Updates on the Fight for Quality Public Education in Brevard County, FL
12:46 Sam. Good afternoon. The September 9, 2025 work board, work session and policy review is now called to order. All please receive a throne code.
13:26 Mr. Trent. Here. Mr. Susan.
13:32 Matt, you here? He was. Ms. Wright. Hello.
13:38 There he is. All right. Ms. Campbell.
13:40 Here. Mr. Thomas. Here.
13:42 Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States. Doctor Andell, would you please present the items on today’s agenda for the board members? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
14:08 On today’s agenda includes the following topics. First, we’re gonna do first reading for group two, some proposed policy revisions. Most of these, again, are revisions due to NEOLA recommended change in language.
14:22 And we have a couple presentations. We have a short presentation about the sale surtax and the millage, possible extensions that we would hope to put on the ballot in 26. Some proposed updates and changes to the Code of Student Conduct.
14:38 A budget presentation. And then we were going to reconvene or convene or pause to do the superintendent’s evaluation. But as Mr. Susan is remote, we would probably postpone that till our next work session.
14:56 That’s the recommendation of the board. I do have a couple other items. We have time at the end.
15:01 We’ll get to you if we. If we want to. Okay.
15:04 But first will be the policy revisions and turn that over to you guys and Paul. All right. Yep.
15:10 First item on today’s work session is the Policy Review board. We just want to go policy by policy or prefer. Paul, what do you think? Yeah, like last time, we can just go through them and if anybody has any questions or comments, we can go right down the list and only address the comments or go one by one.
15:32 All right. I’m sure we’ve all gone through these. Good.
15:46 Yeah, same thing. All right, let’s start Carl up. I just had a quick question.
15:56 Unfortunately, I was unable to asked Dr. Rundell yesterday. My fault. I didn’t have this with me.
16:02 But it was regarding Policy 3139 for employee misconduct. I was just curious. Maybe it’s somewhere else, but I was curious.
16:10 What are the established steps in the process? Once an allegation is made for a employee to be. I know. It’s 24 hours or removed within 24 hours.
16:18 So what’s the established steps in the process? Once an allegation is made, how is the length of time an employee remains out of the classroom determined? And what standards are set for returning an employee back into the classroom? Yeah, I can ask Mr. Dufresne to come up and elaborate, but really, it’s Situation dependent. Right. I was going to say it’s going to be dependent on.
16:41 It’s about an arrest. So whenever the charges are done. So if specific to an arrest.
16:46 Right. If they are arrested and they self report they got arrested, they’re going to be out pending the outcome of that arrest. So if charges are filed, they could be out for a long time or indefinitely depending.
16:57 And then if it triggers an investigation by hr, they could then be put up for termination just as we had this past year. If they violated the rules and they’re not, since they’re not allowed in school, the board could have action brought before them to suspend them without pay pending the outcome. So there’s multiple avenues that could be taken, all dependent on the actual circumstances.
17:19 Yes. Well done. I was just so.
17:23 And that is specific to an arrest that this policy is, right? Yeah. The triggering change in statute was all about updating it for arrest. And they, they modified the list somewhat, adding some offenses that weren’t on there previously that disqualify them from being employed in the school district.
17:37 So that this would cover any misdemeanor. Until it’s resolved, they’re. They’re out of the classroom.
17:42 Correct. Okay. Thank you.
17:43 Well done. Nailed it. Mine wasn’t necessarily to a specific policy, but my request would be that if all we’re going to do is change some pronouns, that we just leave it the way that it is.
18:01 For example, the corporal punishment policy is coming up, and I just never like to see that on an agenda to alarm people unnecessarily when we’re actually not doing anything with it. So if that’s all that NEOLA suggests that we just leave those until the next round of, you know, five year review. All right, I think that’s a great suggestion, Ms. Campbell.
18:23 Absolutely great. If that’s all that your comment was. I have a couple that I just wanted to just look at real fast.
18:28 So 5200 are excused or attendance? Yes. I just had one question in regards to. It’s on page five, and it seems as though we’re setting a stricter guideline for makeup work for students who have excused absences versus unexcused absences.
18:47 So I just wanted to know where we probably. We might want to look at that or maybe there’s an explanation. So it’s under the makeup for absences section, and it should be the very top of page 5.
18:59 It seems as though that should be the exact opposite way around. So an excused absence should maybe allow for more time versus an unexcused absence. It looks like Ms. Harris and maybe Mr. Armstrong is going to come up to explain, but we wouldn’t.
19:17 Yeah, yeah. So here is where it’s a little tricky. This policy was moving forward.
19:30 We will be as soon as it is board approved, we are revising the makeup work policy. So that language will be. I know Ms. Vega has talked to Mr. Armstrong about this.
19:43 Was already moving forward before we could. It would have stopped the whole process. So we wanted to get this policy forward.
19:50 But what we will be doing is making a streamlined makeup work policy or makeup work language. You will see the projected language in our student progression plan. So we included it in there.
20:04 But what we’re looking at is that makeup work regardless would be, you know, there’s some. It’s basically two days for every day that they are out. But the principal would have discretion then to extend that if there are extenuating circumstances.
20:19 So if I’ll give you an example of a child is taking, you know, three AP classes and, you know, the principal knows of a situation where they might need, you know, two extra days, the principal will have discretion for that. But it was basically be two days for every one day out is regardless of why they are out. Okay.
20:37 So they’ll be combined. Whether it’s excused or unexused, it’ll be different based on. Well, that’s when they were out.
20:42 When I saw it, I just, my first instinct was, whoa, why do we have a two day limit on the excused absences but not so much on the unexcused. So if they’re going to be combined, then that solves that issue. What does that mean as far as.
20:53 Because this is the first time that we’re looking at this policy, so will it. Will we tweak it before it comes back? And then. Okay, all right, good deal.
21:00 You’re going to get it in before the next. Okay, all right. And then there’s several references to a child study team that we see pop up in policy here, which I just wondered if you guys could share a little bit with the board as well as the public on what a child study team is, who is on that.
21:19 And it sounds like they’re going to be involved in truancy and discipline like a few different things. And so I just wanted clarification on that. We have turned that now to more of a problem solving process for our schools.
21:33 But it is usually it consists of a team at the school which could be an administrator, usually a school counselor could be the teacher as well. And they’re really problem solving. Why this Kid is out, what are the extenuating circumstances? That could be they’re having problems getting to work.
21:49 So then the social worker would go get into school and it could be where the social worker would go out. It could be they have a medical condition. And then of.
21:58 Of course we have the health services help us with that. So it’s pinned. The state uses child study team quite a bit even for djj, but it’s more the problem solving team that could be the MTSS problem solving process.
22:14 Okay. So we’re not currently setting parameters around who is actually going to be on that team, if I’m understanding correctly, because it’s going to change based on the need. The need.
22:21 And we expect, you know, this to be occurring weekly at schools where they’re problem solving. Our tier three, it could be tier two students who need support. So those are the ones who are struggling.
22:31 It could be a root cause of attendance. Then usually if there’s an attendance situation, they could roll into behavior or vice versa or academics. So it could be where all three are being problem solved.
22:42 Okay, all right. And I guess it’s going to be hard because these are so specific to the situation to really define parameters on what that child study team, who should be on it. Is that what your feelings are right now? We usually give them a framework, of course, when they’re looking at any student.
22:58 If it’s a behavior, it could be an AP who’s over, you know, behavior. More than likely you have a school counselor, you may have your behavior. It just depends on what the situation is.
23:10 If it’s academic, you may have your literacy coach as a resource on there. So it just depends on what area the kid needs support in. And we have a problem solving guide.
23:21 I think I shared that with you guys back in June. We just did some extensive training on that yesterday. We did an overview back in July during our training, but we did specifically training to that.
23:32 Of course that’s optional for them to use the process. And we’re going to do some more training on there and that’s where we automatically have the links to resources and things that they can go into instead of having to go all over. It’s in.
23:45 It’s like a one stop shop and it asks you about interventions, what’s the next steps so you can pick up on that kid. And before we used to look at kids individually. Where we look at there’s an attendance issue, Then we solve that attendance issue.
24:00 Then they say, well, the kid is having academic. Then we come back six weeks later, focus on so our mindset is more of the whole child. So when you’re talking about John Smith, you’re looking at the academics, you’re looking at the behavior, you’re looking at the attendance, you’re looking at everything.
24:17 Because there’s usually a root cause for all of those. Either it could be one, it could be two, it could be three. So we’re not spending time like we used to where by the time the kid is getting support, it could be eight months later.
24:30 Those are all. Those are great. And I guess what my thought process was when we talked about this and the child safety team wanting to really understand what it was, consistency on application matters.
24:38 Right. And so how many people are part of that team? Who is part of that team and is that being notified to parents that are involved? I think that’s a major part of it, too. So I’m sure what we will see if we don’t set some sort of perimeter around who is on that team and how many of a minimum number of members that you might see inconsistent application at different schools.
24:59 So you might have some school sites that all hands on deck, everyone’s kind of rowing together. You might have somewhere you get one person who is child safety team, and that maybe doesn’t serve the purpose because they’re missing all the other additional needs, as you mentioned earlier. You know, I can tell you when you’re convening that team, it’s more than one or two people.
25:15 You need all hands on deck. It’s usually a literacy coach. It’s usually.
25:19 It could be a social worker, but it’s a classroom teacher. Because you’re trying to find out why is this kid, what is going on with this kid. So we do have some minimum standards, like four people on there.
25:30 But some schools, schools may have more and some schools may, you know, it just depends on, you know, what that need is. If it’s attendance, they may just have the social worker go out there. We’re going to come back in three weeks and, you know, go and visit, make a home visit and come back and give us an update.
25:45 But all of that is a part of our focus, which is where we house all of that. We did a really good job last year of streamlining and putting that. We did training on that, where everything is in one place for a student.
25:57 So you’re not having to go all over to find information of what was done. Even if a kid moves from school to school, you can see what was done at that school. So you can pick up and be able to continue Providing supports or providing problem solving strategies for that particular student.
26:14 Okay, good. Thank you. Thank you for.
26:15 For enlightening. I think all of us in the public as well, but the state calls it child study. And I. Old fashioned child study, just for me, it was a new kind of phrase.
26:25 I’m like, this is popping up in here quite a bit. Let’s just go ahead and talk about what that is. All right.
26:29 That’s all that I had on that policy. Anything. Thank you.
26:36 And then I had one more, which is more of a technical error, which honestly, it’s just. It’s on 8420, emergency management. It says apply when it should be applies.
26:47 It’s just grammatically incorrect. That’s all. So very minor.
26:51 That’s why we have the first reading. Okay, yeah, absolutely. We’ll take it.
26:55 All right, so that is on, I believe it’s 8430. Right before section A. After K. Yeah, exactly.
27:06 Thank you. Right before Section 8. Oh, except for its requirements, the district shall comply with the school safety requirements, which apply from 30 minutes.
27:19 Which I thought it would be. Which applies from 30 minutes. Yeah, well, it’s.
27:23 I don’t know. Right, right, right. No, I know why it’s there.
27:28 I just was. I. It looked grammatically incorrect when it was typed up. I know.
27:37 And then I Just to follow up on what you said, because I know that people are going to see corporal punishment like you said, and go, oh, my gosh, the board is talking about corporal punishment. Just to be clear, the policy says that they are not enforcing corporal punishment. That is what the policy says.
27:51 For those that are out there that see that word. Okay. Is Mr. Susan still with us? He may have other ones he did text.
28:02 Yes, I am. I’m still here. Thank you, Mr. Susan.
28:07 You good with the. The policy revisions or do you have something in mind? Yes, sir. Great, mate.
28:12 I’m good, thank you. Okay, same here. That’s right.
28:16 Was that it? That’s it. Very good, very good. All right, so next we have the presentation, the review of the sales, surtax and millage extension resolutions.
28:26 Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Sue Hand is going to come up and kind of lead us through that.
28:30 She’s leading the tiger teams on both of those renewals. Here’s your copies of the policies. If you want to take one down, pass it.
28:50 The two. I would love a copy of the resolution if you have it. You should just take the.
29:00 I like to have it all filed in date order, so that way if I ever have to call back on it. Okay, thank you. Take one down.
29:20 Oh, I didn’t give one to Mr. Thank you. So I’m going to let sue set the stage or whatever, and then Mr. Dufresne is going to join in as well. But I think we don’t go to the polls for over a year.
29:50 But there’s a timeline. We have to backwards plan, there are dates we have to do to get things rolling, to get on the ballot, and so on. So I think that’s what Sue’s going to talk to us about.
30:00 Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for the time. This afternoon.
30:04 Mr. Dufresne and I have been working with other members of staff and trying to put together the proposed resolutions that would ask the county commission to place both resolutions on the ballot in November of 2026 to renew the sale surtax as well as to renew the ad valorem milage. The millage resolution doesn’t have any substantial changes to the content or to the types of expenditures. It simply is reformatted so that it is more consistent with the sales surtax resolution.
30:33 So they look about the same and they have some of the same clauses in each resolution. The sales tax resolution is different in two ways. The first way is proposed extending the term from six years to 10 years.
30:48 That would allow us to do a little bit more planning for our future. And the second aspect of the resolution that’s different is relating to allowing for the proceeds to be used for either new construction or for replacement of existing facilities, in addition to the normal customary uses that we have in the past, which is renewal of facilities, technology and security improvements. So those are the two differences.
31:15 Our proposal is to bring this to you for consideration next at your next board meeting, September 23, after which we would send it to the county commission. The sales tax resolution also has to go to Opaga at the state and they will initiate a performance audit of the sales surf tax program. Because we’re changing the parameters of the sales tax program, I think that’s going to be good for Brevard.
31:39 We’ve performed very well from where I’m sitting at least. And so my hope is that that will be something that is a positive piece of information that we can share with the voters as we get closer to November. So I just wanted to give the board an opportunity to look at the language and the resolution, ask any questions or make any changes before it’s before you for action in two weeks.
31:53 I just wanted to add that we’re also one of the advantages of adding it to a 10 year for the Sales tax is unfortunately for this go round we’re lined up with the millage and the sales tax and asking the voters to vote simultaneously. By going to the 10 years, it’ll be four, five cycles of millage before we have to line up again. So that’s one of the advantages.
32:24 Correct questions? Just a quick comment. I think everybody knows how critical this is to BPS’s future and just appreciate everything you guys have put into it and as well as everybody else on the team because it’s not easy to put these together and appreciate it very much. You know, when it goes on the ballot, the different referendums go on the ballot and they have like a little short title and then there’s all the verbiage which will be this verbiage.
33:06 Do we get any say over what that little short title is? I believe we do. The title’s there with it. So that title will appear on the ballot.
33:18 The full thing. Yeah, that’s the ballot language. So that’s what’s going to appear where it says official ballot.
33:23 Right. It’s going to say half cent sales surtax extension for critical school facility security and technology. So there’s no short like it’ll be that full.
33:30 That’s the title and that’s the language that will appear on the ballot. Unless the county commission wants us to. To change something and we agree and change it or Opaga on the sales or tax.
33:41 Okay. I guess my. If it’s.
33:46 It may seem small but I’m just thinking about how we’re communicating. The half cent sales surtax is very clear even in the title extension or renewal. You know, it’s right there up pretty up front and I feel like on the millage it’s not so in the title.
34:04 It’s not there at all in the title. And it does say sustain, but doesn’t say it’s. I know you guys have spent so much time.
34:15 I hate to be critical in the least because you spent so much time working on this, but even in the longer description it doesn’t get to renewal until the middle of the second line. So if there’s any way to kind of put up front that idea of this is something that’s already here, that we’re just asking for either a continuation or a renewal like that. It’s crystal clear this is what you already have.
34:42 We just want to renew it. I think that’s been our goal. So I appreciate the feedback because we have all looked at it several thousand times I think and there may be one or two of these that we’ve missed.
34:52 So appreciate the feedback and we’ll make that correction. Thank you. I have, I just have one question, sir, about this.
35:02 You were gracious enough to add on here the other counties that have the capital outlay surtax. Because I don’t know this and I’m assuming, I mean I’m the only person. Is the surtax amount the same for literally every county or is there any variation in how much that surtax is? I think this one is $0.
35:23 01. There are others that can be half cent or one cent. Right.
35:30 That’s what I just wondered on what these ones are. I think school boards are limited to half cent county. I’m sorry, I said that wrong.
35:38 Yeah, yeah, I apologize. The county school boards are limited by statute to a half cent. You could do less like you could do a quarter, but you could, you’re limited to a half cent.
35:48 The county can do up to 1% for several different reasons. Infrastructure, hospitals, whatever. They’re actually could do more than that, but it, but school board are limited to a half cent.
35:55 So are. Do you know if off top of your head I’m going to ask you and you’re going to probably go, why are you asking me? Are these all half cent or are they. Are any of them.
35:58 I think they’re all half sent. I might have that handy. Okay.
36:01 I’m. I’m pretty sure it is too. And I may have misspoke when I said you could do a quarter.
36:09 But I mean I, the half cent I know is our max. I just wonder because some of these, I mean there’s one on here, One county’s got 30 years. So that’s why I just, it was.
36:21 Yeah, I was. Thank you for. I was also thankful that you included that because it just shows that we are the only, we’re the only county that is under 10 for under 10 years.
36:25 And I was surprised to see the 20, 30. I, I was shocked when I saw that. So.
36:28 Yeah, they are. I think the. Sorry.
36:37 The idea is since it’s for capital, a longer term makes more sense because. Right, absolutely. You need to plan and build and it takes time.
36:43 So a 10 year term makes. Makes absolute sense. I think, I think it’s Clay County.
36:47 It’s actually indefinite. There’s. It says 30.
36:56 30. It says 30 and that was a relatively new one. I, you know some of these, some of these districts are very small also.
37:15 So they’re probably doing some of this with debt and needing that 20, 30 year note to, I mean still tax to help pay off it. Because, you know, if you only have one or two high schools in your county, and one high school costs $100 million, it’s going to take them a lot longer. It’s going to take all of us.
37:19 No, but there’s still. There’s some big ones on here. I mean, you have Hillsborough do all their notes.
37:25 So not all these are little. And it’s interesting, Geographically, they’re all over the place. Politically, they’re all over the place.
37:30 You know, so. So just to. To answer your question, Mrs. Wright, they’re all half sent.
37:39 They’re all half cent. They’re all half sent. All right, thank you.
37:42 Great work. Thanks. A lot.
37:45 A lot of work ahead of us of this. Thanks. Yes, sir.
37:54 Agree. Mr. Susan have any comments? Mr. Susan, do you have anything? No, no. Great job, Ms. Suhan.
38:02 Appreciate all the work you’ve done and I appreciate the support from the board. All good. Thank you all.
38:15 All right, next is the updates for the 2526 code of conduct. Yeah. So Mrs. Stampier and her team are going to come up and just run you through a couple changes, recommended changes to the Code of Conduct.
38:27 Some of them are a result of the change in cell phone policy or wireless communication devices. So we’re going to go through those. I did meet with several board members yesterday to talk about some of the suggested changes.
38:37 We did remove one of them. There was a change. We were going to add indecent misconduct to the secondary code of conduct as a.
38:52 As a possible offense, and we’re not going to go forward with that at this time. We’d rather have that work its way through the committee that Ms. Dampier runs every year. We feel like that’s a change that we need to go through committee, so we’re not going to recommend that today.
39:04 Just really reacting to the cell phone policy, wireless communication device policy changes, and some language on days of suspension for 10 days pending. So. Right.
39:10 This is damp here. And the team will run through those. Okay, you have it.
39:20 Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Board members and Superintendent Rendell.
39:36 As Dr. Rendell stated, we are just going to review a couple of changes, suggested changes to the Code of Student Conduct. Now that we rewrote the. Well, we amended the cell phone policy wireless device to policy.
39:57 The first one is Artifact one. This was the wireless communication device guidelines updated to reflect the recommended changes, which last work session, we amended some language where we included that with the express direction of a teacher and the approval of the school principal. Students in grades 9 through 12th may use their personal laptops, tablets or electronic readers solely for educational purposes with the express approval of the school principal or designee.
40:30 Students in grades nine through 12 may use their wireless communication device within the designated area of the front office. So that is also reflected in the artifact 3 which is the policy. So we’re updating that language just to highlight on this for the people that are going to be listening.
40:45 And I just want to reiterate this because this comes up quite frequently what happens if my student must call me. And I just want to reiterate again what that policy is saying is your student can go to the front office and ask the principal to make a phone call from their cell phone. And that’s a fine, fine thing to do.
40:51 So they’re allowed to have their phone on them at all times. It just cannot be physically out. It can be on their body in their pocket.
41:11 So in the event of an emergency their phone is with them and they are able to go to the front office once again to make a phone call. And parents always have the school phone number so you can call the school and relay messages. As a parent who has a child sitting in our school, I’m just saying this like that there are other options, other ways to communicate with your children during school hours if an emergency arises.
41:15 Otherwise send your children, send your babies to school. Let them learn. They’re going to have a great day.
41:43 It’s going to be a good year. So thank you. Any other questions about this? I, I, I will just make a comment to the board because I brought it up before and I’m going to support this as it is not asking for a change but I did think that the, it would have been wise to have added the, with the, with an administrator’s approval, the use of a laptop or iPad during lunch or you know, non, not making them just go to the front office.
42:00 So if there’s somebody needs a study during lunchtime, they have that capability without having to go all the way to. So the one thing, that, one thing that we didn’t, that didn’t make it here, which was something because I asked Dr. About this yesterday you had said something about an administrator could also it doesn’t have to be a teacher. In other words, they don’t have to be sitting under a teacher.
42:13 But I think it is, it is understood from the, and the approval of the school principal. So they don’t have to go find a teacher at lunchtime and say can I, the principal can give the direct but they have to be at the front office. To be able to do it accordingly.
42:19 No, no, no, no. The front office is for cell is says wireless communication device. Right? That these are two separate.
42:30 So I’m going to jump in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mr. Thomas, when we talked yesterday, they actually can use the wireless communication device I.e.
42:49 tablet, laptop, e reader during lunch because it doesn’t say during instructional time. It’s with the approval of a teacher and administrator. So if an EFSC dual enrollment student wants to do some work during lunch, they got permission from an administrator teacher.
42:52 They’re able to do that. Thank you. For educational purposes.
43:04 That the, the purpose of the second clause is that it doesn’t have to be for educational purposes, but we didn’t limit it to instructional time. Remember that was kind of compromise we made because you have to go in and start listing. So that sort of encompasses all.
43:11 Excellent. Thank you. All right, artifact number two.
43:35 These changes were made through the chief of schools office and working with the board of clarified guidelines that added success pathways options. These were discussed with and actually principals were trained on this in July. Of specific areas that you actually give.
43:51 You’re actually assigned success pathways. And here we said pending investigation for different codes. So before we had some that said out of school suspension, we took the four to 10 days out because it’s pending investigation.
44:08 So there is no limit on that. And we also added success pathways. So for those particular codes they automatically, if they commit that infraction, they go to success pathways.
44:24 Some of this language also was the cleaning up of the times like minimum five day suspension for the 10 day pending offense. No matter when you hold the hearing, if you hold the hearing before five days, they still are out a minimum of five days. Trying to get some establishment consistency across the district.
44:45 And before it’s giving them more time because we’re front loading a lot of the processes ahead of time instead of doing it afterwards. So this really gives us more days because before it was three days. So now it’s, you know, given more time to be able to process the referrals or any, any other documentation that’s needed.
45:06 I had a question about the second offense column and I don’t have the full code of conduct in front of me to look it up. But I just had a question about could we include in that column this is can’t say success pathways with other words around it. Apparently so.
45:16 But can we include success pathways in the second column? Because you know, as we’ve. We talked about this diversion program. If it’s a second offense, you don’t get to do the diversion program again.
45:41 But I’m assuming that on a second offense, specifically with next to fighting and simple battery, that after that out of school suspension, pending investigation, then it just says report to law enforcement. But we would also probably be moving them to the success pathways opportunity for those two once you’re off campus. Yeah, we could clean that up.
45:48 I think we can make it more clear there. Yeah, just. I mean, I know that’s probably what would happen, but just so that it’s here in the chart, it actually.
45:51 I have a question. It actually shows up that way in the flowchart. Yes.
45:58 Okay. That’s when you said. But I thought that once they were put on the success pathways or the behavior.
46:05 Where’s the actual term for it? I. I didn’t think that. I thought that was like their. They don’t.
46:11 If they do it again, then they truly are in more trouble. So that like success pathways isn’t an option for offense too. Because if it happens, that’s the.
46:17 Well, they wouldn’t have an offense because that’s the online success pathways is the online. Sorry. Okay.
46:23 It’s the. It’s the behavior diversion that is. So if they’re doing a second offense, there is no behavior diversion.
46:35 So they would go straight to success pathways. They will be out and doing online only. Okay, but is success pathways targeted more towards drug use and alcohol and abuse use versus.
46:43 So are you suggesting putting success pathways on it on a second offense for fighting? No, that is success pathways is our alternative to. We don’t have the ALCs. Right.
46:49 So if they don’t get to do behavior diversion, then they’re doing. They’re online. Okay.
46:58 Except for the things that the state says you must expel, like weapons and things like that. That. All right, so success pathway should go to the second offense.
47:04 Sorry. And some of the students. That’s why it’s behavior diversion or success pathways in the first offense.
47:13 Because remember, those are the things that Mr. Ramer walked us through that it could depend. Be situation dependent. They can do one way or the other.
47:21 But second offense, there is no one way or the other. They would go straight out off campus and only be able to do online. Okay.
47:30 Is that clearer? Yeah, I guess. But I guess I’m just. So then in essence, like success pathways, I’m just confused on how they would be in success pathways for the first offense.
47:44 And then if they now are back in school in the same school year, they would get put back on. Like say they got into a fight after they came back and then they’re back in success pathways again. Or I guess I’m just confused on how that would work in the same school year.
47:54 Like, I don’t. Am I misunderstanding? I think misunderstanding where it says four success pathways. Because as we said, James was talking about some things you go directly to.
47:59 Yes. Success pathways. So that’s not what we’re talking about.
48:08 You have the option, some of the levels have where we give the principal some flexibility where it’s. Or. And some they automatically go to success pathways.
48:24 There’s no option. So under your scenario, there is a situation if they only got put out for a semester that they could come right back in in January and do the same thing and they’re right back out. But we’re not going to keep them on campus.
48:33 Correct. That’s our expulsion. Well, I’m just saying, are we going to go back to success pathways or are we just saying, yes, you can come back and you’re going to get in a fight again and we’re back on success pathways, or is that.
48:43 No, you’re expelled. Now, at this point, can I call Ms. Bland up? Because I just want to make sure we don’t contradict what she’s. You know, what their process.
48:46 I know, I know. This is expelled versus expelled. Expelled.
48:53 Exactly. We eliminated that. Well, I know, but it’s kind of similar, but different.
49:00 So if kids commit the same offense, again, they’ll be placed up for expulsion. Expulsion. Correct.
49:03 Okay. So they. If they’re under the stipulation conduct agreement.
49:10 Yeah. Which could be up to six months. And they’re under any of these things and they commit the same offense.
49:15 No, they don’t get to go to success pathways. So we wouldn’t put that in the second. So don’t put that in the second column.
49:24 They commit the same offense. Right. So if they are under behavior diversion for fighting.
49:34 Right. And then they do a different offense that’s not fighting. Or they’re not attending the behavior diversion program, they can be placed into the success pathways.
49:42 But again, that is principal’s decision. Okay. Which is all level fours minus a couple.
49:55 So we. So the reason why we didn’t put success pathways in the second column is because students wouldn’t be able to go back online. That we would do a full expulsion at that point is what you’re telling me.
50:02 If they commit the same offense. Okay. Until the next school year, till the end of the.
50:13 It would only be termed second offense if it was the same offense. If it’s a different offense, it’s not second offense. And in addition if they move to success pathways, they also get nine more weeks added to their time.
50:21 So it’s not that they just go. And there is no other issue. They are getting an extended time for being moved to the next program.
50:25 And if they’re not successful, they get. There’s nothing else. Okay.
50:27 Okay. So we don’t want to add that to the second offense. That’s.
50:30 That’s to clarify that clarifies. Okay, thank you. That’s what I was confused about.
50:37 It would cause. Yeah. There would be a loop there that we didn’t intend to have there.
50:41 Right. Yeah. Okay.
50:44 Thank you for clarifying that. Thank you for pushing until we got it. Sorry, I’m like.
50:48 I’m not understanding because. Yeah. Just what the workshop’s for.
50:51 That’s right. Hammer out on this. So we just wanted to make sure that we’re all on the same page.
51:10 Yes. So this is good as it is. Yes.
51:22 Any questions? And then last but not least, we have the recommendation for wireless communication advice policy 5136, which was shared at the last session. We added pretty much the same wording where I read to you earlier. Click on the second one.
51:28 And then we added where they can use it in the front office for grades nine through 12 as well. So it’s basically what we discussed option three the last time we had our meeting. Yes.
51:37 Perfect. And this is what we’re going to be placing on the next September 23rd. I’ve already spoken to Mr. Gibbs.
51:39 We will have this along with the code of conduct moving forward with these recommended changes. It has to go back out for public hearing and all of that. So.
51:54 Mr. Chair. Yes. I’m just curious.
51:59 Why for number 23, why do we have it designated in the front office versus just that they can use them? Because that’s the other one. Says with the approval of a teacher on the previous page. Approval of a teacher and the principal for educational purposes.
52:06 Correct. But this is the wireless communication device, I. E. Cell phone.
52:13 Why don’t we just eliminate that word and say cell phone. If we just said they use their cell phone device. That’s all right.
52:23 You’re right. It would probably be clearer if we just said cell phone. We can change that.
52:27 But that is the scenario where a kid needs to check their word schedule and it’s a serious, you know, enough like legitimate reason. They go and they get permission. They have to be there in the front office.
52:30 That’s a non educational. Right. But I. I think that’s for a self.
52:39 Yeah. Cell phone. So it’s not Contradicting.
52:47 We should delineate these things, separate them. Because wireless communication device. We don’t need cell phone anywhere else.
52:54 So this would be the only place where it says cell phone. Because we went back and forth about the wireless device. It encompasses all of these different.
53:00 The laptops, the E reader, all of those devices. So I agree. Adding the cell phone.
53:03 So then change it also in the code of conduct language. Yeah, we would have to. Okay.
53:07 But this would be the time to change it. So. Yep.
53:14 Okay. Any other questions? Thank you. No, I think we got through.
53:27 It is a work session. That’s right. Doing work.
54:09 Doing work today when we do the most work. All right, so today’s final presentation is the budget update. Yeah.
54:20 So Ms. Linsky and her team will present a budget update or presentation on the final budget up for approval tonight. Oh, no. She did make another copy.
54:44 More paper. So. Good afternoon.
55:08 So I know the community has been watching the news and, you know, and seeing what all is going on within the state of Florida and different school districts and how they’re handling reduced enrollment. So I thought this would be a good opportunity to let the community understand, you know, where we are as well and the plans that we are doing. So our current spending is not sustainable.
55:37 Based on our revenue projections in FY26 in the out years, BPS will continue to right size to match our enrollment population, increase efficiencies through innovation and focus on being the best educational choice anywhere in the state. We have seen across the nation, state and here in Bavar. Declining student enrollment in traditional public schools.
56:03 Because public school funding is directly tied to student enrollment, the attendance fewer, fewer students results in reduced state funding due to declining enrollment. Over the past several years, our district state funding has been significantly reduced. However, our fixed operating costs such as administration, maintenance and utilities largely remain leading to inefficiency in operating under enrolled schools.
56:24 BPS must reduce its spending and right size its footprint to align with its declining enrollment. This has made it necessary to reduce staff to align with the number of students we serve and budget provided by the state. This is being done largely through removing vacant positions and attrition, leaving our employees whole.
56:43 The key takeaway from this slide is a budget is a plan, a starting point. It is an estimate of the amount of revenues we anticipate from the state, local property tax, federal grants, interest and investments and other fee based revenues and an estimate of our expenses to create a balanced budget. A budget is not money in the bank.
57:13 There are no guarantees. We will continue to adjust to changing per student funding streams Changes in student enrollment populations, board priorities and unforeseen critical needs. When we look at the budget, we are not just looking at numbers.
57:50 We are looking at how we choose to invest in our children’s future. Our board priorities include protection of an excellent education, that’s job one, protection of an effective workforce, maintain fiscal strength of the district, and protection of the taxpayer’s interests. We cannot rely on current practices to provide the highest quality service and education in the future.
58:26 We have to intentionally challenge and move beyond established norms and comfort routines to achieve innovation and improve current practices practices. We have to continue to evaluate the cost of maintaining our aging school buildings and the cost to operate those schools that are well under enrollment capacity. We need to develop tiger teams to focus on both making incremental improvements to existing processes to enhance value and efficiency and explore transformational opportunities that look at entirely new models that can significantly change how we operate.
58:44 A good example of that is incremental is, you know, if you’re riding a horse or a new saddle or better hay or new feed or all those kind of things, transformational would be, you know, the motorcycle. So we really need to take a look and empower all the folks that have all these great ideas. The FEFP funding from the state is based on enrollment.
59:15 Charter and scholarship dollars are also included in our FEFP and total FTE enrollment. We are strictly a pass through for charters. The revenue for scholarships flows through DOE to step up for students.
59:35 This revenue never actually comes to us, so we will not see it in our revenue. When you compare 2425 second calc to 2526 second calc or projections from this time last year, you can see enrollment decreased from projections by 3,197 for Brevard Traditional schools. Again, it can be deceiving.
59:47 But you can see the columns with district, charter and scholarship. Now scholarship and district and charter. They’re not one for one, the charter, the scholarships fund students that are already in private schools.
1:00:01 So it can be deceiving. It’s not a mass exodus or anything like that. Students that are already in private schools, parents can take advantage of the family empowerment scholarships.
1:00:18 And they’re doing that. They’re also, the state is, you know, providing choice. And so there’s PEP scholarships for homeschool and those kind of things.
1:00:33 So we’re seeing that, you know, school choices, providing parents more options. And then also between 2010, 2020, the number of children under 5 years old fell by 1.8 million nationwide.
1:00:51 So the shrinking pipeline is now reaching classrooms as we see Less children entering kindergarten. Cindy, I have a quick question because this slide and this one bothers me a bit and I. And I’m just gonna. I’m gonna call it for what it is.
1:01:03 So when I look at the 2425 and we’re looking at the second calc, the light blue shaded one, so the 2425 second calc and this 2425 third calc. Why. I mean, historically speaking, looking at the previous amounts of total numbers of students, that continually goes up pretty much.
1:01:08 I mean, you see some flux that happens around the COVID years, right. But then you see increase, increase, increase, increase. And all of a sudden, between our second and our third calc, a massive amount of numbers are just the students that are.
1:01:21 That are gone. And I’m like, where, where. That one just bothers me because I’m going.
1:01:31 I don’t. Historically speaking, we’re continually adding students on our total numbers, whether that be through district, charter or scholarship. But for some reason that particular third calc shows a reduction.
1:01:38 And so I’m just. Where does that number coming from? Where are we pulling that from? I saw you did you want to answer this, doctor? We don’t. We don’t generate that number.
1:01:41 The state does. Okay. So I mean, when we look at every other indication the county is growing, right.
1:01:52 Houses are. So I’m like there. I don’t.
1:01:58 I guess I’m just questioning where the state is getting that number from when we’re seeing our population grow to this. To the numbers that it is. Well, not necessarily because it could be scholarships.
1:02:02 I mean, that’s not scholarships in our schools. That could be scholarships at private schools or you know, even home schools. So that’s why I’m like, I just.
1:02:06 That seems like an odd number to me. And. And I guess I don’t.
1:02:16 Might be worth exploring. And that’s not an. I mean, that’s a number we can.
1:02:42 I guess we’d have to put public records requests for the scholarship students in our county. But just look at the. Just the BPS number is 25 or a little over 2000 difference.
1:02:48 Which one of those numbers is reflective of butts in seats for us? The 627 or the 65 for last school year. So FTE and membership are two different numbers. So FTE would be lower because FTE is a student that’s actually receive the full day.
1:02:53 And then. So it would be a half FTE if the student only participate was only in Brevard for a year. Right.
1:02:58 And if they. Only if they’re Homeschooler and they want to come take a couple of classes separate from the Pep Pelt Scholar. We’ve always had that.
1:03:22 Or a senior who only takes five classes because that’s all they need to graduate. And we’re allowing that. I get that.
1:03:34 But which, which one of those numbers is accurate to our actual FTE? The 627 or the 65? I would imagine the 65 is much closer to the 627 rather is much closer to our butts and seats that you know that 62,115, 116, whatever. 200516 was a bit of a shocker to see third calc so low. Right.
1:03:47 And FTE is not the same as enrollment because you could have a student in your enrollment that’s only their part of the day. Right. Part of the day they go to dual enrollment or Florida virtual.
1:03:59 So we don’t get a full FTE for them. Right. But you know, a mid year drop by that many FTEs, not that many students, that many FTEs is.
1:04:11 Right. I mean, we should be able to calculate our fte. I mean, we know how many students are full time and I know they dropped us all because of the proration that happened this summer.
1:04:22 Right, the big proration. But they can’t actually change our number of fte. They can’t say, oh well, we’re going to just pretend that you had fewer students in fewer classes.
1:04:38 I mean, they can just change the number they give per student when they prorate. Correct. 3rd calc is what was the actual numbers compared to the projection? Okay, so third calc is our actual after of the February count.
1:05:01 Right. So the other question, because of the shared FTE thing, it’s could this be because we had a larger number than normal dual enrolled students? Like, can we look at that? Because that would also, that would be a good thing in my eyes to some degree. Right.
1:05:10 Because we have students that are, that are exploring further education. So is that a number that maybe we could investigate to see what does our dual enrolled numbers look like for the second calc? Well, no, because we split the FTE with dual enrolled students, do we not? We don’t get a full FTE on a dual enrolled student, so it’s not calculated in that number. So I’m just curious on what that number looks like for second calc and third calc.
1:05:24 We can definitely go back and look and see if we had a sharp increase in dual enrollment. I’m sure we had an increase, but not a geometric increase. Okay, I’m just curious what that looks like.
1:05:38 And how it translates because this slide just bothers me a bit. And I’m sure it bothers you too. I’m sure it bothers all of us because we’re going, where are these students going? And our community is growing and obviously if they’re taking scholarship dollars, they’re still going to reflect here.
1:05:43 So the school choice, the whole idea of like school choice, we should see those numbers correlate the same in my eyes. Like we should be able to account for the students across the board whether they’re in a scholarship, whether they’re in a charter or whether they’re in a public school. But we’re not seeing them.
1:05:55 We’re seeing. We’re seeing students that are missing, in essence, so to speak. Well, except that.
1:05:59 And in Sydney Bay at this point, the. And we’ll have it. And when we go to FSBA in December, we’re going to have the demographer that I got to hear last week talk about the graying of America.
1:06:09 Right? I mean we really do. The birth rate is something and even the people are moving to Florida. Birth.
1:06:17 Birth rate is significant. That we’re going to just steadily see a drop overall. The reason we’re not seeing an overall drop is because of the scholarships.
1:06:37 Because those were kids we already had in Brevard. We were never counting, for the most part, we were never counting those. The state was never counting those.
1:07:07 But now that they have scholarships, a lot of those families Zinni referred to, it was not necessarily a huge influx into the private schools or more a little bit because we do have little mom PA type, what I call pop up schools that are doing youth taking the scholarships. But a lot of them were people who were already in our private schools that existed in the county. And now we’re counting them.
1:07:19 But I still think we’re going to see from what I’m hearing from all the demographics that are going on, we are going to see even overall the county, we’re going to continue to see a steady decline because of the birth rate. And the whole country is dealing with that. And also one of the things too, it was, I think it was 23, 24 when the state removed the, the income right cap on being able to get scholarships.
1:07:29 And a thing that you won’t, that doesn’t reflect here also is anyone that’s taking PEP scholarships, if that’s something, because PEP is funded by. From. Isn’t funded from the fefp.
1:07:29 This just shows us what the funding is within the fefp. So the numbers that you have on the left hand side for the years, where you’re showing the years. What number would that be? The 20.
1:07:40 Would that be the second calc or the third calc? That. What number is that? Like 2324. Is that.
1:07:49 Would that be considered your third calc? That would be the final actual. The third calc. Okay, 6, 5, 23, 24.
1:08:01 Right. Am I right when I say third cock or is that fourth calc we have? Well, there’s like fifth. I mean, I don’t know how many are there? There’s several, there’s five.
1:08:03 But the way we do this is when the year is over, the final actual would be the number for the year. So the ones in blue aren’t final actual. They’re.
1:08:14 Okay. All right. I just.
1:08:23 Again, that’s why I’m like. When I’m looking and we’re comparing apples to apples, like the 2425 second calc to the 2526 second calc. That’s why I said, I’m like, look, we’re seeing increase, increase, increase, increase, all of a sudden decrease.
1:08:42 And I’m like, okay. I mean, in overall students, not necessarily looking at where the students are going, just overall students. That’s why I just have an issue with this slide.
1:08:46 But I’ll be curious to see how it all shakes out. And if we can figure out butts and seats for fte, I think that that really matters. And then also looking at did we have a large increase potentially in dual enrolled students and could that account for it? And the 2526 is a projection and we’ll know when we receive the third calc how close that number is.
1:08:57 Right? Right. That’ll be good. That’ll be the day that we get to see if these numbers all reconcile.
1:09:19 Right? That’s right. I think the 2425 first count really throws it off. That’s the numbers you’re talking about? Well, I’m just comparing apples to apples because the 2425 is actually the second calc.
1:09:37 If you look at the little asterisk at the bottom of the spreadsheet, and then you look at the dark blue 2526, that is actually the second calc. So you’re comparing second calc to second calculator year over year. So that’s why when I’m looking at the 82, look at the jump in scholarship, but I’m looking at the Overall students, the 82,000 number that we’re seeing, and then when we go to 2526, we’re seeing 81,000.
1:09:48 And I’m like, historically we’re trending with an increase in students whether, regardless of where they’re being educated. So I’m like, why, why all of a sudden are we now being projected to lose students? Because everything in our county is not indicating that as far as the growth that’s taking place now. I get the birth rate will obviously impact it, but I’m just.
1:09:52 Yeah, all right. And I think some of, maybe some of the ESOL families have left. Okay.
1:10:08 All right, moving on to the next slide, I guess. I’m sorry, Sorry, guys. I just.
1:10:19 That one is the one that makes you lose sleep at night. If you’ve been reading the Pineapple news that we get every day, I mean, this is, this is happening in large and small counties across the state. Yeah.
1:10:26 And we are down. I mean, our six day count numbers are down. So that actually going from the 62,000 to 59 is actually pretty good reflection of what we’ve been told so far.
1:10:33 So we’re not the only ones, you know, but it’s, it’s reflective of what’s going across. It never makes you feel good. Even when you got.
1:10:44 The boat’s full. Like, well, the boat still not, it’s not good to say, oh, we’re not the only ones. But we’re, you know.
1:11:13 Yeah, I think Miami dade went down 14,000, so it could be worse. No, no, it’s an example that it’s across the state. It’s indicative of the size of their district.
1:11:30 So I’m sure it’s worth, you know. Okay, so the next slide was something that I added last night and that it’s the edr. The EDR is the Economic Demographic Research Office and they do all the estimating for the state legislature.
1:11:59 And this was what they did when they came up with our numbers in April. And this is just a projection. Again, it’s a projection of how they see Brevard out to 29:30.
1:12:46 Now the slide is going to be a little confusing. I went through it and the brick and mortar settings, those numbers are pretty darn close to our BPS numbers plus charter. And again, these are projections that they came, you know, with and you know, they get less accurate as time goes out, but it is a trend.
1:12:53 And then if you looked at all the different districts, most of them are in the same boat or seeing a little bit more decline than we are. But that’s just, that’s just a trend to let you see that currently were not projected to receive additional students or I don’t know if that’s the right way of saying it, but our enrollment doesn’t, isn’t projected to increase. So considerations for FY26 and beyond our current expenditures aren’t, they’re not sustainable.
1:13:26 Our enrollment continues to decline in pockets that we have a really long district. Right. I mean it’s huge.
1:13:45 And so there’s pockets that are growing and there’s pockets where they’re not growing anymore. So it’s a lot. And like I said before, you know, based on FTE and projections, the 3197 FTEs approximately $29 million that weren’t able to the revenue that we aren’t expecting that we had last year.
1:14:06 And then considerations to think about is the impact of tariffs. Again, we don’t know what’s going to happen if there’s supply chain disruptions. You know, there’s talk about risks to reductions to our federal grants.
1:15:09 But you know, that’s still more to come on that the Senate and the House are looking at those and the appropriation committee kind of has different ideas. So you know, we’ll just have to wait and see what passes the state legislature changes. That’s always something that we have to watch.
1:15:38 And other considerations is our health care cost and the costs that we pay as the employer for Florida Retirement system. So what we’re doing right now and a couple of you guys mentioned will a control, spend down approach over the next two years. And I will say, you know, we just went through Mr. Ramer and Tara Harris and all those folks back there, they went through the six day count and I have to tell you that I was really, really impressed with how well you know, they did because our schools had some schools had some over projections and they weren’t getting the students they thought they would.
1:15:59 So they were, you know, Mr. Ramer reached out early and said hey, maybe don’t, don’t hire to 100% because it doesn’t look like you’re meeting those, those targets. So he was able to ensure that every class size is a, you know, a good size for learning and teachers are in front of every, there’s a teacher in every classroom. A couple years ago that was difficult if you remember.
1:16:27 So I just thought and he was able to bring some of that down because we don’t want to fund empty classrooms. And so I thought he did a great job and that’s part of the plan. So that’s some of the reduction already because we budgeted higher than we needed to because we thought the enrollment was going to Be more.
1:16:53 So that’s a good first step. And then next we’re going to take a look at vacant positions. What are those vacant positions that we really need? Or you know, can we do things better, smarter, differently, or do we need to do that process anymore? So we’re going to take a look at our vacant positions, see which ones are the ones that we can remove and then others may be to freeze.
1:17:10 The next thing we’re going to take a look at are actually the instructional team over there. Dr. Rendell will be looking at, you know, how should schools be manned? You know, not all schools are the same. I believe it should be more of a targeted needs based versus everybody gets certain things because not everybody needs the same thing.
1:17:40 So. And just to make sure that it matches to enrollment. And I believe with all those things that we’ll get, we’ll be in a much better place.
1:18:02 And then, you know, the last thing we really do need to look at is the aging, low capacity schools present because, you know, they have complex financial and logistical challenges. Cost a lot of money to upkeep an old building. Even a school at half capacity needs a principal support, food service staff, custodians, a nurse, librarian, counselors, sro, you know, the list goes on.
1:18:29 Education is highly labor intensive with compensation comprising about 85% of a school’s expenses. Under enrolled schools don’t cover their own expenses. Super superintendents have to pull resources from other schools and programs to subsidize those under capacity schools.
1:18:44 So you know, a school that is under capacity still has all this overhead. And so it may be 15, 16,000 per FTE and then a school that is at a good level and capacity, the FTE per student is probably 7,000. And so you are moving dollars over to pay for the excess capacity.
1:19:17 In the end, districts have to spread. Yeah, in the end, districts have to spread resources too thinly across too many buildings, reducing our footprint. We will allow for more opportunity for our students and better pay for our staff.
1:19:58 And a high caliber pool of educators can protect the classroom experience and preserve the critical programs and opportunities that our students rely on. Ultimately, the goal will be to reduce costs associated with empty seats and allocate more resources to existing students. Tonight, this is one of the slides that you’ll see for the proposed final budget.
1:20:27 And then I’m going to move to the next slide because this one really kind of shows you all the different pots of money that we have. And I know there’s a lot of. And we do, we have $1.
1:20:58 6 billion and that’s a lot of money and that’s a lot of responsibility and there’s a lot of things that we should be doing with those dollars and we do. But there’s, it’s separated in quite a bit in many ways. So the general fund is the funds that are for operating dollars.
1:21:16 That’s salaries, benefits, it’s diesel for the buses, it’s textbooks, it’s so many things like that. But it’s the every day to day operation costs. And this number for general fund does not include the millage or the charter, but it also does include adult ed before and after care cte.
1:21:38 So there’s a lot of things within that general fund bucket. The next one is the charter. So we do provide a significant amount of money to charters and the internal service that is our health care, our medical care and our casualty insurance for liability, workers compensation and you know, health cost is something that I know we’re all working to get.
1:22:02 We’re much better right now than we’ve been in years with a fund balance. We had a healthy fund balance at the end of this year. But you know, medical costs, we just need to watch it because those could really go up.
1:22:30 Capital projects, you can see, and that’s for building facilities and renovation and renewal buses. There’s just so many things that goes into those capital projects. The impact fees that we get to build new schools and additions, purchase land.
1:22:59 We can also pay debt service with impact fees. We have the half cent sales surtax extension and that is 70% of that is for facility renewal projects. And I know our schools have seen such improvement with new H Vacs and things like that that, you know, even the utilities have gone down significantly.
1:23:14 But just amazing things that sue and her team do to keep all the buildings where they need to be. And then there’s the other percentages goes to technology and security of our schools. And then we, you know, there’s some small, well, the lci, those are the dollars that comes from the tax levy that we’ll talk about tonight.
1:23:23 And those go to buying buses and other projects. And then there’s smaller areas like the fuel tax and that can only be generated to be used for roads and street and schools. And we’re actually using that to fund the traffic light over by Vera Elementary.
1:23:33 Sure. For forward facing for the public. Want to just talk about a couple things because I think when we look at the budget, $1.
1:23:39 6 billion is an extreme amount of money. So I like to just, just break this down in as layman terms. As possible on.
1:23:46 On how these buckets of money come to us dictate how they can be spent out. So some of these things. So I’m going to go ahead and just debt services.
1:23:55 Those that’s for debt that this district acquired long before this board was ever sitting here for schools that were built a long time ago. So we are still repaying that debt. We are working heavily at chunking away at that debt.
1:24:07 This board’s done an exceptional job. We did so well as to build a school debt free. So I just want to highlight that part of it.
1:24:11 Special revenue. When people go, what is special revenue? That’s $150 million. Those are federal funds, right? Those are going to be.
1:24:18 Is that correct? Yes. I’m sorry, I missed that box that circle, didn’t I? The special revenue, that is the food services. Okay.
1:24:38 It’s our internal school account. So that’s their fundraising, their fees, all the different things that they do internally for the schools. And it also is the federal grants.
1:24:51 Okay, good. Thank you. And then capital projects, that is our buildings, which you kind of hit on.
1:25:02 So those are. That those dollars that come to us that way must stay that way. We can’t use that necessarily to do.
1:25:26 Sometimes people say, oh, why don’t you just do this or do that or you know, and you can fund it out of here, you can fund it out of there. That’s not necessarily true. Depending on how the money comes to us, it dictates how we can spend those dollars, which I didn’t know that before I was sitting here to the degree I knew, sort of, but I didn’t know to the degree that it was, you know, very heavily tied.
1:25:37 How the money comes in dictates how the money goes out and where we are allowed to spend it. So it gives districts some challenges on. It’s not like your personal bank account where you can just write checks to wherever for whatever.
1:25:42 That’s not the way it goes when it comes to governmental funding like this. You’re right. I mean it all, you know, the bottom line, there is unique purpose, ground rules, guardrails based on federal and state laws.
1:26:13 Idea, you know, the title grants, they all have specific purposes and you can’t supplant and different things like that. And capital projects, you have to go through the statute and make sure is this legal? Is it not legal? How do we pay for this? So some things it is very difficult. And the general fund is really the first fund.
1:26:42 That is our bread and butter and our operating. And it really, when you have as many schools as we have, it doesn’t go that far. It’s a lot.
1:27:13 It is a lot. All right, thank you. I just wanted to highlight those couple things.
1:27:31 And so this next slide is the general fund expenditures. And what I wanted to highlight on this slide is again when you look at the general fund we talk about, when you look on the left side, we can see the salaries and benefits about 73% of the cost. However, the state requires us to report our numbers with charters in our purchased services.
1:27:44 And that’s the way it’s done, that’s what we do. But when you go to the further right, when you take the charters out, you can see that our biggest expense is our salaries and benefits. 85% of everything we do is with people and we have great people and I just wanted to highlight that.
1:28:25 And then the number, the 571 million, that is about the size of our FEFP that we receive. So. And this slide shows our debt service and that is, you know, what we pay to pay off the schools that we built in the past.
1:28:48 And we’ve had to refinance financings as well. So millions of dollars saved. Our capital projects, Our special revenue.
1:29:07 And again there’s the food services. It’s total, totally self supporting. It also receives federal funds, the school internal dollars.
1:29:15 Those are the funds that our students, our schools collect for athletics, for classes, for clubs, those kind of things. And then the special revenues are all those, you know, important federal grants that really help with a lot of different areas just to make sure that every child gets what they need. And then the last circle is the medical and that is our self insured medical healthcare costs.
1:29:40 You can see right now the medical, that’s how we ended June 30 and 18 million was our fund balance. So we had a really healthy fund balance at the end of last year. And then our casualty, that covers our liability, our compensation, auto related accidents and those kind of things.
1:30:00 And that is determined by actuary and that’s all I have until tonight. We certainly appreciate all the effort. Our one on ones were very informative, so I appreciate that.
1:30:14 Board, do we want anything to add? Good. No, I think I added all along. Thank you, Cindy, thank you so much.
1:30:34 Dr. Rudell, you said you had a few other things. So the board may recall that we’ve had discussion about the high poverty supplement. Remember we had this practice in the past of paying principals who are leading schools with a high poverty rate and additional supplement and we discovered last year that the rate was 75% or higher.
1:30:56 If a school has 75% rate or higher, free, reduced lunch, they were getting a supplement. The principals of those schools were getting a supplement. We had changed a few years ago the way we calculated that rate and we saw that last year we were paying more principals than we thought appropriate, that high poverty supplement.
1:31:44 But we were going with that 75% rate that was calculated on the old formula when we started that practice. So we did that last year because that’s what we had in place. And we said we would go back and research that.
1:32:04 So earlier this year, meeting with each of you, I showed you a chart. I have cop of those charts here and give you here in just a second and just get your guidance on what we where we want to set the level. You know, we’ve talked about this individually, but this is something that garnered some public attention last year and want to make sure that we have this discussion in public.
1:32:20 We do know that leading a school with a very challenging population, typically a high percentage of free and reduced lunch children in poverty, is a challenge. And so to offer those leaders a supplement seems like the right thing to do. We just need to determine what that level is.
1:32:40 So I’ll give you these again just so we can refresh our memories. Thank you. So based on the new way we calculate free emergency lunch population or title one, if you look at the chart, the two schools at the top were higher than 75%.
1:33:03 So actually there would be three, no two schools at the top highlighted in yellow, 75%. So if we stuck with the 75% threshold and applied it to the raw number in that, I think it’s a fourth column over. Only two schools would qualify for a supplement.
1:33:25 There’s a lot of other schools that are close. And so it’s really like, where do we want to set the threshold? And you know, my suggestion would be at 65%. So if you go down to 65%, you see the schools in that.
1:33:30 We’re based on that fourth column, I think it is 24, 25 eligibility. We see where we get to 19 schools total. And that seems to me to be a fair, fair number.
1:33:32 You know, we are a poor district overall. When this practice was enacted almost 20 years ago as a district, we were in mid to low 50% free and reduced lunch as a district. And now we’re at like 66%.
1:33:44 You know, so quite a few more families qualifying for free and reduced lunch or living in poverty. So the number of schools probably should reflect that. I support your recommendation.
1:34:07 I do too. I think it’s It’s. I’m also looking for where there’s a good cutoff, where it’s not.
1:34:23 Somebody just missed it. 5.1.
1:34:34 I think 65 is fair in that. I just, I wanted to point out, you talked, you mentioned that the old standard was 75%. And I think believe the first year they did it, there were five schools.
1:34:40 And so, you know, some people might say, well, if we’re poor school district, why, why are there only two now? But I. Back in the day, which actually when I said back in the day, just like my first couple years on the board, actually, first year in the board, that was by parents turning in, correct? Yeah. The previous way of calculating free and reduced lunch were the number of free and reduced lunch applications percentage. And now we’re not doing it so much that way.
1:34:56 It’s more, it’s, it’s based on people who are getting other kinds of. So it starts with the fourth column is the beginning number and that’s the number of families who have taken advantage of government supplemental services, so SNAP and other programs. That’s the raw number.
1:34:58 And then what we were doing to get our title, one number was a factor, multiplying that number by a factor. And that’s why last year’s number was so high. Right.
1:35:01 So we’re using the raw number in the fourth column and that, you know. Right. Or fifth column, whatever that is.
1:35:08 I think if we get to the 65, we’re catching most of those high needs schools in, in a, in a fair way. And, and I know this number fluctuates when we have a hurricane. The year after a hurricane we tend to have.
1:35:12 Because we have more people who qualified. Correct. Yeah.
1:35:18 I thought you meant during the year. No, but yeah, yeah. After a hurricane.
1:35:37 Yes. There could be more schools that qualify automatically. So I think this would be good.
1:35:43 And so this will be not necessarily these schools every year. It’ll be a number that we calculate every. Correct.
1:36:00 Every year. We’re just looking for guidance on the threshold. If we go with 65% and you know, it could be more schools.
1:36:11 If more schools fall above 65%, it could be less. But you know, at full transparency for the public that are viewing, it’s a 5,000 supplement to the principal. So, you know, and last year I believe it was over 40 and this is 19.
1:36:19 That seems a little more appropriate. Yeah, I support 65%. I support the 65% also.
1:36:39 And just also for the public because there was, you know, a lot of drama around this last year that, you know, we were unfairly giving out money to principals that we shouldn’t have been giving out money to, and absolutely not the case. That was flat out a line. So Mr. Dufresne was nice to supply us with the historical data on this that showed how this trended upward.
1:36:50 This was created long, long, long, long time ago. And because we recalculate, we change things. This would have actually been when Ms. Klein, Jane Klein, was here.
1:36:55 On how we calculate that free and reduced lunch. I don’t. When I first got on the board, I was one of those parents who got phone calls, emails, text messages, fill out this form for free and reduced lunch.
1:37:01 Fill out this form for free and reduced lunch. And I’m sure everybody sitting here who has a child in school can attest to how that was. And instead we said, no, we should actually be looking at who is qualifying for the actual assistance, the government assistance that they’re receiving, whether that be, you know, through food stamps or Medicaid, things of that nature, because those are people who are actually needy, in essence.
1:37:11 And so rather than hounding our families, this was a more logical way to look at how we calculate that figure, which, again, is the district’s discretion. And I wholeheartedly stand behind that. I think that was a good decision.
1:37:19 So I stand with you at the 65%. I think that’s a good threshold. And.
1:37:24 Yeah. All right. So I believe Paul draft a memo and we add it to the supplements.
1:37:31 Or do we have to do board motion? This is administrative, so non bargaining. So, yeah, I think a memo would be fun. Yep.
1:37:46 So, yeah, I’ll draft a memo just to codify it. Put in. Yeah, for non bargaining employees.
1:38:02 I mean, you can put it on an agenda if you want. It’s not going to hurt anything. All right.
1:38:14 Probably just do a memo. Because we’re gonna say, isn’t that how it came about, was a memo? Yeah, so it all got started. Yeah, that’s right.
1:38:24 But I think, you know, there is no perfect way to determine which schools. What, what the completely accurate number of families that need support. Because some families will not avail themselves of government support.
1:38:32 So they won’t show up in these figures. So that’s, you know, that’s another factor. Whereas with the other method, there might be families that didn’t necessarily need to support, but filled out the forms and, you know, the school qualified, you know, so not a perfect way either way.
1:38:55 But I think this is. This captures the right schools. So the only other thing I have for the board is for the public, really not so much for the board is we did move two meetings in October.
1:39:12 The work session and the board business meeting are being rescheduled from October 14th up to October 7th. So we’ve already put that word out. But I just.
1:39:15 If anybody’s watching, you know, that’s. That’s a change in our October meeting schedule. And that’s all I have.
1:39:21 Perfect. So, Tom, Sarah from the Greater Florida Consortium of School Boards sent out the legislative platform that they put together not last week, but the week before. And so, Dr. Rondell, could you ask.
1:39:37 I’ve already taken a look at most of it and. But can you ask the cabinet to just look? Because the way they do it, board, if you’ll remember from last year, is if there’s anything on the platform that we don’t support, all we have to do is say we don’t. And they will.
1:39:48 They will take it off any board in the consortium. So. But we.
1:39:52 They have asked us to kind of give a response in a timely way. So probably by. If.
1:39:59 If we can by our get some recommendations by our September. I think we were a little late in the game last year, but session starts earlier. So if we can do it by our September meeting or maybe by October 7th so that we can have it back by the next, you know, work session or two weeks.
1:40:07 But I really would like Yalls thoughts on anything that you have concerns about that we may want to ask that we can’t add anything, but we can ask them to delete to their platform. We can still generate our own. Right, Right.
1:40:12 But they asked for feedback on this pretty quickly. So if we can. If we can do that, that would be great.
1:40:20 We can do that in addition to helping us formulate our platform. That’s right. All right, thank you.
1:40:28 All right, board, anything else? All right. There be no further business. Sorry, pause real fast.
1:40:34 We have the superintendent’s evaluation that’s on here. But we were going to move that, correct? Yeah, we just. Yeah, we talked about that early.
1:40:37 Mr. Susan’s not here in person and he may actually be. If he’s not off the call yet, he’s going to be jumping off the call soon for an appointment. So. Okay, that was going to be my ask was to move it till we had a warmers present. So is that okay with. Okay. It’s okay. I’m not going anywhere. So thank you, everybody. I appreciate that. All right, man. All right. They’re for their business as being as a Sam. Sa. It.