Updates on the Fight for Quality Public Education in Brevard County, FL
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3:10 Good afternoon to January 23, sorry, excuse me, January 23, 2024.
3:16 Board work session is now in order.
3:19 Paul, roll call, please.
3:20 Ms. Wright.
3:21 Present.
3:22 Mr. Trent.
3:23 Here.
3:24 Mr. Susan.
3:25 Present.
3:26 Ms. Campbell.
3:27 Here.
3:28 Ms. Jenkins.
3:29 Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.
3:36 I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
3:40 and to the republic for which it stands,
3:42 one nation under God, indivisible,
3:45 with liberty and justice for all.
3:50 Okay.
3:51 We have a couple of presentations that are going to be given
3:54 today.
3:55 I know we also have a board meeting this afternoon,
3:57 so I think to honor everyone’s time,
3:59 if we could just go ahead and establish a time-certain stopping
4:02 point for 4.30,
4:03 if that’s okay with the board, that way we’ll have a break in
4:06 between the one from one to the other.
4:08 Is everyone in favor of that?
4:09 All right.
4:10 Good.
4:11 Thank you.
4:12 Just wanted to throw that out.
4:13 All right.
4:14 So the first presentation we have is for the long-term facility
4:16 planning update.
4:17 Ms. Sue.
4:18 Good afternoon, everyone.
4:19 Thank you, Mrs. Wright.
4:21 So this is a follow-on to a workshop that we had back in
4:25 September of 2023 with Ms. Black
4:29 and Dr. Meyer talking about our criminal choice and how that
4:32 relates to utilization of our facilities,
4:34 and our recommendation at the time was to engage our planning
4:36 consultant, WXY,
4:39 to kind of do a little deeper dive into some of the drivers of
4:43 facility use, and so we have done that.
4:46 And today’s presentation, they will debrief what they have found
4:49 in their work,
4:50 and then I’ll be making some recommendations for additional work
4:52 going forward.
4:53 So with that, I’m going to turn it over to Adam Levinsky with WXY.
5:00 Thank you so much, Sue.
5:02 Adam Levinsky, partner at WXY Studio, here with Sara Lee Morrissey
5:07 of Sara Lee Morrissey Consulting.
5:09 Real pleasure to be here in person, and it’s been a pleasure to
5:13 have met with you throughout this process.
5:16 So we have a very straightforward presentation,
5:20 which is really a synthesis of the conversations that we’ve had
5:23 with the Pravarn Public School board members.
5:26 Simple enough, we interviewed each of you to discuss and
5:30 summarize short- and medium-term priorities for BPS facilities.
5:36 So what we’ve done is assembled your comments into four basic
5:42 topic areas.
5:44 There’s obviously overlap, interrelationship between them,
5:48 but we summarized the priorities we understood from you under
5:53 programming, aging facilities, utilization and enrollment, and
5:58 financing approaches.
6:00 And so what we will do, I’ll run through the first three themes,
6:04 and then I’ll turn it over to Sara Lee to talk through financing
6:07 approaches.
6:08 We’ve constructed a very basic summary of the comments that we
6:11 received from you.
6:13 We’ve kept it high level. Obviously it could have gone for quite
6:18 some time.
6:19 And we’ve categorized your comments into four basic categories.
6:24 First, not a priority or opposed; second, neutral, weak priority;
6:31 third, strong priority; and fourth, it wasn’t really discussed
6:36 on the call.
6:37 We went into this not with pointed questions but really as an
6:41 open-ended discussion to get your ideas and thoughts on
6:45 priorities.
6:46 So some members covered issues that were not covered by other
6:51 members.
6:52 So just to kick off with discussing programming, that was a key
6:58 theme.
6:59 It was discussed in many forms by all of you throughout these
7:02 calls, very interesting feedback.
7:05 And we’ll begin by talking about career and technical education.
7:10 And just as an opening category, it was very clear from all of
7:15 you that this was seen as a real strength of Brevard Public
7:20 Schools.
7:21 And that was something that we had a number of follow-up
7:25 questions around in terms of how that could be explored further.
7:30 One item that came up amongst four of you in strong agreement
7:36 that there was a desire to cite new CTE programs in repurposed
7:42 buildings.
7:44 That’s something that, as you’ll know, in some CTE programs that’s
7:48 an easy thing to accomplish.
7:50 And then in other cases where there may be more complicated
7:53 equipment, it may be a larger challenge.
7:55 But it was clear thinking that that would be important to
8:00 explore among four board members.
8:03 Now, thinking about where those CTE programs should be located,
8:08 there was a thought that those should be spread throughout the
8:11 district rather than in a centralized location.
8:14 That was a perspective shared by three of you.
8:18 And one person – it didn’t come up in that conversation. One
8:21 person didn’t have strong feelings about it one way or the other.
8:25 But clearly a lot to think about in terms of CTE programming.
8:31 We also heard from all of the board members about the ESE
8:36 programming.
8:38 I should let you know we spent most of today traveling around
8:41 the district, and we did spend significant time at Gardendale as
8:46 well, which was really important for us to see.
8:49 And so commentary we received on ESE programming, we heard clear
8:55 from all five board members that the ESE programs are lacking
9:00 and more investment is needed.
9:03 Following on from that, there was a clear desire to address
9:07 conditions at Gardendale and consider easing the pressure by
9:11 developing new campuses or a new campus, I would add, that it
9:16 could be singular or plural there.
9:19 So, yeah, really clear responses. Really important for us to
9:23 spend time there and see the work that they are doing out there.
9:27 Alternative learning centers, just to follow on from the ESE,
9:31 alternative learning center offerings should be expanded to
9:36 allow for more age-specific programming.
9:39 This is something that we heard from two of the members. It didn’t
9:42 come up, actually, in three of those conversations, but it was
9:46 prominent enough that we wanted to note it from those two
9:50 conversations.
9:52 We did ask folks about STEM and the idea of citing STEM programs
9:57 in every school. This is something that there was one person
10:02 felt like that was a very good idea.
10:05 Two people didn’t express an opinion about it. One person felt
10:10 neutrally about it, and one person was opposed to that.
10:15 And then finally, on this slide, looking at choice programming,
10:21 there was some interest expressed by two board members to open a
10:27 new choice school in the southern part of the county.
10:32 And then to follow on with a few more points on programming, we
10:36 can pause after that, and if there are questions or thoughts
10:40 about the programming slides, we can dive in a little bit.
10:45 On athletics programming, there was one board member who
10:50 expressed a strong opinion about expanding the availability and
10:55 quality of athletic programs to make Brevard Public Schools more
11:00 competitive.
11:02 That’s something that didn’t come up in those other
11:05 conversations with board members, but we wanted to relay that.
11:09 I think because on a couple of these topics, I’m like, we know
11:12 exactly who the athletics and the year-round schools, like where
11:16 those came from.
11:17 And we understand with this next point, year-round schools, that
11:20 there has been some follow-up conversation, I think maybe a
11:23 workshop on year-round schools.
11:25 So it was something that came up from one board member. The
11:29 other four board members did not at that time express an opinion
11:34 about it.
11:35 And then this last point on programmatic feeder patterns, there
11:39 was a thought that there might be different feeder patterns
11:43 across the county that may specialize, tie in with perhaps
11:48 career and technical education programs or other specific kinds
11:51 of programming.
11:53 There were three board members who thought that was a very good
11:57 idea, and two board members didn’t express an opinion on that
12:00 one way or the other.
12:02 So I will pause there and open it up for any thoughts or
12:06 questions or follow-ups on these points.
12:10 And if there are none, I can move on to the aging facilities.
12:24 I wanted to talk about facility issues related to aging
12:29 buildings, and so this first point around co-locations and repurposing,
12:37 the district should prioritize ESE and/or Alternative Learning
12:42 Center programs for co-locations.
12:45 Four people agreed that was a very good idea, and one person was
12:49 neutral about it, and just to be clear on co-locations, we didn’t
12:54 get highly specific as to what that could mean.
12:58 It could mean a school campus that has a lot of space, or it
13:02 could mean repurposing a portion of that school building.
13:06 And then the second point, underutilized facilities could offer
13:11 opportunity to expand CTE or pre-K and/or other program
13:15 offerings.
13:16 That was something that four board members felt quite strongly
13:20 about and a fifth board member didn’t express an opinion on.
13:25 And then the final point under aging facilities, looking at
13:30 closures and consolidation, considering consolidation and co-location
13:36 prior to considering closure as part of a unified, community-driven
13:41 strategy to right-size schools across the district.
13:45 All of the board members agreed that that was a good idea.
13:50 Any follow-up on these items on aging facilities?
13:56 I don’t have any. It looks like we’re pretty much in agreement,
14:00 which is good.
14:02 And so looking at utilization and enrollment, first considering
14:07 new schools, constructing a new school in the southern part of
14:12 the county or Palm Bay, potentially a K-8 school, this in some
14:18 ways may link to the discussion around a choice school in the
14:23 south county as well.
14:25 Three people were in agreement with this. Two did not express an
14:31 opinion.
14:32 And then thinking about grade configurations, this was something
14:36 that came up in all of our conversations.
14:39 Everyone had an opinion one way or the other. Considering
14:44 additional grade, K-8 schools is a worthy consideration. Two
14:51 people felt like that was a good idea. Two people were neutral
14:55 about it.
14:56 One person was opposed to the idea. And the way people were
15:01 looking at K-8 schools varied in terms of whether it related to
15:06 offerings or programs or capacity and utilization.
15:11 Additional grade 7-12 schools are worthy of consideration. Three
15:15 people felt that was a very good idea. Two people were opposed
15:22 to that.
15:23 And then thinking about colocation and repurposing, again,
15:27 linking back to the previous note about aging facilities,
15:31 consider colocation, repurposing and/or consolidation as part of
15:36 a unified community-driven strategy to right-size offerings
15:40 across the district.
15:42 All were in agreement with that as a goal.
15:46 And then finally, improving the perception of Brevard Public
15:52 Schools as a way of addressing enrollment.
15:56 This could include improved marketing of existing school
15:59 offerings, which could help drive enrollment in existing schools.
16:03 Four people discussed that or in agreement with that.
16:08 There were some really creative ideas about how to do that as
16:12 well, which we thought was very interesting.
16:15 Any questions or comments on the utilization and enrollment?
16:21 Okay. I’ll turn it over to Sara Lee.
16:24 All righty. Good afternoon.
16:29 So we did think it was important to ask you a couple of specific
16:39 questions as it related to financing your capital program.
16:48 Obviously, all of these different themes, whether we’re talking
16:48 about expanding programs, particularly ESE programs and/or
16:49 career and technical education,
16:52 whether we’re talking about taking care of our aging facilities
16:56 or building new schools, whether they be replacement schools for
17:00 the aging facilities or new schools for growth, all of those
17:05 have financial implications.
17:08 And while you may not be considered a large district by the top
17:13 ten in the country or even Florida standards, you are a large
17:18 district, and you do have a large inventory, which requires some
17:24 significant capital to manage.
17:27 So that being said, we did hear some strong opinions about debt.
17:33 You are carrying significant debt at the moment.
17:38 I was using a lot of your LCIF to repay it, and there was some
17:44 strong feelings amongst three board members that no additional
17:50 debt should be considered.
17:53 One board member did not bring up the issue or respond to a
17:56 question about additional debt, and then there was a board
18:01 member that did not have a strong feeling one way or the other
18:05 about additional debt.
18:07 And we asked a little bit about the sales tax, and we did that
18:12 because your sales tax program, as you know it today, the term
18:17 expires at the end of 2026, so certainly all of you were aware
18:22 of that, knowing that it’s a significant part of your capital
18:27 program and that a renewal was something that should be
18:32 considered.
18:33 I would like to be able to say on the record here that all board
18:39 members felt like your staff does a great job with facilities
18:45 and, in particular, managing the sales tax program, and I think
18:52 that’s an important thing to recognize.
18:57 We did, particularly because we were talking about a variety of
19:01 different issues and knowing that the term will be coming up and
19:05 you’ll be preparing a new program, we asked about how you felt
19:11 about a longer term than six years.
19:15 It’s our understanding that you’re in your third six-year term
19:20 of the sales tax, and many of you were unaware that the term of
19:25 the sales tax was something that you could consider differently
19:30 than the six years.
19:32 I think it’s important for you to know that as of not last year,
19:37 2022, 30 school districts in Florida are implementing a half-cent
19:45 sales tax program.
19:47 That’s almost half of the school districts in our state, and
19:51 that’s up considerably from 2010 when 16 school districts had a
19:55 half-cent program.
19:57 So the half-cent is important to many districts across our state,
20:02 and I would say that amongst those 30 schools, the term of the
20:07 program varies considerably.
20:09 Six years is the shortest term, but there is a school district
20:14 in the state that has implemented a 30-year term, and there are
20:19 districts that are doing 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, and then
20:26 six and 30.
20:28 So I think that’s important for you all to know. When we brought
20:33 the issue up, the question about the term, several were unaware
20:39 and weren’t really sure how they felt about it.
20:44 They thought it would need to give it more thought, and one
20:48 board member thought that that might in fact be a good idea for
20:54 consideration, with another board member having no thought or no
20:58 current opinion on the question.
21:02 And then lastly, your sales tax program has to date been focused
21:08 on renovations, a lot of system replacement issues.
21:14 And there was a question and discussion about whether or not
21:18 your sales tax could be considered for something beyond that,
21:22 and you can see that three of you thought that that was
21:26 something that should be considered in particular as you look at
21:30 new school construction,
21:32 whether or not that’s new capacity for growth and/or new
21:39 replacement capacity for your aging facilities.
21:46 And with that, I believe we’re turning it over to Sue.
21:56 Not really a question, but just a comment on this, because this
21:59 conversation around the sales tax and the debt is going to be an
22:03 important one over the coming years as we consider.
22:06 I think just for a historical perspective, that six-year term,
22:11 especially the first year, I think was something that was kind
22:13 of negotiated down, because the public didn’t really know what
22:16 we were going to do with it.
22:18 I think if we continue to see the growth that our community is
22:21 seeing, and then the public the second time around passed it
22:25 even higher than the first time around with a pretty confident,
22:29 like a 61% passing rate,
22:31 I think that’s something that the community would understand
22:34 probably more than ever before if we were able to incorporate,
22:38 not spend the whole thing on schools, because if you talk about
22:41 that, I mean, how many schools can you build nowadays to really
22:46 help with that.
22:47 We have a choice to build new schools. We can go into debt.
22:51 Impact fees can get us so far, and we’re very thankful for them.
22:55 But you can go into debt or you can fund it with a surtax, and
22:58 considering we still have $300 million worth of debt, that’s
23:01 something we really want to think about over the next couple of
23:03 years, because those are really our options.
23:06 We don’t really have the option to not build something, and that’s
23:10 why we’re having this conversation today.
23:13 So, again, something we’re just going to really have to think
23:17 about over the next really about two years before we have to
23:20 make decisions on that.
23:22 Sorry, I think we have a little interlude there.
23:26 All right, Sue.
23:28 Thank you, and Ms. Campbell, that was a great introduction to
23:30 what I’m going to talk about, because really this work, in my
23:34 opinion, is foundational to that conversation of the 2026
23:38 renewal of the surtax.
23:39 So what is in there in terms of capital project scope all will
23:44 be fleshed out over the next year and a half or so, and so that’s
23:48 why I wanted to get started on this now so that we can determine
23:52 what we do want to do in 2026.
23:55 And this is really kind of a foundational piece for that.
23:57 So I appreciate the work that WXY did to kind of narrow this
24:00 down to what are the things that we really should be focusing on
24:04 in terms of our staff work.
24:06 And so I feel like there were four main focus areas for our work,
24:10 and these are the four that I’m going to be recommending to you.
24:14 The first is we’ve got to wrap our arms around how we serve our
24:18 ESC students and specifically how we serve the students who need
24:22 the services of a separate day school.
24:25 And so that is something that we really are going to need some
24:28 help with.
24:29 Secondly, the bullet that says strengthen cross-functional
24:32 approach to facility planning is kind of vague, and that kind of
24:36 encompasses where do we have our pre-K programs?
24:39 Where do we have our CTE programs?
24:41 What mix of space and programming is right short-term, mid-term,
24:46 long-term?
24:47 And that’s going to require a lot of analysis because we have so
24:51 many variables both on our side, and then we’re in a competitive
24:57 educational marketplace, too.
24:59 So where we are today with enrollment is also affected by
25:03 parents making choices, legislative actions, schools that other
25:08 entities are building or opening.
25:10 So there’s a lot of variables that play into these decisions,
25:13 and we’re going to have to be adaptable, and we’re going to have
25:17 to be forward thinking.
25:19 So I want to set us up for success.
25:21 And so that bullet is kind of vague and all-encompassing, but I
25:25 feel like we have a path to get there if we use our consulting
25:30 services as well as our staff to do some good data gathering
25:33 analysis and bringing back some solid proposals and alternatives
25:37 to the board.
25:38 The third bullet is a little bit more actionable.
25:41 We’ve been talking with the board about the transportation
25:43 maintenance facility at Pineapple and relocating that, and I
25:46 think we have an option that will work as well as using the site
25:52 on San Filippo as a colocation with a new school.
25:56 So I’ll talk about that in a little bit more detail.
25:59 And then the fourth bullet is around strategic promotion of BPS
26:02 services and programs.
26:04 And that came through in the conversations that you all had with
26:07 WXY.
26:08 So dive in talking about Gardendale and ESE planning. We really
26:36 need to do some collaborative work with our partners on the
26:36 educational side of the house, and we would like to bring WXY in
26:36 to facilitate that conversation and develop a scope of work that
26:36 will get us to a solid recommendation on what we do with a
26:36 separate day school function at BPS as well as other ESE needs
26:36 that we may not even know in facilities.
26:36 We typically run across these as we are doing projects in
26:39 schools, but I think it would be a good opportunity right now to
26:43 really understand the whole ESE landscape and what might be
26:46 appropriate for us to think about as we move forward with new
26:49 schools and renovation of schools.
26:52 You’ll see on your board agenda February 6 is a pretty robust
27:01 new building at Mila Elementary that is focused around ESE. And
27:10 I’m really proud of our team. We did what I think is a good job
27:10 collaborating with our educational side of the house to really
27:10 make sure that we are meeting the needs of the students.
27:11 And I think we in facilities can do more of that as we work
27:14 through this process with our partners. So I’m excited about
27:18 this opportunity. But again, there’s a lot of different
27:22 variables. Transportation is involved.
27:25 The location of the children changes over time. The services
27:29 that other providers may offer or not offer fall into the
27:33 equation. So we really need to sit down and kind of look at the
27:37 universe of this problem and figure out how to best attack it or
27:41 what are the two or three different options that we might have
27:44 to address these issues.
27:45 So we agree with the board in terms of Gardendale and ESE are
27:49 critical functions and needs that we need to address. And we’d
27:53 like to we’d like to focus on doing that.
27:56 Our second bullet, I talked a little bit about the cross-functional
28:00 facility planning. We have great data in facilities. We did our
28:05 facility assessment that’s coming up on a five years ago now.
28:09 You’ll probably see a budget request from me for FY 25 to update
28:13 that information. We have a much better work order system, so we
28:16 do have really good work order data now and we’re starting to be
28:19 able to look at trends.
28:21 So, for example, we look at our chillers and we see where our
28:24 work orders are happening on our chillers and we can predict
28:27 this group of chillers probably should be next on the agenda. So
28:31 really working towards having that like five ish year capital
28:36 plan for some of our major assets and building systems.
28:40 Looking at the educational marketplace, we really need to bring
28:45 in GCR and what’s happening in the world of competitive
28:49 educational business. Looking at our facilities and where we
28:53 have capacity. So we have some schools that are underutilized,
28:58 some schools that are overutilized.
29:00 Redistricting has not really been a successful strategy in Brevard
29:05 Public Schools, so we have to look at our community and bring
29:09 the community into the conversation around how we match up our
29:14 spaces and our programming needs.
29:17 So this too is kind of a big undertaking and it requires some
29:21 strategic thought and some facilitation. So I would propose to
29:26 also engage WXY and develop a scope of work and bring that back
29:31 to the board to review with me.
29:34 But I feel like we really need some facilitation assistance to
29:39 get this to the end and the end would be a program of work that
29:43 we can start to execute in 2026 and some of which would be
29:48 sooner.
29:49 The San Filippo site is the third item and just to orient
29:54 everybody, this is the location of the site. It’s about two
29:59 miles south of Bayside, which is right about in here. This is DeGroote.
30:05 This is Minton Road. This is Malabar Road. So it’s pretty far
30:09 south. You see Grant Road.
30:11 The new Parkway interchange is right about in this location. So
30:15 in talking with transportation, they felt that this site could
30:19 really work for them because it is in a growth hub as well as
30:23 very close to the new interchange. So it’s accessible to good
30:27 transportation.
30:29 So this is a site in a little bit more detail. We did talk to
30:33 the Palm Bay City manager and their utilities director and a few
30:39 other staff people just to kind of see if there were any
30:43 significant concerns about this site.
30:46 And they felt that they could both accommodate us with utilities
30:49 and would work with us on the site development process. So this
30:53 is something that I think we have this asset. We can easily move
30:57 forward as we’ve really been struggling to find a site elsewhere
31:00 in the county that is not completely underwater or prohibitively
31:05 expensive. Those are kind of the two choices.
31:08 And so this seemed like a good compromise. We also have been
31:12 watching our enrollment trends in the Palm Bay area and they’re
31:17 going up for for all grades and.
31:20 We’re talking with Dr. Rendell and the educational side of the
31:22 house. We think this might be a good place to locate middle
31:25 school. And so we had asked our civil engineering consultant to
31:27 take his layout for the transportation maintenance facility, as
31:30 well as just take the exact layout for the the middle school and
31:40 see if both of those will fit on this site.
31:43 And the answer is they do. And, you know, as we get into the
31:47 details of site development, we’ll we’ll have to make sure that
31:51 all of this fits. And I’m sure we’ll have to modify a little bit.
31:56 But the overview is that it does fit. There are some wetlands on
32:00 the site in this area, so we’ll have to address that. There’s
32:03 another one kind of in the middle here. But these are not insurmountable
32:08 obstacles.
32:10 And so what I would like to propose is that we move forward with
32:14 kind of the site planning and potentially design aspects of this
32:19 so that we can get a little farther along.
32:22 We don’t have the budget for another new middle school.
32:26 Obviously, that’s going to take a while before we get there. But
32:29 I’d like us to get prepared.
32:31 And so I think the time right now would be spent on engaging
32:35 appropriate consultants to start site planning, start design
32:40 work.
32:41 We’re going to have some procurement processes around this that’ll
32:44 take some time. But I feel like it’s important that we get
32:48 started so that we are ready when we need these facilities.
32:52 So this is what’s proposed for San Filippo. And then the final
32:56 slide is just talking about the strategic promotion of Brevard
33:01 Public Schools.
33:02 And in talking with Mr. Bruhn about this, there certainly are
33:07 consultant resources that can assist us in doing more strategic
33:12 promotion and more thorough promotion of BPS.
33:16 But that involves an investment. So he would have to look at the
33:20 cost of doing something like that versus the estimated return on
33:24 investment in terms of enrollment.
33:27 But if we can talk about all the great things we’re doing and
33:31 help that or help us drive our enrollment, this might be a good
33:35 investment of some funds to consider trying this in a little bit
33:40 more robust way.
33:42 So I think that’s it and happy to take any questions.
33:50 All right, Board. Mr. Susan, do you want to start? Any questions?
34:14 So I just had a couple of questions just so I can follow where
34:34 you’re thinking, because I guess I was a little surprised at the
34:37 idea of a middle school right there, because we’re not quite
34:41 capacity, but we’re going to get there really fast.
34:43 So I guess just kind of what was this thinking about starting
34:46 with a middle school or is it just because if we’re going to
34:49 build something in that location, that is because I know we’re
34:52 going to need an elementary school, maybe that’s on the other
34:55 side of the highway.
34:56 So about that and then also with the bus situation, then where
34:59 are our main hubs so that we because we’re looking somewhere
35:03 central and this is obviously very south and not accessible to
35:06 the central and north part of the county.
35:09 So kind of what where are we left with if we do it just down
35:13 there and don’t do something in the middle.
35:16 OK, so let me start with the transportation question.
35:19 So if I understand Mr. Wilson’s team’s view on this, that they
35:24 will be relocating their Pineapple Avenue functions down to the
35:29 the facility that’s on Monroe adjacent to Stone.
35:33 So that’ll pick up kind of that central piece. OK. And then some
35:37 of those functions would end up being farther south.
35:40 So I think it distributes the transportation functions
35:43 appropriately throughout the district so we won’t lose that
35:47 central piece.
35:49 Right. Because I think that Monroe is our farthest south main
35:51 hub. Everything else is like a little small.
35:55 Like a shack with some buses for like. Yeah, there’s there’s
36:00 Westside bus compound, but Westside is one of our Westside and
36:05 Sunrise are two elementaries that are growing exponentially.
36:09 But that’s what I’m saying. Westside is a shack with some buses.
36:12 There’s no facilities that, you know.
36:15 Yeah, there’s not a no repair. I mean, everything has to would
36:18 have to come. So that makes sense.
36:21 The other half of your question about why a middle school.
36:26 Literally every grade is stressed in that area.
36:30 But we think there’s going to be some opportunities for
36:33 developer driven partnerships kind of in that area in the
36:36 vicinity of the Parkway interchange.
36:39 That might be an opportunity to entertain the K8 conversation.
36:44 So I think that the elementary piece will also be on the table
36:48 at some point. But we felt like this would be a solution in the
36:52 middle school arena.
36:54 High school is a whole nother ballgame and we’re going to need
36:56 to be thinking about that as well.
36:58 So we’re not we’re also not locked in.
37:01 So if we go we move forward with the site development with a
37:04 plan to build a middle school, but something happens later on
37:07 and we say, no, we need another elementary school in that spot
37:10 or K8 in that spot or whatever.
37:12 We can redevelop. Exactly.
37:16 At the rate that we do these projects like it will be six months
37:19 from now before you see anything that’s a little bit more
37:22 concrete than this because we have to go through a procurement
37:25 process.
37:26 We do the engagement. We do design work like it’s it’s going to
37:30 take a little while before we have a go or no go decision on on
37:34 the school on the school part.
37:37 Transportation wise, how fast can we move? Transportation, we’re
37:41 going to try to move a little bit faster.
37:43 We’re trying to figure out how to co-manage the two procurement
37:47 processes because we have one process for the middle school that
37:51 would probably focus around the prototype use.
37:55 And then we have another process for transportation and we want
37:58 to figure out how to best manage those together so we’re not
38:02 duplicating work.
38:03 And we have consultants that are talking to one another. So that
38:07 challenge is something we’re talking about this week.
38:11 Right. And then, of course, we’ve got the great savings that we’re
38:14 not having to purchase a piece of property so we can utilize the
38:16 funds from the sale of the property, the pineapple property
38:19 towards the building of the facility.
38:21 And the board has put, I think we’ve got about three million
38:25 dollars reserved for transportation already that’s been kind of
38:30 set aside for that project. So we have the resources to get
38:33 started and we’ll get a better handle on, you know, if we need
38:34 to phase, which we probably will phase the transportation
38:37 project ahead of the school project.
38:40 But I want to make sure that it’s done in a logical sequence. So,
38:43 you know, if we’re going to co-locate a chiller, for example,
38:45 like we size the chiller appropriately or we phase the chiller.
38:49 The civil work really has to be done like all at once so that we
38:52 don’t do something on part A that precludes part B.
38:56 So it really has to be thought of kind of as a one project and
39:00 then we will we can phase the pieces as we build it.
39:04 Thank you. Sue, you’re so good that you’ve answered most of the
39:07 questions I had. Honestly, we were just talking. So what do you
39:11 as far as your expected timeline of where you’re looking at for
39:14 the transportation depot, what are you thinking that looks like
39:18 for completion?
39:19 I would say off the top of my head, probably in the two year
39:24 time frame, one and a half to two years.
39:28 Okay. All right. And then for the school, that would be long
39:30 longer term. So maybe it will be dependent on the funding.
39:33 Sources that we choose to use. Okay. And so I will come back to
39:38 you with some ideas on that once we have a little better plan in
39:42 mind.
39:43 So probably early in twenty five or late in twenty four, we’ll
39:48 be talking about what are the options.
39:50 I’d like to look at our our educational impact fee accrual
39:55 patterns and how that’s going, as well as potential sales tax
39:59 renewal and how that might fit.
40:01 But I really want to be a little farther along before I make a
40:04 commitment on that.
40:05 OK, if we want to do it, those are kind of like, you know, where
40:09 we just just a general idea.
40:11 So now you have my support. Honestly, I think sending that land
40:14 is tremendous. That’s a huge amount of savings.
40:16 And I know you guys have been searching for a spot and this has
40:19 been a hurdle that has been very hard to overcome.
40:22 So if this is a solution to that problem and it saves us having
40:25 to acquire another piece of land or property, I think that’s a
40:28 good solution all the way around.
40:30 Thank you. Miss Jenkins. I know you just came in.
40:34 No, I’m going to make a wild assumption since I just walked in
40:38 and I apologize and I’ll explain why I was missing later tonight
40:42 for good reasons.
40:43 But I’m going to assume that we are going with the San Filippo
40:47 site and moving forward with it.
40:50 So moving forward, just to clarify for everybody that’s watching
40:54 right now as well, moving forward is just we’re given Sue’s team
40:59 the authority, the green light to continue the planning process.
41:05 You know, more detailed plans, more site analysis. Can we fit
41:10 these two different projects on that site?
41:14 How much will it cost? What funding mechanisms do we have? That
41:17 kind of thing.
41:17 So, you know, we don’t need a headline that says we’re building
41:21 a new school or whatever yet.
41:23 But to go back to the question about why a middle school versus
41:27 maybe another elementary school or a K-8, Southwest and Central
41:31 are both pretty much at capacity.
41:33 And so if we were going to do if we had if we had the
41:36 opportunity to build just one building in that south area, you
41:40 know, a larger middle school, not larger.
41:44 But basically we I don’t know if you could tell, but on the site
41:48 plan that was on slide 16, it’s Viera Middle School.
41:52 So basically we wouldn’t have to pay any design fees or anything.
41:54 We already know already paid all that.
41:56 We just take that design and put it down there. We would see
42:00 more relief, you know, at the middle school level for Southwest
42:04 and Central with that one building.
42:07 Then we would see relief if we were to build another elementary
42:11 school. The numbers just we don’t yield as much relief.
42:15 You know, so now I’m not saying that we’re only going to build
42:17 one building down there.
42:19 You know, we’re going to have to build more. But I think this is
42:22 the first step.
42:23 You know, I very much appreciate that, you know, and I’ve
42:25 brought to the conversation before that the biggest city in the
42:29 county of Palm Bay has one middle school in its city limits.
42:32 So that’s why we’re busing kids to Central, busing kids to Stone,
42:35 you know, but it definitely makes sense.
42:38 Yeah, this location we think can service that really south part
42:41 of the county pretty well.
42:42 Yeah, yeah, I agree. I’m going to have to drive down there so I
42:46 can take a look at it.
42:47 And the other thing that’s consistent is that this is what we
42:50 did with Viera Elementary.
42:52 Everybody was screaming for the middle school, but it was the
42:54 need of what was at the time here in Viera.
42:56 And then also just so everybody knows that if you ever did need
42:59 to move to a K-8 model, those rooms are big enough to both
43:01 service the middle school and the elementary school the same.
43:05 So Viera Elementary has the larger rooms to do the same thing to.
43:09 So it’s a good build, good idea.
43:11 All right. Do you feel like you have third direction as far as
43:14 moving forward?
43:15 Yes, ma’am. Thank you. You’ll see several contract documents
43:18 coming your way in the next 30 to 60 days.
43:21 Okay. All right. Thank you so much for the presentation. Thank
43:27 you.
43:27 All right. So we’ll give them just a moment. Our second
43:30 presentation is a discipline update from Ms. Dampier and her
43:36 team.
43:43 She put snacks on here.
43:59 There’s there’s a free flight.
44:26 Oh, yeah.
44:46 Did you ever notice that Sue’s the only one brave enough to sit
44:54 next to me? I don’t know what it is. All right.
44:56 Good afternoon. Thank you, Mrs. Wright and board members and Dr.
45:00 Rendell.
45:01 I am pleased that my team and I will provide a district
45:05 discipline update for the second quarter.
45:08 As promised, our last update was on October 31st, and so we’re
45:13 going to provide you an update as to what has happened.
45:17 Comparing last quarter, last semester, first semester versus
45:22 this year’s first semester as far as the discipline.
45:26 And then for Title nine and bullying, we’ll provide that
45:32 information as well.
45:35 The agenda today, we’re also just going to review the
45:38 organizational structure for discipline,
45:41 and then we’re going to provide some highlights of actions taken
45:45 thus far to improve discipline within our district.
45:48 An overview of the discipline data, next steps for discipline,
45:53 and then our Title nine and bullying update.
45:55 And then we’ll entertain questions at that point in time. Just
46:00 wanted to remind everyone about our structure.
46:03 We have a unique structure that’s been working very well.
46:06 It’s a collaboration between Student Services Division and the
46:10 Chief of Schools Division.
46:12 Student Services really is in charge of the training, the
46:16 processes and procedures,
46:19 the monitoring to make sure that we’re coding our discipline infractions
46:24 correctly, as well as the processes for the expulsion process.
46:30 Our chief of schools, if we see trends, if we see that referrals
46:35 are not being processed in a timely manner,
46:38 we meet with Mr. Reed and Mr. Ramer, meet weekly to review that
46:44 data to make sure that we’re in compliance.
46:46 Because if we are not monitoring what we expect, then, of course,
46:50 we can’t wait until the end of the semester for that.
46:52 So we monitor that on a weekly basis to make sure we are
46:56 implementing with fidelity.
46:59 I’m going to turn it over to Mr. Reed to review some of the
47:03 positive impacts as well as move on with the discipline.
47:07 All right. Good afternoon, everyone. I want to just spotlight
47:10 some of the highlights so far this year.
47:13 We’ve been seeing a very positive impact with the discipline
47:16 referrals being processed in a timely manner.
47:19 The expectation is 24 hours. And we do hit that mark the
47:22 majority of the time and intervene when necessary.
47:26 But that is a significant change that incidents are handled in a
47:30 very timely manner, both for the learning opportunity and for
47:34 closure of the event.
47:36 We also started this year new meeting with the supervisors of
47:41 the areas at district transportation at transportation.
47:44 And that has become very productive in our meetings throughout
47:47 the month.
47:48 So we meet once a month with those leads and we discuss problems
47:53 and solutions at those meetings.
47:56 Another big win was transportation supervisors entering
48:00 discipline referrals rather than a bus driver writing a referral,
48:05 delivering it to the assistant principal after two routes had
48:08 already happened.
48:10 Right. And so now that that driver at the end of an AM or a PM
48:14 route is writing a referral, delivering it to their supervisor.
48:19 And it’s also a touch point for the supervisor and the bus
48:22 driver.
48:23 They can talk about maybe some some things within their ability
48:27 on the bus to handle.
48:29 So it’s a coachable moment for the driver and the supervisor as
48:32 well. Much more timely.
48:34 So, again, if there’s a PM referral, the expectation is that
48:37 when the dean or assistant principal arrives at school that they
48:41 would pull that data so that they can intervene immediately with
48:44 the driver’s referral.
48:46 And again, we’ve seen those being closed as well in that 24 hour
48:51 window.
48:52 We have continued with the district discipline work group. We
48:55 have our upcoming meeting, I believe, on February 8th. And again,
48:59 those were a diverse group of members across our committee, our
49:03 community, two of which you each appointed.
49:06 And then we also hold monthly meetings with BFT to address
49:11 concerns and questions and again have had great productivity in
49:16 solving problems in the moment rather than waiting for them to
49:21 brew into bigger problems.
49:24 All right, we’re going to dive into some of the data. Again, as
49:28 Ms. Dampier shared, this is semester one of this year, comparing
49:32 semester one of last year. On this slide on the left, we have
49:35 discipline referrals.
49:37 You can see that we were at roughly 35,000 at this point last
49:41 year versus 45,000 this year.
49:44 So we do have an increase in referrals, as we did the last time
49:47 I gave this presentation, we gave this presentation to you.
49:51 On the right is an interesting data point that is similar to
49:54 last year as well. And that is the number of students that are
49:58 receiving those office discipline referrals.
50:01 So looking at 2324, you would look at that as 15,000 students
50:07 receive those 45,000 referrals. And so that could be, you also
50:13 could look at that as one third, right? So if we look at 2223 as
50:18 well, it’s not exactly a third, but it’s pretty darn close,
50:22 right?
50:22 So again, trends along the same lines are good. Trends along the
50:26 same lines also are good to say what could we do that’s
50:29 different so that we don’t produce the same trend.
50:33 But again, we can see a third of the students are getting those
50:43 referrals.
50:44 There, yep, three referrals a piece. Could be one way, yep. All
50:47 right, so now what we’d like to share here is the top 10 highest
50:51 discipline codes.
50:52 And again, we have 2223 on the left and 2324 on the right.
50:57 Going to be some similarities and a few differences and that
51:00 comes down to some of what we’re kind of shining a light on and
51:03 focusing on this year compared to last.
51:06 Willful Disobedience has maintained that number one position. It
51:12 is a bit of a catch all. So many things do fall into that.
51:15 And so rightfully so that that would be in the number one spot.
51:19 But we can see as we move on to position number three, we do
51:22 start to see some some minor changes, but just reversing the
51:26 order.
51:27 That number five position, electronic device misuse, the number
51:31 is significantly different at four thousand one hundred twenty
51:35 six. And that has been something that we focused on.
51:37 And that’s evident that what we’ve we’ve made clear and what we’ve
51:41 said is a focus is being focused on at our local level at our
51:45 schools.
51:46 Where that that number six and seven this year, there is some
51:50 some split of that data.
51:53 There were some changes between last year and this year. And so
51:56 that does make explaining the big picture a little difficult.
52:00 But you can see there was roughly four thousand two hundred in
52:04 all between physical aggression, pre-K through 12.
52:09 OK, so that number is significantly higher. The younger grades
52:15 in twenty two, twenty three didn’t even make that chart.
52:18 Right. So we are seeing instances, higher instances of physical
52:21 aggression would be the generalization that I would say.
52:25 Again, it’s not in a mirror from last year to this year because
52:29 we made some changes to those grade level ranges.
52:33 But again, to summarize, twenty three, twenty four physical
52:38 aggression incidents are higher in all when looking at all
52:42 grades.
52:43 Fighting is another one that you’ll see that’s not even on this
52:46 list. Right on twenty three, twenty four, where it was in the
52:50 number eight position in twenty two,
52:52 twenty three, the number of incidents to date on the end of the
52:56 semester for this year for that same code or one thousand thirty
53:00 one.
53:01 So again, it was several hundred away from even making our top
53:06 10 chart this year.
53:08 And the other change that’s on this line for twenty three,
53:11 twenty four that I want to spotlight again stemming from those
53:14 transportation meetings and those referrals is the number nine
53:16 position.
53:17 We had fourteen hundred forty five bus violations, minor or
53:23 referrals that were processed and handled, whereas that didn’t
53:27 even make the board last year.
53:29 And there’s many reasons why, but probably writing, submitting
53:33 and processing was a big one of those.
53:35 So before we leave this slide, I just want to clarify a couple
53:37 of things.
53:38 So Mr. Reed mentioned that the physical aggression numbers are
53:42 up and you might say, oh, my gosh, more physical aggression.
53:46 Well, the codes for physical aggression are up. The codes for
53:50 fighting are down.
53:51 Right. So in other words, we’re coding things differently.
53:54 You know, so may not be any more instances of misbehavior
53:57 involving physical contact between students, but we’re coding it
54:02 differently.
54:03 And by coding it differently, we’re able to address it
54:05 differently to make sure we’re addressing the right type of
54:08 behavior with the right consequence.
54:10 So just, you know, when he’s like physical aggressions up the
54:14 codes for physical aggression are up.
54:17 I mean, the number of physical activities involving two or more
54:22 students is up, especially when fighting is down.
54:25 It means we’re probably coding things slightly differently.
54:28 Well, education, better options. One of the things that I
54:31 obviously it’s very blatant right here, but physical aggression
54:34 third through 12th grade is down significantly.
54:38 Seven hundred. Yeah. I mean, that’s a that’s a huge drop that we’ve
54:42 seen that that’s been reduced there.
54:44 It’s interesting now looking at that pre-K through second grade
54:47 to be able to identify that there’s more physical aggression
54:50 happening at those younger ages than they are at the older ages,
54:54 which is a good point for us to look at and considering how are
54:56 we going to handle this and make sure that we we stop and get
54:59 under control.
55:00 But those incidents may have been coded as fighting in the
55:04 previous year.
55:05 So I would look at. Yeah. So if you look at non-cessor fighting
55:10 twelve seventy nine, it doesn’t even make the list now, though.
55:13 Right. So Miss Pam, do you know that number? What that non-cessor
55:17 is now by any chance?
55:19 Ten thirty one. Ten thirty one. So you’re down. So if you look
55:23 at it from a teaching’s perspective, I was amazed.
55:26 So I printed this out last night and I was going through it over
55:28 and over again.
55:29 So your main areas that our work groups came to us about were
55:32 that there was physical harm.
55:34 There was all these things that were going on. And if you look
55:37 across this fighting is down.
55:39 Ten thirty one like fighting physical aggression through third
55:43 through 12th is down seven hundred.
55:46 And what you see here is, is that, yeah, there might be ten
55:49 thousand new referrals or higher referrals.
55:52 Twenty five hundred more electronic device misuse minors.
55:56 So I’m showing that the teachers feel the capacity and the power
55:59 to write the kids in the referrals.
56:01 They’re now doing it. Look at this classroom disruption in minor.
56:05 They’re able to write five hundred more referrals because they
56:08 feel like they can do it.
56:09 Those were huge indicators last year that our staff was telling
56:12 us that weren’t.
56:13 When I went around to the schools recently and spoke to some of
56:15 the bus drivers and some of the teachers and even the admin,
56:18 they are ecstatic about the power that they have inside their
56:20 classrooms about what we were able to do for them.
56:23 The administrators, the teachers were in such a good feeling.
56:26 And I’ll tell you, the bus drivers,
56:27 it was like the greatest feeling to talk to them about how much
56:30 they now have the ability and then the respect,
56:33 because you’re talking to their people. This this right here, I
56:36 was looking at it like out of a signed area.
56:38 I don’t know if you guys remember, but last year they were told
56:41 that in some cases they couldn’t even write a referral for out
56:44 of a signed area because of the way that it was.
56:45 And the principals were all upset about that. So there’s these
56:48 are all in line with everything we’re saying.
56:50 But what we’re seeing is, is that the trend that the teachers
56:53 are writing the referrals in are inconsistent with having
56:57 control of that classroom.
56:58 And then the physical violence that we saw is down. So I just
57:01 wanted to say thank you.
57:03 Like this is when I read this yesterday, I was ecstatic. So
57:07 thank you. I just would add to that.
57:08 It’s it’s not. The sign of them having control of their
57:13 classroom is not going to be true until we get to where these
57:16 never start dropping,
57:17 because, yes, it’s it shows that they have they can do that, but
57:20 until the behavior start, unless it’s showing that a behavior is
57:23 changing.
57:24 That’s why I hope you’re going to continue on after the third
57:26 quarter and the fourth quarter, because because what I want to
57:28 see,
57:29 what we all want to see is there was a spike, which we expected
57:32 because we tightened some things up.
57:34 But then it starts to fall off, you know, and the especially the
57:38 electronic, you know, device misuse that that should fall off as
57:43 the students really get the hang of.
57:44 No, we are serious. You can’t you can’t use your cell phones on
57:47 campus. Same thing with the tardy to class.
57:49 I think that that number is kind of funny. It’s like twenty four
57:52 hundred.
57:53 That could be one middle school who spent the semester locking
57:55 doors and we’re going to get this because you have a school
57:58 middle school is like seven hundred kids.
58:00 And they do a few weeks of writing detentions for tardies
58:03 because, you know, you could rack up hundreds right there.
58:07 But I mean, the as but they need to start falling off. That’s
58:10 the sign of the true success that Mr. Susan was talking about.
58:14 Not that it keeps going up that eventually then we start going
58:18 down the hill.
58:19 So I can I would like for us to continue that maybe our plan
58:22 every quarter. I mean, we we were in this every quarter.
58:26 As long as we’re doing this. Yeah. Yeah.
58:29 Speaking to that, when I just want to throw a shout out when I
58:31 was at the era high school, the first day Legate locked the
58:35 doors and all the kids were like, what do you do after the bell
58:38 ring?
58:38 Like, what is this? What are you doing? She’s like, no, go to
58:40 the front because she held them accountable.
58:42 And the parents are really ecstatic because they were having an
58:45 issue with that twenty five hundred tardies to class more.
58:48 I mean, like you look at two categories, cell phone and targeted
58:50 class. That’s five thousand.
58:52 That’s half of the increase of referrals in just those two
58:54 places. It’s incredible. So we’re doing it. Thank you.
58:58 So I want to second what Miss Campbell said. I think it’s
59:03 important for us to recognize that it is going up.
59:06 And again, reiterate that that’s not necessarily the worst thing
59:11 in the world.
59:12 The other thing that no one’s really touched upon is we didn’t
59:15 really reflect on the honesty of what the numbers really looked
59:18 like last year, that they were naturally deflated from user
59:21 error.
59:22 Right. We had a whole new system in place. We had a lot of staff
59:25 and teachers that were saying it was difficult for them to
59:27 figure out how to code it or multiple codes and things of that
59:29 nature.
59:30 And through this conversation that has been clarified and retrained
59:33 and retaught to our staff to feel compelled to correctly
59:36 identify certain incidences that are happening in their
59:39 classrooms.
59:40 So naturally, those numbers are going to go up and be more
59:43 accurate. Hopefully, that’s what that’s what we hope for.
59:47 And so I’m with Miss Campbell. You know, we’re not really going
59:51 to see the effects of is our discipline and our consequences
59:54 actually helping to diminish this behavior or modify that
59:57 behavior for at least another year or two.
1:00:00 And the other thing, too, I just want to say about the pre-K to
1:00:03 second grade physical aggression. I know that we’ve got
1:00:07 different codes going on and changes in that nature.
1:00:10 But another thing to recognize, too, is not that it’s a
1:00:13 developmentally appropriate behavior because we don’t want kids
1:00:17 being physically aggressive, but it is a very natural response
1:00:20 to students who are in crisis or students who are struggling or
1:00:23 frustrated and things of that nature.
1:00:25 And so I would love for us to always be paying attention to that
1:00:28 number to make sure we either see a decline or it stays pretty
1:00:32 consistent so we can make sure that we’re helping those kiddos
1:00:37 out from pre-K to third in case it’s linked to some academic
1:00:42 deficits.
1:00:43 Thanks. All right. I’d like to chime in there. Thanks for all
1:00:55 this work. And some of these. I’m OK with them going out. I mean,
1:00:57 the minor things, tardy classroom disruption, minor electronic
1:01:00 devices.
1:01:01 Because it appears, you’re going to stop looking at my notes,
1:01:05 but it appears classroom teachers are taking control of their
1:01:08 classroom. And when that happens, the big things start to go
1:01:12 down, the fighting, major aggression because schools start to
1:01:17 take control and the students start to understand why they’re
1:01:21 there.
1:01:22 It’s to be in the classroom when the bell rings. And that’s when
1:01:25 a lot of things get get out of control when we’re not paying
1:01:29 attention to the small things.
1:01:31 So I don’t mind that. Why? There’s lots of reasons. Well, I mean,
1:01:34 you want to say morale. Remember a year ago, we had teachers
1:01:37 walking out, teachers emailing and calling us saying that they’re
1:01:40 not being able to do the things that they went to school to do,
1:01:44 which is teach.
1:01:46 They’re not writing referrals because they didn’t think it was
1:01:48 going to be processed or wasn’t going to be handled. Things have
1:01:51 changed. Those are the phone calls I get now when I’m out and
1:01:54 when I’m out in the schools is teachers and principals saying
1:01:57 things are starting to change.
1:01:59 Teachers are taking a little bit more ownership in their
1:02:02 classroom and we see it and you can’t fool a kid and they see
1:02:05 this.
1:02:06 And when teachers are more involved in their classroom, then
1:02:08 they’ll be more involved in their classroom and doing the things
1:02:11 that they’re supposed to be doing.
1:02:13 So I don’t mind the small things. You know, the targeted classes
1:02:16 like running extra sprints in sports. It’s OK. That stuff will
1:02:20 that’ll pay off.
1:02:22 Maybe some of the incidents were just not reported. We saw that
1:02:25 in the audit.
1:02:26 And so these numbers really are not going to be, you know, side
1:02:30 by side when we’re coding things differently from one year to
1:02:33 the next.
1:02:34 It’s like our new fast testing data. It’s not the same for a
1:02:37 couple of years. We’ll see how it goes.
1:02:39 But this is this is really promising. And what if I may, what’s
1:02:44 really incredible is, is there was absolutely a aura of teachers
1:02:50 who said we can’t write referrals because they just come back.
1:02:54 We write a referral. It’s not being processed. The kids are
1:02:56 coming back. We dealt with that.
1:02:58 The other issue is, is that what’s amazing about this number
1:03:01 being low for fighting physical aggression and stuff like that
1:03:05 is that many of those were sent up.
1:03:08 Remember, our principals didn’t have control over what they did
1:03:10 for their suspensions past a certain number of days.
1:03:13 So they would send up the request for fighting for all these
1:03:16 other things, and then they would be asked to research those and
1:03:19 change those, which also lowered those numbers.
1:03:22 So there was a lot of stuff that went on. And that’s in part of
1:03:25 the data that we uncovered that we went through, that this
1:03:27 numbers being down in those categories is even more significant
1:03:31 because the numbers that we’re seeing over here weren’t even as
1:03:33 high as they should have been.
1:03:35 So I’m just ecstatic in the fact that our our morale is starting
1:03:38 to turn and everything else.
1:03:40 So thank you. Thank you for all your work. They have more data
1:03:44 to share.
1:03:45 I know. I got more notes. Go ahead.
1:03:51 This is a new slide that we put together by request to try and
1:03:55 spotlight some of the demographic differences through some of
1:03:59 those top five discipline codes.
1:04:02 So what you can see here on the bottom is the color code of
1:04:05 willful disobedience out of a signed area, tardy disruption and
1:04:09 electronic misuse.
1:04:11 We’ll use willful disobedience as kind of our guide to review
1:04:15 the data.
1:04:16 Going from the bottom up, we can see that our black African-Americans,
1:04:20 that that piece of the bar is the amount of the referrals
1:04:24 written for that demographic group.
1:04:27 On the table above would show you again the precise number. So
1:04:31 of the six thousand three hundred twenty nine willful
1:04:35 disobedience referrals written two thousand three hundred forty
1:04:39 three or written for black African-American students.
1:04:43 Two thousand five hundred forty four for our white and so on
1:04:46 down that the other demographic groups.
1:04:49 So, again, you can use the size of the bar and going up with the
1:04:54 demographic groups to compare either of the top any of the top
1:04:58 five incidents that were reported that we just reviewed a moment
1:05:02 ago, broken down by demographics.
1:05:12 Corrective actions on the flip side. Now what students were
1:05:15 doing and now what we’re doing as a corrective measure to help
1:05:18 with that.
1:05:19 Again, two thousand twenty two twenty three is on the left.
1:05:22 Twenty three twenty four is on the right.
1:05:24 Admin detention still is in that number one position.
1:05:28 We can see that out of school suspension is in the number two
1:05:32 slot where it was in the number three spot the previous year.
1:05:36 I do need to explain briefly that we had three out of school
1:05:41 suspension codes last year.
1:05:44 We had one to three days. We had three to five days and we had a
1:05:48 two to ten.
1:05:49 We realized the errors in that for data, hence me only reporting
1:05:54 one data point, the highest of the suspensions last year.
1:05:57 Right. So, of course, if three different data points now are smushed
1:06:01 into one, it’s going to be higher.
1:06:04 The data last year for all available suspension codes at this
1:06:09 point last year was six thousand seven hundred and nine.
1:06:15 So we still are ahead of that. What last year was.
1:06:19 But I did want to put a disclaimer out there that that data is
1:06:22 somewhat misrepresented because it is only reporting on the
1:06:25 twenty two, twenty three, one of the suspension codes.
1:06:30 And again, this is not days, it’s number of times that out of
1:06:34 school suspension was used.
1:06:36 Right. The same with any of these.
1:06:38 So, again, as we we go down the list again, conference student
1:06:41 obviously is is the reverse in school suspension mirrors lunch
1:06:46 detention, though, interestingly is on the chart where it was
1:06:49 not before.
1:06:50 That goes with the tardies.
1:06:52 It goes with. Yeah. Very well said.
1:06:55 Yes. Yes. OK.
1:07:00 And thank you. Lunch detention wasn’t an official code. So last
1:07:04 year.
1:07:05 Right. So, again, our our work of revising the code of conduct.
1:07:10 Right. We put something in place that’s being utilized.
1:07:13 Right. It was it was probably needed because tardies were always
1:07:16 happening.
1:07:17 Right. But now we gave them a tool for that.
1:07:20 And again, very similar things with the exception teach and reteach.
1:07:25 It was in a little different position, but very similar pieces
1:07:29 that you can see there, with the exception of the restorative
1:07:33 practice is is lesser or is not did not make the board do the
1:07:36 higher numbers.
1:07:38 You can see that we were in the 2000s this year, where seven
1:07:42 hundred made the board last year.
1:07:44 Right. I just have to say this this slide, you know, because
1:07:47 this story sometimes we’re just going to suspend more kids.
1:07:50 We’re going to and there are some numbers are going up, but I’m
1:07:52 very happy to see the number of phone conferences going up
1:07:56 significantly.
1:07:57 The number of parent conferences with parents going up
1:08:01 significantly and conferences with students is up there still.
1:08:06 We’re doing more than just, you know, we’re having this
1:08:09 conference communications home, which is really important to,
1:08:14 you know, to get the solutions.
1:08:16 So even though it didn’t you can’t just look at where it moved
1:08:19 on the thing, you know, looking at the raw numbers.
1:08:21 Thank you for putting those on there, because it was really
1:08:25 important for me to see those numbers going up to.
1:08:29 Now, we will look at in school suspension and out of school
1:08:32 suspension from a number of days rather than a number of
1:08:35 instances that that was used.
1:08:37 So in school suspension, we’ve had a slight decrease this year
1:08:40 compared to last year. Four thousand eight hundred versus five
1:08:44 thousand eleven out of school suspensions.
1:08:47 As we just saw or shared, for instances, we have number of days
1:08:51 at one thousand or fifteen thousand three hundred fifty eight
1:08:56 compared to fourteen thousand roughly the in school suspension
1:09:00 decrease.
1:09:01 You know, some schools have the personnel and to do that, some
1:09:04 schools don’t. So that that is a tough number to say.
1:09:08 Let’s hypothesize about that. But those that do have it, the
1:09:11 number has decreased. One could say there’s less personnel that
1:09:14 are doing that.
1:09:15 That’s a question mark that that we don’t know. But again, the
1:09:18 number of days that are there, you can see for both in and out
1:09:23 of school suspension for semester comparing years.
1:09:29 I was asked to kind of give an orientation to risk ratio, and
1:09:32 this is going to be my attempt to do that to kind of norm the
1:09:36 group here.
1:09:37 So we’re going to start here with just an overall slide that
1:09:42 that sets up what a one point. Oh, again, with risk ratio or
1:09:46 remind everyone that two point five is kind of that alert status.
1:09:49 When we have a risk ratio of two point five and three point oh,
1:09:53 it’s kind of that that must take action with regard to that that
1:09:58 particular subgroup.
1:10:00 So in this this infographic here on the top, we’ve got 10
1:10:03 African-American students and five of them have at least one
1:10:07 referral.
1:10:08 OK, so five of the 10 have a referral. And you can see that
1:10:11 visually represented by the students holding their their
1:10:14 referral in front of them.
1:10:16 The rest of this tiny school has 20 other students. Right. And
1:10:20 for and of those 20 other students in all demographic classes,
1:10:25 10 of those students have at least one referral.
1:10:28 So when we take a look at that, what we would say with the
1:10:30 African-American students is five out of 10 students of the
1:10:34 African-American students had a referral or 50 percent.
1:10:37 When we look at the 10 of the other category of all others had
1:10:42 referrals out of those 20, we would say that’s 50 percent.
1:10:48 When we put those two numbers over one another, we would say
1:10:51 that our African-American student risk ratio would be one point.
1:10:55 OK. And so that’s equal. Right. One point.
1:10:58 Oh, is is that number that says we’re we’re the same across and
1:11:03 when comparing one one demographic class to another.
1:11:08 Now, let’s take a look at that data and we’re going to
1:11:10 manipulate a little bit to just see what the impact of changes.
1:11:14 So same data on the top for our African-Americans. We’re going
1:11:18 to go with five students had referrals out of the 10 African-American
1:11:22 students.
1:11:23 We’re going to make a change, though, to the all all other
1:11:26 demographics. And we’re going to change those 20 students to
1:11:30 five instead of 10.
1:11:32 OK, so I’m going to start to raise students from there or raise
1:11:36 five of them. And now we’re left with a total of five students.
1:11:39 OK, so again, same math at the top. We had five African-American
1:11:42 students with referrals out of 10 at 50 percent.
1:11:46 Now, five of all others with one referral out of the 20, giving
1:11:51 us 25 percent.
1:11:53 And when we we put those two numbers over, what we would have
1:11:56 there is a two point for our African-American students or
1:12:00 African-American student in this data set on this infographic
1:12:04 would be two times more likely to have a referral.
1:12:08 Then the other students in the school is how you would how you
1:12:12 would state that representation of that data.
1:12:16 We do that orientation to share with you our risk ratio here in
1:12:20 Brevard at the semester.
1:12:22 And so you can see the different demographics that we’ve pulled
1:12:26 and we’ve got the greenish bar for 22, 23 and the blue bar for
1:12:31 23, 24.
1:12:33 We can see we have a slight decrease in the students with
1:12:36 disabilities.
1:12:37 We can see we have slight increases in other other areas.
1:12:41 What’s important to know is time is on your side when you are
1:12:45 looking at this data, because every day the data does change
1:12:50 very much so at an individual site, not as much so at the
1:12:54 district when we’re comparing all students.
1:12:57 And again, we have some some some slight increases and some
1:13:01 slight decreases, but the data is there again for for the
1:13:06 semester.
1:13:07 Mr. Seuss. Are you finished with your experience? Yes, sir.
1:13:11 Free and reduced lunch where code is not a zero or an N. Can you
1:13:14 explain that component, what that means? Like, is that the free
1:13:18 and reduced district risk ratio?
1:13:21 That is our just like that. That mirrors the DOE’s definition is
1:13:26 what we use.
1:13:27 We don’t use a different definition. We mirror what the state
1:13:30 would mirror if we were to be asked to fix that.
1:13:34 Because when you look at when you look at. Yeah, I mean, I was
1:13:39 Miss Campbell can go after me, but that’s a significant increase.
1:13:45 Right. And if you look down at some of the trends, you notice
1:13:50 that multiracial went down, Hispanic a little up, white went
1:13:54 down.
1:13:55 Right. So that can is if you is there a way that you can send
1:13:59 that to me that’s broken down by race?
1:14:02 Because I would wonder if you know what I mean, if the increase
1:14:07 was also spread out among the races, does that make sense to you?
1:14:11 It does. You are either free and reduced or not. Now, in the S.W.D.
1:14:17 category and Dr. Bias’s ESE world, she’s required to break down
1:14:23 that S.W.D. category by ethnicity.
1:14:26 So one could try to problem solve, which may be ethnicity that’s
1:14:31 in free and reduced lunch is higher.
1:14:34 I don’t know. We don’t have any reporting to do that. We only
1:14:37 have that for S.W.D.
1:14:39 It would be raw data that would have to be done and calculated.
1:14:44 The reason I’m getting to it is the next layer, which would be
1:14:46 to divide it between male and female.
1:14:48 And I think that there’s I think there’s a significant amount.
1:14:53 I spend a lot of time in a lot of different areas and I have
1:14:56 boys that are white, African-American, Hispanic that are that
1:15:02 are students that have situations.
1:15:05 And I feel that having mentors for those children would be
1:15:07 definitely beneficial to helping them with some of the
1:15:10 discipline and stuff like that.
1:15:12 So just a theory that I have. I just didn’t know what the zero
1:15:22 or.
1:15:23 I’m not an expert on free and reduced lunch. That’s how it’s
1:15:26 reported.
1:15:27 I can look into that and get that get you that information. That
1:15:32 is that is not my domain. Free and reduced lunch, just general.
1:15:36 Correct.
1:15:36 Curiosity kills me sometimes. Yeah, nothing wrong with that.
1:15:41 So moving on to the alternative learning center,
1:15:45 reporting some of the the the number of students that haven’t
1:15:48 had an expellable offense that have gone that we have offered
1:15:52 placement at the alternative learning center.
1:15:54 So I’ll begin at the bottom. We can see that this year we have
1:15:58 offered or have an incident has happened that was expellable.
1:16:03 And we have offered a student the opportunity to attend the ALC
1:16:06 in lieu of an expulsion.
1:16:08 When looking at that number, three hundred twenty five, your
1:16:11 your instinct is to say it’s less right.
1:16:14 We’re sending less kids to the alternative learning center. That
1:16:18 number comes with an asterisk.
1:16:20 So at the bottom shows you that one hundred and thirty five
1:16:24 students at the day of the end of the semester had been offered
1:16:28 drug diversion.
1:16:30 So last year, any instance of drugs would have resulted in
1:16:35 potentially the ALC so or alcohol.
1:16:38 So one would have an accurate number. You would add those two
1:16:41 numbers together.
1:16:43 One thirty five and three twenty five. We don’t report them that
1:16:46 way because our students aren’t going to the alternative
1:16:48 learning center.
1:16:49 But I didn’t want I want to celebrate that number.
1:16:52 I’m happy that we’re decreasing those numbers and giving
1:16:54 students the opportunity to stay at their school and learn from
1:16:57 their mistakes.
1:16:58 But I did want to make sure there was clarity with regard to
1:17:01 that that overall number that that wasn’t taken out of context.
1:17:04 Just I just have a quick question on that. I’m assuming that you’re
1:17:07 tracking these one hundred thirty five that that shows the drug
1:17:10 diversion.
1:17:11 Do you have any data on how many of those have offended and
1:17:14 possibly ended up at the ALC versus stayed the path of how
1:17:18 successful is the drug diversion program?
1:17:21 We we have that data. Mr. Armstrong pulled it for me yesterday.
1:17:26 I’m going to have him pull it up because I can’t remember what
1:17:29 it was. So those are students.
1:17:31 What I believe you’re asking is they enrolled in drug diversion.
1:17:37 There’s there’s two drug diversion.
1:17:41 There’s two ways to fail drug diversion. Right. One is you use
1:17:44 drugs again. Right.
1:17:46 And the other is you violate the stipulation agreement. Let’s
1:17:49 just say while you’re on drug diversion at your school, you
1:17:52 fight.
1:17:54 That’s a violation of the stipulation agreement as well. Right.
1:17:57 So we do try to look at those in two ways and Mr. Armstrong can
1:18:00 apply and pull that out for me because I didn’t write that to
1:18:04 have that in hand.
1:18:06 OK. I just would like to see that and how successful that was,
1:18:09 because that was the number one offense that we saw that was
1:18:12 sending kids to the ALC when we were looking at what offense was
1:18:15 committed.
1:18:16 Sure. So we believe and we’re pretty darn close, but I don’t
1:18:20 have it split up to but it’s six six students have been offered
1:18:24 drug diversion, been on drug diversion and have violated their
1:18:28 stipulation.
1:18:29 That’s pretty successful then. One hundred percent. One hundred
1:18:32 twenty nine that haven’t. Correct. I’ll take that.
1:18:34 Yes. Thank you. I think it’s also needs to be said that there’s
1:18:37 a lot of our principals last year that were saying that they
1:18:41 were not able to send kids to the ALC based upon some of the
1:18:44 ramifications of the discipline policies that we had prior.
1:18:48 And so the numbers here also are at a deficit from what we may
1:18:51 have seen had they had that opportunity last year.
1:18:55 So even though it would be similar cases, they were not sent up.
1:18:59 They were reversed and changed and sent back. So I know that.
1:19:04 that for a fact, all of my principals were screaming
1:19:05 about that when it was coming.
1:19:06 So I wanted to say thank you,
1:19:07 but I wanted us to also remember that one of the reasons
1:19:10 that that is where it is and it should be significantly
1:19:12 higher from the year before is because of that.
1:19:15 Thank you.
1:19:16 - Yep, and I do just want to remind everyone again,
1:19:18 the demographics are there as well,
1:19:19 but also a change from ALC this year, last year,
1:19:23 as we used to have earned return.
1:19:25 And now we have windows of time for it’s at the semester
1:19:30 or more, you would be able to come back in.
1:19:33 So that number is six for drug diversion, yes, thank you.
1:19:37 - And also with that, the concern last year,
1:19:41 even from the principal and at the alternative center
1:19:45 is that there wasn’t enough time to provide interventions
1:19:49 because by the time they were there only for six weeks,
1:19:52 five weeks, they were just starting to get counseling
1:19:55 and then they were going back to their school.
1:19:57 Now there’s time for those students to get that
1:20:00 at the alternative center.
1:20:03 - Question would be if that component
1:20:08 of what we’re doing is right,
1:20:10 then we would have less kids repeating doing it this year,
1:20:13 which will be an interesting factor to see
1:20:15 at the end of the year is if our interventions are working,
1:20:17 then you’ll see less of those kids doing,
1:20:19 which is another metric that I think we’ll nail.
1:20:21 Yeah, I’m really excited.
1:20:23 - All right, good deal, good job.
1:20:27 - All right, this one’s good too.
1:20:28 - All right, so what this data is showing you is again,
1:20:32 the reasons why students are being offered the placement
1:20:36 at the ALC in lieu of expulsion.
1:20:38 And again, I won’t spotlight a ton of these numbers,
1:20:44 but one number to see there is the decrease in the drugs
1:20:49 for going to ALC.
1:20:51 And again, the number for drug diversion,
1:20:55 choosing that is on the bottom there
1:20:57 to help keep that in perspective.
1:21:02 Now, one thing that we’ve talked about today, fighting.
1:21:06 There is a difference between the fighting
1:21:08 that is at 75 students going to the ALC
1:21:11 to the fighting that we talked about before.
1:21:13 So this is the SESR version of fighting that’s on this
1:21:17 versus the local level fighting that is a lesser incident.
1:21:21 So I wanna make sure there’s clarity on that.
1:21:24 - Sorry, just the SESR fighting violation
1:21:26 is for the 23-24, correct?
1:21:29 - Well, you can see, yeah, so you can just,
1:21:31 because we spoke of fighting today,
1:21:33 fighting there are 75 incidents that students went
1:21:38 to the ALC under the SESR defined definition.
1:21:42 Last year, we had 37.
1:21:44 I just didn’t want there to be confusion
1:21:46 that the number I gave you a minute ago for last year
1:21:49 was 1,031 incidents.
1:21:51 - Not all fighting goes to– - Not all, there’s SESR
1:21:54 fighting and there’s non-SESR fighting.
1:21:56 One is more aggressive and doesn’t stop.
1:21:59 The other is a lesser.
1:22:01 - I thought it’s pretty interesting
1:22:02 that I printed this off of your print and it said 69,
1:22:07 but up there it says 75, so you’re updating that quickly.
1:22:10 - We are, yep, we were, I had the opportunity
1:22:13 to present the cabinet, have some discussion.
1:22:15 We’re making sure we keep this on point.
1:22:17 - That’s pretty impressive, I just wanna say.
1:22:22 - Right, well, I don’t care about that.
1:22:25 - So this slide goes on to spotlight for us,
1:22:27 the sites, and again, it’s 22, 23 in the middle column
1:22:32 of each slide and 23, 24.
1:22:34 So this slide is to show you what sites
1:22:36 are sending students to the ALC
1:22:38 for the various expelable offenses
1:22:41 that were on the previous slides.
1:22:43 Some schools are sending more,
1:22:44 some schools are sending less.
1:22:46 There is no necessary rationale,
1:22:47 but again, it’s back to the conversation
1:22:50 that we had a few minutes ago that principals
1:22:52 are driving those decisions at their schools.
1:22:54 They’re handling their investigations.
1:22:56 When there’s questions on what does this meet
1:23:00 that definition or this definition,
1:23:02 there’s conversation between Mr. Armstrong,
1:23:04 myself, and Mr. Raymer on an ongoing basis,
1:23:08 but we’re not giving permission.
1:23:09 We’re not telling them what it is.
1:23:12 We are guiding them to make those decisions themselves
1:23:15 through the definitions that are in our code of conduct.
1:23:18 So lots of times a day we say let’s pull up page two
1:23:22 and look at definition 12 and 75,
1:23:24 and let’s see which one that most represents.
1:23:28 Again, though, these are the sites at the semester
1:23:32 that have made a recommendation
1:23:33 for the Alternative Learning Center.
1:23:38 So last quarter, you had asked some questions
1:23:42 about the data for, we only offer
1:23:47 the Alternative Learning Center.
1:23:49 Then parents may choose in lieu of that
1:23:52 to pursue home education,
1:23:54 and then they may also pursue private school
1:23:56 or may pursue Florida Virtual School.
1:24:00 To our knowledge, we have none
1:24:01 that have pursued the private school,
1:24:03 and sometimes that’s very difficult for us to know,
1:24:06 but we do keep tabs on who pursues home education,
1:24:09 and sometimes that’s home ed and Brevard Virtual,
1:24:13 or sometimes it’s just home ed.
1:24:15 So for our data purposes, we just track home ed.
1:24:18 You may do it home ed style,
1:24:20 but you may also enroll in some Florida Virtual.
1:24:24 We are a pass-through for Florida Virtual as well
1:24:28 to help get them enrolled,
1:24:29 but again, you start with home ed
1:24:31 and then also enroll in Florida Virtual,
1:24:33 so we only track the home ed.
1:24:36 You can see last year 8% of our students,
1:24:39 or 32 of them at this point that were offered ALC,
1:24:43 elected to choose home ed,
1:24:45 whereas this year 14% of the 325 or 47
1:24:51 have pursued home education
1:24:54 or have enrolled in home education of some form.
1:24:58 We then were asked about some data
1:25:00 on the demographics of that as well,
1:25:02 and so we’re providing that to you this time
1:25:04 for both last year and this year.
1:25:07 Looking at 23, 24, 45% of the white students,
1:25:11 or 21 of those 47 have pursued home ed in lieu of ALC.
1:25:19 Our black African American, 34%,
1:25:22 or 16 of the 47 have pursued home ed in lieu of ALC.
1:25:27 So again, those were questions that came up last time,
1:25:30 so we decided to give you the answers
1:25:32 and give you current data as well.
1:25:38 So talking a little bit about some next steps,
1:25:40 again, some are similar, but others are different.
1:25:43 We are continuing to monitor those sites that are at 2.5
1:25:47 and working on some monitoring plans with them.
1:25:50 We’re working always for data completeness.
1:25:53 We’re always gonna be growing on accuracy
1:25:56 with the sheer volume of those referrals.
1:25:58 It’s a tough task to always work on accuracy,
1:26:02 but monitoring that processing in a timely manner
1:26:05 is an easy task that we’ve really been working hard
1:26:08 to keep up on and is very evident in our schools.
1:26:12 We’ve continued trainings.
1:26:14 We’re excited to say that 114 staff members
1:26:18 have attended the MTSS behavior training
1:26:21 in the four sessions that we’ve offered,
1:26:23 and we’re gonna continue to offer monthly.
1:26:25 110 staff have attended the functional behavioral assessment
1:26:30 and behavior intervention plan development training
1:26:33 in an effort to try and norm that practice
1:26:35 and how we do that and when to do that, right?
1:26:38 It’s not something we want them to jump to immediately,
1:26:41 so we’re providing quality, consistent training.
1:26:45 We’ve also continued to offer
1:26:46 behavior intervention toolbox.
1:26:48 We refer to that as bitbox.
1:26:50 PBIS is an ongoing work that we train
1:26:53 in more depth in the summer,
1:26:54 but we have offered some trainings.
1:26:57 We have training monthly.
1:26:59 The principals see me once a month in front of them,
1:27:02 and we get to talk about what we’ve learned
1:27:04 over the course of the last month to make improvements,
1:27:07 as well as if that’s needed with assistant principals.
1:27:10 We continue to coach and mentor teams,
1:27:12 whether that be our MTSS team or that be Justin and I
1:27:16 working with teams to problem solve and be consistent.
1:27:19 And the development of the MTSS behavior website
1:27:22 is a continued resource for all of our staff.
1:27:28 We’ll be providing an update to the RSM audit on the 26th,
1:27:33 so we look forward to sharing those pieces,
1:27:36 all of which are really showing through on this data
1:27:40 that’s clearer, it’s more accurate.
1:27:43 And then we also wanted to share
1:27:45 that we have begun uploading into focus
1:27:50 in the referral student statements
1:27:53 so that they are attached to the referral,
1:27:55 so it’s kind of a one-stop shop.
1:27:57 We have aspirations to start to have expulsion packets
1:28:02 be there as well so that we could always
1:28:03 be able to easily reference that.
1:28:05 We’ve begun uploading statements,
1:28:07 so we’re growing from where we were.
1:28:10 We’re working on corrective action alignment in focus
1:28:13 so that when you pick a certain incident,
1:28:16 you only can pick from certain corrective actions.
1:28:19 That is the most difficult thing to get right right now.
1:28:22 So if we can lock it down or limit it,
1:28:25 it will help us ensure that we have as accurate data,
1:28:29 and everyone following the code of conduct
1:28:33 in every instance.
1:28:35 And last, we are going to be developing
1:28:38 and launching a survey for administrators
1:28:41 and bus drivers on how they’re feeling
1:28:44 about the discipline procedures.
1:28:46 And we’ll work on that going out to them next month.
1:28:58 - Before we move on to the next section, can I, yeah.
1:29:03 I was waiting just ‘cause there was things
1:29:04 that are all kind of intertwined.
1:29:06 So I don’t wanna move on to this next section
1:29:09 without saying my piece about the uncomfortable part
1:29:14 that nobody ever wants to talk about out loud.
1:29:15 And some of this stuff ended up in this presentation
1:29:19 because I, quite frankly, requested it.
1:29:22 I’ve requested it time and time again,
1:29:23 and I think that we are doing a disservice
1:29:26 when we don’t identify what is happening in our schools,
1:29:32 and we’re doing a disservice
1:29:33 when we don’t change what we’re doing.
1:29:35 So it’s still very alarming to me
1:29:40 because I presented this information
1:29:44 almost a year ago now at this point,
1:29:47 the disproportionality by race
1:29:49 in how we’re disciplining our students.
1:29:51 And I was told that that data wasn’t accurate.
1:29:54 And here we are today, we have almost the same exact data.
1:29:57 And the data I presented was a three-year trend,
1:29:59 so now we have four years of the exact same data
1:30:02 that shows the exact same trends,
1:30:04 which are very, very alarming to me.
1:30:06 So black students make up 14% of the population
1:30:10 in Brevard County.
1:30:12 And what we saw here was they continue to represent
1:30:17 at least 30% of our discipline referrals.
1:30:21 And they continue to represent more than that
1:30:24 when it comes to ALC placement.
1:30:28 And that should be concerning to us
1:30:30 because when you look at the types of behaviors,
1:30:38 when you break it down to the types of behaviors,
1:30:40 for instance, willful disobedience,
1:30:44 there’s almost the exact same number
1:30:46 of black students identified as white students.
1:30:49 And that’s not how that works.
1:30:50 That’s why risk ratio exists.
1:30:53 That’s why our black students are over 2.5, which is bad.
1:30:56 It’s not good, it’s really, really bad.
1:30:59 And our white students are below one, which is also bad
1:31:04 because it means we’re under referring those students.
1:31:07 One is the one number we want to achieve.
1:31:09 We don’t want zero.
1:31:10 I mean, that’s just not realistic either,
1:31:12 but we want one because it means it’s happening equitably.
1:31:15 It’s happening with some sort of balance within the system
1:31:19 and I’m so tired of us not really paying attention to that
1:31:26 and thinking about ways that we can address that.
1:31:28 And I know staff is.
1:31:30 I know staff pays attention to that number
1:31:32 and I know that we are paying attention
1:31:35 to the risk ratio at certain schools.
1:31:37 But I think as a district, we need to be honest about it
1:31:40 and we need to be doing something about it
1:31:41 and be forward thinking and forward talking about it
1:31:45 because it will never change.
1:31:47 Because ultimately, we are not doing the right thing
1:31:51 by our students.
1:31:53 When we look at, I asked about,
1:31:56 when we look at the certain schools
1:31:58 that have those risk ratios by race, what are those trends?
1:32:02 Are they, is there a trend perhaps
1:32:04 that those are happening at schools
1:32:06 that have higher populations of black students
1:32:08 or are those trends that are happening at schools
1:32:10 where maybe that isn’t the case?
1:32:12 And clearly, we don’t want to say the names
1:32:15 of those schools out loud and identify them.
1:32:18 But I would advise you to ask those questions
1:32:21 and just kind of take an internal thought about that.
1:32:28 When we look at the ALC,
1:32:31 we have more black students in the ALC
1:32:34 than we do white students.
1:32:35 But when we look at every single referral,
1:32:42 we don’t have referrals that more black students
1:32:45 are doing than white students.
1:32:46 And so you’d have to have a very extreme scenario
1:32:51 where you can justify that number to me,
1:32:54 that we’re treating those students equitably.
1:32:57 And I don’t know how anyone could justify that for me.
1:33:02 That would be a significant amount of black students
1:33:05 doing egregious behaviors over white students.
1:33:08 And I’ve never seen that data to make that make sense to me.
1:33:12 And one of the things that we discussed last time
1:33:14 I brought this up was the potential
1:33:16 that students were choosing home education,
1:33:18 but we just saw the data there
1:33:20 that that doesn’t justify that switch in number either.
1:33:25 So again, I think it’s an obligation of this school system,
1:33:29 but also of the school board
1:33:32 to really care about that number
1:33:35 and have honest conversations
1:33:37 about how we’re going to change that.
1:33:40 Because having data is great,
1:33:42 but if we don’t do anything with it, what’s the point of it?
1:33:44 We’ve had the same data, at least that I’m aware of,
1:33:47 for four years, and it’s increasing.
1:33:50 It’s not even getting better.
1:33:52 What are we going to do about it?
1:33:54 And sure, there’s a multitude of factors
1:33:57 that could influence behavior in students,
1:34:02 but there are only so many factors
1:34:03 that we also could have control over.
1:34:05 And when you break it down by race,
1:34:07 and the numbers are so, so different from one another,
1:34:11 bias is clearly one of them.
1:34:13 It’s not all of it, but it’s one of them,
1:34:16 and we can’t ignore that.
1:34:17 We have an obligation to do right by our students,
1:34:20 and quite frankly, by our staff too,
1:34:22 ‘cause sometimes there’s unconscious biases
1:34:24 happening as well.
1:34:26 It’s not always something super negative.
1:34:27 So again, I appreciate you for being honest.
1:34:32 I appreciate you for breaking down
1:34:34 what that risk ratio means too, right?
1:34:35 Because again, nobody’s alarmed by the fact
1:34:38 that we’re under one in certain demographics,
1:34:40 but we should be alarmed by that.
1:34:41 That’s not good.
1:34:42 That’s not a good number.
1:34:44 So I just, I don’t know.
1:34:46 I got 10 months left here.
1:34:48 I’ve talked about this for the past three years.
1:34:51 I’m not gonna let this go, because it bothers me.
1:34:55 It bothers me so much that it’s presented
1:34:57 in front of us for four years, and we do nothing about it.
1:35:02 - I do wanna address what Ms. Jenkins brought up,
1:35:07 because I don’t agree with you with all of the whys,
1:35:17 but I see the numbers, and I have seen them,
1:35:19 and I agree that they’re different.
1:35:21 I don’t, something being less than one is not something,
1:35:25 maybe you just misspoke.
1:35:26 You said something about that’s alarming.
1:35:27 That’s not right.
1:35:28 It means we’re under disciplining.
1:35:29 I don’t necessarily think
1:35:30 it means we’re under disciplining.
1:35:33 And I don’t, and the other thing is,
1:35:35 bias is gonna be really hard to measure.
1:35:39 And could it factor in?
1:35:40 Yes, but without, when Mr. Reed talked about
1:35:47 when we get in focus where if this is the infraction,
1:35:49 here are your choices.
1:35:51 That could potentially limit some of that,
1:35:53 because you can’t give certain students lighter,
1:35:58 I mean, it has to be something
1:35:59 from this multiple choice, right?
1:36:01 This is the offense, here are your options.
1:36:04 If we see students of different race
1:36:08 committing the same infraction
1:36:09 and getting two different results,
1:36:12 that’s where the bias could potentially come in.
1:36:15 But if we see students committing different,
1:36:20 it needs to be the punishment fits the crime, right?
1:36:26 And we can’t, I won’t ever be in favor,
1:36:29 I will be taking what I am in favor of
1:36:31 and what I have been supporting all along,
1:36:33 which will make a difference, I believe,
1:36:35 in the data points that we’re looking at today.
1:36:38 What I won’t be in favor of is trying to do things
1:36:40 to artificially manipulate the data,
1:36:42 and I don’t think that’s necessarily what you’re saying,
1:36:44 but trying to do things so that we can tell schools,
1:36:47 ‘cause we have had this problem in the past.
1:36:52 The district came down and talked to a school
1:36:55 because their risk ratios were off
1:36:56 and there was pressure
1:36:58 to not discipline certain groups of students
1:37:01 and to try to get those numbers right.
1:37:04 That’s not the right way to do it.
1:37:05 What I will support is making sure that our schools
1:37:09 that have those numbers, that they are coming in
1:37:12 and helping problem solve,
1:37:13 and those are the kinds of things
1:37:14 that those teams are tackling
1:37:16 by those broken down demographics,
1:37:20 making sure that we have given staff permission
1:37:22 to go in those schools and help them problem solve,
1:37:24 do all of that, making sure that our Title I schools
1:37:26 have the supports that they need,
1:37:27 because we’ve seen more than anything
1:37:30 free and reduced lunch has a greater impact
1:37:32 on the behavior risks than anything else,
1:37:36 making sure that those lower income schools
1:37:38 have all the supports that they need.
1:37:40 If there’s more that we need, you let us know,
1:37:43 because I will absolutely support that.
1:37:44 I support our mentoring, especially in schools like that,
1:37:48 so that we’ve got people
1:37:49 from outside the community coming in,
1:37:51 because students that are mentored
1:37:52 and have more people loving on them
1:37:54 and speaking into their lives
1:37:56 are going to be more successful at all races.
1:37:59 All of those things I will support,
1:38:01 but we have to deal with the students who come to us,
1:38:05 and we have to deal with the behaviors that happen,
1:38:08 and if we can teach teachers strategies
1:38:11 to be more successful in a diverse environment,
1:38:14 meaning not just African American, white, Hispanic,
1:38:17 but also ESC, non ESC, free reduced lunch,
1:38:20 not to be aware of student circumstances,
1:38:23 let’s do that, let’s give them all the supports possible,
1:38:26 and the goal of that is to right size those,
1:38:30 but just to see how do we fix this data,
1:38:34 I don’t think the answer is going to be
1:38:36 having some kind of a bias inventory.
1:38:40 I think it’s gonna be a matter of support for the teachers,
1:38:43 support for the students and the schools,
1:38:46 so that we can reduce the behaviors,
1:38:51 and then making sure that we are consistent regardless
1:38:54 with when the behaviors do happen
1:38:57 in doling out the discipline.
1:38:59 I think that’s the fair way of doing it.
1:39:01 I don’t like those numbers any more than you do,
1:39:03 but I do have a different perspective
1:39:05 on what we do with them and where we are with that.
1:39:10 - So I actually would say
1:39:12 we don’t really have a different perspective.
1:39:14 I mean, there’s just a part in there that is different.
1:39:21 I’m not asking anyone to measure bias.
1:39:23 I am arguing bias has already been measured,
1:39:25 because again, risk ratio should be equal and even,
1:39:29 and there are certain demographics
1:39:31 that are way off from others.
1:39:35 The only other answer for that would be
1:39:38 that African American students are more bad than white kids,
1:39:42 which is clearly not true.
1:39:43 So one of the major factors is clearly a bias of some sort.
1:39:49 But what I agree with with you is,
1:39:51 when we see these numbers,
1:39:53 first of all, we have to accept them as reality
1:39:55 and we have to acknowledge that they’re true and they exist
1:39:57 and the potential whys of they exist
1:40:00 in order to even effectively make the change
1:40:03 that you’re suggesting.
1:40:04 So to target the fact that we have these overreferrals
1:40:10 of these students in certain schools,
1:40:12 yeah, we go in and no,
1:40:14 nobody wants to go in and artificially manipulate numbers
1:40:17 or tell people they can’t do things for certain kids.
1:40:19 But when we don’t first acknowledge the numbers
1:40:22 and why they’re happening in the first place,
1:40:23 we can’t fix them correctly.
1:40:25 Clearly, there’s a bias, but that’s not all of it.
1:40:29 There’s also the potential of other things going on,
1:40:32 like the needs of these students aren’t being met.
1:40:34 How can we meet the needs of these students?
1:40:36 Because when their needs aren’t being met,
1:40:38 their behaviors increase.
1:40:40 For me, this isn’t, it’s not just a race thing
1:40:43 and it’s not just about bias.
1:40:44 For me, deep down, when you take a look at these numbers,
1:40:47 it means we’re not meeting the needs
1:40:50 of certain groups of students, and that’s our job.
1:40:52 That’s what matters to me.
1:40:55 All right, so I’d like to say something.
1:40:59 I would agree with everybody,
1:41:01 and I think everybody in this room would agree
1:41:03 that our African American population of students
1:41:08 has a higher disproportionate ability
1:41:11 or statistics that show that they’re being put into ALCs,
1:41:17 and having higher discipline.
1:41:18 But I think that where we end up in a problem is that one,
1:41:21 I do not believe that there is a extreme bias
1:41:24 that’s creating all of this.
1:41:25 I don’t.
1:41:26 What I believe is it’s a holistic problem
1:41:28 that we have with society.
1:41:30 If you look at the incarceration rates
1:41:32 of African Americans compared to white individuals
1:41:35 in the same area, you see the discrepancy.
1:41:37 You look, when you walk around
1:41:39 and you do all of the other metrics that go on
1:41:41 between family and everything else,
1:41:43 we run into that problem.
1:41:44 And I think one of the issues that we run into
1:41:46 is that BPS is forced to deal with all of these problems
1:41:50 in this narrow scope.
1:41:52 And it’s unfair to say that it’s BPS’s problem,
1:41:55 it’s BPS that needs to do this.
1:41:56 And what I think it needs is a holistic approach.
1:41:59 And you see it in the COCO areas,
1:42:01 you see it in some of the other areas
1:42:03 where you see the city officials,
1:42:05 you see community groups, and you see them coming together,
1:42:08 and then we don’t have it in other areas.
1:42:10 And I think that that’s the main problem
1:42:12 when we look at supporting
1:42:13 not only the African American children,
1:42:15 but other children that are having problems
1:42:17 with discipline and other things,
1:42:19 is that they’re in, some of them have the same needs,
1:42:22 but our communities are not communicating together
1:42:24 and we’re not working together.
1:42:25 It’s one of the reasons we’re going to see the cities,
1:42:27 is to find out how we can actively work together
1:42:29 because we’re all spending the same dollar
1:42:31 on the same thing.
1:42:32 So you say, take Melbourne, they have housing development,
1:42:35 has money that they spend after school programs.
1:42:38 They actually spend that.
1:42:39 Are we coordinating our after school programs
1:42:42 to be in line with them?
1:42:43 Or is there an ability to coordinate those dollars,
1:42:46 those efforts, those volunteers?
1:42:48 We have a million volunteers in the Viera area
1:42:51 that are willing to go to the point
1:42:53 where they have to restrict
1:42:54 the amount of parents that go to lunches.
1:42:56 But we don’t even have enough individuals
1:42:58 and PTOs inside of our schools
1:43:00 that are involved in our inner area like Sable and others.
1:43:04 We have teachers that are actually the PTO presidents.
1:43:07 So it’s a societal issue that I think we need to grab.
1:43:11 And I think that’s where, when I’m walking through
1:43:13 a lot of my housing projects or along Aurora
1:43:15 or inside the, and many of the parking
1:43:20 or the trailer parks and stuff like that, I see it.
1:43:24 And it’s a societal problem that we need to fix.
1:43:27 And I think that we as a community,
1:43:28 we would do much better in these regards
1:43:30 when we are able to work with our community partners to help.
1:43:33 But I think that it is, I would say,
1:43:36 I’ve sat alongside of a lot of teachers.
1:43:39 And I would say that to say that the numbers
1:43:41 are increased here and say that bias is a large part of it,
1:43:45 I would disagree.
1:43:45 I would put more of it on us as a society working together
1:43:49 to help those children in general.
1:43:51 So I just wanted to say that.
1:43:53 Gene? - Mr. Trent,
1:43:54 do you have anything to say?
1:43:55 I’ll do this.
1:43:57 - Well, between the three that have spoken,
1:44:00 it would just be a repeat.
1:44:04 But I guess I will.
1:44:05 I mean, to say that our teachers have a bias,
1:44:09 ‘cause that’s who you’re talking about is the discipline.
1:44:12 That’s where it starts, in the classrooms.
1:44:16 That’s disingenuous for the ones that we’re saying
1:44:20 that we trust you to teach our kids and house our kids,
1:44:24 to say that they’re purposely targeting a group of kids.
1:44:29 I can’t go there.
1:44:31 Could it happen?
1:44:32 Sure, but to sit here and not to have any specifics
1:44:34 and say that that’s obviously what’s happening,
1:44:37 can’t go there.
1:44:37 So this is, obviously there’s deep, deep issues
1:44:43 and problems that Matt had brought up there
1:44:44 with the community.
1:44:46 We’re hoping that that’s where we can lean on.
1:44:49 I spent some time in a Title I school’s
1:44:51 principal’s office this week,
1:44:53 and he described situations where,
1:44:57 I mean, our district said, “Your numbers are off.”
1:44:59 You know, and he’s like, “Look at me, look at my students.
1:45:03 “Obviously there’s no bias here.
1:45:05 “We’re doing the best we possibly can.”
1:45:07 (muffled speaking)
1:45:08 It is, it is.
1:45:11 So I would just assume that that’s gonna be the same
1:45:14 throughout our district, that these principals
1:45:16 and these administrators and these teachers
1:45:18 are doing their absolute best on a daily basis
1:45:22 to keep above water.
1:45:24 And if we wanna continue to train and retrain
1:45:27 or emphasize areas that they can think situations through,
1:45:33 so be it, but you know, to walk the halls of our ALCs
1:45:37 and to sit and talk to each other.
1:45:39 Which ones don’t belong there?
1:45:40 I don’t know.
1:45:43 I think that’s another place you could start.
1:45:46 You know, how many, raise your hand
1:45:47 if you don’t feel you deserve to be here.
1:45:49 I was in those classrooms.
1:45:51 And it’s just like in our correction centers,
1:45:53 of course they’re, you know, they’re all innocent.
1:45:57 There’s a lot more than just saying it’s numbers
1:46:00 that we’ve gotta deal with.
1:46:02 It’s society.
1:46:03 And I’m not at that point to just assume our teachers
1:46:07 and educators are not doing what they’re there to do.
1:46:12 I just can’t go there.
1:46:13 - Sorry, we have just three slides.
1:46:15 That’s flying around my face.
1:46:16 All right, thank you, Mr. Trent.
1:46:18 Here’s what I’ll say about this.
1:46:20 And I just wanna ask you this.
1:46:21 I appreciate the slides that you put here,
1:46:23 because honestly, as someone coming in from the outside
1:46:26 and trying to understand and grasp the risk ratio
1:46:28 and what this means, one of your slides was brilliant
1:46:32 and it explains it perfectly.
1:46:33 And that really is, you know,
1:46:34 I think it was slide number 10, 10 and 11,
1:46:38 where you break this down for us.
1:46:39 So I appreciate you giving us this data.
1:46:43 What, ultimately what happens when the risk ratio
1:46:47 is over 2.5?
1:46:48 Can you explain to me what that happens?
1:46:50 ‘Cause there’s a funding aspect of this
1:46:52 that changes within the school, is that correct?
1:46:56 - It’s not 2.5.
1:46:58 - No?
1:46:59 - 3.5.
1:47:00 - 3.5, okay.
1:47:01 - That’s when you can be sanctioned by the state.
1:47:03 - Okay, but isn’t there federal dollars
1:47:06 that also go into play here?
1:47:09 - We have to set aside 15% when we’re on the CCEIS list,
1:47:13 but those are resources.
1:47:15 So we set aside resources to make sure those schools
1:47:19 who have been identified on the list,
1:47:22 that additional support goes to that school
1:47:25 to problem solve strategies and, you know,
1:47:29 interventions to make sure that number decreases.
1:47:33 We’re obligated to do that.
1:47:33 - That’s what I was getting at with that,
1:47:35 is that if these numbers are truly what they are,
1:47:37 and there are federal dollars that are saying,
1:47:40 hey, our numbers are out of whack,
1:47:41 we need to figure out how are we gonna
1:47:42 get some additional supports in there
1:47:43 and help different students.
1:47:45 So I understand, I hear you, Ms. Jenkins,
1:47:49 I hear everyone up here.
1:47:50 I do not believe that our staff is looking
1:47:52 at individual students and disciplining different
1:47:55 based on race, I really don’t.
1:47:57 Unfortunately, an offense is an offense,
1:47:59 and I don’t like that we even have to collect all of that.
1:48:02 So to me, it just seems like that should be
1:48:04 almost colorblind, this is the offense that was committed.
1:48:06 It doesn’t matter what color you are
1:48:08 that you committed this offense, this is the offense,
1:48:11 this is the outcome of that.
1:48:12 And so that is, it’s one of those things
1:48:16 that we collected that, I understand why we’re doing it,
1:48:18 and I get it, but it’s also frustrating at times.
1:48:21 I will say this, you know, last year when we looked
1:48:24 at our quarter one, we had 179 white students
1:48:27 that were in the ALC compared to 114 black students
1:48:31 that were in the ALC.
1:48:32 So when you look at numbers and you kinda go back and forth,
1:48:33 right now there’s 16 more African American students
1:48:36 that are at the ALC than are white students.
1:48:40 And it’s something we’re just gonna continually have
1:48:41 to keep on looking at and address and figure out
1:48:43 how do we change this?
1:48:44 Is this a problem with society?
1:48:46 Is this a problem with our district?
1:48:48 Where is the root of the problem?
1:48:49 The human element we can never control,
1:48:51 that is the reality of it, so we are gonna have
1:48:53 to just continually keep trying to improve it.
1:48:56 To me, I think it is improving.
1:48:59 Maybe that’s being naive, but I think we are
1:49:01 on the right track with a lot of the things
1:49:02 that we’ve implemented, and we’re gonna see
1:49:03 some dividends paid, but it is going to take time,
1:49:06 unfortunately, to see those results.
1:49:08 So I appreciate you presenting this data to us.
1:49:10 I know we’re moving on to Title IX now.
1:49:12 She was chomping at the bit with her microphone,
1:49:13 so if you will go ahead and–
1:49:16 - Can I just say something to that, though?
1:49:19 - Well, the only thing is we have a time certain stop,
1:49:21 Ms. Jenkins, at 4.30. - I understand,
1:49:22 but this is really important.
1:49:24 This is really important. - Go right ahead.
1:49:26 - So it should be colorblind, but it’s not.
1:49:36 That’s exactly what the data is saying.
1:49:38 It’s not, and it’s not getting better.
1:49:41 The number is increasing.
1:49:43 It’s getting worse.
1:49:45 And the feeling that this is a problem with society,
1:49:53 yeah, it sure is, but we’re a reflection
1:49:55 of society, we build society with the schools that we have.
1:49:59 And so if we are not willing to be honest about it
1:50:02 and to address it and change it,
1:50:05 that will never change either.
1:50:07 So I am just going to ask again that you ask individually,
1:50:13 have a conversation with Ms. Dampierre,
1:50:16 take a look at where it’s happening
1:50:18 and the schools that it’s happening,
1:50:19 ‘cause I heard a whole lot of assumptions
1:50:22 about neighborhoods and schools and race.
1:50:24 Take a look at it, because it will open your eyes.
1:50:28 This is a blanket problem.
1:50:30 It’s not just in certain communities.
1:50:32 It’s a blanket problem.
1:50:33 But I do want to have one clarifying question answered.
1:50:36 Can you please explain to me, and if I’m wrong,
1:50:40 so 1.0 is the neutral number we’re looking for,
1:50:45 what does it mean when you’re under 1.0 for risk ratio?
1:50:50 And thank you, Ms. Wright.
1:50:51 - Sure, just again, mathematically, less than one
1:50:55 would be your less referrals, less whatever it is
1:51:01 you’re evaluating for that particular demographic group
1:51:05 would be receiving referrals when compared to the masses
1:51:08 or the other demographic groups.
1:51:09 So less than, less likely for that to happen.
1:51:15 - All right, thank you.
1:51:16 All right, we’ll move on to the Title IX section of this.
1:51:18 I know we’re running out of time, so.
1:51:22 - So, is your mic on?
1:51:28 I’m not sure if it’s on.
1:51:30 Okay, so I’m gonna go over last year’s cases again,
1:51:34 and just sort of talk about where we were
1:51:36 last time I presented.
1:51:37 So just a reminder, when I came on board,
1:51:42 we had 25 open cases from last year.
1:51:45 So we’ve been working really hard to streamline our process
1:51:49 and improve that, so that we could get these cases
1:51:54 closed out, and I think that you’ll see when we get
1:51:57 to this year’s data that our updated processes are working.
1:52:03 So we had a total, this isn’t, so the way this is laid out
1:52:09 is different than how Mr. Reed’s is laid out,
1:52:11 so I just wanna say this is, we had 60 formal complaints
1:52:15 total last year.
1:52:16 So in October, I broke ‘em down for you,
1:52:19 where they were at that time, and I’m gonna now
1:52:22 break ‘em down in January for you,
1:52:24 where those 60 cases are at this time.
1:52:27 So you can see that we are down to only six
1:52:31 that are still open, and those are,
1:52:35 many of those are very, very close to closing.
1:52:38 So we have six that are still open.
1:52:42 One of ‘em is waiting for a decision maker,
1:52:44 three of ‘em are with decision makers.
1:52:46 One is still in the investigation process,
1:52:49 but it is very close to wrapping up,
1:52:52 and then one of those is with labor relations.
1:52:57 Now this year, we’ve had a total of 17 formal complaints,
1:53:02 and we have seven of those.
1:53:07 So you can see in October we had 12.
1:53:12 We’ve already closed out some of our cases from last year,
1:53:16 or from this year, I mean, which is great.
1:53:19 So we’re doing a much better job
1:53:21 of staying in that 60-day timeline.
1:53:24 We also have rolled out the decision maker
1:53:28 being the part we’ve partnered our schools,
1:53:30 so that the decision maker’s no longer up here,
1:53:35 because we really disconnected our school principals
1:53:40 from this whole process, and we’ve seen
1:53:43 just by engaging them back in the process,
1:53:47 it’s already going smoother.
1:53:49 - So when you say we disconnected them from the process,
1:53:52 that was last year.
1:53:53 - That was last year.
1:53:53 - Right. - Right.
1:53:54 - Well, in the beginning of this year, so–
1:53:57 - Change has been made that they are–
1:53:58 - Change has been made where now they are serving
1:54:01 in the decision maker role, so they have a partner school,
1:54:05 and they are the decision maker for each other.
1:54:08 So we tried to pair schools up that were similar,
1:54:13 similar in size, similar in maybe how many cases
1:54:18 they had last year, just trying to not overload
1:54:22 where one of the partners is gonna be overloaded
1:54:27 with doing a lot of work and not really contributing
1:54:32 to the need.
1:54:34 So we have, right now, we have seven of the 17
1:54:39 are in the investigation process.
1:54:42 Four of them are with decision makers,
1:54:45 and that’s our principals.
1:54:47 And two of those went through the informal resolution
1:54:53 process, which is the best case scenario.
1:54:55 That means that everybody comes to the table,
1:54:56 and they come to an agreement of how it’s gonna be solved,
1:55:02 and the case is closed, and everybody moves on.
1:55:08 Three have been dismissed.
1:55:10 And we’ve had zero be substantiated at this point,
1:55:16 and one was unsubstantiated.
1:55:19 It’s really the verbiage for Title IX
1:55:21 is really more unfounded.
1:55:24 A lot of times, there’s not enough evidence.
1:55:26 But right now, we currently have 11 cases that are open.
1:55:30 And so you can see that we’ve successfully
1:55:34 closed out cases, and we have three of them
1:55:38 that are set to the, so after the decision maker,
1:55:44 after the family’s notified of the decision maker’s decision
1:55:48 they have five days to appeal that.
1:55:49 So the beginning of next week, three more cases
1:55:54 will make it through the five day window of that.
1:55:57 So, that’s why I just– - Did it go in your mouth?
1:56:02 (laughing)
1:56:03 - You caught it, you caught it!
1:56:04 - In my mouth.
1:56:05 (laughing)
1:56:06 - I’m sorry.
1:56:07 - I’m so sorry.
1:56:08 - Hopefully I got a little protein out of it, I guess.
1:56:10 - We’re sorry, but you’re on your own.
1:56:11 - I know, I’m like, thank you, but I’m sorry.
1:56:14 - I left my water back there.
1:56:17 - It’s been flying around, though,
1:56:18 so if you see us up here swatting–
1:56:19 - Actually, I just got it on my own, so.
1:56:23 All right.
1:56:23 - There’s one on my microphone right now.
1:56:27 - Yeah.
1:56:28 - Where’s Sue?
1:56:28 - Okay, so total, that’s 17 cases that are open,
1:56:32 but, oh, thank you, but you can see clearly
1:56:37 that our new process is, it’s improved.
1:56:45 Before I move on from that,
1:56:50 we also, one thing that we have just started doing
1:56:56 is tracking that window, so we can start seeing schools
1:57:02 that are struggling to stay in that window,
1:57:05 that we can go out and do some coaching.
1:57:07 We are also taking our process that we came up with
1:57:10 for tracking the windows, and we’re looking at old data
1:57:15 to kind of go back and kind of analyze
1:57:18 where some of that support can come into play
1:57:22 and how we can adjust our training
1:57:24 as we move forward as well.
1:57:26 We also, you all approved the contract
1:57:30 for a new consulting company, ICS,
1:57:34 and we are extremely happy with that new company,
1:57:38 so their advice is you can sense an experience
1:57:49 in a K-12 situation where it’s,
1:57:55 K-12, K-12 programming is very different
1:58:00 than higher education, and so you really need people
1:58:06 that are experiencing that and really giving advice
1:58:08 that’s practical for what our administrators
1:58:11 are trying to navigate in this process,
1:58:14 ‘cause it is not an easy process.
1:58:17 So our bullying data–
1:58:19 - Can I ask a question real fast?
1:58:20 - Yeah, go ahead. - Just real fast,
1:58:22 I know we’re time-certain.
1:58:23 So on the previous slide, what you’re saying is
1:58:26 is that one, we changed the company
1:58:28 that we were dealing with that was giving us the supports,
1:58:30 giving the presentations to the staff and everything else,
1:58:33 and you feel better about that, that this is better,
1:58:35 and then the other one you said was that now
1:58:38 our principals have more involved in the process.
1:58:42 Are there any other factors that assisted this
1:58:45 to be a reduced number of Title IX or anything else?
1:58:47 - So we created a flow chart that really outlined
1:58:50 the steps, how many days they need to be at each step
1:58:53 that I think was very helpful to see it visually.
1:58:58 I don’t even, you know, a lot of times
1:59:01 when you have a lot of words on a paper,
1:59:03 I don’t even know if they realized
1:59:06 how out of compliance they were,
1:59:08 and it became very difficult to,
1:59:13 because I mean, 60 cases, if they,
1:59:16 let’s just say they all end up needing a decision-maker
1:59:19 and our decision-makers are up here,
1:59:21 that is really hard to find.
1:59:24 Oh, no. - No, not another one.
1:59:25 - I’m not. - Thank you.
1:59:27 Thank you for that. - So yes.
1:59:29 - Thank you.
1:59:33 - Okay, so our bullying data, now this is comparing
1:59:37 how many we had at the same time.
1:59:40 So how many, you know, last time we talked about
1:59:43 at Quarter 1, how many we had last year
1:59:45 compared to Quarter 1 this year,
1:59:47 and now I’m breaking it down for Quarter 2.
1:59:51 So you can see we’ve had a very, you know, a big increase.
1:59:57 Last time we met on these numbers,
2:00:00 we were, we didn’t see a huge increase
2:00:05 from last year to this year on the substantiated cases,
2:00:08 but that has changed now in Quarter 2.
2:00:12 So that’s a little concerning.
2:00:17 You can see that our substantiated cases
2:00:19 from this time last year to this time this year
2:00:22 is up 52%, as well as our unsubstantiated cases are 56%.
2:00:29 That’s a lot of extra work
2:00:31 that is burdening our administrators.
2:00:36 We know that there is a huge need for prevention,
2:00:41 but I’ll be honest with you,
2:00:44 we are buried in supporting these numbers as well.
2:00:50 So we’re trying to dig ourselves out,
2:00:52 and we’ve done some things to try to
2:00:59 really support our administrators through the process
2:01:01 where it’s not quite as labor intensive on us
2:01:03 so we can free up our prevention,
2:01:06 our person who does prevention.
2:01:08 So in the past, risk management really reviewed
2:01:12 these investigations and made sure they were accurate,
2:01:15 and now our person who, she reviews the investigations,
2:01:21 does the training, provides the support,
2:01:22 and also is responsible for the prevention.
2:01:25 So you can see where that is a struggle.
2:01:30 So right now, we’re doing a really great job
2:01:34 of streamlining our Title IX investigations,
2:01:39 and our next focus is really digging into
2:01:42 this bullying process to hopefully free up
2:01:46 our prevention person to get her on out in the schools.
2:01:52 And we’ve looked at the data to see which schools
2:01:54 are, which schools have a lot of cases,
2:01:59 so we know that they need to be our priority
2:02:01 with prevention.
2:02:03 We also have some ideas that we’re working on
2:02:06 to roll out some easy messaging to put on
2:02:10 graphics that our schools can put on their website,
2:02:12 that they can put on their marquees,
2:02:14 they can put in their newsletters
2:02:15 if they are sending those out,
2:02:17 they can put it on social media,
2:02:20 really helping families and students understand
2:02:22 the difference between conflict and bullying,
2:02:26 because we, and we talked about this some last time,
2:02:31 our plans are still there, it’s just,
2:02:36 we’re slow and steady attacking it,
2:02:38 and we are, as these numbers increase,
2:02:40 it’s making it harder to take that on.
2:02:43 But we’re getting there.
2:02:48 So we can see the light at the end of the tunnel
2:02:52 with some different shifts and roles of individuals
2:02:57 and staff to try to, you know,
2:03:03 really sort of shift who is helping
2:03:05 with some of the burden of the investigations
2:03:08 so we can free up Ms. Elam,
2:03:11 who is wonderful at the prevention piece.
2:03:13 So, and that is, that’s it, if you have any questions.
2:03:18 - Do you have any questions?
2:03:20 Anyone?
2:03:21 - I think I’ve used it all my time.
2:03:22 - You’ve used up all your question time?
2:03:25 (mumbles)
2:03:26 - I mean, is there, do you see a trend in,
2:03:32 for the bullying complaints, like what,
2:03:35 what they’re being bullied for, or how?
2:03:40 - So Lisa reads all of those,
2:03:43 so I don’t know if you wanna come up here,
2:03:45 I don’t know if you’re seeing a trend in specifics.
2:03:51 - Or do you feel like it’s just kind of,
2:03:53 the increase is equal because the increase overall?
2:04:01 - I would say that it is across the board.
2:04:03 We will see a lot, it’s also age specific.
2:04:05 When you’re looking at elementary school
2:04:07 versus middle or high school,
2:04:08 you’re gonna see different reasons.
2:04:09 A lot of times, meanness,
2:04:12 then you do have the protective classes,
2:04:13 it could be race related, it could be LGBTQ+ status related.
2:04:17 So it is across the spectrum.
2:04:20 A lot of times it’s conflict,
2:04:22 and going back to what Julie said,
2:04:25 it really needs that we have our families involved,
2:04:29 we have our students involved,
2:04:30 and we’re teaching, and we’re advocating
2:04:32 and helping our teachers when they’re seeing the behaviors
2:04:36 to minimize at the conflict stage
2:04:38 so it doesn’t grow and develop.
2:04:40 - Do you feel like,
2:04:43 I feel like we always make an assumption,
2:04:45 which is, it’s probably an accurate assumption,
2:04:46 but we always make an assumption that this often happens
2:04:50 outside of school, it carries outside of school,
2:04:52 social media, things of that nature.
2:04:54 Are you feeling like that’s pretty consistent
2:04:56 and continuously happening?
2:04:57 - And we do see a lot of that.
2:04:58 Social media is absolutely a trend that is there
2:05:03 and has been there, and even more so.
2:05:06 And in our state statute and policy,
2:05:09 cyber bullying doesn’t have to be repeated
2:05:12 that to be defined as substantiated for bullying.
2:05:17 So again, that becomes the education piece
2:05:19 to let our kiddos know, let the parents know,
2:05:21 let our staff know that anything that’s happening
2:05:24 on social media, when you hit that button once,
2:05:26 it goes to the masses, so that’s an excellent point.
2:05:29 - Thanks, I was just curious.
2:05:30 Thank you. - Sure, thanks.
2:05:32 - And that’s one change that we just made
2:05:34 to help our principals.
2:05:36 We added the definition of cyber bullying
2:05:38 right next to where they’re going through and marking.
2:05:42 So because that is a little bit of a misconception
2:05:46 that it has to be repeated.
2:05:48 It escalates online very quickly.
2:05:55 - All right, if there are no further questions,
2:05:57 I think we’re good, thank you.
2:05:59 - Thank you.
2:06:01 - Right, good job.
2:06:06 All right, so our last presentation
2:06:09 is a Guardian Program Informational Update.
2:06:12 I think they’re clearing out.
2:06:15 This one only has three slides, so.
2:06:20 I’m sure there’ll be a lot of conversation.
2:06:26 (people chattering)
2:06:37 Thank you guys for patiently waiting.
2:06:38 I know I see you over there, so.
2:06:56 (people chattering)
2:06:59 Just be prepared that there might be fruit flies
2:07:01 that are going to fly into your mouth, so just.
2:07:02 - It’s over there.
2:07:03 - Okay. (laughs)
2:07:05 Disclaimer, I’m making you aware.
2:07:07 You’re gonna get a little extra protein today.
2:07:09 - Far away. - Yeah.
2:07:25 - Okay, are we waiting, or are we still–
2:07:30 - I’d say go ahead, yeah. - Okay, all right.
2:07:33 Good afternoon, Board Chair Wright,
2:07:36 board members, and Dr. Rendell in his absence.
2:07:40 On the October 24th board meeting,
2:07:44 Mrs. Wright, as well as I think Mrs. Campbell,
2:07:48 asked Dr. Rendell, would he have staff
2:07:51 reach out to other counties
2:07:53 in regards to the guardian program?
2:07:57 At that time, after the meeting, he and I met.
2:08:00 He gave me my marching orders,
2:08:01 and I reached out to 10 counties,
2:08:05 and I got in contact with nine of the 10.
2:08:11 The last county, I was unable to make contact
2:08:14 with my colleague, but I’ll go ahead and get started.
2:08:19 These are the counties that I contacted,
2:08:22 and on November 2nd, I provided you with an update
2:08:26 of those conversations to those counties,
2:08:30 and this update just added the two,
2:08:35 Okaloosa and Marion.
2:08:36 And in Volusia County, I reached out to my colleague,
2:08:39 and he shared that they have 66 schools,
2:08:43 105 guardians, one in each elementary school,
2:08:48 one in each middle school, and two in each high school.
2:08:54 No school-based employees are guardians.
2:08:59 Guardians are employed by the district.
2:09:02 Guardians are also assigned
2:09:05 to charter and alternate site schools.
2:09:10 There are SROs and SRDs in every high school
2:09:14 and most middle schools.
2:09:17 Guardians in Volusia County also respond
2:09:20 to after-hour calls related to facilities
2:09:25 instead of the admin.
2:09:28 I’ll repeat that.
2:09:29 Guardians respond to all after-hour calls
2:09:32 related to the facilities instead of the admin.
2:09:35 Typically, your admin will be the first one to respond
2:09:37 to go to a school and to see what’s going on,
2:09:39 but in Volusia County,
2:09:41 the guardian takes that responsibility.
2:09:44 - Okay.
2:09:45 - In Miami-Dade, I reached out to my colleague,
2:09:47 and he shared with me that they have 516 schools.
2:09:52 They do not have a guardian program.
2:09:55 They have an internal police department
2:09:57 with 500-plus officers and deputies, okay?
2:10:01 In Lee County, my colleague shared
2:10:05 that they have 92 schools.
2:10:08 They started with 300 employees
2:10:11 to participate in the guardian program,
2:10:13 but only four came through the program successfully.
2:10:20 300 participated, and four completed the program.
2:10:27 And it’s totally voluntary,
2:10:30 and at the time of the conversation,
2:10:33 they were in the process of trying to figure out
2:10:37 how to identify the guardians
2:10:40 versus the non-guardians or the police officers, et cetera.
2:10:46 Classroom teachers are not allowed to be guardians.
2:10:50 They currently have SROs in all of their schools,
2:10:54 and Lee County also is in the process
2:10:57 of outfitting all 92 schools
2:10:59 with the open gate security system at their school,
2:11:03 and that is like a metal detector,
2:11:05 like a little walkthrough like you go to the airport.
2:11:08 That’s the new mechanism that’s being outfitted
2:11:12 in a lot of schools throughout the state.
2:11:16 In Sumter County, they have nine total schools,
2:11:20 one high school and combo school,
2:11:22 one middle school, five elementary school,
2:11:26 and one alternate school.
2:11:28 They currently have six or seven guardians.
2:11:33 This is a volunteer opportunity, again, only for admin,
2:11:37 no school-based personnel.
2:11:40 The assistant superintendent is also a guardian.
2:11:45 There are SROs at all nine schools.
2:11:48 The high school and combo schools
2:11:50 both have SRO and a specialist.
2:11:54 In Pinellas County, they have 128 schools,
2:11:59 19 high school and combo schools, 23 middle schools,
2:12:04 77 elementary schools, and nine specialty schools.
2:12:10 All 77 elementary schools have a specialist or a guardian.
2:12:16 No school-based employees are armed.
2:12:19 Specialists and guardians are trained by the sheriff.
2:12:23 Specialists and guardians wear identifiable clothing.
2:12:26 They have already established what that is,
2:12:30 and all secondary schools
2:12:31 have either a deputy or an officer.
2:12:35 In Osceola County, they have 60 schools.
2:12:40 They do not have a guardian program.
2:12:44 Currently, Osceola only uses SROs
2:12:47 at all of their district sites.
2:12:49 All secondary schools either have a deputy or an officer.
2:12:55 Suwannee County.
2:13:00 My conversations with Suwannee County COO is
2:13:03 they have 11 schools, no charter schools.
2:13:07 They have a total of 60 guardians.
2:13:11 Teachers in specific roles such as PE,
2:13:14 driver’s ed, and Hope participate in the guardian program.
2:13:21 Every school has SROs and guardians,
2:13:25 but they have zero specialists.
2:13:28 The goal is to have five at every school.
2:13:32 The sheriff’s department trains the guardians,
2:13:35 and Suwannee County exceeds the mandated training hours
2:13:40 for guardians required by the state.
2:13:43 They also hold simulated training each week
2:13:47 by the SWAT team at their schools.
2:13:49 Very aggressive approach to the process.
2:13:54 In Lake County, they have 46 schools, 15 charter schools.
2:14:01 They also have 21 guardians with only administrators
2:14:06 being permitted to participate in the guardian program.
2:14:09 They have 50 SROs with Lake County Sheriff’s Department
2:14:14 or local municipalities.
2:14:16 Elementary schools have guardians.
2:14:18 Middle schools have SROs.
2:14:20 High schools have SROs or both.
2:14:25 The guardians are trained
2:14:26 by the Lake County Sheriff’s Department,
2:14:30 and Lake County meets all state mandated training
2:14:33 hours required.
2:14:35 In addition, they provide quarterly training
2:14:38 as well as proficiency shooting during those trainings.
2:14:46 And these last two are the updated two
2:14:49 that I did not send to you all on November 2nd.
2:14:52 Okaloosa County, my colleagues share
2:14:55 that they have 38 schools with four charter schools.
2:15:00 They have 17 guardians.
2:15:02 Again, the program is on a voluntary basis.
2:15:06 Law enforcement, school administration,
2:15:09 and district administration are the only people
2:15:11 that are aware of who the 17 guardians are
2:15:16 in the event of a threat.
2:15:18 The volunteers were put on a sash
2:15:21 that they always carry with them to distinguish
2:15:23 the difference between them and the threat
2:15:26 once law enforcement, once a threat is deemed.
2:15:32 The volunteers were put on a sash.
2:15:35 The Okaloosa Sheriff’s Department is responsible
2:15:38 for training the guardians.
2:15:41 Additionally, they have 57 deputies,
2:15:44 one at every elementary school and middle school
2:15:47 and two at every high school.
2:15:51 And my next attempted conversation was Marion County.
2:15:55 I was unable to get in contact with Marion.
2:15:56 I reached out several times and did not receive
2:15:59 a phone call back from Marion.
2:16:02 But I will give you Brevard County’s numbers.
2:16:07 Of course, we have a few guardians.
2:16:11 We have 106 campuses.
2:16:13 We have 58 elementary, 29 secondary schools,
2:16:18 that’s middle and high.
2:16:19 Four alt sites and 15 charters.
2:16:22 And of that, we have 76 total SROs
2:16:26 between BCSO and our local municipalities.
2:16:32 And we also have 34 specialists and two K-9s.
2:16:39 We have four charter schools that participate
2:16:42 in the guardian program, oh, contracted services, excuse me.
2:16:46 And that’s Odyssey Charter, Palm Bay Academy,
2:16:50 Palm Bay Academy Middle, and Pineapple Classical Academy,
2:16:56 Pineapple Classical Academy.
2:16:58 - What was the last date those four happened?
2:17:00 - Contracted services, not guardians.
2:17:06 - So to clarify, we don’t have any guardians.
2:17:08 - We do not have any guardians.
2:17:11 - The pure guardians?
2:17:13 - Correct, correct, correct.
2:17:16 - All right. - Thank you.
2:17:17 Are there any questions? - Thank you.
2:17:19 I’m gonna go ahead and let my call number start,
2:17:22 and then I’ll wrap it up.
2:17:28 - So the numbers for Brevard, just to clarify,
2:17:30 when you say, so there’s 76 SROs
2:17:33 and 34 school security specialists.
2:17:37 Do the municipalities that we use
2:17:40 instead of the sheriff’s office fall in the SRO total?
2:17:43 - Yes. - Okay.
2:17:44 - Correct, yes ma’am.
2:17:45 - Okay, I’m not gonna dive deep into this conversation
2:17:49 ‘cause we started it last time,
2:17:50 and I don’t know where we’re going here today,
2:17:52 but everyone knows where I stand on this issue.
2:17:55 The one thing that I’ve always said
2:17:58 that I totally would be okay with
2:18:00 is increasing our high school campuses
2:18:04 that are larger and complex and inside outside
2:18:07 to more than one person seems logical to me.
2:18:12 But I also know that that’s not so simple, right?
2:18:16 I know it was probably two years ago
2:18:18 when the sheriff came and spoke about this,
2:18:22 but it was difficult staffing, period.
2:18:24 So I don’t even know if that’s a need
2:18:26 that could be met with personnel,
2:18:28 but that’s something I’m open to.
2:18:33 - Sorry, I just had to tell you that’s like what I said.
2:18:35 - Did you get it?
2:18:36 Yeah, all right, missed the camera.
2:18:38 - Sorry, we’re getting violent.
2:18:39 - Yeah. (laughs)
2:18:41 Yeah, so over the last few months
2:18:47 have tried to have this conversation
2:18:49 with every principal that I visited
2:18:51 and different school visits
2:18:52 and even just as late as yesterday
2:18:54 having their conversation
2:18:55 and also talking to other counties.
2:18:57 And I know, Mary, you didn’t get to talk to them,
2:18:59 but I talked to one of their school board members
2:19:00 and I knew that now they have principals who,
2:19:03 assistant principals who are serving.
2:19:04 So I don’t know if that’s the only ones who can serve,
2:19:06 but I don’t know if they’re known or unknown.
2:19:09 They’re known to that school board member,
2:19:11 so I don’t know, but as I’ve had this conversation,
2:19:18 I remember that conversation when we talked about previously
2:19:22 if we could hire more security specialists,
2:19:25 could we find them?
2:19:26 Because we do sometimes sit with some vacancies
2:19:28 and they try to hire them as soon as possible,
2:19:30 but if we have that vacancy and they hire them,
2:19:32 they have to go through the process
2:19:33 of the four to five weeks of training
2:19:36 before we can get them up and running
2:19:38 and they’re not gonna do that class just for one person
2:19:41 who we try to make ‘til we have a critical mass.
2:19:43 So in other words, there are plenty of times
2:19:44 when we are short-staffed and we have people who get,
2:19:47 we get guys and gals that get pulled away
2:19:49 because they have duties or training or whatever,
2:19:52 then we move our security specialists around to cover
2:19:54 and we are very, very, very often left
2:19:57 with one person per campus on some big campuses,
2:20:01 high population schools, high needs schools,
2:20:04 high incidence schools.
2:20:07 And so it, that is where it comes down to
2:20:12 what is the other solution and this is a solution
2:20:15 that I appreciate you doing the research
2:20:17 that other school districts are doing.
2:20:19 Thank you for being, for getting this good sample.
2:20:22 I think this is probably a good sampler from across the state
2:20:24 because I think we have a few others probably,
2:20:26 but there are districts who are not using
2:20:29 any kind of guardian security specialist situation at all.
2:20:32 There are some who are using them in the exact same way
2:20:34 we are as a supplement.
2:20:36 There are some who are doing
2:20:37 the undercover people don’t know kind of ways
2:20:41 and there are people who are using teachers
2:20:43 and there’s, you know, there’s ways,
2:20:44 ones who are using only admin.
2:20:46 So there’s lots for us to look at
2:20:48 and some of them have been doing it now
2:20:50 for five and a half years.
2:20:55 As I mentioned last time,
2:20:56 that makes me a little more comfortable.
2:20:58 All of my principals were pretty much in agreement
2:21:00 that if we did this and we did it right,
2:21:02 there would be something that they could see
2:21:04 as valuable on their campus.
2:21:05 I mean, one even went so far as to say
2:21:06 why wouldn’t we do it?
2:21:09 Here are the concerns that I would have
2:21:11 if we start hashing it out.
2:21:12 Here’s some things that I would want to see in place.
2:21:16 One, everybody needs to understand
2:21:18 that these people have to go through
2:21:19 the same rigorous training,
2:21:20 which our sheriff is requiring
2:21:22 more than the state’s mandate in 132 hours.
2:21:24 I think it’s 176 hours, 177, somewhere like,
2:21:27 ‘cause Revard has to be bigger than,
2:21:29 and this is the area where I want us
2:21:31 to be bigger and better than everybody.
2:21:33 I also think we have, for our security specialists,
2:21:35 we have the requirement that they either
2:21:36 have to have military law enforcement
2:21:39 or security background, correct?
2:21:42 - Preferred. - Preferred.
2:21:43 I would like to, if we move forward with this
2:21:45 as someone who’s in another position,
2:21:47 I would like to maintain that standard,
2:21:49 that it has to be someone who has that background,
2:21:51 that that’s what we’re really looking for
2:21:53 is those people who are military law enforcement
2:21:55 or security background.
2:21:57 Sometimes that’s hard to find in this
2:22:01 group of population of employees, but it can be found.
2:22:06 Another concern, I think we’ve just,
2:22:09 because it comes up every time that the articles pop up,
2:22:12 it’s, they come out a couple times,
2:22:14 we’re not talking about classroom teachers.
2:22:15 I don’t believe we need, you know,
2:22:16 I think we’re probably in agreement with that
2:22:18 because a classroom teacher in a critical incident
2:22:19 has one job, and that job is to keep those students
2:22:23 in that classroom, that’s not to leave them.
2:22:25 I could see if the union was amenable to it,
2:22:27 maybe a TOA who moves around or another teacher
2:22:30 that is assigned a movement type situation,
2:22:36 but that would be up to if the union is agreeable to that.
2:22:40 And again, it’s somebody who would want to do that.
2:22:44 As I’ve talked, really the number one concern
2:22:46 that was consistent with every administrator
2:22:47 that I talked to is it would depend on the person.
2:22:50 And so what I got from that is I think our principals
2:22:53 need to have strong input into this
2:22:55 because they know the character of the employee.
2:22:58 I don’t think they need to have the final say
2:23:00 because there could be a principal
2:23:01 who is absolutely opposed to this
2:23:03 and would say no, no, no, no to anybody
2:23:05 who might be a really good qualified candidate.
2:23:07 But we need to definitely have their input
2:23:10 as to who would be, if the person who is applying
2:23:15 would be a good fit for that role.
2:23:20 Another concern that I had from last time,
2:23:22 this is just left over from last time,
2:23:23 is there was some concern because we were,
2:23:26 the board, this was before I got on,
2:23:27 but the board at the time was considering
2:23:29 using this as the, we didn’t have the funding,
2:23:31 we didn’t have the SROs, we have to have,
2:23:33 we legally, after Marder, Shum, and Douglas
2:23:35 have to have an armed person on every campus.
2:23:37 This was an option to get an armed person on every campus
2:23:40 until the board put extra money into getting the SROs
2:23:43 and doing the security specialists.
2:23:45 So there was the possibility that people
2:23:47 might be moved around from school to school.
2:23:49 They might not want to volunteer for it
2:23:51 because then I might get reassigned
2:23:52 ‘cause this school doesn’t have one
2:23:54 and they would move me.
2:23:55 I don’t want that to be a part of it.
2:23:56 To be honest, we might have some schools who have zero,
2:23:59 we might have some schools that have five.
2:24:01 What the person who would mean to do harm
2:24:05 to our students and to our schools,
2:24:07 they won’t know where they are,
2:24:08 they’ll just know we have ‘em.
2:24:10 It would be, is my thought about that.
2:24:12 And so I’m not really interested in moving people around
2:24:16 to meet a quota necessarily,
2:24:20 but just if we’re gonna have ‘em,
2:24:24 it’s just known that we have ‘em
2:24:25 and people won’t know from the public
2:24:27 that obviously the administrators need to know,
2:24:29 the law enforcement needs to know basis, right?
2:24:33 The people who need to know would know
2:24:34 and nobody else would.
2:24:36 That’s kind of where I am on that,
2:24:37 but I just want to make sure
2:24:38 that those factors as we move forward,
2:24:39 I really would like to see us hold that requirement
2:24:43 or preference that they have
2:24:44 the important background knowledge.
2:24:48 One thing to consider, Board, on that particular issue
2:24:51 is there’s legislation going through right now
2:24:53 and I don’t know where it’ll go.
2:24:54 Session still has another month and a half to go,
2:24:57 but our legislators are considering
2:24:59 tweaked the guardian program and that is
2:25:02 if someone comes in, the sheriff has the flexibility,
2:25:06 the sheriff would have the flexibility if it passes
2:25:08 to if someone is retired law enforcement,
2:25:12 for them not to have to complete the entire 177 hours,
2:25:16 that could be shortened if the sheriff chose to
2:25:19 because they just, let’s say they just retired
2:25:20 from law enforcement.
2:25:21 They could not have that part of the training
2:25:24 which they would have had as a retired
2:25:27 law enforcement officer.
2:25:29 And so that’s just something to keep our eye on.
2:25:31 Wouldn’t be something that the sheriff would have to do,
2:25:32 but they’d have that option to move those people
2:25:34 through the training a little faster
2:25:36 and then they would just have to finish the parts
2:25:38 that was specific to working in a school setting.
2:25:41 So that was, that’s my input I’ve collected
2:25:44 over the last few months.
2:25:47 - All right, thank you. - Got him.
2:25:48 - Ms. Campbell, Mr. Susan.
2:25:49 - Yeah, I want to say thank you.
2:25:51 You’re right, Ms. Campbell,
2:25:52 when we had this conversation before it was again,
2:25:56 I think every year we deal with another major issue, right?
2:25:58 So this one was where we were dealing with the security
2:26:02 and we did, we have two municipalities
2:26:05 that I know of for a fact
2:26:06 that have very hard time filling those positions.
2:26:09 So we had our elementary schools needed to fill them
2:26:12 and we filled them with our security specialists,
2:26:15 which I will tell you in the beginning,
2:26:18 there were a lot of concerns,
2:26:19 but I will tell you now that many of my elementary schools
2:26:22 love their specialists
2:26:23 to the point where when we try to move them around,
2:26:25 they go crazy.
2:26:26 And there’s a lot of positives towards that.
2:26:28 So that was there.
2:26:31 Let me ask you something, Officer Klein and Mr. Wilson,
2:26:35 what, do we have a capacity issue in dealing with,
2:26:39 like if we were to say we wanted 15 more specialists,
2:26:42 are we, would we be able to fill those positions
2:26:45 or are we at a spot where that’s a 34, 35, 40
2:26:48 is a tough area?
2:26:50 It’s been difficult to fill.
2:26:52 I mean, it has, there is a limit to it.
2:26:56 And the reason for that is, as you saw in the numbers,
2:27:00 yes, it is a very rigorous training,
2:27:02 but before they even get to the training,
2:27:03 they go through a background check
2:27:05 that comes from the school
2:27:07 and it also comes from the Sheriff’s office.
2:27:08 And then they even go as far as a review board
2:27:11 and then they go through a psychological
2:27:13 before we even send them to the training.
2:27:15 So sometimes by the end of the review process,
2:27:18 we’ve nixed on the last group we had, we nixed quite a few.
2:27:22 So it’s not the, how do I put this?
2:27:26 This is not a job for the faint of heart
2:27:28 because of what we put them in the schools for.
2:27:30 What they’re there for is for safety,
2:27:32 to protect the staff and the children.
2:27:34 And you have to have someone that’s able to fulfill that job
2:27:36 and sometimes we get people in there
2:27:38 that are ready to do it, but they just will not match that.
2:27:41 So to be truly honest with you,
2:27:45 it would depend to fill 15 extra specialists.
2:27:49 - I was just, yeah,
2:27:50 throwing the number out there to see if it was.
2:27:51 - I think the last class was like four or five
2:27:54 that graduated.
2:27:54 - Yes, we were at capacity
2:27:56 and now we are two, fixed to be three.
2:27:58 - Fixed to be three, I’m sure.
2:28:00 - Yeah, yeah, okay, thank you.
2:28:03 - Mr. Trapp.
2:28:04 - No, great, thanks for the information.
2:28:06 It’s really nice to see what other districts are doing
2:28:08 and that it was an outlandish for us
2:28:11 to even bring this up to talk about it
2:28:13 because security is the utmost important.
2:28:16 I trust the two of you to come back also in this process
2:28:20 to say this is what I think we need
2:28:23 and then we’ll take it from there.
2:28:24 But yeah, I see what Ms. Campbell said
2:28:27 that it’s all over the board of solutions.
2:28:30 And like we’ve said from the beginning,
2:28:32 everything’s gotta be out on the table
2:28:34 for the security of our students and staff.
2:28:36 That’s what’s important.
2:28:38 So I think we’re all committed to that here
2:28:41 and thank you for reaching out and getting those details.
2:28:45 I mean, for us, I mean, we kinda knew that already,
2:28:47 but I think it’s good for the public
2:28:49 to see that and to hear that we’re not coming up
2:28:52 with something that other districts are not already doing.
2:28:55 So thank you.
2:28:57 - Yeah, thank you guys.
2:28:58 I appreciate you guys taking this deep dive into this.
2:29:00 You know, every district’s a little bit different,
2:29:02 which is, that’s great.
2:29:03 That’s what makes us all unique, right?
2:29:07 But what I’m seeing kind of as a pattern,
2:29:10 a reoccurring pattern is that most of the high schools
2:29:13 have more than one officer in most districts
2:29:15 that are using these programs.
2:29:17 We typically have one and maybe sometimes
2:29:20 a security specialist, sometimes not.
2:29:21 So we currently have vacancies with security specialists.
2:29:24 You know, when I brought this forward, everyone thought,
2:29:26 oh, we’re arming teachers.
2:29:27 Let me be very clear, 100% that was never on the table
2:29:31 for me as far as a recommendation.
2:29:33 Never wanted to arm a school teacher
2:29:35 that’s teaching children in a classroom.
2:29:38 My thought process behind the Guardian Program,
2:29:41 and I think what is so great about it is that,
2:29:43 number one, the element of surprise,
2:29:45 like you had spoke about, Ms. Campbell,
2:29:46 with some of these counties that we don’t necessarily,
2:29:49 the public doesn’t know who they are or where they are,
2:29:52 but they’re there, they’re there to protect
2:29:53 should the need ever arise.
2:29:56 The Guardian Program also, I feel like,
2:29:59 is a great solution to some of our security needs
2:30:01 because we are having trouble staffing
2:30:04 the security specialists, and in a perfect world,
2:30:06 we could hire another 100 SROs,
2:30:09 but the reality is that’s probably not gonna happen.
2:30:13 So I mean, what I would like to see, ultimately,
2:30:16 as we move forward with these conversations is,
2:30:19 again, the principal having a say.
2:30:20 I think that’s a great idea.
2:30:21 I honestly, I love that.
2:30:23 Maybe not the final say, but them actually having input
2:30:25 into this person should or should not be part of
2:30:28 this program should they choose to.
2:30:30 And again, when I say the principal having a say,
2:30:32 again, these are not classroom teachers.
2:30:34 These are people that are serving in capacity
2:30:36 of an administrator, or a dean, or things of that nature,
2:30:38 but they’re not in the classroom with students all the time.
2:30:41 But I think we should, at least at a very bare minimum,
2:30:45 move in a direction where we’re placing
2:30:47 a couple guardians at each high school location,
2:30:50 a guardian at each middle school location,
2:30:53 and a guardian at each elementary.
2:30:55 That’s what I would love to see.
2:30:56 I know that that’s a huge ask,
2:30:58 and I know that that comes with some dollars, so. (laughs)
2:31:00 So I guess the next task that I would just ask you to do
2:31:03 is to find out what would that cost you, what would that
2:31:05 look like if we added two guardians to every high school,
2:31:08 ‘cause there’s a training fee
2:31:09 that’s associated with that, right?
2:31:12 Okay, so the two guardians at each high school,
2:31:15 one at our middle schools,
2:31:17 and then one at our elementary schools.
2:31:20 It’s a lot of guardians to train, and I’m sure.
2:31:22 - Yeah, so to be clear, this would be an employee
2:31:25 already on staff, so we’re not adding
2:31:28 a security specialist position.
2:31:30 We’re adding a guardian cost.
2:31:33 - So it would be the training and the supplement costs.
2:31:36 - The training is, the training has been, in the past,
2:31:40 covered by the security funds from the state,
2:31:43 unless they have done away with that.
2:31:44 - No, they’re there, but there’s not quite enough there
2:31:47 to train the amount of guardians that–
2:31:49 - That money is dwindling. - Yeah.
2:31:50 - Well, the bottom line is we would figure out
2:31:52 how much it would cost, and we could show you
2:31:53 what could be covered by existing security funds
2:31:56 and what we’d have to go find.
2:31:57 - Okay. - And the equipment costs.
2:31:59 - Could you repeat two at every high school?
2:32:02 - One at every middle school and one
2:32:03 at every elementary school?
2:32:05 - Two at every middle school and one at every middle school.
2:32:07 - And then I would be curious to know
2:32:09 what our vacancies are for those specialists.
2:32:10 We have three, you said, right, or two?
2:32:12 - Two, fixing to be a third one.
2:32:14 - Okay, and all right, and the specialists move around,
2:32:18 correct, do you move them sometimes,
2:32:20 depending on if somebody calls out?
2:32:22 - Some move, yes, some of them stay stationary.
2:32:24 - And what about SROs, same scenario or no?
2:32:27 Those are always at the same school.
2:32:28 I mean, I see mine, mine tend to be all the same ones.
2:32:30 - They’re assigned to that same school
2:32:32 unless there’s a certain need that comes up,
2:32:33 like a therapy dog deployment or something along those lines,
2:32:36 we do shuffle them occasionally, so.
2:32:38 - Okay, all right. - Yeah, we do have a couple
2:32:40 of our high schools that have security specialists
2:32:44 in addition to an SRO or an SRD,
2:32:47 and so that’s who usually we pull
2:32:49 when we have a vacancy at another school.
2:32:51 - At another school, okay.
2:32:52 And I mean, in the event that we had to pull those,
2:32:54 I think it would also help as far as,
2:32:56 hey, there’s a couple guardians that are on campus
2:32:59 that are there to fill in should they need to,
2:33:02 and God willing, they never need to.
2:33:03 That’s what we hope for.
2:33:05 But that’s what I would like to see, board,
2:33:06 if you’re in favor of that,
2:33:07 just getting the data back on how much will it cost
2:33:10 to add these additional guardians,
2:33:12 and then working with the sheriff on,
2:33:15 I know we had talked about this before,
2:33:16 someone like securing some of the funding
2:33:18 that you have to grab from the state for the training.
2:33:20 I don’t know if that has been initiated
2:33:22 or if where we’re at with that.
2:33:24 - We’re in the process of working out
2:33:26 all the logistics on it.
2:33:28 One of the issues that came up is that the sheriff’s office
2:33:30 is required to carry an extra liability insurance
2:33:33 on each one of those specialists and guardians
2:33:35 that go through the program.
2:33:37 And currently that’s around $1,300 annually on each person.
2:33:42 So the funds have been able in the past
2:33:45 to help mitigate those costs.
2:33:47 Unfortunately, because there’s more sheriffs
2:33:50 that are now participating in this program
2:33:52 than there were a couple years ago,
2:33:54 the funding has gotten a lot more tighter.
2:33:57 So we’re in the process of working
2:33:58 all those details out now.
2:34:00 - Okay, all right.
2:34:01 And that may be something that the district needs to look at.
2:34:03 Is the state statute require the sheriff to pay that?
2:34:06 It doesn’t, okay.
2:34:08 - ‘Cause he’s responsible for the training.
2:34:09 - For the training.
2:34:10 - It kind of goes hand in hand with it.
2:34:12 And then it goes to the Florida Sheriff’s Risks Program,
2:34:16 and then they pretty much take care of it from there.
2:34:18 Something happens.
2:34:19 - Okay, all right.
2:34:21 Well, obviously we need to know what the cost looks like.
2:34:23 And then as a voluntary program,
2:34:25 we don’t know how successful this will be
2:34:27 because you don’t know who’s going to apply.
2:34:29 - Yeah, that’s why I’m not really interested
2:34:31 in a quota so much.
2:34:32 I mean, we might have, but if you look at Sewanee,
2:34:35 Sewanee has 60 and they only have 11 schools.
2:34:38 If you kind of, I don’t know how big those schools are,
2:34:41 but we have seven times as many schools as that.
2:34:44 I mean, I don’t know that we’ll have 420 people
2:34:49 volunteer to do it, but then weeding out through the process.
2:34:55 It could be a lot.
2:34:56 We’ll just need to see what people walk through the door.
2:35:00 - Right, I do think that that is going to be,
2:35:03 that’ll be really telling of how successful this will be
2:35:05 or not if we have the people that are interested in it,
2:35:08 and that can pass the rigorous testing
2:35:11 and things that got to get through
2:35:12 to be a part of this program, which is good.
2:35:14 Those are all good things.
2:35:15 So if you’re able to gather that and bring it back to us,
2:35:18 I think that will help us as a board
2:35:20 to be able to make a decision
2:35:20 on how we move forward from here, if that’s okay.
2:35:24 - Yeah, so some next steps is the costs associated
2:35:26 with that number of additional or guardians
2:35:31 and maybe a survey of the people who might be eligible
2:35:37 to see if they’re interested.
2:35:39 So we see what kind of numbers you might have.
2:35:41 And then we need to put together a timeline
2:35:44 because this training would probably take place this summer
2:35:46 if we were gonna launch this next year.
2:35:49 So we have to kind of backwards plan
2:35:51 with the Sheriff’s Department to see if this,
2:35:53 when we have to make a decision.
2:35:55 - Okay.
2:35:56 - One of the things we haven’t done
2:35:57 is get the input of the sheriff.
2:35:58 I think I know what it will be,
2:36:00 but can we get input on timeline costs, numbers?
2:36:06 I think that would be good to hear specifically.
2:36:10 I mean, I can pick up the phone and call him,
2:36:11 but for us as an organization to give his input.
2:36:16 - If we can also find out what the knockouts are
2:36:19 in the other places, meaning like Swaney,
2:36:21 did they say only law enforcement,
2:36:22 only for military, you know what I mean?
2:36:24 If there’s some sort of knockouts that they would do
2:36:27 that said only these people inside those classifications
2:36:30 qualify, that would be, that would help too, that’s all.
2:36:33 - And I mean, I like that, I like that,
2:36:36 but I also realize that we may not have
2:36:38 a whole bunch of law enforcement or military.
2:36:41 So maybe the preferential being part of it,
2:36:44 but not necessarily a mandate.
2:36:46 - I just wanted to see what they were throwing out,
2:36:47 that’s all. - Yeah.
2:36:48 - ‘Cause sometimes there’s some interesting stuff in there.
2:36:50 - Okay, does anybody else have any other questions?
2:36:53 Where, no, no, okay.
2:36:56 All right, I’m gonna honor the 4.30 stop time because–
2:37:00 - We did it. - Yeah, we’re really close.
2:37:01 So seeing no further business, this meeting will be adjourned.
2:37:04 (gavel bangs)
2:37:09 (upbeat music)
2:37:50 (silence)