 So I might bring that back at the next meeting. But I wanted to let you know if you hear about me asking about it. That’s all I was doing.
1:28:04 One of the issues that we ran across. Sorry, this thing gets. Keeps getting shut off.
1:28:21 One of the areas that you keep. That we run across is sometimes we run into some. Some areas where we need some support from the state.
1:28:27 One of the things that we’re looking at right now is, is that I don’t know if you guys know, but if we have somebody that gets expelled from our schools for a variety of issues that we may not want that person to ever come back because it may be so heinous. We as a school district can only expel them for 365 days. So we may want to be part of.
1:28:47 What we ask is maybe to review that from the state legislature to a place where if there’s something that is significant enough that we are able to not have that person come back and give them a different direction. So that I’ll be working on to make sure that everything inside the statutes and will come back. But it’s something that I think felt very strongly about.
1:28:58 I think you guys did too. But I want to make sure that the facts are correct and everything else. But that’s what is indicating for our school district.
1:29:04 So a 365 day rule. Paul, did you have an update? One of the things Mr. Thomas that we have is currently we have on here, we have an agenda plus but all of our board docs are with a company called Board Docs. So one of the things they did was when I was first on the board we had them as our online platform form.
1:29:10 So we previous to now we asked them to look out and look at the contracts and all that stuff. Paul, do you know where we’re at with that? The contract’s been approved. I don’t know where the implementation is.
1:29:25 I can check with staff and bring it back maybe at the next meeting or something like that. You can give us an update. Update you at the workshop.
1:29:31 Are you talking about for agendas yeah, one of the great. Yeah, there’s a lot. There’s a couple of other things.
1:29:38 There’s the expansion. We also have access to different things in board docs. Like right now, there’s certain features inside board docs that says that if I want to look up every cell phone policy in the state of Florida, I can type it in and it’ll search like everybody else that has board docs.
1:29:48 That’s phenomenal when we’re talking about policies and research and stuff like that. So I just wanted to kind of put it out there that, hey. Where we were at with it.
1:29:54 And then I just wanted to. I asked Paul if it was okay and he said, yeah, so he’ll bring that back to the next meeting. When we were FSBA last week.
1:30:04 Week, the new. So board Docs was bought by Diligent and their new platform is Community. And I think where Dr. Rendell shared rather than moving once and then moving again.
1:30:22 Fsba, you just moved their platform to Diligent Community. We used it for our board of directors meeting last week. It was great.
1:30:25 Smooth. So they had a session that I went to that shared what they’re going to do and that will include their policy side. There’s going to be some upgrades.
1:30:30 So I think all of that, when we get switched over, that’s some of the new things that will give you an indication of time. Well, so FSBA was trying to do it before they rolled it out to everybody else. So everybody kind of experienced what it was like, the new platform.
1:30:41 And they’ll be trans. They’ll be. I talked to some people from other districts.
1:30:54 I think Collier already switched. They just switched like a couple weeks ago. And.
1:31:18 And then just as they get the trainers trained, that’s the way that it’s rolling out across the districts who already have board docs. Evidently, everybody. Excuse me.
1:31:26 Eventually all the school districts who already have board docs currently will be switched to Community. But then I think we’re going to do it all at once, correct? Yeah. We had just executed contract with board docs and we’re going to put all our stuff on board docs.
1:31:34 We’re going to train all our staff on board docs, but immediately learned that word docs was bought out by Diligent and now switching over to that other platform. So rather than train our staff on the platform that’s going away, we’re waiting to get training on the Community software from Diligent and then we’ll just transfer everything over. And at that time, I think we will have access to all those things that you were talking about as far as policies from other.
1:31:39 Yeah, we should still have all those search capabilities. Did they give us a time, though, that we might be able to do that? March? I don’t have the answer for that right now. Don’t hold your breath.
1:31:50 I’m not going to. So who should we reach out to to find out so we’re not put behind every school district that’s out there? Yeah, we, we, we got it. Okay.
1:32:03 Because you started getting me scared when you said all the other school districts are transferring. I was like, oh, boy. I know how this works.
1:32:30 We’ll be like at the end of the line. All right. The other thing I wanted to let you guys know is, is that I’m going to get named as the workforce chairman for the statewide workforce force for amf.
1:32:49 The Astronaut Memorial foundation has a initiative where they’re bringing people from across the state of Florida from all the different places as far as school districts and their career and technical programs. And this is how it works. We are going to.
1:32:59 This committee is going to support the initiative of bringing students under the age of under juniors and under to Astronaut Memorial foundation once a year to learn about what opportunities there are in the job market inside the space program. And then they’re going to bring the same year all the seniors back that have already got their. All of their resumes ready and everything else to apply for official jobs with the aerospace industry and stuff like that.
1:33:17 It’s something that Isabel and I have been working on for roughly about a year and a half. It has Miami Dade, Citrus County, Hillsborough County, Collier County, Charlotte, Broward, Okaloosa, Escambia, all of them. And the idea is that we literally don’t have enough jobs for the people that are here, much to what you’re talking about, John.
1:33:39 And we need to be able to bring the best minds in the state of Florida here for career and technical programs to fill those jobs. And that’s what it’s about. So I just wanted to let you know if you see that that’s what that is.
1:33:44 And then I’d like to start talking about. One of the things that we’ve noticed is as many of our other school districts, the county and everybody, everybody else has a staff member for each one of the members. And I’d like to try to bring that as a proposal to you guys for the next year’s budget or even sooner to say that we may want to move to have somebody. Ms. Lena does an amazing job. She can continue to do everything that she does. But there’s a need, I feel, with a $1. 4 and $6 billion budget that we may need a staff member to help us mitigate a lot of the meetings, a lot of the stuff that we do. So that’s also nothing to be said about it now. We’ll bring it back, but I wanted to kind of put it on your radar for something to think about as I move forward, and that’s it. All right, great. Thanks, man. Dr. Windell, do you have anything further to report? I do not. Okay. There being no further business, this meeting is now adjourned. Sam, It.