Updates on the Fight for Quality Public Education in Brevard County, FL
5:25 .
1:10:22 Hello, again. I want to talk now about a song my daughter is
1:10:27 learning in elementary school.
1:10:27 A song I imagine most of us grew up singing. This Land is Your
1:10:32 Land by Woody Guthrie.
1:10:32 Now, Woody Guthrie wasn’t just some cheerful fellow who wrote
1:10:36 catchy folk songs about America’s beautiful landscapes.
1:10:37 He was an outspoken activist, a champion of working people, a
1:10:42 fierce critic of
1:10:42 inequality, and a man who wasn’t particularly fond of powerful
1:10:45 people exploiting the rest of us.
1:10:47 In fact, This Land is Your Land was written partly in response
1:10:51 to God Bless America.
1:10:52 Guthrie thought that song painted an overly rosy picture of a
1:10:55 country where millions were struggling.
1:10:57 And here’s where things get interesting. The version we teach
1:11:00 our children is often a heavily sanitized
1:11:02 version of the original. We leave out verses about private
1:11:06 property, hungry Americans standing in
1:11:07 relief lines, and the uncomfortable questions Guthrie was asking
1:11:10 about who this country actually belongs to.
1:11:12 We took a song that challenged the American establishment and
1:11:15 turned it into a cheerful little patriotic
1:11:17 singalong. There’s some beautiful irony in that, isn’t there?
1:11:22 Because
1:11:22 I’m a product of the Brevard County public school system. I grew
1:11:26 up learning a rather rosy colored
1:11:27 idealistic version of American history. I was taught about
1:11:30 liberty, equality, justice,
1:11:32 and the courage of ordinary Americans who stood up against
1:11:35 injustice. I was taught to admire people
1:11:37 who challenged authority, questioned the status quo, and fought
1:11:40 to make this country better.
1:11:42 You, not you specifically, but you taught me to put those
1:11:45 principles on a pedestal, and I
1:11:47 believed you. I still do. I’ve just grown up enough to recognize
1:11:50 that our history is far more complicated
1:11:52 and often uglier than the version I was taught as a child. But
1:11:55 rather than abandon these ideals,
1:11:57 I’ve decided to demand that we actually live up to them. So if
1:12:00 this board is frustrated that I keep
1:12:02 showing up, standing at this podium, questioning your decisions,
1:12:05 challenging your authority, and demanding better,
1:12:07 I’d like for you to consider something. You helped make me this
1:12:12 way,
1:12:12 and now you’re teaching my daughter the same songs, the same
1:12:15 lessons, and the same beautiful American
1:12:17 ideals. You can remove the uncomfortable verses, you can sanitize
1:12:21 the history,
1:12:22 you can turn a protest song into a pleasant little elementary
1:12:25 school performance, but you cannot guarantee
1:12:27 that those children won’t eventually grow up and discover what
1:12:30 Woody Guthrie actually stood for
1:12:32 and start asking some uncomfortable questions of their own. Some
1:12:36 of them might even end up standing
1:12:37 at a podium like this one, challenging government overreach and
1:12:40 demanding accountability. And they’ll be doing
1:12:42 it in the finest tradition of Woody Guthrie himself. I sincerely
1:12:46 hope they do. Because you
1:12:47 taught me what America was supposed to be, and now I expect my
1:12:50 government to live up to it.
1:12:52 So, ladies and gentlemen, if you’re tired of hearing from people
1:12:54 like me, I have some unfortunate news. You are still
1:12:57 planting these seeds. I’m just what grew, and you’re reaping
1:13:01 what you sowed.
1:13:02 Thank you.
1:13:04 Thank you, Mr. Griffiths.
1:13:12 So, I guess it’s fitting here in very specific Parents’ Rights
1:13:25 Month that we’ve gone
1:13:27 hoods off. My handwriting is not great. Hoods off on the ethics
1:13:31 policy.
1:13:32 In the workshop this morning, there were some alarming
1:13:36 discussions about changes to that policy.
1:13:38 There’s a suggested removal of the section that prioritizes
1:13:42 students over politics.
1:13:44 There’s an addition of some state-sponsored language that’s
1:13:47 going to continue crushing academic freedom
1:13:50 under our governor’s little white boots, especially where it
1:13:53 might lead to some sort of acceptance
1:13:55 and understanding for marginalized students, because ignorance
1:13:59 is best.
1:14:00 But instead of objecting to any of those, Ms. Wright chose to
1:14:04 object to existing language that included
1:14:06 examples of types of harassment that would not be tolerated,
1:14:10 harassment towards LGBTQ students,
1:14:13 those by far the most at risk for bullying, for self-harm, for
1:14:18 abuse at home.
1:14:20 So, forget those kids, like Jesus would.
1:14:24 I guess it’s important to only show as much compassion as
1:14:27 legally required by the state, you know, like Jesus taught,
1:14:32 to make sure that the most at risk children live in fear, like
1:14:35 Jesus wanted,
1:14:36 to avoid at all costs any appearance of compassion or empathy,
1:14:42 like Jesus.
1:14:43 Please consider going slightly beyond the bare legal minimum
1:14:49 required amount of decency.
1:14:52 All right. Thank you very much.
1:15:00 All right, guys. Anybody else have anything to say?
1:15:04 Oh, Mr. Bryan. How could we forget you?
1:15:10 Paul. Paul was telling me he didn’t want you to speak, just so
1:15:19 you know.
1:15:20 Well, thank you so much. I’m going to get it right sooner or
1:15:24 later.
1:15:25 But anyway, thank you, board, for allowing me to speak.
1:15:28 Mr. Bryan spent a lot of time looking at numbers.
1:15:31 I’m a really fanfare, a fan, a great fan of Brevard Public
1:15:36 Schools.
1:15:37 You know, my wife taught at public schools, and I attended
1:15:41 public schools.
1:15:42 So I had a chance to look at your cash flow minutes, and thank
1:15:47 you so much.
1:15:48 And what I learned is that the cash flow input buckets come from
1:15:53 the Florida Educational Financial Program,
1:15:56 as well as the local property tax program, where you get most of
1:16:01 your revenue on the inside.
1:16:03 You also mentioned some of your challenges.
1:16:06 In your minutes, you mentioned that your cash flow challenges
1:16:10 are dependent upon –
1:16:12 dependent on local property taxes, timing of millage revenues,
1:16:17 and charter school payment timing.
1:16:20 So because of that, because of the cash flow issue that you’re
1:16:24 dealing with,
1:16:25 I believe you passed a tax call – tax anticipated note, which
1:16:31 was for $100 million at the last session.
1:16:35 But when I look at your minutes, I saw an opportunity, and I
1:16:39 want to share with this board.
1:16:41 When I look at the enrollment of this year, your enrollment
1:16:45 decreased by 1,800 students,
1:16:48 which is an impact of your revenue input, right?
1:16:51 That equates to $16 million.
1:16:55 So when I look at that 1,800 students that are now not in Brevard
1:17:01 Public Schools,
1:17:03 that equate to losing three schools if you average 600 students
1:17:10 per school.
1:17:11 That is a big loss.
1:17:13 And then when I look at your utilization rate, Brevard Public
1:17:17 School utilization rate across the district is 70%.
1:17:21 So what that tells me, if we continue to have a decrease in
1:17:26 enrollment, that’s a big challenge going forward.
1:17:30 So what I want to talk about today is that I believe live birth
1:17:35 rate is not your major problem.
1:17:38 I believe the major problem is that Brevard Public School is
1:17:42 losing market share.
1:17:44 You know, you look at market share, there’s a certain amount of
1:17:47 opportunities, and we’re losing market share.
1:17:50 Brevard Public Schools are losing market share due to
1:17:53 scholarship programs.
1:17:55 You’re also losing market shares due to home schools.
1:17:59 You’re also losing market share due to private schools.
1:18:03 So when I did my math, I think you averaged this year losing
1:18:08 around a 3% market share.
1:18:11 But when I look at your strategic plan, your strategic plan has
1:18:16 a growth rate of only 1% a year.
1:18:19 So that’s a conflict of overcoming the losses, right, in terms
1:18:23 of revenue.
1:18:24 So when I look at the numbers, when I look at the amount of
1:18:29 revenue loss due to scholarship program, that’s 152 million.
1:18:34 When I look at home school, that’s 71 million.
1:18:37 So I’m asking this board to provide us a plan that will improve
1:18:42 the market share,
1:18:44 not just letting our students go on the wayside to our
1:18:48 competitor.
1:18:49 Thank you.
1:18:51 Good job, Mr. Bryant. We appreciate you coming out tonight.
1:18:54 Anybody else have any other comments?
1:18:56 No, I just would like to clarify the record.
1:18:58 So my comment today was about eliminating specific groups.
1:19:03 I mean, if you don’t list all of them, I don’t know how you
1:19:05 would list some of them.
1:19:06 So when it came to disabilities, we didn’t list out every single
1:19:08 disability.
1:19:09 I said we’re not going to discriminate against disabilities,
1:19:12 period, any disability, every disability.
1:19:14 We’re not going to discriminate against sex, period.
1:19:17 We need to list out specific things. So while the commenter felt
1:19:20 the need to attack,
1:19:21 I just want to clarify that for the record. So thank you.
1:19:23 Yeah, I feel as usual that it gets – you know, they come out
1:19:27 and they say things that aren’t true.
1:19:28 Consistently with everything that we’ve done in the past is that
1:19:33 when we had all of these before,
1:19:35 Ms. Wright drove home the fact that she wanted to create less,
1:19:39 refer to statutory references rather than the entire paragraph,
1:19:43 bring it back,
1:19:44 because there is some sense to it because as laws change, the
1:19:47 more you have in there, the more you have to change.
1:19:49 And if it references back – so I did want to say consistent –
1:19:53 you’ve been consistent with that,
1:19:54 and I don’t think that there’s a single issue that anybody would
1:19:57 ever question
1:19:58 that you would never have discriminated against any of those
1:20:01 people.
1:20:01 So I just want to – that’s kind of gross.
1:20:03 I did want to clarify – I pulled this up because I had asked Mr.
1:20:05 Ramer for this on the enrollment numbers,
1:20:07 and Mr. Bryan, I can check in with him afterwards.
1:20:09 But we’re actually only – at six-day count, we were only 489
1:20:14 students total under projection,
1:20:17 which is still a good chunk of change, and this is FTE week,
1:20:20 right?
1:20:21 It is.
1:20:22 This is FTE week, so our October count that we’re in right now
1:20:25 is what will determine our funding,
1:20:26 and sometimes that changes, like last week – last year at six-day
1:20:29 count we were down 3,000,
1:20:31 but then by the time we got to October it was only 1,500,
1:20:33 because some people still don’t think school starts until after
1:20:36 Labor Day and all that good stuff.
1:20:38 So happy to chat with you later, but the 1,800 number, when you
1:20:42 said that, I’m like, “Eh, I don’t think that’s right.”
1:20:45 But when we get our October numbers, Dr. Wendell, would you ask
1:20:51 staff to send those back once the count is done?
1:20:53 Yeah, we can send that in comparison over the last several years
1:20:55 for sure.
1:20:55 Thank you.
1:20:56 Ms. Cable, just for point of reference, it’s actually less than
1:20:58 that number,
1:20:58 because if you look at the bottom it talks about the students
1:21:00 that are in the diversion program.
1:21:02 Oh, that’s great.
1:21:03 So they’re not showing up in the count for the school because
1:21:04 they’re in the diversion program for some of those students.
1:21:07 It’s almost 200, so actually we were only down about 290.
1:21:10 Right, so it was actually much better than the 1,800 that was
1:21:14 mentioned.
1:21:15 Thanks.
1:21:16 Good job.
1:21:17 Anybody else have anything to say?
1:21:19 Hearing none, the meeting is over.
1:21:37 [Music]
1:22:07 [Silence]