Updates on the Fight for Quality Public Education in Brevard County, FL
10:00 [ Silence ]
10:30 [ Music ]
10:47 » Good morning.
10:47 The September 10th, 2024 board work session is now in order.
10:51 Paul, roll call please.
10:52 » Ms. Wright.
10:53 » Here.
10:54 » Mr. Trent.
10:54 » Here.
10:55 » Mr. Susan.
10:55 » Here.
10:56 » Ms. Jenkins.
10:56 » Here. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.
11:00 » I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States
11:07 of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation,
11:11 under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
11:18 » All right, board.
11:19 Dr. Rendell, can you please address the board
11:21 and let us know what we have on the agenda
11:23 for this morning today?
11:24 » Thank you, Madam Chair.
11:26 We have a short presentation or discussion
11:29 on the voter-approved millage funds, and then we’re going
11:32 to go into a slew of policy reviews.
11:36 » Wonderful.
11:36 So the first item on the agenda is the discussion
11:39 of the millage fund, which we will turn
11:42 that over the floor to you.
11:43 I believe you’ve provided the board with handouts.
11:45 Everyone should have one in front of them.
11:48 » Yeah. So thank you, Madam Chair.
11:49 You have a stack of papers.
11:50 The first ones are some brightly colored spreadsheets.
11:54 What I wanted to do is discuss with the board and the public,
11:57 because these are public meetings, some of the benefits
12:01 of the voter-approved millage and also just an opportunity
12:05 to publicly thank the voters for providing us
12:10 with these additional funds and a short discussion
12:13 of how we’re using them to impact students and our staff.
12:17 So the first one is that you have some colorful charts
12:21 that are about the different supplements.
12:24 Most people understand that one of the driving forces behind,
12:29 asking the voters to approve this additional property tax
12:31 millage was to fund, to provide funds for our employees,
12:37 increased compensation.
12:38 So 80% of the funds that are generated
12:40 by the additional property tax millage go to compensation,
12:44 and it’s in the form of these supplements.
12:47 So I wanted the board to kind of see some
12:50 of these supplement ranges, and then obviously
12:53 by us discussing it here in the public,
12:54 that the public sees some of these supplement ranges,
12:58 and it’s really a huge benefit, a huge thing that we’re able
13:02 to do for our employees because of the voter-approved millage.
13:05 So the first chart that you have in front of you is
13:09 for the bargaining unit for Teach
13:11 for Instructional Personnel, the BFT or teachers.
13:14 And you can see that the supplements are based on years
13:17 of experience, and a teacher can earn a supplement each year
13:22 annually, ranging from $7,800 down to $1,000.
13:28 So our more experienced teachers are receiving a pretty good
13:31 size
13:32 supplement in addition to their regular salary.
13:36 We feel like we did a really good job
13:38 with retention last year, and I think this is one of the reasons.
13:42 Really good job with recruitment, again,
13:44 because this is an additional incentive, additional monies
13:48 that we are able to give our employees that nearby
13:52 or surrounding counties are not able to.
13:54 So huge thank you to the voters for this increased,
14:00 these funds that we’re able to give to our employees.
14:02 The second chart, the second page, is for the 1010
14:07 or classified bargaining unit,
14:10 and you can see those supplements again based
14:14 on experience or total years of service
14:16 with BPS range from $5,000 down to $500.
14:21 So again, a good chunk of change that we’re able
14:23 to give our employees because of the generosity of the voters.
14:29 And you’ll notice that in every column
14:32 on every page the supplement has increased from last year.
14:36 So we’ll be able to give more each year
14:38 because the property values are increasing,
14:41 which is yielding a larger amount of money.
14:44 The last chart that you have with you is the non-bargaining
14:50 personnel, mostly administrators, and you can see again based
14:54 on experience or years with BPS, the administrator can earn a
14:59 bonus of up to $10,000 with the minimum being $5,600.
15:03 The chart that you don’t have in front of you is some other
15:06 non-bargaining personnel, clerical staff, and some others
15:10 that fall outside of the 1010 unit.
15:13 And their supplements range from $5,000 to $500.
15:18 So it’s one of those things that we really don’t talk
15:20 about too much and we probably should talk about more.
15:24 This is a huge thing that our community has given us these
15:30 funds but really they’re investing
15:32 in the future of our community.
15:34 When you invest in the employees in the school district,
15:36 you should have a stronger school district
15:37 which should then have a stronger community.
15:40 So, you know, the first part of this discussion, I really just
15:44 wanted to share with the board these numbers.
15:46 I’m not sure if you guys were aware of them and I know
15:50 that the public is not really aware of them.
15:51 So, I just wanted to make sure that we shared the good news
15:56 that the voters have given us this additional funding
15:59 and it’s going to our employees in the forms of these
16:01 supplements
16:02 and we really do think that’s the reason we’ve been able
16:04 to keep and attract so many employees.
16:08 Any questions?
16:11 » No, I want to thank you for bringing this up and bring this
16:13 to our voters’ attention especially right now
16:15 as everyone is starting to receive tax bills
16:17 and maybe seeing, oh, my taxes are higher but what is that for
16:20 and what does that translate to for our community.
16:21 So thank you for reminding us of the value of investing
16:24 in our children and our students
16:26 so that we have a better community overall.
16:28 » Yeah, and of course our property taxes have gone
16:31 up because our property values have gone up as well.
16:33 » Right.
16:33 » Not every– I’m sure not everybody but in the majority.
16:37 So that was 80 percent of the voter approved millage goes
16:41 towards compensation.
16:42 The other 20 percent is divided into some other buckets.
16:46 Sixteen percent of it goes towards programs and enrichment.
16:50 So I want to talk about that a little bit.
16:51 So, the second document that you have
16:55 or that not stapled is the blue.
16:57 There’s a blue spreadsheet page and we’re going
17:01 to talk a little bit about the category B1.
17:04 So, the different buckets of the millage funds are divided
17:07 into different categories
17:09 of things you should spend the money on.
17:12 And so, B1 is programs, performing arts,
17:15 STEM, athletics and enrichment.
17:18 It’s 60 percent of the 16 percent
17:21 that goes into the area of B. So, it’s a good amount of money.
17:25 If you can look there, the budget
17:27 for this past fiscal year was 5.8 million dollars.
17:31 We estimated we were going to bring
17:33 in about 5.8 million dollars in this bucket.
17:35 And if you look down at the bottom, we actually brought
17:38 in an additional 45,000.
17:40 So, the amount was 5.4 million dollars.
17:44 So, this was the bucket
17:47 that really should be spent on things in B1.
17:51 So, performing arts support, STEM, athletics enrichment.
17:55 So, you may recall one of the decisions we made early on was
17:59 to pay for all the officials’ costs for all the athletics
18:04 so that the schools then could just keep all their gate money
18:06 to fund their athletics.
18:07 So, you can see over in the fiscal year 24 box over assigned,
18:13 that’s the second line across, Midcoast Officials Association.
18:17 So, we budgeted 550,000 dollars towards officials’ costs.
18:22 So, we basically were relieving the schools
18:23 from paying for that money.
18:25 They were able to retain all their gate receipts and pay
18:27 for other things like uniforms, equipment,
18:30 transportation, things like that.
18:32 And we actually only expended 539,103 dollars.
18:38 So, even came in under budget there.
18:41 We’d also budgeted for a clerk position
18:43 for the county athletic director.
18:45 We actually absorbed that in Fund 100.
18:48 So, we didn’t actually expend that full amount of money.
18:51 We talked about and came to the agreement that we wanted
18:56 to fund a STEM unit at every elementary school.
19:00 So, theoretically, we budgeted for that
19:02 with last year’s millage funds, 3.9 million dollars.
19:06 But we didn’t hire any of those STEM teachers last year.
19:09 We were, you know, made the decision
19:10 and started preparing for that.
19:12 So, that money was not expended last year.
19:15 We also set aside 500,000 dollars towards fine arts,
19:20 fine and performing arts.
19:21 We didn’t expend that money last year.
19:23 So, as you can see, we really only expended the money
19:27 with the– for the officials and a little bit towards
19:30 that clerical unit.
19:32 So, at the end of the year, at the end of the fiscal year
19:35 for 2024, we got 4.9 million dollars in this bucket
19:41 that is rolling forward or carrying forward to this year.
19:44 So, we have some things identified that we’re going
19:47 to do this year, but we didn’t use any
19:49 of the funds generated last year for that.
19:52 So, if you look at the second box, the fiscal year 25,
19:56 you can see that our estimated budget of 5.892 million is what
20:01 we expect to come– to bring
20:02 in with this year’s fiscal year 25 property tax revenue.
20:07 The roll forward or carry forward from last year
20:09 of 4.9 million, theoretically, we have 10.8 million to spend
20:14 in this bucket, you know, this year or in future years.
20:18 As you can see, we budgeted
20:20 for the Midcoast Officials Association again at 550,000.
20:24 That actually might increase a little bit.
20:26 Because Midcoast Officials Association all got raises
20:30 for this year, so it might cost us a little more.
20:33 We’ve budgeted for the 56 elementary units at four–
20:37 a little over 4 million, 4 million 69,000
20:40 because we gave everybody an increase,
20:42 so it’s costing us a little bit more for the STEM units.
20:45 We again have budgeted to 500,000 for performing arts.
20:49 We also presented to you last year towards the end of the year
20:52 at the idea of having athletic trainers,
20:54 full-time athletic trainers at all of the high schools.
20:57 So we’ve budgeted for that out of this bucket
20:59 at almost a million dollars, 999,620.
21:03 We also talked about maybe doing some unique supplements
21:07 for CTE positions, so we’ve budgeted for that in this–
21:12 in this area of B1 at 213,914 dollars.
21:17 So it’s 6.3 million in expenses this year if we were to fund all
21:21 of those things and they were, you know, to cost that amount.
21:26 There’s still this carry forward that, you know,
21:29 money we collected this past year and didn’t spend.
21:33 So we had some ideas we’d like to discuss with you,
21:35 share with you and get your feedback on.
21:37 The first one is we’ve really had some great summers recently
21:43 with summer enrichment, summer enrichment camps.
21:47 About three years we’ve been doing this
21:48 and they really took off two years ago in this past year.
21:51 All those summer enrichment camps,
21:53 all those programs were paid for with ESSER funding, ESSER money.
21:57 And the ESSER money is no longer.
21:59 We are no longer going to get any more ESSER funding.
22:02 So originally, we thought we’re not going to have the ability
22:05 to fund these summer enrichment camps,
22:08 all these summer enrichment programs.
22:10 So with this roll forward in the bucket of B1, performing arts,
22:15 STEM, athletics enrichment, we could use some of that roll
22:20 forward to pay for summer enrichment camps
22:23 for this coming year or this current school year,
22:25 this coming summer or future summers and that kind of thing.
22:28 So I’d like to ask the board for some direction on that.
22:31 If you think that’s a good use of these funds, then we’ll start
22:34 to put together a proposal for that, how much that would cost,
22:38 how much we’ve spent on summer enrichment
22:41 to last couple of years, how many kids were affected,
22:44 you know, that kind of thing.
22:46 So we’re looking for some direction on that.
22:47 » All right, board, would you like to weigh
22:49 in on the conversation?
22:50 Anybody? I’ll jump at once.
22:55 » Jean looks like he’s trying to get at it.
22:56 » OK.
22:58 » No, I just wanted to say one of the things that we did
23:01 when we were– when we had our ESSER funds was we invested
23:05 considerably in the arts
23:06 and the performing arts got a large–
23:08 I think it was either 2.5
23:10 or 4.5 million dollar investment to offset some of the cost.
23:14 Our equipment was in a really bad shape.
23:16 So I think that this is awesome the way
23:18 that we’re counteracting and then bringing in some
23:20 of the other areas that were needed.
23:22 And I just did want to reiterate those STEM positions were not
23:26 in the system already.
23:27 This is outside the– we hired them from this
23:30 and then those athletic trainers are new positions too.
23:33 It’s just a really good overview.
23:35 I really appreciate it.
23:35 Thank you.
23:38 » So I’m going to address your actual question.
23:42 I think it’s a no-brainer that families benefited
23:45 from the summer enrichment programs.
23:47 The reception from those programs
23:50 from our families was nothing but pure positivity
23:53 from the staff members who participated
23:57 and it was nothing but positivity.
23:59 So I think it’s really beneficial for our kids.
24:03 It’s not only relieving a burden on, you know, on the community
24:06 to have a space, a safe space for their kids to go
24:09 but it’s also obviously focusing on academic achievement
24:12 and social development of our kids.
24:14 So I think that’s our primary concern.
24:16 So that’s– you’ve got to go ahead from me for that one.
24:19 The one thing I do want to bring up for us to consider
24:23 and I don’t know the dead date on this
24:26 but the summer fine arts program which is beloved
24:30 by our fine arts students and the community that puts
24:34 on two shows every single year was being funded by a foundation
24:39 that was ending at a certain point.
24:41 I don’t remember if it was 2025 or 2026.
24:44 » I believe it’s this year.
24:45 We have one more year.
24:46 » OK.
24:47 » One more summer.
24:48 » So I just want us to consider that.
24:49 » That was next on my list.
24:51 » OK. Sorry.
24:52 And I don’t– I think it was a significant sum so I’m not saying
24:56 that we can, you know, compensate the entire thing
24:59 but for us to plan ahead to not take away something
25:01 that people really, really look forward to all
25:04 across this county coming together.
25:06 Thanks.
25:06 » Now I can just echo the same as–
25:10 yeah, I hope we can supplement or even further enhance our
25:16 enrichment, summer enrichment.
25:18 I know with some questions on our difference–
25:23 a few of our summer enrichment camps took a deeper dive
25:27 into the approval of the curriculum
25:29 but there wasn’t much there.
25:30 » Right.
25:31 » So I’m hoping if we’re going to invest more into it
25:34 that we can also have that part of it where there is more
25:37 of a deeper dive into the approval of the curriculum
25:40 or just the things that are being taught during those camps.
25:45 » Yeah. So one of the ideas that we came up with midway
25:48 through the spring last year so a little too late
25:50 to implement last summer was to have some CTE boot camps.
25:54 And so, you know, they would open up our CTE labs
25:57 over the summer for students
25:59 who don’t normally have access to those camps.
26:01 You know, maybe they can’t fit them in their schedule.
26:03 You know, maybe you’ve got, you know, a high academic load,
26:06 your IB or ACE or something like that.
26:09 We’ve always wanted to take the automotive technology class
26:11 or at least learn a little bit about automotive technology
26:14 so we’d open up those labs in the summer
26:16 and have some CTE boot camps as well
26:19 as just other enrichment programs.
26:20 But yeah, I think we’re, you know, if we’re going
26:23 to use this voter approved mileage for that, we want
26:25 to be kind of targeted as to what we’re offering.
26:29 » So Dr. Mendel, just to clarify, you’re going
26:31 to present back to the board what the estimated cost are
26:33 as well as the data on the participation
26:35 of the different summer enrichment campsites, correct?
26:38 » Yeah, I think, you know, if the board says, yeah,
26:41 explore this and bring something back, that’s what we’re going
26:43 to do, explore it.
26:43 » Absolutely, we’d love it to be explored and bring it back.
26:45 So again, we heard nothing but great things.
26:48 I was able to visit a couple of the summer enrichment camps.
26:50 I think the ones that were taking place
26:52 at the high school were really cool because they had a lot
26:54 of incoming middle schoolers that were going there
26:56 so it kind of prepped them and got rid of all that, you know,
26:59 oh, I’m going to a different school and I’m worried
27:00 about what it’s going to look like.
27:01 So I think it’s a great thing to explore
27:03 and bring back some data.
27:04 Do you feel as though you have a good board majority?
27:08 Can we move forward?
27:08 All right.
27:10 » So the second thing that I was going to talk
27:11 about was basically what Mrs. Jenkins was talking about.
27:15 We have some additional programs enrichment mostly in either
27:19 fine
27:20 and performing arts that are additional programs funded
27:23 by outside grants and some
27:25 of those outside grants are going away.
27:28 The Brevard Cultural Alliance lost some of its funding.
27:31 Some of these other grant sources are going away
27:33 and we don’t want these programs to go away.
27:35 For example, the artist in residence program
27:37 in elementary schools where either a musician,
27:39 a local musician or a local visual artist spend some time
27:43 in the elementary schools giving our kids some direct
27:46 instruction
27:46 on some really unique either performance techniques
27:50 or artistic techniques or whatever.
27:53 It’s an additional, it’s a supplemented program funded
27:55 by a grant and so I’d like to, you know, we said we’re going
28:00 to do 500,000 towards performing arts.
28:03 You know, I don’t know what appetite the board has
28:06 for setting another chunk of money aside for any
28:09 of these programs that may be sunsetting to make sure
28:12 that we’re able to continue those.
28:13 So summer fine arts is a great example.
28:15 We believe the funding for that is going to end after this
28:18 summer
28:19 so we could say, you know what, this bucket, again,
28:21 it says performing arts, STEM, athletics, enrichment,
28:24 that’s what the bucket, that’s what the money is supposed
28:26 to be used for.
28:27 So if we want to, the board direction is to identify any
28:31 of those programs that are sunsetting or have sunsetted
28:35 that we want to try to fund with this
28:37 because the outside funding is not there.
28:40 You know, just looking for direction on that.
28:42 » You absolutely have my support to explore those.
28:44 Any of those programs that are, that have been successful
28:46 and been so beneficial, not only just the kids
28:48 but the community as a whole.
28:49 I think so many people came and participated
28:52 in watching the plays that were performed
28:53 and so you have my support 100% to explore what things are going
28:57 to be going away and how we can make sure they’re not
28:59 going away.
29:00 Board?
29:02 » Yeah, I think it’s important when you come back
29:08 with a proposal for some of them to consider flexibility
29:13 or like preparing for like the burden or the ask.
29:19 So for instance, I’m going to mess up the name of it
29:22 but you just mentioned it,
29:23 the one where the artists are coming to the schools.
29:25 » Artists in residence.
29:26 » Yeah. So that one’s kind of, you know,
29:28 we can’t predict how much that costs, right?
29:30 And it depends on what they’re asking for and things
29:32 of that nature so, you know, maybe capping it
29:36 at a certain amount, things of that nature.
29:39 Things that we didn’t have to deal with before
29:41 because they were being funded by other programs
29:44 but there are some things that are concrete like fine arts.
29:46 So if you can kind of be specific about it
29:48 so that way we don’t end up with, you know,
29:51 my program was supposed to get this and I didn’t get
29:53 that opportunity and things of that nature.
29:54 » Yeah, I think that we had an initial conversation
29:56 with the Brevard Cultural Alliance about three months ago
29:59 where they said, “Hey, we’re losing funding for this.
30:01 We’re losing funding for this.
30:02 This is the last year.
30:03 We’re going to be able to do this.
30:03 This is the last year.
30:04 We’re going to be able to do that.”
30:05 So we’d have a follow-up meeting with them and say, “Okay,
30:07 let’s look at the list again.
30:09 How much did those programs cost?
30:11 Do we think those programs are valuable?
30:13 If so, then we put them on the list.”
30:14 » Yeah. And just so if– I feel like no one watches our
30:17 workshops
30:17 but if anyone’s listening, just so you understand what some
30:20 of those programs are, I might get the school wrong.
30:23 It’s either West Melbourne School of Science
30:24 or Discovery, somewhere in that area.
30:26 You know, there was– one of the most extensive ones
30:31 that I’ve seen is an artist coming in and working
30:33 with the students for months on like broken tile mural
30:38 across the wall in that school.
30:40 And it was just like absolutely stunning but it was wonderful
30:44 because the kids got to participate in that
30:46 for a very long time and it became a part of the community.
30:49 And parents came and volunteered.
30:51 So it was really– it was more than just an art project.
30:54 It was everything for the community to come together.
30:56 [ Inaudible Remark ]
30:59 » So one of the things when we did that summer enrichment
31:03 because I visited a lot of the schools,
31:05 talked to a lot of the parents.
31:06 We had a couple of them that were coupled
31:08 with outside organizations.
31:11 For instance, the SCUBA certification that was
31:14 on at Rockledge High School had a couple of individuals
31:16 that were there from other organizations.
31:17 And if we look at possibly next year when we’re moving on some
31:21 of those summer enrichments to include some
31:23 of the aquatic safety that we talked about,
31:26 maybe– you know what I mean, working in those realms
31:28 of bringing organizations and groups together to offset some
31:31 of the costs and have some of the teachers like–
31:33 one of the things we have in like Melbourne is,
31:36 they had to spend funds to do some of the same stuff we do
31:39 so we could collaborate on some of those activities with them.
31:42 Fire schools and stuff like that that we talked
31:44 about before getting those kids moving.
31:46 So I think it’s awesome.
31:47 I didn’t hear one negative thing about the summer enrichment.
31:51 And everywhere I went, the kids were happy.
31:53 They were doing archery at Ralph Williams, you know what I mean?
31:56 And I walked out there and there was kids holding bows
31:58 and arrows and they were shooting them
31:59 and everything was great.
32:00 And I just really appreciate that, so.
32:02 » Were they rubber-tipped?
32:04 » Yeah, they were safe.
32:05 » Completely safe.
32:06 » Mr. Trent, do you have anything to add?
32:09 No? All right, I think you have a blessing of the board,
32:11 it sounds like, to move forward.
32:12 » So there’s only one more thing we want to talk about
32:14 and it’s actually access.
32:15 So that was the one criticism I heard from our community
32:19 about some of these programs is I don’t have access
32:21 to that program, let’s not have transportation
32:23 to get to that program.
32:24 And so when we’ve been talking about providing access
32:28 to these programs and other things,
32:30 we had the idea years ago actually
32:34 of providing some additional transportation vehicles
32:38 to different schools that could provide them access
32:41 to different things.
32:42 So I’m going to ask Mr. Raymer to come up
32:44 and give you guys a presentation on some multi-passenger
32:47 vehicles
32:48 that we were looking to maybe purchase with some
32:50 of this money so it would allow access not just
32:53 to these programs but to other programs.
32:56 This is an idea that we’ve been discussing for several years
33:00 and it’s something that’s in place in a lot
33:01 of school districts around the country,
33:02 we just haven’t done it here.
33:05 But the idea would be to assign a certain number
33:07 of multi-passenger vehicles or vans to different schools
33:11 that they could use for small group transportation.
33:14 And Mr. Raymer has been working on this for over a year
33:17 and so it’s going to give him the opportunity
33:19 to do a presentation for you and we’ll talk about that.
33:23 » Thank you, Dr. Rendell and Madam Chair and the Board
33:26 for allowing me the opportunity to talk to you today about some
33:29 of our access matters regarding programs,
33:32 enrichment opportunities.
33:34 You know, I also wanted to say thank you for your support
33:37 of the summer fine arts and the enrichment.
33:40 Those were very robust programs while I was a principal
33:43 and it was great to see them on the school
33:46 and the school truly benefits afterwards so thank you
33:48 for your support on pursuing those options.
33:50 So for my presentation, I’m going to talk to you guys
33:53 about enrichment and events activities,
33:54 multipurpose vehicles.
33:55 I do want to take a moment to thank transportation.
33:58 Dr. Miller, Mr. Wilson, Jefferson Smith did a ton
34:02 of work with me on this matter just to make sure
34:04 that we were potentially moving in the right direction.
34:07 So I’m going to give you guys a background of the ask,
34:10 the proposal, the functionality and utilization
34:14 of how these multipurpose vehicles would be used
34:17 within BPS and our schools.
34:19 What the funding would look like and then I have several slides
34:22 that you guys should have that are in their words.
34:25 So I reached out to principals, coaches, athletic directors,
34:29 ROTC instructors and asked them how this would impact
34:32 their program.
34:33 What would be the success of this?
34:35 Is this a necessity and how would you view this coming
34:38 onto your campus and having a higher quality accessible
34:43 multipurpose vehicle in order to make sure
34:45 that students have access to all the necessary programs.
34:48 So our current background right now is
34:51 that transportation is an ongoing concern with regards
34:55 to school sponsored activities, events, competitions,
34:58 academic assistant programs and anything else that goes
35:01 on within the school once again has been a consistent
35:05 ongoing concern.
35:06 So currently we operate with students, sponsors, coaches,
35:09 anybody being a part of co-curricular,
35:11 extracurricular, student-based activities, events
35:14 and our academic assistant programs
35:17 with students really driving themselves to most of these,
35:19 perhaps walking long distances because they rely
35:22 on BPS transportation and if they stay
35:24 for after school tutoring they miss the bus or if they want
35:27 to come to before school tutoring they don’t have the
35:30 available vehicle to get there.
35:32 Parent transport and/or carpool, so we ask our parents to do a
35:35 lot
35:35 of the work for us where they have to transport students to
35:38 and from different events,
35:39 to and from different district sponsored activities
35:42 and then they also carpool to get students
35:45 to the necessary location once again
35:48 for our co-curricular, extracurricular events,
35:50 activities and our assistant programs.
35:52 And then vehicle rentals, so once again we are able
35:55 to rent vehicles, becomes a cost burden for the schools,
35:59 also puts a little bit of work on staff in order to make sure
36:02 that all the paperwork and everything is
36:04 in place to make that happen.
36:06 So our current practice right now
36:08 with all due respect is fairly inefficient and ineffective
36:11 and it actually creates barriers to students participating
36:15 or being able to access certain events and activities
36:17 on their own campus or in surrounding areas
36:20 on the campuses, etc. So here’s the proposal, the proposal is
36:25 that we provide each high school and combo school
36:28 with two 10 passenger vans that would accommodate one driver
36:32 and then nine students and whenever I met
36:35 with all 16 principals they were in strong favor
36:37 of this initiative, every one of them thought
36:40 that this would be a valuable asset at their school
36:43 and a valuable way to utilize funding
36:45 in order to support students.
36:47 Vans would be housed at the school locations to be used
36:49 at their discretion, it would be worked
36:51 through with the administrative team to make sure
36:54 that they were being used with equal access
36:55 and they would also be able to be shared
36:57 with the feeder schools that are in their area.
36:59 So elementary and middle schools if they have something
37:01 and the vans aren’t being used, I would be able to share them
37:04 and make sure that they have access to other activities also.
37:07 School staff would complete the necessary training,
37:10 so there’s a training that goes
37:11 on with our transportation department,
37:13 so our school staff would complete that training
37:14 and make sure that we are in compliance with all regulations.
37:18 And they would be used to remove barriers that are present due
37:21 to current practice and then they’d also be able to use
37:24 for attendance matters, home visits,
37:26 professional learning opportunities,
37:27 community meetings, and any other type
37:29 of school-based activities.
37:32 So some of our functionality and utilization
37:35 that we would be able to, I just have a laundry list of ways
37:37 that we could use them, so won’t go through them all but,
37:40 you know, obviously we’re looking
37:41 at after school tutoring activities, college visits,
37:43 transportation for travel, for band, orchestra, chorus,
37:47 all county events, Saturday testing
37:50 to ensure students have equal access to testing opportunity,
37:53 SAT, ACT, or CLT, JROTC, student award ceremonies
37:59 and recognitions, obviously science fairs,
38:02 recruitment visits, club travel, we have innovation games,
38:05 Odyssey of the Mind, district-sponsored events
38:07 which are usually smaller groups which, you know,
38:10 this van would be perfect to get those students there.
38:13 Our academic team that comes up here on Monday nights,
38:15 students from all different high schools,
38:17 in case you were not familiar with the practice, you have five
38:20 to eight students from all the high schools participating,
38:22 driving up and down 95 to get to the board office.
38:25 That’s how they arrive.
38:25 They don’t arrive typically as a team.
38:28 They arrive as individuals.
38:30 Job shadowing, CTE, college visits, we keep going,
38:36 obviously home visits to ensure student attendance
38:38 and to have a better robust practice for schools
38:41 to help students get to school or at least have that contact
38:44 with the parents and families.
38:46 Making sure that our yearbook summer camps are taken care of,
38:49 attend community meetings.
38:51 We have our moving of equipment, graduation, homecoming prom
38:55 where a lot of our people are using personal vehicles
38:58 or trying to get stuff from A to Z. Students are having
39:00 to transport different stuff to different venues as opposed
39:03 to having reliable transportation on campus.
39:05 Obviously, our small athletic programs that are typically golf,
39:10 tennis, baseball, softball, et cetera, that would fit
39:14 in two vans, so 18 or less, would be able to utilize them
39:18 for certain events and activities especially
39:21 as you continue to progress like track and field
39:23 when you progress to the regionals and states.
39:24 Usually, you’re taking two or three kids cross country is
39:27 up in Tallahassee and some
39:29 of the schools are having students transport themselves
39:32 to Tallahassee or parents transport them to Tallahassee
39:34 to participate in events such as that.
39:37 Summer programs like we just discussed, right,
39:39 being able to help students access summer programs,
39:42 other field trips, and then, you know,
39:44 foreign language competitions, Latin, French, Spanish,
39:47 or just some of the examples that we have on our campuses.
39:51 And then, you know, also art shows, you know,
39:56 and a wide variety of opportunities for our students
40:00 that they may be participating in but are struggling
40:02 with access in order to get to those events and activities.
40:06 So, I’m going to stop there if you guys have any questions just
40:09 on different functionality utilization aspects.
40:15 » Board.
40:26 » Thank you for doing this and it’s long overdue.
40:34 I mean, when you say some districts, I don’t know many schools
40:38 that don’t have vans that–
40:40 for their sporting events, for their activities.
40:43 I’ve worked at a few high schools in a different state
40:47 and I can’t tell you how many times the words that come
40:49 out of our mouths is, “Where’s the van?”
40:51 You know, you know, we’ve always needed it, you know,
40:53 for certain things and when I first was introduced to Brevard
40:57 and we didn’t have vans and we didn’t have transportation.
41:00 I mean, just the safety factor of us not having kids going up
41:06 and down the expressway, the highway, you know,
41:10 parents that work and, you know,
41:12 kids who knows what car they’re jumping into.
41:16 That’s been a worry of mine for a decade here.
41:21 So, I’m just happy that we have the ability
41:25 to explore this possibility.
41:26 But it’s going to be– it’ll be great for the staff, the
41:30 students,
41:30 the parents, you know, thank you for looking into this.
41:33 So, it’s a big relief for me.
41:38 » I think the biggest component that I had when I was teaching,
41:42 I had like– I would sponsor like eight clubs,
41:45 I was always coaching.
41:46 And when we would go from place to place,
41:49 the liability that’s put on the students is this fixes.
41:54 And that to me more so than access and everything else,
41:58 the liability of the school district for students
42:00 like Jean had said, Mr. Trenton said, about jumping into a car
42:03 with somebody else or, you know, that poor kid
42:06 who doesn’t have access to the school–
42:08 to the facility that they’re going to go play at,
42:10 they’ve got to catch a ride.
42:11 And it just– that’s a tough spot to be.
42:14 So, I appreciate you bringing this forward.
42:15 Thank you.
42:16 » I was going to let you finish before I–
42:21 » I was just curious if you guys had anything
42:24 on the utilization aspect and then I can finish up.
42:27 » Yeah. I’m going to– if you don’t mind,
42:28 I’m going to wait until you’re finished.
42:29 » So, you might have a couple of questions to do that.
42:31 I’ll wait till the end.
42:32 » So, if we go to the actual funding side
42:35 of what this would look like, so as we dug deeper into working
42:39 with transportation and seeing how we would be able
42:41 to make this happen for our schools, it would be 32 total,
42:46 two for each high school and combo school.
42:47 So, 16 and then each of them will get two.
42:50 There’s the cost per van, $60,034.68.
42:55 So, the total cost is 1.921 million
42:59 and the funding source would be millage enrichment
43:03 as Dr. Rendell had discussed along with the other resources
43:07 that we just talked about for summer enrichment and fine arts.
43:12 And then the van acquisition would also help reduce some
43:15 workload on several key staff members once again
43:18 as we do vehicle rental, as we do some other aspects of trying
43:21 to secure vehicles for some of our groups or smaller teams.
43:25 It would reduce the workload on those individuals.
43:33 So, I had some principals when I was talking with principals
43:36 and presenting this out to them and working
43:39 through what this may look like, how we could go about trying
43:42 to make this happen for each school and what would be the
43:44 impact on safe, reliable and effective transportation, right?
43:48 That’s our goal for our students, safe, reliable
43:51 and effective transportation for access in the programs.
43:54 Some of them reached back out to me and said, “Hey,
43:56 I just wanted to, you know, kind of piggyback on our
44:00 conversation
44:00 and talk a little bit more
44:01 about how this would impact our schools.”
44:02 This is one of our principals just talking
44:05 about how it would allow their students to fully engage,
44:09 regardless of economic background,
44:11 the reliable transportation for afterschool activities,
44:14 sports, extracurriculars, co-curriculars
44:16 and how impactful it would be.
44:18 Along with the community involvement
44:20 and then obviously the fourth paragraph,
44:22 owning our transportation will provide a safer,
44:23 more reliable alternative to students relying
44:26 on inconsistent, potentially unsafe transportation methods,
44:29 giving parents peace of mind knowing their children have a
44:32 dependable way to and from school activities.
44:35 So, there’s just a little bit from one of our principals
44:39 of how they would utilize the vans, why they believe
44:42 that they would be impactful to their school
44:45 and as we could break down that barrier, creating a pathway
44:48 for all students to access the full range
44:49 of educational opportunities.
44:53 Second one is, again, from our principal.
44:55 This one is talking about some of the ways
44:58 in which they would utilize the vans.
45:00 You know, as you see working down there as a Title I school,
45:03 my students are often limited in their ability to participate
45:05 in certain academic extracurricular events
45:07 by the fact that they lack the transportation needed to get to
45:10 and from school activities and events.
45:13 So, they talk about access to smaller things,
45:15 like Odyssey of the Mind, Innovation Games,
45:16 J.A., Stock Market Challenge.
45:18 This particular school has not participated in due to some
45:21 of the barriers that are in place and then they talk
45:24 about the SAT/ACT academically.
45:27 This is one of our schools that actually got an eye
45:28 for school grade, so being able to help students get
45:31 to Saturday SAT/ACT testing, helping students get to testing
45:38 on the school campus to reduce the eye.
45:40 Once again, ACT/SAT to improve graduation rate
45:44 and to give all students the equal opportunity
45:46 for the testing opportunities that are present there.
45:50 And they talk about Model Student Center, ROTC/SGA/Acquire.
45:53 I’m really excited about the opportunities and possibilities.
45:57 This is a long one, so I’ll just sum it up.
46:00 And there was another principal just talking about some
46:03 of their speech and debate programs.
46:05 They have a best buddy program and the field trips
46:08 that they try to take to foster the inclusiveness
46:10 within their campus and how this would be impactful.
46:12 They talk about dual enrollment and how we’d be able
46:15 to get students to and from some dual enrollment activities.
46:17 I also talked to another school,
46:19 our Pirate to Panthers program down at Palm Bay,
46:21 which is a consistent van just looping to FIT in Palm Bay.
46:25 How that would help this particular, in their words,
46:28 is not from Palm Bay, but when we talk about dual enrollment
46:30 that would definitely be of assistance.
46:32 They talk about their clubs, athletic teams,
46:34 musical programs, supporting students
46:36 that are academically deficient to making sure
46:38 that they have opportunities to after school,
46:40 before school tutoring,
46:41 making sure that we have more robust attendance
46:44 opportunities, and then again,
46:46 making sure that we get the testing opportunities
46:48 taken care of.
46:51 One more from a principal,
46:53 talks more about their student councils
46:56 and being able to attend those meetings,
46:57 some of their after hours obligations.
47:00 Once again, you know, reoccurring theme
47:02 that the students have to travel themselves.
47:04 And some of them have transportation barriers or concerns.
47:07 They talk about their average students
47:09 with high absenteeism and being able to do more home visits
47:12 and talk more with students and have a vehicle
47:14 to actually get students to help them get to school.
47:16 That doesn’t mean that this will become
47:18 how we get students to and from school.
47:20 It just becomes an opportunity to get them back
47:21 into the doors and talk more with the family
47:23 about how we can get consistency on the campus.
47:27 We’ve got a club sponsor.
47:29 This was one we talked about right here
47:30 with academic team, right?
47:31 The academic team must arrange transportation for team
47:34 members to and from competitions, ESF on Monday nights.
47:38 So once again, students having to come here
47:40 from all different schools,
47:42 they talk about science research,
47:43 the Brevard mainland and engineering fair
47:45 at the end of January.
47:47 And they have a new club that they believe
47:49 that this would assist also.
47:50 So this is a club sponsor for those three
47:52 different clubs on the campus.
47:54 JROTC talking about, you know,
47:57 how many community service hours they get,
47:59 and at the same time, how they have to turn down
48:01 community service opportunities,
48:03 because they don’t have the transportation
48:05 and or the ability to take a larger group.
48:08 So, you know, they talk about access to vans
48:10 will allow us to increase participation opportunities
48:12 by 75%, because currently they’re operating on
48:15 if it’s five or less, but with a 10 passenger van,
48:18 they’d be able to increase the number of students
48:20 participating and also be able to maybe take on more
48:23 requests and events that are in the community.
48:27 We have a coach that talks about the safety,
48:29 convenience and team unity that comes with being
48:32 in the vans and having a reliable mode of transportation
48:35 and safety of students.
48:37 The convenience of being able to make sure
48:39 that they don’t have to arrange transportation.
48:41 All kids are getting to where they need to be
48:43 when they need to be there.
48:44 And then obviously there’s a team unity aspect
48:46 and a student unity aspect that comes with traveling
48:49 together and being a part of the club together,
48:52 being a part of the team together,
48:53 being a part of the extra curricular together
48:57 and making sure that they have those opportunities
48:59 to connect, so a little deeper connection there
49:01 for students that are involved.
49:04 And athletics and activities director.
49:06 Once again, you know, our athletic directors at the school
49:09 also oversee activities, so activities
49:11 and athletics director talking about a lot of the ways
49:14 in which they would be able to use the vans
49:17 to support their programs at their school,
49:19 ranging from future problem solvers, speech and debates,
49:22 going into some of our smaller activities
49:26 for athletics.
49:28 Then in addition, we also have to keep in mind
49:30 that sometimes we have triple headers for basketball.
49:32 Sometimes we have, you know, that for volleyball
49:35 and all students, if we take a bus,
49:36 have to leave at the same time.
49:37 So we’re pulling kids out of class.
49:38 This will allow them to transport at different times
49:41 and get students to where they need to be maximizing
49:44 instructional time in the classroom.
49:46 And then having some of the access down there at the bottom,
49:49 I thought this was interesting, the overflow for grad bash.
49:51 So this happens every year.
49:52 You basically order like two buses, I’ll say for grad bash.
49:55 They can house, we’ll say 90 kids and 97 students sign up
49:59 and you have to find seven students
50:01 and say you seven can’t go, right?
50:03 So this would alleviate that burden
50:05 by having another smaller opportunity with a vehicle
50:10 to get those overflow students to those events
50:13 so that they can fully participate.
50:16 And that takes us to the end.
50:18 So I thought it was important to walk through,
50:20 obviously, why this is a need.
50:23 Safe, reliable, effective, efficient transportation,
50:27 access to all of our activities.
50:29 How schools would use them.
50:30 Obviously the funding side of what this would cost
50:33 the district and then important for the qualitative data
50:36 side of how schools view current transportation methods
50:41 and how the vans would help them with their transportation
50:44 to all different types of aspects for schools.
50:48 I do have some data from the Florida,
50:53 crash dashboard, so just so everybody’s aware in 2023,
50:56 there are over 9,000 crashes in Brevard County
50:59 with almost 7,000 injuries.
51:01 And we know that 5% of our drivers on the road are teens,
51:05 but they cause over 10% of the accidents on there.
51:09 And a lot of it’s due to driving with friends,
51:11 being distracted, other things that go on in a vehicle
51:15 when they’re driving up and down the road together.
51:17 And then in addition to that,
51:19 currently we have over a thousand seniors
51:21 that are test deficient that if we were to graduate tomorrow
51:24 would not have the testing to graduate.
51:26 So in addition to all of the aspects that we talked about,
51:30 we talked about testing,
51:31 making sure that these students have every opportunity
51:33 and we don’t just talk about,
51:35 here’s a waiver for Saturday testing.
51:37 Like hope you get there, right?
51:38 More of, hey, here’s waiver Saturday testing
51:40 and here’s the plan to get you to the school
51:42 that you need to be at in order to test.
51:46 - Well, thank you, Mr. Raymer.
51:47 You make a very good case on why this is very beneficial.
51:50 It sounds like to all students,
51:51 I think there’s probably some questions
51:53 that the board will have.
51:54 And I don’t know if everybody’s jotting down their questions.
51:56 Ms. Jenkins, do you like to go first with questions
51:58 or do you want to go to the other end of the table?
52:01 - I can go first.
52:02 - Okay, go ahead.
52:03 - All right, so first I’m just gonna ask
52:06 some basic questions
52:08 just because we’ve changed things so much.
52:09 I wanna make sure I’m not saying things
52:11 that are inaccurate here.
52:13 So are we currently offering transportation
52:18 to CTE programs for students
52:19 who are not zoned for those schools?
52:21 - We do not.
52:22 - Okay, I don’t think so.
52:23 But I just wanna make sure I don’t say stuff
52:24 that’s not accurate anymore.
52:27 And for the summer enrichment programs,
52:29 did we offer transportation for that?
52:31 - We didn’t this past year,
52:33 but in the previous years we did.
52:34 - Okay.
52:36 So my conversation and my questions about this
52:40 first and foremost, Mr. Raymer,
52:42 please don’t think I’m diminishing your investment in this.
52:46 I appreciate what you’re saying.
52:47 I obviously acknowledge that this expands access
52:52 to all of these programs and the safety piece of it.
52:55 I totally understand that.
52:56 But I do, just so for the public who’s listening,
52:59 like this is the first time we’re seeing this presentation,
53:01 but it’s not the first time it’s brought up to us.
53:03 We got calls from the superintendent about it.
53:05 So I knew that this was kind of coming
53:07 and I had my concerns that I had shared with Dr. Rendell.
53:11 So I have a bunch of questions.
53:14 So one of the pieces that is difficult for me
53:18 to be gung ho about this is that I don’t have data
53:22 or did we collect data on how often these would be utilized?
53:27 Even just like a fake snapshot of,
53:29 if this was capitalized in a high school in one month,
53:32 really which programs would be using this and how often?
53:35 Like how did we come up with the idea
53:36 that we needed two per school?
53:38 ‘Cause realistically we don’t wanna do this
53:40 and then have vans sitting around
53:41 for the majority of the time
53:43 where we could have had one per school.
53:44 It’s a significant cost of $1.9 million, right?
53:47 So that’s something that,
53:52 it’s hard for me to wrap my brain around.
53:54 These aren’t school buses, right?
53:55 This is only transporting nine kids at a time at maximum.
53:59 So I really wanna understand how often
54:01 this is really gonna be used.
54:03 Understand all the ways it can be used.
54:05 Really how often are these gonna be utilized?
54:07 So that was something that I had asked to see
54:09 before this presentation.
54:11 And I’m still kind of questioning that
54:16 because it’s a huge investment.
54:19 And the other piece of that too is
54:22 we also wanna ensure that when these are at schools
54:25 that there’s gonna be a balance and an equity
54:28 for all the programs that we mentioned, right?
54:31 We had multiple slides listing of all the ways
54:33 it could be utilized but how are we gonna ensure
54:35 that it’s gonna be used equitably
54:37 and it’s not gonna be only used by the soccer team
54:39 or the football team or things of that nature.
54:41 ‘Cause I think that that’s important too, right?
54:49 And then there’s a conversation too.
54:50 You had mentioned for instance a good example
54:53 of some of our students who have access to dual enrollment
54:56 through FIT who may not have transportation to go there
54:58 to capitalize on that dual enrollment.
55:01 Do we set a standard that things like that become a priority
55:04 because of the academic significance for our students?
55:06 So I think that those are conversations
55:08 that have to definitely be had.
55:11 The problem too is what is the predicted maintenance cost
55:16 on this, it’s not just a $1.9 million investment,
55:19 there’s significant costs that come alongside of that
55:21 going forward that we would have to maintain and commit to.
55:24 Of course obviously gas for the cars.
55:28 Are we paying these employees that are offering
55:31 to take this training and drive these students?
55:35 What’s the liability for those staff members
55:37 to, is there a conflict with our teacher’s contract
55:41 who aren’t supposed to have students inside of their cars?
55:45 Things of that nature, does it limit the amount
55:46 of staff members that can do it
55:48 or does the training override that?
55:52 But I had to express this to Dr. Rendell
55:55 when we had this conversation on the phone.
55:58 If we had all the money in the world,
55:59 I’d be like yeah, of course, this is wonderful.
56:01 But I’m hesitant because when I came on this board,
56:06 it was after a lot of really important programs
56:08 were taken away from the school system
56:10 and solely some of them had been added back,
56:12 an example being our job positions of our media systems.
56:16 We were able to put those back in
56:18 and one of the things that you hear consistently
56:20 over and over and over again
56:23 is lack of access to academic programs,
56:25 which I just truly believe is our number one priority
56:27 as a school district is ensuring our students
56:29 have access to academic programs.
56:31 And when we’re in an environment where parents
56:33 are screaming about school choice and parental choice
56:37 for where they get to send their kids,
56:39 it’s hard to ignore the fact that
56:41 when we have CTE programs all over this district,
56:44 some students can’t access programs
56:46 because they’re not zoned for those schools
56:47 and then they’re relying on transportation
56:49 from their families and we don’t have mass transportation
56:52 that is effective in Brevard County.
56:54 Students who have been fortunate enough
56:57 to be lotteried into a choice school
57:00 no longer have access to that
57:02 because they may not have a family member
57:03 who can drive them to that school every single day.
57:06 And then now we just added another addition too
57:08 with our year-round school up in Titusville.
57:13 I believe we’re offering transportation this year,
57:15 but that’s not a thing we talked about going forward
57:18 if that was gonna continue for families
57:20 who wanna opt into that school as well.
57:22 So for me, it’s really difficult to sign off
57:25 on almost $2 million and then knowing
57:28 that there’s gonna be way more costs to maintain
57:30 and to run this when we haven’t even remotely considered
57:36 re-implementing or partially re-implementing access
57:38 to academic choice for our families.
57:40 I think that should be a priority going forward
57:45 before making a decision on this.
57:47 And/or again, I think there needs to be more,
57:50 a deeper dive of data of utilization of these,
57:53 not just this would be really great and my kids could use it
57:56 again, it’s $1.9 million, if not way more going forward.
58:00 Do we need two vans at every single school?
58:03 Do we need one at every single school?
58:06 I think that’s a really, really important
58:08 before we make such a commitment going forward.
58:10 Because what I’m fearful of is if we commit to this,
58:13 the reality is we’re never bringing back choice busing
58:16 unless there’s some magical insane surplus
58:18 coming into the school district.
58:20 And I know that that is a priority for families.
58:22 I mean, at every single time I run into a parent,
58:26 that’s a significant concern.
58:27 And that’s a concern that affects the entire county.
58:30 It’s not just one school or one area.
58:32 So it’s hard for me to support this.
58:34 Again, it’s not diminishing the value
58:36 of what this could offer to kids.
58:39 I totally understand that.
58:41 But for me, a priority is that academic access.
58:44 And I think we need to have a conversation about that.
58:47 - Thank you, Ms. Jenkins.
58:49 - That’s right. - Go ahead.
58:50 - I think you brought up some great points, Ms. Jenkins.
58:52 I think those are well taken.
58:56 The who, what, when, where, why of the usage of these.
58:58 I think when we’re talking about the transportation
59:02 between schools and stuff like that for choice programs,
59:05 one of the things to note is that
59:07 this is a non-reoccurring expense
59:10 where the only reoccurring expense
59:11 is gonna be oil changes and stuff like that.
59:14 I think the reoccurring expense
59:15 that comes from a choice busing
59:17 is between one and $1.5 million,
59:20 depending on how you want it per year,
59:22 which is a significant increase.
59:23 There’s nobody, I don’t think anybody on this board
59:26 disagrees with going to choice busing.
59:28 I think the issue that we were inhibited by,
59:30 which was one of the largest decision-making parts of that,
59:33 was that we just didn’t have enough bus drivers.
59:35 And what ended up happening,
59:36 that was one of the deciding factors,
59:39 was, and I tried to fight it
59:40 because I was in support of keeping it,
59:42 the issue was is that we just did not have
59:44 enough bus drivers inside of our system.
59:45 So I think when looking at this,
59:48 I completely agree with your request
59:51 to see all of how these things are used.
59:54 As a teacher and a coach and as club sponsor
59:58 of many of these, I can see these being used daily
1:00:02 to the point where it’s also a reduction in cost
1:00:05 on transportation because some of your smaller
1:00:07 sports programs are not gonna be taking a bus
1:00:09 in some of the instances because there’s a requirement
1:00:11 for a bus based on certain circumstances,
1:00:14 whether it’s outside the county and other things,
1:00:16 where we require them to do that.
1:00:18 So it’ll be a reduction on our workforce for our buses
1:00:22 and reduction on cost in those aspects.
1:00:24 It’ll probably offset the cost of the oil changes
1:00:27 and stuff like that.
1:00:28 But I did wanna rest assured and let you know,
1:00:31 I don’t think that this is a one or the other.
1:00:33 I think that they’re apples and oranges.
1:00:36 I think you’re talking about a non-reoccurring expense
1:00:38 versus a reoccurring expense,
1:00:39 one that we all agree with on the reoccurring expense
1:00:42 as far as bringing back choice busing.
1:00:44 But I think the cost of it and some of the other factors
1:00:47 are the part of the inhibitors.
1:00:49 I just wanted to say that and I did wanna give you
1:00:51 the rest assurance that these will be used multiple times,
1:00:54 both by clubs and activities and sports teams
1:00:57 and academics and everything else.
1:01:00 I think it’s great.
1:01:01 Thank you.
1:01:03 - Mr. Trent.
1:01:05 - Again, being redundant here.
1:01:08 If we treat these as activity buses, not school buses,
1:01:12 bringing kids to school from home,
1:01:16 the priorities will be set by the principles themselves
1:01:19 of what season it is, what clubs, teams have priority
1:01:23 in these and sign up sheets, all that.
1:01:27 I don’t think we’ll have a problem being used.
1:01:29 They’re probably gonna ask you why only to.
1:01:32 But it’s something that obviously,
1:01:37 I agree with Ms. Jenkins and Mr. Susan
1:01:40 about access to programs.
1:01:43 But the obvious use of these, it is almost like,
1:01:49 I can’t believe we haven’t done it yet.
1:01:51 I mean, for a cost of under $2 million,
1:01:54 I believe that’s one accident that we’re being sued for.
1:01:58 And we’re probably gonna look back and say
1:02:00 that whatever it costs for these buses,
1:02:02 it doesn’t cost at all.
1:02:04 So I’m just happy we’re taking a look at it now.
1:02:10 - Well, Ms. Raymer, you made a great case
1:02:11 for why these are obviously supported
1:02:14 by a lot of our district staff.
1:02:15 And I like Ms. Jenkins, I have a couple of questions
1:02:17 and they’re more logistic questions though,
1:02:19 I think just to kind of think through and process through.
1:02:22 Main one being the prioritization of how they’re utilized,
1:02:25 that being a concern of like,
1:02:26 hey, is this going to be just utilized
1:02:28 for the favorite sport of that school?
1:02:30 That is right, like that’s what everyone’s gonna think.
1:02:33 So we wanna make sure that obviously
1:02:35 it’s utilized for more than just that.
1:02:37 Can it be utilized for transportation
1:02:39 for special needs children that have different circumstances
1:02:42 or criteria as far as getting to or from school?
1:02:44 Is that an area that we could possibly look at?
1:02:47 Will this reduce bus transportation?
1:02:50 I know a lot of the drivers,
1:02:52 they rely on picking up extra bus routes
1:02:54 when there’s something special or fun going on.
1:02:56 Will this reduce that and potentially harm
1:03:00 one of our drivers sources of income?
1:03:02 So just things to kind of consider through
1:03:04 and think when we’re going through all this.
1:03:06 Will the drivers need any kind of specialized training?
1:03:09 ‘Cause I know right now I don’t assume
1:03:10 they’re gonna need a CDL,
1:03:11 but maybe they’re going to have something special
1:03:14 as far as training goes.
1:03:15 And then what is the criteria
1:03:17 for who is eligible to drive the bus?
1:03:18 Are we making sure that we’re heavily vetting
1:03:21 those individuals and is this a district employee?
1:03:24 Is this a coach?
1:03:24 Is this somebody special that’s going to utilize
1:03:27 driving the van?
1:03:29 I love this idea.
1:03:30 So you have my support as moving forward on it.
1:03:33 I think the backend of this needs to really be tight
1:03:37 as far as how we’re gonna prioritize using them.
1:03:39 And then honestly looking at this on an ongoing basis,
1:03:41 because if it’s not being utilized,
1:03:43 then can we talk about,
1:03:44 hey, maybe one of the middle schools
1:03:45 could really use one of these.
1:03:46 Can we maybe move the van from this school to that school
1:03:49 if it’s not being utilized?
1:03:50 So those are all just things to really think through.
1:03:53 I think honestly you made a case
1:03:55 that’s pretty hard to really say,
1:03:57 oh, they’re not gonna be utilized
1:03:58 or they’re not gonna be beneficial.
1:03:59 So so many people are in support of having them onsite.
1:04:02 I think it’s a great idea.
1:04:04 Just wanna make sure the backend is okay
1:04:05 so we don’t have a whole bunch of fighting over vans.
1:04:07 That’s all.
1:04:08 - Yeah, so I’ll try to answer all the questions at one time
1:04:12 ‘cause I know Ms. Jenkins asked a few
1:04:13 and then we had the rest of the board speak.
1:04:16 So the rationale for two
1:04:19 was we thought that that was the right number
1:04:21 in order to ensure that we could capture
1:04:23 as many types of activities, groups, et cetera.
1:04:26 If you get over two,
1:04:29 it’s almost like, okay, maybe a bus is needed, right?
1:04:31 ‘Cause then you’re talking about 20 plus students.
1:04:34 If you have one van, then you’re really talking about
1:04:37 somewhere between, it says nine,
1:04:39 but we’re talking about high school students.
1:04:40 So you’re really limited in what you could actually capture.
1:04:44 So that’s how we came up with two.
1:04:46 All of the drivers, the expectation would be
1:04:48 that they are the coach, club sponsor,
1:04:51 or the person that is affiliated with the program,
1:04:55 such as a registered volunteer,
1:04:58 somebody that is registered as a coach, et cetera.
1:05:01 It wouldn’t be, hey, Ms. So-and-so,
1:05:03 can you drive the van today?
1:05:05 It would be the person sponsoring the club or activity,
1:05:08 the person coaching, perhaps in a district administrator
1:05:12 or not just a school-based administrator, I should say,
1:05:15 or somebody that is able to,
1:05:17 they will have to go through a training
1:05:19 with our BPS transportation team.
1:05:22 So I believe it’s a 40 hour training
1:05:24 that they would have to go through in order to be cleared.
1:05:27 They do not need a CDL because the size of the van
1:05:30 and the number of persons being transported
1:05:33 do not reach the capacity or regulation to have a CDL.
1:05:37 When it comes to who would have priority,
1:05:40 what does this look like, how would they be used,
1:05:42 I did not ask anybody to say, hey, give me a calendar.
1:05:45 That’s a great idea and thought of how would you use this.
1:05:49 But when we talked on the call with all of the principals,
1:05:53 we talked about either an assistant principal
1:05:56 or athletic activities director,
1:05:58 housing like a Google document,
1:06:01 school clubs, activities, et cetera,
1:06:03 could request in order to reserve the van.
1:06:06 And that first priority would go to school-based activities,
1:06:09 academics, et cetera.
1:06:11 So I broke it down.
1:06:12 more of a like 60/40/70/30 where we’re gonna be focusing on over
1:06:17 here and the
1:06:18 academic side this isn’t oh great now we can transport you know
1:06:22 the team to all
1:06:23 of the games so we can do this. Whenever I talked with
1:06:26 principals like the world
1:06:27 of opportunities just became like immense and the ideas that I
1:06:33 had were
1:06:34 tripled by the ideas that they had with absenteeism and Saturday
1:06:39 testing and
1:06:40 making sure that students have equal access to some of our
1:06:43 summer programs
1:06:44 and are able to you know get home after you know the tutoring
1:06:48 opportunity that’s
1:06:49 after school so you know hopefully that answers some of the
1:06:54 questions but just
1:06:55 that’s why we picked two vans priority would go to you know the
1:06:58 academic and
1:06:59 assistance programs and school-based activities for example on
1:07:02 Monday I would
1:07:03 pretty much assure you that everybody that participates with the
1:07:07 academic team
1:07:08 would be taking one of the vans up here with their six to eight
1:07:11 academic team
1:07:12 members on Tuesday you know that would probably be another club
1:07:17 or sport and so
1:07:18 on and so forth so I apologize for not having you know like a
1:07:21 mock calendar of
1:07:22 a week or a month but all the ways that we could utilize them
1:07:27 multiple of those
1:07:28 come up daily of how we could do that we did put social workers
1:07:31 at every school
1:07:32 so if those social workers took the transportation it’s a great
1:07:35 way for them
1:07:36 to get out in the community and get the students that are
1:07:39 struggling and are at
1:07:40 risk that are absenteeism and working through that school-based
1:07:44 administrators
1:07:44 doing the same thing so there’s really a really wide variety of
1:07:50 options for
1:07:51 schools to use and we would be watching them I already talked to
1:07:55 Kevin Robinson
1:07:57 and I met he’s our district athletics and activities coordinator
1:08:00 and we talked
1:08:01 about monitoring if this was to happen to ensure that schools
1:08:05 are utilizing
1:08:06 them and make sure that schools are utilizing them in the right
1:08:08 capacity so
1:08:09 we’ve already have started the conversations of what this would
1:08:11 look
1:08:11 like on the backside but have it finalized those conversations
1:08:15 because
1:08:15 you know we have to make sure that the front side happens before
1:08:18 the backside
1:08:19 can exist thank you thank you for the clarification I have one
1:08:23 ask just based
1:08:24 on something that you had just said so I would love to see a
1:08:27 calendar exist
1:08:28 obviously that shows who’s using it but I would also like to see
1:08:31 who was
1:08:32 attempting to use it so maybe like a waiting list so to speak
1:08:35 for a date so
1:08:36 we can really see how it’s getting used or days it’s heavily
1:08:39 utilized or days
1:08:40 that it’s not used at all and and that might help this
1:08:42 conversation if there is
1:08:44 any issues moving forward sorry I’ll turn it over if anybody
1:08:47 else has all
1:08:48 right so I got to clarify some things because it’s we’re making
1:08:55 a really
1:08:56 expensive decision and saying things that aren’t really super
1:08:59 accurate this
1:09:01 is not a non reoccurring expense this is absolutely a reoccurring
1:09:05 expense it’s
1:09:06 it’s it’s a vehicle it’s more than just oil changes and gas I
1:09:10 mean it’s just
1:09:11 maintenance period just like any other vehicle so and again then
1:09:15 there’s the
1:09:16 replacement cost at some point to to that commitment so this is
1:09:19 absolutely a
1:09:20 reoccurring expense so that’s just that’s just inaccurate and
1:09:24 and I
1:09:24 understand that choice busing went away for many many reasons
1:09:27 one of which the
1:09:28 lack of bus drivers absolutely that is a correct statement but
1:09:32 we’re not in the
1:09:33 same position that we were in but also back then we weren’t
1:09:37 legally allowed to
1:09:38 use these vans in the first place right and so we did have giant
1:09:42 school buses
1:09:43 going out to pick up students way out of route or making the
1:09:47 routes longer in
1:09:48 order to get them to these choice programs but now these vans
1:09:51 are able to
1:09:51 be utilized so it is different it’s shorter routes it’s a
1:09:54 completely
1:09:55 different conversation it’s a much lower cost for choice busing
1:09:58 than when we were
1:09:59 using generic size school buses so my question is have we even
1:10:04 reassessed what
1:10:05 the cost of academic choice busing would cost us nowadays with
1:10:09 this as an option
1:10:10 and opportunity and if we haven’t I think it’s really
1:10:15 irresponsible of us to
1:10:16 move forward with this program without knowing that answer
1:10:18 because we could
1:10:20 have an either/or situation and I think it’s important for us to
1:10:23 know what’s on
1:10:23 the table because my gut feeling is that it might be close to
1:10:28 the same cost and
1:10:29 if it is we need to have a conversation about that which one do
1:10:32 we think
1:10:32 benefits the the community more what are we prioritizing so I’d
1:10:39 like to address
1:10:40 that yeah the corridor busing is something we have considered we’ll
1:10:44 do a
1:10:44 deeper dive into that to show you how much that would cost if we
1:10:47 were to
1:10:48 reinstate what we had before but you’re gonna be transporting a
1:10:52 larger number of
1:10:53 students so you would need buses you wouldn’t be doing you know
1:10:56 these
1:10:56 wouldn’t be a solution for that this is not the same the
1:11:00 corridor busing is
1:11:01 every day to and from school large numbers of students you know
1:11:06 buses and
1:11:07 drivers and that kind of thing these are not additional drivers
1:11:10 this is not a
1:11:10 solution for corridor busing are we not paying these people who
1:11:13 are driving
1:11:14 these vans we haven’t you know considered that most of them are
1:11:18 gonna
1:11:18 be people who get a supplement already so if it’s the coach for
1:11:22 the team or the
1:11:23 sponsor for the team or club or something like that they’re
1:11:26 already
1:11:26 getting a supplement okay so these are like this is what I’m
1:11:29 talking about
1:11:29 though because like this is really important information that
1:11:32 should be be
1:11:32 solidified before we give a thumbs up to move on a program you
1:11:38 know I’ve heard
1:11:38 before and I’ve heard it today you know it’s a liability if a
1:11:42 student gets into
1:11:43 an accident well well the reality is that’s actually that
1:11:47 actually isn’t a
1:11:48 liability of the school district we’re not making that child
1:11:50 drive the vehicle
1:11:51 to to that place I mean no one’s a kid to get a no car accident
1:11:55 I’m not saying
1:11:55 that but that isn’t a liability for us a liability for us is
1:11:58 putting our staff
1:12:00 members or volunteer in a van driving the kids around that’s our
1:12:02 liabilities
1:12:03 we’re actually increasing our liability not reducing it and so
1:12:07 yes yes of course
1:12:08 we have to pay for drivers for corridor busing and choice busing
1:12:12 absolutely but
1:12:14 we’re not gonna get away with not paying the people who are
1:12:16 driving kids in a van
1:12:17 and increasing the liability the school district that’s a cost
1:12:20 too so I feel
1:12:21 like there’s too many question marks out there for numbers that
1:12:24 were we don’t
1:12:25 even have answers to to talk about this and and I’m not
1:12:29 comfortable with it’s
1:12:30 yes it’s gonna cost a lot more because we haven’t even reassessed
1:12:33 what it what
1:12:34 it would cost for us to do choice busing so how much someone in
1:12:38 here know how
1:12:39 much it cost us the last time we ran choice busing for our
1:12:43 schools and again
1:12:44 that’s using full-size buses long routes paying overtime to bus
1:12:48 drivers because
1:12:49 we didn’t have enough of them do we have that number I don’t
1:12:51 think anybody has it
1:12:52 today right now but we will get that or guesstimate obviously I
1:12:55 don’t I don’t
1:12:56 need it to be exact but but I think that’s important because
1:12:59 again one of
1:13:00 the things I remember time and time again our assistant superintendents
1:13:03 talking about when we had to get rid of that program and there
1:13:05 was like a gentle
1:13:06 conversation of potentially bringing it back and we just couldn’t
1:13:09 obviously
1:13:09 COVID and everything was the fact that we weren’t allowed to use
1:13:14 smaller
1:13:14 vehicles because it actually would benefit that program so again
1:13:18 I’m just
1:13:19 I’m really uncomfortable with us making generic statements
1:13:22 without data and
1:13:23 facts I think it’s really irresponsible of us and I think if the
1:13:27 community you
1:13:28 know when this gets on a board agenda eventually when the
1:13:31 community hears
1:13:32 about it like the people who want that choice busing back are
1:13:34 gonna be really
1:13:35 really upset that that wasn’t a conversation that we had before
1:13:38 we made
1:13:39 this decision that’s right if I may I think there’s there’s when
1:13:47 we cut the
1:13:48 choice busing it was 1 million dollars which was what the
1:13:51 savings was and it
1:13:52 was significantly higher than that and that was the operating
1:13:56 that did not
1:13:56 include the purchase of new buses that did not include a lot of
1:14:00 the other costs
1:14:01 that are in there so the estimate was around 1.5 million dollars
1:14:04 to estimate
1:14:05 it estimate the cost for that corridor busing when you take a 1.5
1:14:10 million of an
1:14:10 reoccurring expense over and over again and you say okay we’re
1:14:15 gonna go ahead
1:14:15 and do this in four years say for instance that’s gonna get that’s
1:14:18 gonna
1:14:19 get up to six million dollars when you’re talking about 39
1:14:23 automotive vans
1:14:24 which if you buy a new set of tires form every year do new oil
1:14:27 form you’re
1:14:28 talking about $2,500 in cost each it’s a significantly different
1:14:33 cost the
1:14:35 reoccurring costs for that I was thinking the other day when I
1:14:37 was
1:14:38 talking to one of the communications people is that you can wrap
1:14:42 these vans
1:14:42 for the cost that would offset for the reoccurring cost of the
1:14:46 vans oil tires
1:14:47 everything else but I think it’s I don’t think it’s fair to say
1:14:51 that if we did
1:14:52 this we could do the other one because you’re talking about a
1:14:55 purchase of 1.9
1:14:57 within the first year of the op the reoccurring budget on the
1:15:01 other side
1:15:02 it’s gonna cost about that because that’s what we reduced it to
1:15:05 it’ll be
1:15:05 close to two million dollars of a reoccurring cost for the buses
1:15:08 to do
1:15:09 the transit for a choice busing then you have that every single
1:15:12 year and that’s a
1:15:14 deeper dive conversation to say that this piece right here could
1:15:18 pay for that
1:15:19 is not fair it’s not a it’s not the same it’s apples and oranges
1:15:22 now could you
1:15:23 say that there’s a little bit of money could be used for maybe
1:15:26 one year
1:15:26 possibly but when you go to commit to that you have to have a 10-year
1:15:30 plan and
1:15:30 I don’t see the funding or the source the resources for that now
1:15:34 I think dr.
1:15:34 Rendell said he’s gonna look at that but I I think to say that
1:15:37 we’re gonna
1:15:38 purchase 39 automotive vans and instead of doing that we should
1:15:41 be doing choice
1:15:42 busing ahead of that I don’t think it’s that’s a correct
1:15:45 statement to look at
1:15:46 and I wanted to say one another thing when we talk about the
1:15:49 liability and
1:15:50 transport of the individuals I almost lost a student at O’Gally
1:15:53 high school
1:15:53 because he was riding with a friend back from a basketball game
1:15:57 got into a car
1:15:58 accident for 11 months was inside the hospital and I’ll never
1:16:01 forget that
1:16:01 night I’ll never forget the night when the student was driving
1:16:04 another student
1:16:05 I’ll never forget that night and that’s the reason when I talk
1:16:07 about the
1:16:08 liability I didn’t want to bring it up but those are the things
1:16:10 that go on
1:16:11 inside of our schools right now is that they drive home with
1:16:13 people that may not
1:16:14 be as credible as a person that goes through a 40-hour course or
1:16:17 somebody
1:16:18 that goes through and has certifications or works for the school
1:16:21 district and it
1:16:22 puts our kids in a liability whether we get sued or not it’s not
1:16:25 good practice
1:16:25 so thank you you know in the proposal the school staff will
1:16:33 complete the
1:16:33 necessary training the drivers will be people that are already
1:16:37 getting paid
1:16:38 they’ll be your sponsors they’ll be your coaches they’ll be your
1:16:41 people involved
1:16:42 within that activity you know there’ll be somebody obviously we’ll
1:16:47 have to
1:16:47 bridge the gap a little bit with some after-school tutoring you
1:16:50 know
1:16:50 potentially of where that is but we’ve been able to bridge that
1:16:55 with
1:16:55 some funding sources and things of that nature so a lot of times
1:17:00 it would be you
1:17:02 know specific school-based personnel majority of which would
1:17:07 already be
1:17:07 receiving a supplement or some sort of secondary income for
1:17:12 sponsoring or being
1:17:13 a part of that program yeah hopefully they would have this I
1:17:18 mean that’s
1:17:19 that’s gonna be that and it is it is part of their activity I
1:17:23 mean these are
1:17:24 activity buses so and again it sounds like two different
1:17:29 conversations going
1:17:30 on there’s no way you could run these every day as a school bus
1:17:34 then you would
1:17:36 be replacing them often I’ve seen this in action it the athletic
1:17:42 director you
1:17:43 know controls the calendar you talked about a calendar but at
1:17:48 the beginning of
1:17:49 the year it’s very simple all activities you know get your
1:17:53 schedules in if you
1:17:54 need a bus for an away game get it to me quickly you know the
1:17:58 time gets filled up
1:17:59 they’re gonna be fighting over - trust me there’s boys and girls
1:18:02 sports there’s
1:18:03 different activities going on there’s only so many times they’re
1:18:06 going to need
1:18:07 these throughout there but it’s crucial I mean if you’re going
1:18:10 to a an activity
1:18:11 at the north end of the county you’re gonna really want to have
1:18:13 a bus and or
1:18:14 van and instead of saying hey kids just find your way there so
1:18:19 again these will
1:18:20 be used it of course it has to be Google Docs are great but I
1:18:25 believe I mean
1:18:26 they’re they’re looking for something like this the athletic
1:18:28 directors
1:18:29 activity directors they’re gonna be handling this you know
1:18:32 professionally and
1:18:33 and these these sponsors they’re gonna want to get their dates
1:18:37 in quickly it’ll
1:18:38 it’ll be in in the summer it probably even you know before the
1:18:43 end of the
1:18:43 school year the previous school year of knowing their schedules
1:18:46 their their
1:18:47 events on when they’re gonna want to reserve a bus or a van so I
1:18:53 in action
1:18:54 this will be this will be a wonderful thing for the for the
1:18:57 schools it is 2024
1:18:59 this is something that I just can’t believe it’s taking this
1:19:02 long for us to
1:19:03 realize the need for this
1:19:09 again I think I kind of I am in support of this I think it’s
1:19:13 very hard for us to
1:19:15 say this is not a good idea when so many wonderful ideas are
1:19:17 coming around how we
1:19:18 can support students that maybe wouldn’t have access to some of
1:19:22 the summer
1:19:22 enrichment camps the the Saturday testing the tutoring but there’s
1:19:26 just a
1:19:26 lot of opportunity there and when our staff is jumping up and
1:19:29 down saying yes
1:19:30 please do this this will help us at our school site I think we
1:19:33 have to be
1:19:34 responsive to that I don’t missing as I hear what you’re saying
1:19:36 as far as the
1:19:37 choice goes I think the other part to consider is when the
1:19:39 choice busing was
1:19:40 eliminated it wasn’t the same climate for choice school as it is
1:19:43 right now and
1:19:44 so that those choice vouchers weren’t open up universally to
1:19:48 everyone without
1:19:48 income limits that am I wrong that word is it is it it has two
1:19:56 meetings and it’s
1:19:56 used differently but that’s that’s not what I’m talking about
1:20:00 sort of the answer to what you just asked me is yes sort of it
1:20:03 actually
1:20:03 already did exist but that’s not what I meant what Brevard
1:20:06 County has always
1:20:07 been a choice school district parents always had a right to
1:20:11 choose a school
1:20:12 but also we have choice schools right what’s all their schools
1:20:15 guys science
1:20:16 Challenger 7 I’m sorry freedom freedom 7 why sure yeah yeah yeah
1:20:21 that’s that’s
1:20:22 what I’m talking about I’m not talking about I’m not talking
1:20:24 about busing kids
1:20:25 to private no no that’s okay it’s the same word but it’s oh I
1:20:30 hate that they
1:20:31 use the same word but okay that’s all right well that’s my
1:20:33 misunderstanding so
1:20:34 I I hear I hear the concern there and I if there was I think
1:20:39 these are these are
1:20:39 two separate conversations so as far as moving forward on this
1:20:43 and you you have
1:20:44 my support I think this is a good idea I think this serves our
1:20:46 students very well
1:20:47 I think it’ll serve our schools very well and ultimately as a
1:20:50 parent who has
1:20:51 children in sports who is frequently having to transport
1:20:54 multiple children
1:20:54 because families can’t get them to a different venue that I can
1:20:59 see the
1:20:59 benefit of this honestly wholeheartedly I can so I believe at
1:21:02 this point you
1:21:04 have you have three of us that’s on like they said move forward
1:21:07 is that fair to
1:21:08 say miss Campbell’s not here obviously miss Jenkins you’re not
1:21:12 in favor of this
1:21:12 right now it sounds like no no I’m not and I want to acknowledge
1:21:17 I can I I want
1:21:18 to acknowledge something mr. Susan said like I mean I hear what
1:21:20 you’re saying
1:21:21 mr. Susan you’re accurate I get it look I get what you’re
1:21:24 talking about that’s a
1:21:25 commitment going forward if we did choice busing I’m not I’m not
1:21:28 saying
1:21:29 that it isn’t what what I am saying though is we only have so
1:21:36 much money
1:21:37 right and this is a millage initiative that voters voted for so
1:21:40 I think it’s
1:21:41 important for us to consider all of the options for the
1:21:43 community that voted for
1:21:45 it that’s really what I’m saying yes we would be making a
1:21:48 commitment going
1:21:48 forward to finding those funds year after year if we did choice
1:21:51 busing
1:21:52 totally understand that but I I’m just really uncomfortable that
1:21:56 we haven’t
1:21:56 reassessed how much it would cost us because it would be
1:21:59 significantly less
1:22:00 money now that these are an option I just think that that that
1:22:04 has to be done
1:22:04 I think it needs to be done especially when we’re utilizing millage
1:22:08 funds yeah
1:22:09 year after year we’re gonna have to pay for it I totally
1:22:11 understand that but
1:22:12 this is it’s a huge chunk of money to put towards something
1:22:16 without knowing
1:22:17 the other side real quick mr. Jenkins are you saying that we
1:22:24 would use the
1:22:24 buses for the vans for the transportation what was that that
1:22:29 last
1:22:30 piece that you just said that was legitimately a conversation
1:22:33 before it
1:22:33 was legal for us to even do it because a lot of the a lot of the
1:22:38 roots that were
1:22:39 picking up students for choice were not being utilized it to
1:22:44 their full capacity
1:22:45 they didn’t need a giant school bus for those roots and so the
1:22:49 conversation from
1:22:50 our assistant superintendents was we wish we could have little
1:22:53 tiny vans but
1:22:54 we’re not legally allowed to do that so that’s what I’m talking
1:22:56 about is like we
1:22:57 don’t even know what that looks like and what that would cost to
1:23:00 run a program
1:23:00 like that it would obviously be cheaper than a school bus but we
1:23:03 don’t know
1:23:04 because we never had that option back when we had choice busing
1:23:07 it wasn’t
1:23:07 allowed so just as a point of clarification I significantly
1:23:14 remember
1:23:15 when we were transporting kids a lot of them were utilized for
1:23:18 like the Edgewood
1:23:19 and West Shore choice programs and stuff like that it would be
1:23:23 very difficult to
1:23:23 purchase these use these at a school and transport them around
1:23:27 but I just think
1:23:28 that what Miss Jenkins is trying to get at is is there’s some
1:23:30 definite positive
1:23:31 to us looking at going back to choice busing I don’t think
1:23:34 anybody here
1:23:34 disagrees with making that evaluation every year because we have
1:23:38 one of the
1:23:38 problems we have is is we’re 72 miles long we have great
1:23:41 programs in certain
1:23:42 places but kids don’t have access to it one of the things that
1:23:45 we did notice
1:23:46 when we were doing the choice busing was that the majority of
1:23:49 kids that were
1:23:49 trans that were transferring to some of those choice programs
1:23:53 not the Edgewood
1:23:53 and West Shores but the down tickets like the aviation program
1:23:57 at O’Gally and
1:23:57 stuff like that they were actually staying local there wasn’t
1:24:00 much that
1:24:00 were kids from like astronaut were trying to transporting down
1:24:04 there so I
1:24:04 think that’s a good request Miss Jenkins I think that’s
1:24:08 something that we all
1:24:09 agree with taking a look at and moving forward with an idea of
1:24:11 possibly doing
1:24:13 it I just don’t think that we should stall this to try to say
1:24:16 that you should
1:24:17 look at that because the significant increase for programs and
1:24:20 everything
1:24:21 else here being the fact that those other other issues that are
1:24:24 bus drivers
1:24:25 and other pieces that we have to put into that puzzle are going
1:24:28 to be needed
1:24:29 as part of that conversation and I don’t think we’re right there
1:24:32 yet but I think
1:24:32 we’re close so I appreciate you bringing that up and I
1:24:35 appreciate those those
1:24:36 aspects but I just wanted some clarification now I want to
1:24:40 clarify I
1:24:41 don’t I’m not trying to make it a perception that this board
1:24:44 doesn’t care
1:24:45 about choice busing that’s not what I’m saying at all what I’m
1:24:48 saying is even if
1:24:49 we consider it after committing two million dollars to this
1:24:52 program that
1:24:53 money is just not going to exist this is this is free this is
1:24:56 not free money but
1:24:57 this is money that we don’t have strings attached to where we
1:24:59 get to make the
1:25:00 choice to utilize and to me it’s important for us to know how
1:25:03 much it
1:25:04 costs okay all right thank you mr. Jenkins sounds like you had
1:25:07 great
1:25:08 conversation here I’m excited for the potential in this I’m
1:25:10 gonna ask if we
1:25:11 can just take a five minute recess before we go into all these
1:25:13 wonderful
1:25:13 policies if that is okay doctor do you have anything you want to
1:25:15 add to this
1:25:16 conversation beforehand well two things I’m taking away from the
1:25:19 conversation
1:25:19 this morning number one is the board is interested in getting a
1:25:24 true picture of
1:25:25 what restoring corridor busting would look like and how much it
1:25:28 would cost so
1:25:29 we will do that we’ll prepare that for the board also getting
1:25:32 direction that we
1:25:33 should move forward with this project as it stands so we’re
1:25:36 gonna do both things
1:25:36 and as soon as we can get an accurate picture of what restoring
1:25:41 corridor
1:25:41 busting would look like and how much it would cost we’ll present
1:25:43 that to the
1:25:44 board thank you doctor so if we can take a five-minute recess
1:25:46 and then come back
1:25:47 at 1050
1:26:11 you
1:32:26 all right welcome back the second talk this sorry second topic
1:32:30 that we have
1:32:30 today is to review the remaining policy revision recommendations
1:32:34 from the 2023
1:32:35 2024 and board review of the neola updates volume 25 number one
1:32:39 legislation
1:32:40 updates so board you should have received in the agenda packet
1:32:49 253 pages
1:32:50 of policy review in addition to a wonderful cover sheet that
1:32:55 goes over all
1:32:56 of the policy revisions good all right so a miss Campbell sent
1:33:07 in hers correct
1:33:08 yes I have her name she made comments on three of them I’m gonna
1:33:13 pull one which
1:33:14 policies are you gonna yeah which was just the one five four we
1:33:17 went back in
1:33:18 checked and it looks like we rescinded one five four in August
1:33:24 of 23 all right
1:33:25 that’s one sir when we rescinded that one we there was a note on
1:33:29 there too I
1:33:30 think incorporated into one five one and we did one five four
1:33:35 point one so I
1:33:36 think we just need to move those over and amend one five one
1:33:39 instead okay
1:33:40 wonderful what is the next one that you’re pulling I’m not
1:33:43 pulling any
1:33:44 others of hers she just had comments on them so there’s two
1:33:48 other policies that
1:33:49 she had comments on okay sorry I’m I’ll just read in what her
1:33:51 comments okay
1:33:52 perfect sorry I thought you were pulling them all right do you
1:33:55 have any that
1:33:55 you’re pulling off for any reason nothing else no okay all right
1:33:59 so let’s
1:34:01 start going through them I know it’s been a while since we’ve we’ve
1:34:05 had the
1:34:05 fun policy review so we’ll start going through does anybody have
1:34:08 anything that
1:34:08 they want to add discuss or possibly consider changing in policy
1:34:12 zero one
1:34:13 three one and that was just mainly a neola okay okay all right
1:34:20 how about next
1:34:21 policy zero one four seven point one travel and expenses miss
1:34:28 right you might
1:34:29 be able to just ask everybody what ones they wish to change you
1:34:31 might you don’t
1:34:32 want to get on each line you can if you want I’m here I’m here I
1:34:35 don’t have any
1:34:36 questions until 22 60 until 22 60 which is the next somebody
1:34:42 else you know that
1:34:43 I mean I I don’t know if miss miss Jenkins or somebody’s got all
1:34:47 right how
1:34:47 about this does anybody have any questions concerns or
1:34:50 recommendations
1:34:51 for anything on the first page of our yeah I’m like I know this
1:34:55 is it’s a lot
1:34:56 so one three one I had one and I was just this is more of a
1:35:03 administrative
1:35:03 procedure asking for that to be updated in zero one six nine
1:35:07 point one to lay
1:35:08 out we added a new section of this this is a public comment
1:35:12 policy in regards to
1:35:13 individuals that have been trespassed so I’m just asking for an
1:35:16 administrative
1:35:16 procedure to please be listed on the website that coincides with
1:35:21 that policy
1:35:23 that was the only one I had on that page Jean are you good on
1:35:28 that page if you
1:35:29 have anything okay we we need to yeah we need to add one
1:35:37 understood all right
1:35:42 next page mr. Susan you indicated two two six zero is one that
1:35:47 you had yes when
1:35:48 two two six zero subsection 11 it says the requirements the
1:35:53 requirements of the
1:35:54 informal resolution process including the circumstances under
1:35:57 which it
1:35:58 precludes the parties from a resuming a formal complaint arising
1:36:00 from the same
1:36:01 allegations okay so it’s just like mumbo-jumbo about the
1:36:04 processes of the
1:36:05 complaint but one of the things I just wanted to make sure with
1:36:08 mr. Gibbs and
1:36:09 maybe it’s a follow-up question is is that one of the things we
1:36:12 dealt with in
1:36:13 the discipline issues that we had in the past was that when a
1:36:16 title nine
1:36:17 investigation was implemented at the same time as a discipline
1:36:20 that meaning
1:36:20 it almost put that discipline could not move forward at the same
1:36:23 time and we
1:36:24 would have to complete the title nine prior to the discipline
1:36:27 that’s correct
1:36:27 and so that’s not the current policy is it yes if students being
1:36:33 investigated
1:36:35 for title 9 under the 2020 regs or the changes in 2020 they
1:36:40 cannot be
1:36:40 disciplined to the title 9 investigation is completed and if a
1:36:45 discipline if the
1:36:46 title 9 investigation is not able to move forward for whatever
1:36:49 reason do we
1:36:50 then move forward with the discipline if it’s a title 9 and
1:36:56 there’s no reason
1:36:57 why the investigation wouldn’t go forward so here’s an instance
1:37:02 okay
1:37:02 there’s a fight between two males and one of the males hits the
1:37:08 other male in
1:37:09 the genitalia it triggers a title 9 investigation for that this
1:37:15 is a case
1:37:16 that actually happened in the past the title 9 investigation was
1:37:19 not able to
1:37:20 move forward because one thing or another the kid that punched
1:37:22 the other
1:37:23 kid was not able to move forward with the actual discipline can
1:37:26 you kind of
1:37:27 walk me through how that would happen there’s a physical fight
1:37:30 between two
1:37:30 people title 9 is brought up you see what I mean what they were
1:37:35 told at the
1:37:35 time yeah I would have to get into the facts more okay what if
1:37:40 good I know we
1:37:42 cleaned up a lot of the procedures last year yeah and we put
1:37:46 specific procedures
1:37:47 in place we put protective measures like when there is an issue
1:37:51 we separate the
1:37:52 kids put those protective measures in place and we’ve speeded up
1:37:56 the process
1:37:57 where before it was a long time so we’ve reduced the time by
1:38:03 actually putting
1:38:05 more efficient procedures in place okay so this is something
1:38:12 that I can I can
1:38:13 meet with mr. ampere after and if it’s an issue that arises then
1:38:15 I can bring it
1:38:16 back there’s some more specific ones that I’d like to bring to
1:38:19 you so that
1:38:19 you could look at them and rest assure the current no they’re
1:38:22 from past okay I
1:38:23 just need to make sure that these aren’t gonna happen again that’s
1:38:25 awesome and
1:38:25 it’s not worth talking about it here so thank you yeah and just
1:38:29 mr. Susan just
1:38:29 you know - like there was a solid two years where this district
1:38:35 had even if we
1:38:36 had procedures in place they weren’t really able to be followed
1:38:39 super well
1:38:39 because we didn’t have like a staff member for it and then it
1:38:42 was given to
1:38:43 someone else and then it moved to another person and it was it
1:38:46 was a
1:38:47 disaster so just it’s probably gonna be the answer unfortunately
1:38:52 but mr. ampere
1:38:54 wait mr. ampere thank you for making that yeah already when you
1:38:59 got here yep all
1:39:00 right thank you anybody else have anything else on this page oh
1:39:09 I have
1:39:19 okay so on page 53 of the policies I think this is a technical
1:39:25 error yes okay
1:39:32 number nine that first paragraph so it looks like we’re changing
1:39:35 it to sorry
1:39:37 it’s page 53 policy number 24 21 in my packet online here it
1:39:44 would be under
1:39:47 section 9 I don’t know if you’re looking at the attachments so
1:39:51 we change it to a
1:39:52 hundred and fifty hours and it looks like the very last sentence
1:39:55 has a
1:39:56 hundred and thirty five hour threshold I think that’s a
1:39:58 technical error should
1:39:59 say 150 hours they don’t match is that correct you’re looking at
1:40:05 the first day
1:40:06 or it’s just a technical error so we didn’t change the 135 at
1:40:10 the bottom to
1:40:11 match the hundred and fifty that we changed it to so okay does
1:40:20 anybody else
1:40:20 have anything else on this page
1:40:28 all right next page let’s just covers three policies and I have
1:40:32 notes made so
1:40:33 let me see what I miss Campbell has 25 22 I have 22 I think I
1:40:54 had something
1:40:54 that was just more of a question of consistency because of
1:40:58 changing the word
1:41:01 shall to may which we did in another policy when it came to recouping
1:41:06 cost
1:41:06 associated with some of the curriculum we didn’t change it on f1
1:41:11 we kept it I
1:41:12 think we should change it from shall to me so we’re consistent
1:41:17 because for the
1:41:18 fees charge hang on sorry I’m trying to find where it’s on here
1:41:20 f1 is what I
1:41:21 write down okay f1 for the replacement and purchase of
1:41:25 instructional materials
1:41:26 by students on policy 25 20 we changed that verbiage from shall
1:41:34 to May and we
1:41:35 kept it shall here so I’m like I think just we either we’re
1:41:38 gonna collect it or
1:41:39 we’re not gonna collect it so maybe not we’re gonna collect it
1:41:41 this time but
1:41:42 we’re not gonna collect it that time so for consistency purposes
1:41:44 I think on this
1:41:45 policy we should change it to May and that will make us
1:41:49 consistent throughout
1:41:50 what our policies are that makes sense that makes sense okay all
1:41:57 right what did
1:41:57 miss Campbell right in regards to 25.2 on section a7 she says it
1:42:04 says the
1:42:05 committee shall be established at the beginning of each school
1:42:08 year and she
1:42:09 was asking whether we should put something in to clarify when a
1:42:12 new board
1:42:13 member comes in such as this egg this November to add for them
1:42:18 to select to
1:42:18 their committee members because it’s not in there right now okay
1:42:23 I think that’s a
1:42:27 good idea I I had in here this is a really funky one because we
1:42:31 put the
1:42:32 procedure on the policy and we don’t have procedure written in
1:42:34 policy
1:42:34 anywhere so my recommendation would be to remove the procedure
1:42:37 things how this
1:42:38 is such a fluid process right now and it’s changing all the time
1:42:41 with
1:42:42 legislation and board members and all of that that my
1:42:44 recommendation would be to
1:42:46 remove the procedure out of the policy and put the procedure and
1:42:49 the procedure
1:42:50 category so I have a question we’ve gone over this policy so
1:42:59 many times so I
1:43:00 really don’t remember for our board appointees is it listed
1:43:07 somewhere else
1:43:08 where they serve like a year term or did we have like did we
1:43:13 have that listed
1:43:14 somewhere like I know some of them like when I came on my yeah I
1:43:24 don’t even want
1:43:25 to say which committee because I’m gonna get it wrong but one of
1:43:28 them was like
1:43:28 this person serves this term it was it was a term limit
1:43:32 basically some charters
1:43:34 like I want to say icoc and ICC mo may have terms on in their
1:43:39 charter document
1:43:40 that the board approved because those committees recommended
1:43:43 their
1:43:44 replacements not board member representation like the Audit
1:43:47 Committee
1:43:48 has board member representation the review committee has board
1:43:51 member
1:43:52 representatives those I’m not I’m not opposed to it I just
1:43:56 because they’re
1:43:57 supposed to be appointments of the board members but I just just
1:44:00 want to make
1:44:00 sure we make sure that that doesn’t exist somewhere else it’s
1:44:06 usually been a
1:44:10 standing thing that if somebody new comes in that they reset all
1:44:14 of their
1:44:15 appointees it’s probably worth the board taking the initiative
1:44:18 of making a
1:44:19 appointee policy for anybody that any board member appoints we
1:44:23 need to make
1:44:24 sure they’re consistent with who’s in office at that time
1:44:28 because you have a
1:44:29 new person they’re probably gonna want to point their own people
1:44:31 to different
1:44:32 committees which is fair and and that’s what I was getting I I
1:44:35 guess I guess
1:44:37 really just really for new board member orientation that’d be
1:44:40 really helpful
1:44:40 because there was a sub there’s a couple that you can’t because
1:44:42 they literally do
1:44:43 have a term limit I mean for this one I feel like it’s obvious
1:44:47 it should be a
1:44:48 board when the board flips but just curious if it’s written
1:44:52 anywhere it’s
1:44:58 always been standing policy that whoever comes in reestablishes
1:45:01 who they want and
1:45:02 it charters like so mr. Gibbs would that be something that you
1:45:10 would like to be
1:45:11 initiative on on writing a policy for appointees yeah members
1:45:15 board member
1:45:15 appointee yes okay and board are you comfortable with us
1:45:20 removing the
1:45:21 procedure out of the policy and I want to flip that backwards
1:45:25 okay can I just
1:45:28 interject because 2522 is new for us it was in Neola last year
1:45:33 and basically we
1:45:35 made some we didn’t change the content but we put it within the
1:45:39 policy because
1:45:40 now we’d have three policies one is about the instructional
1:45:43 materials
1:45:44 program and then the second one includes the adoption and
1:45:49 selection process with
1:45:50 the hearings and all that go and then now 2522 that speaks
1:45:55 specifically to the
1:45:56 objection process are we okay with adopting 2522 as a policy
1:46:02 that speaks
1:46:03 us before in our policies whether it was instructional materials
1:46:07 policy or the
1:46:09 selection and adoption we had the objection process language
1:46:13 kind of all
1:46:14 in both of those policies so with the addition of 2522 being a
1:46:19 policy specific
1:46:21 to the objection process are we okay with bringing on 2522 to me
1:46:28 it for all
1:46:29 of our stakeholders it makes it clear this is how we adopt and
1:46:33 this is a
1:46:33 process for selection and how we appeal during the adoption
1:46:38 process that’s a
1:46:39 separate process than the objection process for adopted
1:46:43 materials there are
1:46:44 two separate processes that we go through are we are we legally
1:46:49 required
1:46:49 to have the procedure in there - I’m like that was a
1:46:52 conversation in the
1:46:54 legislature with the procedures it’s about having clarity I
1:46:58 believe I’ll
1:46:59 defer to you but our procedures also are very different than Neola
1:47:04 just as a
1:47:05 whole and so if we can put them in as procedures we’re happy to
1:47:10 take them out
1:47:11 of policy we we have to have procedures delineated I’d have to
1:47:14 double-check the
1:47:15 exact language to see if it says in policy or not or if it just
1:47:19 says the
1:47:19 board must have a procedure available to the public I want to
1:47:23 lean toward I
1:47:24 believe it says procedure available to the public and post it on
1:47:28 our homepage
1:47:28 and all that and as you’re reviewing these three I just want to
1:47:36 we just
1:47:37 September 2024 the state updated the objection form so
1:47:41 everywhere in the
1:47:42 policies where you see 2520 yeah f2 that’s going to be replaced
1:47:47 with a new
1:47:47 form it’s going to be called 2522 f1 okay and basically the
1:47:54 changes in form
1:47:55 include that if I am just a resident of the county and I’m
1:47:59 making an objection
1:48:01 I can only do one per month right you know there’s a limitation
1:48:05 okay I mean I
1:48:07 just the only reason my recommendation was to remove the
1:48:09 procedure was it it
1:48:10 just doesn’t seem consistent with what we do for everything else
1:48:12 since we have
1:48:13 procedure and a policy manual that’s attached online and this
1:48:18 changes so much
1:48:20 unfortunately something in every time you and make a change we’re
1:48:22 gonna have
1:48:23 to go back to policymaking and that’s a whole process that takes
1:48:26 a long time
1:48:26 versus changing your procedures are simpler process so what’s
1:48:32 your appetite
1:48:33 for that are you okay with that as long as we’re legally in
1:48:37 compliance yeah
1:48:38 I’ll double-check and if we can pull them out if we can’t I’ll
1:48:41 let okay staff
1:48:43 know but if you want to pull them out if we’re allowed to that
1:48:46 would be the
1:48:46 board’s call all right well that would be what my ask would be
1:48:50 anybody yeah I’m
1:48:51 not as long cuz as long as we make sure cuz I feel like that was
1:48:55 something
1:48:56 wacky that came up and as long as it’s clearly very easily
1:48:59 accessible on the
1:49:00 website right or everyone know going through 55,000 links to
1:49:04 find it I’m okay
1:49:05 with it I agree it would be it’s going to change and it’s not
1:49:07 just gonna change
1:49:08 based on the board member switching it’s gonna change every
1:49:11 single year the
1:49:11 legislature meets and it’s gonna be really frustrating to update
1:49:14 that
1:49:14 constantly so okay mr. Susan mr. Trent I’m good yep okay all
1:49:21 right anybody else
1:49:21 have anything else on this page no all right next page I just
1:49:38 want to look at
1:49:38 real fast before I say it out loud make sure that it’s
1:49:51 there with me it always takes a minute to get there because
1:49:58 there’s just so
1:49:59 many wonderful pages here okay I have this one I asked I asked mr.
1:50:11 Gibbs us and
1:50:11 I think he clarified it but on policy five one one four we’re
1:50:15 adding the fact
1:50:16 that our students with j1 visas and f1 visas may not graduate
1:50:22 from high school
1:50:23 or receive a diploma and his explanation was that that coincides
1:50:27 with our student
1:50:29 progression plan is that accurate that’s that is accurate and I
1:50:34 can tell you
1:50:35 we’ve done quite a bit of research around this and that is in
1:50:39 all
1:50:39 districts that is the case okay all right it just made me go why
1:50:44 when I saw
1:50:45 that and I couldn’t find it in the student progression but I was
1:50:47 trying to
1:50:47 find it this morning but it didn’t have enough time to really
1:50:49 devote to it so
1:50:49 thank you for the clarification all right does anybody else have
1:50:52 anything
1:50:53 else on that page all right moving on to the next page
1:51:05 oh what sorry no we’re 3 1 2 1 we just passed that was the from
1:51:10 the previous
1:51:11 page so that’s criminal background I apologize criminal
1:51:13 background and
1:51:13 employment history checks one thing I was gonna ask is is that
1:51:16 there seems to
1:51:17 be a series of people who are they come and they say hey I had
1:51:22 this thing flagged
1:51:24 I think we’re working on one right now and there’s not like a
1:51:28 clear area for
1:51:29 them to say hey I’m having an issue or to let us know it just
1:51:33 seems like
1:51:33 something keeps coming up and then they say well I would like to
1:51:35 appeal it but I
1:51:36 don’t know where to appeal it and stuff like that can you give
1:51:38 some guidance to
1:51:39 that so that’s exactly what this change is right we’re just no
1:51:42 appeal process at
1:51:43 all right I can’t violate board policy so when they say they don’t
1:51:47 disclose
1:51:48 something whether it’s a bad check from 25 years ago they didn’t
1:51:52 disclose it I’m
1:51:52 required to follow board policy and say sorry you’re not
1:51:55 eligible to work for us
1:51:56 now with this change it’ll allow us to have something appeal
1:51:59 process where you
1:52:01 know I can it’s to me right I’ll look at it and say is it a
1:52:04 disqualifier it you
1:52:05 know go through the things it makes sense that we take a second
1:52:10 look we’ll
1:52:10 take a second look okay one of the things it does is it mentions
1:52:15 in there
1:52:15 that the superintendent would be notified or designee is there a
1:52:19 way to
1:52:20 notify the board chairs of that or do you guys care to do that
1:52:23 no okay that’s
1:52:26 all just a question just a question as long as there’s a process
1:52:32 that they’re
1:52:32 going through right I think the problem we’ve had in the past is
1:52:35 is that they’re
1:52:36 like where’s the process because I know we’ve spoken about this
1:52:38 and we wanted to
1:52:39 be able to give them an opportunity to you know to any file some
1:52:42 sort of an
1:52:43 appeal but it may not have ever gotten into the policy so that
1:52:46 may be the issue
1:52:47 that’s exactly and I think that that’s why these things are bubbling
1:52:49 up right
1:52:50 now that I’m dealing with a couple of them so thank you and mr.
1:52:52 season I’m
1:52:53 sure you’re like all of us we all get reached out to you by
1:52:55 somebody who maybe
1:52:55 has been disqualified and didn’t have the opportunity to appeal
1:52:58 and I can
1:52:58 understand why you’re like well we want to have that there but I
1:53:01 think we should
1:53:01 but this should be your job mr. Dufresne so we would love for
1:53:05 you to have that
1:53:06 appeal right yeah just making sure we are thank you sir all
1:53:09 right wonderful
1:53:10 all right on to the next page okay any questions concerns
1:53:21 recommendations for
1:53:22 this page no all right on to the next page on 5505 I think we
1:53:34 had a lettering
1:53:34 faux pas this is more of just a technical error academic honesty
1:53:40 which
1:53:40 is a new policy that I am very much in favor of but the numbers
1:53:46 get I think
1:53:46 it’s letters actually is what I wrote on here the lettering was
1:53:49 off they got a
1:53:50 little out of whack yeah and I’m like why did we stop at H
1:53:55 instead of going so
1:53:56 that’s just a technical nothing major all right nobody else has
1:54:06 anything on
1:54:07 this one all right next page doesn’t anybody have anything on
1:54:16 this one
1:54:24 hearing none next page this is all financial services does
1:54:35 anybody have
1:54:36 anything on this one I just wanted to highlight one that I I
1:54:44 think it’s very
1:54:45 good and I’m excited about it and that’s 64 or sorry 6114 I love
1:54:54 that we’re being
1:54:56 held accountable to market prices rather than gouge prices for
1:55:00 government which
1:55:01 sometimes seems to happen so I I’m very happy with this policy
1:55:07 we must act when
1:55:11 it comes to government dollars I think that’s always a good
1:55:13 thing all right
1:55:14 does anybody have anything else in that page no all right going
1:55:19 to the next page
1:55:21 anyone want starting with six six one five yep got it okay guys
1:55:30 we’re doing so
1:55:35 much better than I thought I thought we were gonna be all right
1:55:39 nothing on this
1:55:40 page page 7440 7440 which is the small in it yeah and aircrafts
1:55:51 it’s related
1:55:52 and I like it because it gives us control over all of our you
1:55:56 know I mean
1:55:57 it adds a little bit here and there but one of the things that
1:55:59 inside of it that
1:56:00 it doesn’t recognize is a student’s use on using them it just
1:56:04 says they’re not
1:56:05 to be used and I just wanted to make sure that we were okay to
1:56:08 have our
1:56:09 student clubs doing stuff and everything else this was one of
1:56:12 those ones that was
1:56:12 really funky because they change the legislation I’m making sure
1:56:15 that they
1:56:15 are not anything with I think it was Chinese or something like
1:56:19 that right so
1:56:21 and it ended up killing a lot of those clubs because
1:56:23 unfortunately the ones
1:56:25 that are made in America were so much more expensive that it
1:56:27 wasn’t feasible
1:56:28 for them to use them it just talks that an operator should have
1:56:32 to have the
1:56:32 license right and a lot of our students if they are flying those
1:56:37 race drones and
1:56:38 stuff like that are under the size and the size isn’t signified
1:56:41 inside there so
1:56:42 basically it’s basically requiring anybody that flies a drone
1:56:45 inside of our
1:56:46 schools to have this you have to be a licensed FAA you know what
1:56:51 I mean
1:56:52 pilot and but I just wanted to make sure was is that our clubs
1:56:56 and our activities
1:56:57 and stuff like that can continue to do that and they’re not
1:56:59 required that’s all
1:57:00 but it’s just one of those cleanups you know I mean if we need
1:57:03 to add something
1:57:04 to it Paul can you check just to make sure it authorizes anyone
1:57:07 authorized by
1:57:08 the superintendent to operate on our school grounds so that
1:57:11 would include our
1:57:12 staff that are authorized we did have an incident at a school
1:57:15 and where this
1:57:17 might come in where somebody was flying one over one of our
1:57:19 elementary schools
1:57:20 and nobody knew who it was and it was getting down like yeah
1:57:24 height level so we
1:57:26 wanted to make clear that no one yeah we have what’s the process
1:57:28 for that like if
1:57:29 I would notify SRO and have the SRO try and find who’s flying it
1:57:34 on our school
1:57:37 you have those nuts that you can shoot animals oh man okay yeah
1:57:44 they have a lot
1:57:44 of football and sporting events where people just try to come
1:57:47 bring their
1:57:47 drones and I like when we shut them down so now I mean it’s a
1:57:52 liability if you
1:57:52 don’t know how to drive one of those drones and you drop it on
1:57:54 somebody’s
1:57:54 head causes significant property damage thank you all right
1:58:02 anybody else have
1:58:04 anything else on this page all right on to the next page
1:58:13 starting with 8405 all
1:58:19 things cool safety I see our no you’re good I don’t have any
1:58:22 questions Rashad
1:58:23 you’re coming up here I don’t have anything written here so I’m
1:58:26 I’m good
1:58:28 anybody else have anything on this page
1:58:34 all right next page starting with 8420 miss Campbell has 9800
1:58:42 which one of
1:58:43 these 9800 sorry made her last comment okay miss Campbell
1:58:50 comment was in the
1:58:52 event that an existing charter school contract provision is
1:58:55 found to be
1:58:56 inconsistent with this policy the charter contract provision
1:59:00 prevails is
1:59:00 this referring to the school safety requirements section it’s
1:59:04 showing as XL
1:59:06 bi point D or is it saying in general the whole policy and how
1:59:11 does that work
1:59:12 when things in the policy reflect current Florida law how does
1:59:16 the
1:59:16 charter contract Trump the policy in that case thank you this is
1:59:35 a long one
1:59:36 so oh okay and the other than this is
1:59:55 school safety requirements right because it’s under that
1:59:58 subsection is that
2:00:01 correct mr. yeah I would say it’s supposed to be on school
2:00:05 safety
2:00:05 requirements but I mean and if it is inconsistent with statute
2:00:09 statute always
2:00:10 prevails over contract language so they have to follow the law
2:00:13 just like we do
2:00:14 okay I know with our current even saying this we work very
2:00:22 closely with district
2:00:23 security with our charters to ensure that they’re in compliance
2:00:26 with all of
2:00:26 the safety yes all right now the rest of these are grayed out
2:00:37 because they are no
2:00:38 changes or we are not adopting them does anybody have anything
2:00:42 that they’re
2:00:43 concerned about with the yeah that those were we’re marking
2:00:47 those as reviewed on
2:00:48 right they didn’t come to the board so these are all the ones
2:00:51 that no changes
2:00:52 were recommended by staff and you guys had referred to staff
2:00:54 okay so they came
2:00:55 back with fine as is so unless you guys have an issue you want
2:00:58 to raise now
2:00:59 those are just gonna be marked reviewed on wow I am honestly
2:01:08 impressed I thought
2:01:09 we were gonna be here I was gonna tell you guys before we
2:01:11 started I have a
2:01:12 time-certain stop of 3 p.m. today but we’re doing well I thought
2:01:16 we were gonna
2:01:16 be all right so any other discussion or concerns or anything
2:01:23 about the policies
2:01:26 that we just went over all 253 pages all right so the last topic
2:01:30 is the neola
2:01:31 template policy six or nine zero legal services for employees
2:01:35 officers and
2:01:36 public officials let me pull it up real fast and this was
2:01:41 directed to me by the
2:01:42 board when we went through all of them and there’s some options
2:01:47 on there that I
2:01:48 can’t really make selections for okay I’ve made selections for
2:01:52 the ones that I
2:01:53 thought I could answer for the board based on its direction but
2:01:56 the board’s
2:01:56 gonna need to direct on some of those all right so
2:02:08 who wants to weigh in first in this one you mean okay you made
2:02:17 the option
2:02:18 choices of one and two yeah at the top which one are you asking
2:02:21 for us for a
2:02:22 direction I believe it starts on page two where it says option
2:02:27 one that’s as
2:02:28 far as I could go and these are like I didn’t know which options
2:02:32 the board
2:02:32 wanted to select here because there’s you can designate to the
2:02:36 superintendent
2:02:37 or on some of these so I don’t know where you want to go with it
2:02:46 okay
2:02:53 all right board so what is the board’s desires and we want to
2:02:55 jump off there
2:02:57 with which one they want to go with and in particularly at the
2:03:01 bottom of page
2:03:01 two where there’s monetary amounts that are needed to be filled
2:03:07 in have you
2:03:13 looked mr. Gibbs and give to any other surrounding districts on
2:03:16 what they have
2:03:17 as far as a policy that’s similar to this what surrounding
2:03:20 counties are doing
2:03:21 I have not seen if they have Neil I’m assuming Neola districts
2:03:25 either adopted
2:03:26 Neil is or not but I can reach out and try and fill it in this
2:03:29 is not on the
2:03:30 advertised schedule yet so it’ll have to come back anyways okay
2:03:33 if you want to
2:03:34 see what other districts are doing I feel like I would like some
2:03:36 more
2:03:37 information to be able to just see what’s consistent for
2:03:39 practice so to
2:03:40 speak so I have I have an opinion here because because just
2:03:46 before going in the
2:03:48 weeds of it all like the main difference between option one and
2:03:51 option two is
2:03:53 requesting reimbursement of your fees versus asking for them to
2:03:58 be paid my
2:03:59 personal feeling because all of this is when it’s in your
2:04:03 official capacity all
2:04:04 of them say that option my opinion is option one it should be
2:04:10 the choice
2:04:12 because if you’re gonna get sued as an elected official in these
2:04:19 tumultuous
2:04:20 times for things that eventually are deemed not to be your fault
2:04:25 you have to
2:04:27 put that upcoming expense up and if it’s in your official
2:04:30 capacity I think that’s
2:04:31 ridiculous of a burden to put on somebody an elected official it’s
2:04:37 not
2:04:37 like that in any other elected office that would never happen
2:04:41 and it’s not a
2:04:42 guarantee with option one but it is May I think where this gets
2:04:50 a little hairy
2:04:52 I’m sorry are you done well because the one part that’s like the
2:04:56 one part that’s
2:04:57 confused would be weird is like if you go with option two and
2:05:00 you’re expecting
2:05:02 a regular person in elected office to pay attorney fees upfront
2:05:06 to defend
2:05:07 themselves of serving in their official role and then it says
2:05:13 may at the end the
2:05:15 school board for whatever reason says nope we’re not reimbursing
2:05:19 owes
2:05:20 technically then that person then can sue the school district no
2:05:23 to say this
2:05:24 was my official capacity yeah so I feel like that’s a that is a
2:05:29 legal litigation
2:05:30 disaster waiting to happen because isn’t there a state statute
2:05:35 that protects the
2:05:35 elected official there’s in their official capacity right in
2:05:39 their
2:05:40 official capacity yeah I’m only talking if there are provisions
2:05:42 that say they
2:05:43 can be reimbursed and that’s where they would sue the district
2:05:46 say hey it was I
2:05:47 defended it it was in my official capacity and I prevailed so
2:05:51 pay me what
2:05:53 my attorneys fees are mr. gives I think it would be good if you
2:05:55 came back with
2:05:56 some more information on what the other surrounding counties are
2:05:59 offering I this
2:06:00 gets very hairy as to what is considered official capacity and
2:06:04 all that fun stuff
2:06:05 so right I think it would be good and beneficial to have a
2:06:08 little more
2:06:09 information before we move forward on this one so I have a
2:06:12 question too
2:06:14 because and you’re gonna have I would you’re gonna have to
2:06:18 clarify this so
2:06:19 when you come back but my understanding is that official
2:06:22 capacity would be
2:06:23 determined by the court yes most likely right so well that’s a
2:06:31 safeguard is what
2:06:32 I’m saying it’s not determined above the people here to say that’s
2:06:35 my official
2:06:36 capacity it doesn’t matter the court has to determine it would
2:06:39 most likely be a
2:06:40 threshold question in the litigation if they were sued in their
2:06:43 official
2:06:43 capacity and it was something on your personal capacity we’d
2:06:46 most likely move
2:06:47 to dismiss the district and everything so here’s the other thing
2:06:51 that you need
2:06:52 to consider as well it’s just it’s just inappropriate in my
2:06:55 opinion I mean I
2:06:56 know you’re gonna come back but it’s inappropriate to not to not
2:06:59 do it
2:06:59 because there’s the reality there’s people whose names were
2:07:02 mentioned on
2:07:02 litigation who aren’t even on the board anymore for things when
2:07:05 they were on the
2:07:06 board and that’s insane so you yourself will be taking liability
2:07:10 for the rest of
2:07:11 your life because you served on this board it’s just crazy you’re
2:07:15 serving in
2:07:15 a public capacity and then again I would like to know about the
2:07:18 state statutes to
2:07:20 that protect elected officials in that because I think it’s not
2:07:25 in here
2:07:25 definitely an interesting conversation it’s one that I would
2:07:27 like more
2:07:28 information on and I think we should bring this one back with
2:07:31 when you can
2:07:31 give us a little bit more on what is out there mr. Gibbs all
2:07:36 right all right does
2:07:38 any other board member have anything further to discuss I had
2:07:42 one thing mr.
2:07:44 Gibbs I mentioned this to you because it was mentioned to me
2:07:47 that we don’t have
2:07:47 your evaluation is not currently online and that what there’s a
2:07:52 holdup of some
2:07:54 sort can you yeah mr. Susan that said he was reviewing his
2:07:57 evaluation piece and
2:07:58 asked me not to sign it yet so mr. Susan are you are we
2:08:03 comfortable with going
2:08:04 ahead on the science that can be published online it needs to be
2:08:06 I don’t
2:08:06 the evaluation is done so I don’t know at this point I would
2:08:10 assume it has to
2:08:10 be published mr. Susan is free to ask the board to reconvene if
2:08:15 he wishes to
2:08:16 but okay all right well I don’t really feel like we have
2:08:21 clarification this so
2:08:22 is it going online then is that what you’re I mean you want to
2:08:24 have a look at
2:08:25 it I’m just trying to understand what’s what talk to Paul about
2:08:31 looking at the
2:08:33 evaluation and I hadn’t had a chance because we had talked
2:08:38 before about how
2:08:39 some of those that were on there would have been able to
2:08:43 possibly be changed
2:08:44 based on some of the stuff that we were talking about inside
2:08:47 there and I talked
2:08:48 to Paul the other day and I said hey I don’t think that this
2:08:50 changes anything
2:08:51 from what your evaluation would be or anything like that that’s
2:08:55 all if I can
2:08:59 if I can take a look and get back at the next board meeting for
2:09:02 you to be great
2:09:03 if you could yeah just have it resolved by the next forming I
2:09:04 think it needs to
2:09:05 be published I have a question about that so yours is published
2:09:12 publicly it’s
2:09:13 not right currently it’s not well no I’m sorry I mean it can be
2:09:17 but that’s the
2:09:19 one that we that’s the one that was individuals we’re going
2:09:23 posted to I
2:09:24 think that’s what we determined the reason I’m asking is because
2:09:28 if mr.
2:09:29 Susan’s only look at as individual and it’s not getting posted
2:09:31 anyway no I was
2:09:32 gonna say the group one should be the one that’s published that’s
2:09:35 what we did
2:09:35 dr. Rendell that would be consistent we discussed in the room
2:09:37 that the
2:09:38 individual was getting posted so I’m asking so if we’re not
2:09:40 doing that then
2:09:41 it shouldn’t delay it any if we’re not going to do that anymore
2:09:43 then it
2:09:43 shouldn’t delay no I did not think that that was not my
2:09:45 understanding that the
2:09:46 individuals are being posted I thought the group one was the
2:09:48 only one being
2:09:49 posted the individual ones are available if somebody were to
2:09:51 public records
2:09:52 request and they could get them but we’re only gonna post the
2:09:54 board’s
2:09:54 evaluation of the attorney I promise you that was our
2:09:56 determination because it
2:09:57 was different than what we discussed with dr. now cuz dr.
2:10:00 Reynolds contract
2:10:01 clearly states it’s only the the total so that was a decision
2:10:08 that we made but
2:10:09 my point is if we unmake that decision then it doesn’t delay
2:10:13 posting it if mr.
2:10:15 Susan’s individual isn’t going to be a posted anyway I didn’t
2:10:18 think the
2:10:18 individual ones are being posted let me take a look at it let me
2:10:21 go back to my
2:10:22 notes to as well but yeah by next meeting let’s get it all so we
2:10:25 can sure
2:10:25 transparent out there yeah okay all right it’s perfect dr. Wendell
2:10:34 do you
2:10:35 have a board work session on the schedule for November 12th that’s
2:10:41 the
2:10:41 week after the election and it’s the week before the new board
2:10:45 is seated so
2:10:47 we don’t have any business on the agenda for the workshop work
2:10:52 session on the
2:10:54 12th so I was gonna ask the board if we could consider canceling
2:10:58 that it seems
2:10:59 it would be a little awkward to have one board sitting in a work
2:11:03 session when
2:11:03 that’s not the board that’s gonna then meet on the 19th 100%
2:11:07 agree I think
2:11:08 that’s a good idea to cancel it mr. Jenkins is a yes so mr.
2:11:15 gives since
2:11:16 that’s a calendar change would we need to bring it to a formal
2:11:18 vote at a
2:11:19 business meeting correct okay that is all
2:11:49 you