Updates on the Fight for Quality Public Education in Brevard County, FL
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11:50 Madam Chair, board members, Dr. Rendell, this is the general
11:57 fund update and I also want to introduce Ms. Granhold and she is
12:05 my right-hand person and if you guys want to go deep into any
12:10 questions, she’s the person to help.
12:13 So to get started, so what is a budget and I say this every time
12:24 but I think it’s worth saying every time,
12:26 a budget is a future-looking financial plan based on estimated
12:30 revenues
12:31 and estimated expenses for a specific amount of time.
12:36 So, you know, the key takeaway is we estimate what we think
12:40 revenue is going to be,
12:42 we estimate what we think the expenditures are going to be and
12:48 then they have to balance
12:50 but that, you know, that is not money in the bank.
12:53 There’s– we have to course correct and, you know, there’s fact
12:57 of life changes.
12:58 Revenue and expenditures can be impacted in the– by the global
13:02 economy.
13:02 We have two wars right now, Eastern Europe and Middle East,
13:06 critical to energy supply.
13:09 So there’s all kinds of things that could happen on the national
13:12 stage,
13:12 the state and local unknowns.
13:15 So this is our best estimate as of today and I really like Yoga
13:21 Bear’s quote where it’s tough
13:23 to make predictions especially about the future.
13:30 Board priorities, so the budget reflects your priorities and
13:34 that’s, you know,
13:35 what’s most dear to the school board, clear understanding of
13:38 focus areas and desired outcomes.
13:41 An excellent education is job one.
13:45 We have to meet each student where they are,
13:48 touch their hearts before we can actually reach their minds.
13:52 We have to ensure that we are incentivizing, supporting and
13:58 compensating our employees.
14:01 We want the best employees possible in order to educate our
14:05 students
14:06 and run the school district as efficiently as possible.
14:10 We have to maintain fiscal strength and protect the taxpayers’
14:16 interests.
14:17 And then so here are some considerations that we also think
14:28 through for the budget
14:29 and obviously job one, the most important thing,
14:32 the reason we’re all here is student achievement.
14:37 The budget is also impacted by legislative changes.
14:41 You know, it could be positive or it could be, you know, unfunded
14:45 mandate,
14:46 uncertainty in enrollment, are we going to stay flat, grow,
14:50 those kind of things.
14:52 Healthcare costs, impact of inflation, ESSER funding we’ve had
14:57 for several years now
14:59 and September 30th is the end so making sure that we have a soft
15:04 landing and not a cliff
15:05 that we’re going to have to figure out how we’re going to cover
15:09 these expenses
15:11 and then being responsible, we have to make sure that we are
15:15 solvent
15:15 and have a responsible fund balance and that we have a good
15:20 credit rating.
15:21 So again, you know, focus on student achievement and I think
15:31 everybody wins.
15:33 We really looked at the budget really hard and scrubbed the
15:38 different areas.
15:40 What do we really need?
15:41 And I have to say the cabinet members did an amazing job with
15:45 looking at who they have,
15:49 what authorizations they have and then what they need
15:51 and making sure it’s the most effective.
15:55 They were able to reduce positions but actually gain momentum
16:01 and gain, what am I looking for?
16:07 Achieve, gain, yeah, outcome, thank you.
16:16 And so again, foster a culture of cost awareness is everything.
16:25 We need to strengthen collaboration.
16:27 We have to move away from no, that’s my budget to what is the
16:31 best for the school district
16:33 and what is the best for the students in order to get an
16:38 excellent education and, you know,
16:40 we have to just take a look at the overall goal and it’s not
16:44 anybody’s budget.
16:46 It’s district’s budget.
16:49 It’s the kids’ budget to make sure that we educate them well.
16:59 You’ve seen this slide quite a bit.
17:01 This is the slide that shows the FTE growth and I circled the
17:07 2021 year because that’s
17:10 when we were, you know, affected the most by the pandemic.
17:14 You can see that we had a drop in enrollment and I also wanna
17:18 make sure that you see
17:20 that this is broken out by the district, charters, scholarship
17:26 and BVARD totals.
17:28 So when you look at the FEFP or when you look at what the state
17:34 reports,
17:35 you’ll see the 82,000 number of students but you have to
17:41 remember that the district,
17:43 the projecting 62,772 students with charters and scholarships.
17:50 So you have to remember that when you’re looking at the FEFP
17:56 and when you’re looking at the funding.
18:07 And this is just a graphic to depict the information a different
18:11 way.
18:14 And what can be misleading is the voucher– the scholarship
18:21 portion.
18:23 So impact of HB1 one year later, there wasn’t a mass exodus like,
18:29 you know,
18:30 prior to the new legislation and you can see that at– this is
18:37 at a state level,
18:39 78 percent of the scholarships distributed were
18:43 for students already attending private school.
18:46 So not– you know, so the majority of students taking
18:54 scholarships are already
18:56 in private school and would not have come into our district.
19:01 Twelve percent of the scholarships were distributed
19:05 for students entering private school in kindergarten.
19:08 Now that one is a little bit, you know, would they have gone to
19:11 public school
19:12 or would they have gone to private school in kindergarten?
19:15 There is– that one is a little bit– no really way to say that
19:21 which way it would have gone
19:23 but we know a lot of students would have gone to kindergarten
19:26 private schools.
19:28 And then 10 percent of scholarships distributed for the students
19:32 from–
19:33 for students from public charter schools transferring to private
19:36 schools.
19:37 So that’s 10 percent of the total amount of scholarships,
19:41 not 10 percent of our FTE ‘cause sometimes that gets a little
19:46 bit confusing.
19:48 And then if a student previously attended public charter, money
19:53 follows that student
19:54 and if the student already is enrolled in a private school,
19:58 the voucher is a new cost to the state.
20:01 So are there any questions on that one?
20:03 Sometimes that causes a little confusion.
20:07 » I don’t have a question but I just want to– thank you for
20:08 pointing that out because I think
20:10 that especially in the COVID year when the vouchers were all
20:13 starting to expand.
20:15 But I mean even if we just like– I know you said that state
20:17 level but even if you just–
20:19 I’m not going to run percentages of my brain ‘cause I’m not that
20:21 smart.
20:22 But even if I just look at our biggest increase of the
20:26 scholarships when going from 2023–
20:29 ‘22-‘23 to ‘23-‘24, there was increase of about 2,000 students
20:34 taking scholarships
20:35 but yet our enrollment drop was less than 500.
20:40 So, I mean that just, you know, it’s–
20:43 some of those could have gone to other places ‘cause there was
20:45 also increase in charter but–
20:47 so that just kind of shows even in Brevard, it bears out, you
20:50 know, the majority of the people
20:52 in Brevard to take those scholarships absolutely were not
20:55 already in our system ‘cause we didn’t get
20:57 that many more kids moving into the county in that span of a
21:00 year.
21:01 So, I think that’s just a good point to make.
21:04 » And then some of the increases also parents in that send
21:11 their kids
21:12 to private school realized, “Hey, I want to take this voucher.”
21:14 So the next year, they’re like, “Okay.”
21:16 And then when the cap was taken off where anyone can get a
21:20 scholarship.
21:21 So that caused a big increase as well.
21:26 Now, one thing that isn’t shown on here and– is the homeschool
21:34 and so for ‘22-‘23,
21:38 the homeschool numbers were 6,632 and families of that number
21:46 was 4,759.
21:48 I don’t have the information of whether they’re taking the PEP
21:55 scholarship
21:56 but the PEP scholarship which is from the Florida tax credits is
22:01 not part of our FEFP.
22:02 I just wanted to– so it gets a little confusing so when you ask
22:06 about homeschooling
22:08 that if they’re taking a scholarship, it is not part of the FEFP,
22:13 the funding that we receive.
22:16 » May I just– I want to just jump in there ‘cause I appreciate
22:18 the slide very much,
22:19 much like Ms. Campbell said.
22:21 » Can you go back to the slide ‘cause we’ve been referring to
22:25 it.
22:25 We all have it on ours but I don’t think the public’s–
22:27 » No, I’m talking about that one.
22:28 » There you go.
22:29 » No, no, I’m talking about the other one.
22:30 Sorry. Yeah.
22:32 Yeah, this one.
22:32 I think it’s important because we hear lots of chatter about the
22:39 benefits and the negatives
22:41 of expansions of vouchers and I’ve always said, first of all,
22:44 every state is very different on how they handle it.
22:46 But one of my arguments is I don’t have anything wrong with
22:50 parents making a choice
22:51 for their kids to go somewhere else and honestly,
22:53 especially in our state that’s flourishing of a budget or
22:56 flourishing economically,
22:58 I have no problem with the state even paying for it.
23:00 But the problem is, is that the funding from the state is not
23:03 meeting that need.
23:05 And the reality is like we see here,
23:07 only 10 percent of those scholarships left their public schools.
23:11 Only 10 percent of the scholarship number.
23:14 So when you look at the total students of the state of Florida,
23:16 we don’t have that on this slide but it’s a very, very small
23:18 number of students.
23:19 The majority of parents are choosing their local community
23:22 schools.
23:23 So when the pie is getting eaten up by these scholarships, that’s
23:26 the real problem.
23:27 So there’s nothing wrong with the choice.
23:28 There’s nothing wrong with helping these parents pay for these
23:31 opportunities
23:32 but the state needs to be adequately funding it and that’s where
23:34 the problem lies.
23:34 It’s not that we’re fighting to keep our students necessarily.
23:37 Yes, we want them to not leave us.
23:39 That’s not really what’s impacting our budget significantly.
23:41 It’s that the pie is getting eaten by more and more people
23:45 but the pie isn’t getting much larger.
23:47 OK. OK. So this is the Florida Education Finance Program, the
23:57 conference report.
23:59 And you can see through here that, you know, at first glance,
24:04 it can be a little bit misleading like I mentioned before
24:07 because you have to understand
24:09 that the calculations include the charter and the scholarship FTE
24:13 enrollment.
24:13 So it’s all commingled within the FEFP and then you need a
24:18 Rebecca to extract everything
24:20 to tell you what goes in what bucket and who’s earning what and
24:25 she’s amazing doing that.
24:29 And so for the charters, the money flows through us.
24:33 We’re a pass-through for the scholarships that that money never
24:38 comes to us.
24:39 It’s just taken off on the top.
24:41 So when you take a look at this, you have to realize this is the
24:45 first, you know,
24:47 snapshot you would see for the conference report and you would
24:51 have to be able to know that,
24:53 OK, this is going to include district charter and scholarship.
24:55 I wonder what our portion is, is what I do quite often.
25:00 And then our base FEFP equals our weighted FTE times our BSA
25:08 times our cost wage factor
25:12 and then also a small district factor if we had one.
25:17 And Bevard, our cost wage factor is one.
25:22 You know, there is other districts that have a one point
25:26 something like, you know,
25:28 Monroe or high cost areas to live so they have a higher cost
25:33 factor.
25:34 And then some of them also have a higher property value.
25:41 So the way the Florida FEFP works is they fund all districts to
25:49 the average property, right?
25:53 And then so, if somebody is– if a district is above that amount,
25:58 they’re allowed to keep the portion that is that discretionary,
26:05 the 0.748.
26:07 So they– the other districts can keep that.
26:11 We are under that average so we get a compression to make us up
26:17 to the average.
26:19 So I guess my point is not all districts are funded the same.
26:24 If you take a look at the FFP, you can see that per student
26:31 funding from this calculation,
26:35 Bevard is number 46, that’s something that cannot control, that’s
26:40 just the way it is.
26:42 So I just wanted to point that out.
26:44 And then also remember that number, the 53.2 million ‘cause that’s
26:52 the difference
26:54 from the third calc and then to the conference report.
26:59 And so the next slide.
27:00 » I just– I want to ask a clarifying question.
27:05 » OK.
27:06 » So you said– and you said this in our 101 but I just want
27:09 to ask a clarifying question again too for the public to hear.
27:11 So you said per FEFP, even though we’re the 10th largest school
27:16 district in the state
27:17 of Florida, we’re technically being fund as if we’re in the 46th
27:22 place?
27:23 » If you take a look at per student funding, we’re 46.
27:28 » Right. I just– I think that’s important for people to hear.
27:32 Thank you.
27:33 OK. And so this breaks out like I was talking before and this is
27:41 all Rebecca doing this
27:44 which is actually very amazing how she’s able to do this so
27:48 quickly.
27:49 But it breaks out the FEFP, the funds for BPS schools, the funds
27:54 that charters receive
27:56 and the funds that scholarship receives and, you know, there’s
28:02 differences here
28:04 and then you can also see the state funded discretionary down
28:08 towards the bottom.
28:10 That is solely funds for scholarship students.
28:15 So again, you know, it can be misleading when you look at the
28:19 total numbers.
28:20 You really have to know how to break those out to understand
28:24 what is being funded.
28:26 And then the box over on the right, in previous years we had the
28:34 FEFP base
28:35 and it was like our discretionary dollars.
28:38 We could use that.
28:39 We wasn’t held to a certain categorical.
28:43 Last year, that was changed and there’s–
28:49 these categoricals that are listed are now part of our base FTE
28:58 or base FEFP which–
29:01 and it’s mandated that we provide those dollars so that kind of
29:05 takes away, you know,
29:07 we were supposed to gain flexibility but in reality we haven’t.
29:11 But then you have to really be careful to when you look at the
29:15 growth percentage
29:16 on the previous slide, it looks like the BSA increased more
29:22 that would be discretionary dollars but it actually did not.
29:26 So it gets a little confusing and as we, you know, go through
29:31 this, it’ll be the norm
29:32 and we’ll figure out how to proceed.
29:35 But we’re still trying to understand and pull and extract things
29:41 to make sure
29:42 that we have the right numbers and that we can plan correctly.
29:50 Oh, and then the other thing I wanted to mention, so they
29:54 changed the name for TSIA
29:58 but I’m just gonna stick with TSIA and the growth, you can see,
30:02 for salary growth that’s mandated for teachers is the 3.9
30:07 million and then, you know,
30:09 depending on how it’s decided to distribute those dollars if you’re
30:15 trying
30:16 to provide more dollars, you know, to–
30:20 for veteran teachers or increase the minimum base, however you
30:27 use it.
30:27 But if you just take the 3.9 million and go across the board,
30:34 you know,
30:35 for average teacher, it would be 770 dollars.
30:46 So on this slide, if you see far right on the– with the green,
30:52 the 53.2 million,
30:54 that’s the number that I asked you to take– remember.
30:58 So we start with that number ‘cause that’s the difference, that’s
31:02 the increase
31:03 from the previous calculation to the first calc and then we have
31:08 to subtract out all the categoricals.
31:11 So those– all those categoricals are meant for that purpose
31:15 and we can’t spend it on anything else.
31:18 So that equates to 8.2 million and so you subtract that and then
31:23 we have to take
31:24 out the scholarship adjustment which is the 20.9 and then the
31:28 charter growth which is the 9.2
31:31 and then what we find that our increase from last year for
31:36 budget purposes is 14.9 million.
31:40 » Can I ask a question?
31:41 » Sure.
31:41 » On the previous slide, when you’re breaking down the categoricals,
31:45 the salary maintenance,
31:46 that 20 million, what would that encumber?
31:49 » That– So every year or for the last– how many years, three
31:54 or four?
31:55 Since 2020, you know, Governor DeSantis wanted to increase the
32:03 teacher beginning salary.
32:06 So every year when he did that, we have to maintain it because
32:09 it would be recurring.
32:10 So that money is theirs to maintain all those raises.
32:16 » That’s the TSIA.
32:18 » OK. All right.
32:19 Thank you.
32:19 I messed up.
32:20 OK. OK. So this is a slide that shows that the increase was 14.9
32:35 million for the district
32:39 and the first– you know, and so we have some unavoidable cost
32:43 increases.
32:44 The first one is health insurance.
32:48 Right now, our actuaries are advising us that we need to
32:53 increase premiums by $8 million.
32:57 The general fund portion would be $7 million.
33:02 Now, this is– you know, this could be high.
33:07 You know, the number– This is the number at a time that, you
33:11 know,
33:11 they projected looking at the past.
33:14 You know, we could have things that, you know, could change that
33:18 number
33:18 but this is the number that was provided and so that’s the
33:23 number that I’m using here.
33:26 Workers’ comp rates, we have been funding workers’ comp from
33:33 general fund
33:34 because we haven’t increased the rates in several years so we’re
33:39 making that right.
33:41 And then coming off ESSER, there’s positions that we’re bringing
33:46 back
33:46 into the general fund that are–
33:49 they’re actually– most of them are positions that used to be
33:52 funded from general funds
33:53 and then we moved it to ESSER, now we’re bringing it back, 2.1
33:57 million.
33:58 And this is really– if you think about it, over the last couple
34:03 of years,
34:04 we’ve had all these ESSER dollars, $250 million and what we’re
34:09 going to carry is 2.1.
34:11 I think that’s really pretty good management.
34:15 There was no large cliff to deal with.
34:19 Other primary cost increases, emergent needs,
34:23 those are things that we may not even know we have to have that
34:27 yet.
34:27 We, you know, we can’t predict what’s going to happen but I’m
34:31 sure there’s going
34:33 to be something that we realize that we have to take care of.
34:37 Collective bargaining, we have to incentivize and provide our
34:44 employees raises
34:46 and then also we had– our inflationary increases are 2 million
34:52 and that’s utilities, electric, gas, water.
34:58 And then below there, potential offsets, there’s areas that we
35:03 can look
35:04 at to improve processes, divest, create efficiencies.
35:09 There are things that we can work on and do and we also need to
35:16 increase our fund balance
35:18 to get it back to pre-COVID time where it was very level at a
35:24 financial condition of 8.
35:27 So we’re adding another 1.5 to that fund balance that would get
35:33 us back up to
35:34 about a 7% fund condition balance and Moody’s, Fitch are looking
35:42 at that really closely
35:44 and it really affects our stability, our credit ratings, all
35:48 those things.
35:49 So it’s really important that we are responsible and make sure
35:57 we have the right fund balance
35:59 and funds.
36:01 And this is the last slide.
36:06 And so general fund, when the way the cost report codes the
36:14 charter payments that we provide
36:17 to the charters, they put it in purchase services.
36:20 I don’t know why they do that but they do.
36:23 So when you look at our budget book, then you’ll see, you know,
36:26 well, I thought salaries
36:28 and benefits were higher and then in a percentage wise for our
36:36 Fund 100.
36:38 But then when you take out those purchase services that really
36:43 are charter,
36:44 you can see for Bovard traditional salaries and benefits is
36:51 about 85.5.
36:53 I mean, that’s our business.
36:54 It’s all about teachers and people and supporting.
36:57 So when you look to reduce, that’s, you know, kind of where you
37:03 are and then when you have
37:04 to realize that when we’re providing incentives, raises,
37:10 compensation, we have a lot of people.
37:13 So that is all I have.
37:19 If you have any questions or want to go back to anything.
37:24 » Thank you, Ms. Lisinski.
37:25 Board, do you have any questions?
37:27 » I think it’s good for the public to know that we’ve already
37:32 met with Ms. Lisinski.
37:34 We’ve already sat down with her with this entire presentation
37:36 and we’ve gone through it.
37:37 » Your mic’s on.
37:39 » It is on.
37:39 I think I just may not have been– can you hear me now?
37:41 » Yeah.
37:41 » Karaoke.
37:42 » Just wanted to say that thank you to Ms. Lisinski.
37:46 I along with my other fellow board members have gone through
37:48 this presentation with you
37:50 and asked any questions that we had towards it and everything
37:52 else.
37:52 We appreciate you coming forward and being prepared, that’s all.
37:56 Thank you.
37:56 » Thank you, Mr. Susan.
37:57 Anybody else?
37:58 » Yeah. Just go ahead and scan it briefly.
38:03 » Appreciate the work that everyone has done across all the
38:07 cabinet to do the scrubbing.
38:09 I know it’s not fun but it’s, you know, those increased efficiencies
38:13 you talked about,
38:14 that’s where we’re going to find them and is looking at, you
38:20 know, is this working?
38:21 Do we need to keep paying for it?
38:23 You know, if we do, being able to justify it, I know that’s part
38:25 of the process
38:26 where they’re coming back to you and coming back to the
38:28 superintendent
38:29 to justify those expenditures.
38:34 So that discretionary funding, so back on the–
38:37 I don’t remember what slide ‘cause I don’t have the page numbers
38:39 on this but the one
38:40 that you were talking about, the discretionary funding.
38:42 So this was, you know, I’ve gone through FSVAs budget ‘cause
38:45 this is the first time it really
38:46 hit me.
38:47 No, back up one more, back up one more.
38:50 That 0.748, every district has a different millage that the
38:55 state assigns to us
38:57 because the way our funding comes, you know, is the state
39:01 determines the amount per student.
39:04 But it’s all a little different because of some of these factors.
39:08 But that 0.748, everybody has a 0.748.
39:10 It’s the same across all the districts.
39:12 So this was the first time that it really hit me that that’s the
39:14 part
39:14 that everybody gets to keep.
39:16 And so why Monroe County has so much more funding per student
39:20 than we do is
39:21 because of that 0.748.
39:23 In addition, well, that’s one of the reasons, the cost factor is
39:26 the other.
39:26 But that 0.748 makes such a huge difference.
39:29 And as Brevard, that’s where you’re saying we’re number 46,
39:32 right?
39:33 In the– Or is it in the per student funding or is it both?
39:36 That was my question.
39:42 » Well, it’s a reason for that.
39:45 » OK.
39:45 » ‘Cause I believe, if my memory is correct,
39:51 Monroe actually 22 million from the– just the 0.728.
39:57 » For a much, much smaller district.
39:59 » Right, but very property rich.
40:04 » Right. So that 40– that number 46 that you’re saying,
40:07 that is our per student funding is we’re number 46?
40:12 » Correct.
40:12 » OK. That helps put us into perspective when we talk–
40:16 when we see the DOE list like where we are in teacher salary and
40:21 average salary,
40:22 I mean all of that, that makes a– it kind of clarifies that
40:26 picture because people say,
40:27 oh, we’re Brevard and we’re– you know, but we– and if I think
40:30 about that cost factor,
40:31 I know the legislature changed that a little bit, but we used to
40:34 be under one, right?
40:36 So we used to actually have to give money, not really
40:39 technically give money back to the state,
40:40 but we got– our funding was reduced ‘cause we were 0.98
40:43 whatever.
40:44 Since I’ve been on the board, it’s always been below one.
40:46 And I know this was a new formula, but now we’re at one.
40:49 So at least we’re not losing money to other districts because we,
40:55 you know,
40:55 lower cost of living, I guess, that’s in Brevard.
40:57 So thank you for clarifying that.
41:03 So one other– So on the final slide or the– no, two slides to
41:09 the end
41:09 where it had the– our 14.9 million broken down, yeah, that one.
41:14 On– So when you talk about the fund balance, that’s so
41:17 important because with build–
41:19 lots of building in our– potential building in our future,
41:21 we have to have a great credit rating because these lines of
41:24 credit,
41:24 we’ve done loans potentially that we’re going to have to have to
41:26 building these new facilities.
41:27 We need to have the very best rates so we can get the most bang
41:31 for our bucks literally.
41:33 But that’s a one-time– that increasing is going to be a one-time
41:37 increase, right,
41:38 to get us back that 1.5 million.
41:41 » Right, and then we have to [inaudible]
41:43 » OK, right, right.
41:44 So– and you’re saying that one time we’re going to get,
41:47 hopefully, from these efficiencies
41:49 and what– or we budgeted in because it’s not necessarily a–
41:52 because it’s not recurring,
41:54 it’s not necessarily a budgetary thing.
41:57 So I know you’ve got it, this plus this equals this, but do we
42:00 already kind of have an idea?
42:01 Are we going to just start off the bat, take the 1.5 million out?
42:05 Are we expecting at the end of this year that the first 1.5
42:08 million left
42:09 over from either this year’s budget we just finished or this
42:12 coming one we’ve just entered?
42:14 Where is that 1.5 million going to come from?
42:16 » Well, right now, the way the budget is built, the tentative
42:19 budget and that those–
42:20 it can still be changed until September 11th.
42:26 It’s in the budget increased, the fund balance right now.
42:30 » Just so it’s just part of the budget, we’ve calculated 1.5
42:33 million dollars
42:34 to go straight into unassigned–
42:38 » Correct.
42:39 » – fund balance.
42:40 I’m sorry.
42:40 OK, thank you.
42:42 And that was it for me.
42:44 » Thank you, Ms. Campbell.
42:46 Ms. Jenkins and Mr. Trent, do you have anything?
42:49 » Yeah, just to echo what Matt was saying here is, you know,
42:52 thank you for the time
42:53 that we spent on the one-on-one to answer the questions.
42:59 The potential cost offsets, you know, that’s exciting to me.
43:03 That’s an interest for always, forever.
43:06 Anyone has anything to do with budget items is increasing the
43:09 efficiencies
43:10 if we can do things in a more efficient manner to save money.
43:13 We’re always looking to do that.
43:15 But also keeping– and you mentioned that many times which is
43:18 very refreshing that,
43:20 you know, this has everything to do with student achievement.
43:22 So, I appreciate that it’s coming from everyone here in the
43:25 district and it carries
43:26 on through, you know, the bean counters even.
43:29 That’s wonderful.
43:30 So, I appreciate that.
43:33 You know, that’s what Dr. Rendell preached from the moment we
43:37 started to interview him
43:38 that everything and everyone that works at district or in this
43:41 district,
43:42 it’s all about student achievement.
43:44 So, I appreciate that.
43:46 » Thank you.
43:47 Ms. Jenkins.
43:49 No, you’re good.
43:50 All right.
43:50 Thank you so much for the presentation.
43:51 Appreciate it.
43:52 Dr. Rendell, do you have anything to add?
43:54 » No, I think echo the Ms. Campbell’s comments.
43:57 I do have something I guess.
43:58 The fund balance is critical.
44:01 We just refinance some certificates of participation and save
44:05 the district
44:06 about 5 million dollars in debt service.
44:08 And we were able to do that because of our strong credit rating.
44:11 And one of the things they look at is our fund balance.
44:13 And so, we need to make sure we have the appropriate fund
44:16 balance so that we can continue
44:18 to be looked at with a strong, you know, financial stability
44:23 position if we have
44:24 to borrow money to build schools and things like that.
44:27 » Yes.
44:28 » Very nice.
44:28 » Absolutely.
44:29 All right.
44:29 Well, thank you guys so much for the presentation.
44:31 We appreciate all the hard work that you put in to that.
44:33 We are on to the last item which is on our agenda,
44:36 which is the climate survey data for school year ‘24.
44:41 I’m not sure who’s–
44:42 » So, we’re going to be switching PowerPoint.
44:44 So, Mr. Poole is going to be presenting.
44:45 I don’t know if you want to take a short break or not.
44:47 » OK. Let’s take a five-minute recess.
44:48 Go to the restroom and then we’ll get everything set up.
44:50 » OK.
44:50 » Come back at 10.15.
44:51 Thank you.
45:11 [ Music ]
49:11 [ Silence ]
49:41 [ Music ]
49:57 » Three, two.
50:00 » All right.
50:01 Welcome back.
50:01 Thank you so much.
50:02 We have Mr. Poole and Ms. Dampierre here
50:04 to present the climate survey data for school year ‘24.
50:08 And we will go ahead and turn the floor over to you.
50:10 » I’m going to actually interrupt them.
50:12 » Sorry.
50:13 » And do a few disclaimers.
50:16 First of all, I need to apologize
50:18 to the Student Services Department
50:20 because they’ve prepared this presentation three times.
50:23 It’s a ton of information.
50:28 It’s the student survey.
50:30 It’s the parent survey and the staff survey and I wanted them
50:34 to do it all in one presentation.
50:36 It’s a ton of information and they’ve had
50:39 to redo it three times because I originally had over 200 slides
50:42 and then we got down to like 175
50:44 and I’m not sure how many we’re down to.
50:46 » 77 is the final, okay.
50:50 » So what I want the public to understand
50:52 and the Board especially, these are just some highlights
50:56 of the survey, just some snippets
50:57 of information from the surveys.
50:59 There is a lot of information and we will give you the codes
51:03 to go in and check the survey out completely.
51:06 I did tell the public we will share the information with them
51:09 so there’s a huge PDF that’s being created
51:14 that we will have a link to the website so they can dive in
51:17 there
51:17 and see as much data as they want.
51:19 And I know it’s in Mr. Poole’s first slide
51:22 but we did use a company called Youth Truth for the survey.
51:26 One of the reasons we chose to use them
51:28 for the survey is we’ve been using them, that company,
51:30 for the student survey for four years and so we wanted
51:34 to see some longitudinal data.
51:35 See, you know, what our scores were over time in certain areas
51:39 and they also have a parent survey
51:41 and they also have a staff survey
51:42 so that’s why we went with them.
51:44 We are not sure.
51:46 More than likely we will not use them next year.
51:48 They were not as customer friendly when we wanted
51:52 to change some questions or eliminate some questions.
51:54 There were some that they, you know, they just didn’t–
51:57 we didn’t feel like we would be treating customer first,
51:59 kind of thing.
52:00 So we’ve looked at some other vendors
52:02 and we’ll probably use some other vendors.
52:03 But the information we have, we want to share with you.
52:06 There are some things that are, you know, good, good things
52:09 for us to learn over time and some positive highlights.
52:14 There’s also some areas where, hey, this is something
52:16 that we need to work on.
52:18 So it’s going to be 75 or so slides and a lot of information
52:24 but anybody who wants to dive deeper, we can provide,
52:27 you know, an avenue for that.
52:30 So again, apologies to the Student Services Department
52:32 for asking them to redo this three times
52:35 and I’ll turn it over to them.
52:37 So, thank you.
52:39 » Thank you Dr. Rendell.
52:40 Good morning everyone.
52:41 Good morning Madam Chair and board members.
52:45 We’re going to go over our Youth Truth Climate Survey Results.
52:49 This project, we’re going to briefly discuss
52:51 as Dr. Rendell said, the process.
52:54 As you can see on the first slide,
52:56 we did change survey providers.
52:59 And we did have some changes to the process.
53:01 We actually had to get parental consent.
53:03 We did that electronically through Focus
53:06 which was a new process.
53:07 And we wanted to make sure we were in compliance
53:10 with our new laws and we wanted to– we changed the audience.
53:16 So instead of grades 3 through 12, we surveyed–
53:19 we began the survey from grade 5.
53:24 OK. So this just talks about why, you know, the purpose
53:29 and we wanted to gather a stakeholder feedback
53:31 on how our family, students and staff experience Brevard Public
53:35 Schools, you know, what their perception is.
53:37 And in turn, we’d like to create a thriving culture based
53:41 on that feedback.
53:43 All right, we have our student survey results
53:47 that we’re going to go over first.
53:49 I’d like to note that when you see the questions,
53:52 we’re going to have each theme and we’re going
53:56 to have the highest question indicated with a green star
54:00 and then you’re going to see the lowest question
54:02 with a red triangle, OK.
54:03 We’ll have a legend at the bottom of each slide.
54:06 So each theme has its own set of questions, elementary,
54:12 middle school and high school.
54:13 The themes vary slightly
54:15 but we’ve also indicated the highest rated theme.
54:17 So for elementary school, it was engagement.
54:21 » So keep in mind, it’s a five-point scale.
54:24 So anything above three is positive.
54:28 Two and a half is medium, so–
54:32 » Excuse me, Dr. Mandel, if I may, for elementary students,
54:34 it was– the scale was from one to three.
54:37 » Oh, perfect.
54:37 » OK, that’s better.
54:38 » It was one to three.
54:39 » I was like, oh.
54:40 » So I want to point that out.
54:42 » Good. Thanks for correcting me ‘cause that’s good.
54:45 » For our secondary schools, there is a scale of zero to five,
54:48 OK?
54:49 » All right.
54:50 » That makes me feel better.
54:52 » And if you have any questions along as I go
54:54 through please let me know, you see our highest rated question
54:57 and lowest rated question for engagement and the theme
55:00 of engagement for elementary talks
55:03 about how students perceive their engagement
55:06 with the school and their education, OK?
55:10 » Can I just put in for a second?
55:11 » Yes, absolutely.
55:12 » What was the– what was defining zero through three?
55:15 Was it sliding scale or did the numbers have–
55:18 » OK. So yes, the numbers do have meaning.
55:20 - Okay, so a one would be no, hardly ever.
55:25 A zero would be a non-answer, a one would be no hardly ever,
55:27 a two would be sometimes, and a three would be yes very much
55:30 for elementary students.
55:34 Okay.
55:36 - Hi, these questions, did we get to pick these questions?
55:39 Let me just ask that question,
55:40 because I’m looking at these going,
55:43 our highest and our lowest question is a little similar.
55:47 So that’s a little odd.
55:49 - This was a youth truth tool they use,
55:52 as Dr. Rendell stated before,
55:54 they did not allow much,
55:55 we couldn’t customize the questions
55:57 as much as we would have liked to.
56:00 And so what we did,
56:02 that was one of the reasons why we did change the age group.
56:04 - Okay, all right.
56:09 - And on the next slide, we’ll see.
56:15 - Are you okay?
56:18 - We have some,
56:22 we do have some historical data of the students,
56:24 the student results are gonna be displayed
56:25 with some historical data at the top,
56:27 the years are indicated on the left
56:28 and we have disaggregated it by grade.
56:33 Then again, our scale is from zero to three
56:35 for elementary students.
56:41 The next theme is academic challenge
56:43 and this addresses how students feel about their learning
56:46 and how challenging it is
56:49 and how relevant the instruction is.
56:52 And again, we have our information disaggregated by grade
57:00 and we see the trend from 2020 to 2024.
57:04 - Yeah, this is where I have to go back
57:08 and think about the change of audience
57:10 because when you have third and fourth graders
57:12 who are still more gung ho about school,
57:16 to me, we could look at that and go,
57:18 oh my gosh, this year was a huge drop off in engagement
57:21 and academic challenge, but then we’re losing those,
57:26 the ones who are still, life is sunny and rosy
57:30 and they’re not starting to get into the hormonal years.
57:33 Right, yeah, exactly.
57:35 So we lost something with those.
57:36 I understand why we did it
57:37 ‘cause third and fourth graders also don’t understand
57:39 as much, right.
57:41 So, but yeah, I’m not gonna like set off the alarm bells yet
57:45 ‘cause we lost some of our positive end.
57:47 - And again, Mrs. Campbell, this is a snapshot.
57:50 We do have a more in-depth report available for everyone.
57:56 Okay, so the next theme is on instructional methods
57:59 and this is how students are describing strategies
58:02 and approaches to what their teachers
58:06 are using in the classroom.
58:19 The next theme for elementary students is culture.
58:22 And this describes how orderly and respectful
58:27 the classroom environment is
58:29 or they perceive the classroom environment.
58:39 Okay, the last category for elementary students
58:42 is belonging.
58:42 It’s pretty much self-explanatory.
58:45 It describes how about their feeling of belonging
58:50 in their school.
58:56 And this was one of the categories
58:57 where we only have two years of data.
59:00 So we only have one year of historical data
59:01 to compare with.
59:02 This question was added last year.
59:11 Oh, I’m sorry, one more, relationships.
59:14 This describes how strong and supportive
59:18 the relationships are with teachers.
59:25 And we have our trend data here.
59:31 Okay, we move on to middle school
59:33 and this is where the scale goes from, it goes to five.
59:36 - Okay.
59:42 - And we have our highest theme as academic challenge.
59:48 Okay, the themes, they’re slightly different
59:51 for the most part, they are the same.
59:56 Between middle and high school,
59:59 there is one theme which is college and career readiness
1:00:02 and we’ll cover that when we get to that point.
1:00:06 And again, we have the same format.
1:00:09 Okay.
1:00:13 And again, the academic challenge definition,
1:00:19 this theme does evolve slightly.
1:00:23 Students have more courses that are offered
1:00:24 in secondary school.
1:00:25 So this is related to how they feel about their coursework
1:00:29 as well as the strategies their teachers are using.
1:00:39 Okay, next we have culture.
1:00:43 This describes how students feel
1:00:46 about the way their school fosters
1:00:48 a culture of respect and fairness.
1:00:54 - I’m actually surprised at the green star on this
1:01:00 because if I recall from previous years,
1:01:02 I remember this actually being a low mark,
1:01:06 the one about students treating adults with respect.
1:01:10 So I’d be interested to see that,
1:01:12 to dig deeper into that one on this question
1:01:14 because I kind of remember that being flipped
1:01:17 with the second question.
1:01:19 - You will be able to see trend data on that
1:01:22 in the full report.
1:01:26 Okay, belonging and peer collaboration
1:01:30 describes the way in which students feel welcome
1:01:33 at their school and have collaborative relationships
1:01:35 with their classmates.
1:01:41 Okay, and on to relationships.
1:01:48 For secondary, for middle school,
1:01:49 that describes the support they receive
1:01:52 and the personal attention from their teachers.
1:01:56 The questions are a little bit more complex
1:01:59 than the elementary questions.
1:02:07 Okay, on to high school.
1:02:08 Again, we have academic challenge as the leading theme
1:02:13 this grade level.
1:02:38 Okay, and again, we have relationships.
1:02:42 So we have our highest rated and lowest rated questions
1:02:46 and the data is disaggregated by grade level
1:02:49 along with our trend data.
1:02:59 Next, we have belonging and peer collaboration.
1:03:09 And our theme of culture.
1:03:18 Again, this describes how students feel about the fairness
1:03:23 and respect of their school environment.
1:03:28 And this final theme for high school students
1:03:32 is college and career readiness
1:03:34 and this describes the degree to which students feel
1:03:37 they are equipped or have been equipped
1:03:39 to pursue college and careers.
1:03:49 And again, we do have some increases in this area.
1:03:53 Ninth grade was particularly high this year
1:03:56 and we wondered if that was due to the new CTE offerings
1:04:01 which could be cause for that.
1:04:07 Okay, next on to our family results.
1:04:12 - Before you jump into the next survey,
1:04:16 all of this Dr. Rendell briefly mentioned
1:04:19 but about with the consent or you mentioned
1:04:23 that really changed the factor.
1:04:24 I mean, I know the numbers
1:04:25 have drastically reduced participants from previous years.
1:04:29 So any big changes kind of have to be taken all of it
1:04:33 with a grain of salt.
1:04:33 But I just want to, I already know the answer to this question
1:04:36 that each school is using this data
1:04:39 for their specific purposes, right?
1:04:41 And if I understand when you had the LEAD conference
1:04:44 several weeks ago, along with their academic data,
1:04:47 the leadership team at each school was using this
1:04:50 to try to make their decisions
1:04:51 and their plans for the coming year, correct?
1:04:53 - Correct, yes ma’am.
1:04:57 The culture and climate data was provided
1:04:58 to every school individually and this was used
1:05:02 when they were creating the culture and climate portion
1:05:05 of their school improvement plan.
1:05:06 So again, we discussed academics
1:05:08 and we discussed our culture and climate
1:05:10 and this was used by schools.
1:05:13 So I know this is the 30,000 foot view
1:05:15 but the schools are able to go in
1:05:17 and look at their own individual sites
1:05:18 and gather information from those reports.
1:05:21 - From their own students.
1:05:22 - Yes ma’am.
1:05:23 - That’s really important, thank you.
1:05:24 - And just, they did create a goal
1:05:29 for culture and climate with strategies
1:05:32 and they did have all the stakeholders except students there
1:05:35 to create those strategies and goals to be able to monitor.
1:05:40 So this information was sent out to schools back in May
1:05:44 so they could review it, dive deeper into it.
1:05:47 They had it in preparation for the ASCEND 2024
1:05:51 which included stakeholders from their schools.
1:05:54 So they really had an opportunity.
1:05:55 We spent a day looking at this data
1:05:59 in addition to discipline, attendance,
1:06:02 to come up with a culture goal as well as strategies
1:06:06 that will be monitored throughout the school year.
1:06:08 So it just was an academic.
1:06:10 Culture is important as well
1:06:11 because if the students are not there
1:06:13 and if they’re not in the classroom learning
1:06:15 and if the environment is not suitable
1:06:18 for the employees as well,
1:06:20 we want it to be a positive learning environment.
1:06:22 They really delve deep into this particular
1:06:26 strategy and goal for next year
1:06:28 because this was added.
1:06:29 This wasn’t previously a part
1:06:31 of the school improvement plan, so.
1:06:35 - I just, I wanna echo the sentiments of Ms. Kimball
1:06:38 and Mr. Poole, Ms. Dampier.
1:06:40 What I love is that the strategy was, like you said,
1:06:44 to tackle the culture and the climate
1:06:46 because ultimately, regardless of how you feel
1:06:48 like it’s going as an adult,
1:06:50 if your students have a perception
1:06:51 that it’s not going the right way,
1:06:53 you’re going to have a decrease in academic engagement
1:06:55 and academic performance and all of those, all of the things
1:06:59 that we care most about.
1:07:00 But you have to have that calm and supportive environment
1:07:03 and for them to feel supported.
1:07:04 And I don’t know if this board was present for it
1:07:07 and I don’t know, time blends together.
1:07:09 I think it was two years ago at a superintendent summit.
1:07:13 We had a panel of students up there
1:07:16 and kind of telling us how it is
1:07:17 and how it feels, middle school students.
1:07:19 And it was just, it’s such an eye-opening experience
1:07:22 because again, as an adult,
1:07:24 you can perceive it however you want to
1:07:26 and yes, you make the rules and they need to follow it,
1:07:28 but it is very interesting to see their perspective
1:07:31 and how they feel and how they would give suggestions
1:07:34 of the most simplistic things in the world
1:07:36 to make them feel more comfortable
1:07:38 and supported by their teachers.
1:07:39 And a teacher may not realize
1:07:40 that they’re not giving them that.
1:07:42 They might think that they are.
1:07:44 But I remember there was just one student who was saying,
1:07:46 you know, one of the things that would make it
1:07:48 so much easier would be if I’m having a rough moment
1:07:51 or a rough day to not tell me like, oh, don’t worry,
1:07:55 like it’ll go away, forget about it.
1:07:56 Because in that moment, that middle schooler feels like,
1:07:59 no, this is everything, this is the end of my life.
1:08:01 Just hear that student note.
1:08:03 And I know that’s not the simple,
1:08:04 easiest solution in the world,
1:08:06 but it is interesting to kind of just hear
1:08:08 from that student perspective.
1:08:09 So I appreciate that we took the time to do that
1:08:12 and to focus on the thing that really creates
1:08:14 a healthy foundation for all of our kids.
1:08:18 - So if you can go back one slide, just go back one slide.
1:08:20 So this was a list of questions as a high school principal
1:08:24 when we were using this youth through survey data.
1:08:25 This was a list of questions
1:08:27 that I paid great attention to.
1:08:29 So for example, the highest rated question is,
1:08:32 my school has helped me develop the skills
1:08:33 and knowledge I need for college level classes.
1:08:36 So they feel like they’re prepared.
1:08:38 The ones that are going to college at least,
1:08:39 you know, feel like they’re prepared to go to college.
1:08:41 But then the lowest rated question is,
1:08:42 my school has helped me figure it out
1:08:43 which careers match my interests and abilities.
1:08:46 Now we’re not necessarily a job placement service.
1:08:48 That’s not, you know, one of our things.
1:08:50 But we’re supposed to help prepare them for their future.
1:08:53 So that would kind of include helping them
1:08:56 pick out their future or career path or whatever.
1:08:58 And so I would look at these at my individual school
1:09:02 and see how my answers,
1:09:03 how my students answered in these questions.
1:09:06 You know, if they feel like we’re getting them ready,
1:09:08 but we’re not helping them choose,
1:09:11 you know, then we got to look at what are we doing?
1:09:13 So, you know, the second question there,
1:09:16 one of the years I was at Cocoa Beach,
1:09:18 my school has helped me understand the steps I need
1:09:20 to take in order to apply to college
1:09:21 was our lowest rated question in this category.
1:09:24 So the highest was, again,
1:09:26 they’re getting me ready for college.
1:09:29 But the lowest rated was they’re not helping me
1:09:32 with the application process
1:09:33 and the steps needed to get to college.
1:09:35 So we revised some of the things we were doing
1:09:37 based on that information.
1:09:38 So know that that’s what the schools are doing.
1:09:40 They’re taking a look at this data,
1:09:42 looking at their practices,
1:09:43 especially attacking their lowest rated questions.
1:09:45 There is a question in there that we went through.
1:09:47 This is I feel safe in school.
1:09:49 And if that was ever my lowest rated question,
1:09:51 I knew I had to do something.
1:09:52 You know, you want it to be
1:09:53 one of your highest rated questions.
1:09:55 There was a question in the elementary section
1:09:57 about the teacher-student relationship
1:10:00 that was actually the lowest rated question
1:10:02 for us as a district.
1:10:03 So I would imagine that elementary school principals
1:10:06 are taking a look at that to make sure
1:10:08 that they’re scoring, you know,
1:10:10 the feedback they’re getting from their students
1:10:12 is that it’s a positive relationship, not a negative one.
1:10:15 So a ton of information that we just raced through.
1:10:19 Every school has an individual report,
1:10:22 especially for the student survey data,
1:10:23 it’s four years worth of data they can check.
1:10:26 Yes, it’s a smaller sample size this year.
1:10:29 Yes, we changed it to only fifth and sixth grade
1:10:32 in elementary, but the data is still there,
1:10:34 especially if you see trends.
1:10:35 If there’s an area that you’re not
1:10:38 receiving positive responses or as positive as you think,
1:10:41 then you have to kind of reevaluate what you’re doing.
1:10:44 So hugely insightful data
1:10:50 if we take the time to break it down,
1:10:51 look at it, and learn from it.
1:10:53 So I think it was great that we required it
1:10:56 as part of the school improvement plan
1:10:58 for climate and culture, and this is one of the tools
1:11:00 they were able to analyze to develop their plan.
1:11:03 So really, really good stuff.
1:11:05 Now, the family and staff surveys,
1:11:07 it’ll be the first year we did it with Youth Truth,
1:11:10 so there’s no historical data,
1:11:11 but still good data that can provide us information
1:11:14 about how we’re doing, so sorry.
1:11:16 - Can I ask a quick question before we move on
1:11:18 from the student survey?
1:11:20 And you may not know this, but when you look
1:11:22 at your elementary, your middle school,
1:11:23 and your high school, what percentage of students
1:11:25 in each one of those separate categories
1:11:27 would you say filled out this survey?
1:11:28 So do we have?
1:11:30 - So I do have numbers though, Mrs. Wright.
1:11:35 So I have a comparison from this year to last year.
1:11:38 I can give you those.
1:11:39 So we have 3,919 elementary students
1:11:42 compared to 17,071 students this year.
1:11:46 I’m sorry, from 2023.
1:11:49 Middle school this year, we had 2,724 compared to 8,259.
1:11:58 And for high school, we had 4,168 compared to 15,477.
1:12:07 - Okay, and I know, and I’m only asking that,
1:12:09 I know that’s probably not like one of those things
1:12:12 that we’re so super excited about,
1:12:13 but I think it would be wise for that
1:12:16 to maybe be a huge message that maybe parents
1:12:19 don’t want their students surveyed in this manner.
1:12:22 And I’m telling you as a parent myself,
1:12:25 who has children in BPS schools,
1:12:26 I feel very much like I don’t want my child surveyed
1:12:28 on certain things.
1:12:29 I, as the adult in the room,
1:12:31 would like to be asked the questions
1:12:33 and I’m happy to give the feedback.
1:12:34 But when it comes to children and data mining and surveying,
1:12:38 I think that’s already happening, whether we like it or not.
1:12:41 And so those numbers are, I think, important.
1:12:45 They say something.
1:12:46 - And just so you know, we do, based on statute,
1:12:50 anytime we’re asking students about their well-being,
1:12:52 we have to get parent permission.
1:12:54 And that is why we had to make sure that the parents
1:12:59 gave permission for the students to take the survey.
1:13:01 - Yeah, absolutely. - And we will continue
1:13:02 to do that. - Yes, thank you.
1:13:04 - I wanna point out one thing too,
1:13:06 if people are looking at these slides
1:13:07 and seeing the lowest rated question,
1:13:10 to remember that that’s,
1:13:12 we’re not putting the numbers up there either, right?
1:13:13 So it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a really negative number
1:13:16 it also, it literally just means
1:13:18 it’s the lowest rated question.
1:13:19 So I just want people to be aware of that
1:13:20 before they freak out when they read some of those.
1:13:22 - It’s a really good point because sometimes it’s only
1:13:25 a percent or two lower than the highest rated question.
1:13:27 Like every question in that category
1:13:29 might be getting a 3.5, 3.6, 3.7,
1:13:32 and it’s just the lowest rated question.
1:13:33 - And just ‘cause it’s red and green,
1:13:34 I wanted people to be aware of that.
1:13:37 - I also, I just, I wanna be a little cognizant
1:13:42 of what Ms. Wright said, just,
1:13:43 it’s also an assumption to state that as well.
1:13:46 I mean, it’s statistically an impediment
1:13:48 to require someone to opt into something.
1:13:50 There’s always a lower response
1:13:52 when you require an opt in versus an opt out.
1:13:55 And there has been a lot of conversation in the world
1:13:58 of the danger of the survey and stuff like that,
1:14:01 making people hesitant.
1:14:02 And so when people see the benefit of it
1:14:04 and how it helps the district plan
1:14:06 and make positive changes for the students,
1:14:08 hopefully we’ll have a bigger turnout next year.
1:14:14 - Thank you.
1:14:17 Okay, so I’ll just go ahead and reiterate the point
1:14:21 that this, we do not have historical data
1:14:23 as we wanted to have one company provide the survey
1:14:28 for all of our stakeholders.
1:14:30 And again, it’s the same format.
1:14:31 We will show you the theme.
1:14:33 And at the beginning of each grade level,
1:14:35 we’ll show you the highest ranking theme.
1:14:38 And for elementary, our elementary school families,
1:14:42 it was relationships.
1:14:46 Middle school families, relationships as well,
1:14:50 and for high school families.
1:14:51 So that theme was consistent all the way through.
1:14:58 Okay, so for our theme of engagement for family surveys,
1:15:05 give you a brief description of that.
1:15:09 It describes the degree to which families are engaged
1:15:12 with their school and empower to influence decision-making.
1:15:16 And if you look at this chart,
1:15:17 this is a little bit different from the other charts.
1:15:19 We have, we still have the color coded chart.
1:15:22 Green means that was the highest rated question.
1:15:25 Red will be the lowest rated question.
1:15:26 And we have an E for elementary,
1:15:28 M for middle school and H for high school.
1:15:31 - Sorry to interrupt you, but do you mind just for the one,
1:15:34 two, three, four, five saying what those stood for?
1:15:38 - I’m sorry?
1:15:39 - So for the last one, like two men sometimes, three men.
1:15:42 - Oh yes, okay, yes, yes, yes, yes.
1:15:44 So this is a standard Likert scale, I’m sorry.
1:15:48 So one would be I disagree, I somewhat disagree.
1:15:52 Three would be I’m neutral, four would be I agree,
1:15:55 and five will be I strongly agree.
1:15:56 - Thank you.
1:15:57 - Okay.
1:16:02 So this display is a little different.
1:16:04 We have all three levels displayed on one slide for you.
1:16:09 So for the engagement theme, again,
1:16:12 our elementary schools were the leading level there.
1:16:21 Okay, next we have relationships.
1:16:23 This describes the degree to which families
1:16:25 experience positive relationships in their schools
1:16:27 based on respect, care, and approachability.
1:16:32 Okay, we have our averages by grade level.
1:16:42 Next is culture.
1:16:46 This describes the degree to which families
1:16:47 believe their schools foster shared goals,
1:16:52 respect, fairness, and diversity.
1:17:01 Okay, next we have communication and feedback.
1:17:05 And this is, this details the openness
1:17:10 and effective lines of communication
1:17:11 between families and schools.
1:17:26 And we have resources.
1:17:29 This describes the way in which schools
1:17:32 deploy the necessary resources to support all students.
1:17:47 And school safety describes the degree
1:17:48 to which families believe their school
1:17:49 is a safe place for students.
1:17:55 - That’s not fair with only two questions.
1:18:00 - It’s either gonna be a start or a end.
1:18:01 It’s probably gonna be a good line to be really close.
1:18:06 - Yeah, because the averages actually aren’t bad.
1:18:09 - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:18:11 So do you guys have, how many families
1:18:15 participated in this?
1:18:16 - Family participation, so we had, I’ll go by level,
1:18:21 and we had 5,260 families for elementary.
1:18:28 1,930 for middle school, 1,582 for high school,
1:18:34 for a total of 8,772.
1:18:37 And we do always notice a taper of, you know,
1:18:41 from elementary to high school.
1:18:42 Seems like parents are more concerned
1:18:44 that their children are younger.
1:18:49 - I think it’s important.
1:18:52 I think these numbers are gonna be more critical
1:18:53 when you look at the school level.
1:18:54 Honestly, for all of us, it’s really more beneficial
1:18:57 for the school level than the district.
1:19:00 But as a positive note, you know, none of these category,
1:19:03 all of these categories, sorry, in every single grade level
1:19:07 is above neutral, which means a positive.
1:19:11 And it’s always frustrating when you have
1:19:12 like a numbered scale, because it’s not a five.
1:19:15 The reality is, it’s positive, and that’s a good thing.
1:19:18 And when you, the reason I wanted to know the numbers, too,
1:19:20 is because they’re such a stark, and obviously,
1:19:23 like you said, it’s expected to go down
1:19:25 as we get higher in grades.
1:19:26 But the stark contrast between high school and elementary,
1:19:31 it is an assumption, yes, but one can assume
1:19:35 there’d be more negative feelings for the respondents,
1:19:38 like they’re reaching out and responding
1:19:39 ‘cause they feel more negatively, I would think,
1:19:42 at that higher of a level.
1:19:43 And to still be on the positive side, that’s a good thing.
1:19:47 - Again, once we, you know, drill deeper into the results,
1:19:50 you will be able to see the number, the percent positives,
1:19:53 which, you know, those numbers would probably be a stronger,
1:19:57 you know, indicator of what’s happening
1:19:59 and how people feel.
1:20:01 - Mr. Bull, do we, thank you for providing those numbers.
1:20:06 Do, I know it’s a different survey,
1:20:08 but do you have the numbers from last year’s
1:20:10 parent survey to compare it to?
1:20:12 - So, it was, I have the number of respondents.
1:20:16 I can make that available, I can make that available,
1:20:18 but it was a totally different platform,
1:20:20 and that’s where we had the issue, you know,
1:20:22 when we had, we used Survey Monkey, as I, you know,
1:20:26 stated before, which is, it’s nice that we can customize
1:20:29 that, but, you know, it’s just, it’s different.
1:20:33 It’s different, so I can’t provide the number of responses
1:20:35 that we– - Higher or lower?
1:20:39 - Can I get back to you on that?
1:20:40 - Yes, yes, you can, you can, and part of it is,
1:20:43 I know we, you know, I have two parents that time of year,
1:20:47 you know, I can’t remember, I think you shared at one time,
1:20:50 there was a meme somebody made, you know,
1:20:53 we’re reaching out to you, to contact you about
1:20:56 your auto insurance, your car warranty or whatever,
1:20:59 and then somebody had slashed through that,
1:21:01 and put, you know, your parent, BPS parent survey,
1:21:03 ‘cause it was a joke, ‘cause we were getting so many texts
1:21:05 the year before last, before this one, and–
1:21:08 - It was a huge response, though, and it wasn’t like–
1:21:10 - But like, we hounded people, and people were like,
1:21:12 how do I opt out once I’ve already taken it?
1:21:14 But I mean, we wanna get good survey data,
1:21:17 there’s a balance between not irritating people, but,
1:21:19 so I don’t know that we did it quite that overboard
1:21:21 this year, but it was still, you know,
1:21:25 anything we can do to encourage that engagement is good.
1:21:29 - Of course.
1:21:31 - We oughta share the meme ourselves next year,
1:21:34 that would be good, yeah.
1:21:37 - Okay, and as we move into the staff survey results,
1:21:40 again, keep in mind, it’s gonna be the same scenario
1:21:42 as the family results, we don’t have historical data,
1:21:48 as we, you know, we didn’t use
1:21:49 the same company in the past.
1:21:51 - Can you tell us how many participated
1:21:53 in the survey before we start? - Yes, yes, of course.
1:21:56 So, for elementary, we had 2,792.
1:22:02 Middle school, 659.
1:22:06 And high school, 946.
1:22:09 So this year, we had a total of 4,403,
1:22:11 compared to the previous year of 3,343.
1:22:15 So we did increase there.
1:22:18 Okay.
1:22:24 Okay, so again, we have our themes
1:22:27 for elementary school staff.
1:22:28 We had a tie for engagement and relationships
1:22:31 with the staff survey.
1:22:36 Our middle school staff survey engagement
1:22:39 was the highest rated theme.
1:22:41 In high school, this was our general theme,
1:22:44 our overall feeling about our school.
1:22:48 Okay.
1:22:52 Okay, here’s a list of the general questions
1:22:55 and the ratings by level.
1:22:59 Again, this is an overall feeling.
1:23:05 And we have it disaggregated by school level again.
1:23:09 Same format.
1:23:13 So engagement, this theme describes
1:23:15 the way or how staff feel about their work
1:23:21 and that they’re empowered to influence
1:23:25 the decisions that their schools make.
1:23:34 Okay, so we have two pages here.
1:23:36 So I’m gonna, if you need me to go back
1:23:38 to between page two and one,
1:23:40 we had quite a few questions for this theme
1:23:42 for relationships.
1:23:43 So we can see our highest rated themes
1:23:45 for again, keep in mind the H is for high school,
1:23:48 M is for middle school and the E is for elementary.
1:23:52 So I’ll give you a moment to look at the questions
1:23:54 before I move on.
1:23:56 I’ll tell you about this theme, it’s relationships.
1:23:58 It describes the degree to which the staff experience
1:24:00 positive relationships in their school
1:24:02 based on respect, care and approachability.
1:24:06 Here’s the second page.
1:24:15 And our averages, our average scores.
1:24:25 Okay, next we have culture.
1:24:27 This describes the degree to which staff believe
1:24:30 their school fosters a culture of shared vision,
1:24:32 respect and effective communication.
1:24:42 And we, again, this is one where we had multiple pages.
1:24:45 So I’ll go back if you need me to
1:24:51 in our average ratings.
1:24:57 Okay, professional development and support
1:25:01 describes the degree to which staff receive
1:25:04 meaningful feedback, have opportunities
1:25:06 to grow professionally and feel supported in their work.
1:25:11 Give you a moment to look at the first page.
1:25:16 And then the second page.
1:25:28 We have our average ratings.
1:25:34 Okay, school safety.
1:25:37 This describes a staff member’s level of perceived safety
1:25:40 for themselves and students on campus,
1:25:42 as well as of the rules and protocols in place
1:25:45 to address violence at school.
1:25:51 I would like to note here,
1:25:53 we see our lowest rated question is,
1:25:56 I feel safe from harm while at my school.
1:26:00 So for high school, we had a 76% positive rating,
1:26:04 meaning that they rated the question agree
1:26:07 or strongly agree.
1:26:09 But I wanna tell you about the range.
1:26:11 The range was from 3.38 to 4.13.
1:26:14 So it wasn’t even one point,
1:26:16 and you’ll be able to see that in the report.
1:26:18 So that range was very, very small.
1:26:21 And that’s something to keep in mind.
1:26:23 Okay, for elementary, it was a 78% positive rating.
1:26:28 And the range was a little bit wider.
1:26:30 It was from 3.54 to 4.3.
1:26:35 Say again, not one full point,
1:26:37 but still, we wanna keep in mind that
1:26:39 that was the lowest rated question.
1:26:43 And again, we have our averages by school level.
1:26:51 Okay, so the links to each individual report by level
1:26:57 have been linked to this page,
1:26:58 but we are working to make one document
1:27:03 where we can just click it one time.
1:27:04 But we do wanna have this available
1:27:06 if people wanna go look at those specific levels.
1:27:10 (faintly speaking)
1:27:13 - Were there any comment sections on the staff one
1:27:17 this time around?
1:27:19 - Yes, we did have– - Like free comment, sorry.
1:27:20 - Yes, we did have the comments,
1:27:24 but they were, it was a lot to put on this,
1:27:27 but we did receive comments from students,
1:27:29 staff, and family as well.
1:27:30 - Are those on these links or no?
1:27:33 - No, ma’am.
1:27:33 The comments are not on those links.
1:27:34 - Can we get them?
1:27:36 And it’s not an emergency,
1:27:37 but is that possible to send them to us?
1:27:39 - Yes, yes, we can provide those.
1:27:42 We have to make sure, we have to take,
1:27:44 if we do, we have to take out any identifiable information.
1:27:47 - Have identifiable information.
1:27:50 - Okay, yeah, I’m interested in just,
1:27:53 just because some of these questions
1:27:54 are when you take them very literally,
1:27:56 they might be interpreted in a certain way.
1:27:58 It’s just interesting to see like their outward response.
1:28:02 - So just going back to the student survey
1:28:06 and the challenges with that,
1:28:09 I know that we’re going to use a different vendor
1:28:12 for all these, possibly different vendors for each survey,
1:28:16 which is fine, as long as it’s high quality.
1:28:21 We did, with our online registration process this year,
1:28:25 we took care, schools had the opportunity
1:28:27 to kind of do a lot of that upfront,
1:28:29 which we haven’t been able to do before,
1:28:30 ‘cause it’s all electronic enrollment.
1:28:32 Did we, it’s been, I did mine the first week,
1:28:36 the enrollment was open, so I can’t remember.
1:28:38 But did we ask questions like this
1:28:40 as far as participation in the survey?
1:28:42 Are we gonna, or is that something that we’ll do later
1:28:44 when it’s time for the survey?
1:28:45 - So we’ll do that when it’s time for the survey,
1:28:47 as we have to provide the questions for parents.
1:28:49 They have to have that choice.
1:28:51 They need to be able to vet those questions
1:28:53 and then make sure they take a look
1:28:55 at what their children are going to be.
1:28:57 We have to give them that chance to do that.
1:29:00 So that’s not a part of the enrollment piece.
1:29:01 - Yeah, no, I appreciate that.
1:29:03 I know that’s good to clarify and good to know.
1:29:06 And just to know this year, I think,
1:29:09 I have a different take on it than you do.
1:29:11 I think this is, yes, there are people
1:29:14 who don’t want their kids to answer anything,
1:29:16 but honestly, the drop in participation is,
1:29:20 I mean, there’s no way around.
1:29:22 You had to do extra work for your kid to do it.
1:29:25 And then you look at the middle school and the high school,
1:29:26 the parent could have provided the less engaged parents,
1:29:29 which are high school and middle school parents,
1:29:31 less likely to do it.
1:29:33 And even if the parent provided the survey,
1:29:35 if the student decided I don’t want to do it,
1:29:37 even if their parent, then we don’t have that information.
1:29:39 And that’s totally up to them.
1:29:41 And we deal with the data that we have.
1:29:44 But what’s really important about this,
1:29:46 making sure that it’s appropriate.
1:29:47 And we’ve done, even with the youth through survey,
1:29:49 we’ve done a lot of work over the last four years
1:29:51 that we’ve had it to try to eliminate
1:29:53 those controversial questions that might cause people
1:29:58 to be stressed out about it.
1:30:01 But there’s, it’s a delicate balance,
1:30:04 but we need student voice.
1:30:06 We need student voice.
1:30:07 Teachers and their classrooms need student voice.
1:30:10 And us as a district, as district leaders,
1:30:13 the principals need student voice.
1:30:15 Dr. Rendell values student voice.
1:30:18 And so he monthly meets with our student government leaders
1:30:21 and that is his, I can’t remember what you call them,
1:30:24 advisory- - Student advisory council.
1:30:26 - Student advisory council.
1:30:29 But there, we, it’s one thing to hear from the parents
1:30:32 and we need to hear from them too.
1:30:33 And the student voice is not the be all end all.
1:30:35 It has to be balanced with what’s,
1:30:37 because they have their perspective and they are,
1:30:39 you know, their cognitive abilities
1:30:42 aren’t fully developed yet,
1:30:43 but that student voice is important.
1:30:45 And so whatever safe way we can do it with parent approval,
1:30:49 I believe we need to continue to find a way
1:30:52 to get that input in, in a way that’s anonymous.
1:30:55 And you mentioned we’re data mining.
1:30:57 I don’t want us to be careful with that
1:30:58 because I’ve answered those questions many times with you.
1:30:59 Oh, there’s, it’s identifiable
1:31:01 because there was a time when someone said,
1:31:03 oh, in the free comment, if a student showed
1:31:04 that they might’ve been, you know, suicidal or whatever,
1:31:10 Youth Truth had the ability,
1:31:11 did they have the ability to go back
1:31:12 and track down an IPN address, which they would give,
1:31:15 and then there was, oh, then Youth Truth has access to that.
1:31:17 Well, no, then they could get it over
1:31:18 to the school personnel who,
1:31:19 if they could figure out who took that survey
1:31:21 on what computer could maybe trace it back
1:31:23 because that’s a need.
1:31:24 But so then it was turned into it’s data mining.
1:31:27 I mean, I guess if you’re asking students their survey,
1:31:30 I mean, anything that’s, you know,
1:31:31 and then it’s getting reported,
1:31:33 you could call it data mining,
1:31:34 but it’s not traceable back to the specific student
1:31:36 so that they’re in danger or that some outside company
1:31:39 has access to their personal and private information.
1:31:42 They don’t.
1:31:43 They didn’t with this one,
1:31:44 and we’re gonna make sure with whatever we choose
1:31:46 in the future that that is the case.
1:31:47 But I just, I think we need to be careful.
1:31:50 We always need to be careful to make sure
1:31:51 that our students are safe, that their information is safe.
1:31:54 But again, I just can’t get past
1:31:56 that student voice is important
1:31:57 in all the ways that we can collect it.
1:32:01 Not all the ways, but in that personal,
1:32:03 the teacher is getting that input every day
1:32:06 in their classrooms.
1:32:07 And, you know, administrators are standing in the hallways
1:32:11 and students will come up to them and go (mumbles)
1:32:13 you know, about whatever they’re complaining,
1:32:15 you know, what to complain about or rejoicing about.
1:32:19 But to have a consistent way that we can get that voice
1:32:23 in there in an anonymous way where they can be honest
1:32:26 and not have to worry about, you know,
1:32:29 who’s gonna do something, you know, if I complain
1:32:31 about my teacher, what’s gonna happen?
1:32:32 Is she gonna give me a lower grade?
1:32:33 That may not happen, but you know, we’re humans.
1:32:35 We think that way.
1:32:36 I think that’s important.
1:32:39 - Thank you, Ms. Campbells.
1:32:40 Anybody else have anything else to add about?
1:32:42 - I have a question.
1:32:44 Forgive me, ‘cause you may have literally just said this,
1:32:47 but I was just processing a little bit.
1:32:50 So, and I don’t, like there’s so much changes
1:32:52 to the statute that I don’t know anymore.
1:32:56 So going back to the question about the enrollment paperwork
1:33:01 possibly getting the permission then,
1:33:05 they have to be able to have access to it to approve first.
1:33:12 Like that’s that statute.
1:33:14 Okay, so then nevermind, then my follow up question
1:33:16 would not make any sense.
1:33:17 So thank you.
1:33:19 But so, okay, there’s no way around that.
1:33:27 ‘Cause we’ll never have this ahead of time before enrollment
1:33:29 unless we reuse the same exact questions
1:33:30 from the following year.
1:33:31 - If we settle on a set of questions
1:33:33 that we’re gonna use year after year after year,
1:33:34 yes, we could have it as part of the reenrollment process.
1:33:37 - Okay, I think it’s important, Ms. Campbell,
1:33:40 you said something that kind of just sparked my memory too
1:33:43 is, you know, if we do change vendors, if we don’t,
1:33:46 whatever, regardless, the next time this comes around,
1:33:48 I think it’s really important for us to articulate
1:33:52 to the public exactly what you mentioned
1:33:55 about how for the past four years,
1:33:58 Brevard Public Schools has like gone out of their way
1:34:00 to eliminate questions that people would find controversial
1:34:04 because we had the ability to do that.
1:34:06 And that in and of itself, just being, you know,
1:34:10 open and honest about that might drive
1:34:12 a little bit more turnout too.
1:34:14 So, okay, thank you.
1:34:17 - And I’m just, I’m gonna follow up Ms. Campbell
1:34:18 to what you said about student voice.
1:34:20 And I 100% agree that student voice is absolutely important.
1:34:23 I think this survey and I think the legislator
1:34:25 has also identified the fact that the parents
1:34:27 are the ones that are in control,
1:34:29 which is why the permission slip even exists to begin with.
1:34:31 So I want to hear what the students say,
1:34:34 but there’s a ways around.
1:34:36 This survey to me, it is a bit irritating.
1:34:38 It really is and I’m, this is no offense to you guys.
1:34:41 It was irritating to me before I was ever on this board
1:34:43 and I spoke to many parents that feel exactly the same way,
1:34:46 but they don’t want their students asked these things
1:34:48 because the adults in the room should be making
1:34:50 the decisions and kind of steering the direction
1:34:52 of how things go.
1:34:53 When we talk about student voice,
1:34:54 I think student voice is very important.
1:34:57 When we look at your advisory council that you have
1:34:59 with student government, that’s really important.
1:35:01 And guess what, parents are signing their kids up
1:35:02 to be a part of that and have that voice and speak there.
1:35:06 And I think that’s very, very important
1:35:07 and it absolutely can drive the ship on how we do things
1:35:11 within our school district.
1:35:12 But when we’re talking, especially about our elementary kids,
1:35:16 I guess we’ll respectfully agree to disagree
1:35:19 that I don’t think our elementary kids should be surveyed.
1:35:21 I think that they’re there to be educated.
1:35:23 And I think that we can absolutely survey the parents
1:35:26 on how do they feel the education is going.
1:35:28 We can survey the teachers on how do you feel the culture is
1:35:30 and the environment is in your school.
1:35:32 But when it comes to asking a child a question
1:35:35 that sometimes is quite frankly out of their grasp
1:35:38 of really understanding the magnitude of how they answer it
1:35:40 or what they’re even answering,
1:35:43 I don’t know that that should be a factor that we look at
1:35:45 and say, okay, this is how we’re gonna change X, Y, and Z
1:35:48 because a student said this
1:35:50 and the student could be nine years old.
1:35:53 You do understand what I’m saying?
1:35:54 So that’s where I just differ on where I land on this.
1:35:59 - But going back, these questions are in here
1:36:02 and they’re leveled.
1:36:04 So looking at the actual questions that are here,
1:36:08 one, we’ve eliminated the nine-year-olds
1:36:10 ‘cause we’re only doing fifth and sixth graders.
1:36:13 But questions like, do students stay busy in class?
1:36:15 Do students behave in class?
1:36:17 Do students from your class treat the teacher with respect?
1:36:20 Those are the culture questions that a 10, 11,
1:36:23 and 12-year-old should be able to identify and express.
1:36:27 They’re not complicated.
1:36:28 And again, we’re not talking about a single student
1:36:32 or a single class of students
1:36:33 or whatever responds negatively.
1:36:35 So we’re going to completely change.
1:36:38 What I heard Mr. Poole say is each school got their data
1:36:43 from the students, from the parents, from the teachers,
1:36:47 and along with other things, not just this,
1:36:50 they made a culture goal for their school.
1:36:53 This was part of the equation.
1:36:54 So I hear you.
1:36:55 And yes, I believe you talked to lots of people
1:36:58 who think the same way as you do.
1:36:59 I believe you did.
1:37:01 But again, we’re not asking them,
1:37:05 we’ve removed the things.
1:37:06 And the bullying questions from people,
1:37:08 we’re not talking about gender ideology.
1:37:12 We’re not talking about,
1:37:13 do you think your teacher cares about you?
1:37:15 Honestly, I want our schools to know that
1:37:17 because if schools have a low score on that,
1:37:20 those schools want to know,
1:37:21 hey, maybe the teachers think they’re communicating
1:37:24 in a certain way, but it’s not quite getting across.
1:37:26 So we can change how we do things.
1:37:28 If they were, you know, and again,
1:37:32 I’m looking forward to the new survey
1:37:34 because even if there’s some questions in here
1:37:36 that we’re like, okay, well, the rest of them are fine,
1:37:37 but that one, no.
1:37:39 We didn’t have the ability with Youth Truth
1:37:40 is what you’re saying to edit those one questions out.
1:37:43 We can pick the questions
1:37:44 that will really give us the data that we need.
1:37:47 And then parents can make that choice.
1:37:49 - All right, thank you.
1:37:50 Does anybody else have anything else to add to this?
1:37:53 - You go ahead.
1:37:54 Oh, you’re the vice chair, you gotta wait.
1:37:57 So years ago I proposed when I would go to Sarasota
1:38:01 and I would go to some of these other school boards,
1:38:03 I proposed that we had a student representative
1:38:05 that sat on the school board like they do.
1:38:07 They have a student that sits there
1:38:08 and as you’re going through things,
1:38:09 the problem is, is that there was a disconnect.
1:38:12 And I agreed with that,
1:38:13 that the individual that was sitting up there
1:38:14 didn’t truly represent the student body
1:38:17 because they were a single individual person, right?
1:38:19 What Dr. Rendell does,
1:38:20 where he meets with all of the student government people
1:38:23 and stuff like that gives a good culture of a wide variety.
1:38:26 But what I do when I go into the schools is there’s,
1:38:29 as a teacher,
1:38:31 I knew that you had two different perspectives.
1:38:32 You had one perspective that was from the student
1:38:34 that was from student government.
1:38:35 And then you had the other perspective
1:38:36 of the kid that had like C’s and B’s
1:38:38 and was basically running through the schools
1:38:40 and doing different things too.
1:38:42 So what I always try to do is,
1:38:43 I try to go into each one of the schools,
1:38:44 talk to a class and then pull some of the kids
1:38:46 that I can identify that are like that
1:38:48 and just talk to them and say, hey, what’s going on here?
1:38:49 And usually you can get a pretty good gist
1:38:52 of what’s going on inside the schools by doing that.
1:38:55 But I think that we could do a better job
1:38:57 as far as student body representations and stuff like that.
1:39:00 I think the survey’s one thing,
1:39:01 but the percentage of it being so small,
1:39:05 doesn’t really give us the numbers
1:39:06 that we truly could see if we wanted to try to make change.
1:39:09 And the other thing is,
1:39:10 is that the survey’s a one time a year type thing.
1:39:13 Sometimes when we’re moving through things,
1:39:15 like when we were doing the guardian program,
1:39:16 I pulled some of our dual enrollment students
1:39:19 that were over at Eastern Florida State
1:39:20 and I was talking to them about it.
1:39:21 It gives me an opportunity to kind of move through
1:39:23 and get those real time opinions.
1:39:25 That’s all, I just wanted to kind of point that out.
1:39:28 That’s it.
1:39:29 - Thank you, Mr. Susan.
1:39:30 And Mr. Trent, you were ready to go.
1:39:32 - Yeah, I’ll just follow up.
1:39:33 And then, I mean,
1:39:38 this kind of data is what it is.
1:39:42 I appreciate the staff’s comments.
1:39:45 I mean, that’s always valid.
1:39:48 I do agree with Ms. Wright
1:39:50 with asking the elementary school kids.
1:39:54 I mean, there again, it is what it is.
1:39:57 When you look at the very first question,
1:39:59 when your teacher wants you to work your hardest
1:40:00 is the highest question and value.
1:40:06 And does your teacher want you to work your best?
1:40:08 Do your best is the lowest,
1:40:09 which right there should pretty much
1:40:14 take away the comments forward
1:40:17 because obviously the elementary school kids,
1:40:20 they’re just answering.
1:40:22 Let’s be honest on that.
1:40:23 And even the second one where, you know,
1:40:26 does the work of your class make you really think
1:40:28 is the highest rated question.
1:40:29 Does what you learn in school help you in your life
1:40:31 is the lowest?
1:40:33 Well, I hope so because they don’t know
1:40:34 what they don’t know.
1:40:35 What is a day in an elementary school’s kid’s life?
1:40:39 You know, what videos to go on,
1:40:41 what to watch, how to ride their bike
1:40:44 and where they’re going.
1:40:45 So I hope we’re not making major decisions
1:40:48 at any of the schools based on this limited data.
1:40:50 I know it’s not coming from here,
1:40:51 but you know, as they get older,
1:40:54 I think, you know, hearing from them is important.
1:40:58 It’s interesting.
1:40:59 And that’s, I mean, the data is,
1:41:02 the numbers are going down on participation,
1:41:04 but I still think it’s enough to get a snapshot
1:41:06 of where these students are getting that information.
1:41:12 But again, if we didn’t have this
1:41:14 from our elementary school kids,
1:41:16 students, I think would be just as well.
1:41:18 And we could take that time and maybe from this data,
1:41:22 have the teachers get to know the students
1:41:24 a little bit more and get on that on the curriculum
1:41:28 rather than, you know, putting this in front of six,
1:41:31 seven, eight, nine, 10 year old kids.
1:41:33 But that’s my two cents.
1:41:35 But thank you for all the data collection
1:41:37 and putting it together.
1:41:39 That’s a lot of hard work.
1:41:40 That’s a lot of slides that you had to present
1:41:44 and put together.
1:41:44 So thank you for doing your work.
1:41:46 And I know it’s going to be good as a whole
1:41:48 and as principals, they’re gonna use
1:41:51 at the high school level, middle school level.
1:41:53 There’s some very important information here, but.
1:41:56 - All right.
1:41:57 So thank you guys for all the hard work
1:41:59 that you put in on this.
1:42:00 - I have a follow up.
1:42:02 Yeah, yes, of course I do because it’s really important
1:42:07 because when we, as board members talk about our opinions,
1:42:13 we need to remember that our opinions don’t always have to
1:42:18 or are not valid enough to be the deciding factor
1:42:21 for the entire decisions that are made for a district.
1:42:25 So when we talk about parental rights,
1:42:28 that’s parental rights for every single parent.
1:42:30 Yes, you have the right to say no for your child.
1:42:34 Having a conversation about why we shouldn’t survey
1:42:36 the elementary students.
1:42:37 First of all, it’s fifth and sixth graders
1:42:39 are not nine and eight years old.
1:42:42 Remember the lowest rated question doesn’t mean
1:42:44 it’s a negative response.
1:42:45 It just means it was the lowest.
1:42:46 So that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily contradictory
1:42:48 to one another being highest and lowest.
1:42:51 And just alone 5,260 elementary school families
1:42:55 wanted their children surveyed.
1:42:58 So the one opinion up here or the two opinions up here
1:43:02 that we shouldn’t survey elementary students like remember,
1:43:05 this is representative of the district.
1:43:08 Those families wanted it.
1:43:09 And those are the ones who were aware of it
1:43:11 and opted in for it.
1:43:12 It doesn’t mean that the ones who didn’t necessarily didn’t
1:43:15 want their kids surveyed.
1:43:17 They may not have known about it.
1:43:18 They may not have responded.
1:43:19 They may not have been reached out to enough times.
1:43:22 So I think any and all information that our schools can have
1:43:25 when parents are willing to give that permission,
1:43:28 go for it, let’s do it.
1:43:29 And I think it’s important to remember too,
1:43:33 when we are talking about elementary kids,
1:43:37 and if there is a contradictory response,
1:43:39 that’s really important information for classroom teachers
1:43:43 to kind of take a step back as adults
1:43:45 and realize what that perspective is.
1:43:48 Do you think your teacher wants you to work your hardest?
1:43:51 And they say, yes, I do.
1:43:52 I think they expect me to work hard every day.
1:43:56 Does your teacher want you to do your best?
1:43:58 And maybe that’s a little lower.
1:44:00 And as an adult, I would look at that
1:44:01 working with little kids and think,
1:44:03 am I encouraging this student to the best of their ability
1:44:07 or am I holding them to this highest possible standard
1:44:09 that may be too high for them?
1:44:11 And their perception might be,
1:44:13 you’re not asking me to do my personal best.
1:44:16 You’re asking me to work really hard.
1:44:17 And that’s just a different,
1:44:18 it’s just really enlightening for classroom teachers
1:44:20 to kind of get a reset and a focus for the new year
1:44:23 of how to maybe approach their little ones
1:44:25 a little bit differently.
1:44:28 - All right, thank you, Ms. Jenkins.
1:44:29 All right, so we are at this point,
1:44:30 I’ve gone through everything that’s on our agenda.
1:44:33 There was one email that went out,
1:44:34 Mr. Gibbs had sent out in regards to the policy updates.
1:44:37 We think it was 123 left that we need to process through.
1:44:41 - Yeah, there’s 123 policies from the board’s review
1:44:45 of the policy book,
1:44:46 and then we’re gonna have any additional policies
1:44:49 from the legislative session that we have to update.
1:44:52 - Okay, and board, did you guys have a chance to weigh in
1:44:54 and respond to Mr. Gibbs
1:44:56 so that we can start working on those
1:44:57 and get those knocked out?
1:44:58 That’s been something we’ve been working on
1:44:59 for almost two years now.
1:45:03 - My question would be,
1:45:05 because I know you’d sent us yesterday
1:45:07 like a timeline about the special meetings,
1:45:09 but consider the one that’s,
1:45:11 the meetings that are going to be the longest,
1:45:12 I know we’ve already taken a look at these,
1:45:13 but some of them it’s been over a year
1:45:15 since we looked at them.
1:45:16 The meeting that’s gonna be the longest is the work session
1:45:19 type meeting where there’s laws changed
1:45:22 that are gonna be addition to the things
1:45:23 we already talked about last year.
1:45:25 We’ve got new cabinet members in place
1:45:27 in some of these areas that weren’t in place
1:45:30 when we were reviewing the policies
1:45:33 in the earlier spring of last year.
1:45:37 I think that meeting, for that,
1:45:38 I don’t know that we can do 123 or more in a work session.
1:45:43 So I think that’s where,
1:45:46 I mean, when we get to the,
1:45:49 is there anybody here, is there anybody here?
1:45:51 I mean, those can be,
1:45:53 those probably won’t be long or controversial
1:45:56 except for just the amount that takes the chair
1:45:58 to read through the script.
1:46:00 But I would like a little more time in the meetings
1:46:03 unless we schedule like a big long day
1:46:05 ‘cause that’s a lot of policies for us to work session on.
1:46:09 - Or the other recommendation that I had made
1:46:11 was possibly breaking this into three or four
1:46:14 and hitting them that way
1:46:16 ‘cause it’s going to be a lot all at one time.
1:46:18 - Yeah, if there’s deadline,
1:46:20 like the ones with the statutory updates
1:46:22 rather than like the little tiny references changes
1:46:26 that we made or whatever, if we can prior,
1:46:28 I know that’s a lot of work,
1:46:29 but if we can prioritize,
1:46:31 obviously we need to hit those first
1:46:32 that are statutory changes.
1:46:36 I mean, is there, you kind of have it,
1:46:38 you know what I mean?
1:46:39 Because some of the changes we made were so small,
1:46:41 it’s really not gonna affect the daily function
1:46:44 of the district.
1:46:46 - We can take a look at it,
1:46:48 three or four meetings. - But then again,
1:46:48 those will be faster to move through.
1:46:50 - Right, if we’re splitting it in three or four,
1:46:51 that’s three or four separate processes.
1:46:53 So that’s gonna be three or four timelines for each of those
1:46:57 which will probably push us beyond January.
1:47:00 - Okay.
1:47:02 So could we, I mean, the day that you’re gonna bring
1:47:07 the bulk of these to us, we need to just plan on having,
1:47:09 that’s the only thing that happens on that work session
1:47:11 and we’re here for a good amount of the day.
1:47:15 And we all do our homework really well before we get here.
1:47:17 So we can shorten that.
1:47:19 - I just wanna make you guys cognizant of the fact
1:47:22 that if you do separate these and push this out,
1:47:26 you’re gonna have potentially two new board members
1:47:29 sitting up here.
1:47:30 So if you do that, then delay it a little bit
1:47:33 ‘cause they’re gonna need a minute.
1:47:35 So like push it at least till December for some of those.
1:47:37 Like getting them in in November and asking them
1:47:39 to do this the next week is just unfair.
1:47:42 - That’s not fair.
1:47:42 - So just be careful.
1:47:45 - So my, what I would prefer to do because of that,
1:47:48 honestly, the potential new board members
1:47:50 are gonna come on, I think we should schedule these alone
1:47:56 just for workshops that are gonna come up
1:47:57 and try to move through these as soon as possible.
1:48:00 Could we do them in two settings?
1:48:03 Can we compromise and maybe meet in the middle
1:48:04 and do two settings instead of one setting?
1:48:06 So it’s going to be–
1:48:07 - Then could we do the public hearing still altogether?
1:48:10 - Yeah, I mean, we can split the work session part up,
1:48:13 assuming staff get them done on time,
1:48:15 that’ll move their timeline up.
1:48:16 But if we get them in, we can bring them to work session,
1:48:20 no problem, and then have the public hearings
1:48:22 where there’s 123 or 140 or whatever.
1:48:25 - Those October dates that you gave, I think.
1:48:27 - And we’re all gonna take turns saying,
1:48:29 does anybody wanna speak to the policy?
1:48:30 - No, Madam Chair, that’s your responsibility.
1:48:33 Hang on to the gavel.
1:48:35 - All right, so can we come up with a consensus
1:48:37 on where we’re okay with moving forward doing these in?
1:48:41 - Two.
1:48:42 - Two settings?
1:48:45 - Excuse me, workshops?
1:48:46 - Workshops, yeah, sorry.
1:48:48 - Yeah, just the ones, the ones for board review, so.
1:48:50 - For clarification purpose, sorry,
1:48:52 I’ve been skimming while we’re sitting here, so,
1:48:53 and it’s hard for me to read and pay attention
1:48:55 at the same time.
1:48:57 For clarification purposes, these are all ones
1:48:59 we’ve already gone over before,
1:49:00 but there’s been a couple of statutory changes.
1:49:02 - We’ve got the NEOLA update recently,
1:49:04 so there’s possibility that there’s gonna be some–
1:49:07 - Like some tiny– - Re-updates
1:49:09 coming back to the board,
1:49:10 in addition to the ones you’ve already reviewed, yes.
1:49:13 - Okay.
1:49:15 - Okay, so, back to the question, are we okay with two?
1:49:18 All right, and can we start it as soon as maybe–
1:49:22 - September? - September?
1:49:25 - If we do break it in two,
1:49:26 that does leave a little more wiggle room
1:49:28 in the work sessions in case the superintendent
1:49:30 and staff need to bring us something else, urgent,
1:49:33 because we can’t just do these for the rest of the year,
1:49:38 of the, you know, so.
1:49:40 - Okay, all right, so, do we have third direction
1:49:42 on moving forward policies?
1:49:44 Paul, I think you’re good.
1:49:46 - I’m good, thank you. - All right, all right.
1:49:47 Is there any other further business to discuss?
1:49:51 Dr. Mango, none?
1:49:53 All right, hearing none, this meeting is adjourned.
1:49:57 All right, board, we’re in.
1:50:07 (upbeat music)
1:50:37 (silence)