done while we make decisions that affect our our schools um and our students and our teacher and staffs. Um Lord, I pray that you are with us uh with every decision. Pray all of this in Jesus's
name. Amen. Amen. >> I pledge algiance 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.
>> At this time, I'm going to call to order the workshop for June 16th, 2026. 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 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 question and hand it to the deputy. Your participation is welcome and appreciated. We're going to um we'll go ahead and start with school board um discussion, comments, anything that you
guys want to talk about um want to bring up for our next workshops and that um Miss uh Miss Hansen or uh Miss Gilhousen, we'll start with you if you have anything. >> No, nothing for me, >> Miss Clark.
>> No, I'll wait till the end. Thank you. >> Uh Miss Hansen, >> no. I was just went through my cleaning out my stuff that we get at every workshop. And I don't I think we just were so busy and with so much going on
in the education and with budgets. I was wondering though, Mr. Broski, if we can maybe at some point pretty maybe soon start that process of getting procedures online with our Neiola policies. Um it
has been it was two years ago, right? two summers ago already. It has been a whirlwind and I know the district works really super hard, but I'm wondering even if we just started maybe like Boulevard County doing the administrative procedures first and then
start working our way through. So really that's all I wanted. It would be a thing I could tell parents, hey go look at the website and you can see the procedure. Um I just think it maybe it's a good time to start. So that you know I know
we wanted that but that's really all I had to say. >> No I um I had asked you about this the other day or something around about that. Do you want to give us an update on that or you you know >> No, I think what we'll do is we'll look for the top 10 things that uh procedures
would be sought for. >> You know obviously a lot of policies you know I didn't count the amount. Many of them don't require a procedure. So isolating isolating it down to things that parents would have contact with. So
I'm thinking of a top 10 list of things that would would make the most sense to do to start the process. >> No, I agree. I honestly think all my years of teaching there was just certain categories that always came up, right? >> Yeah. >> And so probably like the student section.
>> So we'll find a way to kind of narrow it down to the top 10 things that people would look up that kind of information and then work on that. I don't you think we need to know everything about no offense to operations but it's not often that people would ask about what's going on in operations and how they do things.
So I agree >> Mr. Al. >> All right. Um we're going to start with policy legislative updates. Who's taking the wheel on that? Uh I guess I'll just introduce it. You know that one of the
things that one of the reasons why we wanted to go with Miola is that they provide updates pretty one of the challenges is once you establish the policy what if legislation changes along the way uh they have a team of attorneys
that that look at that make changes. So they sent us their their update or this update. They they do several updates throughout the year and then they take a look at the current policies. So these are all policies that are already on the
books for Clay County schools and then they make um suggested edits to it and then we bring it here. We follow the same procedure which would be we would approve for advertising these on this agenda. We would wait the 28 day waiting
period then bring it back to a public hearing to adopt all of these. So there's an agenda item on the board agenda that simply lists out the title of each one of these and the updates for it and then this would be attached to it. So just to give you an example, the
very first one is on um is 0147.1 which is travel and expenses and they changed the word for professional learning for professional development to professional learning. There was a statutory change making that so. So they have a team of people that kind of scour
through it and say, "All right, you can't call it development anymore. We call it learning." So our policies would then be up to date. And there's much of that on all of these pages. So I would simply ask if there's any suggested changes or questions related to it.
These are pretty routine and and they'll happen two or three times a year with Neo. >> My question is when they send the updates like that, I mean it was very simple. There wasn't any big changes. It was like a lot of strike this, put in this. >> If if the district were to see something
that I guess needed to be changed for our particular county cuz we see what's in there. Is that what comes to you the way it came to us or does it give you opportunities to make changes or >> the board could change, you know, any of these documents, but this is the way
that it comes? >> That's the way it comes with just those few like small sections all cleaned up like that. >> It does. So it it'll tell you it'll show you from the template what has been changed. Now remember that we when we
sat down and you all look at the policy sometimes you said can can we add this language or can we do this? So, we have to look at the recommended changes they make and then apply them to ours. Because if we took the template,
then we're getting their original form template with the changes, which that would not reflect the board's wishes. Um, so they in this case, I would look there and actually staff did as well.
So, I mean, this takes hours and hours and hours before it gets to this point. And we saw based on what they shared that professional development is now professional learning based upon um the new way of explaining that we all say
professional development we say professional learning. So we consider that a minor change. So then what we do is I look at the template say okay these are all the places where learning shows up for development and they want us to strike through that and put this one in.
Done. And so that's what you see here is every change that they share with us is what you see up here. >> Okay. I'm just wondering how that works. >> Yep. >> There's so much. >> It it is it is tedious, but honestly, most of them are very in this round.
>> We're um I'm going to use the word fortunate, but the changes were not great. We're fine with change, but um you know it's it does make it easier when there's when they're minor. So we feel confident in
this. >> I guess does anybody have any changes or would anybody like to suggest any changes to it? >> Not if all these are legal. Like they're all you're stating that they're all legal, right? because this one on um there's like a whole page but is that
part of the like the testing? >> Yeah. What what what uh Niola does is they look at the statutory changes as well as the state board of ed rule changes, right? Because there's more than one master >> in the process and then they make the
suggested changes. So those are their changes, not not district suggested changes. This is right >> their wishes. That's that's >> as the new rules come out then like that is why we have two or three >> updates >> updates a year because there's a lot of
changes that don't have rules yet, >> right? >> Yeah. >> So there'll be another round of this two or three times a year. You'll get a stack like this. >> Okay. >> In the process. >> That was truly the advantage to having >> Yes. >> a group that monitor strictly this because now we're up to date. If you
recall our our old policies, some were >> 25. Yeah. >> 30 years old and didn't reflect the newest ones. >> And I think that sometimes too, if I can um say one thing too is that if you notice sometimes they resend policies.
So for instance 55 or I'm sorry um policy 5330.01 um they recommended that we resend one and then they added another one. And so that one encompasses all of the changes if you noticed about the administration
of epinephrine and the >> training. Yeah. >> That's what we pay them for. >> Yeah. >> That tedious law work. >> I I don't know any any suggestions, any changes, any not.
>> Okay. We'll put it on the agenda as is. So, just a reminder, right? Once it once we go through the process and the board uh votes to approve it at the next board meeting, then then 28 day period and then it comes back as public hearing and
all that. But one thing I kind of point out is at that point there's any changes to it after that point you got to start from scratch again, right? in the process and start modifying >> like change a word or two or >> I think it's there's probably a rule
about a scrier's error kind of thing, >> but if you're changing anything substantial in the policy, you start over again with the with the time clock. >> Okay. Okay. So, the agenda part, this should be this should be really quick. Kind of excited. you know, we're
celebrating 250 at our next uh board meeting, which is June 25th, next Thursday. Uh so there's a bunch of activities going on there. Before the meeting, we'll have the uh America 250 from the Klay County Archives in the back of the room, which is the big the
big uh >> board deal related to that. We want to encourage board members and everybody in the audience wear red, white, and blue. We we'll we'll remind you again to dress appropriately for that meeting. Everybody's got it. Red, white, blue
next Thursday. >> Mr. Ros, the 250 mobile museum is parked at the admin building. Yeah. >> This morning and tomorrow morning just for the public to know. Yeah. >> Until 5:00 or something. >> Uh we have a student singing the national anthem. We do have a proclamation that we'd like the board
chair to read. Uh at that time and and during the recognitions section, we're going to talk about um we're going to give a brief presentation about all of the curriculum pieces that'll be in place this upcoming year relating to celebrating our 250th uh birthday. So
that's kind of in the recognition section of that. We're also uh saying goodbye to our retirees just like before. We we found it better to do in the video in a video. Most of them uh remember we did have certificates back
in the day, but only like 10% would show up cuz the rest of them brought a cruise somewhere and nobody's coming back for their certificates. So So we kind of went to that uh thing. We're also going to celebrate our social study teacher awards. So we celebrate those at that time. So it's
kind of a patriotic. Math Boyak has his um presentation on safe schools data. Uh the student speaker Sean St. Dennis from Witchview High School. Great great kid, great student. So then in the discussion
agenda, we have um the public hearing for the family code of conduct. In the regular agenda, we have the proclamation for the semiquincentennial, which which I didn't even know that was
a word. Certainly not one I could spell without looking at it, but that is the official term uh for it. Then we have the normal business uh stuff. C4 is actually the one related to the board policies that you were just
looking at and it kind of lists all the policies and of course these documents will be attached to it. So no no big deal there. The personnel consent agenda overnight travel our agreement with the AMI kids. They do a great job uh for our
for our for our students. Then there's a contract for Rolling Hills Community Development. That's that's for use of the pool for for um our swimmers. CTE overnight travel. Here's an interesting one. We have an agreement with Klay
County Fire Rescue where one of the uh fire department uh firefighters actually teaches in our firefighter academy at Orange Park High School. And that's the agreement to make that make that happen. That's very very cool thing. Then our professional
learning advisory council membership that's a routine uh a request for review of consideration of library materials which is pretty standard every month. Proposed allocation changes all the normal
business functions. I'm going to bore you with reading all of them. Um here's the contract between um the sheriff's office, the Klay County Board of County Commissioners, and the school board
related to officers within our schools. Klay County, but remember we went ahead and we approved Green Code at Orange Park at the last time. This is the amendment for Klay County Sheriff's Office uh with a total cost of 7.7 on there. That's the same process as
previous years. This is the third year. This is the ending contract of a three-year arrangement. And so we would start the whole contract process over again with a different contract or changes to the contract at that time. Uh the enterprise fleet management system.
Bryce, you want to kind of give them a quick >> Yeah. So that's um source contract had a renewal. So there's some additional paperwork to sign. It's just nothing is changing. Um, we're actually getting a price reduction and just wanted to bring that to the board, but there'll be signature pages for that and updated
sheets. But we do we've already identified 50 vehicles to just completely get rid of and not replace um as well as um another 50 that we will they're kind of at that sweet spot of selling um where they're going to start
needing maintenance, but they still have value. Sell those and then we'll buy new and and have a a lease payment for that. Um but again this is just the source wall contract had a renewal and updating the documents on that. Um but I'll keep you posted as the >> So would you say you're happy with the
the way the contract is and working with Enterprise >> so far? So really officially July 1 is when we're going to we don't have budget for vehicles. Um and so we'll really be hitting it hard now once we purchase the vehicles. It'll be like a 3 or four month lead time to start receiving
those. Um, other districts that I've talked to about it though, they said it's been awesome. Like they've been impressed with other contracts that they've worked with. >> Our neighbor to the east. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. >> St. John's County does it.
>> Okay. And then pre-qualification of contractors. And then many of the u you see that ops doesn't take a break. They're they're busy working on HVAC replacements at many schools. that you see there and all of their normal contract
>> on August. >> Yes. >> We want to make sure >> the same message. >> I feel like uh August uh it's the first day of school. It's not even it's not even when teachers come back. It's like the first day we get I'm getting sweaty. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah. Okay. >> Sorry. at this. >> So, so then uh most normal processes C26 dissolusion of two relocatables. Well, that's a goal of the of the board to get rid of those and so there's two more on
the list. >> Yeah, if we do what is it two a month, we might be done in about 15 years >> at least. >> Do we have a total of how many we've gotten rid of? I know that's probably like not something off the top of your head, but
>> we're actually this this year we're donating uh six. So, um that would be uh six that are removed from our fleet. Uh and then um we as Mr. Broski is going to talk about the survey, we we're prepared
to to move when when we're able to up to 200 more. >> Yeah. The next >> the next item is the FE 5-year educational plan survey. You want to introduce them to that, correct? >> Uh yes. Uh the 5-year educational plan
survey is a statutory requirement as stated in the name. It happens every 5 years. It comes up in June of uh that cycle. So uh this is a survey that outlines the the construction modeling renovation needs of the district for the next five years. Uh so in there you'll
see things like a new uh a new school uh the new expansions that we plan to do as well as uh the removal of of portables. So all that has to be outlined in advance so that as we proceed through the next 5 years we uh can construct our
our plans uh to meet that. >> Awesome that type of money. So, and in addition to that, the plan survey um it gives DOE um a heads up of what type of money we want to use. So, we cannot use certain
types of money like CO and DS money for any type of construction unless we actually do this plant survey. And once the plan survey is in and they know what our plans are and what construction projects we have, it opens up that type of money to be able to use on certain
projects. And we cannot use that money if we don't submit this plan survey. >> And then at the very end, that is the that's the last item there. I'll just call the board's attention. Right now, we have one clay leadershipmies going on right now. Monday and Tuesday it's
secondary. Uh Wednesday and Thursday it's elementary. About 700 teachers attend. You know one of the things that uh that happens is you should develop leaders other than the traditional leaders with a job title. So we try to develop our teacher leaders because at
most you know elementary schools there's two quote leaders administrators but there's many other informal leaders or team leads along the way. Uh, one of the things that we really went all in on in the last couple years is the school
improvement plan process. >> So, you know, this is the highest academic performance year in the history of Klay County schools this past last year, I guess we're going to call it. Seems weird saying last year even though we're still in June. And, you know, it's
really hard, you know, when people say, well, why or how? There's so many variables involved. But I'd like to think that one reason why is because we provide leadership opportunities for those that aren't in a traditional leadership role and in addition focusing
on the school improvement process and how to how to achieve the goals within that seem like that would be a good like there's a causation there. The reality is you can't find one single thing that has created uh the good results but I'd
like to believe that that's one of them. So kudos to all of the teachers that are there during the summertime and all the people that put that together. Uh it really is an amazing event. This is our sixth year uh doing that event. And with
that I'm I'm done. There's two other meetings at the end. One is safety and security and one is bargaining after after this meeting. Thank you so much. I would like to know how um other districts too, just a side thought of um how they measured when um I think it was
Orange County, their testing scores um went up significantly also because of cell phone. So when they got rid of cell phones, I'm wondering if some of that plays a role as well um with a mixture of of of
all the things that we're doing. But um I think getting technology out of the hands of our students is helping significantly too. Um but anyways, sorry. Uh attorney comments. >> Nothing from the attorney's office.
>> I want summer break over here. Uh school board comments. Uh, Miss Hansen, >> I just wanted to say if you guys take a look at C3 at some point, >> it is about our annual membership and I learned that school boards across the state of Florida, if you have members
don't who don't want to or don't have the time or have families or work full-time to actively engage in FSBA that we can um reduce the cost of those uh fees. It can it be based on
>> maybe we consider maybe the advocating person plus one and pay for that. I don't really know the whole stipulation but it is kind of expensive. So I feel like we should like all be in but maybe I'll be in is kind of
expensive and maybe it would be our needs to maybe have a couple of people go and we could you know decide on who's most interested. I mean, the superintendent fee, you can't do anything about that. You're one superintendent and you need to belong in the organization for superintendent, but
just maybe take a look at C3. Um, consider how much that is per board member. And I did learn that it can be reduced. So, does that affect our our um what are we board whatever?
>> I don't think you can be a certified board without a membership organization. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. >> Um, >> would you like for me to look look into that? >> I knew you could do that. You could do individual board members. Um, >> oh, but it would take away the
designation of of being district certified, >> right? But that that's what I was wondering. I I I knew that they talk about that. Um, those fees are high. But then then if some kind of training
comes out, can you let's just say you didn't want to be part of it, but you wanted to go to that training because it was implemented by I don't know DOE or whatever. Um could you pay for that individual training for that >> that time? That's ask questions.
Obviously could have asked more. I just really didn't know where we were at with it. Um, >> my understanding is their trainings and even their networking opportunities are for members only, >> right? And so all of that you have to be a member. >> You can pay a non-member fee to go to
everything, but it's a little more expensive than if you're a member. >> Oh, I didn't. >> Yeah, cuz I saw the non-member fee when I was there this past week. >> Okay. >> So, I don't know. Should we should we look into it just to have the information? >> I think as individual board members, we can look at it and then have a
discussion. >> Just just think about it, you know. That's all I had. Mr. Albero, >> nothing. >> You said nothing. >> Nothing. M. Um, on the FSPA, I mean, in
the past, it's been hard. I think you'll whatever. I'm frugal. I can't help it being an accountant. Um, but this year I've spent time away from my business to go and I've been very pleased with the
tools that they're providing. >> And there's one that I'm really digging into because I think it'll help with our fiduciary responsibilities and allow me to find out information for myself and then I can pose better
questions. In fact, I think it will also help with the books that we have to review and save our committee a ton of time. So, there's real benefits to what FSPA offers us. We can't just, you know,
think that they don't. I think I think what we spend up front for what we get, we're going to make up in the long run big time. So yeah, I was very pleased with with what we're what we're getting
for our dollar. So anyway, that's it. >> Mah, um, nothing for me. Just I said it earlier, I'll say it again. The mobile 250 museum is a really neat experience. If you're able to make it up to um, the county administration building, it's
parked out there today and tomorrow. Um, and I wouldn't sure I don't know how long they're making their lounge, but I know they stopped at some schools um before school got out. I don't know if maybe looking into the fall. I know we have our founders week that we do an intense focus. I don't know if there would be an opportunity to invite them,
but um I'd love for our kids to have that opportunity as a field trip meeting. Just happens right there at school. >> I think some of them went on a field trip there, >> didn't they? >> Yeah. Okay. I thought so. >> Yeah. But no, that's a good idea. I
think we should have more kids engaged in that. >> I live under a rock, apparently. So, thanks for sharing that, Miss Gilly. >> Yeah. >> Um, anything else? >> No, that's it for me. >> Uh, did we
did we remove the book that was read out loud the other day at the meeting? >> I think I think that might >> short answer. Good morning. Seems to be seeming to do other things.
>> They don't even know about that. >> Yeah. So, but this is this seems to be the one that makes me popular. >> I'd like to address the situation. So, it's it's really interesting because, you know, we have a a community constituent who's been particularly interested in this for a very long time,
about five years now. And I I salute his tenacity and agree with with a lot of the conclusions brought because there it's just when we first got into it, I thought there might be 30 or 40 of these books and it's just sort of an endless supply of of of stuff that's totally inappropriate. I say that as an academic
officer and not from a personal lens. My personal lens agrees with that but immaterial to this. And in this particular case, well, let me say this. Up to this point, that individual has always been whether we agree or or or disagree on strategy, approach, tactics,
all those types of things, which we we sometimes do and sometimes do not. It's always been transparent and honest with me. And so I'm going to assume in this case this was just uh an anomaly because what occurred was the individual came forward and read an exerpt and I think
gave the impression that the statutory compliance team had read that exerpt in in the way that it was that same exert and ruled that book to be okay. that occurred in 2023, by the way, and I have copies for you if you'd like of what was
actually submitted in the challenge form because just it's a reset. We base the determination based off the evidence submitted. We don't have the resources, the capacity, you know, we're down two people in that very small shop already because of of budgetary considerations
and so we don't have the capacity to read every page on every book. Was that prior to the changes we it was that we made or even prior be >> before the community stand? >> Yes, ma'am. Before the community standards and so at the time in those rulings prior to the community standards
being implemented, remember we could only remove books based off the 847. Now, I agree that based off what was presented at the board meeting does constitute a violation of 847. Clearly, >> that wasn't in the original. I have a copy if any of you would like to see it. I give it to you when we leave of I have
copies for all of you of what was originally submitted was not a violation 847 in my opinion inappropriate which would have fallen under the mature tag right and and so in this case new evidence being submitted clearly this
violates the form but I thought it was a a bit of a maybe an unintentional misrepresentation and we read that and ruled that we've been very deliberate takes us a very long time we We go line by line. We we subtract our emotions from it. We look at the policy language and we look at the legal language and
that's kept us in in good standing to this point. I 100% agree that book needs to come out and it has and I think we have to have some discussions if this is going to be a strategy going forward where a book is read and all that. We can take we can take those off. I wish
none of those books were in there. They seem to be centered in the senior high libraries. >> Yeah. Um perhaps at some point we revisit this discussion too just around what do we do with the senior high libraries there the the circulation rates are there are less than in most
schools less than one checkout a day >> and so I think there need and I think as students begin to consume information more in for like a digital format rather than how you and I did as as children growing up in a book format or paper
format. We need to think about like what are what are universities doing? What what do we do? Do they become research centers? I think districts across the country are struggling with this. Not the elementary ages. Elementary age is very robust. Checkouts, lots of reading, all of that. Tapers off a little bit in
junior high, but by senior high just it just completely goes off the cliff. And as the academic officer, I I I have some, you know, I lament that. I wish that we were reading, but but I watch my own children. They just consume information differently. It's videos. It's it's bullet points. It's surface
level. You were making the point about technology earlier. I totally agree. Uh that you know in young hands we haven't thought that out fully in its implications. But in this particular case to kind of close the loop on this. Yes, that book has come out. I you know
if that's going to be the strategy going forward, we're going to have to discuss how we want we want to approach that. Obviously those I acknowledge and have acknowledged those books are still in there. We get we get a chunk of them every every month and there's there's doesn't seem to be an effective moderate
option. The options on the table are kind of nuclear options like close the library, take all the fiction books out, just leave the non-fiction things that would to people who aren't a breast of this, right, would would be shocking to them because what I would imagine would happen, we'd say, "Okay, cuz we're all
knowledgeable about it. All right, we're going to take we're going to take the fiction books out and we're going to put them back on in a slow process once we vet them over the next five years or something like that. That that would go out on social media and people said they're they they hate literacy in Klay County. You know, you can imagine the
reaction because people wouldn't read the stuff below. They just >> they already do. >> There's a group that already says we do. >> So, so, so you get like like you're it's we're in a tough spot in terms of of how to approach it. So the the only thing is
I take solace in the fact that like well well I wish kids were reading. I wish we had a problem of kids coming across bad stuff while they were reading. No one's reading these books haven't been checked out. So maybe one solution is to read them more aggressively because overwhelmingly
these books have have never been checked out or been checked out you know just a couple of times because again kids aren't reading. So, we're spending a lot of resources on a problem that I acknowledge exists and at the same time, kids aren't actually reading the books at all. They're not reading the good ones either. Uh, but I think the
overarching conversation we need to continue to have as a school district is what books should we be providing? Isn't there something more academically nutritious than some of the things that that that are in this in the shelves? how to get the library to a to a point
where the things available are something that we can all feel comfortable with. I don't know what the solution is. I've given it a lot of thought. I think I'm generally a clever boy. I haven't figured out how to do this one yet. >> I I just wanted to say that I literally do go through and we have the appeals and I watch like for instance this month
because you know I am engaged in this process, right? And when you look the books that were most appropriate, even on an appeal, it appears to me that a lot of books are sitting in high school now. That maybe our junior high books
numbers are down. Our elementary appears to be pretty robust still because we do resource through our media centers. But I'm going to I'm going to say something. Miss Gilhausen, you actually had a thought on this library. I think it was
a year and a half ago about maybe relooking along the lines of what Mr. Deli is talking about. And I think it would behoove us to do some research because I've done the a bunch of research on there's kind of two ways we could go with media centers. We could
innovate them, make them what we really need them to be for our kids in high school and whatever that looks like. I don't know. Right. like you said, we'd like them to consume what they really would benefit from. And then the the other option
would also be to find a way that we could take big chunks of the fiction at a time. I don't know if we could train people to read I mean try to actively seek out some of the books, right? Um with people that
would be willing to do it for free. So that's really your only two options, right? >> But the issue with that, Miss is you have inconsistencies because people aren't calibrated. It's you know that then that exposes you to other potential issues. You know, >> what if they did it and you were the
calibration like >> then you'd have to reassign me to read books all day long. >> No, I'm saying if other people read and marked >> I'm already I'm not even you. I mean, if other people read and marked pages of concern where you only had a small bit
to look at because we know for the A47 violation, it's not it doesn't have to be like 20% violation, right? 20% of bad things. It only has to be anything. >> So, there are list of books out there. I think I think the way cuz I went through
that whole process, too. I think the way to do it if you were going to do it, maybe this merits a separate discussion time because there's a lot to it, >> but the the Reader's Digest version of this is you would you do it inversely. You would >> take the books out and then put them back on once you have bedded them as
opposed to trying to comb through and find a needle in a stack of needles. >> Yeah. >> Right. Because there now there is some there's some some other strategies you could do. You can look at problematic authors in terms of okay, this this author has had three, four or
five books removed or we'll reassign to mature text. Maybe we just we we we say that that author we we've had too many problems to look for the one good book that author has because they tend to write in the same genres. And what I've discovered and and you know these aren't the types of books I would normally
read, but when I'm going through them, okay, this author writes in the vampire genre and this one writes in this genre. And they they just kind of recycle the same book, put a new cover on it, change the character's name, and they get to sell a new book. And I think that's just salesmanship from the publishers. Can't
trust the publishers at all because they put glowing reviews on all these books cuz why? They want to sell them. And we don't have any librarian, none. And that person doesn't exist that has the capacity to read through every single book. So, we still haven't purchased and
nor will I be comfortable purchasing. I I don't ever get to be comfortable at this point cuz we don't have a good process in place and we can't get to that cuz we're still cleaning up what we have. >> Right. >> Right. And so when we got again when we got into this, I thought there'd be a small number of books and we would go
through. I was shocked that there were any. And it's just volume after volume after volume of these types of adult interests. But we do know like which areas the the non-fiction books >> Yeah. >> are fine. You know those that we don't run into those issues. And so there are
some strategies. I'm just telling you that the ones that would be effective would come with push back. >> Yeah. >> Because people wouldn't understand. Not because it's a bad plan. They wouldn't bother to read. you would make an announcement, explain what you're doing and all that that people would just jump on and go, "Ah, you hate literacy.
You're closing all that stuff." >> Honestly, they don't read. Even the stuff we have removed legally. Um, this is the point. I'm really proud of your team, this district, because I've
met school board members at FSBA who don't want to speak to me because as one said to me, if we know about it, we'll have to remove it. Right. Klay County has moved forward against push back in doing the right things for kids and what you're doing is the right thing for our
kids. And so I appreciate you thinking outside of that box on how to tackle a giant problem and it's really concerning to me that we're taking care of business and most other people aren't. So >> may I ask real quick?
I was under the impression the book that was brought up at the m last meeting had already been removed back in 23 or so. Is that true? Is it back on? >> No, I think it was that book wasn't there. No, it was high school only. >> It went to high school only, right?
Because we didn't have like we didn't have a mature designation at that time. Uh so it didn't violate the statute. So at this point, and just as just a refresh, especially for people who may be watching, is that the only time you can take a book out is if it violates the law based on what we're doing, we
can move it and put a, you know, a sort of a parental advisory designation on it. Um so that parents can help make more informed decisions about those types of things. You can move it to to senior high only. You can move it to secondary only. Those are really the all the options at at our disposal. And that
is super helpful. We came back to you a short time ago and said, could we revisit some of the language in in the u in the rubric to the guidelines because we're seeing more and more books that have uh physical abuse, sexual abuse, you know, the these types of themes.
We're still seeing the ones that are that are 847 violations. Um, but we're seeing these other types of things that really were were really really troubling. And remember too, like when it comes to things like profanity, that's not quantified either. So it's
like, well, how many of this particular word constitutes, but some of the stuff that like especially in this last batch were were super disturbing to me. And again just to kind of keep it objective and keep the emotion out of it because I think that's where better decisions are made
and that legally sound decisions are made. I think the question for a school system is what what are we providing like we have this conversation when we provide English textbooks or history textbooks or math textbooks. The same
type of discernment should be used in my opinion when you make well what are we going to make available for reading in the library as opposed to well in the library it's just a free-for-all you could have because you wouldn't do that in the classroom you'd say the standards
matter right and so we're not we're not seeing like you know Charles Dickens books come through here right these are these are authors I've never heard of and and like I don't see any academic value in these types of books if people
want to read them on their own and maybe turn them into a Netflix movie that's on late at night whatever but in terms of like for me just from an academic lens as a former teacher and principal why would we provide this book to children I ask that every time we go why was why
was this book why would we make this why would we spend taxpayer money and make this type of book and then the arguments are well we have students who've experienced trauma and these kinds of things and so forth. >> I'm not a psychiatrist. >> I'm not I'm not going to be prescribing
anything therapeutically. It might have the inverse effect and create, you know, trigger some kind of trauma. So, I think I don't think that's a sound argument. I think that, you know, generally speaking, we should stick to things that we understand are building the
capacities of our students to be effective citizens as opposed to things that have, you know, excessive drugs and profane. Not that not that you know I'm trying to look at this through a puritanical lens. I'm not I just don't think it's congruent with our mission. It we're saying one thing in the
classroom. We're providing something totally different in the library and and I haven't been able to bridge that gap. So >> well I know our very first book that we found was pornographic even though we had some >> people that were employed with the district that said no it's not
>> right. But I I'm very simplistic in the fact that I still don't understand. I know the publishers have big lobbyists and big lawyers, but I don't understand why we can't sue for providing porn
pornography to our children. It's that simple. >> Yeah, that's that's above my pay grade, Mrs. Clark. I I don't know. >> But I I think you're on to something when you sit here and we discuss this and maybe this is the direction that we move. I know there's going to have to be more discussion on this, but
what is the standard? And we talk about this all the time. We have a standard and in clay. Um we always are trying to raise that bar so that we do better, that we get better. And what is our standard? Is our standard trash in a
library? Some people consider that I mean it completely blew my mind to have teachers come before us and say that this is to enhance learning or uh to read pornography is to challenge a
reader is is mind-blowing because there's other books that are academic that um could challenge readers. But I think that you you're on to that and maybe that's more discussions that we need to have moving forward is the
standard and what we're providing in the classroom is what we should be providing in the library as well. I think like like if you want to make sort of a an analogy with it like you know I was a history teacher so some of the things that we explored in history class were
were terrible events right you know wars and the Holocaust and you could go off but we didn't come at it in a way that was that was uh overly mature or graphic right so there were limits like you so you could talk about there was a graphic
violence occurred in a war setting or in the Holocaust and at the same time you didn't have to bring in profane words or there was maybe restrictions to certain images and things like that where you still got you exposed the student to the idea that these things occurred where
they could grasp it without exposing them to things that that maybe they weren't ready for. And I'm not saying that there's not students out there who maybe are ready for it. Maybe there's there's more mature 16y old they vary in the maturity level. But family values
uh are different too. So some families might say I'm okay with that. That's where the I think the parent control mechanism that you all provided makes all the sense in the world because the parent can come in and say no I think I think my child can handle this. But I think the default is we we if we don't
know we assume that let's let the parent take action here to say we're going to remove the barrier for for my child based on my knowledge of of of my own child and the values we have in our household. And that's a good place to be relative to this. I just think going
forward now that that we're aware and we've been aware that that we've got to come up with a better system and process. We just can't get there. In my opinion, we can't get there until our current collection is is locked down and we know exactly what's in there. We don't know exactly what's in there. It's
just too many pages for us to figure that. We're we're much further along now than we were before. And we had we had a couple of people that were working on this sort of full-time, but in the reduction in force, we lost those individuals. And so now we're back to,
you know, like our primary functions are are different than reading library books. So we we we and these these processes do take two, three, four days, sometimes a month to go through the challenges. It is a painstaking and laborious process in order to make sure we get it right. We do think it's
worthwhile, by the way. Uh, I mean there's there's no doubt. Uh, but I think we were going to have to be more aggressive in the weeding and and that type of thing. Weeding is the process that takes place where you look at a book, it hasn't been checked out in a certain amount of time, therefore it becomes removed from the collection. The
concern with some folks is the optics on that and they've got empty shelves. But I think you're going to continue to see empty shells at the high school and collegiate level in the future because the the younger generation again they consume information digitally not on
paper. So I think that's going to be I looked to universities probably first to uh well with the caveat right but in terms of how the functional the pragmatic functional use of that space is it a
research area is it a study area it's I I don't think you're going to see people just sitting around reading novels. Uh >> well maybe madam chair we can find a month sometimes September October seems to be good to give us time to research and >> well I think I think one thing that
would be helpful um is hearing from um our secondary education folks and our principles about um what do they see as the of the benefits of um the media center like what what are they act what
would be a highle function for that space in their school. >> We could we could start that conversation. Um because I think they're they're in the same same spot I am. It's like >> well we can do this but you know it's in in certain you know I think research
makes sense school stores make sense. There's all kinds there's a big room but right now is most of the senior high libraries I hate to say this but you know kids sitting there at lunch because it's quieter than the cafeteria. They're not in there reading. >> I have a question.
A couple of months ago, the gentleman that comes to the board meetings and challenged the books, he mentioned >> uh that there was he found a book that legally I don't think it would be illegal to have it on the library, but uh it promotes like um discontent
towards the police. It was time to demonize the police and say the police, you know, is bad and all of these things. >> What do you think about that? So that's a that's a tricky one because that's that's a little bit different in terms of do you want to get into the
restriction of ideas because you once you open that once you open that door and you say okay we don't like communism we're going to get rid of communism or we don't like socialism or whatever the ism is CRT whatever the the the issues you can't examine that anymore we've
said or the next board member might say well you can't examine American exceptionalism You you open that door and from from the academic officer standpoint is that in understanding like what the f because the founders our founding fathers understood the the idea
of restricting ideas. You let all the bad ideas out. Freedom of speech is for even the Ni stuff. I would say that something like exploring communism and I'm just going to use that as the example. We could use any example you want. I don't want to live under communism. I'm I'm I'm educated enough
to know that it didn't work out, that it's bad, that I'm concerned that people now are seem to be leaning that way. They've forgotten the horrors of it. Do I take it out and we don't get to discuss it anymore? You know, that that's that's a very dangerous road to
go down. And so I think that that those types of books, they don't violate the law. You would have to bring forward >> Yeah. the policy that says we're not we're not looking at these ideas >> and I also want to say >> I think it depends on the context the book's been written
>> if not description of something that happened or incitation you know >> well in a book like that in Troa you could have other things in the book that that might trigger a a movement of it like excessive violence excessive profanity
um sexual situations that would make it more mature as opposed to making it available able to everyone. But I I'm just I I would defer to the attorney. I would say that going down that road would get us in we would lose we would lose.
>> I actually have our attorney and let me just real quick >> there are I want to just explain legally what's happening across Florida and across the state. There are cases that have been brought to court as high as I think the first I don't know district court of appeals. But there are cases
that have come a lot of cases like about kind of books we are removing right now have been successfully we've won like as a district across people have been sued and the judges have said hey what you're doing like what we're doing in county
there is some legal evidence that it will continue to be legal what we're doing where it gets a little gray and I've talked to our attorney about this is when you go into like what Mr. um daily was saying trying to restrict
restrict ideas. There has been no I don't know what you call it when the you look at precedent right there has been no precedent in the case of what you're talking about that has been successfully fought and won. So part of it is every
time I bring something to you, I have to make sure I talk to the lawyers because we have to follow what the law indicates. And although I may agree with you right on this that sometimes we have bad books that we disagree with and we
can't remove but there also has to be some precedent to removing topics or categories of books. I think it comes down to like like sort of age appropriateness and then how you how you would enter into the examination of the
topic. So if the topic is okay there are groups of people who don't trust institutions like the police or the military or whatever can can is that not allowable to have a discussion on that. If and let's say it's novelized and in the novel
characters are using the f-word 50 times or there's a graphic murder scene, you would say that that would be age inappropriate. That's too mature. That would go into a mature designation. there would be no situation there short of a sexual situation that would trigger
its removal from the collection entirely because you would have no law upon which to base that which makes it legally indefensible is my understanding. So I think in this case it's it's you know and I I just you know when I was a American history teacher I feel like all
of my students could discuss and and argue against commun they knew all the you know I wasn't afraid of it like we would say let's let's educate you on it and you can show you the pros and show you the cons and you know I felt like that was that was powerful for the
students. So I I don't shy away from from those. It's just if it's novelized, they can become You see I I wish you guys come to Some of the stuff we see is crazy. Like there's the comic book stuff of like what are those called? >> Robins.
>> She is like I thought, you know, it was going to be like Batman and Robin Kapowang, you know. No, no, that's that's not what was happening, you know. So, so just all kinds of stuff that, you know, my hair is a lot grayer now than it was when we started all of this. I
don't think that's coincidental, but it's it's it's a complex issue. I think we've done a great job of say weaving as an organization, both the board working in collaboration with our team that's allowed us to navigate these kind of murky waters and be successful with it.
Are we in an ideal place with it? No. Can we get there? Maybe. I'm hopeful. But what we're doing right now is working, I think, as best as we can given the circumstances. And and I I say that very very specifically. It's the best we can do given all the
circumstances. Is it what our community complainant wants? No. Is it? But you've got people on both sides from day one to now. Just to reiterate, we followed policy. We followed the law. We continue to and we continue to reflect and look at it to see if we can find a better
way. I'd love to know what the off-ramp is because I've been on this crazy highway for for 5 years. And and if if we can find an off-ramp, I'll be the first to jump on it. But until that time, I think it's just laborious hard work is the way through the forest, if that makes sense. >> Yeah.
>> Um, and just to wrap us up because I know this could go on for this cuz we could do a whole workshop on this. Um, and maybe we do our research and come and run some ideas off of you, but is there any possibility um to start purchasing for elementary school?
>> Sure. Absolutely. It's a they're in a different situation and having said that there are still books n they could on board that would be >> well we're not with the American Library Association anymore right so like what was recommended by them was what we purchased usually in a bundle and packet
>> correct but you run into every publisher comes forward with like here's here's our like you buy all these books you know if you'd like >> they all of them are labeled that they're great books >> right >> and so even in elementary we find books that we don't know if they're
appropriate for Klay County students based on on the on the >> So, can we maybe per like you said check out some publishers that we know are good publishers? >> Mrs. G, I think maybe you could speak with more expertise on the on publishing for elementary. >> The summaries don't usually
>> because it comes through Mrs. Gumaries don't >> because shockingly I have little kids ask me why we can't buy books. So, I don't know. >> They happen in elementary. So that's now last year we did pause fiction for a little bit except for Sunshine Fate books just so that they could have time
to look at their collections which is really difficult for elementary to review when they're on rotation. Sometime some of them have nine classes a day that come through the library. Um but they are being very diligent. Uh right now I'm um holding a summer class
of titles um that has been recommended through a local vendor who I work closely with and she understands what's going on. Um it it really comes down to the vendors and and who you work with. Publishers have the right to publish and
whatever they want. We can't stop that or prevent that. Um, but in this class I have probably 600 books that all my elementary people, almost all of them volunteer to review and read over the summer. And if they
have any questions, we've we've gone over your the community standards. They understand, you know, what is expected and any little question they have, they're coming to me. What do you think about this? And then at the end of this in the middle of July, we're going to come back
together and talk about it because that's the one hard part too for them is they don't see each other unless we have a meeting. And a lot of times, as you know, the best way to talk about things for purchasing is when you're together. >> Yeah.
>> Um I did hear the ALA mentioned and I can honestly say in the nine almost nine years I've been in this position, I've never said the word ALA. So, and and most of our librarians, they don't know. They don't even have an association with
the with the they don't know. They were classroom teachers that, you know, wanted to have a space where they could come in and and serve the entire school, especially elementary. Yes. >> I think this process though is not it's
it's the hand. It's the it's the best available process. But even in that process, just just so we're clear, you could have all those people in good faith get together and read and go through everything. Could something come up later say, "Hey, you on boarded this in August of 2026 and it was because
there's a there's a measure of subjectivity and a lack of calibration with people who aren't doing that full-time. All that we can see things a little bit differently, right? Ours is a more stringent process where we're literally literally going I have like a real route. I'm going with the line and
I'm looking at the policy. I'm going with the law. I'm looking at the law. And I don't think that anybody has the capacity to do that. If you're if you're looking at all the Sunshine State books and there's hundreds and hundreds of pages in each of those books, right? Cuz some of them are 300 pages, some of them are 200 pages. Is there something on one
of those pages that someone could object to? >> Sure. >> 100%. So my goal is to try to get us as close to like bulletproof with that as we can be so that no one can come forward and say, "Ah, you talking out both sides of your mouth. You said you were going to do this, but then you
brought forward this book and you approved the purchase." We're doing the best we can to filter could something come through that could that someone could bring forward in a challenge. I could see that happening. Uh so there's there's no perfect way to
do it again because of the subjective nature particularly relative to fiction. So what's a good topic for one person unacceptable topic to another and so on and not everybody understands the law and not everyone understands the policy >> and schools are very diverse. What you might read in Middberg or Keystone might
be read differently in Orange Park High School. >> Yeah. So it's so you can see the complexity of the issue in its entirety. So there's no simple solutions. I will tell you that we have we're doing the best we can given the resources available and you know our resources it
looks like are going to get less and less and so it becomes the the endgame becomes further in the distance as our resources shrink >> well and I'll tell you this I from a personal standpoint I was reading a book with my daughter that's um a very famous
artist and they waited till like chapter nine and there was only like 10 chapters of this book to actually mentioned something completely utterly inappropriate and it's an elementary school book. So, uh I as I'm reading it, I stop and I'm
like, "Whoa, hold on a second." Uh and the whole page is completely inappropriate. So, um not something that I would even read to my sixth grader. So anyway, so in their defense, I get it that some of these publishers wait till the last three
pages, four pages to to actually give the gut punch. So >> and elementary is tricky too because like if you're talking about what's appropriate for first grader, first grader, sixth grade, very different. Correct. Right. And so and then how do you how do you parse that out on the shelves and organize that and do you
have it like a shelf? It's like you're doing this to the third graders like you can't touch it and and all of that. So it's it again everything is just awesome. >> Well, I appreciate your hard work and thank you for that. >> Um and I also before we end this meeting
I just want to um say that our our hearts and prayers um are with the families. Um I think we've actually lost a couple students um here recently and so u I know that's a challenging time for their families especially the mamas out
there um who are hurting uh for the students who have known these these individuals um know that we are providing help and there there will be help. Um, but I I genuin gen genuinely um
want to send our our thoughts and prayers to these families um and these these mamas out there that are hurting. So with that, this meeting is adjourned. Here's some information.