Transcript: 2022-03-22 - Board Meeting

0:00 [BLANK_AUDIO]

2:30 [MUSIC]

3:00 [BLANK_AUDIO]

3:20 [COUGH] Good evening, the March 22nd, 2022 board meeting is now

3:25 in order.

3:26 I’m happy to welcome my fellow board members and the public.

3:29 This is a business meeting of the board held in the public.

3:32 As such, the board is authorized to adopt rules or policies to

3:34 maintain orderly

3:35 conduct and proper decorum in a public meeting.

3:38 Please note that your presence here is subject to those rules

3:41 and policies.

3:42 Pursuant to Florida Statute 877.13, it is unlawful and a

3:46 misdemeanor of

3:47 the second degree punishable by up to 60 days in jail and a $500

3:51 fine for

3:52 any person knowingly to disrupt or interfere with the lawful

3:56 administration

3:57 or functions of any educational institution or school board.

4:00 Or knowingly to advise, counsel, or instruct any school pupil or

4:04 school employee to disrupt any school or school board function

4:08 or

4:08 activity on school board property.

4:11 To facilitate board business, please be aware of the following.

4:14 If you must leave the building for any reason,

4:16 you will not be permitted to re-enter.

4:18 The appropriate place for public participation in the meeting is

4:21 during

4:21 your individual public comment opportunity as identified in the

4:24 agenda.

4:25 Outside of your individual public comment opportunity,

4:28 your role in the meeting is as an observer.

4:31 I’ll ask persons deemed to be knowingly or intentionally

4:33 disrupting this meeting of

4:34 the school board of Brevard County or not complying with policy

4:37 to stop or leave.

4:39 If persons receiving the warning choose not to follow my

4:41 instructions,

4:41 I’ll instruct Brevard County Sheriff’s deputies to take any law

4:44 enforcement

4:44 action they deem appropriate.

4:46 And you may be escorted, detained, or arrested depending on the

4:49 conduct.

4:51 Persons who refuse to depart after a warning

4:54 may also be committing the crime of trespassing,

4:56 in accordance with Florida statute section 810.05.

5:00 These statutes apply to conduct on all school board property,

5:02 which includes this boardroom as well as the outside of this

5:05 building to

5:05 the sidewalk.

5:07 If you continue to cause a disruption,

5:08 you’re advised that you’re in violation of Florida state statute

5:11 877.13.

5:13 Or if you fail to leave the premises after being warned by the

5:15 sheriff’s office,

5:16 you are committing trespass and

5:17 the board has authorized the sheriff’s office to enforce these

5:20 rules.

5:21 In the event multiple individuals fail to adhere to these

5:24 expectations and

5:25 board business cannot continue due to disruption, I will call a

5:28 recess and

5:29 request that the law enforcement officers present clear the

5:31 boardroom of attendees.

5:34 When the room is cleared, the board will return and

5:36 resume their meeting with no public presence.

5:38 Those who are signed up to speak will be seated under the front

5:41 entry area and

5:42 called in when it is your time to speak.

5:43 Mr. Gibbs, roll call, please.

5:48 » Ms. Belford.

5:50 » Present.

5:50 » Ms. McDougall.

5:51 » Present.

5:52 » Mr. Season.

5:53 » Present.

5:53 » Ms. Jenkins.

5:54 » Present.

5:54 » Ms. Campbell.

5:55 » Present.

5:57 » The board will now hold a moment of silent reflection and

6:00 invite the audience to join.

6:01 [BLANK_AUDIO]

6:21 Thank you, please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

6:23 [BLANK_AUDIO]

6:28 » I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of

6:32 America, and

6:33 to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God,

6:37 indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

6:41 [BLANK_AUDIO]

6:44 » At this time, I would like to offer my fellow board members

6:44 and Dr.

6:47 Mullins an opportunity to recognize students, staff, or members

6:50 of the community.

6:51 Who would like to get us started this evening?

6:52 Ms. Jenkins.

6:55 » Sure.

6:56 I just want to do a friendly reminder to all of our families

6:59 across Brevard that we

7:00 have kindergarten registration starting next week, March 28th

7:04 through April 1st.

7:06 You can go to brevardschools.org.

7:10 But you also, just to give you a heads up, make sure you got

7:13 that birth certificate,

7:13 your immunization records, a current physical, and two forms of

7:17 residency when

7:18 you fill out that registration packet.

7:22 » Thank you, Ms. Jenkins.

7:23 Who’s next?

7:24 Ms. Campbell.

7:25 » All right, so just an update on the 300 mile challenge.

7:28 As a reminder to the board and the people on the dais, yes,

7:32 that we’re doing it to set an example because we want our

7:34 employees to get

7:35 healthy.

7:36 So Mr. Gibbs is an, I don’t think he’s, we were able to overtake

7:43 him.

7:43 With 730,000 steps, which it did a little calculation,

7:46 that’s equivalent to according to the challenge, 365 miles.

7:51 So he’s already met the 300 mile challenge.

7:53 Congratulations, Mr. Gibbs, you can stop now and see if we can

7:56 catch up.

7:56 I’m in second place, and Ms. McDougall’s in third place.

7:59 And Ms. Belfer started recording hers, yay.

8:01 » And I’m like a week behind, so I’m not necessarily in third

8:04 place.

8:05 » Okay, all right, the rest of you need to get moving.

8:10 So I wanted to give an update.

8:11 I told you guys last time that three of our high school orchestras

8:15 were invited

8:16 to the National Orchestra Festival over spring break.

8:21 Satellite, Mail High, and Oak Alley, they all were amazing.

8:26 And one of them returned the grand champion,

8:30 the best high school orchestra in the country, and that was Oak

8:34 Alley High School.

8:35 So congratulations to the Oak Alley Chamber Orchestra.

8:38 » [APPLAUSE] » And I don’t think any official bet was

8:43 made, Mr. Susan, so whatever you’re about to say.

8:44 » Well, I brought some t-shirts, just so everybody knows.

8:47 So Ms. Campbell can wear, so I taught there.

8:52 And Ms. Campbell, I just want you to know, this is very

8:55 nostalgic.

8:55 So in order to be a real cool teacher,

8:58 you got to be part of the Commodore Crazies, which was the fans,

9:01 the school fans.

9:03 So I’m gonna give you an option, I’m gonna put these here.

9:05 » I’ll put it on right now, I’m proud of them.

9:07 » And I think you should wear it at the next board meeting or

9:10 something like that.

9:11 I’m gonna put it right here, just so everybody understands, Oak

9:13 Alley did this.

9:15 And this is Ms. Campbell’s area,

9:16 just so everybody understands, I couldn’t play a music thing

9:19 just in my life.

9:19 But I will tell you, I’m proud of Oak Alley, and I wanna let her

9:23 continue her story.

9:24 But I want her to choose which one of these she wanted to do.

9:27 » I’ll take the gray one, I’ll take the gray one.

9:28 » What, you don’t wanna be crazy?

9:29 » No, so congratulations to them, we’re super proud of them.

9:34 » Wait, can you tell them what that is?

9:36 It was massive, wasn’t it?

9:38 » Yeah, I mean, you had to go through a selection process just

9:40 to get to go.

9:42 Like a year ahead of time, right?

9:44 And- » There is nobody on the planet that is

9:47 better than Oak Alley.

9:48 » I have a kid in one of the other schools, so I was kind of

9:50 rooting for

9:51 them too, but I’m telling you, I watched them at the pre-concert

9:54 before they went.

9:55 It’s 30 minutes of music, they had to play 30 minutes of music.

9:58 And their school chose to do 30 minutes of music by memory.

10:03 And they were standing up, except for the cellos, they have to

10:05 sit down.

10:06 They were standing up in their sock feet, I’m not sure if that

10:09 was so

10:09 they could feel the vibrations, or if it was because it looked

10:12 cooler,

10:12 it was because they were standing up for 30 minutes.

10:15 And when the concert, when they were about to begin, the

10:18 director came and

10:19 sat behind me.

10:20 And so they did the entire 30 minute concert by memory with no

10:23 conductor.

10:24 It was incredible.

10:26 So no wonder they’re amazingly impressive to the judges at the

10:28 festival.

10:29 So congratulations to all of them, but especially to our grand

10:32 champions.

10:33 The Thursday night we kicked off spring break with the South

10:35 Area Elementary Art,

10:37 Science, and Engineering Fair.

10:39 It was wonderful to see all the science projects,

10:42 all the engineering projects, all the artwork that was there.

10:45 And congratulations to all those winners, and thank you to all

10:47 our teachers and

10:48 the principals who coordinated that fair as well.

10:51 Destination Mars started this week, and if you didn’t get to

10:54 come by yesterday,

10:55 there were two schools with about five teams, something like

10:59 that, yesterday.

11:00 And I got to walk around the room, it was awesome.

11:02 You’re also gonna be here next Monday, and there’s a few other

11:04 days.

11:05 So make sure you check that out,

11:07 because the creativity of our elementary students is off the

11:13 chain.

11:14 It’s pretty cool.

11:14 I’m not cool enough to say that, but don’t tell my kids.

11:18 The last thing that I wanted to share is, no, that was it, I’m

11:22 done.

11:25 » Thank you very much, Ms. Campbell, Mr. Susan.

11:28 So I want everybody to understand Ms. Campbell is passionate

11:34 about all of the music, and orchestra, and bands.

11:38 Like we all have our own areas that we love, so

11:42 I really appreciate you championing that, because there’s no way

11:46 Dr.

11:46 Mullins and I could ever do that.

11:48 » Hey, he’s gonna speak for yourself, right?

11:50 » What? » No, he’s a band dad.

11:52 » He’s lying, don’t listen to him.

11:53 But you do a great job, and I wanted to say thank you.

11:55 And I will really look forward to seeing you wear the t-shirt.

11:58 I appreciate you pointing that out.

12:01 Anyways, so I want everybody to understand.

12:04 I gotta give you another update on our trades tour.

12:06 So we had something else happen.

12:07 So every time we come around, something else is coming forward.

12:11 So first off, I spoke at the Associated Builders and

12:14 Contractors in Cocoa last, I think it was Wednesday or Thursday

12:20 night.

12:20 And that’s all the contractors that do commercial work.

12:23 So your large commercial end out at Kennedy Space Center,

12:25 schools, cities, all of that stuff.

12:27 They were ecstatic to get involved.

12:30 They offered to put together pre-apprenticeship programs at the

12:33 end of

12:33 the school for the kids that graduate over the summer, right?

12:36 Not to tie into anything, let them graduate and let them come.

12:39 They made suggestions, they wanna get involved.

12:41 So it’s kinda starting to bubble, right?

12:43 And there’s a guy that stood up, and I’m sorry, I’m gonna throw

12:46 him under the bus.

12:47 He’s from Broward County.

12:48 And he said, if we had what you have here,

12:54 we would be such a better company and a better community.

12:56 And he went on for two or three minutes.

12:59 Ms. Rutledge was there, and he talked about how he’s never seen

13:03 a school system entwined with the contractors and working with

13:08 them.

13:08 Cuz Ms. Rutledge got up also and spoke for a while.

13:10 They cared to listen to her, they didn’t really wanna listen to

13:12 me anyway.

13:13 But it was amazing.

13:15 So I wanted to say thank you to Associated Builders and

13:16 Contractors for having us.

13:18 Thank you to Ms. Rutledge.

13:19 Anybody that doesn’t know who she is, she’s the director of our

13:22 CTE programs.

13:23 And she’s taken it personally to make sure that every kid that

13:26 gets

13:26 an opportunity gets a job or an apprenticeship.

13:29 And she deserves all the credit along with Dr. Mullins and our

13:31 staff.

13:32 I’m just a cheerleader, and she’s doing a great job.

13:35 The next thing is, is that the cool thing that happened was that

13:38 the Realtors Association, Dr. Mullins and I are going over there

13:41 on Friday.

13:41 And the Realtors Association is gonna partner up with us, and

13:44 they’re gonna offer opportunities inside real estate for our

13:47 kids.

13:47 And at first, I was like, listen, I do insurance for a living,

13:50 right?

13:51 But we don’t need to tell our kids how to be real estate agents.

13:54 There’s a thousand of them.

13:54 Like, I have people that haven’t sold a piece of real estate in

13:57 20 years that

13:57 are real estate agents, right?

13:58 We don’t need to create that.

14:00 And they said, no, no, no, Matt, they build website.

14:03 They fly drones for photography.

14:04 They take pictures for photography.

14:06 They work real estate management.

14:08 There’s a million jobs that are inside the real estate that they

14:12 manage

14:13 that can give our kids opportunities from MIMS to MICO.

14:16 And I was like, that is amazing.

14:17 So Dr. Mullins is gonna go give them the CTE tour.

14:20 I’m gonna do a hoorah, and then I think we’re gonna try to

14:21 figure that out,

14:22 which is gonna be amazing.

14:23 The other thing I want to say, not many people know, but

14:26 we’ll talk more about it at the next meeting.

14:29 But the NASA Hunch, many people may not know about this program,

14:34 but

14:34 NASA has a program that allows students in schools to put stuff

14:38 up into space.

14:39 They build it and put it up into space, right?

14:41 So we’ve got these lockers, we’ve got the stuff that went up.

14:44 But at O’Gally, and the reason I’m saying it today, is today,

14:48 tomorrow, and Thursday,

14:51 NASA is inside of there working at O’Gally’s aviation hangar to

14:55 put

14:56 together what will be the track for the rover that goes on Mars

15:00 in 2034.

15:01 So literally, our kids are putting together the track on the

15:05 rover that will

15:06 be traveling there, they’re putting it together now, they launch

15:09 it like 2025.

15:10 It has to fly out there, land, and

15:13 start building the community that our people fly out there on 2034,

15:18 and

15:18 land to start living in.

15:20 So it’s starting to happen.

15:21 It’s something to be very impressive with, and our kids are

15:23 leading the way.

15:24 And with that, I’m good.

15:25 That’s all I had.

15:26 Thank you.

15:30 » I just have one thing.

15:31 I wanna give a shout out to the fourth grade teachers at

15:34 Stevenson Elementary School and the students.

15:37 They have been writing letters.

15:39 They have a project.

15:40 They have been writing letters to myself,

15:42 to our elected officials throughout the state and the county.

15:46 Because their project is they would like to be a model school

15:51 for solar panels.

15:52 They feel we’re in Florida, and why not have solar panels

15:58 provide electricity?

15:59 And they had some really good points.

16:01 I share them with Ms. Han, and she’s gonna connect with them

16:07 also.

16:08 And it’s a great project.

16:09 The kids were really, I popped in and talked to all the kids in

16:11 the classrooms.

16:12 And they have really good points about why they want this to

16:16 happen and

16:17 how valuable it would be for our district and for the community.

16:21 So, shout out to Stevenson Elementary School.

16:23 And that’s all I have.

16:25 » You should call FPL.

16:26 They put out 100 solar fields.

16:29 Everywhere I go, they put, call FPL, have them come prep.

16:34 They should [INAUDIBLE] » [LAUGH]

16:37 » Or just borrow the ones we got in the park.

16:38 [BLANK_AUDIO]

16:40 » Dr. Mullen.

16:43 » Thank you, Ms. Belford.

16:45 First, I want to share that this week, we launched Destination

16:49 Mars again.

16:50 I don’t know how many years we’ve been hosting on this, at least

16:53 three or

16:54 four years.

16:55 Destination Mars is a problem solving experience where our fifth

16:59 and

16:59 sixth graders come here.

17:01 This room transforms into Mars, and they problem solve and

17:07 work together in teams to overcome challenges.

17:10 And there’s literally a map on the floor of this boardroom that’s

17:14 probably

17:15 half the size of the room.

17:16 And the kids are engaged with all of these different activities.

17:20 Huge shout out to Boeing, who continues to be a, I’ll just say,

17:25 platinum sponsor providing over $120,000 to make that

17:30 Space Coast experience possible for our kids.

17:35 So very exciting if you get a chance to be up here and see our

17:37 kids interacting.

17:38 It’s a lot of fun.

17:39 It’s a great buzz in the building when we have kids here and

17:43 to see them engaged in some amazing learning experiences.

17:48 And I shared earlier in the workshop that I wanted to share an

17:52 email I received.

17:53 And it kind of complements our celebration of a galley, but in a

17:57 larger scale.

17:58 And this was an unsolicited email from a constituent in the

18:04 music across the state.

18:06 And his name is Jeremy Langford.

18:09 And he writes, if you’ll indulge me for a few minutes,

18:11 I just think it’s appropriate to elevate all of our music

18:15 teachers,

18:16 particularly when it’s shared from someone outside Brevard.

18:19 I wanted to send you a note of thanks to you, Miss Minnie Orr,

18:21 and

18:21 the Florida Band Masters leadership team of Jennifer Zahn and

18:25 Ian Schwinn for

18:26 your collective leadership that has allowed the high school band

18:29 programs to

18:29 continue performing at a consistently high level.

18:32 Recently, I had the honor of serving as an adjudicator for

18:36 your marching band music performance assessment at Melbourne

18:39 High.

18:39 And last week, I had the distinct privilege to serve as an adjudicator

18:44 for

18:44 the Florida Band Masters Association High School Concert Music

18:48 Performance Assessment.

18:49 It was a breath of fresh air to take part in both of these

18:53 experiences and

18:54 hear so many fine ensembles that are receiving quality

18:57 instruction on a daily basis.

18:59 The amount of veteran leadership that gives back on a daily

19:02 basis to the young

19:03 educators is astounding and shows in every performance.

19:07 There is truly a wonderful brotherhood and

19:09 sisterhood among music educators within your district.

19:12 The recent pandemic has left negative marks on many music

19:15 programs

19:15 throughout our state that will take years to recuperate from.

19:18 And it is quite evident that the camaraderie, leadership, and

19:22 expertise within your school district has been a positive source

19:25 of encouragement and

19:26 empowerment for the young directors in Brevard schools.

19:30 You are all blessed to have such a special group of educators

19:34 that work in tandem to

19:35 ensure the students of Brevard are successful in the classroom,

19:39 stage, and

19:39 football field.

19:41 I trust that you will continue to throw every resource at your

19:43 disposal towards

19:44 the performing arts to continue this tradition of excellence.

19:48 Beyond being a bright light shining on behalf of Brevard County,

19:52 it is a model district for our state and more importantly, a

19:56 source of light and

19:57 inspiration for every student that is given the opportunity of a

20:00 lifetime

20:01 through these programs.

20:02 Bravo to Brevard schools bands, well done.

20:05 » [APPLAUSE]

20:11 » So I had to share that celebration of praise to our music

20:18 teachers.

20:18 I don’t know Mr. Langford, never met him that I know of.

20:22 And that was a wonderful email that showed up over spring break.

20:26 And I just felt it appropriate to share and

20:29 give the shout out to our music teachers across this district.

20:32 And thank you for helping Brevard’s music programs be a

20:37 demonstration

20:38 of excellence across our community, and ultimately for the

20:41 benefit of the students

20:41 of Brevard, so thank you, Ms. Spel.

20:44 » Thank you, Dr. Mullins.

20:46 I just have one quick one tonight.

20:49 And that is I mentioned to you all before that Space Coast

20:51 Association of Realtors

20:52 is doing their prom princess event again to benefit our students.

20:56 It is scheduled for April 2nd from 10 AM to 3 PM at the Space

21:00 Coast Association of

21:01 Realtors office.

21:03 They are still in need of prom dresses and accessories.

21:06 So if anyone has extra dresses laying around, you can drop them

21:11 off at

21:12 the Space Coast Association of Realtors office from 9 to 5,

21:16 Monday through Friday.

21:17 That’s at 2950 North Wickham Road for anyone who’s not familiar.

21:22 They are very excited, they have hairstylists, they have makeup

21:25 artists

21:25 that will be there to really treat our kids like royalty while

21:29 they’re there.

21:30 And I shared with the board members, if you haven’t had a chance

21:32 to see your email

21:33 or follow up with me, Space Coast Area Transportation.

21:39 I was going with association transportation for one reason.

21:43 But Space Coast Area Transportation has agreed to assist with

21:46 transporting our

21:47 kids who may not be able to get to the event.

21:49 So what I’m looking at is three to four central pickup locations

21:54 throughout

21:54 the district where they could pick kids up there and take them

21:58 to the event and

21:59 then return them to that central pickup location.

22:01 They did say that they need a Walmart parking lot or

22:04 something like that where they can easily get the bus in and out.

22:07 So if you wouldn’t mind shooting me a text or

22:09 an email of some good locations in your area that would be kind

22:13 of close to

22:13 the students who are most likely to need assistance, I would

22:17 appreciate that.

22:18 And then I will follow up with Scott and, and bar and get all

22:22 that together.

22:23 So we do the only concern is that they may be the gates may be

22:27 locked.

22:30 So yeah, that and I didn’t want to have to bring stuff into

22:32 unlock the gates to get

22:34 a bus in so if you guys can help me with know you’re you’re most

22:38 familiar with your

22:38 areas and then I’d asked you guys last time to be available to

22:42 assist with

22:43 like getting ready for the event and day of event.

22:46 And I talked to Melissa yesterday or the day before.

22:50 They are solid on volunteers to prep for the event and for day

22:54 of event, but

22:54 they said they would absolutely welcome you guys stopping by on

22:58 Saturday to see

22:59 the event though, but thank you for your willingness.

23:03 Right.

23:05 All right, I think we are then going to move into our adoption

23:08 of the agenda.

23:09 Dr. Mullins.

23:10 » Miss Belford and members of the board on this evening’s

23:11 agenda.

23:12 We have administrative staff recommendations, 20 consent items,

23:15 one public hearing, one action item, one information item, and

23:19 one board discussion item.

23:21 Changes made to the agenda since release to the public include

23:24 the addition of F-15 Field Trip for

23:26 Edgewood Junior Senior High and Merritt Island High and K-33

23:31 Board Policy 2521.

23:33 Item A-7, administrative staff recommendations was revised.

23:38 » What are the wishes of the board?

23:39 » Move to approve.

23:40 » Moved by Mr. Susan, seconded by Ms. McDougall.

23:42 Is there any discussion?

23:44 All in favor, please signify by saying aye.

23:46 » Aye.

23:47 » Any opposed?

23:47 Same sign.

23:48 Motion passes 5-0.

23:50 Dr. Mullins, will you please let us know about the

23:52 administrative staff recommendation?

23:54 » Yes, Madam Chair and members of the board, there is one item

23:56 for your consideration.

23:58 » I’ll take a motion.

23:59 » Approve.

24:00 » Second. » Moved by Ms. McDougall, seconded by Mr. Susan.

24:03 Is there any discussion?

24:05 All in favor, please signify by saying aye.

24:07 » Aye.

24:08 » Any opposed?

24:08 Same sign.

24:09 Motion passes 5-0.

24:12 Dr. Mullins.

24:14 » Thank you, Mrs. Belford.

24:15 I’d like to take this opportunity to recognize, congratulate,

24:18 and welcome Dr. Camille Lepps, who is here in the audience.

24:22 Thank you for being here tonight.

24:24 She is joining Team BPS as the principal of Madison Middle

24:27 School, effective April 11th.

24:31 Welcome to Brevard, Dr. Lepps, we are thrilled to have you join

24:34 the team.

24:35 And I know you’ve brought a small army of family and/or friends

24:40 in support.

24:41 And we’d like you to have the opportunity to introduce yourself,

24:44 and if you want to say a few words.

24:46 Mr. Bruno, assist you with the microphone.

24:50 » Thank you so much.

24:51 It’s a pleasure and an honor to be here.

24:53 And I feel so blessed to have the opportunity to be entrusted

24:57 with Madison Middle School.

25:00 I’d like to give a shout out to my family and friends.

25:04 My first educator, my mom, along with my dad, I hope I made you

25:08 proud today.

25:11 And it’s, I mean, words can’t express how much you’ve poured

25:16 into me over the years, mom.

25:19 And I continue every day as an educator to want to do the same

25:23 for my students.

25:24 Also with me is my best friend, Jennifer Brash, who’s been here

25:28 with me through thick and thin many years.

25:31 My principal, discovery middle school, Dr. Gloria Fernandez.

25:36 The last few years she’s given me lots of wisdom, knowledge, and

25:42 grace to grow as an administrator and a leader.

25:45 Mr. Wilson, Mike Wilson, my fellow AP, he is the embodiment of a

25:53 servant leader, and I appreciate that about Mr. Wilson.

25:56 Mr. Sanjay Brown, he was a fellow AP with me at Discovery Middle.

26:03 He’s now a proud principal himself, and he welcomed me with open

26:07 arms, and we’ve had lots of great times together.

26:10 So as much as I’m grateful for this experience, I’m also a

26:14 little saddened because I had a great family and support system

26:18 here.

26:18 And I look forward to, I’ve met a few people from my new team,

26:23 so I look forward to continuing the good work.

26:25 And we’re going to make a difference at Madison Middle.

26:28 Thank you, everyone.

26:29 » Thank you, Dr. Webb.

26:30 » Any of you guys that wants to come over and stay with us and

26:38 take a job over here, we would love to have, I mean, this is a

26:41 group of individuals.

26:43 You see how happy she is.

26:44 We would love to have you just as happy.

26:46 So any time you ever want to come over and cross that line, let

26:52 us know.

26:53 » Well, congratulations again.

26:55 Mrs. Balfour, I’d also like to take the opportunity on tonight’s

27:00 agenda is the recognition of the retirement of a gentleman who I

27:04 have had the privilege of knowing for many, many years.

27:08 A fellow educator, Mr. Todd Shear, Daniel Todd Shear, the

27:14 current principal at Central Middle School.

27:17 He’s not here this evening.

27:18 I wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t watching this evening.

27:22 So Todd, congratulations on your retirement, 30 plus years of

27:28 serving students.

27:30 If you recognize the name Shearer, that’s because the Shearer

27:34 family is really a legacy leaving name in Brevard Public Schools.

27:39 Todd’s father served as an educator at Brevard, I don’t know,

27:43 probably close to 40 years, Dr. Dan Shear.

27:47 But Todd, you have carried on the family name with tremendous

27:53 honor and impact.

27:54 And you certainly have made a wonderful impact on setting the

27:58 standard of excellence across the schools that you’ve served,

28:01 whether it was as a teacher or as an assistant principal, and

28:05 for the last many, many years as a principal.

28:08 You’ve been an inspiration to many.

28:09 We thank you for your great work and your leadership and wish

28:13 you the best in your retirement.

28:15 But I know you will be working hard to the very last day at

28:19 Central Middle School.

28:21 And if you go visit Mr. Shear, wear your running shoes, because

28:25 he moves fast and he gets a lot done.

28:27 So Todd, we appreciate you and wish you the best.

28:32 » Thank you, Dr. Nolan.

28:35 » Hey, Ms. Belford, I do have to say something on Mr. Shear.

28:40 Mr. Shear is the reason I’m sitting in the chair today.

28:43 So in 2005, I applied for a job at Space Coast Middle/High

28:48 School on the six day count.

28:51 And I walked into an office, had never been a teacher before,

28:55 was coming from the private sector, but knew I wanted to teach.

28:58 And this guy across from me went through my interview and he

29:02 grilled me.

29:03 And he says, I think we’ve got a position for you.

29:05 And he gave me a key and I walked up into my room and I sat

29:08 there and I was deathly afraid trying to put some stuff together.

29:11 And he came by and he rode my you know what for about six

29:14 straight months with here’s what your lesson plans look like,

29:18 this is what you have.

29:19 And you want to talk about having energy?

29:21 That man has more energy than me times ten.

29:24 And he literally gave me and made me become the great teacher

29:27 that I was.

29:28 Single handedly, the individual that started my career and made

29:32 me who I was as a teacher.

29:34 And then his father, like you were saying, became my mentor when

29:38 I became an AP teacher.

29:40 So as I was teaching advanced placement, he is known as the godfather

29:44 for American history for AP.

29:46 And he taught me all the things that I knew, which made me a

29:49 great American history teacher for advanced placement also.

29:53 Mr. Shearer, I know you’re watching tonight and if not, I’m

29:55 going to clip it for you and send it to you.

29:56 Thank you for giving me a great career. This is the greatest

29:58 thing that could ever happen to me, man.

30:00 So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Susan.

30:08 All right. We are now at the public comment portion of the

30:11 meeting for the speakers on agenda items.

30:13 We have five speakers. Therefore, each speaker will receive

30:16 three minutes.

30:17 Please note the time is per speaker, not per agenda item.

30:20 Topics not specific to agenda items will be moved to the non

30:23 agenda portion of the meeting.

30:25 We have a clock in front of me to help you keep track of your

30:27 time.

30:27 When your time is over, you’ll be asked to stop and allow the

30:30 next speaker his or her turn.

30:31 Always keep in mind that reasonable decorum is expected and your

30:35 statement should be directed to the board chair.

30:38 The chair may interrupt, warn or terminate a participant’s

30:40 statement when time is up.

30:42 It’s personally directed, abusive, obscene or irrelevant.

30:45 But an individual not observed proper etiquette. The chair may

30:48 request the individual to leave the meeting.

30:50 I’ll call up three speakers at a time. And if you all could get

30:54 on the east wall over there so we can move through.

30:58 Our first three speakers are Anthony Calucci, Katie Delaney and

31:14 Sarah Murci.

31:18 And Mr. Colucci, before you get started, I have on here H 13,

31:22 but I think that’s supposed to be F 13.

31:24 Is that correct? OK, thank you. My name is Anthony Clutie.

31:30 I’m the president of the FTE addressing F 13 instructional staff

31:35 recommendations.

31:37 As I look at tonight’s resignations, I am reminded that this

31:40 year has been one of the most challenging years for our teachers

31:44 and staff.

31:45 I know you all recognize this, but I will keep it front and

31:48 center on your radar as we’re losing so many teachers and staff.

31:52 Our teachers are in dire need of help and changes. I received an

31:57 email that I wanted to share that articulates what our teachers

32:01 are feeling.

32:02 The email says, I can honestly say I’ve been I’ve been thinking,

32:06 how can I make it 52 more days to finish this year?

32:10 I wish we had mental health days built in instead of conscious

32:13 discipline or professional development day where we show up with

32:17 our growing to do list.

32:19 And the districts and staff volunteers to help us grade, copy or

32:22 take care of paperwork, staff shortages, heavy IEP, 504 loads

32:27 without consistent support.

32:29 All the required testing schedule feels like we are always

32:33 testing, which, you know, is an extra challenge when you have

32:36 students who need extra time and other accommodations.

32:39 Large class sizes, learning gaps and discipline issues. This is

32:43 my 19th year teaching and I’ve never felt so challenged and

32:47 unsuccessful.

32:48 My classroom used to be my happy place. And now most days I

32:53 leave exhausted and defeated.

32:56 With that said, I ask that this board continues to focus on this

33:01 issue.

33:02 And I want to say on behalf of BFT, thank you, teachers and

33:06 staff for sticking with BPS through these difficult times.

33:10 We’ve seen your hard work and we’ve seen that you’ve gone above

33:13 and beyond for our community.

33:15 And we appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Cloutier. Mr.

33:24 Laney.

33:31 Well, my speech isn’t loading. I’m Katie Delaney. I am here not

33:37 representing any organization.

33:42 I would like to speak about the board policy that just got added

33:46 to the agenda last second.

33:48 That’s I really wish you guys wouldn’t do that. One thing I do

34:00 want to say yay about is.

34:04 At 17, the learning centers for Brevard after school tutoring, I

34:09 think that’s great. I would love to see how the logistics of all

34:14 that is going to be done.

34:16 And yeah, I really hope that that’s that’s something that that

34:22 we can pull off.

34:23 I would also like to speak on F28 outside counsel. We now have

34:28 two lawyers sitting in this room, a team of lawyers that was

34:33 retained in Tallahassee and now a second large law firm that is

34:39 now retained out of Fort Myers.

34:42 Two hundred and fifty dollars for each lawyer, one hundred and

34:47 forty dollars for each paralegal and then food transportation

34:52 accommodations.

34:54 I mean, we are wasting so much money on this. If you guys would

34:59 just follow the law.

35:02 30, I would like to request that the language has changed to

35:08 speak about the specifics of how you guys are going to

35:14 communicate with parents and.

35:20 Also, what what experts are going to be brought in and what are

35:26 you guys vote on each individual expert?

35:31 If that expert is found to have to be funded by a special

35:33 interest group, is that going to be brought into consideration?

35:38 Whether or not that expert is hired. And for each one of these

35:42 experts, is there going to be parent notifications sent out for

35:46 whatever their evaluation is?

35:48 And will there be a parental opt out sent out with that parent

35:52 notification? Thank you so much.

35:55 Thank you, Miss Delaney. Miss Marski is approaching our last two

35:58 speakers are Karen Colby and Diane Haynes, if you wouldn’t mind

36:01 getting on deck.

36:02 Miss Marski, whenever you’re ready. Thank.

36:10 I’m not going to see your face other than the monitor. Thank you.

36:14 Good evening, Madam Chair and board. My name is Sarah Marski,

36:17 registered voter, taxpayer, wife, constituent, mother to two

36:21 children and BPS and in district two for school board.

36:24 I’m glad we are focusing on prior to prioritizing the BPS budget.

36:29 I’ve had major concerns as to how this board spends our money.

36:33 As I have said in the past, you are fiduciaries and for an oath

36:36 to act in the best interest of your stakeholders and taxpayers

36:40 of Brevard County.

36:41 I say no to a millage tax increase and yes to a forensic audit

36:47 on the BPS budget.

36:50 Madam Chair, do I need to remind your board members what a fiduciary

36:54 is and the responsibilities that would entail as they are being

36:57 sworn into office?

36:59 I hope with all the building projects we have that BPS is

37:03 prioritizing roofs and ceilings and AC repairs.

37:06 As both of my children have gone without AC at their schools,

37:09 one had to wear a mask and no AC while it was 90 degrees out and

37:13 was suffocating trying to learn math.

37:15 I hope this board continues to stay in compliance with the FDOE

37:19 and state law and not run the risk of having funding taken away

37:22 from the school district.

37:24 I understand that the money was returned to the district after

37:27 the district removed their illegal mask mandate.

37:29 However, I as well as many others feel that the three board

37:32 members broke their corporate fiduciary responsibility when they

37:36 chose to vote for to force facemask our children illegally.

37:40 I understand the board is choosing to not use that language

37:42 anymore, but I always will.

37:44 Another thing I’d like to address is why the taxpayers need to

37:47 pay so much additional money for outside counsel.

37:49 We have two attorneys that we pay for, one that defends the

37:52 school board members and one that works for the county.

37:56 When the school board chooses to go after gray areas of the law,

37:59 the taxpayer should not be on the hook to pay for the mistakes

38:02 that the majority of the school board makes.

38:04 I still haven’t had anyone follow up with me on the government

38:07 vehicle fleet agreement from January.

38:09 Along with your presentation, taxpayers should not have to FOIA

38:12 or PRR itemized expenditures at our own expense.

38:15 We should also be able to see the bids on projects BPS is

38:18 contracting out.

38:20 The stakeholders, taxpayers, voters, and constituents of Brevard

38:23 County are asking for more transparency about where exactly our

38:26 money is going.

38:27 The voters, taxpayers, and constituents of Brevard County are

38:31 paying very close attention to how school board members and the

38:35 district spend our money.

38:36 And what laws they are following, and what legal and political

38:39 gray areas this board is going after at the taxpayer’s expense,

38:43 especially those paying close attention to the school board

38:46 races this election cycle.

38:48 I recommend those running for reelection follow the law and stop

38:51 pursuing legal gray areas for political reasons on the taxpayer

38:55 dime.

38:55 Let’s use the taxpayer money to focus on facilitating serving

38:58 every student with excellence as a standard.

39:00 Thank you.

39:01 » Thank you, Ms. Marski.

39:03 Ms. Colby?

39:06 » Hi. Good evening, everybody.

39:15 I put two agenda items on there.

39:17 One, I forget the number of it, Mr. Chair.

39:21 It had to do with the track resurfacing of Vera expenditures.

39:27 Okay. I would like to speak up in favor of promoting Titusville

39:31 to have, I mean Rockledge

39:33 to have a brand new track before we expend extra funds on

39:36 schools without such facilities.

39:39 We’ve been promising for years to try to make things more equal.

39:42 And the school that has the best runners in the state long

39:45 distance year after year after year consistently certainly

39:49 deserves their own track.

39:50 I know they practice over here sometimes at Vera, but I don’t

39:53 think that’s fair because they’re not Vera Hawks.

39:56 They’re Rockledge Raiders.

39:58 That would meant a lot to me and also if we could get some more

40:03 of the facilities upgraded at the other schools like beach

40:06 volleyball has been requested from several schools.

40:09 I hear it is being installed at satellite, but I don’t think the

40:12 county is paying for it.

40:14 So I would sure like to use the money that would have gone to

40:16 satellite and put that towards the Rockledge track fund because

40:20 they need a track.

40:22 They don’t have anything and these guys need their college hopes

40:26 and gals, excuse me.

40:27 The other thing I was hoping to talk about was the increase in

40:30 millage rate, and I think that’s number.

40:34 Not on the agenda.

40:35 It’s a funding the F20.

40:38 OK, let’s go with F28 funding.

40:43 F28 is legal service.

40:44 OK, that’s the one.

40:46 Yeah, I was hoping we were going to spend a lot of money on

40:48 outside legal services because we have great, great attorneys

40:52 already employed.

40:53 Mr. Gibbs is one of them, and I don’t know the name of the other

40:56 one,

40:56 but I’ve admired their professionalism. I don’t know why we need

41:00 all the extra attorneys right now,

41:02 because the two we have seem accurate enough if we hadn’t gone

41:05 and broke the governor’s law, maybe we wouldn’t need all the

41:08 extra attorneys.

41:09 That’s just my point. The kids shouldn’t have to suffer for that

41:13 in talking about the funding of these issues.

41:16 I don’t think half the people in this county understand fully

41:19 how many attorneys are needed at this time and for what purpose.

41:22 It has nothing to do with the kids. It has to do with mandatory

41:25 mass in violation of the governor’s law.

41:27 There’s so many lawsuits pending. I’ve lost track. I think that’s

41:31 everything I’m allowed to talk about right now.

41:34 My biggest thing is not to increase any of our money’s going out

41:38 until we can say where all the money is at right now.

41:41 I’d like to ask for a forensic audit. Thank you. Thank you, Ms.

41:45 Colby.

41:45 Ms. Haynes.

41:52 Good evening, Diana Haynes. Well, everything I was going to say

41:55 has been said.

41:57 But I would like to make a point or reiterate on the points

42:02 about increasing millage or anything to the taxpayers.

42:06 It’s not our responsibility to pay for your folly. Two attorneys

42:10 to represent a board should be sufficient.

42:13 And if we have to look outside of the capable attorneys that you

42:13 have now, then you need to know why.

42:21 And I think the taxpayer deserves to know exactly how many

42:25 lawsuits are against the board right now and what these lawsuits

42:29 are currently costing us.

42:31 I personally don’t know. I only know of one, and that is Sophia’s

42:36 lawsuit that I’m very familiar with.

42:40 Taxpayers are tapped out. We’re paying four dollars plus and it

42:44 could go higher in gas, food, housing, everything. We are not

42:49 going to pay for your mistakes.

42:51 So I hope you guys are able to find the funding someplace else,

42:55 because I don’t think you’ll get anything approved by the

42:58 taxpayers in regards to any types of millage hikes or tax

43:02 increases.

43:03 Thank you. Thank you, Miss Haynes. All right. That concludes our

43:07 public comments on agenda items. We thank you for your

43:11 willingness to address us in this public manner.

43:13 That’s going to move us into the consent agenda. Dr. Mullins.

43:16 There are 20 agenda items under the consent agenda.

43:20 Does any board member wish to pull any item from the consent

43:33 agenda? After we have a motion to approve the consent.

43:43 Then I will entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as

43:39 presented.

43:40 Moved by Ms. McDougall, seconded by Ms. Campbell, is there any

43:44 discussion?

43:44 Yes, please.

43:45 Ms. Campbell.

43:46 Mr. Gibbs, there was a conversation last time we had a contract,

43:50 a legal counsel, and then

43:51 we had it again tonight.

43:52 I think there’s some confusion.

43:54 It’s my understanding, and I’m going to ask you questions that I

43:57 already know the answer

43:58 to.

43:59 Is BPS always utilized outside counsel for different purposes?

44:04 Yes.

44:05 Some of those purposes would be sometimes we have employees who

44:08 have to have their wages

44:09 garnished, and we have to have counsel handled.

44:11 I usually file the wage garnishment.

44:13 Right, but can you give us some of the things that typically

44:15 year-to-year, outside of this

44:17 year or last year, that we use outside counsel for?

44:20 Just a short list.

44:22 Car accidents for tort purposes.

44:24 We have kids get injured at schools.

44:26 We have tort lawyers handle those issues.

44:28 We have a labor and employment counsel who handle union issues,

44:31 because I’m conflicted

44:32 out on bargaining issues.

44:34 ESE.

44:36 We have ESE counsel that specializes in ESE law in Florida, so

44:41 those counsels are there.

44:43 That’s Sniff and Spellman, our attorney.

44:45 They’re in Orlando.

44:47 You have other counsels.

44:49 If teachers get into trouble and it’s part of their job duties

44:52 and they get sued by somebody,

44:53 we provide representation to them.

44:55 I cannot provide that representation to them, it’s a conflict,

44:58 so we have different issues

44:59 that arise throughout the year.

45:01 We used to do engagement letters.

45:04 They were handled through engagement letters with the district,

45:06 and I am bringing all of

45:07 those in under contract so that we aren’t using engagement

45:10 letters anymore, and there’s

45:11 formalized contract documenting who’s on the roster for

45:16 attorneys.

45:16 That’s why we’re seeing so many.

45:17 And when you say engagement letters, like you were doing every

45:19 time we needed outside

45:19 counsel, you had to do engagement letters every single time.

45:21 Every case, yes, you would have that, and then you have five

45:23 engagement letters for

45:24 five different cases that you have to track, like how much is

45:27 being spent on.

45:28 Now there’s just one contract that governs that counsel’s use of,

45:31 or the district’s use

45:32 of that counsel.

45:33 All right.

45:34 And would you say that this year we have any, I know the budget

45:38 ranges from year to year,

45:39 but would you say that we’re, our expenditures this fiscal year

45:44 are outside of the usual

45:46 in any particular way that we spend on outside counsel?

45:49 I know it’s hard to say because the year’s not over, but.

45:52 Right.

45:53 It’s probably a little up right now from year to year, but I’ve

45:56 only been here two years.

45:57 So compared to last year, we’re probably up a little bit on the

46:00 numbers, but as far as

46:01 day-to-day tort laws and things, bus accidents seem to be some

46:05 of the biggest areas that

46:06 we have.

46:07 Thank you.

46:08 Can I ask a question?

46:12 So are we up because of lawsuits about masks?

46:16 We have two pending cases on masks right now.

46:20 So yeah, one pending case, we had one that’s already closed out.

46:24 Okay.

46:25 And did we have the payout because of that?

46:30 There’s still one still active.

46:31 One was dismissed.

46:33 Okay.

46:34 And is it odd for other government entities such as county

46:38 commission to have outside

46:40 legal representation for certain matters?

46:42 No, it depends on the size.

46:44 Like some, if they have like a large in-house, then they do it

46:48 in-house.

46:49 Miami Dade schools, I think has 11 to 13 attorneys and they do

46:54 theirs in-house.

46:55 Broward has, I want to say eight to 12.

46:57 They do theirs mostly in-house.

46:59 They still farm some of theirs out.

47:01 How many do we have?

47:02 Just two right now.

47:04 Valerie’s last day is Friday, so she will no longer be here, so

47:08 it will be back to just

47:09 me.

47:10 Yes.

47:11 So I cannot do all of that litigation yet.

47:14 Thanks.

47:15 Any additional discussion?

47:17 Yeah, I think we can, one of the things you can do is, you

47:21 already have a working list

47:23 of description, worker’s comp, you know what I mean, whatever it

47:26 is, outside counsel, who

47:28 it is, and then ongoing or close.

47:30 That would help.

47:31 I don’t maintain all of those.

47:33 Like a lot of that goes through the risk management through

47:35 insurance.

47:36 So it’s actually paid through insurance the district has.

47:39 Sure.

47:40 So that would be through them.

47:41 I maintain the active litigation that comes in.

47:44 There it is.

47:45 You can get that list, just email to us, that way everybody can

47:49 see it, and that would be

47:51 good.

47:52 All right.

47:53 I know.

47:56 Relax.

47:57 Any additional discussion?

47:58 All right.

47:59 I have a motion and a second.

48:00 All in favor, please signify by saying aye.

48:01 Aye.

48:02 Any opposed?

48:03 Same sign.

48:04 Motion passes 5-0.

48:05 All right.

48:06 Now we will hold a public hearing on board policy 2605, followed

48:10 by board vote.

48:11 Is there anyone present who wishes to address board policy 2605,

48:16 research and evaluation?

48:18 Anyone present who wishes to address board policy 2605, research

48:23 and evaluation?

48:25 Ms. Delaney?

48:33 I was – I could be wrong, but I was under the assumption that

48:37 this had to go through

48:38 further board exploration.

48:43 And from the inception of this policy, none of the issues that

48:50 many of us brought forth

48:53 with this policy have been talked about from – I haven’t

48:58 personally received any correspondence.

49:02 So is the board going to work on communication with parents, and

49:07 will an opt-out be easily

49:09 accessible?

49:11 Because the website is very hard to navigate, and, you know, the

49:27 language in this policy

49:27 doesn’t say how you guys are going to communicate with parents,

49:31 just that you will.

49:32 So I guess I’m just looking for more transparency on that.

49:37 Thank you, Ms. Delaney.

49:40 Anyone else that wishes to speak to board policy 2605, research

49:44 and evaluation?

49:45 Ms. Marski.

49:46 Good evening, Madam Chair and board.

49:53 I was unaware that there were changes to the agenda item, which

49:56 I find highly unacceptable,

49:57 although I understand the board as a whole did vote on that

50:01 tonight to approve that.

50:03 By law, the public should have a week at least to look at the

50:07 agenda and speak to agenda

50:09 items.

50:10 Ms. Marski, I’m going to stop you, because there was no change

50:13 to this.

50:13 Oh, it’s on the agenda?

50:17 That’s on the – oh, thank you.

50:23 Is there anyone present who wishes to address board policy 2605,

50:26 research and evaluation?

50:27 All right.

50:28 Then I will entertain a motion.

50:29 Move to approve.

50:30 Move by Ms. Jenkins.

50:31 Seconded by Ms. McDougall.

50:32 Is there any discussion?

50:33 All in favor, please signify by saying aye.

50:34 Aye.

50:35 Any opposed?

50:36 Same sign.

50:37 Motion passes 5-0.

50:38 Ms. Campbell.

50:39 Just along with each policy, there’s administrative procedures,

50:45 so people can look it up, and

50:47 there’s actually a section in the administrative procedures,

50:59 which is more of the how, whereas

51:01 the policy is the what, that describes parent notification if

51:05 they’re students, and so all

51:07 of that is in there.

51:08 I encourage people to look at our policy and procedures page,

51:11 and you can look at the administrative

51:13 procedures associated with the policy.

51:14 Maybe that will help clear things up.

51:15 Thank you, Ms. Campbell.

51:16 Thank you.

51:17 Dr. Mullensby, please let us know about the item under the

51:19 action portion of tonight’s

51:21 agenda.

51:22 Yes, ma’am.

51:23 Tonight’s action item is to approve procurement solicitations.

51:26 Do I have a motion?

51:28 Move to approve.

51:29 Second.

51:30 Move by Mr. Susan.

51:31 Seconded by Ms. Campbell.

51:32 Is there any discussion?

51:33 All in favor, please signify by saying aye.

51:35 Aye.

51:36 Any opposed?

51:37 Same sign.

51:38 Motion passes 5-0.

51:39 We’ll move on to the information agenda, which includes items

51:42 for board review and may be

51:43 brought back for action at a subsequent meeting.

51:45 No action will be taken on these items tonight, Dr. Mullens.

51:49 There is one item under the information category.

51:51 Does any member wish to discuss this item?

51:54 Okay.

51:55 We are now at board member reports and discussion points.

51:59 One item was added to the agenda, which is board policy 2521.

52:03 Do any other board members have information to report or discuss

52:07 in this section?

52:08 I have two little things.

52:10 You have two?

52:11 Take a listen to me.

52:12 And Ms. Campbell has one.

52:13 Yep.

52:14 Okay.

52:15 So I’m going to go ahead and get started with 2521.

52:18 So this is our policy with regard to removal of books.

52:28 And we have a bit of a situation, I guess you could call it,

52:32 because our current policy

52:35 really only speaks to a request for one book to be removed from

52:40 one library.

52:41 And so it doesn’t speak to the current situation that we’re

52:47 facing.

52:48 So I asked Dr. Mullens to kind of give us a rundown on what the

52:53 challenges are so that

52:55 the board can kind of give some direction as to where we need to

52:58 go from here.

52:59 Dr. Mullens, do you want to take it from there?

53:01 Sure.

53:02 Thank you, Mrs. Belford.

53:04 So I know the board is aware that there has been a constituent

53:08 that has presented books

53:09 for consideration to be removed from libraries in the schools

53:14 that they happen to be at.

53:16 Our current policy, 2521, is written around a book by a parent

53:24 at a school and does not

53:27 facilitate a process by which a list of books is reviewed.

53:31 As you’re aware, the review process is quite extensive involving

53:36 committees, first at the

53:37 school level, if it doesn’t pass the informal process according

53:44 to policy.

53:45 It then can be appealed to a district process.

53:50 Given our current situation, I didn’t want the board to believe

53:55 staff was able to proceed

53:57 with following board policy when, in fact, the current situation

54:00 doesn’t align with board

54:02 policy.

54:03 So asking the board to clarify, there’s kind of a fork in the

54:09 road, do we respond to our

54:11 constituent to follow the current board policy, which would

54:16 require submitting a book challenge

54:20 form for each book at each school that book may be at, which

54:25 would then initiate several

54:27 different book review committees across schools, potentially

54:32 leading to appeal processes to

54:35 district committees, or would the board want to take time to

54:42 review or amend the current

54:45 board policy?

54:46 Of course, there is the board-required time period, hearing

54:50 requirements, and so on that

54:52 that would require, and talking with Mr. Gibbs, it’s

54:56 approximately a 90-day timeline to amend

54:59 board policy, just as a reminder.

55:04 Interestingly, prior to this morning, NEOLA did not have policy

55:11 suggestions or a template

55:13 for us to consider to accommodate a different process than what

55:18 we already have, but just

55:20 literally this morning, we received an update from NEOLA that

55:23 they have provided some language,

55:26 it provides some adaptation to our current policy that would

55:32 prompt us to look at maybe

55:34 an alternate process if there is multiple books that are asking

55:39 to be reviewed and to

55:40 be potentially removed from all school media centers.

55:44 So I’m happy to answer any questions that I can, but really any

55:49 direction from the board,

55:52 do you want to stay with the current policy as it is written, or

55:56 do you want to consider

55:57 amending, and I can work with staff to bring forward a red line

56:04 version as soon as possible.

56:06 Dr. Mullins, would you also, I don’t know if the board members

56:11 are aware of the process

56:12 for parents to request that students not have access?

56:16 Yes.

56:17 Currently, and has been in place, parents right now can contact

56:22 their child’s school

56:23 and request that any book in the media center, currently in the

56:28 media center, be flagged

56:30 on their student’s checkout account, and they not have the

56:34 opportunity to check that book

56:35 out.

56:36 The only exception is we have an online book access system that

56:42 doesn’t go through the

56:44 media specialist, but a parent can request that their student

56:47 not have access to the

56:48 e-books as well, but we can’t flag individual books through the

56:55 e-system, and the e-system

56:58 includes the public library system as well.

57:01 So parents need to understand that they would need to monitor

57:03 their child’s access to the

57:04 public library system books also.

57:09 But again, parents can right now very simply notify the media

57:13 specialist at their child’s

57:15 school that they want to have a book, a genre, or an author not

57:20 made available to their student

57:22 for checkout through the media center, and if parents are not

57:27 aware of who their media

57:28 specialist, they can send an e-mail to the principal, and the

57:31 principal certainly will

57:32 forward that to the media specialist and make sure that that’s

57:34 addressed or taken care of.

57:36 Thank you, Dr. Mullins, and board members, I ask to have that

57:39 shared, because I didn’t

57:41 know if everyone was familiar with that process, not to suggest

57:44 that that’s the end-all be-all

57:46 solution, but I think that we have to factor all of it in as far

57:49 as the direction we’re

57:50 going to have to go, so who would like to speak?

57:55 Anyone?

57:56 Yeah.

57:58 So I would like to do whatever takes the least amount of time

58:02 and effort of our staff.

58:05 I think we’ve already spent too much time on this.

58:07 I think this is crazy.

58:10 I don’t know if we just got libraries in our schools over the

58:12 past 12 months, but there

58:14 was a person who sat on this board for four years who didn’t

58:16 have a problem with a library

58:17 book, who all of a sudden has an organization with no kids in

58:19 our public school that has

58:21 a problem with the library book.

58:24 It’s a complete and utter waste of our time.

58:32 The same people who come here and complain about that that are

58:34 emailing us these books

58:35 and these lists of books that they claim to have reviewed, 20

58:39 books in 12 days, claim

58:40 that this isn’t about a ban of books, so this isn’t a political

58:45 agenda, but if that wasn’t

58:46 the case, then we’d be a little bit more transparent, and

58:48 instead of making broad general statements

58:50 that these horrific pornographic books are accessible to

58:52 students, we’d have realistic

58:54 conversations that these are only available in our high schools

58:57 for our high school students

58:58 for the ages that are recommended for those books.

59:02 You can choose to not have your child read it.

59:05 If you feel so strongly about that, then I also feel strongly

59:08 about taking cell phones

59:09 away from your children the second they hit our campus.

59:11 They got access to TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook, YouTube.

59:15 If you’re cool with them having that, I’m not worried about them

59:20 reading a chapter book.

59:22 We’re so worried about parental involvement, parental discretion.

59:27 I’m all for it.

59:28 I’m with you.

59:29 Open up a backpack.

59:30 Have a conversation with your kid.

59:31 Ask them what book they checked out of the library.

59:33 Instead of forming an adult book group where you read about

59:37 young adult novels, maybe you

59:40 can sit alongside your child and read that same novel with them

59:43 and have a conversation,

59:44 or you can just opt them out of it.

59:47 You do not get to wear a shirt with the word liberty on it while

59:50 you’re practicing and

59:51 advocating censorship and you don’t get to do it for anybody

59:54 else’s children.

59:55 I don’t care, Mr. Susan.

59:57 You can huff and puff all you want.

59:58 No, I have one last thing to say.

1:00:00 I want to do whatever is the least amount of time and effort of

1:00:05 our staff because we

1:00:07 are so distracted by ridiculous political conversations.

1:00:13 You know who’s not reading these books?

1:00:15 Over 60% of our black students who are reading below grade level.

1:00:18 Can we focus our time and effort on things that actually matter

1:00:22 to our students in Brevard

1:00:24 Public Schools to complete and utter waste of time, complete and

1:00:28 utter waste of time?

1:00:29 Thank you, Ms. Jenkins.

1:00:32 I’ll go next.

1:00:33 Ms. Campbell?

1:00:37 I would suggest that Florida Statute is not a complete and utter

1:00:41 waste of time or ridiculousness.

1:00:44 I am still not going to read it, but I’m going to say the

1:00:47 statute again, Florida Statute

1:00:49 847.012, but I’m going to read part of it because it’s not just

1:00:54 about things that are

1:00:55 graphic or picture-wide.

1:00:57 It also says explicit and detailed verbal descriptions or

1:01:00 narrative accounts of all

1:01:02 these things that I can’t read in our…

1:01:04 All right, no, not all of them have, and that is harmful to

1:01:08 minors.

1:01:09 No.

1:01:10 I just looked up one today.

1:01:11 It was published in 2019.

1:01:12 Hold on.

1:01:13 I’m going to interrupt you both.

1:01:14 Thanks.

1:01:15 And I’m just going to ask that we not interrupt each other.

1:01:17 Okay?

1:01:18 Ms. Campbell?

1:01:19 And again, Section 5 specifically relates to us.

1:01:22 It means you can have it in a public library, you can have it in

1:01:24 your phone, but it says

1:01:25 an adult may not knowingly distribute to a minor on school

1:01:29 property or post on school

1:01:30 property any material described in Subsection 3, the part

1:01:33 everybody can go read at home

1:01:35 by themselves, as used in the subsection, and it talks about

1:01:38 what school property means.

1:01:39 It does not apply to the distribution or posting of school-approved

1:01:43 instructional materials

1:01:44 that, this is important, by design serve as a major tool for

1:01:49 assisting in the instruction

1:01:51 of a subject or course by school officers and all the other

1:01:56 people.

1:01:57 I took the time to read through the excerpts.

1:02:01 Now, I mean, I agree with every single book on every single list

1:02:03 that it’s something that

1:02:04 we need to look at, but there are some that right now, Dr. Mullins,

1:02:08 if you’re asking

1:02:08 for art, there are some right now that I don’t think we need to

1:02:11 wait until we get a policy

1:02:12 revised.

1:02:13 We had a book that we pulled off the shelf in the fall because

1:02:16 it was clearly in violation

1:02:18 of statute and our policy.

1:02:20 I also want to take as little time as possible getting this done

1:02:24 because I don’t think we

1:02:25 need to wait 90 days before we start doing something.

1:02:27 My preference would be, when we revised this policy last time,

1:02:30 we actually almost cut this

1:02:32 part out of doing the school review, and I asked specifically, “Can

1:02:34 we put that part

1:02:35 back in?” and we did.

1:02:38 Because we had school by school, I think we need to adjust the

1:02:41 policy so that when we

1:02:42 have cases like this, we can go ahead and do it at district

1:02:44 level because, like Dr.

1:02:46 Mullins said, it could very likely at school level, if it gets

1:02:49 rejected, then we have to

1:02:51 go school to school to school or it gets appealed to the

1:02:53 district and we’re going to have to

1:02:55 do it anyway.

1:02:56 I’d like to do it quickly, but I think that we have a prerogative

1:02:59 as a board, and Mr.

1:03:01 Gibson, correct me if I’m wrong, to go ahead and say, “Yes, let’s

1:03:03 go through the policy

1:03:04 revision process.”

1:03:05 So we have a method to deal with district-wide book reviews, but

1:03:11 also as a board, I would

1:03:13 suggest that we say, “Go ahead and start that process now,

1:03:16 whatever the process looks like,

1:03:18 and let’s start doing it even before we get the process in place,

1:03:22 before we get the policy

1:03:23 revised.”

1:03:24 That would be my request, is that we go ahead and start the

1:03:27 process so that we’re not revising

1:03:29 the policy over the next handful of board meetings and then

1:03:34 starting the committees

1:03:36 and whatever because there were, just to be honest, my eyeballs

1:03:43 and my conscience was

1:03:45 seared from reading some of the things that I was reading, and I

1:03:48 didn’t see much academic

1:03:50 thinking serves as a major tool, and I understand about what

1:03:53 people are exposed to other places,

1:03:56 and sometimes they’re even exposed to it in our classrooms, but

1:04:00 not only in this statute,

1:04:02 but in other statutes, it is listed that school boards, part of

1:04:05 our responsibility is to provide

1:04:07 the materials, and they refer back to this specific policy.

1:04:10 We cannot provide materials that are described in this statute,

1:04:16 and it’s all over, and 847.001

1:04:19 is a, if you need a more, the Florida definition of pornography,

1:04:24 it’s there.

1:04:25 We cannot offer that.

1:04:27 Public library is fine, and listen, I have three teenagers, and

1:04:29 I know what a minefield

1:04:30 it is to manage the YA section at a library, and I’m sitting on

1:04:34 there on my apps trying

1:04:35 to look up books just as fast as my kids can pull them off the

1:04:39 shelf.

1:04:39 I can’t read as fast as my kids and don’t have as much time,

1:04:42 well, I can read as fast

1:04:44 as them, but I don’t have enough time.

1:04:45 I can’t get through books as fast as they can, and, you know,

1:04:48 when they were little

1:04:49 I kept up, and I, you know, I had those conversations with my

1:04:54 kids.

1:04:55 And sometimes, you know, my kids have come to me and said, “Hey,

1:04:58 Mom, I’m giving this

1:04:59 book back to you because it has some stuff in here that’s not

1:05:03 very cool,” but you

1:05:04 know what?

1:05:05 That’s not the case for every family, and that was stuff not

1:05:08 from our school libraries

1:05:09 from the public library, but we do have, I feel very serious

1:05:12 about it, and it’s not

1:05:14 about politics, it is about our responsibility under the law to

1:05:18 make sure that what we’re

1:05:20 providing in our school libraries follows the law and is

1:05:25 responsible.

1:05:26 And we’re entrusted with people’s kids, our parents are trusting

1:05:30 us, and our trust

1:05:31 is being broken right and left.

1:05:34 And I think with this one we can hold on when the statute’s

1:05:36 pretty clear, and I, you know,

1:05:38 to quote the famous old, you know, Supreme Court justice who

1:05:41 said, you know, “I can’t

1:05:43 give you a description of pornography, but I know it when I see

1:05:46 it,” and I’m telling

1:05:47 you what, I saw it.

1:05:49 So I, again, my suggestion would be that we go ahead and start

1:05:53 the revision process so

1:05:55 we can get a district-wide review in place, but I would, if we

1:05:59 can, as a board, say, to

1:06:00 go ahead and start moving in that direction before we get the

1:06:03 policy, you know, in place,

1:06:05 I would like to do that.

1:06:06 Thank you, Ms. Campbell.

1:06:07 Mr. Susan, do you support Ms. Campbell?

1:06:13 Yeah, there’s no sense of any more support.

1:06:19 I just want to say I would like it to be, I believe we do need

1:06:23 to amend it, and I need

1:06:25 to do it, and I think we need to do it in a way that we are not

1:06:28 tying up our staff forever.

1:06:29 They’re already overworked.

1:06:31 We heard from Mr. Colucci, people are stretched to the limit.

1:06:35 I think we need to, I’m curious to look at Neola’s new revision.

1:06:40 I’m very curious about that, so I would like us to get started

1:06:44 on a revision, if we can.

1:06:47 And just food for thought, I think, you know what she said, Ms.

1:06:50 Campbell, about the famous

1:06:52 quote of the Supreme Court Justice, who said, you know, “I can’t

1:06:54 give you a definition,

1:06:56 but I know it when I see it,” and I think it is different for

1:07:00 different people.

1:07:01 I think that’s what I think we will probably agree to disagree,

1:07:05 but I think it’s different

1:07:07 for different people of what they believe that is pornographic

1:07:10 or upsetting to them.

1:07:15 Thank you, Ms. McDougall.

1:07:16 Ms. Campbell, Ms. Belfort, I think, so what I’m hearing

1:07:19 everybody say is that we want

1:07:20 to do less work on staff, which would mean that moving to the

1:07:25 district level for, instead

1:07:27 of having 100 schools protesting and all that other stuff and

1:07:30 going through the review process.

1:07:32 There’s a question I had, though, is that do you have to be a

1:07:34 parent of the school in

1:07:35 order to make that motion?

1:07:37 You do, right?

1:07:38 So, if there’s a – Yeah, I’ll just go real quick.

1:07:42 First off, there was some discussion about the Viera High track.

1:07:45 I appreciate the sentiments that were there.

1:07:48 Rockledge was actually placed first last year to go through, and

1:07:52 it actually has increased

1:07:53 costs by almost three times as much to do the project, so they’re

1:07:56 working on that ahead

1:07:58 of time.

1:07:59 So, those are already in the process, it’s already been paid for,

1:08:02 there’s already turning

1:08:03 dirt.

1:08:04 So, I hear you as far as because a lot of our – that was the

1:08:06 big thing that I was trying

1:08:07 to do years ago was Rockledge needs a track, so I appreciate

1:08:09 that, but I did want to let

1:08:10 you know that the Rockledge High School’s track underway, Vieras

1:08:15 won’t start until the

1:08:17 beginning of next year or something like that, so.

1:08:20 What’s that?

1:08:21 Yeah, so there’s a phased out system.

1:08:25 The other thing I wanted to do real quick is to let everybody

1:08:28 know that there was a

1:08:29 lot – I mean, it was the weirdest thing, I was getting a lot of

1:08:31 calls on the Viera

1:08:32 Middle School asking me questions about what’s happening, even

1:08:35 though we had only discussed

1:08:37 it today.

1:08:38 So, I just want to take a second and let everybody know that we

1:08:40 had a workshop today talking

1:08:41 about moving forward with the Viera Middle School, we’re trying

1:08:43 to figure out the funding

1:08:44 to try to open it in August of 2024, most – more than likely it’ll

1:08:47 be next door to

1:08:48 Viera High School, and the intent for the school district is –

1:08:51 and school board is

1:08:52 to open it as quickly as we can, no earlier than August of ‘24,

1:08:57 no later than August

1:08:58 of ‘25.

1:08:59 So, I just wanted to kind of give that outlook right there real

1:09:02 quick.

1:09:02 And then also, I just wanted to let everybody know, I’m going to

1:09:04 put together a group of

1:09:06 bipartisan, both sides, groups of parents to advise on a

1:09:09 multitude of different topics.

1:09:12 So, I’m going to put together athletics, discipline, all these

1:09:15 other pieces to listen to what their

1:09:17 concerns are, and work with them.

1:09:19 It’s just going to be people inside of my district on both sides.

1:09:21 I’ve reached out to all the groups, I’ve asked them to be a part

1:09:24 of it, and just to kind

1:09:26 of work with me.

1:09:27 So, if you see that, you understand what it is.

1:09:29 That’s it.

1:09:30 » Thank you, Mr. Peterson.

1:09:31 Campbell?

1:09:32 » Thank you.

1:09:33 And I’m sorry for not putting on the discussion before I was

1:09:36 trying to find a place, I was

1:09:37 hoping this afternoon’s workshop wouldn’t have been a place, but

1:09:40 we went long.

1:09:41 It was good discussion, but we went long.

1:09:44 I wanted to toss out an idea for policy 0169.1, our public

1:09:49 participation policy that we just

1:09:51 revised a couple times in the fall.

1:09:53 But now that we’ve had a couple months of having it how it is,

1:09:57 and we’ve had, you know,

1:10:01 the ire of different people focused at all of us at some point

1:10:04 or another in the last

1:10:05 few months, we are agenda, non-agenda.

1:10:11 I’m just sharing what I’ve seen, I think it’s working well and

1:10:14 what I think could be improved

1:10:15 on.

1:10:16 I think it’s still a good idea.

1:10:17 I like, you know, having it split so we can focus on the agenda

1:10:20 and not lose track of

1:10:22 what we’re going to be voting on that night in our business,

1:10:24 which is why we’re here.

1:10:25 We can do that at the beginning and non-agenda at the end.

1:10:30 But I’d like us to consider making a change to our non-agenda

1:10:35 time frame to mirror the

1:10:38 graduated time frame that we have for the agenda items with one

1:10:42 exception.

1:10:43 So for example, if we have, you know, the same thing, one to ten

1:10:49 non-agenda speakers,

1:10:51 three minutes, two to 22 minutes, you know, over 20, one minute,

1:10:55 back to one minute, with

1:10:57 the exception that the non-agenda would never get more than the

1:11:01 agenda.

1:11:01 So for example, if we have 12 people speaking on the agenda but

1:11:06 only five on the non-agenda,

1:11:08 the 12 would only get two minutes each, well then the non-agenda

1:11:11 also only gets two minutes.

1:11:12 They’re not going to get more than the agenda speakers.

1:11:13 So that’s why I wanted to toss that out there.

1:11:15 Just to, I kind of went back and tracked the last six meetings

1:11:20 that we’ve had since we

1:11:22 passed the policy.

1:11:23 We’ve had anywhere from three to ten agenda speakers, so every

1:11:27 time we’ve had the three

1:11:29 minutes on the agenda, we’ve had anywhere from five to 12 on the

1:11:34 non-agenda.

1:11:36 So some of them would have had, you know, in the fight with my

1:11:39 proposal, either have

1:11:40 had three minutes or two minutes for that.

1:11:43 So I think it would be a reasonable time amount, but you know,

1:11:47 we’ve had students, we’ve had

1:11:49 bus drivers, we’ve had other staff, we’ve had parents and

1:11:52 community members as well.

1:11:54 But just wanted to toss that out there to see, you know, as we

1:11:58 have gone through, if

1:11:59 there is any movement to make an adjustment.

1:12:01 You know, we said when we passed this, or I said when we passed

1:12:04 this, that none of our

1:12:05 policies are written in stone, they can all be revised, we

1:12:08 talked about revising one tonight.

1:12:10 So if anyone’s interested in that, and if you want to just think

1:12:14 about it and come back,

1:12:15 you know, if you want it for a while before you weigh in, but I

1:12:18 wanted to throw that idea

1:12:19 out there, just to leave everything else the same.

1:12:22 And I’ve already talked to Mr. Gibbs and Dr. Mullins, I mean, it’s

1:12:24 really our policy, but

1:12:26 I talked to Mr. Gibbs about it too, to see what he thought about

1:12:29 it, but as long as it

1:12:30 was very clear, again, to not, you know, our non-agenda servers

1:12:35 not to have more time than

1:12:37 this.

1:12:38 Maybe a–

1:12:39 I like it.

1:12:40 I’m sorry, Madam Chair.

1:12:41 I’m not asking you.

1:12:42 Okay.

1:12:43 I like it.

1:12:44 I’ll tell you where my heart went was when we had the bus

1:12:48 drivers that were on non-agenda,

1:12:51 they were coming in.

1:12:52 I wonder if there’s a way, if the board doesn’t want to move in

1:12:56 that direction, to allow our

1:12:58 employees some time to explain, because sometimes one minute

1:13:02 over a situation like what they

1:13:04 were dealing with might need a little bit of extra time.

1:13:07 And so any employee engagement situations, maybe we give them

1:13:11 the time.

1:13:12 So I love what you’re doing, but if the board doesn’t have

1:13:15 appetite to do that, I would

1:13:16 love to fall back on allowing employees that opportunity.

1:13:19 That’s all.

1:13:20 Well, you had mentioned something about that before, and I did

1:13:22 consider that.

1:13:23 The hard part about that for me is to decide which group of

1:13:28 stakeholders’ voice matters

1:13:29 most.

1:13:30 And that’s, you know–

1:13:31 I’m just trying to get some extra–

1:13:33 Because then I would like, okay, well, what about the students

1:13:34 when they come, because

1:13:35 we want to hear from the students.

1:13:36 What about– but then we’re, you know, we’re picking and

1:13:38 choosing, and that’s a really

1:13:40 hard decision for me.

1:13:41 If we can get where you’re going, I love it.

1:13:43 If we couldn’t, I was trying to get anything I could to give

1:13:46 people extra time.

1:13:47 That’s all.

1:13:48 Anybody else want to weigh in?

1:13:52 Yeah.

1:13:53 I don’t care.

1:13:54 I support it.

1:13:55 I’ve said it from day one.

1:13:56 It doesn’t make a difference.

1:13:57 I don’t know why we’re making a difference between the two.

1:13:58 We’re going to rank the first part.

1:13:59 We should just rank the second part.

1:14:00 It doesn’t matter.

1:14:01 So I like your clause that it shouldn’t be longer than the

1:14:04 agenda, because that doesn’t

1:14:07 make any sense for being penalized talking about the agenda if

1:14:09 there’s extra people.

1:14:11 I don’t mind.

1:14:12 Anybody else?

1:14:13 You’re fine either way.

1:14:22 Okay.

1:14:25 So it looks like you have majority consensus for the

1:14:29 recommendation.

1:14:30 So I’m hearing then that we need to ask Mr. Gibbs to– once

1:14:33 again, you’ll need to work

1:14:35 with Mr. Gibbs on language on the policy and then bring it

1:14:36 before the board for a work

1:14:37 session.

1:14:38 Thank you.

1:14:39 Appreciate that.

1:14:40 Okay.

1:14:41 All right.

1:14:42 So let’s move on to the next before we move into our non-agenda

1:14:49 speakers.

1:14:50 Okay.

1:14:51 Oh, I didn’t ask you, Dr. Mullins, did you have anything else to

1:14:56 add?

1:14:56 Sorry.

1:14:57 No, ma’am.

1:14:58 I’m fine.

1:14:59 Thank you.

1:15:00 Didn’t mean to skip over you there.

1:15:01 All right.

1:15:02 We’ll now hear the remaining speakers who signed up to comment

1:15:03 on non-agenda items.

1:15:04 Each speaker is limited to one minute.

1:15:06 We have a clock in front of me to help you keep track of your

1:15:08 time.

1:15:08 When your time is over, you’ll be asked to stop and allow the

1:15:10 next speaker his or her

1:15:11 turn.

1:15:12 We’ll hear from the speakers in the order in which they signed

1:15:14 up, including those who

1:15:15 may be waiting outside, but I don’t think we have anyone outside

1:15:18 tonight.

1:15:19 As stated earlier, reasonable decorum is expected at all times,

1:15:21 and your statement should be

1:15:22 directed to the board chair.

1:15:24 Should audience participation interfere with speakers being

1:15:26 heard or hearing me, I’ll be

1:15:27 forced to clear the room.

1:15:29 When I call your name, please line up along the east wall of the

1:15:31 boardroom to facilitate

1:15:32 the smooth transition of speakers.

1:15:34 We’ll begin with our first three speakers, Mr. David Meter,

1:15:37 Sebastian Cook, and Katie

1:15:38 Delaney.

1:15:39 Mr. Meter, whenever you are ready, sir.

1:15:45 Good evening.

1:15:51 The current school board policy allows students to choose which

1:16:02 bathroom, locker room to enter

1:16:05 based on what gender they feel that they are.

1:16:08 This policy must be followed by school personnel or face

1:16:13 disciplinary action.

1:16:15 An outstanding educator named Matt Woodside opposes this on the

1:16:20 grounds of safety for

1:16:21 all students, trans or not.

1:16:25 Because of this, he and any other educator can be disciplined if

1:16:29 they do not follow this

1:16:30 terrible policy.

1:16:32 So until the policy can be changed, parents need to be notified

1:16:38 when this situation takes

1:16:40 place on campus.

1:16:42 This is to protect all students and educators.

1:16:46 Thank you.

1:16:47 Thank you, Mr. Meter.

1:16:50 Sebastian Cook.

1:16:51 Good evening.

1:16:52 My name is Sebastian Cook.

1:16:53 Before I get started with the speech that I wrote, I would just

1:17:00 like to say that I’m

1:17:02 myself.

1:17:03 I’m trans and I don’t really understand why everybody is so

1:17:06 concerned as to where I pee.

1:17:08 But anyway, I am an openly LGBTQ student at my high and I have

1:17:13 been faced with a lot of

1:17:15 hate and harassment.

1:17:16 I get called slurs in the hallway.

1:17:18 I get yelled at in the parking lot by other students and

1:17:20 continue to have teachers that

1:17:21 showed their disagreement and disrespect towards me.

1:17:25 I’m not the only student who faces this.

1:17:27 Every day, LGBTQ students in Brevard are harassed and face

1:17:30 constant homophobia in the hallways

1:17:31 classrooms and everywhere else on campus.

1:17:34 Caring about your students means caring for all of them, not

1:17:36 just the straight cisgender.

1:17:39 Statistics show that just one supporting adult in an LGBTQ youth

1:17:43 life reduces their risk

1:17:44 of suicide by 40 percent.

1:17:46 So please show us that you care about us and help in schools

1:17:49 because we deserve to exist

1:17:50 safe.

1:17:51 Thank you.

1:17:52 Thanks, Sebastian.

1:17:53 As Mr. Laney’s approaching, the next three speakers will be

1:17:56 Matthew Woodside, Nancy Reagan

1:17:57 and Karen Colby.

1:17:59 Good evening.

1:18:01 I’m here to speak about public trust.

1:18:04 I want to thank Ms. Campbell for requesting that the public

1:18:11 comment policy be amended.

1:18:13 I think that’s great and a great first step to healing public

1:18:18 trust, so thank you for

1:18:20 that.

1:18:21 Today I learned that BPS has 380 something million dollars in

1:18:30 debt, and the reason why

1:18:33 we bring up things like the cars and the legal fees and the this

1:18:36 and the that is because

1:18:37 of the lack of transparency.

1:18:39 And with that mountain of debt that was caused more than a

1:18:44 decade ago, we’re still paying

1:18:46 for it.

1:18:47 We will be paying for it, and if we are not responsible with our

1:18:51 funds, our grandkids

1:18:52 and so on, we just want transparency.

1:18:55 We need a forensic audit of the budget.

1:18:57 Please.

1:18:58 Thank you.

1:18:59 Thank you, Mr. Laney.

1:19:00 Matthew Woodside.

1:19:01 Good evening, my name is Matthew Woodside, and as an educator, I

1:19:13 spoke last month to

1:19:14 inform parents and the community that students are daily using

1:19:16 restrooms and locker rooms

1:19:17 of the opposite sex across our district and teachers are

1:19:20 required to allow it under threat

1:19:21 of discipline.

1:19:22 Today, I appeal to this board and to lawmakers that until this

1:19:25 dangerous policy is corrected,

1:19:27 you institute a new policy requiring schools to notify parents

1:19:30 when this specifically takes

1:19:31 place on their child’s campus during COVID.

1:19:33 An email was sent to all parents when a student and their child’s

1:19:36 school tested positive,

1:19:37 affording parents their right to make an educated decision as to

1:19:40 whether they felt safe to send

1:19:41 their child to school, yet students across this district are

1:19:44 daily changing their clothes

1:19:45 in front of the opposite sex without parent notification.

1:19:48 This district’s policies are actively violating the safety of

1:19:50 our students, and its lack of

1:19:51 transparency is violating the trust of our parents.

1:19:54 Parents deserve to know when these harmful practices are taking

1:19:56 place on their child’s

1:19:57 campus so they can once again make an educated decision as to

1:20:00 whether Brevard Public Schools

1:20:01 is a safe place to send their child, and I spoke at length this

1:20:04 morning to Representative

1:20:05 Randy Fine, and he’s on board.

1:20:07 Thank you.

1:20:08 Thank you, Mr. Woodside.

1:20:09 Nancy Reagan.

1:20:10 Good evening.

1:20:11 If the district was unaware that Agricultural Commissioner Nikki

1:20:19 Fried was coming to a school

1:20:22 board meeting in February, many people attending the meeting

1:20:25 certainly knew she was coming.

1:20:27 Now, I welcome any elected official to participate in our

1:20:30 meetings, however, there were bus drivers

1:20:32 outside of the building who needed to address the board and did

1:20:36 not get a chance to, due

1:20:38 to those that were here to see Nikki Fried.

1:20:40 This is why we need to redo the public input policy so everyone

1:20:43 has a chance to have their

1:20:45 voices heard, especially with something as important as our bus

1:20:49 drivers.

1:20:49 I had the privilege in Tallahassee to speak to State

1:20:52 Representative Soroy about the medical

1:20:55 form that has gone out district-wide to parents.

1:20:58 He said it was never the intent of the Parental Bill of Rights

1:21:02 that he co-sponsored to deny

1:21:04 a child a Band-Aid or an ice pack.

1:21:07 If one of the board members could speak with me about this right

1:21:09 after the meeting tonight,

1:21:10 I would welcome that.

1:21:11 Thank you.

1:21:13 As Ms. Colby is approaching, our next three speakers will be

1:21:18 Michelle Beavers, Diane Haines,

1:21:21 and Corey McMillan.

1:21:22 Colby, whenever you’re ready.

1:21:25 Okay.

1:21:26 I’m going to wing this because I’m going to talk about the books,

1:21:30 the books and the issues

1:21:32 with the book.

1:21:34 Many years ago, and I can’t say the exact one, there was a

1:21:36 series of other books pulled

1:21:38 from the shelves.

1:21:39 Some of the names are familiar to many of us.

1:21:41 Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird, Gone with the Wind.

1:21:44 There was objectionable language in there, but there wasn’t porn.

1:21:48 There wasn’t material that talked at great length about children

1:21:51 having relations with

1:21:53 adults.

1:21:54 I’ve read a lot of those books on that list.

1:21:56 I personally will attest I would not read them out loud here

1:21:59 because people I know would

1:22:01 hear me saying these words.

1:22:03 They would visualize the things I can’t get out of my mind, the

1:22:06 worst being the one that

1:22:08 they did pulled with the cartoons in it.

1:22:10 I think that people think that we’re arguing about a moot point,

1:22:15 but if you don’t want

1:22:16 to argue a moot point, put the other books back and those

1:22:19 parents can tell their kids

1:22:20 not to take home To Kill a Mockingbird because that won all kind

1:22:24 of awards and it is a very

1:22:25 important piece of literature.

1:22:26 Thank you.

1:22:27 Thank you, ma’am.

1:22:28 Michelle Beavers?

1:22:29 My original speech went out the window.

1:22:37 The board contacted me and told me that I could opt my child out

1:22:40 of books.

1:22:41 You can’t opt your child out of seeing the books in the library,

1:22:44 they’re still there.

1:22:46 Schools are supposed to be a safe place, you’re not supposed to

1:22:48 normalize porn in schools.

1:22:49 Yes, I have a Liberty shirt on and that’s because law and

1:22:51 liberty kind of go hand in

1:22:53 hand and I’m asking you to look at the law and apply the law to

1:22:57 these books.

1:22:58 Indian River has a process where they take the books out first,

1:23:01 then they go back and

1:23:02 look at the books.

1:23:04 I’m suggesting that’s what you do.

1:23:05 Take these books out of our libraries first.

1:23:07 You know what’s in this book.

1:23:08 It talks about how to hook up with people locally with a porn

1:23:12 app, how these kids hook

1:23:14 up with other kids.

1:23:15 It tells you in the book how to do this.

1:23:17 Have you looked at this material that I’ve given you because I’ve

1:23:19 asked you over and

1:23:19 over do you want all the book report?

1:23:21 I’ve given you a snippet of that book report that obviously was

1:23:24 offensive.

1:23:24 I have an entire page or two of what’s wrong with these books.

1:23:29 Nobody in this board has asked me for that material, nobody.

1:23:33 I try to do this the right way.

1:23:35 I try to not bother your schools and not bother your principles

1:23:37 with this because your policy

1:23:39 - Thank you.

1:23:41 - Diane Haynes.

1:23:43 - Hi, good evening.

1:23:47 Yeah, could you please.

1:23:53 I had bought before this board the book Gender Queer and I was

1:23:57 assured by one of your superintendents

1:23:59 that it was a singular mistake that the book was purchased based

1:24:04 on the reviews, that it

1:24:06 was never actually looked at.

1:24:07 So it was probably stamped and passed on out into the world of

1:24:12 school age children and

1:24:13 nobody bothered to look at it to see the pornographic sexual man

1:24:18 on man sex that kids should not

1:24:21 be exposed to.

1:24:23 Moms for Liberty is trying to educate is what they’re trying to

1:24:27 do.

1:24:28 It’s not a political agenda.

1:24:29 As a parent, we are entitled to information and if you don’t

1:24:33 think what’s in these books

1:24:35 are porn, I’m going to tell you that every single meeting from

1:24:38 now on, I’m going to come

1:24:40 here and I’ve got to read the filth, the rape, the blatant

1:24:45 sexual comments in these books

1:24:48 to you all.

1:24:49 And then you tell us as a community, it’s not pornographic.

1:24:53 - Thank you Ms. Haynes.

1:24:57 The discussion of banning pornographic materials or books from

1:25:04 schools libraries is based on

1:25:05 flawed logic.

1:25:06 One person deems something pornographic or offensive to another

1:25:09 may not be to another

1:25:10 person.

1:25:11 Therefore, the definition is subjective to everyone.

1:25:13 Real question here is who is qualified to determine this?

1:25:15 I would hope no one here is arrogant enough to think that they

1:25:17 are because I definitely

1:25:18 am not.

1:25:20 By claiming material unfit for school library should be taken

1:25:22 out is the beginning of a

1:25:23 slippery slope and exits the origin of species or the rights of

1:25:27 man or Leviathan.

1:25:28 The Bible also contains genocide, rape and other things I find

1:25:31 offensive, but I don’t

1:25:33 ask the Bible to be taken out of school because you need to be

1:25:35 able to learn about it.

1:25:36 - Mr. McMillan, hold on, I’m going to stop for one second.

1:25:40 Mr. McMillan, I’m stopping your time for just a second, okay?

1:25:44 If you could keep your comments directed at me and if you all

1:25:46 could stop your comments

1:25:48 please while he’s speaking.

1:25:49 Thank you.

1:25:50 After Dr. Samuel Johnson compiled the first English dictionary,

1:25:54 he was visited by a delegation

1:25:55 of respectable ladies to congratulate him for not including any

1:25:58 indecent words.

1:25:59 His response was simply, “I congratulate you on your persistence

1:26:02 in looking them up.”

1:26:04 Finally, what this would truly cause is to shrink the diversity

1:26:07 in the libraries, not

1:26:08 diversity of sexuality or race or anything, but the diversity of

1:26:11 ideas, the only diversity

1:26:12 that truly matters.

1:26:13 - Thank you, Mr. McMillan.

1:26:14 All right, the board wishes to thank the evening speakers, your

1:26:22 willingness to speak.

1:26:23 The board is appreciated.

1:26:24 There being no further business, the meeting is adjourned.

1:26:26 Have a great night.

1:26:27 (upbeat music)