Updates on the Fight for Quality Public Education in Brevard County, FL
5:36 Good evening. The October 28, 2025 final public hearing and regular board meeting is now in order to. I would like to welcome my fellow board members and the public. I would like to take this opportunity to remind the public that the appropriate place for public participation in the meeting is during your individual public comment opportunity as identified on the agenda Outside of your individual public comment opportunity.
5:59 Your role in this meeting is as an observer. Paul? Roll call, please. Mr. Trent? Here.
6:04 Mr. Susan. Here. Ms. Campbell.
6:06 Ms. Wright? Here. Mr. Thomas? Here. @ this time, the board would like to hold a moment of silence.
6:12 I invite the audience to join. Thank you. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.
6:55 That brings us to the adoption of the agenda. Dr. Rendell. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
7:00 On this evening’s agenda, we have 48 consent items, 16 public hearing items, one action item and one information item. Changes made to the agenda since it was released to the public include the following revised with C1 administrative recommendations. F1 travel approval.
7:18 F20 job description. Added was F24, another job description, Director, performance data analyst and special programs. And pulled was F12 termination of employee.
7:29 Do I hear a motion move to approve? Second. Any discussion? Paul, roll call, please. Mr. Thomas? Aye.
7:35 Ms. Campbell? Aye. Mr. Trent? Aye. Mr. Susan? Aye.
7:38 Ms. Wright? Aye. We are now at the administrative staff recommendations. Do I hear a motion move to approve? Second.
7:46 Any discussion? Paul? Roll call, please. Mr. Thomas? Aye. Ms. Campbell? Aye.
7:50 Mr. Trent? Aye. Aye. Mr. Susan.
7:53 Ms. Wright. Dr. Rendell. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
7:56 Erica, you ready? Congratulations to Erica Green on her promotion to position of assistant principal at the Great Southwest Middle School. Congratulations. Good evening.
8:15 Thank you to the board. I have lots of people to thank, but we’ll attempt to keep this brief. This has been four states, 20 plus years and eight grade levels in the making.
8:28 I really thank you for recognizing my hard work and commitment to students. Special thanks to my parents, Mr. Melvin Jackson and Ms. Sharon Turner. And I’d like to give a special shout out to my mom for coming to every classroom that I’ve ever had and helping me set up, break down or just help out at the schools that I’ve worked at.
8:49 Super shout outs to two people here, Mr. Rashad Wilson, for being the first, my first principal in Brevard county, he hired me in. And Ms. Jasmine DeLauder who brought me to this point today. And I would like to thank the rest of the administrative team at the Great Southwest and all the faculty and staff there.
9:12 There is no other place and no other group of people I would rather do this with with. And a thank you to my family. My husband, David, my two kids, Cole and Logan.
9:23 They’ve put up with a lot. Late nights and late pickups. They weren’t forgotten.
9:29 They just, you know, and being volun told to help out at each of my schools. Also thank each of you and love you. And I thank all my other family and friends and colleagues and co workers here in Brevard and at the other counties who I still talk with, who have been encouraging and have wished me well on this journey and have taken the opportunity to teach me things.
9:57 So I look forward to continuing to make a difference and incredibly interested to see where this new chapter will take me. Thank you, Mr. Chair. This would be our only photo opportunity for the night, so if we could take a short recession.
10:15 Absolutely. Show reset. Okay.
11:58 We are now at the public comments portion of the meeting. Paul, how many? Three. We have three speakers and each will receive three minutes.
12:05 Our attorney will call the speakers in order in which they signed up to speak. Mr. Gibbs, please call the first three speakers. Anthony Colucci.
12:13 Corey Higginbotham. Christine Vogel. My name is Anthony Kluchy, president of the Brevard Federation of Teachers, and I’m speaking tonight on agenda item F11, the 202528 collective bargaining agreement.
12:43 I’m pleased to report that the results of our ratification vote are in 2,950 yes votes to 183 no votes, for a total of 3,133 valid ballots. That means over 94% of teachers supported this agreement. Budgeting for raises first is something we’ve been asking this board to do for a long time, and you deserve recognition for that.
13:09 But let me be clear. A 2% raise each year for three years falls short of what our teachers truly deserve. Unfortunately, the state continues to under resource public education.
13:22 Federal budget cuts abound and we’re experiencing declining enrollment, all of which prevent this board from committing to more substantial increases. Even with those challenges, we thank the board for agreeing to meaningful improvements, including new language that ensures relief in healthcare costs with lower deductibles and co pays and advanced degree supplements will now be received regardless of certification area. But I also need to say that this board greenlighted efforts to strip away our contract.
13:53 During this process, the district proposed to get rid of comp time for evening events, remove flex time for religious holidays, eliminate the ability to leave after dismissal when a hurricane warning is in effect, strike out the ability to flex one hour per week, remove comp time for losing planning to assemblies, hurricane prep or test proctoring, get rid of protections against being moved to different rooms, grades or assignments. Require routine submission of lesson plans. Strike out that steering committee recommendations must receive full consideration.
14:27 Consideration. Remove protection from being required to complete the same in service year after year. Eliminate the 10 day notice before an IEP meeting.
14:37 Return mid year transfers solely to principals. Remove our entire evaluation language. Require emails to be answered within 24 hours.
14:46 And remove the expectation that parent complaints first be directed to the teacher. We had to fight to keep every one of those protections in place. And that’s why Brevard remains a good place to teach.
14:59 Because we have a strong bargaining team, a strong contract, and a strong union that insists on respect, fairness and voice for the educators who make this district work. So I’ll say what every educator knows. It shouldn’t be this hard.
15:13 It shouldn’t take months of bargaining and countless hours just to maintain protection, secure a modest raise and beat back health insurance costs. Our teachers deserve a better process for this board. But tonight, let’s recognize what this is.
15:28 A step in the right direction and thank you for it. Hello. My name is Corey Higginbotham.
15:45 I go to Manatee elementary and I’m in the sixth grade. I’m speaking on i1. Dr. Rendell spent $21,650 on a guest speaker.
15:55 Although I was not able to see it live, I was able to watch it on a live stream. The guest speaker was the author of the coffee bean book. Dr. Rendell bought all the sixth graders.
16:08 He spoke about important life lessons and made a difference in the way I think about things. This might seem like a lot of money, but overall it impacted all sixth graders and students. I like what you spent the money on me.
16:26 Your future. Good evening. This is Christine Vogel.
16:50 Everyone can hear me. Okay, I’m going to take off my glasses. Hi.
16:55 Good evening. My name is Christine Vogel and I’m a parent of a kindergarten student at Surfside Elementary. The Brevard Public Schools mission states that we are here to serve every student with excellence as the standard.
17:07 I am here tonight because that standard has not been met for my son over several weeks. My 5 year old son was physically and sexually assaulted by another student in supervised settings. This is in reference to item H1.
17:23 For your clarification. These incidents were reported promptly and documented. Yet the school’s response and the district’s chosen interim measures have been inadequate to ensure his safety or his equal access to education.
17:38 Under Florida Statute 1006, period 147, the Jeffrey Johnson Stand up for all students act, every school is required to investigate promptly, take effective Steps to prevent further harm and ensure victims are not subjected to retaliation or re exposure. That has not happened here. It is very concerning to me.
18:02 The current safety plan places my son back in the same classroom and shared areas with the student who harmed him. This is not a protective measure. It is continued exposure to trauma.
18:14 It directly contradicts both the intent of the Johnson act and the district stated mission of excellence. I am asking this board to review the adequacy of the interim measures and require appropriate protective and trauma informed actions that prioritize the victim’s well being and access to learning. Up to this current date, my son has not been reached out to for either counseling options.
18:40 Only after I did contact Dr. Karen Ivory was I provided with one resource and he has no longer been in school. I had to pull him out for his own safety. Excellence must begin with safety, as I’m plainly stating here.
18:59 Without it, no child can learn and no parent can trust that their child is protected. In our school schools. Thank you.
19:20 That concludes the agenda items only. Public comments. We thank you for taking the time out of your schedule to address the board with your concerns and suggestions.
19:27 I would like to remind the public that the board is accessible for further conversations outside of our business meeting. Through scheduling a meeting, we are now at the consent agenda. Dr. Rendell.
19:37 Thank you, Mr. Chair. There are 48 items on the list under this category. Thank you.
19:42 Dr. Rendell. Does any board member wish to pull any of those items? I will entertain a motion to accept. Second.
19:48 Any discussion? Paul, roll call. Mr. Thomas. Aye.
19:51 Ms. Campbell. Mr. Trent. Aye.
19:54 Mr. Susan. Did you say me? Yep. Sorry.
20:02 The final public hearing is now open for public comment. In accordance with Florida law, we will proceed to hear public comments on the following policies. Policy 0124.
20:13 Standards of ethics. Ethical conduct. Is there anyone wishes.
20:16 Anyone present 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? We need to approve them. Oh, every single one at the council.
20:32 This is the final hearing? Yep. Okay. Do I hear a motion? Move to approve.
20:37 Second. Any discussion? Roll call, please. Mr. Thomas.
20:45 Ms. Gamble. Aye. Mr. Trent.
20:48 Aye. Mr. Susan. Aye.
20:49 Ms. Wright. Aye. Mr. Thomas.
20:54 Policy 1120. Is there anyone present who wishes to address this item? Is there anyone present who wishes to address this item? Do I Hear a motion? Second. Any discussion? Follow call, please.
21:04 Mr. Thomas. Aye. Ms. Campbell.
21:06 Mr. Trent. Aye. Mr. Susan.
21:08 Aye. Ms. Wright. Aye.
21:10 Policy 2410. Is there anyone present who wishes to address this item? Is there anyone present who wishes to Address this item? Do I hear a motion? Second. Any discussion? Follow.
21:19 Roll call, please. Mr. Thomas? Aye. Ms. Campbell? Aye.
21:22 Mr. Trent? Aye. Mr. Susan? Aye. Ms. Wright? Aye.
21:26 Policy 3121 01. Is there anyone present who wishes to address this item? Is there anyone present who wishes to address this item? Do I hear a motion? Second. Any discussion? Follow a call, please? Mr. Thomas.
21:38 Aye. Ms. Campbell? Aye. Mr. Trent? Aye.
21:40 Aye. Mr. Susan? Aye. Ms. Wright? Aye.
21:42 Policy 3130. Is there anyone present who wishes to address this item? Is there anyone present who wishes to address this item? Do I hear a motion? Move to approve? Second. Any discussion follow? Roll call, please.
21:52 Mr. Thomas? Aye. Ms. Campbell? Aye. Mr. Trant? Aye.
21:55 Mr. Susan? Aye, that’s right. Policy 3139. Is there anyone present who wishes to address this item? Is there anyone present who wishes to address this item? Do I hear a motion? Approved.
22:06 Second discussion. Paul. Roll call, please.
22:09 Mr. Thomas? Aye. Ms. Campbell? Aye. Mr. Trent? Aye.
22:12 Mr. Susan? Aye. Ms. Rain? Aye. Policy 3210.
22:16 Is there anyone present who wishes address this item? Is there anyone present who wishes to address this item? Do I hear a motion? Move to approve? Second discussion. Paul. Roll call, please.
22:25 Mr. Thomas. Aye. Ms. Campbell? Aye.
22:27 Mr. Trent? Aye. Mr. Susan. Aye.
22:29 Ms. Wright? Aye. Policy 3213. Is there anyone present who wishes to address this item? Is there anyone present who wishes to address this item? Do I hear a motion? Move approved.
22:40 Any discussion? We need a second. Yep. I just gave Mr. Thomas the motion.
22:47 Mr. Susan, the second. Great. Roll call, please.
22:49 Mr. Thomas? Aye. Ms. Campbell? Aye. Mr. Trent? Aye.
22:53 Mr. Susan? Aye. Ms. Wright? Aye. Policy 3242.
22:57 Is there anyone present who wishes to address this item? Is there anyone present who wishes to address this item? Do I hear a motion? Any discussion? Followed call, please. Mr. Thomas. Aye.
23:08 Ms. Campbell? Aye. Mr. Trent? Aye. Mr. Susan? Aye.
23:11 Ms. Wright? Aye. Policy 5200. Is there anyone present who wishes to address this item? Is there anyone present who wishes to address this item? Do I hear a motion? Second discussion.
23:21 Roll call, please. Mr. Thomas? Aye. Ms. Campbell? Aye.
23:24 Mr. Trent? Aye. Mr. Susan? Aye. Ms. Wright.
23:28 Policy 5000, 223. Is there anyone present who wishes to address this item? Is there anyone present who wishes to address this item? Do I hear a motion? Approved? Second discussion. Call.
23:38 Roll call, please. Mr. Thomas? Aye. Ms. Campbell? Aye.
23:41 Mr. Trent? Aye. Mr. Susan? Aye. Ms. Wright.
23:44 Policy 5530. Is there anyone present who wishes to address this item? Is there anyone present who wishes to address this item? Do I hear A motion? Move to approve. Second discussion.
23:53 Roll call, please. Mr. Thomas? Aye. Ms. Campbell? Aye.
23:56 Mr. Trent? Aye. Mr. Susan? Aye. Ms. Wright? Aye.
23:59 Policy 5600. Do I. Is there anyone present who wishes to address this item? Is there anyone present who wishes to address this item? Do I hear a motion? Move to approve? Second discussion. Roll call, please.
24:10 Mr. Thomas? Aye. Ms. Campbell? Aye. Mr. Trent? Aye.
24:14 Mr. Susan? Aye. Ms. Wright? Aye. Policy 5610.
24:17 Is there anyone. President, who wishes to address this item? Is there anyone present who wishes to address this item? Do I hear a motion? Second. Any discussion? Paul? Roll call, please.
24:28 Mr. Thomas? Aye. Ms. Campbell? Aye. Mr. Trent? Aye.
24:31 Mr. Susan. Ms. Wright. Policy 5630.
24:35 Is there anyone present who wishes to address this item? Is there anyone present who wishes to address this item? Do I hear a motion? Second discussion. Roll call, please. Mr. Thomas? Aye.
24:45 Ms. Campbell? Aye. Mr. Trent? Aye. Mr. Susan? Aye.
24:48 Ms. Wright? Aye. Here’s the very last one. Policy 8420.
24:53 Is there anyone present who wishes to address this item? Is there anyone present who wishes to address this item? Do I hear a motion? Second. Any discussion? Roll call, please. Mr. Thomas? Aye.
25:04 Ms. Campbell? Aye. Mr. Trent? Aye. Mr. Susan? Aye.
25:07 Ms. Wright? Aye. The final public hearing regarding the proposed policy revisions has been officially concluded. Dr. Rendell, will you please let us know about the items under the action portion of today’s agenda? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
25:21 The action item is H1, code of student conduct. Do I hear a motion? Second. Any discussion, Follow.
25:28 Roll call, please. Mr. Thomas? Aye. Ms. Campbell? Aye.
25:31 Mr. Trent? Aye. Mr. Susan? Aye. Ms. Wright? Aye.
25:36 We’ll move on to the information agenda, which includes one item for the board review and may be brought back for action at a subsequent meeting. No action will be taken on this item today. Does any board member wish to discuss these items? Okay, we are now at board member reports.
25:53 And who would like to go first? John, just quickly, I’d like to acknowledge Rachel Rutledge, who heads up our CTE program. She held a construction advisory group meeting last week, and from all that I’ve heard from that attended, it was not only well attended, but well organized. And I think everybody thought it was productive.
26:14 I think it’s a great step in getting some feedback from our industry leaders on what’s going on with our cte. The direction of our CTE program. Yeah, Good, good.
26:26 All right. I have a lot. All right.
26:32 Short meetings, so we can take longer, right? No. First of all, I wanted to recognize Rodney Savickas, who is the theater teacher at Mill High. Lena mentioned today And I want to do the shout out on her behalf.
26:46 I didn’t get to go myself, but every year this time of year they do what’s called the Princess Tea Party and they have students dress up as the Disney Princesses and they perform, but they also greet and do kind of like going to Disney World and getting your photo op. And it’s a great performance and I’ve heard great things about it in particular this year. So I wanted to give a shout out, Mr. Savikas, who does it every year and to the students who I heard you did an amazing job.
27:08 It is Walktober and I have to thank you board office and legal office team for doing such a great job where it’s an initiative for the whole all the employees across the district to get healthy and stay active. And I have to say I think this is the best that we have done. We are currently in 27th place out of 127, which I think is pretty good.
27:32 But shout out to no, you’re not in there. Shout out to the top three teams currently, which is the Westside Workout warriors and number one, Pinewood elementary on our way out team. And number three as of right now is the Manatee elementary team.
27:49 So congratulations to those team and way to keep moving. We’ve got a few more weeks. Thank you also to Rachel Rutledge for doing organizing a great CTE tour at Heritage High School.
28:00 I really appreciate all the community organizations that came out to see the electric program and the advanced manufacturing program and the automotive program and the digital design and gaming program. There were just lots of great things to show off. But those things don’t happen.
28:17 If we don’t have our community partners, then it’s just us going around who already know about it. So we had lots of great community partners. Last week we had our Westside elementary, the new addition that we talked about in our workshop today.
28:28 We had the groundbreaking for it. We had the mayor there and great opportunity. Super excited to see the dirt is ready for the foundation to go in and it’s going to be exciting addition that will open next fall and they’re going to put their sixth graders in there as well as a state of the art STEM classroom.
28:52 So I sit, I think I’ve mentioned this to you before board, but I sit on the Florida School Music association board of Directors that basically oversees MPA rules across the state for all our music things. And one of the things that they pushed for along with some other music organizations across the state is the Seal of Fine Arts. And so when we had our meeting this weekend, they were talking about how we really want to encourage our students in high school to get that Seal of Fine Arts.
29:19 They get an extra cord for graduation, they get a stamp on their diploma. It’s. It just recognizes their hard work, either in art, theater, music, any kind of instrumental groups, because they’ve done those kind of courses with rigor.
29:37 Well, I went back and looked at Dr. Rendell’s self evaluation that he sent to us and I was very proud to shout out yesterday and this group of people who are musicians from all over the state that Brevard had 326 students in the first year of its existence qualify for the Seal of Fine Arts. And I don’t have the comparison from across the state, but I’d have to say if we’re not. Didn’t have the highest number we had to be, well, we can say it’s number one, but I’m pretty sure it’s high up there.
30:05 So I just want to thank the team, Minnie Orr, Tara Harris, of course, all the schools and the teachers who contributed to the students making that happen. And we’re hoping in the future they’re pushing, they want to make that an opportunity for a school to earn a point, a. What do you call it, Dr. Anzel? A point in college and career.
30:31 Acceleration. Right? Acceleration point. That’s the word I was looking for.
30:34 So if many of these students are getting acceleration points for other things like AP classes, but for the student who like, this is their area to shine and they’ve done the good work, they would like for that to be an acceleration point. So they’re going to go back to the legislature and say, okay, now that we have it and we have all these districts and all these hundreds and thousands of students who have done it, now let’s give them the extra recognition. I wanted to give a big thank you.
30:56 I told you guys I had a bunch of these big thank you to all our county commissioners. I know I sat down with four. Ms. Wright, you sat down with one.
31:04 Just for. I mentioned to you guys in the summer that I wanted to do some relationship building across the street. And first I wanted to thank them for passing our resolution on this morning for the.
31:15 The renewal of the half cent sales store tax in the millage. Thank you, Dr. Windell, for being there this morning. But I just appreciated the four that I met with districts 2, 3, 4 and 5 for taking the time because we, they shared with me some of the things that they would like to see for us.
31:31 And they gave Me the opportunity to share some things that I would like to see with our partnership with the county. So just thank you to all four of those commissions, for all five, for meeting with us to build that relationship. Across the street, we had a community member reach out.
31:45 And I don’t know if you guys got this email board, but a community member reach out was very concerned that during the shutdown we have students who might be going, who might be in greater need. And so I reached out to Kevin Thornton, who always does amazing, amazing job in food nutrition services, and asked them, what can we, what are we doing? What can we do? And between food nutrition services and government and community relations, I know as a parent, I received two different emails in a week reminding our community, our families, that if you are in need right now, you can apply. This is also as an announcement, you can, if there is a change to your income, you can go and apply for food for free and reduced lunch.
32:31 Also, if you’re a family that is, that is suffering through the shutdown, please reach out to your school. Let them know we have community resources. We have our social workers assigned to every school.
32:41 Let your schools know so that they can help you. Because we want to help our families, especially with some changes that might be coming. If the shutdown continues through the end of the week, there’s some more severe changes happening that will affect our kids.
32:53 And so. But I just wanted to thank the FNS team and GCR team for putting that out there so quickly. It was a pretty quick turnaround that they sent that out, so thank you for being responsive.
33:04 And as on that same topic, every school has what they call an angel fund through the cafeteria. And I know this community member who reached out to me actually said that she had gone around to three different schools that day and paid off the balance for students who. And if you’re in the room, you know, I don’t know if she’s come and talk to us.
33:24 I don’t know, but anybody can do that. I was at Hoover one day and they had it on the wall in the waiting area. We have an angel fund, so I’m pretty sure you can find it on the district website.
33:34 If you can’t go to your local school and say, hey, do you have an angel fund? Can I come in and pay off the balance for your students that are. And it’s not going to be thousands of dollars, maybe at a big school, but if you’d love to be an angel for our community, I know there’s some families that could probably use that assistance. All right, that’s all my shout outs I did have and I’ve hesitated to whether to say something tonight but I don’t know what’s coming later in our non agenda public comment.
34:03 So I just wanted to take a moment to address one thing. It’s been out in the public to families about the decision about Cape View. And I read through something that staff sent us that was going around in the community and I seriously was just shocked a little bit and very disappointed.
34:26 There was a document that was going around to residents of Cape Canaveral and people have every right and we want to encourage public participation. But it was going around suggesting that there are board members, two board members on this board who somehow would be that the decision was being driven by personal gain. And I have to tell you, as someone who’s been on the board for, you know, six years longer than one of them and four years longer than the other one.
34:45 I have to just give a little historical context. Since I’ve been on the board, we have been talking about, I remember asking Dr. Mullins, our former superintendent in 2019, the board came to him and said come up with a plan because we were, we’d been to impasse. We’re trying to find more money for raises.
35:12 What can we do? And one of our obstacles is we have more schools per capita than many of our other counties surrounding us. And so we love our small community schools. But honestly that is, let me just speak plainly, it can be a financial drain because other counties are more compact and so they don’t have schools that have, you’ve got some elementary schools with 1,000 kids and some elementaries with 200 kids.
35:37 You know, there’s a cost to that. And so I say that to say we’ve been having those conversations for the last six years at least. And if you have a school that has a population and this is not just limited to the Cape View situation and the board has been in discussions in public meetings and also in one on ones with the superintendent of some other schools in our county that are under enrolled and that we might have to take action on, especially when they’re in super old buildings that become more and more costly as the years go to keep up.
35:41 And so I just have to say that we’ve been having those conversations for a long time. And the idea that any one board member that’s being put out there that they’re going to financially gain from from this because like it’s just now coming up, I’m not going to say that it would be impossible for that to ever, ever happen. But that is.
36:31 That is unnecessarily inflammatory. And if it. So I hope that no one’s coming here with the idea that that’s going to happen.
36:38 But I just wanted to give you. You can keep believing what you want to believe, and I can’t tell you not to believe what you want to believe. But I’m just going to tell you it’s because you want to believe it, not because it’s the truth.
36:47 Because over the last six years, I have been having these conversations with two different superintendents now about how we are having schools. We’ve got a school that went from 400 kids down to 200 kids over 10 years. What are we going to do? We have to do what is responsible for every student, because our job is to serve every student and make sure that we’re providing them the very best that we can.
37:11 And so I’m no more discussion about that. But I just had to say that because I just was, was appalled. And, and having been not the longest serving board member, Mr. Susan would be that, but the second longest school board member.
37:24 I just wanted to supply that historical context and hopefully to say it gently. But thank you, board, for giving me that time. Absolutely.
37:32 Thank you, Ms. Campbell. Thank you, Ms. Campbell, for those remarks. I appreciate that.
37:35 Yes, thank you. I’m going to move on to a couple of different recognitions that I want to, to give out. So it’s been some, some time since we met, obviously, so there’s a lot of things have happened in that time.
37:45 I want to give a shout out to the Brevard Achievement center for holding their twelf arts event. Ms. Campbell and I joined that and several of our schools around the district come and perform. And those are some of our children that have unique abilities.
37:56 And it’s just something that is so refreshing and, and powerful to watch. And the audience is absolutely just thrilled and so supportive and I, I so thankful that we have events like that around our county. And it was a special day.
38:08 So thank you so much for hosting that. That is something I hope that continues for, for years to come. Also want to say to Dr. Rendell and your team, thank you very much.
38:17 You did a job well done on our Employee of the Year finalist roundup. That was a lot of fun. So one of the fun things that Dr. Rendell has implemented since being here is that we get to go and present these individuals who are the finalists, the award, and then we take them off site and take them to lunch and Celebrate them.
38:33 And then, you know, you have to wait and see who’s the actual winner of the employee of the year. But it’s a fun celebration and it’s always a highlight, I think, for people that are looking forward to that. Also want to give a shout out to our Brevard County Sheriff’s office and our relationship that we have with them.
38:47 We received an award Brevard County Public Schools did with the sheriff’s office and their speak out crime line tip. And so I guess, I guess that’s a speak out. Yeah, I’m going up.
38:58 Crime line’s not quite, quite correct. But the speak out hotline is a service that’s available that people can call and report things that are going on. So they recognize Brevard county as being.
39:07 Hold on, let me not misquote it, because I took a picture of the award. We were the outstanding partner of the year, I believe. So Major Klein is in the room today, so I’m going to go ahead and give him the opportunity to come up and give a speech.
39:17 No, I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding. I’m teasing him right now, but no, just want to say thank you so much.
39:22 You guys do an amazing job. Along those same lines. Want to recognize that today is national first responders Day.
39:30 It should be no surprise to anyone in this community that we have gone through some stuff in the last couple weeks, specifically in the last 48 hours. The north end was hit very hard and our first responders were out and about in circumstances that were just atrocious, with tons of water and vehicles that were abandoned. It looked like Armageddon.
39:49 You’re going, what is happening? I mean, there’s cars literally underwater that people have to leave. And so thank you to all of our first responders who sacrifice their time, their safety every day to make sure that our communities are safe. We really, truly appreciate each and every one of you also.
40:03 And along those same lines, I’m going to give a shout out to a couple of fathers that are in the room. I’m looking at their faces today. So we had an incident that took place at a Port St. John school, and we’ve had some dads that have stepped up and said, hey, we’re going to make sure kids are safe.
40:14 And so I just want to say to them, thank you so much. I will never, ever, ever object to someone making sure our kids are safe. We appreciate you and we’re grateful for the things that you’re doing there.
40:23 And I know some of you are first responders yourself. So thank you for your service there. And that is all that I have.
40:28 Thank you. All right, Mr. Susan, Dr. Rundell’s gonna do Coffee Bean promise only to take half as long as Katie did on hers. So just so you guys are worried, so I did want to let you guys know, I went to the.
40:39 I went to the FSBA board of directors, went through that, wanted to bring back some of the stuff Orange county is working very strongly. And workforce. It’s on workforce, how workforce housing.
40:53 And what it is, is that they have. They’re so dynamically pushing into the workforce housing stages that I requested an overall view of what they’re doing so that we can look at it. One of the problems that we have with workforce housing here in the county is they come to us when they identify a piece of our property and they say, hey, why don’t you give that to workforce housing? And that’s just not how we do it.
41:15 But I think there is a conversation that when the cities and the county and everybody else are willing to come together, that there might be an opportunity there. So what I’ll do is I’ll bring back that workforce housing piece that Orange county is doing and let you guys know. But we are.
41:27 This is in no way an endorsement for workforce housing. It’s just that you would be abreast of what’s going on inside the state. The other one is, is that I presented as the ad hoc Health and Fitness Committee on the Presidential Youth Physical Fitness.
41:40 I wanted to bring you guys up to speed on that. Currently, Shape Florida and Shape America have agreed to allow to see Brevard lead the way. And so what’s happening is, is that all the other school districts, in a conjunction with Leon county, who has a P.E.
41:55 former P.E. teacher who is also a school board member, and Gallon Steve Gallen, the school board member out of Miami Dade, are going to work with us on a district or statewide recommendation for all the school boards to follow for Presidential Youth Physical Fitness. In the meantime, Rachel Winston, who used to be our PE Teacher, went ahead and she was the head of all PE Teachers for the district.
42:18 Now she’s over at Viera. She’s been spearheading the whole thing. She got together and she said, okay.
42:23 She found the guys from the Presidential Youth Physical Fitness. They said, yeah, we can definitely do this. So they all of a sudden gave us a cost that it would cost for all of our schools to do it.
42:34 And I called Health first and Parish, and they covered the cost of all of our schools to be A part of it. So now Dr. Rendell is very excitedly putting together kind of the behind the scenes stuff, and we should be able to sometime this year test our kids and be the leaders in the state of Florida and then set the tone for the rest. So I just want to give you guys that.
42:54 Also I brought up as part of this group the heart screening, since we are the first school district in the nation to mandate health heart screenings for the thing. And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, one of the school board members stood up and said, this is impossible. You can’t do it in a school district like ours.
43:10 And then all of a sudden, one of the other school board members stood up and said that she lost her kid last year and it’s the reason she ran. And it got so heated that I felt the passion that we felt when we were arguing this thing and when we see people come in here. So I’m in charge of the implementation with the committee implementing the recommendations for all and answering questions for the entire state over how we implemented years ago, the heart screening.
43:34 So it’s a big honor of mine to do that. I also have a couple other school board members throughout the state that are working with us. But the only thing about it is, is that people just don’t understand it and so they throw it up.
43:44 But then it. It is one of the greatest things we ever did. Also, Thomas Kennedy did a whole presentation on basically a lot of security issues wrapped around how AI is now being used to target our kids on social media platforms and everything else.
44:00 So some of those things I’ll bring to our security teams. It’s not something I really want to talk about here because it’s kind of disgusting. But the thing is, is that I did want to just let you guys know about that.
44:06 I did want to tell you that pretty soon here, within about 30 days, we should have a students with disabilities webpage that they can sell stuff on so that, like, you have those students with disabilities that have those. Have you ever been in here where they sell all of the. Yeah, blast.
44:25 Well, there’s also students with disabilities that are also not a part of blast. But the BLAST programs are the drivers to be able to sell their goods online. So I thought, how cool would that be for us to go purchase some of that stuff and support those programs? So there’s that.
44:39 And then also wanted to bring up. Let me make sure I did all this. Oh, did you send out the Gray Robinson session report from May? I don’t know.
44:48 Did I send it out in May, I’ll resend it because it’s a good document. I didn’t want to send it out and be like you say, oh my gosh, I sent that out like I didn’t want to be that guy. So legislative session update May, because session went so long.
45:03 But I may have sent it out, it had some. So I’ll resend it. But it’s a real good overview of what happened in our thing just for staff to take a look at and stuff like that.
45:12 I did want to mention one of the things I’d like to work on and if it’s okay with you guys, is when I go to my calendars on my webpage for my school, sometimes the staff’s not on there, sometimes the calendar’s not up to date and stuff like that. And it’s kind of frustrating. So what I’d like to do is work with Lena on asking them to update their.
45:33 Put in the information they’re supposed to. We have 95% of them have it. But there’s some that I get calls from parents inside the community like, hey, the calendar’s not up to date and all that stuff.
45:43 Once we get that, which is common knowledge, I’ll just have Lena make some phone calls. But then the other part is, is that I’d like to put together like some sort of an idea on how we can have a district wide calendar for events so that I can go onto it and know that this Friday these sports games are being played and all that stuff. I don’t know how it would look.
46:04 It would be monstrous. But there are ways to categorize it, right? Like you could say sports, you could say. I think if you guys are okay with us looking at how to kind of do it from a thought process, I would like to do that.
46:15 That’s all. Not, not making anybody do it, not doing anything. And for full context, Dr. Rendell, I didn’t talk to him yesterday about this or today, so he’s over there throwing darts at me.
46:25 But if you’re okay with us just looking at doing it, somehow I think that would be okay. We good? Mr. Chair? Yes, sir. Just about the website made me think of something.
46:34 I’m just curious. Has anybody, any of you had complaints or concerns from any citizens about not being able to locate you on the website? Because I’ve had a few people say since I’ve started like that it’s hard finding a school board member on the, on the website because we’re kind of, we’re kind of buried back in the Underneath, it’s. It’s under.
46:54 They’ve always. It’s always been in the same place. But I did have someone say something about not being able to see our email addresses, because instead there was a link email your board member, and then it pulled up your email app.
47:06 I don’t know, opened up some worms here. Yeah, it’s been changing, but we’re. We’ve always been under about.
47:12 And then school board. It’s always been the same place. So I. I don’t know if it’s an issue or not.
47:16 I just, I think had it mentioned to me a few times about that. It was hard to find. If I’m sitting here and we have.
47:20 We’re calling the schools to say, hey, can you put these things on and ours is difficult, then we should look at that. So maybe I’ll just work on doing that and bring that back, too. Okay, sounds good.
47:29 Thanks. All right. We’re good.
47:30 Good. We’re going to have to put you on there, aren’t we? Just kidding. Dr. Rendell.
47:37 Thank you, Mr. Chair. I actually wanted to thank the young Mr. Higginbotham for the kind comments about the Coffee Bean, but I also want to make sure we give credit where credit’s due. The Coffee Bean is a project that we’ve been doing for the last two years.
47:52 This is the third year that we’re doing it where every sixth grader in our district gets a copy of the book the Coffee Bean. It’s a great little read, short read. If you’re not familiar with the book, you should go on Amazon and buy a copy and read it yourself.
47:58 It’s a great book about overcoming adversity. Again, it’s a short, quick read, simple lesson in there to learn about overcoming adversity. And the idea is that we want to give all our sixth graders that message that they can overcome any kind of obstacle that they face.
48:20 We have over 5,000 sixth graders every year, so that’s over 5,000 books we need to buy if we’re going to give every sixth grader a copy. And Mr. Gordon, the CO author of the book, has come and spoke each of the last three years. Two years.
48:36 And this year, well, he’s not free either. And so there is a significant cost associated with putting this program together. We’ve used grant funds the last couple of years to do that.
48:48 One of the companies that donated some of the grant funds last year was Health First. And Health first is a fantastic partner with us and the rest of our community. And so we approached them at the end of last year to see if they would be interested in being the platinum sponsor, the whole boat sponsor for this program.
49:09 And they said yes. So the credit for the, the purchasing of the books and having all of our students read the book and learn about the book and the lesson that’s in the book and then to actually hear John Gordon alive and in person goes to Health First. Health first underwrote the whole project.
49:27 The whole program is $100,000 because we also had him address the kids at the King center and the King center is not free. And we bussed half of our sixth graders to the King center to see him live and the other half watched on live stream. So lots of costs associated with what we believe is a very good program.
49:45 We’ve seen a real positive result of the coffee bean with our sixth graders the last three years. But the credit needs to go to Health first because they paid for the whole thing. So shout out to Health First.
49:58 Thank you. Great. We will take a short recess before our non agenda item public comments portion of tonight’s meeting.
50:05 Take a short recession sa.