Updates on the Fight for Quality Public Education in Brevard County, FL
0:25 Sam, Sa. It. Agenda for today. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
8:37 We actually have three items on the agenda. The first is a set of policies to review. Second topic is a overview of our progress in athletics the last couple of years.
8:48 The third topic on the agenda is budget updates. Going to go ahead and remove that topic. We are not going to be giving the board an Update on the 2526 budget.
9:00 We were hoping to have a little bit more definitive budget projections from the state legislature, but they are still in the midst of the legislative session and we don’t really have enough concrete information to share a budget update with the board or the public at this time. So we will hopefully be able to share that with you at the next work session if the board, if the legislature gets its work done. But.
9:26 So the first thing we’re going to do is review some policy, proposed policy changes, and I’ll turn it over to Mr. Gibbs. We have three policies up in cycle for the board to review, all from hr. Happy to take any questions anyone has on any one of them.
9:50 Board, any questions? All right. No questions on any. All right.
10:09 Yep, me too. Next on the agenda we have the athletic overview presentation. Thank you.
10:17 Mr. Chairman asked Mr. Robinson and Mr. Ramer to come on up. They’re going to run us through this presentation. Mr. Robinson is the county athletic director and Mr. Ramer is the chief of schools, which is.
10:28 He’s in charge of all school leadership. These are the two people that really have been working on this area and I. And really Mr. Robinson is the one that’s been working on this area more so than anybody else. And so going to give us a review of how we’ve done over the last couple of years, as I stated earlier.
10:46 And then a couple other bits of information the board asked about. Not to steal their agenda and their thunder, but possibility of waiving ticket fees for students and what that cost would be, things like that. So they’re going to try and cover all that in their athletics review.
11:04 Thank you and good afternoon, board members, Dr. Rendell and Brevard county community members. At the off site board workshop, there was a discussion over opportunities for BPS students regarding athletics and also ticket prices for students to attend athletic events. I’m excited today to provide you with some updates on both of those discussion points.
11:25 And with me, as Dr. Rendell said, I have our district director for athletics and activities, Mr. Kevin Robinson. Mr. Robinson will work through our presentation which will overview the following current athletic opportunities for BPS students, athletic opportunities that we’ve added over the past year or Two, a review of student ticket prices, capital improvements to our athletic facilities and programs, and a status update of where we stand with future expansion of athletics. So at this time, I’m going to turn it over to Mr. Robinson.
11:55 Good evening. Or I’m sorry, good afternoon. Yeah, so.
12:01 So as Mr. Amer said, this is the agenda of sports offered that we’re going to talk about additions to athletic opportunity. So what we’ve kind of done over the past couple of years in terms of adding additional opportunities for our student athletes, student ticket fees that was brought up also, we’re going to talk about that a little bit and data associated with that. And then we’re going to look at our capital plan and school facilities and talk about a few things that have happened in that direction also.
12:37 And then a couple of considerations moving forward as well. So right here. So at our high schools we have a very comprehensive list of sports offerings.
12:49 So the vast majority of these sports, but not all of them are offered at each individual high school. So note that we just added flag football this year, which we’re going to talk about later. That’s where.
13:01 That’s why it’s got the asterisks right down there at the bottom. So the only three FHSA sanctioned sports that are not currently offered at BPS schools are weightlifting, water polo and boys volleyball. And that’s just due to mainly to facilitate and interest levels also is a factor there as well.
13:26 Right. So that’s on our high school level, on the elementary and middle school level, these are the sports that we offer at those, those different schools across the district. So for, so for this year we, the schools that have seen the most significant expansion has been our elementary schools, obviously.
13:52 So we now offer two sports. At the elementary school level we’ve got soccer and flag football. And so these are going to be five week seasons with jamborees section jamborees at the end.
14:05 And it was very popular, extremely popular this year. So we do soccer in the fall and then we do flag football in the spring. And then like I said, we divide them up into sections according to neighboring schools and they’ll get together and they’ll compete against each other in like a fun kind of jamboree sort of day.
14:27 So the middle schools have added two interscholastic sports this year for a total of four interscholastic sports offerings with a full season schedule and county championships at the end of each sport. So the ones that we offer there in the, and this is broken down by academic quarter also first quarter we have basketball and then we offered soccer, which is one of our new sports. We offer track and field in the third quarter and then we finish up with volleyball, which is what season we’re currently in in the fourth academic quarter.
15:06 So this has certainly been a positive addition to these schools, but it also requires a lot of work and planning on the part of each individual school and as well as at the district office. So I want to thank all the athletic directors, principals and the coaches for embracing this new challenge and for helping to make it a very successful season and venture. All right, so getting into a little bit of the participation numbers right here.
15:36 Also here’s some data on the impacts of the athletic expansions that in our schools and the impacts that it’s had. So obviously the largest impact in the added participation came from our elementary schools going from offering zero sports to offering two sports. So we had 31 schools that participated in soccer with 1238 total participants countywide, while 35 schools competed in flag football in the spring with a 1,294 participants.
16:12 So the total impact was 2,532 new elementary school sports participants. And that’s pretty significant. Those are things that, those are participation opportunities that were not there prior to this school year.
16:29 So that’s in my mind that’s 2,532 lives that were in impacted. So that’s what we’re here to do and that’s that, you know, I feel like that was a accomplished mission there. So many of these, these children would not otherwise have the opportunity to participate in these, these organized sports had they not been offered at the school during the after school hours.
16:55 So that was a critical component right there. And, and one that we drove participation also. So there’s not only there’s a lot of activities that are offered throughout the community, but bridging that gap between classroom and sports was huge in this venture right here.
17:16 So we think that that’s why it was so successful and that’s the feedback that we’ve gotten as well. So our 12 middle schools added an additional 396 participants for soccer in the fall and 184 participants for volleyball currently in the spring, for a total of 580 participants in addition to their current participation levels at existing sports like that we’ve had for a while, like track and basketball. So again, you’re looking at 580 lives that were impacted right there from those additional participation opportunities.
17:57 So and then in our high school level we had two brave, very brave high schools, Melbourne and West Shore that decided to take on flag football and compete in flag football. And again, that’s an FHSA sanctioned sport that was not offered prior to this year. So they.
18:18 And they did this and increased opportunities for their female athletes because that’s a female only sport by 69 participants altogether. So that was really, really good, really impactful. And I want to shout out to those coaches and athletic directors also, because, you know, when they took that on, they did it knowing that there weren’t any supplements available to do this.
18:46 So they weren’t doing it for money. They were just doing it for the love of wanting to see it get done. And due to the interest in their school, they had an overwhelming interest in their school.
18:56 There was a need. They felt the need to fill that. Now, obviously that’s something that we’re working on is getting those supplements in place, but I think they were functioning on special program supplements of like 500 to $650 for the entire season, which is, which is typically about, you know, a third of what you would see with an assistant coach.
19:18 Right. So huge shout out to those guys for that. And one quick note on that one also is West Shore actually decided to.
19:32 Very first year, decided to go into a district. So that’s, that’s very bold. Coming into the.
19:40 The district tournament. They hadn’t won a game all season, but they were the number six seed. They decide they.
19:49 They were paired up with the number three seed. They knocked them off. They upset them in the quarterfinals.
19:54 Then they had to take on in the semifinals the number two seed from. And let’s see, the three seed was from Lake Placid. The number two seed was from Avon Park.
20:04 So then they took on Avon park, beat Avon park very first year, made the district finals against John Carroll. Now, unfortunately, they didn’t win in the district finals, but to make it a run all the way to the finals, when you’re coming in, you know, brand new and, you know, just unbelievable, just an unbelievable story of perseverance. And you know, those, those ladies did a really good job there.
20:33 So just wanted to kind of highlight that one also. So next up, I want to look at a couple of things in review of this year. So here’s a snapshot of the success that we’ve had with our athletic program so far this year.
20:49 We have. Our teams have won 36 district championships overall. And bear in mind when you see these numbers, these only represent fall and winter because we’re still in spring season.
21:04 We’re actually, right now we’re going through state series in spring. So those results are not even totally in yet. So this doesn’t include those spring results.
21:13 There’s much more to be added on this based on what we have in history and, and everything that we have going on. But there were eight region championships and we had four state championship teams there as well. And overall 54 individual state medalists, including six individual state champs.
21:37 So that just shows it’s a testament to how strong our county is when it comes to athletics. And I can tell you that on a personal note, when I go to meetings around the state, people recognize that. They know that.
21:50 They know that Brevard is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to athletics and our teams and that kind of thing. So they’re well aware of that all around the state as well. Okay, so next up, talking about ticket, student ticket fees and revenue.
22:12 This is something that at the request of Dr. Rendell and the board, my office coordinated the collection of student ticket data from all 16 high schools as well as ticket data from across the state in terms of, like, prices and things like that. So what we found is that when the state was polled, out of all the responding counties, that the poll data showed that Florida, that Brevard was the lowest, had the lowest ticket prices in all the responding counties across Florida, there were some people. So typically, how you divide it out is you got football tickets that are.
22:57 That are on a per person basis, regardless of adult or student or whatever. And. And then you’ve got.
23:02 All other sports are going to, you know, have a variation there between the adult student tickets. So there were about, I think There were about two other counties that had a $6 football ticket per person, but we were the lowest when it came to all the other sports, you know, at $5 adults and $3 students. So they were more, much higher, you know, and had gone through many more ticket increases than we had.
23:33 So our ticket fees have not seen an increase in a very substantial amount of time. And a lot of that’s because we’ve been able to keep our ticket prices down for the, for that time period with the help of millage funds paying for the officials in the recent past two years. So that’s really helped us out.
23:54 So the idea there is that, you know, you’re kind of passing those savings and the money and spreading that around by keeping your prices down rather than increasing those. So not only do our schools and our athletes get to benefit, but also our fans, you know, our spectators that support us, we think it’s important that they’re able to benefit off of that, too. So now, out of the student ticket revenue data that we collected in basketball, so at the time of the request, it was approaching winter season, so we chose, you know, after.
24:34 After much conversation, we chose to get. Have basketball as a sport where we decided to collect sample data on ticket sales. We thought it would be pretty.
24:44 Pretty equal. You’ve got boys and girls. You’ve got a pretty good sample there.
24:51 So once all the data was in from all schools, we found that over $75,000 combined from all 16 schools was collected from student ticket fees. So that’s a very substantial amount. And this is only for basketball.
25:10 So again, that doesn’t include the $6 tickets from football that you sell to students that they’re more difficult to track because they don’t divide them, you know, by adult and student, you know, as well as the other sports as well. So I think this number would be much more substantial if you were able to figure in those football numbers, but that’s a little bit difficult to do. However, the loss of any sort of revenue, we believe would be detrimental to our schools and our programs in terms of how they function and how they run.
25:49 So. Moving forward to capital improvements, do you want us to ask questions, Questions as we go, or do you want to wait till the end? What do you think, Mr. Robinson? Should we take a pause? We can. We can pause and ask questions on this.
26:08 I’m assuming we’re going to have more questions. This is going to be some of our question areas. Okay, sure.
26:15 I appreciate it. I’m assuming, as you already mentioned, that the ticket sales or the income from. That’s a huge piece of operate.
26:23 Paying for operational costs. Yes. And.
26:30 I was curious what the average ticket price is outside of Brevard county compared to what we. What we pay or we charge. Okay, so.
26:42 So I can give you some examples. If we’re looking at. If you’re looking at football ticket prices.
26:50 So Alachua is $10 for adults, for adult, for everybody. For everybody. Students and, yeah, everybody.
27:02 So Charlotte is $8. Citrus is $8, Clay is $10. Collier county is $8.
27:11 Scambia is 7 and Hernando is 8. Hillsboro is 7. Lake county is 8.
27:21 Marion is 10. Martin county is 8. Orange county is 9.
27:26 Osceola is 6. Okay, so they’re. They’re in line with us.
27:31 Pasco is six. They’re in line with us also. And then Polk county is six as well.
27:39 And then you go $10 for Sarasota, $10 for Seminole, $10 for Seminar, St. John’s and $8 for St. Lucie County. So, so there’s, Is there any, so I appreciate that. Is there information as far as attendance? How does our attendance, number one, compare to what our attendance has done over the past several years? Is it up, down? I mean, I know at the collegiate level, it’s, it’s gone down over, over, over the years.
28:07 How is our attendance compared to our attendants in the past? And how is our attendance compared to those other places that charge more? So comparative data across, if I’m hearing, hearing you correctly, comparative data across years prior year for us. And then how do we compare to other places that have, that are charging more? Yeah, I, I don’t have that data. I don’t have, have all that.
28:29 So how do we, do, you know, how we stack up attendance wise in our own, in our own house? As far as, are we increasing, holding it steady, decreasing? I would say it depends on the time period that you’re talking about. If you’re talking about like from, and I’m just going from memory here, but if you’re talking about from like say 20 years ago, 15 years ago, that kind of thing, I don’t think the attendance is as high as it has been in, you know, know, deep years past. There’s a, there’s a lot of different reasons for it, you know, and there’s a lot of speculation as to why that might be.
29:11 There’s so many things available. There’s so many entertainment sources available. You know, for example, we are, we’re playing right now.
29:22 Literally right now, I think. No, actually the game is at 2:30, but Satellites playing down in Key West. Right.
29:31 So there’s been a lot of buzz going on about that. But, but they expect to have about 5,000 people at that game. At a baseball game.
29:42 Wow. During the week. They’re a small community.
29:46 There’s not a whole lot else going on in Key West, I don’t think, you know, in terms of, in terms of entertainment, that kind of thing. So they really tend to rally around that community. So again, it’s specific to different communities.
30:02 It’s to different sports. I only have one last question. Is there anything that correlates or from your experience, anything that correlates our pricing compared to our reduction in attendance over the years? Does that have any correlation or do you think that it’s that if we were charging, charging versus, you know, charging zero, charging six or charging ten, do you think that would have a significant difference in attendance? I think, I think a raise in fees would obviously have an impact.
30:34 How long would it last? I. I don’t know. You know, like it depends on the memory of the, you know, the individuals, you know, and plus they tend to get adjusted and that kind of thing. You know, I think that a lot of the people in Brevard, you know, they, they get used to what they’ve got right there and, and you know, an increase, you know, can hit hard for a little while and then, and then maybe it kind of goes away.
31:01 Okay. Yeah, that’s just my opinion. So appreciate it.
31:04 Yep. Mr. Chair, if I could, Mr. Thomas made a comment at the beginning about is the sum of the funding for our athletic programs. Mr. Robinson, ticket revenue is all of the funding for athletic programs, aside from what we contribute with millage for the officials costs, everything else the school operates their athletic program is based on ticket revenue.
31:29 Yes. There is no seed money from the district or anything like that. So all of our athletic programs basically operate on ticket revenue.
31:38 Can I have a follow up question? Sure. There are booster clubs or whatever for each high school. Absolutely.
31:44 Help contribute to that. Yes. Okay.
31:46 Yeah. But I just want the viewing public to understand that this ticket revenue that we’re talking about, that’s how we fund all of our athletics. Aside from officials cost, which for the last two years we’ve paid for with the voter approved millage.
31:57 Thank you voters for that millage for enrichment. But in reality, there is no budget for athletics in the district budget. It’s all ticket revenue.
32:09 So yeah, The years just prior to that, we were using Esser funds to do the same thing. So just before we get off the subject of ticket prices, I just having been to a pretty good share of football games this year and a basketball game and a bunch of track meets, I’ll tell you there’s no shortage of students coming into to attend and from a great variety of, you know, demographic backgrounds. I think when we had the conversation, if I recall, it was we wanted to get, we wanted to increase student participation, student attendance.
32:47 And I think from, from what I’ve seen in the events that I’ve been able to attend, I don’t think it’s the ticket price that gets in the, the way. I think it’s just lack of time, maybe transportation, because if they have to, they don’t drive, they have to get back, you know, busy schedules and things like that. So.
33:04 And some of this, you know, football is easy, it’s one night a week. But you get to basketball season, volleyball season, you got multiple games a week and baseball and you got to travel. So Far.
33:11 So I don’t think the student. I think we need to. I would suggest that we need to leave the student ticket prices the way they are because of the revenue source.
33:21 And you know, and just really it’s incumbent on the schools to drum up excitement about the other sports the way they do with our big dollar events like football. So I. And the biggest thing I think that has been the game changer is not just students, but adults also who don’t carry cash. So the game changer being able to use GoFan and have people be able to, even on site if they didn’t know ahead of time, have a QR code, buy a ticket, you know, I can’t tell you, having worked concession stands, a whole bunch of football games, how many kids come up and say, do you have Apple Pay? No, we do not have Apple Pay.
33:58 And so then they walk away so sad because they can’t buy any snacks because that particular school doesn’t do Google Apple pay, even though some schools do. But I think that has really been the game changer in making things accessible because every student, you know, that I’m seeing has a way to pay digitally. So I think that’s made a big difference, not just for students, because adults don’t carry cash anymore either.
34:21 So I’m glad we were able to make that change a couple years ago, but I think we just need to leave it here. If you’re not making a recommendation for football and for not just football ticket increases other than that, but at least to keep it the same, I would. I am in support of that.
34:36 Yeah, I had a question because I, I did the math and I’m like, I just want to. Want to ask. So this looks like approximately 24678.
34:52 333 tickets sold. So I’m not sure how that didn’t come out to an even number. Because you were looking at student ticket sales only.
34:54 Correct. Right. All right.
35:09 Would you say basketball is the second highest attended sport that we have in Brevard county, or did you look at like, how many people are attending this sport versus other sports? It depends. So obviously you’re talking second highest behind football. Football.
35:19 We know football is usually the one that drives a lot of the ticket sales. Yeah, yeah, it’s. I would say if you’re talking about attended by students.
35:25 Right, by students. Yes, probably. It’s probably right around there, I think.
35:36 But I think that was, you know, that was more of a timing thing, you know, when the data request came in. Okay. Well, I mean, it’s Interesting to see.
35:48 I mean it’s a lot of money obviously that it’s generating for 16 different schools to disperse amongst them. So when we originally talked about this, we were talking about the idea of like wanting to drive student enrollment at the sporting events. Right.
35:59 Because we want our students on our campuses and that’s the safest place they can be and get involved and hopefully maybe inspired to run an, try to be on a team of some sort. What about the idea of. I know they do this for grandparents.
36:02 I think they call it the Legacy. Legacy Club. A legacy club.
36:11 Okay. What about the idea of a season ticket holder quote unquote, like could. That’s something we maybe want to toss around to students as an idea.
36:23 Something that a one time fee that gets you into as many as you want to for the entire season of sports. If they don’t go, then obviously they don’t, you know, they’re not there. But it’s just something I was kind of tossing out there.
36:33 One of the other things I had was about one of the other slides. So, Mr. Chair, would you prefer me to wait till the end or is it okay to go ahead and ask? I mean, this is a good time. The previous slides about the middle school sports.
36:52 I just wanted to ask this question because this has been asked of me. So we have these junior senior models in Brevard, right? And so our junior senior models are really great because it allows our juniors to have access to some sports that maybe aren’t, you know, with only having soccer and volleyball at the middle school. Well, no, they have four.
36:57 Sorry, that’s not correct. Sorry. This slide before, but they only have a few options available to them.
37:06 But when it comes to like volleyball, I’m going to use this one because this one was just recently brought up to me. They said, well, you know, why aren’t we playing some. Why are we playing Space Coast? I’m like, well, it’s a junior senior.
37:13 So they’re playing on the regular volleyball season. So just something to kind of consider because we have several junior senior seniors with Cocoa. Cocoa Beach, Space Coast.
37:19 So there’s a lot of them. Those seasons run different time frames. Right.
37:31 So the number of participants that we see, like in volleyball, for instance, you didn’t consider any of the, any of the junior high students that are playing it at a junior senior school already? No. Right. That was in addition to this, these.
37:48 So if you go to this slide, those numbers right there that you’re talking about, are you just strictly out of those 12 middle schools? Okay, so Their participation numbers of the junior senior high schools get counted already with the high schools. With the high schools. I know, and that’s a, it’s a very complex thing.
38:05 And I don’t even, I don’t necessarily know that I have a solution on how you work through that. But I do think, you know, something to consider because we do have middle schoolers that are playing sometimes on JV teams, sometimes even varsity teams, depending on their skill level. And those students probably should be playing with middle school teams.
38:15 Right. They’re middle schoolers even though they’re in a junior senior. So just something to kind of consider and think about moving forward.
38:34 The opportunity to play on a high school JV team for a middle schooler I think is more exciting than the idea of getting to play against your peers because, you know, that’s one of the advantages of a junior senior high. So I don’t know that those students would really want, want to not be on the high school JV team as opposed to. No, I’m sure they’re going to pick the JV high school team all day long.
38:48 I have no doubt about that. But I’m just thinking, even for having more teams available to participate in competitions like soccer and volleyball, these two that were just recently added, if there was a way to have a team that ran, it’s a separate season, that’s where it gets a little funky. I don’t know how that would work, but.
39:01 So I think, I think I’m so from. Let’s take volleyball for us, for instance. My daughter played volleyball and she tried out for the, when she was at Cocoa beach, she tried out for the, the freshman team.
39:15 Right. And the vast majority of the girls that were on the freshman team were middle schoolers. There might have been, you know, like one or two, like fresh actual freshmen, but the vast majority of the freshman team was middle schoolers.
39:32 So. So when they were playing against other junior senior high highs, we found out it was kind of similar. So that freshman game at a junior senior high is really kind of more like a middle school team.
39:56 You know, if you’re, if you’re a regular 9 through 12, then it’s all freshmen. But they also have bigger populations and that’s why, that’s why the junior senior high schools, they’ll tend to gravitate and that’ll be more of a developmental team, that ninth grade team, and they’ll gravitate towards there and have more middle schoolers in that freshman team. Right.
40:20 So the other part to that is too, if you’re looking at different levels. They have to compete within that season in order to be able to compete up levels. So if you’ve got like a middle schooler that’s playing freshman volleyball and, and they’re really good, and in order to move up to jv, it has to be within that same season.
40:26 Right. So if they played outside of that season, like in this case volleyball and middle school is in the spring. Right.
40:32 Then you would have to choose one or the other. And that’s by FHSA policy, you have to choose one or the other. You’d have to either.
40:50 And that’s, that’s why in the junior senior highs, we also go middle school basketball in the, in the winter, in the early part of the winter. So we’ll situate that in the early part of the winter so that they can, if they’re good enough, they can play up on jv. Right.
41:17 And there are some cases where, where that, that is the case, but it allows them to move levels as long as they don’t exceed their 25 games limit per season. So, yeah, this is obviously far more complex than I thought it was going to be when I brought this conversation, but it was just asked of me recently, like, hey, you know, we’re, we’re playing volleyball at Madison. How come we’re not playing against any of their schools? I’m like, well, partly that is because of the junior senior for Space coast and then, you know, Coco also, same thing.
41:21 So, yeah, they wouldn’t be allowed to do two seasons. Right. Okay, makes sense.
41:25 It’s complex. It’s never quite as easy as just a simple. Just play each other.
41:28 I don’t know. Yeah. Thank you.
41:40 Yeah. All right, no problem. Susan? Yeah, Mr. Thomas? Were you, were you asking all those questions to try to figure out a way to get higher participation inside our schools for athletic events? Is that what you’re trying to do? Well, there was a couple of things behind it.
42:04 One is I know that with rising costs in the back of my mind, I’m not sure that the current ticket prices are going to be able to cover the operational costs. And I was just curious if the, you know, how the ticket prices affected attendance, if there was a correlation or not. When I was, when I was a teacher, we used to many of the games that we would go to, I noticed that participation in the student was not as high as it could be.
42:15 Right. So when I was at Eau Gallie, we created something called the Commodore Crazies. So myself, along with two other board teachers, decided to create like A fan group.
42:24 And what we did was we had them come out, we cooked them hot dogs and did all this stuff. And there wasn’t a game that half the stadium wasn’t flat. We would go to away games for volleyball and pack the whole place.
42:33 Right. So there is a way to do it. I don’t know if giving free to the students means that more of them would come and then all of those different angles, but I’ve got some ideas.
42:48 I’ll work on increasing the participation because what Kevin’s been able to do, which is incredibly awesome, as far as increasing all these sports, they’re going to slowly start to build. And when they do, more people will start to come out. And so making sure that that happens, I think is going to be there.
42:56 So. And then, Ms. Wright, middle school is not such a bad thing to throw into those junior seniors because sometimes we have developmental talent that’s not the best. Right.
43:08 And you want to be able to have them develop at that middle school level. And it helps our other schools. So, like if we only have eight middle schools that are competing against each other, it makes that competition less rather than, you know what I mean, having all of them.
43:24 So I understand what you’re saying as far as the size and everything, but if it starts to get to where kids that are on the junior seniors are decent 7th and 8th grade volleyball players in the future and they can’t play because it’s starting to get popular. Right. And we might have to entertain moving in there.
43:29 That’s all. It’s just the development of the talent. Our goal is to try to get the kids playing from when they’re in middle school up.
43:36 So that was all. Can you share a little bit about the Legacy Club so that the public knows, like what is. Is that a slide coming up? Sorry.
43:47 Might be okay. No. So the Legacy Club is basically kind of a discounted pass that they sell to, I believe.
44:09 And GCR may be able to speak better on this than I can, but it’s to retirees, you know that. And they could go in and they pay one price and then they show their Legacy Club and then they get in. Well, it’s probably a good thing just to highlight and remind people every year that this is available for grandparents, that, that maybe even if they can’t come, it still supports the sport.
44:17 Right. So if they had that Legacy Club card, I know my children’s grandparents would buy it in a heartbeat. You know, some of them don’t live in the States, so they’d still just buy it to have it.
44:24 So it might be a good reminder to put out there in the public. Hey, you can support the sports by still participating in this way. Sorry, excuse me.
44:32 Yeah, and I liked it. I like the idea of a season pass for students. You know, I really like that.
44:52 Have one more thing. So if we created like fan groups, like crazies or whatever it is that would fall underneath your umbrella, right? So like, if we could create these maybe even. Maybe even stipend coach type things that would increase participation, increase revenue to the actual event and everything else.
45:03 I mean, there might be something to it that fall under you or would that go under somebody else? I’m trying it because Mr. Thomas is talking about increasing participation. I just didn’t know who that would go under. Kind of like a pep club sponsor.
45:08 That’s it. Like, if you had a pep club sponsor, I’m not sure who that. Would that be under you or would that.
45:13 Oh, if you. I was thinking about going, yeah, creative pep school sponsors in. I got 22 of them.
45:17 So any type of club like that. Yeah, that would. That would fall under my realm.
45:26 Yeah. And. And at the school level, it would fall under the realm of the athletic and activities director of STO among kids.
45:30 You don’t have to call him Crazy Zone. He’s like, I don’t know if I want to take this club. I’m not sure.
45:43 So that’s also a school by school. A lot of times your school leadership sga. Other school leadership will take on having a, you know, student section at certain sports.
45:50 So, Miss. Right. Your question on is basketball the second highest revenue sport? It’s going to depend on what score you’re at.
45:54 Right. We saw some schools bring in 7, 10,000. We saw some schools bring in 2 to 3.
46:05 But you may flip that at the school in volleyball may bring in seven to 10 and you know, instead of two or three. So really depends sometimes on school athletic success. Right.
46:13 And how the team is doing. And then do you have somebody leading a student section? Those are starting to become more popular. If you’ve been to games, you see a lot of theme nights, right.
46:27 Like every game has a theme. So that’s a way to generate interest and generate the revenue for the school. So Kevin and I have talked about a potential season pass or a potential year pass.
46:36 Other districts do participate in something similar to that. So we have a little bit of information on that. So that would be something that we’re going to continue to consider.
46:56 Is the lettering only with FHSAA sports or are they with like anything, like can you get a letter for a pep club? All right, Mr. Chair, I did have one other question. I think that’s going to be a school based decision. All right, so thank you for bringing.
47:14 Eventually we got to the, the season pass. I, I’m, I’m big on that. With digital pay, we’ve talked about, you know, paying at registration time, but passes for multi week level passes like gold, you know, bronze and silver, whatever it might be, silver and bronze for students, for families, for individuals.
47:30 I mean, during registration time, you know, get it when that, that credit card’s out and you know, we can, we can have that money up front. I think parents would be more than happy to do that. So.
47:36 But I mean, I think that’s where we need to go with that. That I think would be great. The more the merrier on that.
47:53 I know with my kids going through and at that time everything was just cash and you know, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come to a game and I didn’t have money to get, you know, the whole family into it, you know, but just had to leave the kids in the car. Not a problem. But.
47:57 No, it was fine. But it was, it was all good. And I think that that’s where we need to go.
48:10 I’m glad you’re thinking of it, you guys. Mr. Robinson, you’re the best mind to be tackling this. So I’m sure you’re going to be coming back with an idea on that because I think it’d be good for the students and the families of her bard.
48:20 So before you guys move on, I know Mr. Thomas had one more. No, actually two is real quick, real quick. One is regarding sponsorships.
49:01 Do we have anything that’s corporate sponsorship where a corporation gets X number of tickets for, whether it’s for the school, whether it’s an annual pass for the entire county. If a corporation were to donate X number of dollars, is there any kind of corporate sponsorship package that exists that supports either the school or the entire athletic program of the county? So that’s typically going to be done and worked out at the school, at the school level. If it’s a sponsorship that’s sponsoring that particular school and it hasn’t gone through, you know, the district or you know, GCR and their department or anything like that, it would be something that gets worked out.
49:13 Like maybe they have a parking space, like a reserve parking space, like all kinds of perks for those corporate sponsorships. So it’s up to the school if they Want to give six free passes for donating, contributing X number of dollars. Yeah.
49:25 And typically what they’ll do is they’ll put them on a pass list. My other last question was you had mentioned that we don’t have Apple Pay, and I was just curious why we don’t have Apple Pay. Is it.
49:49 And then do we have access to a credit card block at the games where somebody comes in, they have a credit card versus a app, you know, to pay. Is there a way to pay up either? Is that for admissions or concessions? We have a way to pay with a credit card online through Go Fan. And every school has like, a QR code so they can go in there and they don’t have to.
49:56 We don’t have to take cards and have squares. What I was talking about was concession stands. And since those are run by the different booster clubs.
50:00 All different. Every school, it’s up to that booster club whether they have it or not. Right.
50:11 Whether they’re going to have digital pay options or only take cash. And like, at Mel, the band booster club runs it. And some of them, it’s the different athletic booster clubs that run it.
50:17 So it’s kind of up to them on how they’re going to run their organization. So that was where the Apple Pay came. And I’m just.
50:27 My point was that the kids all have it. The high school, it would make sense that we have it streamlined across the entire district, that if you have apple pie at one school, you should be able to have it at the other. It should be.
50:33 You should be able to show up in any school and know what to expect. Right. But all of our athletic events have that.
50:40 You have the ability to pay digitally. Awesome. I think we’re done.
50:47 Go. Okay. All right.
51:06 So this focuses on capital improvements in terms of the athletics, FF and E line. I think you guys have probably heard sue talk about that on a number of occasions. This has been a tremendous help to me and my office and just my position.
51:41 And, you know, when I am able to go out to schools, you know, as I’m walking around, they’re like, hey, let me show you this, you know, or can, you know, can you take a look at this? So it really helps me with, like, being able to solve those problems that are, like, right away, maybe they’re. Maybe they’re somewhat of an emergency, or maybe it’s something that you catch before it becomes a problem, before it becomes an emergency. And it’s things that you can work on, but it’s a pot of FF&E money.
51:59 That I have that I can solve. Smaller, maybe bigger than the school’s problems, but smaller than, say, some of the capital stuff that Sue’s gonna come and help me out with here in a minute. But we’re able to do.
52:23 We were able to replace a lot of our scoreboards and refurbish some of the scoreboards that’s at our stadiums, our gyms, baseball, softball fields, things like that. We’ve been able to do a lot of that, which makes a massive difference. We’ve been able to replace new goal posts at schools, get new weight equipment at some schools.
52:39 Also soccer goals. We had replacement of a couple of soccer goals that I saw that were in pretty bad shape at high schools. And then obviously, we had to purchase 32 goals, sets of goals for elementary schools in order to be able to get them going.
53:00 And that’s where we found the money to do that. Audio system upgrades at some schools as well. You guys been to these events? You know that depending on where you go, the audio kind of struggles sometimes, right? So we try to look at that and stay on top of that as well.
53:21 New wrestling mats for schools as well. And that’s really been a big help in terms of, you know, impact and keeping injuries down, and not only with the joints, but also with concussions, things like that. As a wrestling mat gets older, it gets much more compressed and harder.
53:40 So you’ll tend to see increases in injuries and things like that if those aren’t replaced in a reasonable amount of time. Baseball and softball, our netting, our fencing, foul ball poles, repair and replacement, things like that. We’ve been able to cover some of those.
54:01 Pool cover replacement. At Titusville High School, we’re working on pool cover replacement for them as well, because over time it tends to degrade in the sun or the chlorine, that kind of thing. So that makes it a lot easier on the heating systems if you’ve got those pool covers.
54:10 So it kind of saves money that way. Volleyball judge stands. We had to get those for all of our middle schools because again, this year we just started volleyball in our middle schools.
54:33 So we’ve got to have a place for our officials and judges to stand, you know, at the net height. So we’re able to do that and then just, you know, odds and ends, miscellaneous things like that. You know, ice machines, ball locker striping machines, score tables, just depending on what’s needed, you know, at any given school.
54:42 And that’s going to vary by school. You know, some schools maybe, you know, maybe they’re fine on the Wrestling match, you know, but. But they really could use a set of soccer goals or something like that.
54:53 Right. So you get the idea with that. Every, every, every piece of equipment has varying kind of lives and wear and tear when it comes to that.
55:06 Yeah. I do want to thank Ms. Hahn is stepping in and giving the capital funding and then obviously the board for approving our capital plan. Mr. Wilson, operations, Mr. Cheatham and et and finances.
55:21 We sit down together and kind of break apart what that bucket looks like. This has been instrumental in going and visiting schools and being able to identify areas that we need to improve. But maybe the school doesn’t have all of the funding in order to improve that.
55:29 So I know at Space coast, for example, I believe we went and walked when the new track came out. And then my next call was to Kevin saying, I think they need a new goal post. Right.
55:35 Because they got new track, new stands, they’ll have that. And then look, they won a state championship, right. In the football.
55:46 So, you know, get that going. So just it’s been instrumental in being able to see a concern and address the concern. Without saying, we’re going to put you on the list.
55:59 Right. We’re able to address a lot of concerns in a more timely manner. So it’s been a very strong improvement to our capital process.
56:13 Okay, so here’s some capital improvements and athletic facilities that we’re working through. Obviously improving middle school tracks, Hoover Central, McNair have been completed and we have a few more on the docket that are under design. Working on outdoor basketball courts.
56:39 So I should be able to show you some pictures of these as we go through the rest of the presentation. So McNair Central Southwest completed and then working on elementary school in order to make sure that their blacktop is playable so that they can have outdoor recess PE and have ample areas to go. Tennis courts with Heritage and Viera, we’ll show you pictures of those and then we have a couple more under contract and design in order to start the process to improve those areas.
57:00 Our beach volleyball is becoming much larger in Brevard public schools, so we’re adding some beach volleyball courts and making sure that we have those opportunities or at least hub centers for schools to participate. Prior to putting these on campuses, our teams were going to local parks, maybe the beach. And we know that there’s a lot of variables that go whenever you’re going to those locations.
57:15 And then baseball, softball fields and making sure that we have some safety things in there with the laser grading that fields are playable. We have the netting that’s appropriate. We’re adding that you guys just approved the bayside netting so that foul balls don’t go from baseball to softball and back and forth, keep people safe.
57:26 But the other thing that capital improvements do for our schools, it gives us an opportunity to host more events which then can in turn bring in more revenue. Right. We want to bring people to Brevard Public Schools and showcase what we have.
57:42 So if we’re holding a holiday tournament, if we’re doing something a little bit extra for that season, you know that we want to have the facilities that make people proud. And I always wanted to have a facility of my own where when somebody walked away, they thought to themselves, man, was it. I really wish I had that or that looked really good.
58:07 So that’s another capital improvement avenue that we pursue, which then in turn helps the schools as they can potentially host more events or have a facility to do that. So some of our more capital improvements, a few more of those locker rooms. So I’m sure that if you have students in bps, you’ve probably heard about some of the locker room concerns, safety and just space and utility of utilizing those areas.
58:28 So we have some locker room renewals that are completed and some other ones that are currently under renovation. So those are top left. Adding the new pool heaters, quite extensive and expensive, but at the end of the day will be cost savings as we start to upgrade our facilities and start to upgrade what we’re using in order to enhance those facilities for our utility purposes.
58:43 Press boxes like astronauts. We have some practice fields that are going on that are being improved to make sure that they’re safe for our players and also provide an opportunity for the school to be successful. So a lot of these areas could be potentially multi use.
59:10 Right. So we can not only use them for athletics, but we can also use them for academic purposes and then acoustic panel upgrades. So we had a couple schools that when you walked into the gym, you know, there’s a little cause of concern of what those were and how old may they be and upgrading those in order to make sure that they’re soundproof, but also aesthetically have the opportunity for students and staff to be proud of their facility.
59:21 So upgrading those as we are going through the process, so there’s some more capital improvements that we’ve had. We are starting a stadium lighting LED upgrade. So we’re starting with Cocoa High School.
59:48 So we’re looking at updating the stadium lights to LEDs. This will also be hopefully a cost savings as we look at utilities, moving Forward, because going from the old type of light bulbs to the new LEDs and then obviously bleacher repairs and bleacher enhancements. So some of our schools have the much older bleachers, so maybe the original wooden ones that were put there when the school was built, and they aren’t always in what we call the best condition.
1:00:10 We talked a little bit about student sections. So I remember at, you know, as a principal, every once in a while with a big game and a lot of students that the bleacher, you know, student coming up afterwards and saying, hey, by the way, that go up to the bleachers, the middle one, it’s a little cracked right now, right? Because they got excited during the game. They’re jumping up and down, things like that in the gym.
1:00:25 So enhancing the bleachers for safety, security, and also making sure that they are upgraded to the latest and greatest, which gives us opportunities for success. So. So some of that bleacher renewal is completed, and some of it’s still under construction.
1:00:33 So we’ll give you a couple pictures. So there’s some upgrades to some of our scoreboards that have been put in. So really excited as you see the logo on it, like, looks really good.
1:00:49 Makes you proud to be a part of that team or part of that school. The left side of these pictures is going to be the old, and the right side is going to be the new. So this is our new track at Central Middle School, and we have our basketball court renewal at McNair Middle School.
1:01:02 So we have that right there. And I want you to also look at the fence in the middle, the hoops, the nets, like, all that stuff being a place that kids can be proud of, that they can go out there and really have pe. Sometimes schools will actually practice outside.
1:01:15 I remember as a basketball coach, early in my career as a teacher, when you don’t have enough gym space, you don’t have enough gym time. Sometimes students are outside practicing during the season, so a nice opportunity there. Central Middle School upgrading.
1:01:15 So once again, as you look long and far, you see a much better setup for students. Not only the renewal of the blacktop, but also the hoops in the background, backboards, all of that, once again, making it a place for students to be successful. Southwest was another one that we had completed over the summer and was ready, ready for the start of the school year.
1:01:51 So once again, you know, very excited as that could be an area for students not only throughout the day, but also for extracurricular opportunities. Heritage High. Take a look at that blue Right there, Right.
1:02:06 Sometimes we’re able to put in the school colors for our facilities. Looks really good. So, Pops, once again, if you look to the left and you’re thinking to yourself as a tennis player, is that really where I want to be a tennis player? And then you look to the right and you’re like, wow, this could be a place I’m proud of.
1:02:18 This can be a place where our teams can get better. Students can really have ample opportunities to increase their game and make them the best version of who they are right now in that sport. And then right there with Viera.
1:02:34 So once again, just the original to the left and then the enhancement to the right for the tennis court renewal. So really excited about the capital projects that have been able to complete. Once again, not most of these are Not Capital Athletics, FF&E.
1:02:59 This is Sue’s team going out there and really making it work with the facilities department identifying needs. They have comprehensive documents that outline prioritization of who gets what when and making sure that we’re out there and getting some of these projects done in a nice time frame for students, coaches, stakeholders to be a part of. So some of our considerations moving forward.
1:03:19 So once again, as we’ve added more sports, we’ve added more student participation, which does come with a cost per se, and that is that with some of our facilities. So adding the sports has placed a little bit of an additional burden on our facilities. Trying to keep up and make sure that our facilities are up to speed from one sport to the next.
1:03:28 We have some field space. So obviously, whenever you add more sports, you start. Start condensing the space a little bit, so you don’t always have the field space for everybody.
1:03:44 We also have some of our middle schools that are using high school facilities, which then causes a concern there because they don’t have the space on their campus or availability on the campus. So field space is a concern. Coaching, trying to find coaches, and not only that, financing the coaching supplement.
1:04:06 So once again, these are just, as we move forward, some things that we need to consider as we’ve had really rapid increase in athletic opportunities for our students. And these are just some things that we’ve had to deal with along the way and administration. Every sport, every athletic event needs to have an administrator present in order to supervise that said sport or athletic event.
1:04:25 So as we add more, for example, flag football, not only they have flag football, but they have lacrosse going on, baseball, softball, etc. So you have to have administrator every one of those events. So depending on the athletic director Scheduling, you might have a night event or a weekend event with track every day of the week plus a Saturday.
1:04:52 An administrator has to be there, athletic director has to be there in order to oversee that, to make sure supervision, safety and everything is in place. So we do have some challenges that we’ve been looking at and trying to work through, as Mr. Robinson said, with the coaching, some sometimes the supplements need to be added for our sports. We had brave souls in flag football that took that on without a supplement and really did that for our students and our student athletes.
1:05:04 And like, we had almost 70 students participate. A lot of excitement for those flag football. But you had adults out there that were doing it for the love of the school, love of the student athletes, love of the game.
1:05:24 I’m not saying that, you know, supplement has to be there, but we would like it to be there and pay them for their time in order to support that sport. So just some things that we want to consider moving forward as we’re working through what expansion may look like. So facilities, some field space, coaching and administrative matters that we would have to address.
1:05:44 And then we have gone through a pretty rapid expansion, right, to elementary sports this year, to middle school sports. Flag football is the pilot, which is, you know, most likely will only grow from here. So, you know, this may be a period of adjustment right now where we take stock of where we’re at before we start moving forward.
1:06:14 Right. So a good opportunity for us to really see are we offering the right opportunities for our students? Are they at the right schools? Do we have everything in place in order to maybe have a expansion moving forward in due time, but not necessarily tomorrow? But obviously we are up for any recommendations that you guys have. I believe we have the ticket price recommendation, which would be to look at season passes and to look at how we can pursue different avenues there in order to get more students to attend.
1:06:27 So I think we have that under wraps. But anything else that we would like to consider or you would like us to consider? We have made it to the end of the presentation. Nice, Mr. Chair.
1:06:28 Nice. Great job. Great job.
1:06:34 But I’m sure we’re going to have some questions. Thank you. Couple things.
1:06:50 One is that I didn’t see anything mentioned about Cocoa High or Eau Gallie High’s football fields. And I know that they are, from what I’ve seen, in really poor shape and especially not singling out Cocoa. But Cocoa is one of the most successful programs in state history.
1:06:57 And it seems to me that we were talking about doing facilities that would give pride to the school community. That’s. That seems to me that should be.
1:07:08 I know we have economic challenges, but that should definitely be in the queue as a priority in my opinion. And Eau Gallie, we went to the playoff game this year and I was amazed at what poor shape that was in. That’s after a long season, granted.
1:07:22 But still it was in really bad shape. So love to see what we can do with challenging economics to be able to make that happen. And the other thing I just wanted to go back on was, you know, we have fan experience is huge.
1:07:45 I mean, at the college level, they’re always looking for ways to improve it because of declining attendance. One of the most simplest things we could do, I think is to make it easy for fans to. When they, whether they go to their home school or they go to an away school, that they’re paying, that they have access to Apple pay, that they have access to a block, a credit card block, whether it’s in the concession or buying swag where however it’s all set up.
1:07:52 But I know that there’s different groups that handle each of those for each school. But maybe we could make a. Hey, here’s how you do it.
1:08:09 Here’s the easy process. So sometimes those things seem a little challenging to somebody that’s not familiar with those. So if we could, here’s a 1, 2, 3 step process to be able to do it, encourage everybody to do it, I think that would help improve the fan experience between our schools.
1:08:26 And I think that’s just a simple fix that might be able to help, you know, keep people coming. Yeah. So we can definitely look at uniforming that so that when you go from school A to B, however further we go down that, that list that the experience is similar but unique in its own right.
1:08:51 But similarities such as ticket, how we purchase tickets, concessions, etc. With regards to the Coco and Eau Gallie Fields, I believe whenever you get the capital plan, you will be able to see that there’s some things built in there to potentially look at those options moving forward. I don’t want to speak too soon because Ms. Hahn really oversees that, but I know that through our meetings that may be something that is put on the table for you guys to take a look at with capital planning.
1:09:00 Thank you. I didn’t have any more questions, but I wanted to say thank you to Mr. Robinson. I appreciate your leadership over the last couple years.
1:09:28 You are the man for the job and particularly when people reach out to me me about athletic questions and I happily forward them on to you the way that you are, have handled each one of those and you always seem to be up, you’re a step ahead because you’re already aware of whatever the situation is almost every single time. So I just want to thank you for your leadership in this area in particular, and especially considering all the asks that we’ve put on this area in the last couple years. So thank you.
1:09:33 Thanks. Well, thank you. I’ll just echo the sentiments.
1:09:42 I appreciate all you’re doing. It’s exciting to see the participation that’s increasing there. I think the season pass holder could be a way to generate some more revenue and maybe hopefully more participation as well.
1:09:49 So looking forward to expanding on that. But thank you for all you’re doing. So I just wanted to take a second and say thank you sentiments.
1:10:09 As far as you, Mr. Robinson, is you’ve done an amazing job and I know we’re all a little bit crazy up here and we call you with like, you know, they all call you and ask you to expand the sports as much as possible and ask you especially Ms. Campbell. I know she calls on a regular basis to try to get more sports available. I know that she’s out of control with that.
1:10:31 I just want to say thank you for dealing with her on a regular basis. I did want to say, just so that the board understands this, is that there’s a lot of outside organizations like AAU and others that are interested in trying to host some things like tennis, wrestling, stuff like that at the elementary school level. So I’ll be working with Mr. Robinson on that.
1:10:57 The idea is not to take up any of the facilities to where it’s like taking up a field that it’s tearing up or anything like that. But if we have facilities or if it’s off site and they can go play the sports, why not allow those sports to be run through the AAU like a club? And then in the future, if we want to take them on for our schools, it’d be there. What about pickleball, man? Listen, can you, can you clarify that question? Does FHSA have pickleball? I didn’t see it up there.
1:11:16 I heard that they were moving on it or something like that. At our last meeting, there was no, how should I say this? There was no interest to make pickleball an officially recognized, sanctioned sport within the fhsa. Because that question has come up.
1:11:22 I just, I had heard it’s rolling, rumbling and stuff like that. Yeah. Mr. Susan, we didn’t see kart racing either.
1:11:30 That, that actually is Happening. Just so you know, I’ll make an announcement later on today that actually, we worked that out. So that’s actually, that’s going to be fun.
1:11:50 How do we combine? How do we find out if our school district is the best in athletics in the state? How do we do that? Do we average how many state championships we have versus how many students kind of stuff? Yeah, you could do that, but. And also, you know, it’s, it’s. If you just do it on a straight numbers basis, you know, there’s a lot of the metro areas that have a lot more schools than we have.
1:11:55 Miami has 430 schools on a per school basis. Like a. Almost like a per school basis.
1:12:01 Like a per capita type thing. You know, I think that would probably be. They don’t already.
1:12:13 They don’t already do that, though. They don’t already do that. No, I mean, you, you can, you can go through the, the archives of the FHSA and then nail it down to specific counties and then break it down by.
1:12:26 Okay, the average number of state championships per average school is equates to this in this county. Do they have it broken? That could be something that you could statistically look at. Okay.
1:12:36 To see how. Because I’d argue we’re pretty close, except for like the one school that has one county that has one school that wins a state title or something like that, you know. Yeah, but I mean, they’re.
1:12:43 Yeah. So, yeah, it’s. And obviously with your larger school districts and your larger counties, you know, you’re.
1:12:47 You’re going to have a lot of success within those counties. But it’s. Because there’s a lot of people there.
1:12:57 There’s a lot of schools, you know, and, and without getting myself in trouble. Talent has a way of concentrating. Yeah.
1:13:05 You know, and especially, especially those metro areas. Town has a way of kind of concentration itself. And then when I was looking at.
1:13:22 When we were talking earlier, I got off on the pep club thing, but for seriousness, there might be an opportunity to create seating inside of a school that you charge a little bit extra money where they get their own seat. We did that before. So where we would say, like, these are all the parents seating.
1:13:27 You don’t have to worry about getting here in time. You’ve reserved this seat, but you pay $15ameeting for it. Stuff like that.
1:13:39 That works out pretty good. The other thing is there used to be like dad’s clubs, stuff like that when I was in there where the dads would all get together, they would charge a certain amount of Money, and there was things like that. So there’s some outside the boxes.
1:13:56 I did want to let everybody know that that TDC meeting that we had with the cities, the counties, and the Tourism Development Council and everybody else was very, very interesting. They’re all excited about moving forward. So we may see a little bit of help coming in on the tourism development side and collaboration as far as use of our facilities.
1:14:06 If you guys ever want to meet and come to any of those meetings, they’re noticed for us. For all of us to go. And then just see here, make sure I have all my notes here.
1:14:15 I think I have a couple pages right here. All right, now, Kevin, I just want to take a second and say thank you so much. I appreciate you, man.
1:14:18 You’ve done a great job. I appreciate that. Thanks.
1:14:33 And I also want to say thank you to you guys because, you know, without you guys and the support that I have, you know, from. From what you do, I wouldn’t be able to do this. You know, I’d be spinning my wheels and we wouldn’t make any progress, you know, quite frankly.
1:14:41 You know, and I also want to make sure that you understand that I’m just the figurehead. This is not me. This is.
1:14:43 This is a whole bunch of people in the Bronx, Brevard County. You know, it’s. It’s athletic directors, it’s principals, it’s coaches.
1:14:54 You know, it’s. It’s parent volunteers, you know, it’s student athletes that all make this possible. You know, I just.
1:15:07 With me, I’m just trying to kind of keep it together. And it’s like a little bit like herding cats sometimes, but, you know, I’m just trying to keep it together and get it going in the right direction. And, you know, those guys are the real heroes, and they.
1:15:16 They’re the ones who. Who really get the job done and really do good work. So it’s important that they get the credit for it and not me.
1:15:34 And you’re bringing forward a bunch of these improvements as far as the costs for them and everything else in the future. I’m sorry, before this budget, you’re going to bring forward something that’s going to be the enhancements for possible ads and all this other stuff for the budget coming up, possibly increases in coaches, stipends and stuff, stuff like that. So.
1:15:39 And you’re talking about the budget talks? Yeah, yeah, we put a lot. That’ll come later on. Okay.
1:15:45 But you guys got something into the budget? Okay, yeah. Those considerations I think you’re talking about. Yep.
1:15:46 Yeah. We put a lot of that. They gotta.
1:15:50 They have to come to us and stuff like that. I just want to make sure we run pace. That’s all right.
1:15:55 Well, guys, same thing. Something on the. On the seating that could be in the.
1:16:03 In the passes, the different passes. You have, you know, separate seating or platinum seating for them, but. Yeah, I’ve seen that.
1:16:27 But again, guys, I mean, our confidence and you, Mr. Robinson, we know it’s not just you and it’s everything else, but it really helps us when we get those questions, anything related to athletics. You know, our job as board members are traffic cops, that we point people in the right direction, but we have to have that confidence that once we point them in your direction, it’s got to get taken care of. And it’s gotten.
1:16:36 So where I. I almost answer the question in my head is I’m sure Mr. Robinson’s already thought of this question, so I’m not going to attempt to answer it. I’m going to forward them on to. To you.
1:16:53 So thank you for giving us that confidence and. And you and your ability and your staff. I just want to let people in the public know that when we see those pictures, I mean, facilities are an extension of the classroom, and sports facilities are.
1:17:18 It’s very important when we see Ms. Han up here going through the classroom renovations and how important it is for students. But that right there is equally as important to those athletes and people that maybe don’t even have students in those sports, but they pay taxes, you know, and they come there and they see that it’s extremely important. And those weren’t just a little bit of renovations.
1:17:38 Those are complete renovations that just a little bit goes a long way. So we appreciate that, and that means a lot to all of us and the voters who say, you know, be responsible and, you know, prudent with the money, and you can see that. So it’s very good, and we appreciate that.
1:17:54 But again, I believe what you’re trying to get across is maybe we pause and reflect on some of the things that we’ve put forth, which are great things that we put forth. But I agree with that as well. I mean, reflective teaching is the best teaching.
1:18:09 But in this case, let’s see what we’re doing great and get better with it before we move on too much. I kind of sense that that was part of the presentation, and we appreciate that as well. But if I don’t.
1:18:15 I don’t have anything else, guys. Mr. Chair, if I could. If I could ask Mr. Ramer to go back to slide five.
1:18:23 Okay, so just go all the way back to the athletics expansion. Slide with. Yeah, right there.
1:18:46 So Mr. Robinson did a good job of deflecting and basically saying, it’s not all him. And it’s not. I mean, if you think about the fact that 31 schools added soccer, elementary schools added soccer, 35 added flex football, that’s at least 31 adults who volunteered to coach elementary soccer, at least 35 adults that volunteered to coach elementary flag football.
1:18:59 I’m sure it was more than that. More than just one person at each of those schools. And then adding soccer and volleyball to the middle schools, again, a lot of adults deciding to give their time on behalf of our children.
1:19:21 And not to generalize, but in soccer and flag football at the elementary level, these were oftentimes people who had never coached the sport. You know, maybe they had coached a little league, or maybe they played a sport in college, and so they got to coach that same sport. But in a lot of cases, those of you that went to the tournaments, you saw that these were just people who have a good heart and decided, you know, there was a need for a coach.
1:19:39 And if we didn’t have a coach, we can’t have a team. And so these people stepped up and did that. So, you know, we’re giving Kevin a lot of love today, but we need to make sure that all these adults who gave of their time, some with a stipend, some with maybe not a stipend, but you know, that’s.
1:19:48 They’re the ones that have really made this possible. So we. We need to make sure we thank all those coaches, you know, and a lot of them, it was the first time they had ever been called coach, you know, and so.
1:19:53 But the kids got to participate because of that. That’s right. Yep.
1:20:06 She was coaching. Mr. Chair, do you think. Dr. Rendell, do you think it’d be appropriate without discarding anybody else or leaving anybody else that has volunteered that is deserving as well, for.
1:20:21 Maybe that’s a generated letter that the school board signs, or at least Mr. Trent signs as a thank you to each one of those volunteers, at least for this inaugural year that help get these programs? You know, I think it’s a fantastic idea, and I’m sure we can put that together. It’s a really good idea. Yeah.
1:20:25 Great, guys. Thanks so much. Thank you.
1:20:36 Appreciate it. All right, new board member have anything further to discuss? Mr. Trent, are we done with Ms. Hahn? Are we. Is this going to be the end of the meeting or.
1:20:39 Yeah, I think. Right. It’s the last topic that we have to cover.
1:20:43 Last topic. Okay. That I do have one thing.
1:21:13 So if you guys recall, on January 14th at the work session, I brought up the idea of having an invocation at our school board meetings before our school board meetings. And then Mr. Gibbs on April 4, sent a memo out to the school board providing his research and what he found, how to do it legally and constitutionally and without getting in too much trouble. So I don’t know if it’s necessary for me to hand all these out or if you guys want to, but I have a copy.
1:21:34 But I’d like to make a request that without objection, that we have Mr. Gibb prepare a draft policy modeled after the policy adopted by Miami Dade county that would allow for the inclusion of invocations at our school board meetings. This draft should ensure full compliance with constitutional principles, including those established under the Pelfrey test. And relevant case law.
1:21:44 Oh, thank you. And relevant case law. And should reflect a clear neutral framework in accordance with the both the establishment clause and the Florida Constitution.
1:22:05 This policy should also incorporate the safeguards and recommendations outlined in Mr. Gibbs memorandum dated April 4, 2025, and that I requested Mr. Gibbs have this policy prepared and the matter replaced on the agenda of the May 6, 2025 school board business meeting for consideration. If you guys don’t have objection, they’re just looking for a board direction. Correct.
1:22:16 That the policy can’t be on the board agenda. We could get it on a policy track because we have to do rulemaking. So we have to amend the policies to incorporate it.
1:22:25 So it has to come to a workshop for discussion. Then it would go to first public hearing at another workshop and then final board meeting for final approval. Okay, well, let me ask you this then.
1:22:34 Because it’s been going on since January, it seems like this is moving extremely slow. We have the policy in front of us. Miami Dade has their policies.
1:22:42 Basically, I’m suggesting we copy it. Other than using all. Because it has all the things that Mr. Gibbs had suggested.
1:22:48 Correct me if I’m wrong, Mr. Gibbs, but it has. Basically it’s been. They’ve been using it for a few years now without any issue.
1:23:00 I would suggest we just replace Miami Dade with Brevard county and or Brevard Public Schools and bring it to a vote. Again, it still has to be advertised and go through the rule make. That’s statutory.
1:23:11 So when we say rulemaking, we’re not. Not actually making the policy, but it’s a policy making step the procedure. So once it gets into the procedures, then, then you’re good, Mr. Thomas.
1:23:15 And it’ll take. Yeah. Once the board of says yes, we can go forward.
1:23:27 I can advertise it, but we have to do an advertising to the public. Then they have to have the right to come out to a public hearing and voice their concerns. And then it has another public hearing component.
1:23:32 Yeah, I think that’s about the question. As expeditiously as possible. How about that? Yeah.
1:23:42 So if you can get it on the work next work session, that would be awesome. Any other discussions on that? Okay. Yeah, I’m just gonna say this now because I probably won’t say it later.
1:24:00 I, having looked through actually just recently, just over lunch, finished reading through it seems like, except for formatting, if this is a Miami Dade policy with the Brevard, it’s already actually swapped out that you guys did. I mean, it’s pretty much ready to go, except for it’s not in the format. Like we have our policies.
1:24:09 So I think we’re ready to go with via work session. And then first reading, second read, like the policies we’re working on right now. I’ll just say this and this, this is just me.
1:24:24 And it may surprise my fellow board members. Obviously, I, I, I just have a hesitation and I, it’s not something that I’m going to put a roadblock, but I’m, when it comes to prayer, I will say this. I’m exclusive.
1:24:36 And so I do like it the way that we do it now. And I want you to know, Board, that every time we have that moment of silence, you are all prayed for. Our meetings are prayed for every single time because that’s what I’m doing with my moment.
1:24:36 And I know other people are too. And I very much appreciate that. So that’s my only hesitation is because like I said, there’s one God that I believe that, that I, that I pray to, and I’m kind of exclusive when it comes to it.
1:24:56 And I know legally this is the way this is. It’s a good policy. It’s a good way of handling it to make sure that, like you said, we don’t get in trouble.
1:25:02 And I appreciate that. It’s coming from Miami Dade tested and tried down there, as well as other counties. They’re not the only ones.
1:25:09 So. And I appreciate you, Mr. Thomas, for, for pushing us on this. And so.
1:25:26 But I, you know, again, I, I won’t stop doing what I do, whether it’s in silence or, or out loud or while somebody else is praying, but very much appreciate the idea behind it. Thank you. Thank you. Anything else? All right, as there’s no further business, this meeting is adjourned. Than. Sam, It.