and making the right decisions and whatever decision we're making today to take into consideration that we doing this for our children that our decisions also reflects our values and they are rooted in respect
fairness and that God protect our children now they're going on vacation so that in two months they can be back here with us and we be ready for them in the name of Jesus name amen. Amen.
I pledg to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I call to order the um school board
workshop for May 27th, 2025. Uh welcome citizens of Klay County. I want to take the opportunity to thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to attend today's school board workshop. This workshop is our opportunity as your elected representatives to collaborate openly
among ourselves and make decisions that will decide the future direction of our public schools and the education of our children here in Klay County. There will be an opportunity for the public to ask questions at the end of the workshop presentation. Questions will be allowed. Public comment will not be allowed. If
you wish to ask a question, please fill out a comment card with your questions on the card of the deputy. Your participation is welcomed and appreciated. First up, we are going to start. We have some guests. So, we'll we'll do our um our conversations later.
Um but we have a presentation from our RS. Take it away. Good morning. Come on. Come on. Good morning. Uh I know I've met with everybody around the table back when we did our risk assessment meeting. So this
is our continuation of that effort and we're bringing forth the risk assessment to the board for discussion today at the workshop. this pre pre this meeting we had a meeting with the audit committee uh back in midappril I think it was April 17th where we presented a much more detailed version of this had some
really good discussion uh with the audit committee members and as a result of that conversation with the committee there been brought three audits that came from our top 10 that we had identified for the board's discussion to consider which uh one or or multiple of
those audits to move forward with for the audit plan for this coming So we'll talk a little bit about the top 10 high-risisk areas of focus and the suggested audit plan. That was what we put together and discussed in detail with the audit committee. And then the three audits uh that the audit committee had recommended which also coincided with the audits that we had recommended.
Um there was a lot of discussion in the committee meeting but ultimately they landed on the same three that we had originally recommended which include cyber security, contract administration and timekeeping. And then we'll also have um just so that the board understands some estimated fees for what those audits would look
like. So here we have the top 10. Uh we have close to 30 interviews with board uh members as well as senior leadership from throughout the district to understand everybody's perception of risk. Um, also coupling that with our experience providing internal audit
services to uh nine other school districts in the state of Florida as well as other school districts around the country, we developed this top 10 list. So, like I said, this is customized for Clay Schools. Uh, there are many things on here that appear on lots of other school district internal
audit plans. There are some things on here that are not on every one of them. But nothing on here is something is nothing new to us and it's not something that we haven't seen at another school district over the course of the of the of the years. Uh and really it just depends on what is the risk at a point
in time. And so when we think about an audit plan, this was really developed as when we went through this discussion with everybody and we we worked to put this list together, we think about risk as a point in time and this is what makes sense now. We always view this as something that is live and you know we
can should expect it to change at some point. Sometimes things pop up in the middle of the school year that necessitate uh you know maybe a change to this just depending on the circumstances. That happens sometimes. Uh but but traditionally what we look for is to have this discussion at the
beginning of the year to set forth an audit plan. So then everybody has the same expectations of what we what we'll go start once this is once everything is approved by the board. we'll go start those audits and then of course bring the results back to the board uh and the audit committee as well. Um so the three that that we had identified as as
recommended areas for work this year were cyber security contract administration and tightkeeping. Like I mentioned we had a lot of discussion at the audit committee. Uh there was great discussion I think among the new members. It was the first meeting that they had. I think it went very well. Uh a lot of discourse there and and I think
you know they all had their own ideas of which three were their top three. I think the convergence of them was the three that we had originally recommended and so that was what they had ultimately decided to recommend to the board for consideration at this workshop. Other areas that were on the top 10 but were not ultimately
recommended were advalorum. Um and again kind of understanding that that was a high-risisk thing. We know that's coming up to vote soon. Uh but also understanding that certain that certain things parts of that has changed. the district feels like and board I think from the members that we spoke with feel like they're getting better reporting on
that than they used to and so it did not rise to the level of of being recommended for an audit this year but certainly something to consider in future years. Human resources recruiting and onboarding. Um this is uh again just an area that came up in a lot of our discussions. It's it's a way to look at
how we're attracting uh and recruiting talent and keep and not so much keeping talent. That's that would be more on on the other end, but really what the onboarding process looks like to make sure that all new staff members, instructional staff, as well as support staff, what it looks like for them to
get on boarded to the district, filling out all the correct paperwork that's required for the Department of Labor, as well as just, you know, getting acclimated to what what work is like here at the district. internal accounts. Uh this is another uh area that came up in a lot of our discussions and I think
would have without certain circumstances risen to the level of the top three. The reason why it is not in the top three is ultimately because we know with the incoming CFO there's going to be some changes to internal accounts. Uh we're going to be adding that my understanding into business plus and so that's going
to be a lot of the accounting for internal accounts is going to go through the ERP system. And timing wise, from our perspective, it doesn't make a ton of sense to audit something right before it changes or because there's a lot of recommendations that we might have that are become moot essentially or or
processes that are going to change anyway. Uh it also doesn't make a lot of sense to do an audit right in the middle of a change because that could be very disruptive. Obviously, you know, my understanding is that this is going to be going in late summer, early fall as as obviously as internal accounts activity starts to pick up that takes a
break in the summer, but as it starts to pick back up, we wouldn't want to be incredibly disruptive to that new process as it gets done. But fantastic candidate for an audit maybe next year, the year after after the process has been established, teachers and and the
bookkeepers have had a year or or so to kind of get used to the new process, then it makes sense for us to come in and and do an internal audit of that process. But I just wanted to kind of attack that, you know, approach that one head on. We know that was a big one in a lot of conversations, but there was reasons why that did not rise to the top
three. Um, and that was why it's not there. purchasing uh and procurement compliance specifically focusing on non-competitive procurement uh as you know I mean purchasing is is a obviously a large area where a lot of money flows through and so it's just inherently high
risk um and so we'd be looking at um at that process specifically focusing on non-competitive procurements like soul sources and things like that pecards um another area again high inherent risk maybe a little bit lower financial risk
specifically um you the amount of money that's spent through a PC card very immaterial compared to the funds that are across the whole entire district. But there is a lot of area uh or higher risk typically uh in PECards, especially with public scrutiny and things like
that. If somebody were to use a PECard inappropriately, that would obviously be something that would be um probably headline news in the county here. And so uh again, not significant in financial risk, but significant in reputational risk. And so that's why it's on the top 10. self- insurance. Uh we know that's a fairly new thing to the district. We've
had some turnover in that area. So that's why that one came up. And then transportation and specifically focusing on fleet management there again. So one of the things that we always present when we have these top 10 areas is this is representative of risk kind
of in an uncontrolled state. We have not had an opportunity to do any testing. We've only had conversations to understand where you all and district leadership uh views these as risky areas. We know based on our experience
where risk is and where problems typically are. But just because something is on this list does not mean that we think there's a problem and it doesn't mean that we heard there was a problem. It just means it's an area of high risk and being that this is a new internal audit function, it's an area that makes sense for us to focus on.
Especially as we're clearly in the function, there's a lot of things on here that we kind of call the C's and of internal audits where especially when we think of things like contract administration and timekeeping that gives us an idea of how the many of those components are decentralized. So
there's a lot that happens here at the district office, but there's a lot of especially with timekeeping and contract administration that happens all throughout the district at all the different sites. So that gives us as internal auditors a really good visibility into what the control posture is and what the control structure is throughout the district. It's a really
good way for us to kind of get to know the district quickly by doing some of those audits in those areas. So that's just another reason why those kind of rose to the top three for us. But again, I just want to reiterate that just because something's on this list doesn't mean that we think there's a problem or that we heard that there was a specific problem. Just means that it's an area of
high risk. It's a good candidate for an audit. So we'll jump into the specific scopes that we've laid out for the three that were identified. Um so cyber security uh would be both internal and external penetration testing. So internal would focus on once if somebody got in or
somebody already was a bad actor that already had access to a school computer that was already on school the district network. um how they could move laterally and what sorts of stop gaps are there to stop somebody from going because if we think about cyber security it's not just one firewall one thing that stops everything it's very very
layered I won't pretend to know the specifics of that I'm not not a cyber security expert we would have cyber security experts that would actually be performing this under our supervision but internal penetration focuses on once once we're in or somebody that's already in doing bad things in the system that they already have access to and then
external penetration as you might assume is somebody trying to get in from the outside, trying to come in through a firewall and really focuses on what if something happens, if a threat is is identified what the district does in response to that. Uh it's it would be impossible to think that any
organization has no absolutely no open doors or no open windows. It's more about what is the response when we identify how one are we identifying that there is a threat quickly and then what are we doing when we have identified that threat to stop it and mitigate whatever risk there is at that point in
time. So that's what internal and external penetration testing would focus on. And then the other two areas that we talked about uh again uh great areas that give us an opportunity to see kind of the risk posture and the and the profile across the entire district to be
contract administration and timekeeping. So I'll let Weiss speak a little bit about contract administration timekeeping and then we'll certainly happy to have discussion amongst the the board today. So as Matt alluded to contract administration is a common internal audit we perform certainly when we're
establishing an inter audit function. Uh the primary goal of this will be essentially to evaluate uh the obligations and the expectations of vendor contracts that are executed. So what we would do as part of this audit would be to work with management to understand uh contracts that are inherently high risk for a variety of reasons. Maybe that's because they have
performance or or uh performance level level expectations or maybe they're just uh very material contracts to the district. So what we would do is we would select a sample of contracts typically two to three different contracts and we would evaluate uh post award how those contracts are being managed. So one are all of the
documentation and audit trail that we would expect uh to accompany that executed contract such as certificate of insurance um any any performance or district responsibilities that may support that contract that those are executed and those are being monitored and maintained. Um then we will also uh
evaluate the actual performance of the vendor itself. So, one, does the district evaluate the performance on a consistent basis? Do they document that performance? Um, do they have a means of evaluating invoices to make sure that they're complete, they're accurate? Um, so we will of course do some sampling of invoices for each contract sample and
make sure that invoices are timely received by the district so they have time to process those and of course that um that the payment amount agrees to the invoices themselves. Pretty straightforward uh evaluation itself. Again, it's focused on postawward contracts that were executed and how the
district is managing those contracts. Timekeeping is probably the most common audit we perform. As Matt alluded to, it's usually an inherently high risk because it's often decentralized. So, there's a lot of responsibility at the district sites uh for managing these. So, what we will do as part of this project, we'll evaluate
segregation of duties and access controls within timekeeping. So um documentation to support the approval workflows by the employee themselves, supervisors and then payroll on the back end. We'll also do on a look at on a sample basis any overtime, leave comp uh comp time that may be associated with a
sample of time sheets to make sure that those processes are being followed as well. So obviously those would um will require additional approvals in many cases and in many cases those are often not documented in a formal capacity. So if we see that through our our observations, we will highlight that and of course make recommendations
accordingly. Um we would expect there to be a sufficient audit trail. So we will um perform sample testing to make sure that the hours paid agree to supporting documentation. And then we will look on the back end at the pre uh and post payroll monitoring that takes place to make sure that any adjustments to payroll um are appropriate and that
they're supported. And of course if there's any offcycle adjustments that those are documented as well. Timekeeping is one of those areas that is always unique for every school district. If you think about I mean a food and nutrition services employee enters their time differently than a
custodian enters their time differently than somebody in the the fleet maintenance shop enters their time differently from somebody in the the district maintenance shop. And so because of that, we often times I don't know that I've ever seen a school district that's had the same process
across all of those different areas. it's almost always everyone kind of has their own unique process that they've developed over the years for one reason or another. Uh and so because of that obviously it becomes higher at risk because as we think about the finance team here making sure make making
payroll and of relying on the on the reviews that are happening out in the field that could mean something completely different in one area versus in another area and getting a handle on that and making sure that there's at least even if it is even if the process itself is is necessary to be different
at least the review process has some sort of continuity so that there is a supervisor reviewing time records to make sure that yes I do believe that this employees record time record accurately reflects the days that they were here versus the days that they were off and so forth. And so Tankeeping is
one of those areas that is just always going to rise to the top um because of its decentral especially at a school district because of its its heavily decentralized nature which makes sense because the needs of individual departments are different right I mean when you consider bus drivers and and the over time that
companies those responsibilities there's a need so we would expect there to be some sort of customization to that but we just want to make sure it's consistently followed where where applicable and then of course Um, thinking of budgets, uh, this is kind of what the estimated fees look like for
each of those areas. Um, cyber security, internal, external penetration testing is, uh, very highly specialized area, but it's a very specific focus. And so, it's actually, you know, I know we had a lot of conversation about this in the audit committee meeting. It was like, oh, it's probably super expensive. It's
actually not. uh we can do this uh pretty efficiently uh with our experts and and doing a very a narrow focus but a focus that gives your IT team and you some comfort knowing that there are good controls in place and then contract administration and timekeeping. Um these are kind of our standard pricing for a
traditional internal audit. So just wanted you all as you're making the decision today to understand the budget implications of what you pick. Um you know we would expect at least one maybe two but you know not necessarily all three in the first year. you know, we've got to start off on the right foot and and there's a lot to get through and
we've got to learn the district and the district staff has to learn us and our process. You all have to see the the work product that comes out of it. So, we expect that and and wouldn't necessarily recommend jumping in with three right away. Um, but certainly those were the three that kind of made sense for us to have top three and for you guys to have the discussion and pick
which uh which of those you wanted to move forward with. Yes. How long um would you say each one of these takes? Like if you if we pick two, are you going to do them at the same time? Are you do them separately? Do one at a
time? Does it take a month? Does it take six months? Like what are we looking at? We It typically takes depending on the work somewhere. Cyber security is is quicker usually um with probably two months uh from start to finish. The other ones usually we say about 8 to 12
weeks from start to finish. Uh we would we could do both of them at the same time. We'd have to look at kind of like timeline. I mean our goal would be to have this done by you know the by the latest by June of by the fiscal year in the fiscal year. So by June of 206. Um
this is easily it would be easy for us to to fit these in. Um but we would also want to work with the district to understand contract administration is decentralized. So we're not going to be relying a ton I wouldn't think on one one office and then timekeeping also decentralized. if we were doing like two in finance, we might try to stagger them
so that we're not taking up so much time of all the finance staff. So, we work with uh leadership to really make sure that the timing works out right. And then when we get started, we would establish kind of like, okay, here's here's about the timeline that we think we're going to take this to the audit committee. And then of course the board
meeting would follow that. We would establish that up front. If I could ask, and I imagine everybody is thinking the same thing, but what is our return on investment for each category? In other words, your experience in the other districts, do you see more of a savings
to the district and timekeeping with your audit versus cyber security? So measuring return on investment of an internal audit function, I would have to say unless you were doing specific
contract compliance audits where you're looking for over billings, which is not what we would be focusing on. We'd really be looking at the controls around what the district is doing to manage these contracts. I would say it's impossible to measure a return on investment outside of maturing
the function of the control posture as a district and giving you all peace of mind in what that looks like and having a consistent process to measure risk and to and to test, right? And it's about the transparency too of where you all sit and what you're doing from an internal audit function. It's very hard
to do our return on investment for internal audit, but we're helping you with sounder controls, better transparency, and better public confidence as well. Because I would think timekeeping, there could be a savings versus contract administration if you're
going back. Well, there could be savings for both because contract administration, we're making sure that you're getting that you're paying for the goods and services that you are purchasing, right? To accordance to the terms. timekeeping, making sure that it's the proper time that's getting spend expended out, but really getting
it back to an ROI is kind of difficult when you're looking at processes and controls. So, I wanted to can I just add something from the committee meeting? Um, so I was kind of asking the same questions at the committee meeting and
these are people who actually are involved the committee in these kind of processes on a daily basis. Some have a very lengthy and when we were talking about it the way I liked it explained was these are like umbrella things right so cyber security reaches out for
instance very important for our students right reaches out like a big umbrella to almost every aspect right of our organization maybe it's not a return on investment in dollars but we have to think about someone intercepting I'm not sure
if this is part of it but the conversation was someone intercepting accepting contract payments. Are we secure? Are we secure from student to student? Are we secure from outsiders to students? Are we secure? So, it's really for me it's the umbrella of safety. I
think the first one is why the the committee felt that it was very important and it touches every aspect. The next one contract administration is that right? I was going to say for a cyber security too, you also have an insurance component. Yeah. You have a liability. There's that too. Yep. Thank you. And then under contract
administration, our contracts are everywhere through schools. They run through the county office, but they're it's another one of those umbrella things. And so that is why the committee thought that we could get our biggest bang for the buck, right, in having our
processes checked for not only safety, but allowing transparency about how those things are occurring in the district. And I had brought up um the 1% mill, but quite honestly that's a fund that's separate and we can produce
documents from that. We can add up and subtract ourselves where these contracts. So even contracts does affect all that too. It affects your half cents um your half cents sales tax contracts. They look at all contracts. I don't know if that's helpful or not, but it seemed
like the committee felt like you would get more bang for your buck, but not necessarily just in a finance way, right? Well, it hasn't always been as well. Yeah. And because we focus on internal controls, a big focus of ours is preventative controls, right? So, it's hard often times for us to evaluate
that actual ROI on the back end because we're hoping to reduce costs and or fraudulent activity on the front end, right? So, the downstream index can be benefited as well. And you know just going back um to the comment adm is very siloed given this is your first time
with an internal audit function these areas it gets us more more from a broader perspective being able to see your school district and how controls are kind of thought of what your governance is like from that perspective. Any other
questions? So we at the board need to decide on one, two, or three. And which one, two, or three? So let's start with how many do we want to start with? I guess I guess I have a question
before I could tell you what I think. So and maybe Mr. Broski can help with this. So, in light of legislators taking their time, if we were to say maybe we want to start one and maybe things turn out better than we think they may, can we
add the second? I believe we can. We just bring bring a separate contract. So, when the board decides whatever they're going to decide here and provide some sort of direction, we'll go ahead and we'll put that contract on the board for a vote at that time. There's nothing that says you can't bring another
another action to the board at a later time. So in that vein, um, is it possible to delay beginning an audit or are we under a contractual obligation? I think we should begin begin the process only because the
statute puts this function in play right at this time. So I think we you know I can't advise to not to not do that. Also, I know it seems like a lot, but $40,000 is not really a lot in the big
scheme of things. So, even starting one, I mean, it can be a job. It's a that's a salary. 48. Well, I mean, I guess it could be. And I don't know. I think you should I think that that it's so I mean, I hate
to sound that difference there is very minimal. that you should do what you think is right, you know, for the district and whichever you want to choose, not Yeah. focus on the slight difference in in the cost because ultimately this is a pretty big deal for
the district and we'd like to get it right. And and this could save jobs. This could prevent one, right? I say I would say let's begin with one um as a conservative step forward since our budget for next year is kind of an
unknown at this point. Um the committee did they never thought three they thought two because they thought contract administration looks at the broad umbrella from a different perspective than cyber security. like they were we didn't think it would cuz
it is taxing sometimes for districts to go through these type of things but cyber security is kind of separate like they're kind of in different departments and so we thought it might be easier to tackle cyber security and contract
administration and I do know years and years ago we did not have business plus so when we're talking about timekeeping the district made leaps and bounds when we went to business plus and teachers signing in every day and at each school um operating as many timekeepers, making
sure the paperwork matched. So, we did make great strides when when went to business plus. So, I personally I think it wouldn't stress the district um to do cyber security and contract administration, but I would personally hold off on timekeeping. That's where
I'm at right now. So, you want two, you want one. But, Mr. Alvare, I'll roll with two. to the first two. Yes, sir. Okay. Uh, Miss Clark. Oh, I'm
waffling. I'm thinking one would be cyber security, but if we did two, I still think timekeeping would be important. So, let's just go with one with cyber security. I'm going to go with two and
the first two. So, I would think that board u majority would be two and the first two is what I'm gathering. Madam chair, I just wanted to hear what Miss Gilhousen thought real quick. Oh, I'm f I'm fine with that. You're fine with that. My concern was strictly
budgetary. Um just having kind of an uncertainty there. And I I think to your point um Miss Hansen, we could do begin with one and then add an additional one if the budget comes out that we could afford it. But if you guys want to just do it too right off the bat, I'm not
going to say no to that. Sorry, I thought you answered she led. So I was Okay. I wanted to make sure I was I thought that's what you had said was start with the cyber one. Okay. So I think with board majority we're going to do the first two
um and start with those. So both on the same contract. Yes. All right. Thank you guys. All right. Thank you. Any other questions, comments, concerns? Thank you. Next up, we
have board members, superintendent. Um, this is a workshop on rule development. Uh there are five policies that have been listed for I guess reconsideration
by the board or in one case first consideration and um I'm not sure what the concern is but anybody who has a comment about one of them would want to uh let it be heard so we can talk about it. Um so we're up to like five.
So it there's 500 policies that we adopted. Uh you this is kind of huge where we where we're at and then we we have very few that are kind of like little stragglers. Yep. Towards the end is is the big picture where we're at. So
Tom, I thought you kind of pump up a little bit. I was like I was like, "Hey, that wasn't very motivating." But we got a lot. We've done a lot. Now we're down to the last thing. 2111 is a parent and
family involvement in the school program. I think we did the workshop that was 921 or 211. So I'd always start with that one first. Start with that one first.
This uh outlines different ways that the parents uh and family can be involved in the school program and it also references the different laws that apply which is this is the only policy we have that has a footnote. So um it's useful
for that. This is the one that um Miss Hansen wanted to bring back with um further discussion. Um so I wanted us to talk about it based on um our master board
training and this conversation involved around parent expectation. Um how we involve families who may or may not know how to become involved as a parent because we all know
that parents have a huge impact on their child's education from the time the child is born. And that impact makes that bridge between parents and academics stronger. Um, home and school stronger. And I wanted to talk
about it because a lot of it is procedural, but the procedural part also aligns with the legislation, the law, right? And so I didn't think that and and the other thing is I know we have a very heavy
schedule today but this is um there was a page that was all struck out that was mostly procedural and I actually liked some of it. So, for instance, on the first page, which would be page three, I
think, oh, it's hard. There was a section that we struck out that said involving families. It's under E. Under E., do we have
it? Okay. We um struck out number three which said helping families to provide a school and home environment that encourage learning and extends learning. um than it struck out. I can't see the last word at home, but I think that's
really really important that we take a stance on that particular one to help bridge because I've talked to parents who clearly even though we have a parent portal, right? They don't know how to
engage with their kids at home, they they don't they don't know education like we know education. And there are districts that have taken up this section and really really just hugged it because they are
trying to bring parents actively involved in the academic process. Not just coming and making cupcakes, not coming in to make some copies or sorting things out, but in the academic process. are districts that are actually have
buses that run around and they present to parents on how to be more engaged in the academic portion and I know that we do things but I think we need to keep that section alone is helping families to provide a school and home environment that matches and encourages what the
district's trying to get because if we can get parents on our side at that level then your academic achievement will go up. It's just a fact that parents are probably one of the number one factors. As Mr. Broski always says, I'm not sure what the percentage he always says, but 864. Oh, yeah. They're
only with us 14% of the time and then 86% of the time they're not on the next section. Um, hold on, hold on. Can we agree to keep to that number three? 83. Um, I mean, I I don't have a problem with it, but I do think it's redundant
because I think number one says the same thing. You know, it says, "Offering training and resources to help families learn strategies and skills to support at home learning and success in school." Well, I like the language of home and school environment, you know, connecting that that that's big language in
education. That home and school connection, is there a way if you didn't want to keep three, could we? I I don't have a problem with that. It just sounds redundant to me. But we can keep it if that's important to you. Unless unless you want to change the
word in number one a little bit so it's not would it just be easier to just add three so that we don't I mean we could it makes it easy okay Mr.
So you have everybody agrees to keep three, correct? So can we add three back in underneath uh learning at home? Yes, please. And I believe that was a reason it was originally was for what you had just mentioned was that it was redundant to
number one. Yes. But there was certainly no reason we can't support that. That way we're not playing around with trying to get it right. I think it just be easier to check that box. Okay. And your next section, so the rest of it, like I said, was
scratched out because it's very procedural. Um, it directs the superintendent to do a whole lot of things like a procedure and I believe we do probably most of these things anyway, but I'm not exactly even on the board today not exactly sure
what kind of a parent involvement program we have. So there is a disconnect even with me on a school board when I'm talking to parents about what do we offer? What do we have? I know we have a parent handbook. Yes. No. As a as a result of the conversation
that happened the other day, we've uh we've done a uh engagement and support inventory that I'll share with the board which goes over all of the ways that the school connect with families related to that. That was the discussion that we
had was the first step we ought to take is take a look and make sure we have common knowledge related to what it is is actually happening now before we we talk more about what ways we can improve that. So I have that I do have that
prepared would be a good first step in the process. Um, so part of it says the information required in this policy may be provided electronically. How are we going to help parents understand the the new commitment to trying to develop this
polic this procedure? But don't forget it's also one of your goals in your strategic plan. So the idea of crown involvement is is promoted in many different ways across the district and will continue to be that because like
you I figured out the math on this which is 8614 you know quite frankly we need parents to engage with their children in the academic portion of what happens in school just like you said apt will be another way to communicate
their parents recognize Yeah, because it does say pursuant to state law, the superintendent shall develop. Um, and so as you go through this, can we have maybe when we're not so busy, short presentations on what you've accomplished so far? Um,
the goals, you know, how you might go about it because I do think it's really important, especially at some of our schools to, you know, all schools aren't the same, you know, right? So, I don't know what you guys think about that. And I did not know that the work that the
district's been doing, I didn't think we should put all these procedures because it's hard to follow this many procedures when every school is different and every parent's different. So that was really my that was all I really wanted to talk about making sure that we're thinking about it. We can definitely do a
presentation together. So any more discussion on this one? discussion on this this one. No. Okay. Great. The next one is 3112 board staff communication and Mr. Alvo brought this um forward. So, Mr.
Alvo, go ahead. Um I brought this one forward because uh I received a few emails from uh teachers. They were concerned about their communication directly with us. So that's that's all I wanted to clarify if they can communicate directly with us
or they have to include anybody else through the email. So what section am I looking at in the section 3000 is that 312 be part a the first a part staff communication.
So, are you wanting to add language to that policy or take language out? I'm just wondering how would they be able to communicate with us if they have anything to talk to us about if they're concerned that they have to add anybody else? Oh, he wants to take out not adding a superintendent on. Is that what
you're referring to? If a staff member chooses to communicate directly with the board regarding district business, then the communication should be sent to the members of the board and the superintendent should be copied as well. Is that what you're referring to? That's what they were referring to.
So, I guess they wanted to be able to see. Is this staff member or teachers? Well, that's Yeah, that's really the question. It's confusing, right? Yes. I think that's one of the problem. Why don't we just clear for the record that any staff member whether a teacher or not, can email any board member about
anything, right, that they want to. They quite often do. Yeah. Um, it's always proper if there's a concern for this for the board to then forward it to the superintendence. It's not responsible to ensure that happens, whatever it is
related to that, but I don't see the language as prohibiting an individual from emailing a board member and they probably have done that many times. Okay. So, if they if that is the concern, I would just reply you can always reach out to any board member without doing
that. it's just encouraged if it is something that like I don't know the bus ran or something or whatever like that's obviously something that would be great to CC Mr. But if they wanted a genuine sincere communication with a board member,
they're not it's not discouraged that they can't. I I know I have received several emails from teachers. You even get anonymous. But the language Hey, I get anonymous letters sometimes in the mail. To Mr. Albero's point though, the language, I mean, if you listen to it,
communication regarding official business of the district from staff members to the board, its committee should preferably be submitted through the superintendent. So, I I view that though as like a um a policy, a process
that's happening, not a complaint about an individual, right? You know, I think that there's a difference between like official communication for the entire district. one employee that's having difficulty at their work site that wants to tell you about it and to be honest that that was
the that was the concern that brought forward to me and I'm as the representative I'm you tell them you don't have to hear you can clarify the situation to that's all way and to be honest I usually forward everything to Mr. Proski, our
superintendent anyway that involves any district staffed or district knowledge because our knowledge is actually quite limited on what can be done for people. And so in general, the board does um I know we all forward emails of concern,
but there I can tell you right now, and this is just coming from a teacher point, these teachers have no problem talking to school board members about anything on their mind for the most part. I know some might be concerned and I hope that we clarified that today.
Does that make sense? Yeah. Any other discussion on this one? All right. So, next up is 7510 use of district facilities. I brought this one forward. Um are the
changes? So, um ultimately what my desire was to do was to um make it to where our facilities um could be used by our staff um essentially and others. And you know,
we talk about community being involved and how um I had a very long discussion with operations and with Mr. brosky about all of this, but ultimately what I wanted to do, this was a way that I could find um
ways if if whatever happens in Tallahassee happens, it gives our staff an opportunity to still um find ways to make money if they wanted to, like teachers for the summer, if they wanted to run a art camp, if they wanted to run
um uh the the coaches has wanted to run a sports camp. This gives them the opportunity to do so. And I believe in June or August, one of the other meetings, we'll get um into the particulars because I would like to
advocate that our employees that want to do this um either get a hefty discounted rate um on our facilities, especially if it's during the hours of operation in the summertime. Um and there's staff
already there, there's an officer already there. all of these things. Um, which those particulars will be worked out I think in that time. But then also if it is a school-led thing and not necessarily like an employeeled thing
but the school wants to put it on or um for example like the church wanted to come in that the majority of that funding goes back to that individual school because what's happening now is that money is not going back to the
individual school but we're still asking our staff to be there and to do essentially all the work, all the paperwork, everything involved for our community to be involved in it. And essentially, there's no incentive. And I know that that sounds bad. Um, but the
reality is is we're asking staff members to use their own personal time to do all the leg work, but it doesn't go back to their school essentially. So, I think that's something else that we're going to look at, but I'm just bringing that up so that when the time comes that um
we're essentially all aware with with matching this and the new changes are here, the red line. So, can I just ask her a question real quick about this? Mhm. Because I actually wanted this brought back up for a different reason.
So, there's language that would have to be like brought back in. And I don't know about the particular thing you're talking about. I don't know from the district perspective how much it costs. I don't know all that. But we did strike out um in version two. And I have a
problem I have a problem with us striking it out and it might relate to what you're trying to do as well because it says the school board believes and I do believe taxpayer dollars pay for our facilities. And so we struck out, the school board
believes that the grounds and facilities of this district should be made available for community purposes. We struck it out. I'm going to give you an example. When I was a new school board member, there's a dance troop in Keystone. They have no place to do anything out there, right? And they
always used our cafeteria for a fee. It was a reasonable fee. The entire community comes out to watch the recital. I received an email and it was true that there was now this for them astronomical cost to use the same
facility they had always used. Well, taxpayer dollars pay for our schools and I don't believe we should be you striking out made available for community purpose provided that such use does not infringe on the original necessary purpose of the property or
interfere with the educational program. So they were doing it on a I think it was a weekend Saturday night. It didn't interfere with anything and there was a new system of attaching fees when we struck it out. We left schoolboard facilities, grounds,
property and equipment are intended for educational purposes. That was it. So what Miss Skipper's talking about is something that may or may not be educational purposes. I'm also talking about churches, a dance
troop who has nowhere else to go that's been going there for 15 years. I'm talking about on the local level having some kind of reason between this version and this version to be able to provide what is necessary for some of the
communities to use their own schools. So uh it's a different version you want to you want to speak of? Yeah. So if it is an outside organization, we still require certificates of insurance and you know they're still required to have
um a business um and that's just to protect the district. Um you know things happen so we still have to protect ourselves that way. Um, but we we talked about in the guide in the in the procedures and the if somebody wants to rent a facility, we can um specify that
more in greater detail in there. We have several user groups right now and we're we talked about adding another one and specifying because this says specifically for educ educational purposes period. Doesn't allow for other folks to maybe use the
cafeteria. So I don't I think we need a bridge between this one and this one or some more specific. So that's what she's saying in the guide. You can it it is outside organizations and other um community programs program. But if the policy
doesn't allow it, how can the guide allow it? It does. It does allow it. It says that the schoolboard facilities, grounds, property, and equipment are intended for educational purposes. No policies or agreements will be made that conflict with this priority. So the argument could be made Girl Scouts
supports education. You know, going to church helps families and strong families make for strong education systems. Like there's there are a lot of things that support and go along with educational purposes. I don't think it's restrictive. I don't think it disallows.
The way the way I read it is like first and foremost, it's for educational purposes. So, if somebody wants to come in and use our facilities, they can't trump our day-to-day school activities. We're always, you know, they can't just because they're part of the community come in and hey, I'm a taxpayer. I want
to use it on Monday, you know, at Yes. at 12. Um, so that's, you know, that's first and foremost they're intended for educational purposes. However, they can be used um you know for by the community based on these other uh parameters. So
like priority would be given. See that language is an interpretation. It cuz this really does just say educational purposes. So that would be a subjective like we just decide what it that is. I don't know. I don't know why
if I could ma'am in order to make what miss Skipper was talking about happening. It's the removal of letter A is what we're is what we're focused on. Yes. Which is essentially why I brought it back up because we do
have A in there. And removing that would give us flexibility for district staff, outside organizations, and others to be able to use our facilities. And then more of the details
is in the guidelines. Um this this this policy will essentially align with St. John's County. Um and their policy and then like uh Miss Ellis is saying that the
guidelines has uh which might be what's confusing because that's not in front of you right now. The other the paper No, I was just reading the language that is in front of me. It says for educational purposes only. So is there a legal way to change that
to where we can meet? Well, and they also the board will permit which is what you're talking about the use of district grounds and facilities when such permission has been requested in writing. Right. Responsible organization or group of citizens has been approved. That struck out that language on this
policy right here. So I agree. I understand what you're all saying, but I think we need to meld some of this version that includes the what Miss Skipper would like to see happen. And you want to add that language back in. Well, no. Is that what you want to
do for people to be able to use the Right. It is, but Go ahead, Mr. Well, I was going to say, so one of the examples I saw in St. John specifically is the county wanted to use some of the ball fields for some of the recreational programs. The challenge was at the time
that the school board's policy did not allow because it's written very very narrowly. I believe the way this is written it and that's one of the challenges we had to work out with with the school district was cuz we want to utilize the ball fields and ponted.
So one of the challenges we had is they had to revise our policy a little bit to make it more more broader, more conducive because it was written so narrowly. So understand what you're saying. The one thing you want to keep in mind is the way the way it's tailored here is it's it's written broadly enough
where let's say the the county, let's use Klay Countyy's example, wanted to utilize some of the ball fields. Even though it's it's outside the the you know hours maybe on a Saturday or something like that, it wouldn't interfere with educational purposes of some of the ball fields. So just keep
that in mind as y'all are writing this. You want it to be broad enough where you can partner. Um, so I think the changes y'all made up to this point kind of allow for that broadness. If you narrow it, it it I only raise it. It it could um you could kind of run into that
challenge again where you could have, you know, something like that where it doesn't strictly fit within an educational because the purpose is, you know, using the ball fields as example that is for the school district for the sports programs. That's not for outside sports program. But if you have an
outside sports program that wanted to use it, if it's outside the hours, if it's not, you know, outside the primary focus, the way it's the way it's constructed now is that it would it would allow that that to happen. If you narrow it, it could create some of those challenges. It's a broadening. Just to
say that community purposes as well. I I'm having trouble with educational purposes. So, we're saying if a church wants to use it, maybe some of our students are in the church and so they're using it. some of our kids might use the ball field within the guidelines. So if you um Bonnie, if you scroll down to use of facility and
grounds under A, it says the superintendent shall review the facility use terms and fee schedule periodically. Any changes shall be recommended to the school board for approval. So that's what we'll be bringing um to either July or August um for you to review all of
that. And within that guide, it has all the user groups and it has examples of those type of groups and they include all community groups. It's not necessarily just for Klay County students. We do allow for other um PE
other outside organizations to come in whether or not they have students in the schools or not. And and there's a mechanism to revise it. So if a new group comes up, you can revise that. That's where this your library. Yeah. because the other version just says exactly that. It says as long as it's
being used made available for community purposes provided that such use does not infringe on the necessary purpose of the property. So we're assuming we're saying that the educational purposes in my mind is teaching. It's um you know math math
camps but we're saying that's not the entire No, I just think the taxpayers that's what school is. That's what the primary focus of a school is to educate our children. Secondarily, um you can rent the facilities, but you
can't interrupt educational cuz everything we struck out must be in that policy. Then things like voter registrate meeting for employee associations, use of groups indirectly related to schools in two. That's what she's trying to say. So number two,
yeah, that will be in the guidelines that we have to approve because it's in the policy that we have to approve it. So those guidelines are the user groups. That's why I think you're confused because you don't have the guidelines in front of you. It's just the word educational purposes. I don't see how
having a sports camp is for that purpose, but I I'm understanding you're taking it into more broad very broadly because you think about said this. So, the primary focus of like a soccer field that the school district controls is for the for the school district, but you could have an outside soccer educational
camp, use it during the summer or something like that. And that still serves a they're still teaching kids how to play soccer as opposed to, you know, what what what some other activity that might be. So, you can still link it to it's it's almost identical to what the school district's already already
teaching. So, the way it's right now, you can kind of fit that in. This does this does that make sense? Yeah, I just it's fine. I mean, if I'm an English teacher, so I think there there's a direct intent of the word and then there's
subjective surroundings of what a word could mean is what we're dealing with is that well the challenge is we don't have definitions and I think that's what you're looking at. There's not a definition part of of of this brought on purpose. And I don't I don't in the years I've been on the board, I don't think I' we've ever had somebody say
that they were not granted access to a facility based on the nature of the activity they wanted. Um you know what I'm saying? Because they weren't an educational group. They were I've never had that complaint. Now definitely the complaint about the fees, those went up significantly after COVID because of
that was required and then our new safety and security protocols require a lot of our district to provide. Um, so the fees have gone up and definitely there's been community complain about that, but I don't think that we've restricted use based on well y'all not y'all aren't doing anything educational
so you can't use our facility. That's to my knowledge never happened. This also supports if teachers want to make additional funds and stuff like that. So you'll all be That was my other question. Have we has this always been our policy that we don't allow
um like what it says here for district employees? We've never allowed district employees to No, it's never been in public writing in policy form. Oh, it's never Okay. So, that's all new language. And then all you're saying is let's just This is new so that they can't. It gives
them the ability if they choose to if they don't want to. My question has that been allowed in the past? No. Yes. They'll they'll go ahead and they'll use the facility. For example, Cliff Ail does a does football camp. There's other people that use our
facilities for that purpose mostly for athletics, right? This will allow them, Miss Cooper wants them for the regular teacher to be able to do this too. Okay. Which they can obviously do that also. Okay. But it is so to strike to strike a
it doesn't opportunity to strike A is just we're allowing that opportunity if everything's done right. Correct. Okay. And then what will be very important is the guidelines that follow fees. That would be my other question. How do you is it first come
first serve? Is it like usually it goes through a program called facilitron and the first step starts with the principal of the school who direct all of that. Principal is either going to uh yay or nay it depending on the data the function and all of those things. Okay.
And then there are guidelines within that book that Miss Skipper is referencing that talks about how much that would cost. So for example, if there's a custodial fee that's needed or a security fee that's needed based on the number of people there's those kinds of things. Okay. But
say you had conflicting asks like they both want the same facility, the same principal principal discussion. Okay. which is kind of what which we'll that'll be more details I think in the guidelines but when used
correctly especially Facilitron I've talked to a couple people um around the state actually about this in other districts as well um they actually make money off of this their district and their schools by allowing not only the community in which also facilitates
community involvement, parental involvement, parental engagement But then this is another way that they can generate revenue. And for me, from a business perspective, I'm sitting here thinking about all of the things going
on in Tallahassee and with with budget and and things like that. And maybe that's what made me think about this, and I probably should have thought about it before, is what are ways that our teachers can make money, but then what are ways that we can make money as a
district. Um, but that is positive to our community. And this is this is getting um I mean right now you go and look on a Saturday, there's nobody using our facilities. There's no kids playing ball. Um, and if you talk to several
adults who grew up in Klay County, that used to be a thing. People used to Oh, yeah. I got lots of phone calls when we had to start locking things up. I can't go play basketball. I can't go run the track. Right. Right. So my point is is um I want to obviously security and
things have changed but what can we do as a board um to change for the positive um not only to help us out but then also meet one of our goals as a board and um also help our teachers out especially um if
the funding's not there to to pay them like we we would like it gives them the opportunity to to work to to get that. So anyways, that was my um that was my goal and purpose for this. I didn't want to spend as much time on it, but because I think that the the meat of it is going
to be the guidelines and the um facility charges and all that stuff which will be brought back up. So are we good with these changes? Okay. And then the last one is our um
9210. So I think we're good with these. And then This is parental organizations and I guess for me on this one um I've talked to several um several schools I' I've spoke to Mr.
Broky about this. Um I I don't know. I guess my my example that I had sent um and that we kind of condensed into a different policy was that um there's two ways you can run PTAs or or PFAS
whatever whatever you want to call them. Um they can apply through the state and they get their own account and they have their own board. Um Elatchua County does that certain um I think Miami Dade does that. There's certain areas um certain
districts that do that and then then andor they have what we have which is um this policy essentially. But what my concern is and what all the other uh PTA concerns and presidents is a lot
of their funds that they're raising are being used for things that they either didn't approve of or they had funds there and they're gone. So whether they got mixed up in another account whe or well they don't really have they do have a separate account but they don't so it
still goes through the school um that the funds were not used based off of a vote from that PTA. So, um I guess my frustration is is either we give them the opportunity to do the board portion
where they could file through the state of Florida and they're held accountable um through the state essentially. So, like just like any other organization with a board and an account, they're held accountable for fraud and everything else. um or we keep it the
same and we put tighter language um to where whoever touches those funds outside of a vote from the PTA are held accountable. Um so I don't know what your feedbacks are on all of this, but I
think that it definitely needs to be somewhere in our policy. I don't know what verbiage. So, I'm sure if I could, we could put a procedure in writing as to how we conduct the vote at the meeting to
ensure that people have voted on to provide funding. Can we put the procedures in the policy? Well, typically you would put procedures in policy, but simply requiring a vote of the of the majority of people
there would be something you put in policy. It must be by majority vote. Can I ask a question? I look at them that organization as an organization within an organization. It should have a
separate it it needs to be a separate entity. You know, it's made up of a separate group of people trying to support kids, trying to support teachers. I mean, I I know of PTAs that took their hard-earned money and bought toilet paper for schools, for instance, right?
I think what Miss Skipper is asking, I'm not sure what the answer is, is that there needs to be parameters like some kind of a little wall around the PTA allowing them to have final say in the expenditures of their funds. And I
don't know how we can do that because it has been really confusing the entire time I was a teacher. Depending on what school you were, you know, a lot of them had to get permission from a principal to spend their money on the kids. Some of them had to there's there's some am
wow having trouble today. Um there is a lot of confusion wrapped around it and I don't know what the answer is but we do need to do something to make sure that the the PTA and the administration are actually working very closely together
versus what's happening now. So right I think well first of all that there are a few examples in which it's not working the way you'd like it to. There are many many many examples that are working. You're only going to hear the ones that aren't working. Right? So I think that putting procedures in place that then
further extrapolates those things that are occurring at that school. I think it would big be a big mistake to say that they shouldn't be coordinating with one another. I think most people would argue that the PTA should be in support of the mission of the school, not on not on a
separate program that's totally different school, right? Yeah. So I don't think anyone is saying that. So collaborating together for a common mission. But if if the concern of a few schools is how the money is being spent, we can require a vote to the majority of
of the council to vote on that. I think that's smart because you're never going to get 100% vote to agree, but certainly the majority of the council should agree on what the spending would occur. And that's that's an easy procedure. So, we
have a choice like you could put some verbiage in a policy, but um Miss Skipper, what if we made sure those procedures line up with the policy when we start to go through you how we put it under the procedures tab? Then that would give
some I guess meat to the policy and then they could look at the exact ways. That's fine with me as long as if the procedures are as long as the PTO money or the PFK money, sorry. Um, is
protected with a board majority and requires a vote to Yes. Could you just add that language cuz it there's a line here that says at the bottom of the page, not the bottom paragraph, but the paragraph above. Yeah. Funds collected shall be
expended with a majority vote to benefit students of the particular school raising funds unless those funds are being collected for a specific documented purpose with majority vote of the PTA PT PTA board. I mean that's a we
have that language there. Do you see where she's talking about what you're concerned about is expenditures. Correct. Correct. Because some some principles will say, "No, I'm using that for toilet paper." And they're like, "But we're raising it for a playground." You know what I mean?
Like that was just an example. And I think you can just what Mr. Rosski said, if you know, if you guys are both good with the majority vote on the board, I think that you just add that language there. Okay. Are we good with that? Sure.
Can you all add that? Just to clarify, that would go funds collected under funds collected. It would just follow that sentence. Funds collected shall be expended by majority vote to benefit students, but then of the PCA
or whatever initials, the parent organization, right? And then we do need like I think like Mr. Broski said those procedures to make sure everybody's on the same sheet of music, you know, right along that note here for sure. so that everybody can just look I don't know
what the new policy means or whatever then his procedures would be there for them too and I would prefer that we keep it with the district not with the state like I like that it's part of our internal funds so that we can see it that's fine that's fine I just wanted to
make sure that there was there were controls controls because there were um which I think that the incident got fixed but like even the the principal wasn't and sharing how much money was in there and it was getting a little icky and anyways I think we handled that. But
my point is I I want them to know that it's separate from their toilet paper fund unless they want to give them toilet paper fun. You know what I mean? Mhm. Okay, that's all I needed on that one. All righty. I think that's it. Any
other questions? Oh, actually while we have uh Niola brought up, I know we were going to talk about this in board protocols, but should we just go ahead and talk about it now? Policy change policy. Let's do it. Um it's in our Do you know where it's at? It's under B.
It's in 0000. Okay. Beginning somewhere. Um we as a board were going to discuss um from our last board meeting the because it conflicts with Robert's
rules which is what we adopted was that um you have to have board majority to put an agenda item on the agenda. So that would be there's a bylaw called
agenda. Okay. And let me find it. It's a 0165.1. I couldn't remember where it was at. I know we discussed it and it was in our board protocols, but we we were going to discuss changing it in
policy. So, while you're here, individual members of the board may place items for discussion on an agenda by advising a superintendent that desire to do so. That would be the one. That's the one. But can we clarify something because I might just be behind on what
my thinking is. with I was we were real good about bringing like maybe at a in my board comments I would say do you all mind if we place this on the next workshop right and so when we're talking about the major which Robert's rules is
the majority of if you don't have the majority it can't be placed on the agenda but could we also say that we should have a chance maybe to talk about it like it should be on the workshop right put it on the workshop agenda agenda, we talk about it and we make, you know, whatever decision goes forward
on the consent agenda, right? So, which I think is the proper steps anyway. Correct. It has to go to past I can just speak to past practice. It's um any board member could place any item on any agenda. That's always been past practice. Yeah. um because that's your
authority as an elected board member that if there's something that you feel like is you want everybody to speak to then you know you bring that forward on an agenda but um I understand Robert's rules is the majority you guys to make a
change so that in order to place something on an agenda you would need board majority to do that we can do that um to your point I think if there's something a board member wants to discuss and wants feedback from the rest of the board on. You can do that during board member comments without it being
on on the agenda. But my caution to you would be if it is not an agenda item, the rest of your board may not be prepared to discuss it. Yeah. And I know that there's been frustration in the past when you feel like you're not getting communication or enough feedback and enough input from your fellow board
members. So the advantage to being able to place something on the agenda is that you can then notice the rest of your board. This is priority. I want to take action. You're talking about for a future meeting or for that? Not for that meeting. No, for a future meeting. Yeah, future meetings. That's how we usually
And it gives you the opportunity as a board member to then attach your supporting documents to your agenda item so that the rest of the board can get your communication in the sunshine and you can have a discussion and take a vote. And there's been times as a board member, I can tell you where somebody's
placed something on the agenda, the rest of the board didn't have an appetite for it. there's no motion and therefore it just dies. So for one board member, it really no one board member can control your board, right? If the if the majority of the board has no desire to
discuss it, you need a motion and a second to even discuss it. Does it make sense? And Robert's rules is the chair and superintendent can do it or if we're not happy about whatever they're doing, majority of the board can also place.
Correct. Yes. which is what the majority of uh government entities actually do. I know the commission does it. I know across the state of Florida. Um actually, I haven't yet found one school district that I've spoken to and we're all on
a massive thing. Um that actually does it the way we do it. So, um Mr. President, I don't have a preference one way or the other. So, we do need to make changes to just that language right there. Right. Mr. Dr. Yeah. Yeah. I was just going to say that that when when it
comes to to discussion items that the board wants to come through the way Mrs. Gil has way outlined it it's appropriate. Generally proclamations are ceremonial. So that's not something generally that y'all would have uh discussion on. What I have seen with
other entities is there's a recommendation that's made to the chair by a board member. Then the chair can if they want can see consensus say hey this is a proclamation but whatever the situation is there could be consensus because a proclamation is coming from
the board collectively um if there's not an appetite um to see that and I went through a federal lawsuit over this when I was the chair of a county commission so that that way you can have some some
input on it but generally proclamations are ceremonial It's the board's government speech. It's coming from y'all as elected officials collectively. Um, so, you know, that's something to consider. Y'all can put something in there where a board member, you have a
procedure where a board member or a policy where a board member says, "Hey, I would like us to honor this particular event. Can we get consensus?" And if there's consensus, then that's draft as a proclamation. Then it's a purely ceremonial event. Obviously, like like you're pointing out, there could be, you
know, disinterest in that, but that way it's it's it's more kind of brought up in a way where where uh you know, you don't have a packed audience full of people one way or the other. Um, you know, one of the ones I saw recently, this was litigated, was there was a recommendation for a proclamation to,
you know, talk about the Confederacy or something like that. I mean, some people may have support for that, some some may not, but I think the board in that particular instance said, you know, that's not really something we want to highlight. that's not really a schoolboard function per se, but because they had that mechanism in place to address it, they said that's not really
something we want to ceremonially address. So that that that would be my recommendation to y'all is to draft something where where if there's a because the ceremonial part of that that's y'all speaking as a group, whether you're recognizing like breast cancer awareness or prostate, you know,
whatever whatever the issue is. That way y'all kind of collectively can can kind of say, "Yeah, you know, we want to put that as one of the as one of the the proclamations." So, we need to decide. Well, I was just use using proclamation as an agenda item. Period. Is that not the same thing? So, so generally it's
not an agenda item. It's generally it's just a ceremonial. It's not generally something y'all would vote on. It's just the board speaking through a proclamation. I mean, you have another smarter attorney in the room, but that's generally it's not board action. It's the board recognizing collectively whatever. So you're initially saying
that we need a policy separate for proclamations that from from the agenda item. So So right. So what you could have is you can have a line there that says if if if a board member has interest in bringing forth a proclamation that can be brought to the chair and the chair can seek consensus
or through the roles of the chair you can just put it on the agenda. Um you know so there might be times where you want consensus from the board. it could be handled in a workshop. Say, "Hey, here's here's some proposed proclamations and you know, is this something we want to put on the agenda for, you know, uh, you know, the
ceremony of that and we have, you know, a citizens group that's requested it." Um, the the the court cases that have addressed this have really outlined that you want to have a policy and procedure for proclamation. So, you don't cuz it's government speech. It's you always government recognizing whatever group
you're choosing to recognize. So, you want to make sure you have a policy in place that addresses it. So if you say no or or don't do it, you know, you have some this was kind of the policy and procedure that we had in place. And the policy and procedure is a board member breaks it to the chair. The chair can
either adopt the proclamation for the board to to to put forward or can can seek consensus from the board. So you can add that here and be covered as a separate correct. Is that is that separate from the Robert's rules where
you have the majority of board can bring an agenda item or the superintendent and chair? I think it would be because generally that would be more voting more substantive business items. This is proclamations are more ceremonial. So we need both then if we're trying to match Robert's rules and then also address the
proclamation. Correct. And he's saying add that verbiage here. So where should we add it here if we add it? What would you recommend? thing. Well, I did provide a draft proclamations policy to the uh Kelly, I believe. Kelly, did I
send that to you? Neil has a proclamation. Um, if you wanted to put it in here, it should be a separate paragraph, I think. Yeah, I I would I would maybe, you know, like these consent agenda, maybe you could have
Yeah. E or E, you know, move E down, make an E. proclamations called Call and I haven't seen the one that that you gave, Kelly, but I would just keep it very very simple that the the process for proclamations because they're ceremonial is it's sent directly to the chair and
the chair at their option could either adopt or or seek seek consensus from the board. Do you have that at a workshop? Miss Watt, do you have that version? So, yes. So, this is one um what we can do is find a way to get
it. It is highly marked up. Do we have a cleaned one? So, so how about we do this? Can we agree on this verbiage to just add to this so we don't have to do a separate one? Do we have consensus for Mr. Blocker's verbiage? Miss Gilhalen
specifically pertaining to proclamations. Yes, Miss Clark. Sure. Mr. Alva, okay. So with that consensus, if we can use whatever he just said, that verbiage and add it there to this um a
board member may bring to the chair a proposed proclamation. Correct. The the the process for proclamations is for a board member to so so if a member of the public wants a proclamation, they can go to Mrs. Gilhousen as a board member and say, "Hey, I'd like this proclamation."
Or Mrs. Gilhousen using her as example on her own valition. So it would flow to the board member then to the chair. The chair can either adopt a proclamation at a regular board meeting or bring it forward at a workshop for
consensus. When you say adopt it, you mean adopt it for the put it on the agenda. Correct. At at at a business meeting or at her option or his option could bring it um you know if if they see consensus would bring it to a workshop for
consensus. Was that does that make sense? Like is that is that a consistent word? And then where would the other part go? So the other part he changed at the top with board majority under the agenda, but you have to get consensus on that. What I'm hearing from Miss Gilous
and you don't want to change it. You want individuals to have the opportunity. I'm not I'm not partial one way or the other. I was just explaining kind of past president and what would be different now. So, for example, like I know in the past you brought policies.
You wouldn't be able to do that. You can't put the policy on the agenda. You would need you would need to bring it to us as a board during like your board member comments and then as a board we'd have to decide yes, we want to put this. Does that make sense? Yep. Um so, so um
my question is do we want to align with Robert's rules of order or do you guys want to keep it as is? So, do you want board majority to be able to discuss everything like the rest of the I state? I'd prefer to keep it as a board member can bring agenda item because we all
represent different districts and we don't know what situation I have in my district, yours and yours. We can discuss in the workshop. I might, you know, be able to take opinions and and maybe we can figure it out. But I prefer everybody individually can bring a
agenda item. So the workshop at the workshop yes not bringing something brand new to a school board meeting be at the workshop we never bring it at the school board meeting we already discussed before so I mean that that's a totally different thing altogether do we want to instead of making it for all
agendas it would just be for workshop agendas I just think the board should have opportunity to talk about something together right and so the only way to do that is have it on an agenda before we vote on that because we can't talk to each other. So before we vote on
it at some point, we need to be able to have a conversation about it and and that's that's it. Like do we all want to have a conversation? If a school board does bring something forward, we want to be able to talk about it. Well, that individual board members can
bring an item for discussion by requesting it superintendent. So that's for a workshop, too. Yeah. Well, the discussion is once we've discussed it at the workshop, we could bring something to have further discussion at the what we had already talked about at the workshop. What we're talking about is
bringing forth an idea. It would be on the workshop agenda. So like as a board member, if you're going to submit something for a regular for a regular board meeting, we would discuss it during the workshop because it would be on that. So that's the way it works. Like we discuss it at a workshop, then
it's on the agenda and we vote, right? or if we don't want to vote for it, we can pull it to discussion and separate it. So, uh, but that it's not what happened. Yeah. So, the point is is it and it's happened to where it may have been on the agenda, but there was
nothing to discuss on it and then it was moved to the the floor for a vote before we had opportunity to discuss it. Mhm. See what I'm saying? Yeah. So, we want to prevent that from
happening. We want to be able to talk about it prior so no surprises. Yeah, we want to discuss. This allows you to bring it for discussion at any meeting or workshop. So, we're back to to put it on the agenda. You have to
have a majority of the board or the chair and superintendent discussion or for just agenda items. For an agenda item. So, yes, for the discussion agenda, you need a majority. Well, according to this, we don't. It says any any school board member can add
it. So, so if if I can if I can just make a suggestion. So, so I I think I think what y'all were saying is you want a board member to be able to bring it forward. Why not just insert in there at the workshop? So, board member, I'm going to use you as an example, Mrs. Gilhousen. And Mrs. Gilhousen wants as a
board member, her priority is to bring an issue forward. She can bring it forward to the to the workshop workshop. it's on the workshop agenda. Then y'all can discuss it and decide whether it goes to the regular business meeting for an agenda because this gives you all the opportunity so that way any board member
can bring any item to the workshop. It can be vetted then y'all can decide whether it's going to go on the regular agenda. Does that is that consistent with it's what we've usually done. We just don't want it's kind of splitting the baby. It's it's kind of keeping things the way that they've always been but also yes tightening up the control a
little bit. I'm fine with that. And let me just clarify, I think I know the proclamation we're talking about and there was no intent to keep it off the workshop to where we could discuss it. There was no intent for it to just come before the school board meeting. Fact, it was on
the April agenda. And I'm not going to get into why it got moved to May, but to me, proclamations are proclaiming, we don't even read the proclamations because we have so many. And I think that's something we ought to discuss whether we
want to read that proclamation. So now we'll have one that just says what you just said, then we'll have the proclamation one and that should solve the problem, right? We could talk about it. Yeah, I I still would like to see the proclamation policy. I don't know if
there's criteria in there for what kinds of proclamations will be considered, if that's something we want to talk about. Um, so we don't have the proclamation opened up by um
where we are we going to continue to do certain proclamations cuz now we've we've opened up Pandora's box essentially to do a wide variety of proclamations. I I don't think we have but I would like to see
what Mueller's language is for that. So I personally think educational proclamations are great. So like when we thank all the speech therapists, CTE month, CTE month, I think that in the world we live in that we
should be extremely focused on education and all the rest of the junk needs to go aside. You know, if we want to make general proclamations that affect education, that's great. But I think really anything that takes our
eyes off the target, which is student achievement should be set for somewhere else. That students and staff and teachers and faculties and what's going on in our school should be the priority for proclamations. That's just my personal opinion as a teacher and that's
really where I think we should keep it. So well and I think the proclamation that that we voted on was about education. So, it's all I guess subjective in how you look at it. Well, that's a point if we put the sentence in
here about proclamations that would address the board's concern and make sure that that stop and was discussed. Yeah. To decide whether or not it would advance past. Can we expand it in our um board protocols? Yeah, we could talk more about it in board protocols about
maybe what we would like to see and what we wouldn't like to see. So, can we also print this out for you, too? If that's something that you want to expand on in your board protocols meeting language, it's it's a very marked up version, but I I'm happy to
get that from everyone. Can we add that other verbiage where um the agenda item what he said about a policy discussing it at a workshop? I don't think we can and then getting consensus to put it on I don't know or vote. You added that. We
will put that in where Mr. Blocker. No, not the proclamations. The other one, Madam Chair. Mr. Blocker. Okay, hold on one second. I'm trying to make sure he at the very top there's a sentence that says individual board members place an item for discussion. Yes. On a workshop
agenda. I would fix it and then then we can do consensus on whether we want to vote or whatever. Mr. Blocker. Yes, ma'am. I I just if in in y'all's next meeting just make sure because there is y'all may be voting on a policy. Just make sure that we're not talking about I
I think um Kelly can print that out for us, but I don't think we can discuss it um in a shade meeting. I think that's got to be a public discussion because it's a policy that we would vote on for proclamations. Why would we discuss that in a shade meeting? We just talked about
discussing the policy in the shade meeting. I missed that. I didn't hear anybody saying we discussed it in a shady meeting. Yeah, we talked about could we talk about h how to handle proclamations in our board protocol meeting? Oh, the answer is no, we can't.
Is that going to be a shady? Well, no, it's not sh but but I but I but I understand your point like y'all don't want to be cuz y'all could be voting on it. C can I just address one one more thing about the um so the most recent case on proclamations that went
in front of Judge Corgan in the middle district. So St. St. John County was the ones who So, so the issue in that case and in the way it it came down was essentially with proclamations. If you're going to do proclamations and you do all the proclamations, if you're
going to limit it, then you have to make sure that that there there really some key points that you have to hit or you just keep it very bland. You just keep it very basic to like community efforts. Um the the problem was this is back in
2020 2021 there was a lot of on both sides very politically charged you know hey we're going to have one about the confederate flag we're going to have one about gun rights we're going to have one about abortion so you had school boards and and county commissions and loyally you know picking and some just stopped
doing proclamations entirely. I think this process gives y'all an opportunity where y'all as a board can kind of vet it where staff isn't having to, you know, figure out which proclamation to bring forward. Now, y'all really dealing with that right now. That could happen again in the future, but really what the court said is you have to have some
mechanism. You can't just have, you know, a staff member say, "Yeah, we're going to do one on transgenderism, but we're not going to do one on, you know, Knights of Columbus." So, when you've been doing them for everybody, then you start kind of picking. So, I think kind of having this kind of built in will protect you all. And again, we're not at
that point now. That's not happening now, but you want to look to the future and make sure you have that right policy. So, I just want to kind of tie tie the loop on that. Um, okay. So, we'll revisit a um a proclamation policy, but right now, we'll use this verbiage if everybody's okay with that.
All right. Any other comments, questions for Viola? And Viola, do you have everything 211 that? No, because that work with 9210. Okay. Yep. And do you have everything you need
for this policy? I think so. Okay. All righty. Thank you. Next up, Mr. Boy. Does that mean we're done with policies? Yes. Y'all did great. Y'all did amazing. 300
500 and 500. Lord help us. Lord help us. Sounds like that might deserve a proclamation. Make sure you read it, please. Go right there. It's working perfectly. Thank you.
Sorry. I don't even know how to Good to go. Wait a second. What do you want me to do? Let's uh We got a majority. Now, let's move forward. Okay. All right. Sounds good. So, uh honorable school board, superintendent, district staff, members of the community, I appreciate you
allowing me to speak to you guys today. wanted to uh highlight something that was in recent legislation that was passed um in the Florida legislature. House Bill 11:05 uh bans elementary and middle school students from using cell phones during school hours, but it does allow for high school usage outside of
instructional time. One of the things in that legislation though is a pilot program. Uh it's going to explore a pilot program in six counties, too small, too medium, too large, uh that affects uh that explores the effects of banning cell phones in high school. uh the the DOE will will partner with
districts and and gather academic and behavioral da uh data to gauge the overall effectiveness of that. Yonder uh which is something I'm going to talk a little bit about today is partnering with the DOE to fully fund certain pilot districts. Uh so I want to make this
part very very clear. My goal today here is not to advocate for Yonder or for us participating in this pilot program, but this is a decision that is bigger and we need to have everybody on board if we decide to move forward with that. My goal is to provide you with information and find out if this is something that
this school board is interested in moving forward with. Um the following presentation, I made it very very clear which slides were mine and which slides were Yanders provided. So, but I wanted to answer any questions that you guys may have. Uh, I've been working with the Yonder representative for about a month
now, just trying to find more about the program, uh, so that I could be knowledgeable and speak with you guys here today. What am I doing wrong? Okay. All right. So, we and and part of the reason why
I'm I'm bringing this forward is is that, you know, this school board has been very proactive with cell phones. uh we've been very kind of almost a pioneer when it comes to the harmful effects on academic and behavioral information. One of the stats that Yonder provides is that the average person checks their
cell phone 96 times a day. All right. Obviously obviously that's going to have a negative effect when it comes to uh to students in school. Uh we've been very proactive and I I feel confident to say that we've done a very very good job of keeping cell phones out of our classroom
time. Okay. Are we good now? There you go. There we go. Okay. So, one of the things that that Yonder talks a lot about and and you know, we've seen through our experiences here are kind of social, psychological, and academic effects of cell phones in the classroom.
All right. Um, when it comes down to it, that I think the average social media time is about 3 hours per day. And what you're going to see when we have that amount of social media time and the majority of students access that social media from their cell phones. So when we have that amount of time on our cell
phone, we start to see more anxious kids. We start to see more stressed kids. We start to see kids paying more attention to other things as opposed to their academic studies. All right. So this is kind of what some of the negative impacts uh that has been studied through research uh when it comes to cell phones. 20 minutes takes
about 20 minutes to recover from a nearby cell phone distraction. A 15 point decrease in mathematics scores uh when distracted by phones. The three-hour stat on social media basically doubles anxiety and depression risks amongst youth and 68%age of students who report that electronic
devices are distracting in the classroom. So it's very very clear uh that cell phones do have a negative impact when it comes to academic achievement uh in the classroom. So what are people doing about it? You guys are all in the know on a lot of this stuff. All right, cell phone regulations are
surging. One in seven countries have banned uh phones in school. Uh Florida is one of the pioneers in the United States in regards to banning cell phones in school. But 75% of public schools in the United States have some form of restriction on cell phones during school hours. The question then comes down to
the effectiveness of that ban. Right? Phone bans are not enough. All right? Cell phone bans are in a place in 77% of schools, but this high number refers to any school that tells students they should not use their phone while in class. That's not really a ban. That's more of an uninforcable wish, uh, says
this social psychologist. But I would I would kind of counter that and say that our teachers have done a phenomenal job in keeping cell phones out of of the classroom. Okay? And that's that's one of those situations that we're kind of putting our teachers in a really tough spot when it comes to classroom cell
phone use. And that's kind of what this this next part talks a little bit to is we tried phone buckets, boxes, charging stations. When you put a phone policy in the hands of a teacher, you're setting up an antagonistic relationship with students because our students have become reliant and dependent on those cell phone devices. You guys can go see
it in any event outside of school. Kids are constantly on those phones. Uh and it's become a burden not just for classroom teachers, but also for for administrators to try to make sure that we are pulling phones away from students and we're we're now I'm responsible for
it and it just becomes a very very difficult situation all around. So, what Yonder solution has been, and they're kind of the industry leader in this, are these pouches. All right. Has anybody in here ever seen or used a pouch in that that situation? Okay. So, so the the
goal in what Yonder says is that you have to have a tool in order to make a cell phone ban effective. You can't just say, you know, hey, administrators need to run around, teachers need to run around everywhere you go. We got to make sure the kids aren't on their cell phone. That would be all they would do
all day, every day. So what what they have they've come up with are these types of pouches to where kids put them in there. They're locked and then they are ultimately unlocked at the end of the day. All right. So we can get into uh a few slides from now. I have a a little minute video that will explain things. I know you guys have seen a lot
of this stuff but uh for for members of the public and anybody else who may be watching. So millions of students have benefited. Yonder really is the leader when it comes to this space. Uh there's there's not a lot of comp competition in this space. Uh, so I was interested when Yonder approached uh approached me um
basically through the kind of the cell phone awareness stuff that I was doing about, you know, hey, is this something you guys would be interested in if we had a fully funded pilot program going? So, let's take about a minute and just kind of let the video play for anybody who may be watching at home. Can
we see if I can maybe went too far. I think we both pressed it at the same time. Maybe not. I didn't see a link in it to press. Oh, here we go. Do we have sound? I mute it on
student engagement, social development, and mental health. cell phone alphos have been linked to many of the district's recent problems. Texting, tweeting, of anxiety and depression, bullying, safety, and phone. In an effort to crack down on cell phone
usage, the district piloted these magnetic blocking bags called under is an easy solution for a generation in the midst of a mental health crisis. Yonder is the established leader in creating foam free schools. For over 10
years, our product and program has allow students to experience the focus, creativity, and relief that comes from a foam free school day. As students enter school, they place their phone in their assigned yonder pouch. They close and secure their pouch, keeping it with them
throughout the day. When leaving school, students tap their pouch on an unlocking base to retrieve a phone. Yo is used by millions of students every day across 26 countries. Our school partners report having more teaching time in the
classroom, improve student safety and wellness, better student engagement, student behavior, and academic performance. Creating phone free schools is a community initiative. Our comprehensive program provides support to our school
partners from start to finish with step-by-step guidance, parent communication materials, policy development, and proven expertise to ensure everyone understands the difference a phoneree education can make. It's amazing to see kids come to
school and not have to worry about that thing or them being bullied by someone else on social media. It was kind of um annoying at first, but then I felt like the difference between like my old school and this school. I see more people like interacting rather than
being on their phones like 30 times. They are way more engaged. Everyone's happier. It's night and day. I saw kids faces again. Okay. So, all right. So, that's just a little information about it. Obviously, this would be a very dramatic shift if
we were to join this pilot program. So, there would be a lot of partnership that we would need to do. uh a lot of um information that we would need to put out to to parents and community members and kids and and obviously a lot of support for for our teachers and our administrators on exactly what
procedures we would want to to move forward with it. But like I said, this this was an opportunity and I felt like it was too big to you know make the decision myself and ultimately I really wanted to to work with you guys on on trying to get an idea on what you all think with it. I've already talked a little bit about the partnership. uh
they do have a lot of support um a lot of very positive experiences with them even though we don't know of of you know any districts in Florida that have done it or the Florida level at Florida has been more kind of seen in some certain charter schools that are in more South
Florida. Um but I know that question is is going to come. So uh phone free equipment uh pouches on locking bases and handheld mag magnets as you can see how that happened. Uh training and support and then curriculum resources as well. Uh obviously the claims are are
you know the good things go up the bad things go down. So uh you know those are those are obviously we're all working uh to try to provide solutions and and answers and help for students who are suff suffering with uh anxiety, depression, social alienation, cyber bullying, those sorts of things. Um th
those are those are some of the many things that we're working with. uh they actually uh partner with Common Sense Media uh which is a group that we've kind of worked through um with some of our cell phone um safety uh presentations in the past. Uh overall
the data kind of speaks for itself. Uh positive changes in engagement, safety and wellness uh and overall academic performance as well. uh more data. This is the more academic side of things where they've seen the the biggest effect uh when it comes to
to overall student success rates. And then positive impact on behavior as well, behavioral referrals. As a high school principal, I can't tell you how many times uh you know, things would start over social media or through cell phones or things of that nature. Um whether it was bullying and harassment
or just overall, you know, hey, let's meet let's meet in the hallways or let's go meet here, let's you know, ask your teacher for a pass, that sort of stuff. So, um, overall you've got a number of educator testimonials here. Um, more energetic and positive. More books checked out in one week than all of last
year combined. Discipline issues are down significantly by about a third, giving children back their youth. Uh, students are talking to one another again, and pass rates um, in US history went up substantially at that particular school. Overall though, uh, the planning and the community outreach. I'll be
honest with you, I'd be a little I'm a little tentative on the timeline and getting all this ready to roll out for next school year. Um, but they they do support that and obviously with the DOE behind it, um, it would be it would be something that that would we we would have a significant amount of support
should we choose to move forward with this. Uh ultimately, you know, it's about the kids and and that's what we have to make decisions with with the kids in mind. Um and in trying to, you know, help them even if they don't necessarily see this as a help, uh but
helping them focus on the right things while they're in our 14% of the time. So, a couple challenges. Now, this is back to kind of Matt Boyak language again. Uh this is no longer the yonder pitch side of the presentation, but you know the rollout messaging I just mentioned uh Yonder will support it, but
it will require a major coordination to get this information out to parents should we choose to to embark in the cell phone pilot program. The logistics of implementation and management. Obviously, there's a lot of procedures that would need to take place. Uh when would students lock phones? You know, would it be a part of their first
period? Would it be a part of, you know, second, third, fourth period? uh if they were a blended schedule, how would how would that all of that look like? What would the unlocking of phones look like? What would, you know, exemptions look like for students who have maybe medical needs or use assisted technology? All of
those kind of things we would have to to really start to to think about here quickly. Uh changing the code of conduct and the policy. Currently, we allow it for use at lunch. If we were going to jump into this pilot program, we would need to stop the allowing of using it at using cell phones during lunch. Again,
this is only for the high school level. future costs if we decided to um you know expand this to the junior high level or replacement pouches in future years when we were no longer in the pilot program. Ultimately there's no perfect system. You know kids are going to try to outsmart the system. Uh
utilizing dummy phones and pouches. I forgot my pouch. I lost or damaged pouches, medical exemptions, all of those sorts of things. Uh we would know those things in advance and we would have plans for for each one of them as they came along. And then ultimately the the biggest
um kind of thing that you hear from parents when when you bring these kind of things up is I want to be able to contact my child in the event of an emergency. Well, we all know that in the event of a lockdown or anything along those lines, one of the worst things that we can have happen is 20 phones going off and kids talking on the phone
rather than being um following their lockdown procedures and those sorts of things. But then it comes down to well what if I need to send them home a different way or what if I need to get them information about their job or other those sorts of things and that's those would be the questions that we would we would need to be prepared to
answer. You know when when I was in school they called the front office they delivered the message and we did things that way. Uh but again I I just wanted to kind of bring this forward to you not in any type of advocacy but rather just hey this is an opportunity we've been approached with. Is this something that
we are interested in moving forward with? And are do you have any questions for me that I could kind of hopefully help answer based off of my limited knowledge of this? So, I'm thinking about our current policies often in the backpack. High schools after visiting a
lot of schools this year are the ones that have the biggest problem. And teachers complain, "What are we going to do about other teachers that use their cell phone standing in the hall during class change?" Right. In general, I have watched a school. It was
a private school. Wasn't super small, but I watched them. They did it during first period and that last 5 minutes when people are packing up is when they turned them off. I don't know how a large district would do that. I think it's a phenomenal thing because the the biggest hurdle is you write a policy,
but how do you make that policy happen when kids are so addicted to their cell phones, right? And so well in at at the high school level obviously you have transitionary periods so kids are changing from first period to second period to third period and and while
there are teachers in the hallway while there's admins in the hallway you got you have a lot of unsupervised zone bathrooms and stairwells and things of that nature that you know it's like kind of a game of whack-a-ole when when you're you know you're going over here and then the kids are going to go over there and so it's it's just one of those
situations that no system is perfect and I wanted to make sure that you know we to think that this was going to solve all of our problems because honestly some of it will will create new problems. But ultimately, if we decided to move forward with this, you know, it would be one of those things to where,
you know, they would hopefully, you know, have the phone locked the minute they stepped on campus and then, you know, unlock towards the end of the day. and it wouldn't be a thing. Well, I put it in my backpack first period, but as soon as I got out of first period, then I took it out of my backpack and, you know, had that sort of challenges can
all be stopped by having very high expectations and actually following through. So, if a kid would have a dummy phone, we have a very I mean, it's like when I asked you about locking doors, right? Mhm. Yeah. The state helps set things to do. I mean, that expectation was set. Yeah. And it happened in Klay
County. Yeah. So these challenges to me in Klay County is just about our expectation and actually having a discipline system that works well. And I think in this this situation there's a lot less grace when it comes to to
consequences for cell phone violations because then you would be intentionally defying right the the program that we have in place. And it wouldn't necessarily just be a you know a spur-ofthe- moment poor decision. And it would be an intentional act uh that that you would discipline in my opinion a
little harsher but that would go to the co say I mean it would save a ton of time with teachers struggling. I know teachers are 15 kids an hour they're telling you know sneaking on their cell phones right. So yeah and it would take the pressure off of the kid in some some
respects as well as far as you know hey I don't even have the option to go on it so I got to get used to not being on it for a little bit. So cold turkey so to speak. So, I just I wanted to say that um I know you and I spoke a little bit on this and I had asked a couple
questions. Um but and everybody knows where I stand on this cuz the majority of what they've discussed I think we've already rehashed and talked about. I know Miss Hansen and I had held um a community forum where a lot of the parents came and had the same concerns.
Uh and our legislators have done an excellent job getting ahead of this. Um, I think that when we're looking at something like this and we're looking about looking at whether it's convenience for parents or not, but we're ultimately looking at students and
what's best for students. I think a push for this is a good idea, but because it is good for students, but on top of that, this takes away the responsibility. A lot of the responsibility of okay, if I see a kid who has a cell phone, what am I supposed
to do with it now? Cuz a lot of a huge complaint that teachers have is I can't I don't want to touch their belongings. I don't want to take it away. Or or another teacher is allowing the phone, but I don't allow it in my classroom. and to try to rein all of these students in and I have, you know, all these kids,
it's it's too hard. Um, so I think, you know, with the support of of principles in the district with this, I I think that we would see positive changes in this because I'm telling I've talked to teachers young and old. This is a major
problem. I don't care what anyone says, their their two major concerns are vaping and cell phones. without a doubt, doesn't matter their age at teaching. So, um, all they do is they beg for for help. And like you said, even though
there's a state statute that prevents this, you can't stop it. You know, it's just a not a real band, if you will. And the funny part is yesterday I got a call about a student complaining, our society we live in,
about the teacher being on the phone all the time. So there you go. And so now I have to, you know, reach out to that schools. But I would I mean I personally would like to not even see the thumb on school property, but that's not reality.
I would like to hear from our administrators as far as if we do take it away at lunchtime, what that effect is going to be like. I think when we heard feedback from them, it was the enforcement of taking the phone away at lunchtime that was difficult. And I'd
like to hear the volume, you know, how much time do the high schoolers spend, you know, what kind of effect are we going to going to see? And phone calls increase. The other thing was they said it was quieter in the cafeteria with
cell phone use, which would make sense. I talked to the administrators from three junior highs and there is and maybe Mr. Nebraskans to be off and out of sight. And there are schools that literally put them off and against the wall like we used to during our, you know, back in
the day during, well, they probably still do fast testing. The junior high people, I've had teachers call me and say, "It's amazing the difference between our kids now and before when they had cell phones."
So, like you said, there's there's challenges, right? But, and Mrs. Skipper is exactly right. When you meet with teachers, some are quitting over the disruption. You know where the disruption is coming from? The majority of the disruption is coming from behaviors and cell phones. It's all
related, right? And as for teachers, Miss Clark, I actually told this to a teacher the other day. They're on your team. You need to handle that. like if you want to follow policy and you know it's disruptive and there's things that administrators can do to help with that
too I'm sure if teachers are breaking the rules you know but for the for the benefits that it provides for our kids I mean so Mr. Correct. This would be just for high schools. It's correct. It would be just for high schools. Right now, there is no pilot program for junior
high because they wrote it in the bill that it was flatout banned in elementary and junior high, but they want to see what the effects are because high school is a different beast. They want to see what the effects are at the high school level of having this in six counties. Okay. So, the funding, the cost is
covered for just the first year. So, so that's the question, right? Is we're still waiting on a state budget. So, you know, as of right now, the intent was to have a fully funded pilot program. So, you know, my thoughts would be getting an answer from you all and saying, you know, yes, as long as it was fully
funded, we're interested or no, we are not interested at this time. So, that's kind of where I'm looking. Uh, but yes, the cost on these, just so you know, for future years and if we did want to expand, uh, they are about $30 per pouch. And that comes with all of your
everything else kind of included into that that process. That comes with your unlocking devices, that comes with your support, that comes with those sorts of things. So, it is a rather expensive proposition. Um, which is part of the the reason that, you know, the pilot
program appeals is that, you know, if we could get these purchased uh from the state and, you know, provide them with data on whether or not, you know, we saw positive effects behaviorally or academically, then I I thought it might be worth bringing up to you guys. Does this fall under safety?
It's a great question, Miss Hansen. It it has fallen under safety. Well, I mean, it is a safety issue with kids for it. It is, but I'm asking like for real. So, so um no, I I think that you know when we started this this process, Mr. Broski is adamant about how we could you
know make um the enforcement of this better. Uh when it comes to the cell phone bans at the high school level, Miss Picket, Mr. Daly and I sat down and we kind of started discussing this. Um and this was one of the ideas that came up. that was prior to us even knowing about the
um about the pilot program and the possibility of this being being funded. Um so so we're looking at at trying to strengthen whether we go forward with this or whether we don't. It's not like we're going to just kind of throw our hands up and say, "Oh, well, uh we've got some other ideas in place as well."
Um but like like I said, to answer your question, kind of because you know there's a lot of disciplinary stuff that comes out of of student cell phone use. Um, so you know, obviously if if cell phones were put away um and and you know, unreachable during the day, then
then I would I would posit that we would have a lot lot fewer behavioral issues for sure. What would be our contractual obligation if we signed on for the pilot program like the financial commitment, the the longevity of the contract? So based on statute and just reading the
statute, um it it looks like that, you know, we would just be responsible to the commissioner of education for providing them with behavioral and academic data. I'm sure they are coming up with what they're going to want us to report on. Um I'm sure they're going to want to compare that to our current year
data um and and determine whether or not, you know, all the claims that that Yonder it makes about academic success, we saw those in Klay County as well. Uh but there is no uh and I asked our the the yonder rep that I was speaking with uh point blank you know are there any
additional costs that we would encumber as a result of this. Um and she said no should that so long that you know the funding for the pilot program not be cut. So then I would get with with our attorneys and kind of put in there and say you know hey you know budget's tight. We're interested in doing this at
the will of you know the school board superintendent everybody. um so long as there, you know, is no additional cost to the district. So, we're not committing to multi-year contract. No, right now it is a one-year. It is a one-year. We're going to pilot it. Uh the deadlines are in the statute as far
as, you know, the commissioner of ed is supposed to present this to the legislature December of 26. We've got to provide them with with data. You know, I think it's by June or July of 26. And then that would be our commitment. So, Mr. What do you need from us today? I just
want I would love to hear some consensus as yes, I'm interested in this. No, I'm not interested in this because what they're asking from me, what they're asking from me is to write a letter basically saying, "Hey, we're on board with this this pilot program. Klay County is interested in exploring this
as a district." Okay. So what you're consenting to is yes to this knowing that you're going to also have to change our policy to match this pilot program. Okay. So can I get consensus from you in the same Mr.
Alson? So you have board consensus. Okay. All right. I'll move forward with that and and uh I'll provide you with updates along the way. All right. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So then let's let's talk timeline for the policy then since we're changing the
policy. It's also a code of conduct. So there's a lot there's a lot to to this. Um, so I would I would think that we would want to Well, we might have to let's see if it gets passed by the state
first, right? Cuz everything's so in flux. may need to call a special meeting for the purposes of this because the timing of um publicly advertising the new policy on cell phones, the 28 days waiting and
then the vote and trying to have that done before August that that gets a little tricky. But since we don't know if the state's going to pass the pilot, we're stuck in a in limbo. Everybody see the complication of this? But by the way, we
said often in a backpack in our policy. So you have a plan for that? Yes. Okay. So, okay. Um, can we do like a special meeting before one of our budget or one of our other have to work out the the details of that? I think we'll know whether or not it's going to pass or
not. Should be. I would think we'd have to give as much notice to the parents of the high school students key. Exactly. Sir. So, so let's let's look at the policy. There may I I thought we had maybe inserted a catchall in the policy
that there's a state law change that kind of grandfathered us in. So, that may save us as far as the timeline for making the policy change. If we have that language inserted in there, we still need to notify the parents, but we may as far as our statutory requirement for the notice of the of the change, we
may be okay. But we have to look at our current policy because I think we inserted some language that there was a state because we knew some of the some of these bills were not pending. Um but the the state in their current legislation didn't go so far as to adopt a beginning bell to ending bell for the
high school level is not in the law. So now we would be adopting that as our policy. So it wouldn't be statuto policy. Mhm. If Yandere is doing this in six counties, would we necessarily be even chosen or we would?
Yeah. So, that's that's a great question. One of the ones I asked as well because I asked, you know, what is your timeline on wanting these letters and and those sorts of things. And obviously, they want the letter in hand so that they can, you know, have their six districts. But I I spoke with her on Friday and,
you know, she was requesting a a, you know, letter soon. So with the will of the board due today, I can get that sent before the end of the day. All right. So we'll just work out logistics later on. So the board would like us to submit the letter just to be
clear. Correct. And and if the letter is submitted to go ahead and change the policy. So we'll have to Good morning board members. Mr. Rosski wanted to come with to you today with some transportation updates. Um
let's say it's been a fun fun year. Um it's it's been very productive, very crazy, very fun. Lots of things coming at us in 5 million different directions as you all know um all too well. So, a couple of things um wanted to come with you today is um kind of discuss some
upcoming changes um look at it from a perspective too to get your support on, let you know some things that parents are going to be coming um I'm going to say at you with some questions. So, I wanted to make sure that you were uh ready to um jump on those questions when they arise. Whoops. I got it's a little
delay. There we go. All right. So some of the things we want to discuss um funding for transportation uh wrership some policy changes uh registering for transportation and some transportation updates. We got a lot of good things that are coming our way in the world of transportation too with our buses um and
also to just some important changes too coming forth uh with our ridership and policy as well. One of the things um I hear throughout the district too is that student enrollment as far as the school level is is down. Obviously, we know that from a transportation piece. The
weird aspect of transportation is our wrership has actually been up um and it continues to go up on that side. So, weird turn of events on that side. I contribute that. Uh parents are going back into the workforce. They're no longer remote employees anymore. Um they're needing that ride to and from
school at that point as well. Um some folks that were stay-at-home parents are no longer stay-at-home parents anymore. Um, we get parents that call us all the time enrolling their students and um, that is the often the question that I'll ask them, hey, what's going on? You know, why why the need now for transportation? Your kids been going or
haven't hasn't been riding for many many years. All of a sudden, they're riding. Um, the common answer to that is they're they're back into the workforce. They're back into or coming out of a remote situation or just they're having to work. So, we're close to about 15,000 riders um that we uh transport daily.
One of the pieces that is important to notate too, just from I don't want to use that B- word of budget. We don't like to say that here lately. I think we're all cringing. But um the state funding for student transportation, we only receive funding for FTE for students living 2 miles or more from the
school. So it's important to notate anyone that is within that unless they have hold certain criteria. We don't receive funds for those. Um kind of pursuant to the Florida administrative code going into detail there. a reasonable walking distance for any student who is not otherwise eligible for student transportation
pursuant to section um 1011.68 is any distance not more than 2 miles between the home and the school. So we got to make sure we're notating that we're not getting any funding for these students that are within that side of it. So I wanted to kind of go into
detail what that looks like. Um this is a topic we don't talk about much. We route a lot of students close to 15,000 and we don't go over the detail on this side but CCDS writers um these are the folks between 0 to two. We do get funding for these students if they have the following. So it's important to
notate if they have an IEP plan that's attached to it. Special transportation is marked at that point. We do get funding for those transport or temporarily disabled students. These are students that might all of a sudden have crutches that have to get help up and down off the buses or just have some other disability. Those students are
generally marked with a 504. We then um classify them for funding. Those kids get uh funding as well. Hazardous walking conditions. This is an important one. Um transportation. We have a team that we actually go out for every single hazard that is um marked throughout the district. We have a team that goes out,
we walk it. We have criteria that is met by the state to deem it whether or not it's going to be a hazard or whether or not it actually applies within that walking distance side of it. Um again, there's a form. Um, I don't mind sharing that with you guys, too, cuz I know you're probably going to get a lot of questions coming up in the upcoming um,
I want to say the summertime. We'll make sure you've got it so you can look at that, too, whenever those questions do hit your plate. Um, but again, we we walk those. We have a team that goes out um, and ensures that a it does meet the state definition and then we get audited
for that too every single year. Um, this is the big one that I I want you guys to be aware about is the courtesy wrership that we currently have. We currently have 960 students that are elementary, 58 junior high students, 240 high school students totaling
1,258. Folks, this is equivalent to 13 buses and it's roughly around $650,000 in missed funding. So, when we get down to the nitty-gritty in funding and the world of the budget side, we've got to look at this. We've also got to look at this from an aspect, too, of our
busing situation. Um the manufacturers are not popping buses out like they used to. Um it's taken us anywhere from a year, two years, sometimes three years to get buses to the compound. Now, while we were extremely lucky this last year to get new buses, um we also had an
increase of ridership. Those new buses, no more than they hit my compound, they went out the door and had a driver in the seat. Um, so with this said too, if we don't bring some attention to this in the two-mile rule, we're not going to have buses for this upcoming year, uh,
we're we're going to be very, very tight. We're going to be looking at the DB word, and that's not David Broski, that's doubleback. Um, I don't like to say that. Um, but in a world of where we're at, if we continue getting the
ridership that we get, we're going to be looking at horse doublebacks. So, in a world of I'm going to say funding, we get funding for the students that are that we currently have that we're going to be forcing those double backs on. The students that are within that two miles,
we're not going to be getting funding for those and that's going to be the calls for those double backs. Um, I've got certain areas that we go into u neighborhoods in Oakleaf that I've got five buses that go into one neighborhood. They pick up students, take them straight to the school. Yes,
ma'am. When you say the the two mile rule, is that two miles as the bird flies or is that two miles like walking path to school? So that's going to be the walking path, the distance of it. So we every school is going to have a different walking path that's that's deemed. Um we it's just depends on what the school is where the front is
considered for that school side. Um we also look at it too from that hazard walk-in side too. Which which way is going to be easier for this for the student to get to the to the school. Okay. Yes ma'am. So, as people know, the people the young
children down 218 don't have a sidewalk. Now, is that hazardous to have like 5-year-olds walking alongside 218 without a sidewalk? So, there's definitions that have to be met to deem it a hazard. Um, if there is ample room that is on the side of the road, then it
wouldn't be deemed a hazard on that side. So, it depends on if they're crossing. And it depends on if there's a crosssection, how many um how many vehicles travel that road, the mile the miles per hour on the road too as well. Um I can tell you that that particular section does not meet a state statute of
a hazard. So like mostly log trucks going 55 miles an hour doesn't Yeah. Yeah. If there's enough room on the side for the student to walk. Who does that? The city. My understanding that's a county is working on it. Yeah. I do that one's been a hot
literally that one's in my inbox. If you see a block in there in the morning, then it's it's bad. It's um it is one that's in the works. I know I've specifically talked to the county um on it a couple of times too as well. And um the administration two of those schools too as well has been a it's been a hot
topic with them. Um couple other things. Skipper, did you have a question? I did. Um well, so would Blanding Boulevard because it has a crosswalk that's not
considered hazardous. So anything that has like a a monitored monitored crosswalk um that's railroad crossings including too. If it's monitored and and the the arms actually are lowered down, it's considered a monitored area. So even with that too, if there's a
crosswalk that the student can press um and activate and cross across safely um then that's not going to be deemed a hazard for the state. Um we're not the only district. We're actually one of the I'm going to say the last districts um on that side
that has implemented this in a funding aspect. Just to name a few, Putnham, St. John's, Elatchua, Panalis, Orange, Hillsboro, Sarasota, Putnham. um just to name a few. Um I can share that with you too as well as far as just the majority of the states. You can kind of see where those fall into play. Um we're one of
the last ones and I can tell you too, I do a lot of um and this is a customer service realm of things too. I have parents that will call me and say, "Hey, we've had a death in the family. We're doing this. Um I need temporary bus pass for this student." We grant those if we
have a seat available. We will continue to grant those if we have seats available. What we can't continue to do is these going into the neighborhoods where there's ample crosswalks, there's ample sidewalks, and these students can travel to and from and missing out on
funding such as $650,000 a year. Um, that's one that in a I'm going to say as we continue to grow. Um, every year is going to continue to to elevate on that side. We're going to get more ridership in these within 2 miles, most of these neighborhoods are growing. Um, they're
they're popping in. We all know that all too well. Um so it's it'sems it's happening it's here it's within us. Um if we we want to look at it from a perspective if we don't bring some attention to it those 13 buses are are
going to hold doublebacks. Um that's also staffing too. I in a world of staffing right now it's been a tough year with that. We've had a lot of folks that have retired. Um, in my world, um, we have had a lot of, I'm going to say, um, folks that are I I call them to
stubbers in in essence. They they get, uh, get a job, they come back out, um, and they're with us for a little bit, but then they're out on um, FML or workers comp or something to those to that extent. Um, I'm staffed to an extent, but I've got a lot of folks that
are out on FML from a lot of folks that are out on workers comp. Um, which is a struggle. Um, so the substitutes that we hired at the beginning of the year, they have been in a full-time bus driving position the whole entire year. Um, so it has been a struggle on that side.
Those 13 drivers that are in those buses right now, we're going to need those folks um at the beginning of the year. So it's it's it's going to be something I need your help on. I need your help in the avenue of of coming up with a solution for it. And this is the solution from transportation that um
we're unfortunately have to look at and um get a pretty good aspect of it. So, the policy proposal, um, currently it is the 1.5. Um, we're looking to change that to students living within 2 miles of school may be provided district bus transportation under the following
conditions. Um, obviously, permanently disabled students, um, students with IEPs, temporarily dis disabled students, and students walking routes to school that meet the state criteria for hazardous walking conditions. Um, and again I want to emphasize this is going
to allow us um a lot of flexibility for bus availability um staffing and the funding side of it. Um it's it's tight in that world but um I don't foresee getting the new buses until mid um mid of this upcoming school year if that if
they actually produce and get out on the line. Um and again the staffing piece has been a challenge. Um we've got some that are upcoming in this summer uh training course, but it's not what we've had in the past. Um we have we have sincerely struggled this year with getting drivers in the seat. Um our
trainers are there. They're ready to roll, but um the folks are just not available. They're not coming in like they have in years past. Um so we've again, we've got to look at that 13 13 plus buses that are going to be there and look at those drivers who we put them in.
Double backs are the number one item that I get phone calls for as far as the um as far as transportation goes. And I know they they boil down to you guys too as well, but it's one that um parents call in on them. Um we've tried to keep things running on time. We when we
select our double backs, we put them in an area to where it's going to be very minimal, less than 10 minutes, sometimes as great as 15. Um, I can't guarantee that every single time we do it, but in a world of it, they're generally somewhere late between 10 to 15 minutes, give or take. Um, those 13 though will
help us out with that at the beginning of the year and be able to route those properly. Um, some of the I'm going say that the more positive side of things is the change we do have coming. Um, I wanted you guys to know that with this obviously it's going to implement a couple different things. Um, but our
trans uh transportation eligibility will be on our website. um parents can go on there and um they can see whether or not they'll be eligible for transportation. If and when we do decide to move forward with this, that will allow us um to give them that flexibility to view that. They
will be able to put their address in um and it will tell them whether or not they can ride a bus. So, if they are within that walking zone and whatever detail that looks like. Um, one of the things we've improved to this year is the ability for parents to opt in or opt
out of transportation. Um, if they feel too that they need um, a hazard deemed in their neighborhood, they can also send that to us electronically. Now, they don't have to go through the dog and pony show of having to go call the transportation office, call the county. Um, they can submit that form to us and then we can take it from there. Um, a
lot of times too that'll mean when we get this form, we can quickly look and say, "Hey, this has been deemed a hazard." And we don't have to go through that long process of a hazard request. So, I kind of wanted to give you just some updates, too. Um, we have had um here comes the bus for quite some
time now. Um, I think everyone had has had a lovehate relationship with it. Um, this particular one, um, we're looking to kind of bring our software together and that is with Bus Planner. Bus Planner is our routing software that's currently existing right now. We have
done really well with Bus Planner. Um so we want to bring in Chipmunk, which is Bus Planner's bus app. Um instead of having two different software companies, we'll have one. So instead of the at night, um the systems having to communicate with each other and do an upload, it will automatically be
uploaded throughout the day. Um parents will get live notifications. One of the really cool things about this one, too, is that if it's an ESC bus and that um parent decides their kid's not riding, they can quickly send a message to my dispatch office and that dispatcher can change that route that morning versus
having to go through the long drawn out process of calling dispatch. Maybe the dispatcher's on the phone, maybe they're not able to answer it, and then we send that bus out there for no reason. So, um this messaging app will be available for ESC students, regular ed students, pretty well anyone. They can communicate directly with our dispatch office. Let's
say we have a severe weather warning or something to that extent or just a route has changed. Um, bus planner um, we can send that directly out um, from our dispatch team and the parents get it live on their phone. It's like an SMS notification and if you have the app on there, it'll just pop up on their on on
the app. Um, and again, the messaging piece can come come through on that side. A lot of times the buses they will go down as far as breaking down. This will also tell them um if we substitute that bus and if we have to do double backs or double ups, it will also give
them the capabilities of seeing what bus number they change to. As it stands right now, my dispatch team, which is two two folks, they have to send this out manually through the robocall system, which is very, very, very much a pain in the rear end. Um so, and it's just for two folks that are in there too
as well. So, this will simplify matters um extremely and um get our communication back up to par with our with our team and our our parents. Mr. Crawford, can I just say something? Thank you for this because uh I know
some of us have complained about communication and about how we have multiple different apps doing multiple different things and that was one of the biggest complaints with parents. So, I just want to say thank you for this because not only have you made it easier
for parents to communicate, you made it easier for just a a one app sort of thing like they can do all of it um in one thing and it helps us on the on the district and hopefully cost side of things. I just I wanted to point that
out because there are so many people who take care of kids that are not their parents and their grandparents and everything's all electronic and um I know sometimes staffing's an issue with with calling in and saying, "Hey, where's the bus or that or whatever."
You just made it 10 times easier. So, thank you for that. Absolutely. I appreciate that. It really will help in in the world of communication. That is our goal. I mean I unfortunately in a staffing aspect we don't have a lot of folks there in transportation for the dispatch team. Um but this will this will help out tremendously and the driver gets to drive a lot of that too
from the seat um and their tablet. Uh going to the next this will go out to parents um here shortly in the next couple of days um letting them know that we need to download the app um in the app too. It'll make it real a very simplistic way. Um the opt-in feature
which basically allows transportation to go from routing almost 36,000 students to down to that 15,000 figure. This will help us be able to route just those students in general. So if um when the parent gets it, they'll have that option to go into their app. Um there'll be one
little form that says opt in and it's almost like a check yes or no aspect. um we immediately get that from our team side and then we can actually start routing those over the summer versus waiting for that huge upload to come into our department. So will that help um because I know your funding comes in
a form of person in a seat kid in a seat right and so is that what you're trying to do eliminate all the seats that kids sometimes show up and then we don't get funding. So, I have a bus in general. Um, and this sounds really odd, but um
her route um she serves um Discovery Oaks Elementary. Um it is a very populated um neighborhood. She goes into that neighborhood. Her route has almost 160 kids enrolled to her bus. Now, obviously, this is not a triple decker. This is a regular bus. Um but that goes
to show you we don't know if those kids are going to ride or are they are they not riding? Um, so with that world of things too, the way the routing goes, this bus is assigned to this neighborhood and technically it's 160 plus students that are enrolled for this particular bus. We know that 160 kids
don't have it. Um, but on average, this particular bus holds anywhere from 55 to 60 elementary kids, but yet there's this many that are enrolled. So, this will allow us to fix that. This will allow us to go in and say, "Okay, hey, this particular bus scanned on 65 kids. We
know these kids are enrolled. we know these kids are going to be riding on a day-to-day basis. So, it helps us with that funding side, too. Um, we I'm going to be honest with you, here in the last couple of years, we have went um we went from a the paper paper and pen method.
Um, drivers had a sheet of paper that they did a check off for their for their uh FFP figures. Um, this will allow us to to go electronic on that, too. When the kid gets on the bus, they get scanned on um versus them having to at the end of the day go through and do a check off system with them. Um, so let's
be honest, the driver is doing that check off system in the seat of the bus, which means that there's a lot of things coming at them on the day-to-day basis, too. Them scanning on and off the bus will allow us to capture additional funding. Just over just the pilot method that we did last year, we increased um
it was about 12% give or take um increasing our student counts that come through. So, we've already seen that that increase come about. whenever this new school school year rolls around, I'm pretty excited to see what those changes will be and just what our FF figure figures will be for upcoming
years. So again, um parents will get this in the upcoming days. We will ask them to opt in um which will allow us to properly route students. Some other important u pieces too, our bus drivers have been needing some um updated tablets. We are getting those new tablets installed on the buses
this year. Um, one of the things that, uh, CALM, our old, uh, GPS system, one of the problems, um, drivers would always say the GPS doesn't work properly. I don't know if you guys have ever got a complaint on that side of them, but, um, with these tablets, the GPS platform will change. It'll go from
Cal AMP to bus planner, which means there's not that communication issue that we've had over in the past. So, the driver is going to get a new updated tablet. Um, they can actually see it a whole lot better, too. The tablet they currently have is very small. this one, it it brightens the aspect of it, gives them a clearer view. Um, and again,
we're not waiting for that upload to happen. So, when we make a route change in the um dispatch office, the driver instantly sees it. Um, they can also too, if they're doing a field trip, they can use this as a mechanism too to give them the directions to go from point A to point B. Um, so it increases safety
on that side. They're not pulling their phone out or trying to navigate with that phone. Um, it'll give them that option to use that platform within the device. Last but not least, they're getting new student scanners, too, to um to update with our uh our badges. So, um this whole system will be new to them
this upcoming summer. They'll train on that. And again, um our goal here is to to make it go a little bit faster. Our current scanners, um whenever we have a heavy loaded stop, generally there's anywhere from 45 to 50 kids coming in on a neighborhood stop. It takes them a while to scan these students on. We
actually had about 60 drivers the other day use their badge. We had them all lined up like they were boarding the bus. it it was a real quick swift process. The the new scanners, they work really fast. Um the students can actually do it themselves when they get on the bus. Um so it simplifies the process extremely. So we're looking
forward to that change and uh popping that out for the upcoming school year. Um any questions on the two mile rule? Um I well I just
um I'm okay with that. My concern is is can we please talk to the county commission with 218. Uh my family lives on the east side of 218 and um up until recently there wasn't really
a sidewalk. Uh there still isn't. And if I were to go to school from my mom's house, I'd have to walk to the junior high. And there's been five deaths right around bicycles, her house. And um
granted, she lives kind of like on a curb, but I just I think about my five and sevenyear-old walking to school on a 60 m an hour that they don't it's 55 actually, but they they treat it like
the autobond, like it's like 70 plus sometimes. Um that's the only thing that I have concern with. I know like in neighborhoods they have you it's a lot slower speed whether people abide by that or not but um I
just worry about 218 on both ends uh for that reason. So if we can maybe emphasize to the county that we are moving this way that maybe um nothing is fast in government but emphasize the
importance of it just because my concern is is I I know how that road is, but it's it's more than that because the majority of unpaved roads, so I'm talking about bumpy dirt, sliding roads, people slide off all the time because of the sand on
the roads are in that dis in my district, right? There's not a sidewalk within four miles of my house. Kids are forced to walk on the road. And now we're going to have little kids and it's not your
fault and I understand that. But this is the first time in my life I feel almost panicked because these are like you got three-year-old programs, four-year-old programs, kindergarteners walking two miles where there's not a sidewalk in sight. I mean, I don't know if there's
something we can do about that. I know we can't change the legislation, right? But this is a place where there's dubious characters. No sidewalks, unpaved roads. 218 is such a bad highway. Four people were killed
on Dolphin and 218 crossing on a bike in the last year. It's so bad they're actually trying to make it four lanes. So, I feel like there is something we ought to be able to do with this county to at least give one walkway. You know how they used to do that? We're going to give a sidewalk from this area and the
kids could cut over to that area and walk on a I don't know. And I will tell you, we've we have been in conversations and meetings with the county where we've talked about these different areas. Um 218 was brought up and they're working on I know one of those yellow flashing
lights for pedestrians. Um there's one there now. I think they were looking at other areas to do that as well. Um, so yeah, they're they're definitely aware of it and we have been in discussions with them, but we will let them know about our two-mile um, you know, change
and see if, you know, they can continue helping us. Um, I mean, for for the most part, I mean, we I would never let my kids do that. I personally, but there are certain times where like parents just can't help it. I mean, it's either put food on the table. I mean, I get it.
I get it. Um, I also understand I wouldn't let my five and seven-year-old do that on on today's teen. I just I we have to advocate for all parents and that that would be my only concern is if we could emphasize to the county, you
know, the importance of this and this is the direction that we're moving. Well, and I'll say this. So, this is just to put us in in accordance with Florida statutes. Now, Randall does a very good job after the first two weeks of school to say like, "Hey, let's see how things shake out." if there's space on a bus
and we know it's not going to be a full bus and he's like yeah I can you know pick this kid up um you know on the way they're on the way he's he'll do that him and his team will do that this isn't to say no you cannot you know anybody under two miles cannot be a courtesy
rider but changing the policy just gives us that flexibility for times like this with staffing and and bus availability to let us do that and I think this this could also be an opportunity and we've talked in the past about um you know how
can our parent teacher organizations assist our schools. I know like my kids go to a school where there's no transportation provided. So um like the parent page will coordinate carpool options for families who need it. Um so there could be some creative solutions
that we could look to our parents who are able to transport their kids back and forth to help those parents who can't. And I guess there's no way that because they're title one schools that can't help us either like helping kids get there.
I think with funding it just depends on that side. But no, we will continue to do these hazards. The hazards will communicate with the county level too. Um so they will get copies of all these two as it moves forward. years. So, well, I just wanted to say thank you to you because when I was first on the
board, it seemed like half the complaints were regarding the lessons, but when you came on board, things changed and we truly value you so much. appreciate that. And I know I think it was the first of this year. It may have
been last year cuz I went out to 218 and stood when uh school ended and I watched what happened. I watched no sidewalks the crossing. But every one of the bus drivers said, "Hey, you know, instead of letting little Johnny cross the walk,"
they'd be happy, you know, they looked out for their safety because they had room on the bus. They just didn't want to take the full ride and wait to come back to exit on that on the west side of 218. But they were very very helpful and
of course I was able to call Patrick at CCSO and got that pedestrian walk and it's it's up and it's running and at least we've got something. But yeah, those that area is pretty wide as far as walking. And no too, we're not we're not
saying this is going to get rid of our customer service aspect. That's that's Thursday. That won't go away as far as my department goes. But I know the county is working on the sidewalk since since I was out there. We've been discussing it. We just probably just need to beat them more to see what the
time frame is going. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you guys. Appreciate it. Before we before we move on, if we can get consensus from the board to change the policy. This is uh 8600 on transportation. So just as a reminder,
the only thing that's really changing the policy puts us in compliance with current stat is that we're giving consent to put it on the regular agenda for a vote. Yes. We'd have to start the process just like there was four policies that are
not in the same time frame as the other 500. Yeah. This would become one of those that would not be in the in the six. It would go to five. So, this is just consent to begin the process. Yes. Yeah. I'm good with that. I'm not happy, but I'm a yes.
I'll hear it. Okay. And I will that would be majority, but we can. So, 8600. So, we'll It's just 1.5 to two, right? Yeah. the 1.5 and I'm going to read what it says.
Students living within and it was 1.5 miles. Now that struck two miles of school may be provided district bus transportation under the following conditions and those conditions did not change. The addition is in accordance
with Florida statute um 101.68. Copy. Do you have that? Okay. Thank you. Mer, are you okay with them adding two miles to the board? Are you guys good on the miss ready? I'm ready. Okay, I'm ready.
All right, so uh good morning, Mr. Broski. Uh, first of all, happy postgraduation weekend. I hope everybody had a wonderful graduation on Friday night. So, um, we all we all had a couple with CBA and
then our high schools. And don't forget we have elevation tonight at 5:00 at Fleming Island High School for anyone that's interested in that. So, got to shout out my graduations. Um, so today what I want to do is give you some information on what we're
calling the Oakleaf Success Center. And I'll give you a little background information. Make it quick. I know we're all uh a little tired. So currently in our current structure for alternative placements if a student has to have an
alternative placement with our current setup any student K6 goes to Ames any student 7 through 12 goes to Banaman. That's how it works currently. But let's throw a little wrench in here. Remember this upcoming
year we're going to have sixth graders at the elementary and we're going to have sixth graders at the junior high. So we had to think hm what what do we want to do with that situation? That is not what I wanted to
do with that. So, here's what we have um created. An idea of having a sixth grade oak leaf success center for sixth graders only that need an alternative
placement. Miss Dixon back there is agreed um with this and Mr. Stafy has gone over this because what we didn't want to do was to send a sixth grader that goes to elementary and have to create Bannerman
sixth grade. So now sixth grade from elementary is going to Bannerman. That didn't sound very good. But likewise, we didn't want to send a junior high sixth grader back to Ames back with the elementary. So, what could we do with
the sixth graders that might need an alternative placement? So, an Oakleaf Success Center is what we've we've created. And that's where our sixth graders, no matter if they're elementary or junior high, will go if an
alternative placement is needed because we already we feel like the elementary parents will be comfortable because we have sixth graders in junior high. Um, and so remember most of the districts in the state have the model of
sixth grade and up as secondary. So we're just just moving to that area. So we needed something for those sixth graders. Traditionally, it's only been about 10 sixth graders over the last
three years each year that have needed an alternative placement. Um, but we did need somewhere for them to go. So, the idea is that we will create the Oakley Success Center at Oakleaf
Junior High where these students will continue to learn to organize, achieve, and progress. Um, we'll facilitate student achievement and behavioral success through this structured environment much like we do either at
Ames or at Bannerman. And remember, this is only for the students that are in sixth grade, no matter if it's junior high or elementary. You may ask, why Oakleaf? That seems like such a long way. Well,
Mr. Remmit provided me with a little scatter plot here so that you could see in our north two quadrants are where most of our students are located anyway. So Oakleaf area really isn't that far
for most of our students. So that doesn't seem like it's going to be an issue there. We already have a vacant portable there that has the hookups for bathroom
and um water. So we use one of the vacant portables that are left. We'll put some some carols in there. the old carols that you might remember um so that we can um create the classroom there. I've already checked with Mr.
Crawford. He actually said since it will be the junior high timing, busing shouldn't be a problem cuz it's the last route of each day, each morning. So, that actually worked out best for him.
Um again, we'll serve the students in sixth grade. Um if it's an elementary generally those are 45day placements and so the sixth grade the schools will send the work and we'll provide that work. If it's um a longer placement then we'll do
the same same strategies that we do at Bannerman where the students follow the current current curriculum guide. Um students will complete the indivi individualized program goals. Um and we'll work on behavior modifications and
things to help them when they return back to their school. Same as we do with Ames and at Baner. Um the district placement uh will follow the current process and I've like I said conferred with Mr. Stafy and Miss Jones that this
this would be very easy process. Um, we'll only need one teacher and one general classroom aid just um hopefully we'll stay with the 10 average or lower would be nice. Um, we'll have the teacher that that will provide the
unique skills as well as social skill practices and also um ensuring the rigor of their curriculum. Um, because we're already at Oakleaf Jr. Then Miss Dixon has agreed to share some of her support such as support facilitation that she
already has on campus. So anything that we need there, she will already provide and be in support of that. Um and then obviously we want to continue to increase academic achievement um and offer specially designed
instruction if needed, high lever practices. And then we want to make sure that we enhance the student accountability and improving behavior and social social skills so that these students can return back to their home school and be
successful. And if you have any questions, you can contact me. If it's regarding the location, then Miss Dixon can help answer any questions. And if it's the process, then Mr. Stafy or Miss Jones can handle any questions. What
happens if we don't have any kids? Well, then that person can support Oakleaf Jr. because I'm sure they could definitely definitely use that. Mr. Stafy, do you have any He may have some that are already Go ahead.
Start off the year at this time. There you go. Unfortunately, we have one person. All right. Well, thank you for your time. All right, Mr.
Brokitation first and then we'll we'll work our way back. Oh, yeah. So, I got two two items that are left. One is the review of the whole agenda. The other one's the budget. Quite frankly, budget board. So, I kind of
switched them around uh given the time frame that we have and where we're at. Okay. So, once Bonnie switch that up, we'll go ahead and we'll get started. So, you know, when you look at the budget, there's there's a couple ways to look at it.
One, just want to point out that that this is not a uh 2425 budget that I'm talking about. It's the 2526 budget. It's next year's budget. Okay, it's coming. It's coming.
Okay, switching up the time frame. Sorry about that. No worries. Okay. Okay. So, again, this year 2425, the current budget, we're going to end the
year with a 3 to 5% bud uh fund balance. We'll meet all of our financial and legal obligations for it. In other words, we did what we said we were going to do at 2425. Um did have one question. Why 3 to
5% and and that's that's simply because we still have May and June to finish to wrap up our books. May is the most expensive month uh in the district because uh summer paychecks are are are
paid during that time frame. So, so the the issue that I'm speaking about today is not 2425, it's moving forward into the 2526 budget and that's of of concern. So again, just just kind of
brief reminders and for anybody that may be listening out there, you know, you're talking about budget, you're talking about revenue and expenditures and obviously your revenue has to be more than your expenditures. So, just like at home, uh if your bills are more than the
amount of money you make, that's not a good position to be in. Obviously, you want to spend less than what you make, right? Or at least equal. Also, I think most people don't realize that funding actually 71% of our funding comes from
the state, 28% comes from local local area um uh taxes and then 1% comes from the federal government. So, the huge makeup of our budget in Klay County Schools is directly from the state,
right? So that creates a a budgeting challenge given our current our current situation. Unfortunately, in the 25 26 year as we're as we are starting the budgeting process and the trim process, we do a general analysis of are we
spending more money than than we are? And for the 2526 because of the obligations of where we're at now and some of the uncertainty, we are in fact there. We're now I'm officially saying and and you saw this in other budgetary sheets right
now. our expenditures, the costs that we have are more than the money that we make. So it's the very situation just like your house. When you make less than what you're spending, that's not a good position to be in. So when you look at
this, the thing I wanted to illustrate by this graph, you can see revenue versus expenditures going all the way back to 2017. You can see how tighten that is over time. Th those lines, the green and the
is that pink? Pink. Again, I'm going pink. The green and the pink. You can just see how those two lines are really really close. But I want to point out to you that now expenditures going into 25 26 will be more than
revenue. So the question would be why? Like why is that? one you have decreased you have decreased revenue. You can see pration is the difference between the number of students projected and the number of students that actually show up
physically in the in the school. So that's an automatic decrease in revenue. So this this past year that decrease was roughly $4 million in in proration. The decrease add-on for FTEES that are
projected for 2526 is 2.9 million for that. And just in general, the uncertainty of not having a state budget uh for 2526 makes it very difficult to budget, right? You don't know what the budget is
going to be. So then you would have to use uh estimates as to what you believe the budget is going to be in projecting a new budget for 2526. Kind of leaves you in a difficult spot. Uh I've never seen this before my
36 years. Uh there was actually articles talking about uh you know state government and maybe potentially not having a state budget at the end of of uh June even though it's mandated by the
constitution to be in place by July 1st. A a great deal of uncertainty uh hangs around the school district. Mr. Oski. Yes. The decreased enrollment. Do you know or can we get the information of
where that is in the county? We could, you know, we do a statistical analysis and one of the things that that the district's become better at in the last, I'd say 14 months or so is tracking all of that data, like where are students
going and viewing um viewing the district more through business principles than we we've ever had before. because now what you're seeing happening is students are aren't going to homeschool and they're going to other
uh options uh that they have which then leads to flexibil a great deal of flux that goes into the system which then accounts for differences. So you look at a difference of about 500 students you're looking at
about $4 million just there and and I'm just getting started with the with the numbers now. the four million will seem relatively lower than some of the other things I'm about to tell you related to our budget. So once again,
expenditures more than revenue, but most of the revenue comes from the state. That's a key part to remember comes from the state. Revenue is is down. One of the things you'd see happening uh
is the use of of vouchers is uh make sure increased costs. So if you're looking at revenues going down but costs are going up. Well, what costs are going up? Well, inflation is one. We
would estimate 6 to8 million is the additional cost to run the district for one year with 2.7% inflation. People will argue uh whether inflation's 2.7. Some will say it's less than that. Some will say it's more than that. But you know when you're
factoring in a budget for next year that you have to factor something. We went with 2.7 as our number to kind of get that because everyone would agree the costs to do everything have gone up. And so it is it is what it is. And so that's
an increased cost. So you look at the second voting point is increased FRS costs which are a result of legislation uh as to costs as well as as benefits. You can see that's about 1.5 million.
But the Florida empowerment scholarships or vouchers are perhaps the biggest change that you're going to see. So in in 16 uh there's about a 14 million swing that you're going to see here on this chart
where you could see in 2324 it's at 16 then it goes to 24 that's an eight a swing of $8 million in a single year. The projection coming out of Tallahassee for this upcoming year is
$30 million. Okay, $30 million. That's a swing, two-year swing of $14 million. Then you add the four, then you add the six six to eight, then you add the 1.5 and you can kind of see
increased cost, revenue decreasing. Okay, everybody gets the hopefully gets the big picture. There's also additional mandates whether it be uh ESSE, mental health, safe schools. None of those are projected to go up. So
that puts you in a real precarious position where you are spending more money, okay, and you're making less money. And that's kind of where we're at currently as a district. So then the question, well,
why why is this happening? Well, this is a whole Florida issue. I put up some headlines from some school districts across across the state. You can read them. I'll read them to you. I I think it was Elatch. I was watching their workshop in which they were looking at
uh 15 million was the amount of money that they were looking for in in Elatcha County in their workshop. Typically, in the best case scenario, you would want to adjust uh your spending earlier like in January
uh as you go through the allocation process and you do all of those things. Uh you would want to do that. The difference between the House and the Senate in Klay County terms, the House versus the Senate in Klay County terms is 25 million. That's a large swing
between two legislative bodies as to the amount of money. All of that puts uh puts strain on on the school system, but one that we have to take action in order to move forward. So the question would be like what have
we done related to that? We've taken some pretty drastic u steps in order to ensure that 256 goes well budgetarily and most of these steps are designed to make sure that we um we
protect our employees. We're an employee business. We have a lot of employees that work for us. Over 5,000. So what steps have we taken? We reduced district budgets by 20%. Anybody that knows something about
budgeting when you see that number should probably swallow hard. 20%'s 20% is a huge chunk. I think that we can get there. and again trying to protect uh the organization itself and the people and the support that we
provide students. You know, I feel like that's a that's a number that we're going to have to reach. Next, we renegotiated district contracts. We looked at all contracts. We withheld contracts from the board.
So, for example, there's various educational tools that we use in order to ensure success. we've kind of held those contracts back while while we're waiting for a state budget and also making the adjustment the overall
adjustment to the budget itself. Okay, so there's a lot that goes into that because there's there's a lot of contracts that the district enters into. Next, we re-evaluated all district programs for a return on investment. And
and this is kind of really simple. We looked at all of our programs to say does is the program itself able to sustain itself financially. In other words, does it make money? Does it lose money? Does it break even? Etc. So I
I'll give you an example that I shared. You know, one of the things that we did look at was uh FICA, which is Florida Youth Challenge, which is a program out there at Camp Landing. And so the question came up like what is the cost
to run FICA versus the money that's generated from FICA to see if if it's a financial um financially beneficial or is it financially challenging to have that program. I chose that one because in the
analysis of that uh FICA actually does sustain and pay for itself in the process. Right? that you could see. And the thing that I'm trying to bring to the board is just simply the idea of we're looking at everything. Quite frankly, we're looking at everything.
You heard me throw out numbers like 6 to8 inflation, 1.5, 14 million swing plus plus unfunded mandates. That is a lot for a district to overcome uh in a
single year. Uh so what else have we done? we have uh we've we've paused travel. We don't think it's appropriate while we're re-examining our budget for folks for folks to travel. Now, there are state meetings that people have to
go to. Um for example, there's a literacy meeting in June. And there's other there's other things that are directly related to the business of the district where you're getting information from the state where if you didn't go, you're at a deficit because
uh you still have to um you still have to keep up with state legislation, state trends and all those kinds of things to make adjustments over the summer time. So travel pause. We also uh had a hiring path started
stopped hiring. We had a hiring pause primarily because the last strategy and the difference there after we did all of that, right? We wound up reducing the difference between
expenditures uh and revenue. Twothirds of it we were able to adjust doing those things. But the final third, the last roughly $10 million, we had to re-examine our
allocations districtwide. So that's the very last thing that we're in the process of doing now and hope to complete very shortly would be how to look at all of our allocations.
82% of the district's budget is tied up in in in um personnel costs. Let me just say this. We're going to do everything uh possible in in order to ensure that the the impact is um is as minimal as
possible on our employees and we've done that that you can see from that example that that I'm giving you there. So what what happened and what are we doing uh related to
allocations? One the guiding principles for what I'm describing is should be centered on students. Students are the reason why we exist. So number one I kind of put that at the top of the little building blocks there. I guess those are building
blocks. Kelly Kellyy's responsible for all graphics. Um you can see we're talking about prioritizing students in the classroom which is the primary p uh purpose for the organization. Then we looked at proportional reductions while
protecting student programs not not not eliminating any student programs because students obviously benefit from those programs and then minimize to the greatest extent possible any impact on our employees. So you can imagine this
is quite the task in a in a organization that has well over 5,000 employees. So a couple other principles that we've used in doing this work is reducing district staff at a larger
proportion than than the school staff. You know, when looking at this, if the primary focus is students that are in the classroom ensuring that they have the needs that need, then the district has to uh reduce at a larger proportion
than the schools. That would make total sense. The next would be gathering and and that's actually a good example again how we're prioritizing students in the classroom. The second bullet point there is about gathering information from schools and
district leaders. So what we've done is we've reached out to to each school and saw what allocations they could in fact reduce at their school. You know I always say the principal and school leadership are the people that would know best okay as to what they can
achieve and what they can't achieve at the school level. So their their input matters greatly in a situation like this one as well as the district leaders. So for schools we determine individual school reductions using an equitable
formula based on subjected student enrollment which you know like we said enrollment is king when it comes to funding. That's how we generate funding. So how many students are enrolled at that school really does make a difference when doing this work. And then also considerations for ESSE and
special programs. They're not all the same, right? Then we prioritize the preservation of personnel most directly tied to the core classroom instruction when you're looking at this. And the last bulleted point is our our goal is
to place all affected personnel within the district. So when you look at it, we hire about 450 uh construction people. I don't even know the total number we had in support and others, but we hired
quite a few people. I said there there are positions that that uh folks that are affected can in fact move into. And of course, the goal is is to place all of those people in in those positions.
Uh the board the board of course will vote on the June uh 26th. Is it? What day? 26th. uh board meeting all reappointments will be on the board agenda at that time as we do this work.
So again kind of summary when you look at the overall budget for 2526 I kind of laid out just in very simplistic terms we're spending more money than we're bringing in. There's a great deal of uncertainty in it. Could it be better?
Uh could they pass a budget that's better? Yes, they they can. I mean, anything's possible. Can Can the district um do nothing now and just hope that it works out in 2526? Hope's not a
plan. Hope's not a plan. So, that's why we're taking the actions that we are. And uh the estimate you know in in looking at this and uh doing the math on it is uh
0.04% of employees would have some sort of impact related to this in order to make the adjustment that we need to make. You know I can just tell you uh for me and I think even Vicky Kidwell would agree with this. I I care about
our employees, okay? We're going to do everything we can to to minimize the impact on our employees. But when 82% of your budget is in fact employees and the state kind of hands you with what they've handed us, we've
got to take action in order to ensure that at the end of next year, we can be in as good a shape as we are at the end of this year and be able to meet all of our obligations at the end of the year. It's a whole year-long
process. Will we I I really believe and I think Miss M. Troutman would would agree with me that at the end of this process and the adjustments that we need to make as a district, we'll still wind up hiring people at the end, but we need to make sure that all of our employees
are taken care of first um before we would do such a thing. Okay. Any questions from the board? I I would just be interested to see the 500 students like where where are they
missing from? Yeah, we can do that like where the reductions are. And I I think that um you know, one of the things that I talked more about is the district too has to um advertise and market. You
know, when I was talking about looking at a school district more in business terms, you have to actually market for people, which which is probably uh new. But in the other side of
that, when you take issue like vouchers and you take off any of the guard rails that were on that program, the guardrails would be the income of people receiving them and through legislation. Um the guardrail of how
much money a person makes, whether whether or not they would qualify for a voucher. Right now, under Florida law, you can be a multi-millionaire and receive funding for your child to go to private school.
That's a fact. Mhm. Okay. So, when you see that, you would say, okay, if that's a direction, that's great, but you have to provide the funding for that to occur. You know, that's that's really the challenge. When you don't provide the funding, the funding comes from
somewhere. In this case, next year it will be a total of $30 million that you're looking at. So, it's a check it's a challenge. No doubt. So, with the voucher program, um, in order for a family to receive that funding,
does their child have to have been enrolled in Klay County School District? No. Right. And I know that, but I just wanted that because it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. You hear the language that the money follows the child, right? Um, sometimes that's the case, but what we have seen and why it's
so hard to predict is that sometimes the child has never been enrolled in the district, so that that expenditure has never been accounted for. Um, us you're 100% correct. So this this would be even children that have never
stepped foot in Klay County schools ever in their lifetime would be receiving financial assistant through the state. Which it would make more sense to me that if we want the tax dollars for education to follow the child, then the
state would send that tax money to the families of school age children. I don't know why it needs to come through our budget because it makes it impossible for us to Isn't that isn't I don't think it's dead yet. That was in the Senate. I
believe the Senate portion of that was by was talking about that makes it very difficult to plan a budget. It needs to when you see like this year was an $8 million increase. Next year is predicted to be a six. notice key word predicted
by the state to be six, right? That that leaves a lot of a lot of them in the air. So, um I was reading a recent article was talking about um this was Texas and the Texas legislature and it looks like they're they're passing a
similar um similar legislation, but they put a cap as to the the amount of money that can be spent. So in Florida, we add it all up, tax, title, and delivery. It's almost $5 billion spent um on this
program. And in Texas, new legislation has a $1 billion cap. Texas is bigger than So I have a question. When will affected personnel and staff know? And then at that
time every open job becomes available for them. What I know we're going to hear questions when's the approximate timeline for that. So we hope to to start that process here by the end of the week. Okay.
So that can be our answer. Yeah. Yeah. So those actively doing interviews now they're essentially on hiring freeze. Correct. you would have to place individuals that are currently employed in the district into positions first
before um before allowing outside candidates to so essentially we're on a freeze for outside candidates not internal right so like if a if a principal is wanting to fulfill one position and there's
multiple inside people wanting to apply for that position and they've done interviews and whatever they can still higher or everything's on a freeze calls for transfers and that so that we have time to look at the possible reductions
and because of all the certification issues it's much more complicated with instructional because you have certification issues so we felt it was best to pause everything so to help ensure that we have more options to offer to those that
are going to be affected Okay, cuz I'm already getting questions on some whose contracts were not renewed. There's a lot of people who are not renewed yet always every year. Probationary annual never go until now.
Administrators never go until now. There's a lot of people who haven't been renewed because they haven't fulfilled requirements, whether it's certification requirements, training requirements, you know, a lot of different things along that line. um out of clear, they're out
of field status. So, none of those people would have been reappointed yet at this time. And um it just gives us more options to look at to help people find something that's similar to what they're in. And so, we'll just say that
everything's on freeze and that you you guys are going to let them know by the end of this week. Let them know or finish the process. You start the process here by the end of the week. It'll take it'll take a few days, right? No, I understand. I'm just When
people after we leave here and our employees to be able to tell is it like going back into phase one again where you're only going to pick certain people, is it like that? Like you have to be already transfers. Well, it sounds to me you've got a 500 student shortfall,
correct? So you're going to have to look at positions. What positions are going to need to go away based on student need first. Correct. Another question. And then the hiring process could take place once you've evaluated what positions are available. So So human resources has to
follow um contract and other obligations in order to do that. That process will take a few days to go through the process. So when will the employees know like next week? Hopefully very soon before my No, I know when you're going
to you're you're working on the process between now and whatever, but I was my question. It's going to be when should they know something? Well, did I thought you said the end of June is when we would have contracts, right? That's what it would be. It would be on the board agenda for reappoints. All reappointments would be on June. So,
they can count on for sure by the end of June. Okay. Definitely. That's my That's my So, the last day for teachers is Monday. Yes. Sir question um we have a 500 student shop call right now and uh and that's
consider my mind right do we took into consideration that a lot of these uh courtesy writers and we have 1,200 of them some of them are in the school the public school system because of the
right and they can even choose to leave the public school destiny if they have to walk or the parents have to take him to school, right? You know, and there will be a lot a lot more money than you lost, right?
So, so really the the reminder I give about the transportation presentation is that is only between 1.5 and two, not students that that were over two always had to uh always had bus transportation.
We're only talking about that targeted group between 1.5 and two. What's the amount of students in between 1.5 and two? That's about 1200 I think was asking. That's what I'm saying. 1,200 students is equivalent to $10 million if all of them decide that we don't have
transportation. We're going to walk. My father going to take me to school. I'm going to a private school for example. And that money is going to leave the school system. And we still have to provide transportation. 80 students is equivalent to $650,000. That's exactly the amount the
saving for because 80 students alone living will be $650,000. I think that's kind of an unknown. You can't really know what a family is going to do in that situation. It's a risk for sure, but it's Yeah, only 80 would be
the equivalent to what we saving. for 1,200. I'm pretty sure we're going to get pretty close to that amount, right? If they're counting on the schools to provide transportation. Mhm. Well, for a family who would require
transportation, really their only option would then be homeschool, right? If they're either going to go to public school or they're going to home school if mom and dad can't get them to school, right? Oh, but if they have to work, they have to work, right? But I'm talking about for the loss the loss of funding. So you'd be that's why I would
be interested those 500 students that were missing where are they coming from and do we know is it because they're going home school or they going private school there's a way for us to walk a private school because there's not I mean most private schools in the areas that we we're discussing there's not
really a private school right now and walk it be it would be actually closer for them to walk to their designated public school they open a new one too somebody's opening a new chart of school trying to So, as unfortunate it is, this
is one thing I really had to learn is we have to really just operate within the law and and it's not always comfortable to operate there and it's terrible for some. I'm not saying they're operating I'm trying not to lose the money actually. I'm trying to keep the money
within our schools instead of leaving. But to and to your point, that's an unknown. Would you lose money still? Possibly. you know, like we can't know what those families might or might not do. What we can make a decision on is the numbers that we do know. And we know
for sure that transporting those 1,200 students is taking $650,000 out of our budget that we don't have right now. And on top of that, the 13 buses, the bus drivers that go with them. Um, you know, there are there
are solid um things that we can base that decision on instead of trying to base it on a projection that's kind of an unknown as far as what those families might or might not do. But we we make a decision, we see how it goes this year. If we lose a bunch of students, maybe we
do something different the following year. You know, like like we've talked about in the past, there's always re room and reason to bring things back up again. But I think I don't think this would be something we could base that decision on. Don't think consideration for sure. Definitely something to to
monitor as we go through this year. I think any other questions for the sake of time, I'm going to go through the agenda a little quicker because we do have um an executive session right after this. Uh I would just call your
attention to a couple things within the agenda. one is the the amendment to the um to the code of conduct. So remember we have a code of conduct. It's it's pushed through. We have a public hearing
because it was already advertised. We're going to push forward with that document, but there was one change that a board member wanted to bring forward. So the way this will work, that document will go forward. It'll be passed. It's out there. But this one
change will come back has to do with cell phones which this might have to change again after after our discussion this morning. But the the verbiage that was added is while students may possess um wireless communication devices during
non instructional time on school property during and after school etc. They must be powered completely off and stored out of sight during school hours. It's the requested language. So we would that the policy
said in a backpack. No, let me ask the words. I think we changed it to but not everybody had a backpack. So I think it says out of sight during school hours. So that was the language that was added. I understand it's just it's just going to be on anyway and vibrating in
their pocket. It's just hard when it's in their p on their persons, you know, cuz the state law also outlaws an opportunity for it to be stored away from them during class time, like the basket or teachers desk or Well, you could certainly, you know, put
some some sort of procedure about moving the backpacks away. I know certain schools do that. Clay is one of those for example that I've witnessed that. So, in the event they don't have a backpack, it goes in their pocket. Yeah. I mean, I don't know what to do with
there. Mr. Ross, the the language that's on the amendment is what is in the policy. So, the the language that you guys voted on for the old policy now matches this language and it may become another might
have to bring this back again if the pilot goes goes through. I just want to call back cuz I know how does the state lottery I thought it said off in somewhere in a backpack behind with the teacher
um if I'm not mistaken it the way that the the statute reads it reads that it can be it needs to be off and away and the teacher can direct the student where it needs to be put. So are we specifying what away means?
uh because it really negates the whole policy if it's in their back pocket. I I don't think the statute specifies that. So I don't know that it doesn't work on that. I think that's why he was referring to procedures. So if he could put in procedures that if if
not if they don't have a backpack, they put it in the teacher's basket. So you're saying the policy doesn't state something about behind the with the teacher? No, this the statute doesn't specify, right? It's a challenge when a kid doesn't have their backpack in their home. There's
not very many students, especially in high school where the majority of the problems happen. They have a lot of books. They usually have something. Even girls would have a purse then, if not a backpack. I just want to be clear and say, okay, that's what the policy says. It matches the old policy. Looks like we might have
to revisit it again. Yeah. In the future. We just wanted to make sure that was out there. I was just trying to figure out what from this book. If we want to be successful, the wording is probably important, especially when it comes to teenagers. That's that's all
I know for sure. So then the uh the transportation that the uh the bus planner contract is on here and there's also a proportionate mitigated share uh which is 14 elementary students for a
total of 763,000 for a development. Which development is that? Do they have any town homes and so there is land? Yeah. Those look like two. It's the
second edition. The second prop share available. was the third actually the third prop share for Bella Lago. That whole area started out 526 homes. Then they added another 76 homes and then the developer bought another piece of
property from an individual and added another 14 to that. And then we've had to go back and modify because they want to add 10 to the 76. It's been a yearslong process with Dalago and it
keeps its nasty head keeps coming up and coming up. When did they when did they go for town homes was that um probably to get more density within the area. So this this last this previous one this new and a
lot of people can't afford home anymore town homes right town homes are the cost of what a home used to be. Yeah. What they used to be, but I'm saying now we're in a market where people can't afford the single family when they're starting out. So, they're having to put
up all the town homes. Okay. So, no more question or no more comments. All right. Uh any uh see comments from the audience? No. From the superintendent. Any uh attorney at No, ma'am. Uh, Miss
Hansen, Miss Clark. Um, real quick, I I would like to add to the agenda that we go over a little bit of knowledge about set funding insurance so that we recognize come
October when we change TPA, there is no $3 million at the end of the rainbow that that is in claims. And so that everybody understands that's Do you want to put this on the next board whenever we can? Yeah. Before October,
just so everybody is clear on where the funds are going. Anything else? No. Uh Mr. Al uh board comments. Okay. Did we send out our board letter? I have to ask. You want it to go out today? everybody okay with it please
every I figured they would they would give you their feedback and all right so if you don't mind get that rolling um and I think we did a great job highlighting um where our money is being spent some pictures um I know that that
our first one would be lengthy so I think moving forward we can do them you know a little shorter but to give the purpose of the audience like why are we setting this out and what are we doing and I think it's a opportunity to show uh what we are doing. So I think Miss
Dennis did a very good job on that. Thank you. Um and then another question I have for um our legal and transportation. I know you had board consensus to start a contract for those that we pay for CDL
license. Are we where are we at on that? Are we good moving forward on that? Does that need to come back for a vote? Is what do we need to do on that? So, as as far as the contracts, I mean, we can we can do that. Um, we want to make sure we have an enforcement mechanism, which I think the board's okay with. If if
people break the contract and we can take legal action, we would just bring it to the board's attention with a legal update. I mean, these contracts are, you know, they'd be a county court. They're not circuit. You know, what what's I mean, the minimal contract is under 50,000, right? So, you're not looking at
anything small claims. I just want to make sure you need anything else from us that he has the ability. No, I I can get with Rand. We can we can make sure we wrap that up. There may just be I just want to make sure there may be an enforcement if we have, you know, 10 10
drivers that we paid for this. You know, they they walk. We want to make sure there's some teeth to it. So, we would and that would be through a small claims or through a county court action to enforce a contract because we paid for them to to get the license. Okay. I just wanted to make sure that he knew he was
allowed to and you didn't need anything from us. We gave consensus for that to happen. That way you can do what you need to do on your end. Okay. Well, that's all I have. Um, this meeting's adjourned. Recess. Oh, recess. Oh.