2025-10-07 - School Board Work Session

5:32 It’s. Afternoon. The October 7, 2025 work session is now in order. Paul, Roll call please.

6:23 Mr. Trent. Here. Mr. Susan.

6:25 Here. Ms. Wright. Here.

6:26 Ms. Campbell. Here. Mr. Thomas.

6:28 Here. Mr. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

6:48 Doctor Undell, can you speak to the board about the items on the agenda for today? Thank you, Mr. Chair. On the workshop agenda for today we have some public hearings on some proposed policy revisions. Then we have a presentation on PM1 data last year compared to this year on progress monitoring one.

7:10 Then we’ll talk a little bit about state and district required assessments, the amount of time our students are taking tests and then we’ll discuss the legislative platform, primarily the Greater Florida Consortium of School board’s legislative platform, whether we want to remove or suggest or change any of that. And then that should be it for today. All right.

7:35 Great. We will begin our rule development and public hearing on policy revisions in Group 2. Board policy revealing rule development on the following policies.

7:47 Policy 0124 Is there anyone present who wishes to address these items? Is there anyone present who wishes to address these items? Policy 1120 Is there anyone present who wishes to address these items? Is there anyone present who wishes to address these items? Policy 24:10 Is there anyone present who wishes to address these items? Is there anyone present who wishes to address these items? Policy3121.01 Anyone present who wishes to address these items? Is there anyone present who wishes to address these items? Policy 3130. Is there anyone present who wishes to address these items? Is there anyone present who wishes to address these items? Policy 3139 is there anyone present who wishes to address these items? Is there anyone present who wishes to address these items? Policy3210 is there anyone present who wishes to address these items? Is there anyone present who wishes to address these items? Policy3213 is there anyone present who wishes to address these items? Is there anyone present who wishes to address these items? Policy 3242 is there anyone present who wishes to address these items? Is there anyone present who wishes to address these items? Policy 5200 is there anyone present who wishes to address these items? Is there anyone present who wishes to address these items? Policy 5223 is there anyone present who wishes to address these items? Is there anyone present who wishes to address these items? Policy5530 Is there anyone present who wishes to address these items? Is there anyone present who wishes to address these items? Policy 5600 Is there anyone present who wishes to address these items? Is there anyone present who wishes to address these items? Policy5610 Is there anyone present who wishes to address these items? Is there anyone present who wishes to address these items? Policy5630 Is there anyone present who wishes to address these items? Is there anyone present who wishes to address these items? Policy 8420 is there anyone present who wishes to address these items? Is there anyone present who wishes to address these items? This concludes the public hearing portion of this meeting.

9:48 The first presentation, student achievement update Ms. Tara Harris thank you, Mr. Chair. Ms. Tara Harris and her team are going to present that data again. We always want to take a look at how our students are performing in this progress monitoring model throughout the year.

10:05 So our students just recently conducted progress monitoring one so the beginning of the year assessments and we’re going to take a look at how that data compares to last year. That is a perfect segue. Good afternoon members of the board.

10:23 We are here, as Dr. Rendell said, just to this is our starting point. So PM1 is how our students come into our classroom classrooms. We do some trend data to look at comparing that to the cohort of students.

10:36 And so we’re looking at a diagonal triangulation. But today what we’re going to look at is by grade level, by subject area and we’re looking at who is coming in with the skills already in that grade level. The difference with this with fast compared to other years is this on day one assesses students for all of the standards of that grade level.

10:59 So it’s kind of like considered a pre test. And then I’m going to do a quick commercial. As you know, I always do for this K2ELA data because remembering that all students in kindergarten first and second don’t necessarily take the same test.

11:15 So for students that are still working in those foundational skills, they actually take the early literacy. So if you look here, our kindergarten students that are in that early literacy component, which most of our kindergarteners that this is the assessment they take. But you will see they came in 1 percentage point higher than our kindergarten students came in on that same data point last school year.

11:42 Then when we go to our first grade and for this I’m going to share some data on the next slide. But when we look at our first grade last year to this year with early literacy we actually had more students get the score needed to bump up to that reading test. So this looks flat.

12:01 It looks like they came in with the exact same skills. But our first grade cohort of students at BPS is actually coming in with some stronger skills because more of them have moved to that reading test. And then in second grade, something you will see is the group of students came in with 1 percentage increase.

12:20 But keeping in mind at second grade, this is very few children. This makes up a very small amount of students that come to second grade with substantial deficiencies. So any questions on the early literacy? So now we’re moving to.

12:38 When we look at the kindergarten cell, I want to let you know that that data, 29%, that makes up seven students. But those are seven students that came in highly proficient with kindergarten information and those foundational skills. And they on day one came in with reading skills.

12:57 And so they hit that score and they took that assessment. So while it shows a significant group, just in full transparency, I want you to know that means we had seven students last year. We had zero kindergarteners in Brevard.

13:11 So I talked about our first grade data. So. So while it looks like our first grade team came in lower, we actually had more students taking that first grade reading assessment.

13:21 And so how I equate this to is they came in higher because they automatically moved past that early literacy into that reading assessment. But fewer of them hit proficiency once they got onto that assessment. And then for second grade, numbers are very similar to how they have been in the past.

13:42 But this group of students is coming in 1 percentage point lower than last year. Any questions for K2 reading or early literacy? Mr. Chair? Sure. Just curious.

13:53 I know there’s only seven students, but where do they come from to have such a good foundation moving into kindergarten? There is no exact. When we look at. When we go down to the student, I can’t equate it to one spot.

14:06 They are some students that were served in Brevard public schools as pre K. And just to clarify for anybody maybe watching, what is that? Those numbers that you’re representing? 45, 42, 30. That is the percentage of students at this point in the year are already on grade level.

14:24 Correct? Correct. So they’re. So it’s.

14:27 It. Because it looks, you know, sometimes it looks terrible have numbers so low. But this is.

14:31 This is showing. This is where they are at this point. And it’s even.

14:34 It’s even. We want to communicate that it’s even beyond on grade level. And the reason is some parents, their students ended Last year with a level 4 or a level 5 high performing student data.

14:45 And then they’re coming in at a level two. And that alarms parents because they feel like, oh my goodness, what happened? They’re now below grade level. So we say this is when you hit proficiency on this exam.

14:57 That means you have a solid foundation of the entire grade that you are sitting in content. So you could be on grade level and be at a 2 and you’re not represented in these numbers. Gotcha.

15:08 Thank you so much. Any other questions before we move to grades three through six? So you will see as we look at three, four, five and six, no significant changes. You will see a dip in fifth grade.

15:24 That will present itself as well when we look at math. So a fifth grade. We have already had a lot of conversations and when we’re out in schools really talking about knowing that students are coming in, in many of our sites lower than the group last year, if you didn’t get to the end point that you desired the previous year, you know, we have to make up more time in this instructional time.

15:47 But the student numbers across the board for elementary ELA and three through six are commensurate with what we would expect based on our PM3 data. So now staying with Ela but moving to our secondary schools, you will see an uptick of how our students are entering. This again would be expected based on our proficiency growth that our students left last school year with with higher skills.

16:14 So we would expect that they come in with a stronger foundation. What we want to be clear is Mr. Ramer and I, in speaking to principals back in the summer at our summit we discussed in Brevard, we hold our own with high performing districts at both PM1 and at PM2. It’s between PM2 and PM3 where Brevard starts to lose some ground and growth and student achievement.

16:38 And so when we’re talking to schools we’re being very clear of this isn’t a, oh, look, they’re coming in higher. I can kind of take the foot off the gas. This is, we must make sure that they still have a year’s worth of growth.

16:49 So they’re coming in higher, but we want a year’s worth of growth. Any questions on our secondary ELA data? Tara, I just have a question that I actually meant to ask you on there. Going back to The K through 3, just real quickly, do you, I know with mighty moves and implemented now and things that were other steps that you guys have taken, do you feel like we’re on the right track? These numbers you anticipated, do you think we should be doing better? Is there anything we can be doing better or in addition to what we’re already doing? Here’s what I will say.

17:23 I think that we have a strong plan. What the team back here did even as recent, we’re responding to data, even on the first day of school. We brought our team in here and we said, okay, now what we need to be in a constant responsive mode in some cases where we’re finding some gaps in fidelity of implementation with Mighty Moves.

17:43 And I can tell you, we have walked so many schools already in this first quarter of the school year. We’re seeing strong implementation, we’re seeing strong use of aligned materials. So I believe that we have a very solid plan.

17:57 Something that you will see on an agenda upcoming is we are going to put in a request to do some teacher training around a resource called ufly. Our schools have been purchasing that on their own and through some secured grant funding that we are waiting to drop. We want to implement that across the board.

18:18 It is something that we are seeing for our own schools here in Brevard that are using it. It’s aligned to the science of reading. It’s not a core program.

18:27 So this is just a phonics driven program of foundational skills and it is actually the Mighty Moves. So it is the Mighty Move lessons. And this is just a resource in which students will be applying those skills from the Mighty Moves.

18:43 The reason that I bring that up is I don’t believe it should be that if you’re zoned for this school and they happen to purchase that product that you get something that we know is the highest quality. And so this is through Lastinger center at University of Florida. A lot of districts have been implementing this.

19:01 So to your point, Mr. Thomas, this is something that we’re seeing is moving students learning faster than some of the other products that our schools have been purchasing. And so we want to streamline that across the district. And I think that will tighten up.

19:16 Then I’ll be a very quick yes. Good. Thank you.

19:21 So now we’re going to move to math. Very, very excited about this math data. Because in sharing data, sometimes math can be the area that we continue to see where students, if they didn’t have foundational learning, it really presents itself in the content area of math.

19:37 So you will see that our students coming into K2 are coming in higher than we’re used to. We think that is the evidence of some strategic math planning and some going, some streamlining of how math blocks Will look. And so we’re very excited about this data as we move to the three through six.

20:01 Something I want to point out that we heard loud and clear from teachers that we also are seeing in implementation that our team here really made some modules and training around multiplication in third grade that continued to be an area that was a gap and teachers trying to just fill it in. Well, you know, if you can’t multiply, it’s very hard when you start to go into division and fractions. And so I just wanted a shout out to the elementary programs team for really taking a look at that and responding immediately.

20:31 So those that data is in place. Any questions around elementary math data? And I just, I’m going to highlight, because you guys know me, I pointed that fifth grade with ela we have an area of focus. So I told you it would present in math.

20:49 And there it is. There it is. Okay, so this is going to be tricky.

20:55 So I’m going to explain this because we did something very different this year and we knew that we would see a flip in data. But what you see here is for our students taking the seventh grade MJ advance, that course is built of seventh grade standards and eighth grade standards and with equal number of each. And what we have been doing in the past is for seventh grade students, if they were taking the seventh grade MJ Math or MJ Advanced course, they were all taking the seventh grade assessment.

21:14 And what we found is in many districts across the state, those districts have chosen for those students to take the eighth grade assessment. And where this was really presenting itself was it’s really moving numbers. But when you start looking at rank, because we choose to test every, we were choosing prior to test everyone in seventh grade, our ranking was always off because most districts were looking at that eighth grade.

21:51 Now you’re going to say, well, Tara, where you declined in seventh is not where you gained in eighth. And I have some data to share with you regarding that. So we had 300 fewer seventh graders taking that seventh grade regular math.

22:05 And so when you think of the students that are taking that advanced course, they’ve been pulled out of that equation, but they didn’t all necessarily go into that eighth grade math course because we actually have 400 more eighth graders taking algebra. And so they took that seventh grade core or sixth grade. But then when they got to eighth grade, they have moved into that algebra.

22:28 So they’re not presenting here in that orange grade 8 data. We also had 550 fewer students taking the 8th grade pre algebra this year. And so where we thought it, you know, without pulling apart the numbers and looking at it, we thought it might be an exact flip.

22:45 But then when we started seeing some of those students in the MJ Advanced course are taking the eighth grade, but a lot of the seventh graders and eighth graders are really taking that algebra course. And so that’s why they’re not showing up in that 8th grade cell. So we will continue to share this data as we hit PM2, but this is something that we’ll be watching closely.

23:07 Parents did have to sign saying, I understand my child’s taking a seventh grade MJ advanced course and that they will be taking the eighth grade state assessment. So there was full transparency for parents. Any questions? Ms. Harris? Just to clarify, a student who’s taking algebra in either seventh or eighth grade doesn’t show up in these numbers at all.

23:25 Correct. Correct. So these.

23:30 Just to clarify it even further, these are the students who may be more mathematically challenged to start. Start with correct. So they’re taking that seventh grade MJ Basic course.

23:40 Another question, and I think it’s been done at least once upon a time since I’ve been on the board. But do we ever. Usually we get the data, and we’re comparing this year’s fifth graders to last year’s fifth graders.

23:50 Do we ever do longitudinally, like, you know, this year’s fifth graders to how they were in fourth grade? We can kind of see because maybe this fifth grade class, who probably would have been in kindergarten during the COVID year, maybe they are just tracking from the beginning, always just a little bit lower so we can see that progress. Are y’ all looking at that, too? We always look at that because for. This is.

24:14 It paints the picture of, you know, same grade level, but basically this is apples to oranges, right? Because it’s different students. And so when we’re looking at that, we are looking at it from a cohort lens. And so we’re looking at that.

24:25 That even came up when we had Datacom meetings with principals. Some of the questions that came up were around where your students left last year in third grade or, you know, seventh grade. And how have you prepared for them knowing that their data at the end of the year.

24:40 And so looking at their PM3, obviously, we look PM3 to PM3, same groups of students. But we also look at PM3, for example, third grade to PM1, fourth grade, because those are the same students. Right.

24:54 I was thinking too, just even like, you know, these, for example, the fifth graders, you know, where were they at the beginning of Fourth grade, you know, just even trying to keep as much apples to apples. If you. If you have documents that you already have put together, I want you to put something special, you know, for me.

25:09 But if you already have something like that, that you. That you guys are looking at, would you forward that to us? Absolutely. Thank you.

25:14 Absolutely. So, Ms. Harris, if you can go back to slide four, because that can kind of illustrate Mrs. Campbell’s point. I’m trying to figure out which side this slide for.

25:26 Is it the PM1 district? Elementary three through six. Yeah. Elementary three through six and ELA.

25:31 Yeah. So you can even do a cohort analysis right there. Like, you know, the 24, 25 third graders are now the 25, 26 fourth graders.

25:33 So you can kind of compare the orange bar to the previous blue bar and kind of see, you know, really increases in PM1 all across the board. So the same cohort is coming in stronger than they did PM1 a year ago. We would hope to see that because they’ve all finished stronger in April and May, so.

26:06 But yeah, we always do the cohort analysis too, especially the principals when they’re breaking down their data, they want to know if there is a cohort that is strong or a cohort that maybe needs a little more support. Thank you for doing that. Any questions? I know that is shorter than the data that we went over recently.

26:36 If there are no questions, we’ll move into our uniformed assessment assessment discussion. So as I go through what is currently on our assessment calendar, what I’m passing out is you will see I gathered the minutes for those districts that are currently in the top 10. What you will see is bolded districts.

27:14 Those are currently in the top 10. The italicized districts. I added them because they are top 10 districts.

27:20 But in some cases they have like two schools in their district. So if they are in italicized font, that means they’re very small. The other districts that are non bolded, that are to the right of those that are bolded, those are districts that are currently higher ranking than Brevard.

27:35 And so just so that we have some framework to kind of see where they compare to what we’re suggesting. Another thing is, as we went through this and really worked with our team, some of our findings were what we were reporting on our calendars were the maximum amount of minutes that could be utilized. What we have found in doing this deep dive with other districts is really a lot of districts.

28:02 If we put, you know, and as we go through, I’ll give you some examples. But if we put 90 minutes. The average Brevard student might only be taking 37 or 40.

28:11 So I have some of that information that as we move through this and get next steps from the board that I’ll highlight some examples where that’s present. So we’re going to start right out with the kindergarten literacy survey and this assessment. I just need you to understand where we have been with this assessment.

28:34 Is it once upon a time, those three days prior to the kindergartners coming into the school year, that delayed start was utilized to get this survey data. And so because it is a one on one assessment now a lot of those days are utilized as kind of a kindergarten orientation. So schools do some school based assessments, decision making, and in some cases not all the students come in, but most of our schools are doing the assessment once the school year starts.

29:02 And so from a school based lens that often looks like having an IA or another teacher from, you know, like a resource teacher or Title 1 teacher go into that classroom so the teacher can be pulling the student individually. Two years ago, so in school year 23, 24, we actually removed almost every element of this assessment due to the time, the feedback from teachers. It was very strong feedback of, you know, this is taking a long time.

29:34 So we removed all of that and we got that information. Obviously we get a lot of information from stakeholders, but each spring the team actually goes to an evening event that BFT hosts that’s kind of an open forum for them to give us speed feedback on all things curriculum, instruction. And that’s where, you know, the kindergarten assessment really came out.

29:54 So we did pare it down. Then that takes me to spring. Going into last year, last school year’s meeting, we got very loud feedback in the spring of 25 of there’s a lot of information I don’t know about my students because you guys removed that assessment.

30:12 And so we graciously said, you know, we’re constantly wanting to meet your needs and work in service of what you need. And so that’s how some of this came back. So if you look at that middle column, those are the actual skills that are assessed on that kindergarten literacy survey.

30:30 And it can take anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes for students. But this is a heavy hitter when we’re looking at minutes in time. And what I’ll probably do if you’re okay is I’ll go through each of the items maybe for elementary and then get feedback and then we’ll move into secondary.

30:54 So this next assessment, this is a fluency assessment and it takes Students five minutes and basically they’re reading a passage and the teacher is assessing for speed and accuracy, which we know as fluency, and then that prosody so their expression and using punctuation and sentence structure. Fluency assessments are the number one indicator that is a prep for comprehension. When you hear a student that they are really struggling to get the words out to read, by the time they get to the end of the sentence, they cannot always tell you what they read.

31:28 They’re not able to make meaning. And so fluency is the indicator of, of success to move into that comprehension by third grade. What we have for these fluency assessments, if you are a raise school, so if you are targeted or intensive status on that raise designation, you are doing fluency monthly.

31:50 For the rest of the district schools, we put this in place quarterly. Now for first and second grade, it is ongoing. But for third grade they do it at the beginning of the year.

32:04 And then if students are fluent, hit the score, they don’t do a fluency assessment again. So this next item is our iready diagnostic, which we use kindergarten through sixth grade for ELA and math, full transparency. This is where we were reporting 90 minutes.

32:28 So right now it says up to 60 to 90 minutes. But I have pulled some data not only from Brevard, but pulling exactly what the average student in Florida that’s taking these diagnostics, what it looks like. So in grades kindergarten and first, it’s about 30 minutes per subject.

32:46 So one for ELA and one for math. For grades second through fifth, it’s 40 to 60 minutes. And then in grade six, it’s 60 to 75 minutes on average.

33:03 One of the things you may remember is last year, in response to just really looking at how long students were testing and making sure that they’re not testing more than they’re learning, we did a flex model of the diagnostic and what that looked like is when students logged on to IREADY through the their pathway, they were going to have items. This is how it was presented to us. They would have items that would make up that diagnostic that would then adapt to their learning.

33:30 To give them a customized learning plan. With all the humility I have, it was a disaster. It did not deliver as intended.

33:42 Teachers did not get clean data. And the power behind the iReady is Bas tells us, are you on grade level or not within your grade level band? So if you’re fourth grade, it says, do you have the fourth grade benchmarks or do you not? What I ready tells us is okay, if you don’t have the fourth grade benchmarks. Where exactly are you working so that we can intervene? And so they, you know, beginning third grade, end of second grade, middle third grade.

34:08 And last year using that flex model, we were not able to get that clean data. This year we went back to the diagnostic. Just because that data drives then their instructional path.

34:22 I know, curriculum and instruction or Curriculum and Associates, I’m sorry, that’s the Vendor that owns iReady. They have been working with the state to really look at okay for students. They’re trying to do an export where they can export fast data into the platform for at least those students, students that are on grade level so that they get their adaptive level automatically in their I ready pathway based on that fast without taking a diagnostic.

34:48 They are not there yet, but that is something that they have in the works. And then we move to science. So science is similar to our secondary EOCs where the students take the fifth grade science assessment in the spring and that is a one time shot.

35:10 So they don’t get beginning of the year or middle of the year data. Remembering that the fifth grade assessment is made up of both third grade, fourth grade and fifth grade benchmarks, but they’re only assessed in fifth grade. And so utilizing the Penda assessment, it’s able to say, okay, here’s the beginning of the year.

35:30 Here’s where you are at the middle of the year year. And then at that mid year point teachers can use that data to say where do we need to close the gap before that state assessment? If we were to remove these assessments, we’d be moving back to we’re teaching our hearts out. But we don’t really know what students are learning necessarily until they take that state assessment.

35:51 The district level assessments that we built probably eight years ago, we built some like five questions per per benchmark. And what the feedback from teachers on that was, well, that’s great. I teach it and then I assess it, but I don’t, it’s not spiraled.

36:08 So I never see data. The students don’t see those item types again. And if I teach a content area in September and I use a five, you know, question mini assessment to see, you know, a spot check of if they mastered or not.

36:20 They could, they’re not going to see that content again until May. And teachers were just, just finding that that was too long without information on student learning. So that is when this went into place.

36:32 What we have available through PINDA is for third and fourth grade, not necessarily required, but they have this same beginning of the year Middle of the year and end of the year just because again, what we were finding is fifth grade teachers were reporting, you know, third grade, fourth grade, they’re working really hard in reading and math, but sometimes some science isn’t their biggest priority because they’re not state assessed in those grade levels. And fifth grade teachers felt I’m having to pick up the slack in third and fourth. And so now we do have a tool for third and fourth that schools can choose to use to gather data on those science standards in third and fourth grade.

37:13 So here the next one is our writing assessment. So this one again we have responded, responded to some feedback throughout the last two years regarding this assessment. So in grades four through six, they have a state assessment at the end of the year in writing.

37:29 And the reason the 120 minutes exists for our assessment is that’s what the state assessment is. Students have to sit for 120 minutes. And what teachers were sharing is all of the writing that we’re doing just in our normal writing instructions.

37:44 Instruction is never where they have to sit for 120 minutes. Then they get the test and they don’t have the stamina like to even respond to that 120 minutes. So what we did again at that BFT stakeholder meetings and having conversations, we removed the first one.

38:01 We used to have one at the beginning of the year and then we did it at the middle. And then they had the state assessment. And so what the teacher said is we don’t need to do it in August and September because we know they’re coming in without that writing instruction.

38:14 And so we don’t need to assess them. Like we kind of know what that data might be, but this is something so that they can do them. November would be the mid year check and then that February.

38:24 So they still have time to do reteaching as needed for that state assessment. But this one is one that there were three assessments. We’ve gone down to two.

38:36 But that 120 minutes is a lot of time. It does mirror what the state assessment and the teachers just were concerned that they weren’t being prepped for that. But as we discuss and get feedback, that is one that I just, that 120 minutes is significant.

38:55 So these next group of assessments are on our assessment calendar as third grade. But I kind of want to just give you a brief back background. Again, we have put up to 90 minutes for these benchmark assessments.

39:09 But these are actually meet the criteria of the state good cause exemption around portfolios. And so the state has very Clear information of how long the passage has to be, what item types are on there. And it’s just very important is we don’t always know which students when they sit for that test at the end, end of third grade are going to fall into that level one.

39:34 Sometimes we know, we know who are, you know, students that are presenting us substantially deficient. But I give you the example because every elementary principal has experienced this. Cat died last night and now we have to test today.

39:47 And it’s not their best work. And it’s very difficult to have that conversation with a parent when the child has been performing on grade level. But you have no evidence that you can use for that portfolio.

40:00 So these benchmark assessments, they’re school based decision. I can tell you I recommend that most students are taking them because it’s just too often that we have students that come out as a surprise and don’t hit that level two or higher on that third grade and then we have mandatory retention. But this is, you know, a school based option.

40:22 But it meets the letter for that good cause for a portfolio. Ms. Harris, can I ask how often is that being utilized in the schools? Do you have any like a generalization of this is being utilized 20% of the time? If I had to make a generalization I would say and Dr. Smith, you can pipe up. I would say 80% of our schools are using this because it’s just too common that we have some surprise level ones.

40:53 So they are using this because at the end of the year they can say they can go on to fourth grade with a good cause because we did these. How many students would that represent though of the 80? I mean if we’re saying 80% of our schools use this, this isn’t being done for majority of our students. So this is just for these one offs where there’s something that was right.

41:11 I would say 80% of our third grade class classrooms are doing these assessments. Okay, is this paper pencil? It is paper pencil. So it would make a difference because the state test is all online.

41:25 So if you have a student who can be successful on this, but maybe for some that’s an issue, this gives them a paper pencil option. I can give you an example. There is a family I spent a lot of time with this past summer.

41:39 The teacher did not do these assessments and the child had taken the iradi because we’re going to talk in a second about another alternate assessment that we have available and the child had taken that the maximum allotted number of times and missed it by one point. And It’s a lot of conversation because there was no ticket to fourth grade for that child. And that is really hard for a child that has shown enough skill that should be.

42:09 I will 100% stand by. If we’ve given you all the assessments and we’ve spent a lot of time with you and monitored your learning and you’re not ready for fourth grade, then I’m okay, you know, with making that decision. It’s very, very difficult when you’re not certain that they need a whole nother year in third grade.

42:26 But with the legislation, they give us a lot of pathways to fourth grade. But if a school does not take advantage of all the pathways, it just limits the options for families in the end. Ms. Campbell, you brought up a good point, though.

42:41 If we are. If our district is taking a pencil and paper approach and we’re having our kids now transfer over and they’re doing things online, because that’s something my own child has expressed before. The frustration of the layout of the test is very difficult for them to be able to see what they have typed.

42:56 And now that we’re typing, we’re not writing anymore. So this is a whole different method. It’s something that we probably.

43:03 I say that because kind of the other way of thinking, because our kids do lots of online things. Like Iready is online. They’re used to the online things, but some kids can’t.

43:10 So this gives for that portfolio for the student who is not passing out. This gives them a paper pencil option for those kids that are finding more success. Early in my years on the board, the state actually went away from online testing.

43:25 Right before we went to progress monitoring, they had just reversed course and said, for elementary, we’re going back to paper pencil. And we had some great success that year. And then they came up with progress monitoring, which the beauty of progress monitoring is it’s instant results.

43:39 Right. But the downside is then we went back to the computers. Well, it’s just consistency and application.

43:45 I mean, I think some kids would. One more. To me, this is just one more option.

43:49 Yes. And what we do have, parents have the right to. And it’s in legislation, they can request a portfolio for their child even if their child doesn’t have substantial deficiencies.

44:00 What we do communicate to schools is if you have data that a child has substantial deficiencies, you need to be providing these benchmark assessments. But a parent can walk in the door and say, I want my child to build a portfolio. And we have to honor that as well.

44:17 Okay, thank you. All right. So sticking with third grade here.

44:23 So this is. Iready is approved by the state as an alternative assessment. And so this would be for students that may or may not have done the benchmarks we just discussed.

44:35 They did take the fast third grade and they scored score to level one. And so this is another opportunity that students have for an alternative assessment. And so this is not for all third graders.

44:48 And. And we don’t. We don’t utilize this for students that have a 2 or higher because they’ve already taken that fast assessment.

44:55 This is just another ticket to fourth grade. So this is one of those. We put 60 to 90 minutes, but it’s a range.

45:04 But when you have a student that has fewer foundational skills in third grade, the assessment is actually quicker because as the content gets harder and they continue to miss items, the assessment will close. But this one is not across the board. This would only be used for those students.

45:27 So when. So is that a test that would not be included? Third grade is 520 minutes for. For us.

45:33 Is that a test that would not be included in the 520? We’ve been including all of these minutes. That’s why this was a really good deep dive for us because we’ve been including all the things and we have been including all the max minutes. So I’m looking at St. John’s who is consistently number one, number two last year, but they have consistently been the top for years.

45:56 And they’re showing 140 minutes for third grade. And I’m thinking there’s no way in heck they’re not doing some of this stuff too. So they’re.

46:03 So they. I. Can we safely assume that they’re not including all these alternative assessments? And I’ll give you a great example, just because you bring up that point. Some districts did when FAST first came out, some districts stopped doing the iReady assessment.

46:17 And it’s interesting in spending some time in their testing calendars and then reaching out to them, most of them came right back to it just because of that intervention element. Seminole is one of those districts that did that. So for some of these, you know, and I just.

46:32 Because it’s all fresh on my mind. Some of them where we’re saying 90 minutes, they’re saying, you know, 27 or 30 minutes. And then there’s Indian river, who’s got 11:40 for third grade.

46:42 I know, yes. It’s all over the board. I mean, it really is.

46:46 So there’s a significant amount of difference in the reporting is what we’re telling us. Okay. Now I will tell you in some of these districts and going into their assessment calendar where they’ve listed out, they’ve got district created assessments.

47:02 So in some districts they’re doing iReady, they’re doing, you know, Penda. They’re also doing a district science comprehensive assessment. They’re doing ela.

47:02 So in some of these, some of these minutes do represent not only the assessments we’re familiar with, but also district created assessments on top of that. So now we have completed all the elementary options. Any questions, comments, considerations? I’ll start with the comments.

47:40 I thank you for doing this deep dive. Thank you for doing the comparison and answering our questions. I feel like, and I can’t remember the exact year that it was, but the district, even before progress monitoring took, I know when Ms. Deskovich was on the board, this was a passion of hers to reduce the amount of testing.

47:57 Right. And the district did over those next couple years do significant work and like trying to weed out things that were not as helpful and stick with the things that were helpful. And then of course, that was before iReady, which we, the reason why we started that was because we were looking at other districts around the state saying that district and that district and that district are seeing significant increases.

48:20 What are they doing? Oh, they’re doing I ready. And we had some schools like we do slow roll it. We had some schools pilot those projects, saw significant increase and we said, let’s do this for everybody.

48:32 So all of these things that are coming in, we’ve had a process. So I am satisfied my part with what we’re doing and the reasoning behind it. I think I hear, you know, usually once or twice a year, it’s not as much anymore, but once, twice a year.

48:47 Oh, but from a parent or teacher, we’re testing, testing, testing all the time. I feel like if anybody could sit here and have the conversation and look at the reasoning behind this and the data that we’re getting and the improvements we’re achieving because of this, of knowing where you are, you know, to. I’m going to do a sports analogy for Mr. Susan.

49:05 You know, you wouldn’t. You don’t start your season if you haven’t played a scrimmage because you got to know where your team is in a real life, as close to a real life situation as possible. Right.

49:14 Mr. Susan. Hey, I appreciate it. That was good.

49:16 I appreciate you bringing me into the conversation. And in the same way in music, you know, our schools go to a pre MPA concert because they want to know how Are you going to be on stage in front of a judge when nerves are kicking in? So I think this is an appropriate amount. And because we have seen such success in the last couple years.

49:33 Years. I would hate to switch quarterbacks in the middle of the game. Look at her.

49:39 She’s on a roll. I know. So I am good with what you guys are doing, but I think I thank you for doing this thoughtful analysis and continuing to refine our processes to make sure we’re really doing what’s helpful for kids.

49:53 Thank you. And I will commit to the board. We will be submitting an updated uniform calendar, both for your review, but also to the state that reflects a little more accurate than not just the max minutes possible, just so that it is a cleaner item.

50:10 But to your point, Mrs. Campbell, we were kind of talking through this and we were all, you know, teachers way back when when we were doing quarterly assessments in every subject area. And then I do remember my first year up here when we took a deep dive in a lot of things. We weren’t even doing anything with that data.

50:27 That is something I want classroom teachers to always have the data they need to make decisions for tomorrow. So I want them to have the information they need. But I never want to assess students just for the sake of assessing if we’re not responding to it, if we’re not doing anything with that data.

50:43 And that’s one of the things when we kept going back and forth with. Iready is also talking to the school psychologist. That’s the data point they’re using as they go through the MTSS process.

50:53 And if they’re considering they have to have what is the typical fifth grader score to the student that’s being looked at where there may be more going on. So we are constantly looking at it and how we can improve to avoid testing and not teaching anything else on elementary. No, I appreciate your team taking the deep dive in this and honestly, I think this is eye opening to see it from all the other comparison comparable counties to us.

51:23 I do appreciate the fact that we’re going to go ahead and make those minutes a little more reflective of what we are actually testing. Because when I saw that, that jumped out at me and I was like, whoa. But then now when I’m looking at this, I’m going, wait, we have some other counties that are testing a lot more than we are testing.

51:39 There’s a lot of minutes here. It’s just, it’s interesting to see though the fluctuation in how many minutes the county specific tests are happening because it kind of, it varies all over the place. I will be honest in looking at this.

51:53 There’s not open to see some trends. Yeah. As you can see, you know.

51:58 And then of course the reason that I coded the district names is I was joking, you know, with Lafayette, I’m like, well, the superintendent probably knows every child personally because I believe they have two schools. So it’s. And that factors too because, you know, like when as a district we’re using this data too to make decisions.

52:15 Right. When Mr. Thomas asked earlier about our early childhood, really looking at, okay, who’s using what to make what’s. What’s responding to instruction and that we can measure through data.

52:27 But there are no great trends on this chart. You see, they’re not. And that’s what I was kind of hoping to see, that we would see the magic combination here that really is delivering results.

52:36 And unfortunately I don’t really see that because it is all over the board. So. But thank you for taking the deep dive into it.

52:41 I’m sure this has probably been eye opening for more than just myself, so. No, it’s very good. I appreciate it.

52:46 So quickly I’m going to just go over secondary, but it’s very quick. This first assessment, the nwea. So for students that have substantial deficiencies, they take an intensive reading course and the curriculum we use is read 180.

53:02 And this assessment is very much like the I Ready diagnostic. So it’s adaptive. And that is how the teacher table for that intensive reading course, they’re doing the adaptive pathway in this curriculum and it’s set by this assessment.

53:18 And that also drives, when they’re at teacher small group table, what are the skills, you know, that Tara needs that maybe Adria does not? And so that is this assessment three times a year just specifically for students in that intensive reading course. Okay. I don’t know if I asked this part of my question similarly before.

53:40 Is that because you said on the other question that which is not for all students but just for some is included in here. Right. And is it required to be reported in that same way that if there’s a possibility that your child might have to take this assessment, we have to put it in there.

53:56 Well, just as you saw a lot of trends here, what I will tell you, there are no guidelines really for reporting. And what if a bard has been doing is especially when you look at those high school grades because a student might be taking this class in eighth grade, ninth grade, the minutes for this are assessed, you see 300, 300 300. And that is based on where they’re taking.

54:18 So that is represented in that. Okay, thank you. This next one, this is new.

54:26 And again, if I equate it to the same as the fifth grade science for our students taking algebra and geometry, they just have that spring eoc. And we have tried a variety of things to help teachers know what skills do students have in those courses before taking that eoc. So this year we have a new assessment that was built in the Aleksandra platform where students are taking that so that they can see where what benchmarks they have of assessment or of mastery in both algebra and geometry.

55:01 Kind of like a homemade progress monitoring for the beginning of the year and the middle of the year prior to them taking their EOC in the spring. Okay. And that’s it for secondary because they have a lot of state assessments.

55:29 So if a student is not an intensive reading in high school, at least the 303, then that that’s not going to apply to them. The only thing they would experience district assessment wise would be if they’re in algebra one or geometry. Correct.

55:46 Taking those Aleks assessments. Correct. And I, we used to use maps and I’ve subbed in those classes when they were doing that would take up to three days and the whole class had to sit there while the last kid finished the test.

55:58 And I mean that that was ridiculous. So I’m assuming we’re getting it done faster than that. Yes.

56:05 And I think that that’s something that, you know, we’ve talked to schools last year a little with the intensive reading of, you know, that assessment at the beginning of the year takes some time. But when we’re talking about instruction is for a student that we know has substantial deficiencies both in legislation and doing right by students, we need to know exactly where we have to intervene. But that is the case in that intensive reading.

56:30 That test can take like two blocks. Yeah. And necessarily so now here’s the good thing of that compared to what you’re describing is if they are taking, if they’re done, they can go on and do something else.

56:45 They can be working in their pathway. They’re doing something else. Whereas I think of in the olden days where we all had to wait till the last student was done and we’re sorry we’re losing a lot of instructional time.

56:57 Well, and if there’s any further refinement that we can do on our part to not disrupt a school day for all students, because I know it’s very disruptive for the elementary school, you know. Well, for high schools too. But I think elementary does has to do this more where we’re going to upturn the schedule because we need the computers for this or the, you know, the activity classes get moved around, you know, as much as we can do that.

57:22 You know, sometimes those secondary tests, they can do it over multiple periods, multiple days. So like one day and then they finish at the next day rather than having to do a modified schedule that day as much as we can do that. And I feel like we’ve already done some of that.

57:37 We have been very clear on this. Should not take the. I mean, it used to be you’d walk into an elementary school and all the lights were turned out because we’re doing I ready diagnostic.

57:47 That should not be. Because that feels very high stakes testing, you know, like that should not be the climate. So we do want them to take where they can start taking, you know, some of this, some of the assessment and maybe it’s 15 to 20 minutes a day.

58:01 I mean, that’s a model some of our schools use and they do it in small groups. So teacher table in an ELA classroom, I have three students at the teacher table and I have students at different centers, one of them being on the computer doing their I ready diagnostic. And so then, you know, it’s like the 20, 2020 model.

58:17 So they’re doing just a little over time. Good. Thank you.

58:25 Anything else? No, I think we are good. Thank you so much for all this information. So, Mr. Chair.

58:33 Yes. If we could take like a five to ten minute break, we have a couple of documents we’re printing off for this next discussion topic and we want to make sure we have those. So.

58:41 All right, take a short recess and we shall be back. Thank you. Are we.

1:05:22 Course is done? Yeah, that’s what I was just. All right. It’s not just for that.

1:05:28 I guess we are. Okay. All right.

1:05:32 To do all this other stuff, Dr. Rendell, do you want to introduce the next presentation? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mrs. Campbell is going to be a big part of this. But the first thing is when we talk about our legislative platform and that kind of thing, we have a couple different things to talk about.

1:05:45 One of the things we were going to do is review the Greater Florida Consortium of School Boards legislative platform. Again, we have input to that. We’re part of that group.

1:05:53 And before we sign off on it, we wanted the board to have one more review of that. Before we get into that, though, just last week we met with the Brevard legislative delegation, or at least we were able to present to them our asks. And so you have a one pager there that really kind of covers those asks.

1:06:11 And they’re pretty much monetary funding requests. One request for about $7.5 million to further strengthen the offering is at the Career and Adult Technical center, the Korean Adult Education center, with the hopes of converting that to a technical college.

1:06:26 You have to have a certain number of degree programs or certification programs rather in order to qualify to be a technical college. So we have to beef up our offerings at the adult education center in order for it to become eligible to be a technical college. It would be a great thing to have a tech college like a VO Tech center in our community.

1:06:43 So, you know, that’s our goal. That’s we’re driving to. So adding the CDL program was good, but we need to add some more programs including Diesel Mechanic and stuff that like, like that so that additional funds would allow us to do that.

1:06:56 So that’s the first and the bigger ask of seven and a half million. Then there’s a second ask for a little over 1 million as part of the money that would. We would need to replicate the firefighting academy program that’s very successful at Palm Bay High School, at Cocoa High School.

1:07:11 So the idea is to put a firefighting academy at Cocoa High School. It’s something the community has been asking for. It’s something that would, we would probably be able to fill the slots.

1:07:21 All this, you know, we would have plenty of students sign up for that would probably be even a tractor for Cocoa High, get some students to come from neighboring communities. So million dollar ask for that to kind of help that program get off the ground. And you know, we’re targeting that in the future, but we would need that money to build a facility and that kind of thing.

1:07:40 Just you may recall last year we did have an ask in there for some funding to support the replication of the aviation program that’s very successful at Eau Gallie High School, to replicate that program at Space Coast Junior Senior High School in the north central area. That did make it through the legislative session in the budget, but it was vetoed by the governor. Luckily, we also have a request going through the federal government that Representative Heridopoulos is championing that has the.

1:08:10 The money that we would need to build the facility for that aviation program at Eau Gallie. So, you know, these two are our state asks for this year, and you’re well aware of them. And you know, just making sure that we continue to invest in career and technical education.

1:08:25 You know, the the slogan that we are starting to use is that vocational education is alive and well in Brevard County. You know, we have this great history and great reputation for preparing kids for college. We have several really demanding academic programs.

1:08:41 International Baccalaureate, Cambridge, ace, strong dual enrollment with the fsc. We talked about our AP offerings increasing last year. And we do a really, really good job of getting kids ready for college if that’s what they want to pursue.

1:08:55 We also do a really good job of preparing kids for the workforce. But we don’t talk about it as much. And so we’re always trying to increase our breadth of offerings.

1:09:04 And so these two legislative acts would do that also. I’m not sure if any of you went on the CTE tour at Rockledge today, but you saw some programs there. So again, these are funding requests, you know, locally with our delegation.

1:09:17 And with that, I think it could be time to take a look at the Greater Florida Consortium of School Boards legislative platforms. I don’t know if Mrs. Campbell, if you want to take it from here. Sure, I’m happy to do that.

1:09:27 By the way, thank you for doing that last week on our behalf and I think those are great. And we’re excited about the good partnerships that we’re continuing to have with our state legislature and our congressman. So the way this works, ward, especially for Mr. Thomas, who is new to this process, the consortium had their week, their couple of days to develop their platform and they the way they run this is if there’s any items on their platform that one of their member boards doesn’t stand behind and we vote to say we don’t stand behind that one, then we let them know and they will remove it.

1:10:11 So and it’s just as simple. We can’t change it. We can’t ask them to change it.

1:10:14 We can’t ask them to add anything. We can only remove a complete item. So a complete paragraph or sentence, you can’t add a new issue.

1:10:23 You can’t not to this Right. It’s only removed. So I don’t know about you guys, I had three.

1:10:31 So I’m happy to go first. Yeah, please under go down to academics and accountability. It’s on the third page.

1:10:40 The first ask is to expand pre K programs to provide options for three year old children. I have that one start. Yeah.

1:10:47 And I have, my personal opinion is that most three year olds need to be at home sitting in their parents laps being read to playing and that’s the best learning environment for them to become successful learners later. But also I did have Conversation quickly with some of our pre k rock stars. Ms. McDonough, Dr. Smith and just said hey, what do you think about this? And one we’re there’s kind of a couple conflict of priorities.

1:11:12 We, we would like to see funding for the full day VPK which we like many, many districts are paying for the rest of the day out of our own other funding. So I would rather see that opportunity for four year olds increase before we start talking about three year olds. And the three year olds who need the most assistance are most likely already eligible for one of our two programs that we have that do provide for three year olds.

1:11:38 One is for ese through our. We have a three year olds in our ese prek and then we also have three year old Head Start and which is would be an economic fast factor. So I just feel like making this a launch a statewide act, you know activity would I, I don’t agree with that one.

1:11:55 So I don’t know if we want to take this one at a time but I, I’ll. What would you prefer? You want me to go through all of them? No, I think do we want to talk about that one in general and then just I have that one start on my list too as one that I did not agree with as well. So I’m good with removing it.

1:12:10 Yeah, I agree with you 100%. Can I speak to it real quick? Yeah. Just so you guys know, there is a, like you were saying, an option for those three year olds that for the high case that we may need.

1:12:21 But there is, it doesn’t mean that you know our education system is driven down into those pre K programs. I think a curriculum that way out of control as far as some of the metrics and stuff like that. But there are programs for three year olds that are not driven that way to get them acclimated into education to have them be kids.

1:12:44 And there are a group of students that don’t fit that one category and don’t have a mom at home to sit on the lap. You know what I mean? I agree with you 1000%. So there is a window.

1:12:55 I don’t think we’re ready for it. I agree with you 1000% but I do think that as we are growing as an educational institution across the state of Florida, there are the good idea ferries that come in from the educational groups that drive down into our lower grades heavy curriculum and there’s a lot of studies that show that it just doesn’t work because it drives them into a place that they don’t like school and then they’re out and they check out. So there’s just a lot there.

1:13:22 So I think most agree with you. But I did want to say there’s an opportunity for some kids. My daughter was in zoo school, she loves it and they, they thrive as soon as they get into school.

1:13:33 So just some of that stuff. And there’s certainly plenty of kids in daycare type situations. The second one is also under this category, if you’ll go down to the last one under academics and accountability.

1:13:47 This is similar to one that I objected to, like last year. Require all students to receive public education funding to participate in all required state academic accountability assessments and have those results reported to the fldoe. It’s kind of a, hey, if you’re going to take state money, you need to take the same test.

1:14:02 But I, I just object to this one in principle. If a family is using the state scholarship and may not every agree to, to attend a private school, private schools have assessments. Some of them use ITBs.

1:14:15 They use or even homeschool students who are using the PEP scholarship. Some of them will come and take the state testing because it’s just an easier thing for them. But some of them will use other methods of testing.

1:14:26 And I feel like the whole point of choice is for you to be able to direct that they homeschool students if they’re not. If they’re doing PEP scholarship, they have to take funding, but they may have other things that they do. There’s just lots of different ways they’re building portfolios.

1:14:43 I’m not comfortable with that broad ask. You want to comment on that? I guess I’m of two mindsets with this one. And really one of the biggest frustrations, I too support choice, but I support choice when it comes to playing on the same terms.

1:15:02 And so that gets a little, a little tricky when it comes to our competition between our private and our charter schools and even homeschool options. And it’s also, you know, our districts are graded based on a lot of these assessment values or assessments that they’re doing. So we’re, we’re getting school grades that way, which is also driving enrollment up or down.

1:15:22 And so it kind of feels like there’s a separate set of rules. And so for that reason I’m not opposed to that. I think one of the other common complaints that I have heard from people and all the schools is that that we will receive children that will come to us from a private or a charter or a home school.

1:15:38 And they’re not on pace with their grade level. And part of that reasoning is because we’re not requiring them to do the same amount of testing in a private school that they are in our public school. So how are we making sure they’re getting the same quality education? So that’s the other struggle I have with it.

1:15:54 Again, I support choice. I like the idea of choice being, hey, these are the programs that we offer, which is why you would want to put pick our, you know, our program versus a different program. So this one doesn’t bother me.

1:16:05 I. I’m not opposed to keeping that one on there, but that’s just my personal opinion, Mr. Chair. So I share your sentiments. I’m all for choice, but I believe that we should all be being held to the same standard and making sure that if somebody is a child’s in private school, that they are getting the same quality education they’re going to get at a public school.

1:16:25 So I. Leaving it in, Mr. Sousa. Wow. Are we splitting on this boat? I don’t know.

1:16:34 So far, getting into it, I. I’ll be honest with you. I could. I’ll be honest with you.

1:16:40 I could go. I could see both sides of it. What I did want to say is there’s a lot of other things along this line in here.

1:16:46 Did you catch the one about how the faculty can vote to make them a traditional public school? Did you catch that one in. So right now, if you’re a traditional school and the faculty votes, they can move you to a charter school. It’s the other way around.

1:17:01 It’s. They made it this year where the parents could vote without the faculty. They want to put the faculty back in either way.

1:17:09 Okay. What it’s saying is it’s allowing the parents to then decide to make them a traditional school. Like, you could go in and vote to say, hey, we want it to be a school board.

1:17:18 I mean, I like that. I like the competition. I like leveling it off.

1:17:21 I like going and saying, look, if we’re all going to play by the rules, we play by the same rules and we compete, and that’s how we do it. So if I had to fall on it, that’s where I would fall with this one. I’d support John with this.

1:17:32 This on this side of it and keep it in there. All right. I think that’s the.

1:17:42 The third one that I had and is under capital outlay and facilities, which starts on the bottom page two. But actually, the one that I want to look at is on page three. It’s actually the third 1/3 item down on page three and I’ll just read it so you guys see which one I’m looking at.

1:18:04 Authorized district school boards to develop, finance and manage workforce housing on its owned or leased property for its employees and other qualifying individuals as provided in the Live Local act and stipulate that such educational villages and buildings shall be considered educational facilities for the purpose of design, construction, permitting and inspection. I think the idea behind this and thank you to Janet who took greatly detailed notes on all of these items so we could kind of get some background. She sent it to us not long after I, we sent this out to staff.

1:18:39 The idea is, I mean, I mean, in fact I’ve, I’ve poked Sue a couple times about this. Hey, could we build, you know, workforce housing somewhere? I mean it, you know, we haven’t gone anywhere with it, but you know, just asking the question, always, always curious. And so the idea for some school districts are start doing especially in the counties where it’s so expensive to live.

1:19:00 Monroe county, down in the Key Miami Dade and some of those super expensive places to live. Totally get it. But sue sent us an email right after and she was the only one to really respond back.

1:19:12 She had some issues with this and honestly this one I’m asking for, I would suggest that we remove based on her recommendation because she started the part in there about shall be considered educational facilities for the purpose, even if it’s only for the purpose of design concern that there’s. It’s squishy. That’s not the word she used but like there’s just some squishiness in there that could be very confusing and, and it’s just not clear.

1:19:37 So maybe on it with another verbiage it might be something to consider. School districts already have the ability to do this through Live Local, but she had some questions about how about the wisdom of this and so that was, is why I’m bringing this one Forward for removal. Mr. Chair.

1:19:54 Yes. So I’ve been working on this issue for a few months with some professionals outside the school district. I know that Mr. Susan, because they had told me that he had met with them.

1:20:07 I don’t know their discussions, but I know he had met with them before too. So I’m for the concept why they have the educational facility in there is because that would allow to avoid city zoning for, for the building of buildings. Where my concern would be is I don’t have any problem with how it’s worded other than that I think there would need to be a stipulation that those properties, that the school districts maintain ownership.

1:20:33 Because some models of this have it going where you’re building a building, the developer builds it, whatever, and then the school district sells it to a private entity. And I wouldn’t want a private entity to have a. Would then be owning an educational facility.

1:20:48 So I, as it’s worded, I don’t necessarily like that. I would think it needs to be tweaked. But the concept I’m for.

1:20:54 But I’m not for moving it to better word it. Correct. So what do you, what are you going to do, John? You don’t, you don’t want it in there.

1:21:02 Correct. Not as it’s worded. Yeah.

1:21:03 Okay. Same. So I’m with you guys.

1:21:05 Honestly, I, you know, our role here really is to educate children. And this, this gets into a real slippery slope of building houses and trying to, you know, I understand the workforce initiative and where they’re going with that, but I just don’t feel like that really should be within the purview of what a school board is really deciding. So that’s my personal opinion on that one.

1:21:21 So I, I am okay with omitting that one. Good. That’s all you get.

1:21:27 Ms. Wright, do you want to. Do you have a list? No, no, I actually didn’t. I mean, the one that really.

1:21:32 The pre K. The expanding of the pre K was the one that I was going to speak about. The, the workforce one has already been addressed.

1:21:38 The other ones on here, I’m okay with. None of these are really. They don’t, I don’t have any of them that are alarming to me, so.

1:21:46 All right. Thank you, Mr. Susan. No, I’m good.

1:21:49 I mean, we’ve already addressed a lot of these aren’t. I had something I wanted to add, but since we can’t add it, let’s hear it anyways. Well, you are.

1:21:56 Because it’s something. I think that it’s. Because it’s of, in my opinion, critical importance.

1:22:00 So it’s something that we should at least, I think if there’s a consensus, we could approach somebody from our delegation to see if they would run with it. And that if you recall a couple weeks ago, the McDaniels vs. State ruling that we were all discussing as far as security for school board meetings or public meetings.

1:22:18 I, you know, we have students that come to our meetings. As you know, we’re taking steps this meeting to not have that. I think that we need to have the.

1:22:26 There needs to be a law that says mandates. It’s basically whether It’s a school board meeting or at a school. We should be playing by the same rules, the same security measures should be in place without diving too deep into it.

1:22:37 So I’d like to have, you know, the consensus that we, whether it’s one of us or we have Paul or Superintendent reach out to members of the delegation to see if we could get somebody to draft a bill to run that. So it’s kind of protects there and protects the districts. I’m in total agreement.

1:22:56 And also in addition to that, I think after having a very short conversation. Mr. Gibbs. Right.

1:23:01 For this, I think maybe we could follow the pattern of one of our. Our cities and. And draft and go into our own rulemaking, you know, so we have something, you know, until it gets settled out.

1:23:13 I’m not. I don’t like the idea of just going along feeling like I’m powerless and do anything about this. But yes, I think if we can make a rule that is the same for everybody in every government meeting throughout the state and what’s good for the Capitol is good for this room.

1:23:29 I’m in support of that. Great. Paul, can you help me out? During COVID we didn’t have.

1:23:36 We called people in to speak. Right. By law, do we have to allow people to come into the meeting? It has to be open.

1:23:45 Has to be open. When we excluded them. Understood.

1:23:50 When they disrupted the meeting. I would say that if we’re not going to open up the room to the public, we’d probably get a complaint and we’d be over at the state attorney’s office. Not.

1:23:59 I get it. So it has to be. And if a large amount, we always open up the back and stuff like that.

1:24:03 Okay. And the only reason we could do that was because the rule, the governor’s executive order at that time was you can only have 10 people in a room at a time. So they didn’t really have a choice.

1:24:14 All right, that was good. Mr. Gibbs, do you have anything you want to add to that at all? Okay. All right.

1:24:21 I think so. I don’t know. We don’t make motions of as understanding.

1:24:25 I think it’s a consensus of. I mean, we all have the right to. I’ll try and put something together so you guys can review it.

1:24:31 Okay. That’s kind of what I was asking. And then maybe the chair could just.

1:24:35 Consensus. The chair would approach some people in the delegation. Would that be appropriate, Superintendent? Yeah, we.

1:24:40 I understand what the direction is. Uhhuh. Thank you.

1:24:43 Yep. That’s where I was going to go with it. Thanks.

1:24:46 Dr. All right. All right. Does any board member have anything further to discuss? I have two quick things.

1:24:55 Absolutely. And just something I want to on everybody’s radar because this came up and, and we’re always talking about VPK and the importance of VPK and our enrollment. We’re tracking those numbers very closely.

1:25:03 And one of the things that was said to me and it made perfectly good sense, is that we don’t allow our VPK students to go to before or after school care. Most families when they’re looking for a VPK solution for their child are looking for an all day solution where they can go ahead and pay that extra fee beyond the VPK hours. And so just this idea of we should possibly explore what that looks like.

1:25:24 Could we take on VPK having after school care and then that would help with our enrollment numbers. So something that maybe in the future we can discuss and have the team come back with some ideas there. And then the other thing, and I’m saying this publicly because I told someone that I would that has reached out to me, we are going to have Fleet that’s going to present to us at the end of the month talking about our health insurance plan.

1:25:43 That’s been a big area of concern for a lot of our employees. My next ask after that would be that People one Health come over and give us a presentation. So I know several of us went over the summer to look at that model.

1:25:53 There are some people that are very excited about the potential of that model coming here. So just wanted to put that on everyone’s radar. So once Fleet comes over, the next step would be looking at People One.

1:26:02 All right. Yes and yes. A couple of real quick things on the tail end of what she just said.

1:26:08 The first one is, is having a conversation around some of those strategic plans that we have, initiatives and stuff like that. I’d like to try, I talked to Dr. Rendell about it. I’d like to try to get an off site somewhere in November.

1:26:22 I was going to try to get it in October, but the way it’s all lining up, it doesn’t look like we could get one, but somewhere in November so that we could get to an off site and kind of put together our plans for the strategic plan and initiatives and stuff like that. Ahead or behind the chair vote doesn’t really matter. We’re all just here to talk about what we believe is good for the board.

1:26:41 So that I think there’s a couple of those that are coming up and I think that’s a great one to talk About. So I’ll have Dr. Rendell reach out to you guys to figure out when that would be appropriate. The other thing is, just so you guys know, on top of the fleet coming in and doing those things, one of the issues with the clinical models is that you have either the design that we are the only people that use the facility or the private companies can also use it.

1:27:06 If we allow the other municipalities and others to use those clinical models models, that expands the number of availabilities. So with that I’m going to be working with some of the other HR directors and other individuals inside the county so that we can have the conversation about. Here’s what we’re getting ready to do.

1:27:23 If you’re interested, let us know so that we can collaborate and possibly build a bigger footprint for these. Whether It’s Marathon or People 1 or any of those. You know what I mean? I think that that’s the way that we do it and I think that’s going to go to RFP, right, Dr. Rendo? It is.

1:27:37 Yep. Just a suggestion on when we have fleet and we have people One Health and whoever else might want to invite some of the cities just to sit in on it and be here so they can hear the presentation so they don’t have to present to three different cities or. Yeah, I think, I think the idea is.

1:27:53 Yeah, I think, I think having a discussion not only about the clinical model but about all of the other things that we’re going to do with education and everything else that I think wraps around a holistic thing. But yeah, I mean we can invite them and ask them to come. Yep, absolutely.

1:28:14 And just really quickly because you didn’t get any response to your suggestion. I support exploring. Exploring.

1:28:23 Right. Exploring. Doing.

1:28:30 Absolutely. And then yes, that’s the only one that’s actually reached out and we’ve gone and said so. We certainly have some schools that like they’re packed.

1:28:37 They couldn’t. It would be hard for them to take extra. But I mean let’s, let’s look at it just to wrap up this.

1:28:53 So what I will do is I will respond to Tom, Sarah and copy all of you so it’s, you know, clear and that we’re, we’re asking to remove the, the item about 3 year old pre K and then the item about workforce housing. Perfect. Okay.

1:28:56 Yes. Appreciate it. Mr. Chair.

1:29:06 Yes, sir. Just have one question for the board, something we may want to work on. We are going through a re fingerprinting process for all of our employees.

1:29:20 It’s state mandated change in State statute. And some people are getting flagged for something that happened way long ago in their past. And with the current policy and legislation, we have to terminate their employees.

1:29:39 And we didn’t know if the board would be interested in us putting together some language for a possible appeals process where the board or the superintendent or whatever could make an exception for certain types of offenses if they happened, you know, some time ago. And if you’re. You give us the green light to start to work on that, then we’d put it in the policy making process.

1:29:51 It would take, you know, it’s going to take a long time to get it in. But, you know, we’re seeing some long time employees, employees getting flagged for something that happened a long time ago. And you know, we’re having to terminate them.

1:29:56 I think we already did that. I thought we had discussions. That’s just for initial springings.

1:30:00 Right, right, right. Yeah. This is usually longer term.

1:30:05 Employees are already here. They’ve updated their. What’s a disqualifier.

1:30:12 So they could be working here now. And with the transition to the clearinghouse, everybody has to get res. Have their fingerprints rerun.

1:30:38 So you could have a 20 year employee that now gets flagged by AHCA and is disqualified from continued employment. And right now we have to say you cannot work here. How do we supersede that? Yeah, you would provide for these offenses if there’s been no issues, the board is authorizing like the superintendent or designee to issue a waiver because there is a waiver process.

1:30:56 But nobody’s willing to go on a limb right now and say, I’m willing to grant that waiver. So they disqualified because of our policies? No, the state statute added some offenses to the disqualifying list. But Paul, isn’t there an appeals method that they can go to AHCA at that point? And I mean that’s, that’s what we’re doing.

1:31:03 ACA is saying it’s ours and we’re. No one wants to say, my hand is on it. So it’s really a board issue.

1:31:16 Like if something happens, the issue is there’s going to be liability. If something happens along those lines and somebody granted a waiver. Nobody wants their name on that without you guys saying, let’s do it.

1:31:25 And AHCA is telling you that there is no appeals process with them. They’re just saying they don’t grant the waiver. It’s our issue to grant the waiver for those that we wish to grant the waiver.

1:31:40 So basically now the board has to decide whether you’re willing to grant a waiver for an. And someone who’s been employed with us to continue their employment when otherwise they would be disqualified. That’s the issue.

1:31:48 Right. For those, it’s the new offenses. That’s because if they were already, if they were already on the offense list, they would have been banned originally.

1:31:58 Right. So you’re grandfathering in the people who’ve been here and you guys would get to set the. What the standard is like you’ve had no issues in your employment along those lines.

1:32:06 You know, maybe it was domestic violence 20 years ago or something. But you and guys would have to say, obviously there are certain offenses that wouldn’t be on the list. Right.

1:32:12 Whether you did it yesterday or 20 years ago, you’re out. Right. But any offense against a student for.

1:32:17 Or a child would be, you know, you’re disqualified. You can’t be around kids. So I’ll be honest with you.

1:32:29 Anybody that’s given their heart to our organization for a long time deserves to have some sort of an appeal process. And I feel like, I feel pretty strong about this one that if AKA is not willing to. To do it and it’s been set up that way that I have no problem doing that.

1:32:37 I don’t like. It’s sad. I’ve heard some of the people that are getting flagged and I know the heart that they put into this place and it’s not, it’s not meant for them.

1:32:45 You know what I mean? So I’m good. Yeah. I mean obviously it’s not going to be an offense that has anything related to someone’s health and welfare.

1:32:54 Right. That kind of thing, you know, but. And so we’re just going to craft a draft a proposed policy and then we’ll work through the process process with you guys through workshops and everything.

1:33:03 What are we having to do in the meantime? They’re terminated. They’re being relation. Is there, is there a way to fast track that? The rulemaking is rulemaking.

1:33:12 So I mean once it’s drafted, we can get it on as quick as we can. We can skip the first work session if you want and just go straight to public hearing. But then you don’t have any input.

1:33:20 So yeah, my, my recommendation would be to work through the process. That way you guys have your input on what the process process is. It’s going to drag out a little bit.

1:33:29 But, but in the meantime, if those people come back and reapply for work, then they come in as they. Yeah, they would be flagged under the new provision. The new rules anyway.

1:33:32 Okay. Thank you. You got it.

1:33:37 All right, now, board direction. Thank you. All right.

1:33:40 All right. Anything else, guys? All good. All right.

1:34:35 If there’s no further business, this meeting is adjourned. Sam. Sa. It.