##VIDEO ID:https://thefloridachannel.org/videos/1-15-25-state-board-of-education-meeting/## Good morning, and welcome to our first meeting of 2025. I'd like to call this meeting to order. My name is Ben Gibson. I'm chair of the State Board of Education. And right by our commissioner of education, Manny Diaz, as well as my fellow members, Vice Chair, Ryan Petty, member Esther Byrd, member Mary Lynn Magar, member Daniel Foganholi. And on the phone, I believe we have member Christy and member Garcia both joining us. So let the record reflect that we do have a quorum for today's meeting. To start off our meeting, I'd like to recognize pastor Jack Wheatley of the Village Church of Destin to deliver our invocation. If you could please rise. Thank you all. What a privilege and an honor it is to come here and serve with you guys this morning. On behalf of the city of Destin. Thank you to coming here and visiting us. I would just like to in the tradition of my faith, I'd like to just open this up with a word of prayer, please. Dear heavenly father, lord, I just ask that you you're upon us in this in this meeting, lord, that you are here with us as we go throughout this this session, lord, that we have a great attitude, that we have an understanding of what your will is for all each of our lives here that are present, lord. Thank you for the board, lord. I play blessings over this meeting. I play blessings over the ones that are attending and play blessings over all of the families that are here. We just ask that you be with the city of Destin. You be with the city the state of Florida as well as The United States Of America. We thank you for what you have done. We thank you for your blessing over all of us. Thank you, and we ask this in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. If you could please remain standing, for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag and And we will now have the, national anthem performed by the Destin High School Soundwave, directed by Mr. Cameron Gordon. You may be seated. Thank you so much to the Destin High School sound wave. You guys were amazing. Thank you so much to the Destin High School sound wave. You guys to the Destin High School sound wave. You guys were amazing. I'd like to, now recognize Mr. Willie Williams, Executive Director, and Doctor. Diane Kelly, Principal of Destin High School for five minutes to welcome the board. Good morning, commissioner Diaz, members of the Florida State Board of Education, superintendents, the governing board of Destin High School members who are here, and distinguished, members of the public. On behalf of Destin High School, it's my honor to welcome you to our campus. My name is mister Williams. I'm the executive director here at Destin High School and I'm joined today for opening remarks by our phenomenal principal, doctor Diane Kelly. Destin High School was formed to be a beacon of opportunity, innovation, and excellence in the heart of the Destin community. It was also formed to give children in Destin a high school to call home in their own hometown. As a comprehensive charter high school, Dustin is committed to meeting the diverse needs of our students whether academically, artistically, or athletically, ensuring that they have the tools, resources, and the mentorship needed to thrive. Our school is home to 600 plus remarkable students who walk through the doors here daily. Every day the Sharks of Destin High School bring their hope of a brighter future with them. They also inspire us daily with their determination, their creativity, their kindness, and their resilience. Destin High School is their school. It's their school in their hometown, their school. It's their school where their aspirations are nurtured and transformed into achievements in large part due to the amazing and dedicated faculty and staff of the school. One of the programs I want to highlight quickly that truly sets us apart is our fishing program. It reflects our coastal heritage as a city and prepares students for real world success here in their hometown. This program was developed to uphold Destin's identity as the world's luckiest fishing village. It houses the largest charter boat fishing fleet in the world. Our unique and one of a kind program provides students the opportunity to learn about the charter fishing industry and ultimately over four years time results in an opportunity to earn a captain's license. Our students also shine in other academic areas, they shine in the arts, they shine in athletics. I'll let Doctor. Kelly share more about that, and the remarkable achievements that are happening here at Destin High School, but I do want to thank you for your continued support and commitment to education in Florida. Your being here today shines a bright light on your commitment to students across all sectors of education, and across our great state. Together we will ensure that schools like Destin High School remain a place where students achieve their dreams and can learn to become leaders in our communities. And now please help me welcome Doctor. Diane Kelly the principal of Destin High School. Thank you Mr. Williams. Good morning Commissioner Diaz and members of the board and esteemed guests. It is a privilege to have you in the Shark Tank this morning. Thank you for being on Destin High School's campus, the home of the Sharks. We take pride on offering a well rounded education that extends far beyond the classroom. And as mister Williams said, we want our students to be exceptional, not just on the campus, but everywhere they are. We want them to wear Destin High School, with pride, and we want the public to know that these students came from Destin High School. They represent us so well. I just wanted to highlight a couple of things. I know the clock is ticking. Our theater program has become a true gem in our community taught by a real former actress. They recently won accolades at the state, competition. Our art program, I wish you could have been here on our Winter Fine Arts night, where our art, our theater, our band, and our chorus really shine brightly. You would have thought you were at a small college campus. Athletically, we've had some extraordinary highs. This year, we had our first state champions in girls' weightlifting. We are only three and a half years old, so for us, these were really true highlights. I also wanted to say to you, I just said that although we are only three and a half years old, I want to point out that this past year, we were only one point shy of an A grade. And most of you who know me any at all know that this is my fourth school to serve as principal. I've been honored to serve our students all across Okaloosa County and in other districts as well. But to have been only one point away, I think, speaks highly of our staff and our students. I want to just say one thing before I close. I've been incredibly, incredibly blessed in my career to have rubbed shoulders with leaders such as those in our presence today across Region 1 in Florida. And I just want to highlight some of those superintendents who are here today. My own superintendent from Okaloosa County Schools, Superintendent Mark Chambers, Marcus Chambers, our superintendent, nearby in Washington County, superintendent Russell Hughes superintendent from Escambia County, Keith Leonard and superintendent from Bay County, Mark McQueen as well as one who couldn't be here today but is here in spirit with us, superintendent, Karen Barber from Santa Rosa County. I am indeed blessed to have been able to work with these people who not only know what to do for students, but who show what to do for students. Thank you. And again, welcome to the Shark Tank. Thank you so much, Principal Kelly and, Executive Director Williams. This is the most hospitable, Shark Tank I've ever been. I really appreciate it. Thank you both. If you would like to speak to the Board today about an actual item on the agenda, we ask that you please fill out the speaker's card located near the entrance and give it, to either Jennifer Bailey or Chris Emerson, here to my left. When we get to that portion of the meeting, staff will present the item and we will hear comments from those who submitted speaker cards. We ask that anyone addressing the Board to please do so with respect and civility. Also, we are going to limit the amount of time allotted to speak to keep the meeting pace moving along. When you have thirty seconds, it will be one minute per speaker per item. When you have thirty seconds left, the yellow light will illuminate and And when your time is up, the red light will come on. I would also like to remind everyone to please silence your personal devices so we can proceed with minimal interruptions. Now I'd like to turn it over to our Commissioner of Education, Manny Diaz, to present his report. Commissioner? Thank you, Chair Gibson. And, it is great to be here, and Dustin at the Shark Tank. And and what an incredible collection of leaders. I mean, to to be able, you know, just let it be said that the state board will travel to all corners of the state, right? We've been all the way down to Key West. We've been in this area now twice. But to have an incredible collection of leaders here, superintendent from all three or four surrounding counties, thank you all for being here. And really, it brings us joy to come and see this campus and see the work that's being done here. Again, congratulations again, Superintendent Chambers, for your work with Destin Charter School. And I know that we're going to see some good things in this general area across the board. And I know that superintendent McQueen is speaking on behalf of the superintendents, and I'm just going to rope him into the area, even though I think he's technically a little closer to where we are. But I think he definitely wants to be part of this group. So welcome to the first meeting of January 2025. Last year, the board was able to do some incredible work. And sometimes we don't take the moment to recognize that, but I think some of the members of the board have highlighted that in some of the past meetings. And having a new member, Foganholi, on board, we're excited to go into 2025, steaming ahead. We're we're gonna keep Florida number one in education, and, that's the work we're gonna continue to do here. I also want to recognize another leader that's your new face, and that is, the president of Northwest Florida State College, the new president of still still new, president of Northwest Florida State College, Mel Ponder. Thanks for, for being here. I know you're gonna share some words with us, but, fantastic to have you on board. We're looking forward to the incredible work that's gonna be done there at at Northwest Florida State and, you know, the partnership which you already are working on with all these, leaders across this area. Thank you, and we look forward to hearing from you. You know, board members, last week, we heard, an interesting article, that highlighted Florida's nation leading support for classical schools. And the classical model provides students with a strong foundation in reading, math, grammar, while teaching them about the constitution, the declaration of independence, and the quickly fading cursive writing. You know, with the important part about that is a lot of our a lot of our primary sources are written in cursive. And, you know, some of us think that we're younger than we are. And so we assume that everyone can read cursive and, you know, write cursive. But when you talk to, the younger folks, they don't seem to have that ability. And I think that's that's something very important, and it's very important that it's being preserved. And I know that it's in our standards as well. But the classical move movement in Florida is thriving. And, look, while the left is busy criticizing classical schools, these schools are focused on giving students a solid academic foundation that will shape shape them into well rounded, civically engaged adults. Thanks to the leadership of governor DeSantis, the work, of this board and Florida has expanded opportunities for classical education allows students to use the classical learning tests for college admissions and bright futures, allowing enrollment preferences at charter schools for students who transfer from a classical school, and created a new educator certificate designed specifically for educators teaching the classical education model. It is different, but it's not new. It's something that has worked, throughout time, and I think, it's great to see the the renaissance of of that style. And, I I I will tell you that that classical certificate, will be of great help to these schools because they teach things like Latin, and they have to they find individuals that have a unique skill set that don't necessarily fit into the traditional model. Let's just say that. Florida has created an institute for classical learning at Flagler College, which has provided professional development for classical educators across the state. We also have the Hamilton Center at the University of Florida. And I'm excited, for those of you that don't know, Miami Dade County Public Schools passed an item to implement classical education next year. They will have one school, which will which is being converted to a magnet school, so open enrollment, which will implement a classical model. So we will I I I think it's I haven't I can't say for certain. I haven't done complete research. I think it may be the first in the country. So we will have a a school district running a classical model, as a magnet open enrollment. So we're excited about that, and that's that school is receiving support and professional development from both, the Institute, for our classical education at Flagler College and the the Hamilton Center at University of Florida. So we're we're committed to providing the best educational options across the board here in Florida. Classical education is one of those, and is we hope to continue to see that thrive as more parents, demand that. In just a few minutes, we'll hear an update on the teacher and instructional personnel salary increase allocations. Since 02/2019, Governor DeSantis has approved more than $4,600,000,000 to increase teacher pay, including $1,250,000,000 dedicated to teacher pay increases in the focus on Florida Futures, budget for the current fiscal year. The largest investment in raising teacher pay in Florida history, that did not exist, before governor DeSantis, made that that push and led on that charge. Now teachers have one of the most important jobs that, the most important job at a school. There's two things. Right? The leader and the quality of the teacher in front of the classroom. And governor has demonstrated his commitment to make sure that we're putting quality teachers, in front of every classroom. While most school districts have come to agreements with the teachers unions and given raises to their teachers, there are still a few districts that are at impasse and withholding these funds from teachers' paychecks while they negotiate with the local teacher union. I I know that this board has made their sentiment clear on this, on this topic, and here we are once again. It is difficult for me to grasp that the legislature has appropriated the dollars, that the governor has signed that budget, and that those dollars, in some cases, are still were past Christmas and are still not in the pockets of teachers. And I think that what we've seen across the board is that there's been instances where, the teachers unions have just added additional things to these negotiations, in order to to string them out. And the priorities should be to put the dollars in the teachers' pockets. And I know there are districts that have done a great job, have a great relationship. They've come to agreements. Some of them came to agreements in the summer right after the budget took place after July 1. But it is important that everybody be aware these dollars are there and that and there are cases where they're not in those teachers' pockets yet. And so a reminder, those teachers and instructors deserve those dollars being in their pocketbook. They've been allocated since July one of last year now. General education courses. Last September, all 28 of our Florida colleges were required for the first time to submit their general education courses to ensure compliance with Florida education courses to ensure compliance with Florida statutes. The process established in legislation last year through the leadership of governor DeSantis ensures that students attending our public state colleges and universities are taking high quality general education courses that provide foundational knowledge and prepare them for lifelong learning and success. General education courses should be exactly that, general knowledge rooted in math, history, civics, science, communication, and the humanities, which as the statute says, promote and preserve the constitutional republic. They should not be unproven, speculative, or specialized courses that that fit within requirements of a major. Those are better suited for students to take in upper level classes or outside the general requirements. Governor DeSantis has made it clear that students attending our public institutions of higher education should receive the highest quality education that provides them the knowledge and skills they need to be great citizens and succeed in the job market. The general education courses awaiting your approval today provides students with foundational knowledge that will help them think critically and develop greater understanding when they move into the courses of their major. I am happy to say that all of our colleges have complied with the statutory requirements, and their general education courses are on the agenda today for you to approve. The list represents a 57% decrease in the number of general educational courses, a remarkable achievement. I know that that that number should be eye popping. If you reduce by 57%, you're asking the question, and you'll get the presentation, what was in there? Florida is leading the nation in returning institutions of higher education back to the original purpose, to educate students. I am proud of the work that our colleges have done to refocus general education courses and ensure our students are receiving the highest quality education in the nation. We have to it goes it has to be mentioned. The work of our incredible team, with senior chancellor, Kim Ritchie, chancellor Hebda, all all the folks in the college division, but also our 28 presidents that have remained steadfast and committed to their mission of providing, what students need, right, to provide what students need to go into the workforce, to move on to a four year institution, to go on with their lives, not to waste time and not to waste taxpayer dollars or tuition dollars. So I commend our presidents also on their work on this. And, I you know, during the presentation, I'm sure you're here, but it took it took a lot of work. So I I just wanted to make sure that we highlight the work that was done by our team and by the presidents. Like I mentioned earlier, it is great to have president Ponder here. We are looking forward to seeing all of the success that's going to continue to come at Northwest Florida State College in the near future. You you are blessed geographically, by being in a beautiful part of the state, but you're also blessed by the partnerships that you have available to you, from all the superintendents that are here today in the surrounding areas, from our incredible military installations that are here in this area. This is this place is is chock full of opportunity, for for a state college. And I think, you are, the best suited to take advantage of that. So we're gonna be looking forward to the incredible things. No pressure. Additionally, I wanna recognize that there's four new appointees to the Saint John's River State College Board of Trustees. I know that these individuals will bring new leadership and set forth the vision, of governor DeSantis, so we're looking forward to their leadership at Saint John's, River State College. I wanna highlight that Broward College is currently in the process of finding a new president. I know they will find somebody who's extremely qualified, to lead their school, so we are watching, and waiting as they complete that process. Hopefully, we will see that soon. I look forward to working out alongside them and all and the rest of the the other 27 colleges to make sure that we keep Florida number one in higher ed, I want to remind you that the number one ranking in higher ed is not one or two years. Florida has been number one for eight years on US News and World Report. And I've you know, regardless of what chancellor Rodriguez says, a lot of that, has that credit has to go to the work of our state colleges. And so, I just don't I remind our presidents, don't, rest on your laurels. It's it's time to get to work and continue pushing forward. I'm also happy, to announce something you saw probably saw in the news. The graduation rate for the state of Florida in 2324 school year has continues to rise, and we are now we've now, gotten to 89.7%. This is a 1.7% increase over last year. This success is yet another example of how our students benefited from returning to the classroom in 2020 while other states, blue states, kept their schools locked down, and we are we have we are still seeing the harm that it has caused students. Florida's graduation rate for the 2324 school year continues to outpace pre pandemic levels even with the reinstitution of all assessment requirements beginning last year. I am proud of the continued success that Florida students have achieved, and I am thankful for the support of our great governor, the education governor, governor Ron DeSantis, who has made education a top priority. Members, I will highlight there, when you look at that report, if you see there are two dots on there for 2020 and 2021, when you see those two, remember that even though you're going to see, ninety percent on those, those were graduation rates with the testing requirements removed because of COVID. And I know members of this board were were around when that happened. So a reminder that this is the highest graduation rate in the history of the state. And to give you an example, I don't have the chart in front of me, but I think it's, it's somewhere in the nineties, in the nineteen nineties that if you look back, Florida's graduation rate at one point was at fifty nine percent. So whoever wants to tell you that the work that you're doing doesn't matter, whoever wants to tell you that reform, accountability, and choice don't matter, I I think the proof is in the pudding. Thank you, mister chair. Thank you. And thank you so much for highlighting that. I mean, the the breaking the the record there, I mean, number one, it, the the credit the credit goes to, number one, our students who who put in the work, but it goes to our teachers, it goes to our principals, it goes to our superintendents, it goes to you, commissioner, it goes to your staff, and the governor and the legislature, putting in a system and a model that is going to create an environment where that is possible. And you're right. I mean, it was we're talking in the nineties. We're talking in the in the 50 percentile, and you think of the difference, between that and to where we are now. And, really, it's great. It's a great talking point. It's great to talk about. But really, what matters is you when you look at those individual students who now are actually graduating as opposed to not graduating, and think about what that means for their future, what that means for their community, what that means for our future economy. And it's just it's just it's just incredible. Yes. And I like to add, Mr. Chair, that if you dig into the numbers, you look at African American students, over 2% increase Hispanic students, over 2% increase economically disadvantaged students, over 2% increase. So when critics come to this board every time that this board goes to raise the bar, and so I just want to validate what you've done, when you raise those expectations, our students meet the challenge. Our teachers meet the challenge. It is the naysayers that come and say, you're making it too difficult. No, if you stop doing that, we're giving up on our kids. And so I want to commend the work of the board on this because I know that that, that's that's been tough, especially coming out of of the COVID situation. Yeah. And and this board, you know, took the lead from the governor, daring the pandemic to keep schools open, and to make sure that kids were back in school. And and that was, you know, that took a lot of leadership. That took a lot of, of fortitude. But it but at the end of the day, it really goes back to sort of our core principles and and core, and core values of of making sure that every student has the opportunity to to learn the best opportunity. And I think that's something that, myself as a board member, I know our fellow board members are very proud of, the stance that Florida took. And and we're continuing to see the, the fruits of those decisions. Those are very, very tough decisions that were made, in the depth of of the pandemic. Members, any comments or questions for on the commissioner's report? Just a quick comment. Yes, Vice Chair Petty. Commissioner, thank you for that. I echo the, sentiments of our chair. It was great to hear you come out saying 2025 we're gonna keep pushing forward. I think, if we rest on our laurels, we won't continue to be number one. So I'm I'm glad to see us do that. And just to comment on one one thing you you mentioned, Miami Dade and the classical school. What fantastic news to see a a district take that, baton and run with it. And I would love to see other districts in the state follow the lead of of Miami Dade and create these opportunities, in classical education for our students. So, if there are any districts out there listening or any superintendents out there listening, call the superintendent at Miami Dade and find out what they did to get that going because I think it's a fantastic opportunity. And just to to follow-up on that quickly, you also mentioned cursive writing. And you're right. I think that I have I have a son who right now is learning cursive. And so, and this is very, so this is very near to my heart. But when you think about it, somebody who who would graduate from school not knowing how to recursive, that means they couldn't read the original manuscript of the Declaration of Independence or Constitution. I mean, that's something that I mean, I think we we take that for granted, especially if you are of a generation that you curse it, which is part of a normal education. But but that is something that, you know, it's I'm glad to see that importance. I'm glad to see what Miami Dade is doing. Yep. Yes, Member Magar. And let me follow-up also on the classical education commissioner. Thank you for bringing that up. I know a a classical ed school opened in my county a few years back, and there has been a waiting list every year because they are teaching proper grammar, basic math skills, the curse of writing that's so important. And, you know, I know that some on the left, they don't like this because they say that, it's a it's some some kind of right wing, curriculum. But I I would say that to be good stewards of our democracy, to understand the principles that our nation was built on, this is so important and and why they need to teach this in classical schools and all the way up through college. As a matter of fact, I understand that, former commissioner Richard Corcoran, president at New College, is using classical education, and they have record enrollment now. So, kudos to everyone on the, classical education train, and I'm right there with you. So, Kira, I think that, both Member Magar and Vice Chair Peddie have sent out a challenge to superintendents in the audience. I agree. I think there would be this beautiful setting to have a classical school somewhere in this area. So who's gonna take the challenge? We'll provide the support. Absolutely. Thank you, commissioner. Members, with that, can I get a motion to approve the commissioner's report? Move. You got a motion. Is there a second? Second. Motion is second. Without objection, show the commissioner's report approved. Members, you should also have a copy of the minutes from our, last two meetings, October 15 and November 20. Can I get a motion to approve those minutes? So moved. Got a motion. Is there a second? Yes. Motion and a second. Without objection, show those minutes approved. Now I'd like to recognize Mark McQueen, superintendent of Bay County School District, for ten minutes to provide an update on behalf of the Florida Association of District School Superintendents. Superintendent McQueen, welcome, and you are recognized. Thank you, chair Gibson and commissioner Diaz. Thank you so much. And to the state board, thank you for the invitation to come and and represent the team of teams, the superintendents for the entirety of the state of Florida. I'm humbled to be standing in front of you on their behalf. And, you know, when I reflect on my life, my life was always changed by a phone call, a phone call that said, hey. Congratulations, soldier. You're now a brigadier general, and now you're getting ready to be promoted to major general. I remember sixteen months ago when I received the phone call from the governor's office asking me to become the superintendent for Bay District Schools. I was humbled by that. I remember the phone call from senator Mumford that called and said, you're being appointed a mentor, new superintendent, and that mentor was superintendent Chambers. Thank you so much, superintendent Chambers. And then, of course, my fab four that are here in the Panhandle with the other four, superintendents that I have the opportunity to do leader to development with with superintendent Leonard, superintendent Barber, superintendent Hughes, and superintendent Chambers. They are amazing, and I'm hoping to be invited in to become part of the fab five. But I'll tell you what, it's really exciting to see what's taking place in Bay County. And I wanna share a little bit about Bay County with you that who we are. We are am I driving the train? I'm sorry. There we go. Who we are? We are we have 28,000 students that are in Bay District School System, and it makes no difference to me whether you go public, private, charter, homeschool, virtual school, lab school, collegiate school. Whatever you do in Bay County, I want it to be an a route where those families and those students get the best education that they can. We have, in the public side, we have 35 schools, and those schools are anything from just pure elementary to combination schools. We have k 12 schools. We have an amazing technical college, and, and we have seamless transition between what takes place in our public schools, with our state college, Gulf Coast State College, and, of course, our tier one university, Florida State University, Panama City campus. Everything we do in Bay County is the nexus of that is education, and we're striving to do that because we know that if we're gonna build our economy, build the community, build futures for our students, it's about having trained and ready educated workforce ready to meet the demands of the twenty first century. So how are we doing this? In in Bay County, what we're striving to do is put the a back in Bay. And what we're doing is we're focusing on five a's, the five essentials of what we think is necessary to put the a back in Bay. First and foremost, most is accountability. And as I shared with you at the previous board member meeting that I had before you, that it all starts with accepting that responsibility and that accountability. And at Bay District Schools, we've reduced our budget by $30,000,000 this past year. Additionally, though, we followed the governor's leadership, and we have met the challenge, and we now have our starting salary for all of our teachers at 50,000, and we've created step increases for them so that they can see gains over time and realize, remuneration commensurate with their years of service. We also have done a you have to get your house in order. And when I became the superintendent, I felt like we needed to get all of our policies straight. You're you're governed by those policies of the board. And quite honestly, many of those policies, they were enacted years ago and never reviewed. And what we've done is a % review of the and we'll culminate that in March '36 policies have been reviewed and are about to be adopted by our board. Additionally, we talk a lot in the army about, professional or amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics. And we talk a lot about helping our teachers and getting them because they're at the tip of the spear getting them everything they need to be effective with that student. But more than that, we also have to focus on our support personnel that come alongside and support those teachers in that critical mission. And to that end, what we realized is that I have 70% of my 3,500 employees, of which half of those are teachers, the other half are support employees. Seventy percent of those support employees are making $15 an hour. That's unacceptable. That's unacceptable. And we're going to fix the pay for our support people that have been there for ten, fifteen, twenty years and making right at $15 an hour. It's unacceptable, and we're fixing that. Additionally, we have been following commissioner Diaz's leadership in this, and you're you're setting the standard and the goals and the objectives. This past year, as you just announced, we experienced the highest graduation rate in the history of the Bay District School System, ninety one point four percent. Two years ago, we were ranked forty second in the state on graduation rates. This year, with this announcement, we are now twentieth in the state. And, my good friend, superintendent Hughes, who's number two in the state, we're coming for you, sir. Wherever you are, we're coming for you. We're gonna get there. We also have moved forward, and and if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. And so we have this new strategic plan that we're adopting. We had our workshop on it yesterday, and we're seeing the vision for the next five years for where Bay District Schools will be. We think our students are doing a phenomenal job. They're responding. We have gone from two years ago being thirty fifth in the state to now we are moved into the twenty ninth position. And I think this year, you're gonna see even greater gains out of Bay County. So how are we doing this? Well, you have to get in school, and we're focusing on attendance, the second a. Improving average daily attendance is absolutely essential. And this past December, we have moved that needle to 92% attendance rate, and we're doing it because it's a whole of community effort. Everybody's getting behind this. Our business communities, our nonprofits, our faith based organizations, all of the, civic organizations are all talking about attendance, and that is absolutely necessary if we have this drumbeat going throughout the entire community. Saint Joe Community Foundation has been remarkable in supporting our initiatives, and, we're very grateful for what they've done, particularly for our title one schools. And then we're continuing to focus on habitual absenteeism. We're actually doing name tag management, going to the houses, talking to the parents, seeing what the obstacle is to why the student's not getting to school. And we're breaking down those barriers to help those children get back in class. Because if they're in school, they're gonna have an opportunity to learn the things that they need to to be successful in life. The third a we're focusing on is academic achievement. And I wanna tell you, we are so proud of what we're seeing already this year in progress monitoring one to progress monitoring two. Every school has increased their performance, and that's what you would expect. But it's been remarkable improvement that we've seen. We've also seen that we've had 98% improvement in all of our schools, and they have either maintained or improved their grade. We've also reduced the number of turnaround schools. You asked us to do that. We had eight two years ago. We're now down to one, and we think that we have fixed our systems of systems that are assuring that we have great outcomes for our students in every grade level. Additionally, we've increased district proficiency in ELA, math, science, social studies, and we're continuing to increase our state ranking in each of those. And then very proud of CTE and what is taking place. I am so delighted to report that we received $1,500,000 in CAPE funding, and we received $16,000,000 from the triumph Gulf Coast grant program to and it's all being poured into pathways to create career and technical education opportunities for our students. This is a game changer for our community, which has actually resulted in major businesses and industries coming into and choosing to locate in Bay County, most recently with a major announcement of a maintenance and repair operation for aviation. This is exciting, and I couldn't be more proud of what's taking place in our career and technical education opportunities. We are increasing DOE schools of excellence, and we're now up to eight. And I'm so proud of each and every one of those and what those schools are doing. So what else are we doing? We've talked about the classical, arts, and we're focusing on the arts. The arts are the fourth a that we're focusing on, and that's the opportunity to have an enriching experience for the lives of our students. And we couldn't be more proud of major investment in the arts with brand new performing arts centers at Bay High School and at Mosley High School. And at Arnold High School, we're renovating, and we'll be renovating at Rutherford High School. And on the horizon, we'll be doing it our fifth high school, which is Bozeman. This is great because this is what helps our students to discover themselves, unexpress themselves, whether it's in the musical arts, the visual arts, the performing arts, it makes no difference. We want to enhance that across the board. And we're doing this with great partnerships such as the Panama City Symphony, which is providing tickets for people to come to our students and their parents to come to free of charge to hear the symphony so they can be exposed to music at a level that they've never heard before. Additionally, the fifth a that we're focusing on is athletics. Athletics is that which expands opportunities for individuals to overcome challenges and adversities, learn leadership skills, communication skills, resiliency. And, what we're doing is we've already increased our middle school opportunities with cross country. We are working with the NFL on bringing NFL flag football into Bay County, and we're hoping to have that in in the '25 correction, the twenty six year. And then also we're looking at expanding opportunities for volleyball, beach volleyball, and we're already building two courts for our teams that are here in, Bay County. We also are focusing on FFA. We have Bozeman High School has a top 10 chapter in the nation in their FFA program. So proud of these young people and what we're doing. So how are we moving? We're moving ahead. We're earning the trust and confidence of our citizens in their school system. We happen to be the fortunate ones to have the stewardship of it, but we're meeting their needs and earning their trust and confidence. We're investing in new schools. We're increasing a thousand new students every year for the last three years in the Bay District school system. So we need to be investing in more facilities to be able to meet the needs of our growing community. Lastly, and but not least, we're also focusing on when we talk about this, it's for every student in Bay County, and particularly our ESE students. And our most profound mentally and physically challenged students need better facilities, and we're committed to building a brand new facility for our Margaret k Lewis Center. All of this is taking place one hour east of right here in the Shark Tank. And we're so blessed to be here with you today. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Mister president, mister chair, I have a I have one quick comment and a question. Yes. So this this is incredible. I mean, this this clearly shows when you have the right leadership. When you have leadership, it starts at the top. It sets the tone and and incredible work. I just wanna know I would have liked to see the face of superintendent Chambers when he got the call and was asked to mentor a general. I want to know what his reaction was when that happened. I don't know if, I don't know how much credit we're going to give you on that one, but that had to be a tall task. But seriously, look, the superintendents, especially the ones that are here, the leadership they're providing, and I think this is exactly it. Don't get distracted by the noise or the other nonsense. Stick to the mission of educating kids and getting them ready to not only be ready for the economy and for for their career, but also to be, you know, civic minded and to to to be educated in a manner where they can uphold the republic. So I think, this is a great example of that, and, I'm I'm happy to hear it, mister Chair. Yeah. And, also, we wanna recognize Bay County is one of five purple star school districts. As well, that's a that's a big deal, and the legislature created that program to support military families. And, so very, very proud of of Bay County for that as well. Absolutely. Our purple star schools of distinction. Wow. That's incredible. Our technical college, our state college, and our tier one university, FSU, Panama City campus. 100% in Baytown. That's great. And it it just underlies the the governor's goal to make Florida the most military friendly state in in the nation. And not only that, Mr. Chair, but I do want to highlight the fact that we're here at Dustin High School and this is a charter school. It is clear without me having to ask any questions that there's an incredible relationship between the school district and and the charter school. At the end of the day, this is how it works. This is here to stay, but these are partnerships. And at the end of the day, these students all are part of this district and each one and and this is the way it should work. So I can see that there's a great relationship. I I know you're you're doing a great job as well at Bay. And so, keep up the good work. And and it's especially challenging, to make sure that the students are focused and disciplined with this beautiful beach two blocks away. I mean, if I was a student here, I mean, that that would be a that would be a huge distraction. I mean, you you you literally are in just such a such a beautiful part of the state. And, I know I know the families know that. And, I guess, I guess, we don't really wanna publicize and encourage people to come here, but it's, it's it's beautiful. Yeah. Members, any questions or comments for the superintendent? Alright. Thank you so much. Now I'd like to recognize, President Mel Ponder, from Northwest Florida State College for ten minutes to provide an update on behalf of the Council of Presidents. President Ponder, good to see you and welcome. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's a great honor to be here. And, before I give my comments, I agree. It is a beautiful part of the state. I believe, as some have said before me, God spent a little extra time on this part of the world. And so, it's a special place to live and raise a family. And Mr. Pinstry, I think you just started something new. As I sat there, you recognized several superintendents from the the Central Time Zone. I think we need to establish a central time zone superintendent caucus and that we, come and prepare to honor and serve you any way that they can. They're amazing folks, great leaders, and, I'm very fortunate to call most of them friends. I'm getting to know a few more along the journey. Board, it's an honor to have you in Destin, a city that I love and have raised my family in. And my desire, even when the good Lord allowed me to serve as mayor of this great city, was that people would come in one way, be inspired as they came to the gates of our community, but leave full of hope. And so my hope is that when you come here and you collectively work together as a team to impact and transform the state for good, an educational perspective, I hope also you leave also full of inspiration yourself when you go back home to your families. Commissioner Diaz, thank you, board. It's an honor to have you here. Of course, board member Magar and Bert, I know them personally. It's always an honor to have you in my city. Thank you for that. Senior Chancellor Ritchie, I believe, still here. I know Chancellor Hebda, I believe, had to leave. Oh, no. You're still here. Okay. Chancellor O'Farrell, thank you so much. What a great blessing. Governor DeSantis' team back in Tallahassee, thank you as well for the incredible honor and privilege, of course, of the legislature. And you mentioned the superintendents. What and they're great, great friends, but great leaders. And they're transforming lives every day and it's an honor to to speak on their behalf. A couple things. You've got the the college report in front of you. I wanna thank President Albritton, for, seeing enough in me to to present this morning to you. He's an outstanding leader, doing great things to the Florida College System. Some of the highlights, I'm just gonna highlight just a few. You have the report, so I don't wanna get too far and down in that, but I love the power of what I call testimony. There's several things listed in our economic development, and what inspires me about them is many times you hear testimonies are happening in other places, but when you see that they're happening right here within the framework of the state of Florida, you can you build excitement about possibilities in your home area. And what I love what, President Lobasso is doing at Daytona State College, he's partnering with the the EDC there, a perfect one to partner with. He's doing great things and transforming lives. They're partnering with EDC, president Pamariega, who's always doing phenomenal things at Miami Dade College, working with broadband, working with Florida commerce, working out programs that are bringing transformation and impact to not only Miami Dade, but think about the generational impact of those students. If they stay home, that's wonderful. But if they decide to go to another county in Florida, they're taking that gift of education and that experience with them. President Plinski, what she's doing, again, commissioner, back to your power of partnership through an international brand of Universal Studios. She's working with Epic Universal to train potentially up to 14,000 new staff as part of that. Those are powerful testimonies where you're taking the good news of inside your college footprint, taking it outside into the city and communities you're called to, and training and equipping next generational and this generational leaders. That's part of the power of working through the state college system of workforce and educational innovation training, and I absolutely love that. Some of the other updates as you read through them, Polk State Legoland, Tallahassee State College working with nursing success, Broward College, with their, student publication observers, setting new, new honors and awards. Gulf Coast State College, president McDonald's been a tremendous friend as I've come on board. I've been it's been a great honor to get to know him, but he he's doing great things while partnering with their police department, doing things through dental and health care, Florida south Southwestern State, Physical Therapist program, becoming fully accredited, and on and on and on. If you look at the state colleges that are listed, you see testimony after testimony after testimony. And for me, being new to this, Commissioner, as you said, I'm already a fan of the great work these other leaders are doing ahead of me, which also inspires me to to run my race even more effective and to be a great teammate of them. And from the really, the the the halls from and the fields of study for workforce and impact, you also have the fields of athletic competition. And you have, you know, Florida Southwestern State College, third consecutive d one volleyball national champion. I think it's really kinda cool. Daytona State College, a division one women's soccer national champs. So not only are we excelling in the classroom, but we're excelling on the athletic fields as well, which I think is is is powerful. Commissioner, you've already talked about being number one higher ed in The United States, and I I will do my part to honor you and the governor and to keep that trend going. And I know all the other 27 college presidents will be doing the same thing, pressing towards that goal line. You know, it's the workforce engine of the state. Many of you know that. You've read that. You've seen that. I firmly believe that by getting more baptized into this amazing new culture and family, significantly impacting economic development, which you've seen in many of the testimonies that are before you. Also, it's all for the primary access point for higher education in our state. And I think that we should that should never be overlooked. When you talk with work with our superintendents and what they're doing significantly with our school system, this next tier, this pathway forward, we should be that primary access point. And again, it goes back to that power and partnership, commissioner, that you talked about. I think it's a great opportunity All doing this while facing the pressures of growth and agent infrastructure and rising cost. We're focusing, what I'm seeing that this team is focused on, equipping and empowering our students. I think that's very, very powerful. Recognize that each one has significance, each one has a call. And you recognize that call and come alongside that, they become inspired to become amazing gifts and game changers in their own family. And I love that. My personal story, I just quickly, I lived here for a number of years as city council mayor here, went on to have the honor to serve with Commissioner Diaz and Chair Speaker Magar, Friend, also a board member of Bert's husband, or, obviously, secretary of state. But it's, been a great honor to serve the people of Florida and back home as a county commissioner and then to have this call. It's been a great blessing. Married thirty three years, Three children, two boys and a girl. And, I'm very, very grateful, to to the the what the Lord's allowed me to do, by by by doing that. But I went to an event recently, and this is what I dropped in my heart. And what I think I think it's it's creating atmospheres. And when you create an atmosphere of of of opportunity, I think things happen inside of people that are significant in purpose. And for me, it was three three quick keys. It's you create atmospheres where visions are launched. They come in whether it's on the school grounds or in community. When you have that opportunity, you you create an atmosphere where visions can be launched. You create an atmosphere where dreams can be realized. Everyone has a desire to get somewhere, and I believe we can become the catalyst in many of those ones' lives to help them get there. But for me, it's where hope is distributed. And I think when you have visions launched, dreams realized and released, and you have hope distributed, that's a game changing opportunity for anyone, in their journey. Whether you're looking to thrive, just come alive, or be revived in 2025, I think that's the opportunities we all have each and every day, and I'm thankful to hopefully do my part. So there's a power, not only partnership, but power and connection. One word can change someone's life. My opportunity, I think, that I'm challenged with myself with is every day reminding their people in front of me they're significant. And as teachers and faculty and staff, we have that opportunity every day, not only with our students, but the community we're partnering with. One word can change someone's life, and we have no idea where they're coming to you with. But as we speak that word of hope into them, I think that can be a game changer, a generational game changer in their life. I also call it a city symphony. When you look into the Florida College System and all of our state colleges, there's a partnership opportunity that I think they have opportunity to, whether it's the EDCs, the chambers, the career sources, the school districts, that collectively each organization has their own sound, I'll say. Now I I believe it's like an orchestra pit. You come in, they're doing their thing with their instrument in their hand, but when someone steps on the scene, taps it, there's a beautiful sound that's brought forward. And I believe every city and county and community has a sound over it. And as we bring forth the sound of the city, things, dreams, visions come alive. Not not all two trees are meant to grow on the same soil. So what happens here in Oakville and Walton may not be the same as a Miami Dade or Duval or Marion or whatever the case may be, but those areas are vitally significant. We get caught up on jurisdictional lines, but some of these things transverse jurisdictional lines, some things transverse generations. And I think we have that opportunity as leaders in our communities to unite, come together, focus on what unites us, not divide us, and bring forth that sound. And I believe the Florida College System is such in a vital key role to help that sound come forward and I'm very, very humbled and honored to do my part. The college itself, in my last minute and a half, seven thousand two hundred students, all of them powerful and I'm thankful to be there to serve them. Five bachelor programs, 30 associate degrees, 40 certifications, seven locations, two primary campuses in Niceville where y'all were before six months ago. Thank you so much. You're always welcome back. We wanna make sure you're always coming back. There's five other, centers we have from South Walton, up at our, Chicago Center up in Definiac, Over the Bob Sykes Robert Sykes Center there. We have the Aviation Excellence School, Center of Excellence, pardon me, up in Crestview as well. And then we have a location on Hurlburt Field, which is the home to our Special Ops Command for the Air Force. Our athletics teams, we've had six national championships through our we have a men's and women's basketball, men's baseball, ladies softball, but six national championships, very proud of that. We just opened our Raider Village on campus housing, which was just this spring, a 92 bed unit on our campus in Niceville, working with our nursing department to bring forth change and information there, a $34,000,000 investment, 21,000,000 from Triumph, thirteen million from PECO. Thank you for the support on that. Simulators, virtual reality, classroom to practical application, all in the same room. One thing to be educated by book, one thing to practically apply. I think it's a game changer. It'll be very transformational for our students, doubling our size. I think that's significant and key. Public safety renovation to our building, that $16,000,000 project, we'll start that this fall. Looking forward to doing that. Safest College in Florida, an honor to have that recognition from niche.com. And so I think it's important for parents and students alike to feel they're coming to a campus that's safe and doing great things. Welding program, % placement. Hospitality tourism, % placement. Aviation center, 90 82% pass rate. Teacher education program, 99 to %, employment rate. One of the top highest pass, grades for teachers, through our teacher education department. Collegiate High School based on the Florida Charter School Institute, a number one charter school in the state. There we are doing significant things in Northwest Florida State. The whole college system is. Y'all get to be part of I get to be a fan and be part of family as well, and I'm grateful for that. Again, let me just end this how I started. It's creating an atmosphere where visions are launched, dreams are released, and hope is distributed. And for that, mister Commissioner, thank you for the honor to be here. I'm such a fan and grateful to be part of this Florida College System family, and I'm looking forward to serving you and my other college presidents and leaders like we have, these superintendents in our communities and each family in our community in the days ahead. Thank you, commissioner. I'm honored to take any questions. Thank you so much, president Bonner. Members, any, any questions or comments, President? I think what you said about, hope is really the underscores what education is. It we are providing hope, hope for future generations and hope to for people to change their lives, and providing them those resources. Thank you, chairman. Do you have a comment, commissioner? Thank you, mister Sharon. Again, you can see clearly in his comments is, president Ponder's passion for education. I think he fits right into our our group of 28 and, we look forward to the continuation of all those. I mean, so many things he mentioned there. I always try to highlight the work of our great 28, but I mean, I think you did a great job in a concise time. And just it's so many things going on, it's hard to get around and even see them because it's ever changing. And I think changing for the positive, all the partnerships we talked about, whether it's partnering with the Department of Commerce, partnering with the local career source boards or development councils, the partnership with our superintendents. And you'll get to partake now in our commissioner's summit at the end of the academic year where you get to sit down, roll up your sleeves and and work with with the others in your community and the university presidents to make sure that we have one seamless system. But I think you highlighted so many examples where that's already going on. Again, we just need to keep plowing forward because the next opportunity is there, and we can't let it pass. So thank you for your leadership. We look forward to great things at, at Northwest, Florida State College. And I will also say that for the college, having a leader who knows a little something about the legislature is beneficial too. Always. They can come come in handy. Thank you so much, president. Thank you, board. Appreciate it so much. Alright. Members, next I'd like to recognize Suzanne Pridgen, our deputy commissioner for finance and operations for an update on our teacher salary increase allocation. The commissioner gave us a little bit of a preview, on the importance of that. And, obviously, this is an issue that this board has been laser focused on. So, deputy commissioner, we are eagerly awaiting your update. You're recognized. Okay. Thank you. Thank you all for allowing me to come up and give you this update, that we provide annually and sometimes twice a year. So the fiscal year twenty four, twenty five budget included funding for the largest teacher salary increase in Florida history, just as the commissioner spoke about, adding an additional 201,800,000.0 for a total of $1,250,000,000 This is the largest investment, in raising teacher pay in Florida history. And proof positive that this continues to elevate the teaching profession. And there was not a dedicated source of funding for each of the salary increases prior to Governor DeSantis' leadership. Just to give you a little, a bit of a snippet of a timeline, before receiving the funds, each school district and each charter school must develop the salary schedule, the salary distribution plan, and that clearly delineates the, distribution of those funds. Each school district superintendent must submit the proposed salary plan to the district school board for approval. And the charter school must submit, their plan to the district after their board approval as well. So before October 1, they are all supposed to submit their plan to the department at that point. If the district is at impasse, they have to send us the letter and any information. But typically, what happens if we don't receive their plans before October 1, we do, the districts are very good about reaching out to us and letting us know, the status at that time. But we continue to follow-up with them as time moves on. And by August first of this year, the final expenditure reports, will be sent in to us, and we get to see what the final salaries are, how much the districts contribute, and, where they're looking for next year. So this is the status as of yesterday. We have 59 districts completed. They're approved locally. They're getting paid or scheduled to be paid. Most of them are being paid at this point. Impasse. We had some breaking news last night where Leon County, the one at Impasse, has reached an agreement. We don't know all of the details at this point. Our team is reaching out to to get more details. We don't know when the next board meeting is for or ratification or board approval. But we are glad to see that, they came out of impasse. And so that leads us to 16 negotiating at this time. Though we're happy that almost 60 of our districts are done, we're disappointed that we still have 16 outstanding. I looked over the notes, right before this meeting as well, And the majority of those districts do have meetings this month really next week They have their next board meeting And some of those are really going for approval And some are still truly negotiating And we do hope that they get to the point where their teachers can be paid. And that is the update, Chair. Thank you so much. And great news about, Leon County. Yes. And, but again, we need we need more urgency. Yes. As I think, commissioner, as you said, these funds were available July first of last year. That's right. Members, any questions or comments? Member Bird. Thank you, chair. Excuse me. Since Since I came on this board, over two years ago, this is one of those issues that has just absolutely driven me up the wall. We have the teachers union out there constantly saying that our teachers don't get paid enough, and, you know, we hear the we hear the, the propaganda. And yet, we see time and time again and again, here we are. You know, I just keep thinking every time we put enough pressure on them, they finally all come to come to terms. And surely next budget cycle, we aren't gonna go through this again. And yet, here we are. It's one of the most important jobs we have as the state board of education to ensure that our teachers are taken care of. And, personally, I'm very offended by the fact that we continue to to to go through this, every budget every budget cycle. Sorry. I have to cough. I guess my my message to the unions is give the teachers their dang money. This isn't hard. Stop holding it up to all of the other things that they wanna get done. They've gotta figure it out. I I do think that our school board members in the counties where there are issues, need to pay attention and and put the appropriate amount of pressure, locally to let the parents know, let the teachers know. Maybe there's some of these teachers who don't even know that there's money that they should be getting. So I think there's a lot locally that could be done. And, we'd love to see that, that pressure increase in that way. But we've got to figure this out. And I'm going to continue to, be an eternal optimist and hope that next year, come January or come July 1, we're not going to have to do this again. But if I was one of the teachers in those districts, where I knew that there was money sitting out there during Christmas time when I'm buying guests for my kids and the unions were holding it up, I would not be happy. So, this will continue to be one of those things that that I keep beating the drum, as we all are. And I appreciate that that our board is is has always been very strong and will continue to be. So I hope that, I hope that the unions get the message to to to stop this nonsense and, and put that money in our teachers' pockets. Thank you, Member Byrd. Member Foganholi. Thank you very much, chair. I'd like to back up those sentiments. Thank you, board member. I feel like I think we have the same feelings of when it comes to this subject. And I agree with the unions, but also I think it's also a call to every board member across the state. I think I had frustrations during the call when we were talking about this item because the pressure seems to be put on our superintendents. But yet the boards are not negotiating and doing what they need to do to make sure that this gets done. So I said the same thing down in Broward. If you have it, you have it. If you don't, you don't. But don't lie. Be honest about what you have. Be fair, and that's it. It's frustrating because it's January. We just went through the holidays. And we could talk about wins all we want to, but then they just become talking points. Teachers aren't feeling that. They don't see a win when they don't see it in their bank accounts. So we need to do better for our teachers. And, again, this is frustrating. But, again, the boards need to to be more aggressive and say if you have it, you have it. You don't, you don't. But be honest and get it done for our teachers. Thank you, chair. Thank you. And it obviously, as you mentioned, last budget, we had a record, funding for teacher salary increases, $201,800,000 thanks to the leadership of the governor and the legislature. And that's important because our teachers deserve it, and so we need to make sure that this money is getting to them. And I share the sentiment of of of everyone. I will say one bright spot, if we can highlight it. Tell us, I think is a bright spot at least. Compared to where we were last year, we have seen improvement. Is that correct? We, let's see. We have 59 this year. I believe we had it was between forty and fifty at this time. Forty, forty five, actually, We just need it faster. Right. So we're it's not good enough, obviously. That's right. But we are seeing improvement, and we are seeing, a lot of districts really getting getting the message, which is good. And we're gonna keep, you know, emphasizing that message and and, until we we get all the districts, you know, who are at a place where, you know, the legislature provided this money for teacher salary increases. Let's not hold it up on on issues that are unrelated to that. Thank you so much. Now I'd like to members, we're going to move on to our action items. Our first action item, I'd like to recognize Carrie Miller, our Chancellor of Early Learning, for an overview amendment to a rule involving voluntary pre kindergarten. Chancellor Miller, you're recognized. Good morning. So I'm here today to just talk through the proposed revisions for our BPK curriculum rule. The main purpose of the rule is to, revise the policies and procedures for the VPK curriculum submission for publishers as it pertains to submission, review, and approval of said providers that are required to be providers on probation. Providers on probation must take certain corrective actions, one being implementing a department approved curriculum. So the rule itself establishes our publisher expectations for what the requirements are for the comprehensive curriculum package, location of associated documents and processes for submission of that curriculum, as well as curriculum package review, evaluation protocols, and approval expectations for our VPK providers on probation. The rule also addresses two recent statutory changes. So the rule proposed, being proposed today also addresses the statutory change to 1,002.67, which requires VPK curriculum to develop, students' background knowledge through content rich and sequential knowledge building in early literacy, so an emphasis on early literacy and emergent literacy skills. And the other statute, requirement that this rule is being updated to reflect is 1,001.42, which prohibits classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity, in pre kindergarten through grade eight classroom, recognizing that was a requirement in K-eight. It was expanded now to pre K. That is it. That concludes my presentation for this particular rule. Thank you so much. Members, any questions or comments on the, proposed rule amendment? Seeing none, can I get a motion to approve the amendment to rule six ms dash 8.604? So moved. Second. Got a motion and a second. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. Show the amendment approved. Thank you, chancellor Miller. And now I'd like to recognize Kathy Hebda, Chancellor of the Florida College System, for an overview of the general education course review and reform. Chancellor Hebda, you're recognized. Thank you very much, mister chair. Good morning, members. Commissioner, I'm very pleased to be here before you this morning to talk about general education reform and present the 28 general education lists that the commissioner referenced this morning in his report for the very first time, as the commissioner said. Some background on this because this has been this is really step two of a two step process of complete reform of general education in Florida for our Florida College System institutions and our State University System institutions and the students who attend there. So we've done this in conjunction with the State University System and Board of Governors staff as well. The background is that this is all kicked off by Senate Bill two sixty six in 2023, and they did two fundamental things in that bill that governor DeSantis signed. We had general education already. That's the thirty six hours of foundational courses that students take to earn an AA degree or a baccalaureate degree, and also fifteen semester hours if you're earning an associate in science degree. But those are the foundational courses that have, been in law as thirty six hours since about twenty twelve, twenty thirteen. What the bill did, however, is reform that general education requirement to define what should be in general education, to define what the subject areas are in general education by giving those subject area definitions I So as you can see, this is one of the new statutes that was created that provided the principles for general education and the standards and the content, Section 1,007.55, Florida Statutes. And it identifies the things you see highlighted here that are supposed to be included in general education courses. They're supposed to be historically accurate. They're supposed to build a foundation for students so that they have the skills they need to be exceptional learners and lifelong learners that are are setting students up with this broad foundational knowledge that really is going to spur them into any major that they then want to pursue. All the general education courses have to meet these new standards and content to be acceptable. And And the other thing that you'll see in general education courses is an emphasis on Western civilization and Western culture and the foundational documents of our constitutional republic. So if that's what's in general education, what is not to be included in general education? There's clarification in the statute about that as well. It's supposed to be free of identity politics. It's not supposed to dilate anything in 1,000.05, which is our nondiscrimination in education statute. All of those things should not be included. And as the commissioner said this morning in his report, speculative content, exploratory content, things are really that are more specific to majors, that's not part of foundational general education. That's later. In fact, general education is supposed to prepare you with the foundational knowledge and the skills and that broad knowledge so that when you get to speculative content later in specific major courses, you're ready to deal with that information and deal with it very well and apply it in those situations. So just as a reminder, here are the five subject areas you'll notice. As again, I mentioned before about Western civilization. If you look at the humanities, there's a requirement for general education courses to include selections from the Western canon. So whatever area of humanities you're talking about, whether it's music, art, other areas of history outside of the social science areas, literature, they have to include those foundational documents. Students need to be exposed to that information as the foundation so that then they're ready to deal with the other content later. Look at social science. Natural science includes the scientific method. Mathematics courses need lots of application. And of course, communication courses in both written and oral communication. The last thing I'll say that the statute sets up that we'll talk about in more detail is this first ever, as Commissioner called it, process for institutions to establish and boards of trustees to adopt their own general education course list at a public meeting once a year. So this being the first year, this was the big overhaul of general education, first time we've ever done this. And so even though we've had general education courses now for over a decade, we've had the statewide course numbering system for almost fifty years. So there were lots of courses and definitions inside that statewide course numbering system that needed to be addressed by institutions so that we could ensure when we reviewed those courses and the course descriptions in the statewide course numbering system, that in fact, those courses met these standards and principles and content that are now prescribed in the statute. So you might remember step one, just a reminder, what you all did at the State Board Education meeting last January. You adopted the statewide core courses. Same five subject areas, same, philosophical definitions in the statute for those same five subject areas. But those are the courses in each area that students have to have, one from each of those areas to start that first fifteen hours in gen ed. Then the rest of the thirty six hours is, in fact, filled in by what you're going to be looking at for approval today, which are the courses that institutions offer in general education. So about the process, how did the process go? We started as soon as you all finished with the core courses last January, a year ago from now from today or this month, I should say. In February, we started with technical assistance to institutions on what they should then do to follow suit. And processes, all the things they needed to really review and examine what were all the courses they had been offering in general education, meaning also that each one of those things was designated in the statewide course numbering system as a general education course. And then what were they gonna keep? What were they gonna not do not consider as general education anymore? And then did they wanna add any new courses to general education? And so as institution institutions worked through that process, they would we did lots of technical assistance on our end. The board of governors certainly did their staff, worked with the universities on their end. But we also collaborated together. We had weekly meetings, sometimes it felt like everyday meetings, about this because this is really, really important, as the statute says, for transfer. All of this general education is in the section of law that deals with articulation. And we're still the MD of the nation with our two plus two articulation system in, state colleges and university systems. So this is a very key part. So we wanted to make sure, Chancellor Rodriguez, Commissioner Diaz met regularly on this, gave us direction to ensure that all these courses, if they were the same course, they were dealt with similarly in both systems. It was an excellent collaboration process. As we said as the commissioner said too earlier, a lot of credit to the institutions, and I'll do some thank yous to our team when I get to the end for all the work that they did. So by our rule that you passed last January, institutions had to give us their list by September 1 adopted by the Board of Trustees, and that was their first official list. And then we gave them some feedback internally to try to get them set up in good shape for y'all's review and so that you could approve these, lists, for each of the 28 colleges. And then after that back and forth, we got a final list from each institution so that the, ACC, the articulation coordinating committee, can meet their statutory deadline of transmitting those lists to you and to the Board of Governors for the universities. So if it mentions the ACC, that means the Office of Articulation is doing the back end work. And, so I'll show you this next slide. The Commissioner mentioned the 57% reduction in courses. This gives you an idea of the five subject areas, the percentage of courses in each area when we started before, and the percentage of each subject area, towards the end. You'll notice we increased a little bit in the sciences and STEM area percentage wise, which is really important. And I will say, too, that a lot of the president said to me that even though it was an arduous process to go through this because it was the first time, so there was a lot of things to look at, they said it was so necessary. And it really helped. Their faculty were engaged. They really thought about what they were really doing in general education as opposed to elective credit. And so they really thought it was a good process for the whole institution, really brought everybody together. And they thought it was really, really essential for their students. And I will mention that too, because that's an important point. The courses that are no longer in general education as proposed by an institution doesn't mean those courses are not necessarily offered not by the institution. They're still offered as electives or as major courses. They're just not designated by the institution any longer as part of their general education offerings for their students. So it was a shoring up of general education and a refocusing in that way. And so I will point out that bottom bullet to you, the Office of Articulation, all the work that they did. Executive Director Shannon Mercer, leads that office, did a super job coordinating and met with us and the Board of Governors every single time. All the information came into that office and then was distributed to our division of Florida Colleges or to the Board of Governors staff. And then Julia Osmond and Sangeetha Wallet are the two individuals that work in the statewide course numbering system. And so when you see that bullet that says they process over 16,400 requests just from our public institutions over the last year, that's in addition to all the other things that they do on a regular basis. That's remarkable. So we owe them a lot. They did a super job, great partners in all the work. And so now even though your approval today in the list is the list by the course prefix name and number, as well as you have a summary list of exactly how many institutions are offering each one of the courses. The course description that goes in the statewide course numbering system for each institution has been updated and reviewed by our team or the SUS team for their institutions to make sure that those course subscriptions meet the statute. So, with that, Commissioner, I also want to thank the team members in my division. You mentioned also Senior Chancellor Ritchie's leadership on this, which I greatly appreciate. Executive Vice Chancellor Clifford Humphreys was definitely the lead in my office. And, Doctor. Mike Suropolis also reviewed all of our general education offerings, and it was a complete team effort to get this done. And so with what the work that you all did with the General Education Corps and now what institutions have done with, their institutional general education, we have completed the initial, work on this really important higher education reform. And with that Thank you, chancellor. That 57% is really phenomenal. It's really remarkable. I love so much about this. I mean, first off, from the the framework that the legislature and the governor set up to the collaboration that you all had with BOG chancellor Rodriguez, because you're right. It our two plus two is the idea of the nation and making sure that those transfer credits are actually meaningful. And it makes a lot of sense. You know, obviously, this is gonna be an annual thing that that the colleges go through and that that this board approves. But to see them go through this process on the front end, and, you know, to we're not the the colleges are not banning courses or or saying you can't take courses. It's simply refocusing. I like that word. Refocusing them on what is the purpose of general education and making sure that we have the most high quality courses for that. And so I just really commend you and your and so I just really commend you and your team. I know there was a ton of work that was put into that, for what for what you did. Members, any any questions or comments? Member Berg. I just want to say thank you. I mean, to you, your whole team, Senior Chancellor Ritchie, I mean, office articulation. Like, I can't even imagine how much work they've done over the course of a year. So just to to echo the chair, thank you for for all that you do. Thank you very much, Jared. Just wanna do the same. Thank the team, the department, but also the 28 colleges across our state. I know it's difficult because Florida never stops. To be the best, we can't be complacent. So continuing to push that barrier. And we've seen the examples from other states of the difference between education and indoctrination and the great job that we do here in the state of Florida. So I wanna say thank you to everybody. It's been very clear. We've talked about it earlier in the meeting. Commissioner, you said that, of course, from education, higher education, that Florida ranks number one for reason. So I'm just glad for that. I'm excited to see it, and continuing to push that forward. Thank you. Alright, members. So now we we do have an action item. Yes. Chen chancellor. I meant to also mention in the board of governors, vice chancellor Emily Sykes and assistant vice chancellor Lynn Nelson because they were hugely, important in all of our work too. So thank you. No. And thank you thank you for mentioning these individuals by name too, because the the the work that was done here was long, tedious, and and and really just an incredible result. Alright, members. First, I wanna say, are there is there any objection, to taking up all of the college's general education course list and one vote just as a package? I know that we all received the complete list. We all had the opportunity to consult with staff over questions that we had, about that list. So if there's no objection, we'll take those all up as one vote. Then can I get a motion to approve the 28, Florida College System Institutions general education course list as presented and authorize the commissioner of education to make any necessary technical adjustments requested by the colleges? Yes. Motion. Second. Got a motion and a second. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. And show the general education course list approved. Thank you so much, again, Chancellor Hebda. Members, before we move on to our next action item, we're gonna consider, a series of turnaround option plans. Let's, let's break for five minutes, and take a break, and then we'll be be right back. Stand in recess. I'd like to now recognize, doctor Paul Burns, our senior chancellor, for an overview of the turnaround option plans before the board today. Senior chancellor Burns, you're recognized. Thank you very much, chair. Good morning, board members, commissioner. So today, we are going to hear from five superintendents regarding their turnaround option plans or sometimes, you know, we use an acronym. We call those our tops. And so these superintendents will be presenting their turnaround option plans for five schools in their districts. The superintendents who will be before you today are currently implementing the second year. They are in year two of their current district managed turnaround option plan. These districts were last before the board in the February, where they did ask the board to approve, their initial plan, which is their turnaround option plan for district managed turnaround. So should these schools not achieve a school grade of C or higher at the end of this current school year, The districts and the schools are required, under our school improvement rule, to begin implementing a new turnaround option plan for next school year, and hence, that's the reason that they are here before you, today. Worked with our Bureau of School Improvement team to make sure that the plans have been reviewed. These plans have been reviewed and approved by the local school board for each of the districts. And so, chair, before we invite, the superintendents, to come up and present their plan, what I'd like to do is just quickly give you an overview of what what you'll see this morning. So we have three school districts, Bay, Pasco, and Polk County will be requesting extensions of their current district managed turnaround option plan. We have one district, Escambia County Public Schools. They will be requesting an extension of the charter operator plan that they currently have, with with Warrington. And so you've heard that charter operator, before, and they are also here today. We're really grateful for that. We also have, the final district, Madison County. They will be requesting to close the school. So they'll be requesting for closure and then reassigning those students to a higher performing school as required, pursuant to our school improvement rule. So with that, share with that overview, what I'd like to do, now, if you're okay with that, is to begin with our districts who are requesting an extension for district managed turnaround. And the first superintendent I'd like to invite up is superintendent Mark McQueen that we've already heard from, to present his, extension for Cedar Grove Elementary. And that's, just to clarify, that's in, obviously Bay County. In Bay County, yes. In Bay County. Thanks. Thank you, Chair Gibson, Commissioner Diaz. Thank you, Doctor. Burns, for that introduction. And indeed, Bay County, we are coming before you requesting an extension of Cedar Grove Elementary School. And as I shared earlier, what we're striving to do in the Bay District Schools is to have this new approach of putting the A back in Bay. And I shared with you earlier what that vision is with regard to the accountability component to this, what we're looking for in attendance, the academic achievement expectations, certainly the enrichment through the arts and and athletic programs. So and so to that end, coming before you with the request for the district managed turnaround, to be extended for one year. What we have done is worked very, very closely with, Doctor. Burns and the Bureau of School Improvement team, Doctor. Ani, Doctor. Heidi, Mr. Simms and Ms. Fondren to help us achieve where we think we are positioned for success, but yet we need one more year to be able to prove this to you. Quite frankly, I think that actually with what we've put in place, Cedar Grove will come out of its turnaround status at the end of this year. But because of the requirements, we're moving forward, with all of our contingency planning. Certainly, we've met the, district managed turnaround extension request requirements. Every one of the requirements have been satisfied, to, meet the needs of this board and certainly the Department of Education. Our school board is 100% behind what we're striving to do to turn Cedar Grove around. And it's not that we have this is discovery learning. We have already shared with you earlier that, out of our eight schools, seven of them came out of turnaround status. So we think we have the right formula for success and we just are asking for an extension for one year for Cedar Grove so we can get it across the finish line. Certainly as we look at the school data for, the turnaround request, excuse me, for the district strategies that we're looking at doing, we're having a whole approach to how we're achieving this. And what we're looking at is this action plan that is before you is all encompassing. It has the academic expectation and the infrastructure that's been in place. As I shared earlier, we have been putting significant investment in the support structures that are going to help achieve those outcomes that we're expecting for our students. We've also had instructional specialists that have come online, and we're actually putting in three master teachers, two academic interventionists, and ESOL interventionists. We have the whole gamut of behavioral paraprofessionals that are all have been put into Cedar Grove to help augment this. Additionally, what we've seen is a positive trend in attendance as I've shared with you before. We're looking at having more students actually attending school and not only across the district, but in particular this school. We're breaking down the barriers to why kids are not coming to school. We're knocking on the doors. We're talking to the parents or the guardians, and we're working with nonprofits and faith based organizations to help come alongside us to help solve these challenges that families are facing and that are keeping kids from coming to school. Additionally, we've elevated our staff improvement. We have gone to if you have a VAM score, you have to have either effective or highly effective. And because we know that highly effective and effective teachers actually drive higher levels of instruction. And so we're really seeing the successes in that. We also have, poured in additional funding, almost $700,000 worth of additional funding into this school with regard using our Unisig funding and our educational enrichment allocation dollars. Moreover, the district has put in incentives, for this, and we have MOUs with each and every one of our teachers that we're providing a $15,000 bonus for teachers to be at the school. And, this is in addition to what the state is providing through its funding. Additionally, I can show you what we're looking at in in terms of what the results are. As I shared earlier, I became the superintendent in August of twenty twenty three. And prior to that, the school was had two years of failing grades. That year, we turned it around and achieved a d grade. Not enough, but it certainly showed that we were moving in the right direction. We moved from nineteen percent to a thirty four percent in just one year by pouring into our students appropriately. And this has really been the team of teams approach getting after it. And we're talking about this in the context of name tag management. Every single student counts. And so we can see it in our lowest, quartile that they've made 5046% gains in ELA and math, respectively. Our attendance, as I shared, has gone up. We we've seen this just this year, the attendance has gone up. In this past, nine weeks, we had nearly a 6% increase in attendance. Our progress monitoring, we're moving in the right direction, and yet there's more to do. And we're moving in this direction with regard to, seeing, the students responding, to what we're putting before them and challenging them. We're also putting in additional supports with regard to, extra tutoring require opportunities as well as, Saturday schools that are on the horizon. We see, an opportunity with Florida Atlantic University as a potential external operator. If we have to go that route, we've already and our board has confirmed last night the external operator agreement with Florida Atlantic University. They're a great organization. They have been with the district for the last seventeen months. They have helped us with elevating our professional standards, what's going on in PLCs, what's going on in the classroom, and they are a great partner if we need to have an external operator to come alongside us to help us get across that finish line. They're there if we need them, but I have every confidence in the new principal, the the team of teams that we have on board, the supports that are in place, the whole effort that is being done with regard to our teammates from the BSI, everyone rowing really hard to get this school where it needs to be. And I have every confidence that come this summer when the grades come out, they will no longer be a turnaround school. Thank you, superintendent. Members, any questions or comments for the superintendent? Member Bird. Thank you, chair. Actually, I'm I'm kinda curious. You mentioned that you were, you know, figuring out what the barriers were to attendance and and resolving that. I'd love to know what you found on that front. It it's it's really been impressive. There we've had one student that, had a broken leg, and the family only had one vehicle. And the, the the person that needed the vehicle left early in the morning. So it left it where the child could not physically walk to school. Working, we broke down that barrier and had the transportation for them to get to school. And we're doing it until they get out of their cast and get it through their physical therapy. That's one example. Other examples are they don't have shoes, they don't have clothing. They they have problems at home with regard to nutrition. They have challenges with their family structure. And what we're doing is helping to come alongside them with community supports, certainly the district supports, helping to break down those individual barriers that are precluding. What I thought was interesting is it didn't matter whether you were had access to a bus or not. It was universal challenges of getting kids to school. And so, we're we're working in that space, and we're already seeing the fruits of that labor. My, my, team, miss Jennings, Jennifer Jennings, who leads the team that goes in and helps our students in this effort is extraordinary, and we're seeing amazing results. We still wanna do more, and we're not gonna surrender in that space, to help break down those barriers to entry. Great work. Thank you, ma'am. Members, any other questions or comments? All right. Appreciate it, superintendent. If I'm doing it correctly, Doctor. Burns, I believe we go to the commissioner now for a recommendation. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I would, recommend approval of the top plan for Cedar Grove Elementary. I I think that the superintendent of the district is showing a track record of turning schools around. It looks like they're making progress, so that would be my recommendation. And I personally support that recommendation. It was very clear from the superintendent's presentation that, he has a firm grasp, I think, on on this school and the trajectory. And most importantly, in all these situations, the thing I look for is a sense of urgency, because when we talk about turnaround, these the kids who are in these schools don't have years to wait. Right? They're they're moving on. And so having that sense of urgency, I think, is is the most important thing and and a commitment to do whatever is gonna it's gonna take to to turn it around. Alright. Members, so you've heard the commissioner's recommendation. Can I get a motion to approve Commissioner Diaz's recommendation, as it refers to Bay County Cedar Grove Elementary? So moved. I had a motion and a second. All in favor signify by saying Opposed, nay. Show the Bay County Cedar Grove Elementary turnaround plan approved. Now, Doctor. Burns, we'll go back to you for our next, district. At this time, I would like to, introduce and bring up Doctor. John Legg. Doctor. Legg is the, student at Pasco County Schools, and he will be presenting his turnaround option plan for Rodney B. Cox Elementary School. Doctor. Legg. Thank you, sir. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you, commissioner, chairman, board members. My name is doctor John Legg. I'm the newly elected superintendent of Pasco County. We had the honor of getting elected in November, taking the office two weeks later. Here to present our turnaround for Rodney b Cox Elementary School. Rodney b Cox is now in its in its second year in this, district managed operation status. In January 2024, we appointed a new principal. We've instituted some reading, math, and science coaches. We instituted I Ready, math, and some math interventions. We've been aggressively doing, benchmark testing. We've increased community partnership, and we've instituted some positive learning behavior management systems. Within, within the week of me getting elected, I went out and spent the day at Rodney B. Cox, Elementary School. It was very evident to me that there was some very positive, items occurring in the school behaviors, having behaviors look strong in the positive learning environments. However, I wanna emphasize, however, I had I had concerns about instructional and curriculum. So, immediately, we began working on to address the plan to address what was going on at the school. What we have before you is actually an amended plan to our existing plan. It's not just a request for an extension. On our plan, it or, has request from some additional items to what was previously being added, which have all been approved by our our school board last night. The the plan, calls for an immediate, I mean, immediate partnership with MGT to bring MGT and an external operator to work alongside of us beginning now. Not next year, not the end of school year. We don't I don't wanna wait for school grades. We wanna get them in now to partner with us to begin to begin working on tier one instruction and curriculum at the school. We cannot wait till the school grade to see should we partner with someone else. The school has been in d status for too long, in my opinion, and, there is a deep sense of urgency for me to assist those students. In addition is that the school has a high number of ELL students, and we we are gonna be instituting a dual language immersion programs in the school, working to with technology to do translations, for our students to assist them with some of the the secondary languages. We've also been working as a new superintendent. I have concerns in in our community with some of our lower performing school. So we began restructuring, and we've already approved restructuring. And we have hired, a dedicated and assistant superintendent of which I call opportunity schools. And what I mean by opportunity schools, I call opportunity schools those schools that are low performing, but it's an opportunity for us as adults to step up to the plate and serve those students. So we just hired doctor Sean Rafalski from the University of Florida, Lashinger Center, who also worked with doctor Mike Grego in turnaround schools and elementary schools in Pinellas County, who also worked in Osceola County as specializing working in, these schools to turn them around to focus. They need intentionality. They need focus to more focus and turn around at Rodney b. Cox. What the what this plan entails is for these additional services to be added to the school immediately, but to also allow us an additional year to partner with NGT. Instead of just turning it over to external operator, to allow us to partner and co manage with that external operator, to turn the school around, but also to help us build infrastructure capacity to assist us with other schools in our community. While Pasco has had success in turning around some schools, In certain pockets of our community, we have not. We've had we've been kind of hovering at a level and going up one year, one down year. We want it is my intent to get us out of turnaround and never go back. And we need in certain parts of our community, we wanted to partner with an, an entity that has a proven track record of doing that so we can gain some insight and tools, so we can build our capacity as well to assist those students. And that is the plan. Thank you, superintendent. Members, any questions or comments for Superintendent Lake? Commissioner? Thank you. Welcome, superintendent. Good to have you here. And, I am glad to see, as as I expected, the the sense of urgency that you have in, rectifying, the issues that have gone on with the school. I think you have a plan. I think there's a sense of urgency, and we want we know you just came in. We want to give you the opportunity, and I think you have a plan in place. So I would like to recommend the approval of the top plan for Rodney B. Cox Elementary. Thank you, commissioner. And there's, there's only a handful of people in the state who know enough as much about education as you do. And so I think we're pretty confident in in your ability to to do this. And I like what you said about getting out of turnaround and never going back. And that's something that I think has been, an issue at Pasco, is that we've haven't quite been able to get over that hump, and I'm I'm confident that with your leadership, we're gonna be able to do that. So Thank you, sir. Absolutely. Alright. Members, we heard the commissioner's recommendation. Can I get a motion to approve the commissioner's recommendation, as it entails Rodney B? Cox Elementary in Pasco County. A motion. Is there a second? Second. Motion and a second. All in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. Show the turnaround option plan for Rodney b Cox Elementary approved. Thank you, superintendent. And doctor Burns, you're recognized to introduce our next district. Thank you very much, sir. So at this time, I'd like to introduce from Polk County, public schools, superintendent Fred Hyde. And as superintendent makes his way to the podium, he will he will be presenting his turnaround, option plan for Crystal Lake Elementary. Again, they are requesting an extension as well as their district managed turnaround. Superintendent. Sorry. We failed to track the order correctly. I'm also joined this morning by Nicole Bennett. She supervises our turnaround schools. We restructured that department. Previously, schools that were in turnaround, were put into their own regional structure. The problem with that was when a school exited, there was no connection to their previous or what would be now be their new regional superintendent. So there was no knowledge of what was being done at that school for sustainability. So when we restructured it, miss Bennett actually works and coincides and collaborates with the regional within the regional structure so that there's no dropped handballs or or issues that occur as we move forward. So our proposal for you today, as you know, we turned in our original turnaround option plan. My background is in school improvement. Worked for the Florida Department of Education as a bureau chief for differentiated accountability in school improvement for a number of years. Very pleased to say that as I've moved into other roles, now as a superintendent, been able to continue with our school improvement reform initiatives. You can see here and and what's not represented there, I apologize, is to twenty twenty, 20 20 one school grades. So while that year allowed for school districts to choose whether or not to accept a grade, and while as an incoming superintendent at the end of that school year, I chose not to accept many of the D and F schools, A leopard can't change its spots. The fact is we had a large number of D and F schools, and I'm very proud of the historical improvements that you've seen here. We've more than tripled our number of A schools, same thing with our B rated schools. C rated schools have improved. We do continue to have eight D rated schools. And as you know, some of those Ds are related to the changes at the secondary level with when the state board adopted new expectations for school grading. Three of those schools in particular are just one point away, and we fully expect those schools to improve to a c or better. I make no excuses. As much as I point out that the school grading calculations and the formula changed for those schools, we should not be cutting it that close. And what we found for those schools in particular is algebra continues to be an area that we have to continue to influence and support. But very proud of the fact that we've seen a huge reduction in our d rated schools and our s schools. The history is for schools in Polk County under school improvement. In 02/2022, Polk County Public Schools had 21 schools under school improvement status. Very pleased to share with you that last year, we exited the vast majority of those schools. And that's through a focused effort. It began with revisiting all of our initiatives, intentionally focusing on our remedial strategies and interventions. Because what we had was we had the Las Vegas buffet style approach to reading intervention and math intervention where everybody could choose anything they wanted. So when you have 18 different reading interventions in a district, it's incredibly difficult to sustain that. We went back, looked at the research based methodology. More importantly, we looked at which programs and supplements were actually eliciting a positive student outcome as we refined and limited our scope to just three interventions now at both levels. And I think that speaks to how we've seen improvement in Polk County Schools. Crystal Lake Elementary School, you had asked, chair board not chair. Excuse me. State board member Byrd, you asked previously about potential barriers. There there are two significant factors that tend to impact Crystal Lake Elementary School. Number one is their low enrollment. When you have a numerator and denominator, they're so small, each student counts as they would in other larger schools. They can they count as what they could be multiplied by a factor of 10 because, again, it's a very small sample size for those students. We make no excuses in that regard because in addition to that, there are additional resources that go into that school to help increase or reduce the overall class size to teacher ratio so we can get Better our hands better around the issues that our our students are struggling with. What is affecting this school significantly is mobility. When we run the data for this school, more than 60% of the students are not on this campus for three or more consecutive school years. They are incredibly mobile. And so without that, we don't have that consistency of practice, consistency of intervention, because they're not just retaining moving within Polk County, they're moving into neighboring counties and elsewhere. And so when you have a high percentage of your population that mobile, it becomes incredibly difficult for us to maintain that instructional focus. And yet, I think what you'll see in our data, it reflects that we are improving in those areas. And so with our the school improvement the school grade data this year, this last year in particular, there were two areas where the school actually faltered in mathematics and science. As a former science teacher, I take a great deal of pride in the fact that our school district continues to see improvements in our science data as a school district. So this was an area, but their issue here was staff turnover. They had a large number of vacancies the year prior. We've replaced the administrator. That administrator's new. She this is now her second year, and this was the first year in a number of years that they've actually started the school year with a full complement of hired staff. So we're very pleased to see that at that school and the interventions and support staff to go along with that. You see their historical school grade data. And so, again, looking historically, we are seeing improvements across the board for that school. They are five points away from making a great a great change. And so we fully expect that. We were a bit surprised last year that the school did not exit. We had them on a trajectory to exit with many of our other schools. And I think, again, when you look at the total number of schools that we exited from accountability last year, it reflects the fact that systemically, we have the right processes and supports and intentions in place at a high level of accountability. And so a lot of that started when we started with reviewing and revising our interventions, it then became a matter of how do we best more most appropriately support our staff and our administrators. So our principal and assistant principal meetings including so many school districts our size or or others will split their assistant principals into two different meaning cultures or two different meaning groups. One is when you have your assistant principal of instruction. The other is when you have an assistant principal over operations. Well, we don't want to silo our potential future bench and and of administrators. So all of them receive, support, professional development. And we're very intentional in how we deliver that each month to them so that all of them have become instructional leaders. Prior to these last few years, that was not the case. It was very operational in nature. We talked about statutory changes and things. We still accomplish that. But every single meeting at its core for the majority of the meeting focuses on data, focuses on data analysis, focuses on them sharing out the things that they're doing that are being successful, and the district providing additional supports interventions as needed. We implemented Datacom. I stole that from Miami Dade. Thank you, commissioner. He he realizes what I'm talking about. So previous superintendent of, Bureau Carvalho did an amazing job. So when I happened to be bureau chief at the department, I had an opportunity to come and visit and observe Datacom. So I have now stolen that and brought it to two districts with Polk being the second. And so what that does is we bring in our targeted schools or any school that we feel is on the bubble. And it's not just the school that may fall into a d or an f category. It's any school that we're starting to see an academic or an intentional decline in their overall data. They come to the meeting. The entirety of my cabinet sits with me. They actually present their data. And right there and then on the spot, we're able to assign resources and supports for that school. So we do datacom twice a year, after PM one and after PM two data, to ensure that every school has the resources and supports that they need to be successful, so that we can actually develop a data driven instructional model and philosophy and practice in Polk County. Miss Bennett was actually at the instructional review yesterday, which was conducted in partnership with the Florida Department of Education School Improvement staff. So I'll go ahead and turn it over to her momentarily so she can share with you some of the improvements we've seen in their academic performance. Thank you, mister Hyde. Yes. As he stated, I did have the opportunity to be there, facilitate the instructional view, by the, BSI yesterday, and we saw significant improvements. And when I say significant improvements, I'm meaning in instructional delivery. We're seeing now what's happening in planning actually connecting to what's happening in the classroom. We're seeing that release to students, that accountability of students, being given those equivalent experiences, those opportunities being exposed to things that they're actually going to see on the assessment so they have the opportunity to practice how they're ultimately going to play. And that at Crystal Lake Elementary, that's what our students need there. We don't need the fluff. We don't need the in between. They need to see exactly what is expected of them as it relates to the benchmark and the rigor of the benchmark. So we really saw engaged students, students that were excited about learning, where I could say in years past, it just seemed like I come to school. But now I come to school with a purpose, and we're very transparent with our with our students and our parents and our families out there in terms of what is the expectation for Crystal Lake Elementary. We want our students to be there. We want them to be involved. We want them to know where they are in their learning. We want them to be set goals, which we have for each individual student, so they know anytime they sit down to take a unit assessment, do a task in the classroom or any assessment, they know how they are performing and ultimately what their goal is. So we are truly excited to see the growth happening out there and the work really, truly taking, place in the classroom for the kids. This is just some I just wanted to just quickly talk about. Just last year at Crystal Lake Elementary, we did struggle with vacancies in our core content areas where we are fully staffed this year. And I think that speaks volumes within itself. When you do have, teachers, certified teachers in front of the kids, you're seeing the result of that work taking place and whatnot. So it has really truly been a a game changer for them this year. Quickly quickly, please. Yep. So our our request at this time, our initial submission was to close the school. As I spoke with the department staff, we at the time that we submitted our initial top plan, all I had was benchmark one data, PM one data. And I was not confident in our data at that time. But once we started to see the trickle in of our PM two data, I started to get additional feedback attending the school, visitations to the school, feel far more confident that that school will exit this year. So we've asked for an extension that our board school board has approved. So let me ask you a question, and I appreciate your presentation. And you guys have done a great job of getting reducing the number of D and F schools, and and kudos to you. So I I don't want the impression I'm getting is that you feel like that and you you can't argue with the the results here. Mhmm. That you feel like the these interventions are working. You just need some more time. So it doesn't sound like you're really making you're gonna be making some major changes here. It sounds like you're gonna continue here because you see improvement and you think you just need another year. That's correct. We continue to see improvement as a result of the implementation of those strategies last school year on this campus. Okay. Members, any questions or comments for the superintendent? Yes, Vice Chair Petty. I'm stuck on what the chair said, so congratulations and great job on getting these schools up and and out. That's, phenomenal. One thing I didn't understand for the presentation, we're fully staffed now in all the critical instruction areas and and that? Yes, sir. We are. Okay. Alright. Thank you. Marlene's done a great job. The principal's done an amazing job there. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Sure. Sure. Thank you, sir. Sure. Sure. Thank you, chair. And I'd, like to recommend for approval of the top plan for Crystal Lake Elementary School. Looks like they're making progress. And, I I like the fact that they they had a plan, and they they're looking at the data. Another, another tip of the hat, I think, to the progress monitoring system, which is allowing our our educators and our leaders to make these decisions. So we're gonna I'm gonna recommend that we, we bet here on, on a superintendent and his team and and get us across the finish line. Don't let us down. More importantly, don't let the students down. Nope. All right, members, you've heard the recommendation from the commissioner. Can I get a motion to approve? So moved. A motion. Is there a second? Second. Motion is second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. Show the turnaround option plan for Crystal Lake Elementary approved. Yes. Vice Chair Petit. One quick comment I forgot to mention. I I heard in superintendent Hyde's presentation now that they're they're also looking at that data for schools that are at risk. This is something that we've repeatedly asked for, and I'm I'm so happy to hear you looking at the other schools that might might be moving in the wrong direction and taking action before they get into a turnaround situation. So, superintendent, thank you for that. That's well said by Sherpa. The goal is not to get into turnaround at all, obviously. And so whatever we can do to provide some preventative, interventions early on before we even get there, that's certainly something that we wanna encourage. Doctor Burns, introduce our next, district, please. Thank you, chair. So I'd like to introduce, superintendent Keith Leonard, from Escambia County School District to present the turnaround option plan for Warrington Preparatory Academy. They are requesting an extension of their current charter school turnaround option plan where they partner with Charter Schools USA. And we have, doctor Ruiz, who is also here to address any questions the board may have. Superjet? Welcome. You're recognized. Thank you, chancellor Burns. Good morning, commissioner Diaz, chairman Gibson, state board of education members. On behalf of 37,000 plus students, three hundred and twenty thousand citizens, and the Escambia County School Board, thank you for having me here today. I heard mister McQueen say y'all expect us to drive. Let's see. Yes. In February 02/2023, I assumed the responsibility of interim superintendent. The very first meeting I had was with our principals, trying to bring a sense of calmness. The second meeting I had was with our director of school transformation, miss Holly Wilkins, and doctor Rachel Heidi from the Bureau of School Improvement. Talk chair Gibson, you talked about a sense of urgency. We were each and every year finding ourselves in Escambia County School District with 10 to 11 schools that would wobble back and forth between a c and or a d and sometimes even worse. I call that the Mendoza Line. We wanted to make sure that we didn't find ourselves in that situation any longer. So we worked wholeheartedly with our partners at the Bureau of School Improvement with all of our schools that we found ourselves from time to time falling in that range. I want you to take a look at this slide where you can see some improvement that has occurred in a very short period of time. Our a schools have nearly doubled. Our b schools have maintained. Our c schools have vastly increased, which is still not acceptable, but it means we don't have as many of those schools that are below the Mendoza line. Very proud of that. However, the reason I am here speaking with you today is last year, we had 14 a's, 12 b's, 25 c's. We had one d. It is the Warrington Preparatory Academy. We're gonna work very hard, and we have continued to work hard to get that to a c. In last school year, I wanna say it ended up being they were at 42 points. The grade needed to be at 44 to have received a c. That did not happen. I can tell you there's been actions put in place for that to occur. It is our hope during this school year, but as we required, we have submitted a top plan with the all the assurances being provided by our school district to you as a governing body of what we will do. We will meet all assurances, But as you are very well aware, we only have one option left as a school district and as it relates not to Warrington Preparatory Academy, but to those 525 students that attend that school. That is where our responsibility lies. Now we are partnering partnering with Charter Schools USA at Warrington Prep. And I'm here to tell you today, it has been a great partnership. We've worked hard to make sure that there's a committed staff. We've worked diligently to make sure that the teachers that are present at that school are highly effective and quality teachers. For the twenty four, twenty five school year, they have proactively implemented action steps at Warrington Preparatory Academy. They have transform transformed the leadership there. The new principal for this school school year, mister Delvin Bick, has extensive experience in turnaround schools. They actually have one of our former school based not school based, school district, leaders as an assistant principal there who is outstanding, doctor Shani McCasler. Glad she's working for them. They've improved standards based instruction and improved the learning environment. I'm happy to tell you right before PM two was administered, had the good fortune to walk the campus along with our our partners from the Bureau of School Improvement, saw good instruction in place, saw smiling students and see a trajectory of what's going to occur there at Warrington Prep. They have twice monthly walks with the Bureau of School Improvement. They're in each of those classrooms, making certain that they see good tier one instruction. On the visit that I had the opportunity just recently to take with, miss Wilkins and with doctor Heidi, doctor Ruiz was actually present. In the communication that came out of that classroom, they talked about tier one instruction, and they also talked about what they could do to assist that teacher with a more stringent small group instruction. So you see the partnership, and then you know that they go back and they have good conversations with those teachers, and more importantly, help get the students where they need to be. From a school grade history, this is the most points earned on progress monitoring three or the high stakes testing at the end of the year since 02/2011. So this past school year, they had 42 they had a 42%, which still earned a grade of a d. I truly believe that knowing where that mark is this year to reach a 44 or higher is our goal and I believe we will achieve that goal. Next slide demonstrates the improvement from PM one to PM two. As you can see in ELA, from PM one to PM two, you see a 4% increase. And in PM two, in math, you see a 9% increase. We continue to work with our our partners at Warrington Prep. We have a data scientist in our school district that provides all those results. We'll continue to have those twice monthly walk throughs. And I do believe we will see success. However, as a school district, you have to be prepared. We have provided you what we would do if we don't find success. But what we are here to ask for today is an extension for the 2526 school year. I assure you we have a plan. What we want is for those 525 students at Warrington Prep to continue to be able to go to school there and that they are successful in bringing that grade to a c or higher. So thank you for your time. Thank you, superintendent. And you're you're obviously close. I don't think there's any school in the state that this board has more intimate knowledge about than Warrington Preparatory Academy or at least over the the last six years or so. I have a question, and I don't know. This might be a better question for Charter School USA. But my question is and we've we've gotten regular updates, which we've this board greatly appreciates on the the the work that has been done. But is the goal to continue what is being done, or is there something that we can do, something that we can inject to make sure that we are because this is an extension that's being requested here. So that means that the original plan on the time line that we would have preferred did not work. So what is the plan? Is it is the plan to continue with the interventions and the changes that have been made? Or is there something else that we're gonna inject to make sure that we get up to a C? I can tell you what I would what I saw in my visits while I was there, then I also asked my my friend, superintendent Ruiz, to come forward. It's not only a continue continuation of the plan that you actually see there, but to intensify what we need to do to bring those students to a to a better place academically and those teachers and staff there. But Eddie? Thank you, superintendent Leonard. We do have great partnership, but the the plan is to continue moving forward. It's good to go slow to go fast. And in the beginning, a lot of training had to be done for teachers and for students, but that is actually taking hold now. We are seeing quicker movement in our PLCs with our teachers, understanding the systems, understanding what we're doing. So we see a quicker momentum happening, but our our plan is to continue what we're doing because we're seeing growth and seeing progress. So, we we definitely feel that by the end, we definitely will be out of turnaround. BSI is there actually tomorrow. I'll be alongside going into classrooms again. As we see things, we'll tweak them right on the spot, but we're we're gaining momentum and we're continuing the plan. So you so you feel that you only need one more year to get that up to a c? Yeah. Well, my goal is to be a b, by by the end of this year. That that's my goal. But, yeah, we will not be a d. That's my goal. You know, that's our we should not be up here again next year if we continue seeing the things we're seeing in our room. Members, any questions or comments? Vice Chair Peddie. Question. So attendance was an issue previously when we talked. How are we doing there? Continue monitoring. Attendance is an issue we have to do. We continue going out to homes. If it gets a little cold, parents don't like to send their kids to school, and it's been the cold season lately or rain. But no, attendance has improved. And, if you look at our our PM, results of who's actually taking the test, it has actually increased. But, attendance is something we're monitoring. I mean, we have a full time social work on campus. If students aren't showing up more than a day, we're going out to class we're going out to homes, finding out, bringing them on to campus, giving them the services they need if they need something. So we're monitoring that closely. But attendance, again, is always a concern that we monitor close. Follow-up. Yes. Follow-up. And and we're fully staffed with the teaching staff that that you need to be successful? We we did have one vacancy right at the, at the January time that is you know, that happens that we actually are already have in file the fill. Former teacher, highly effective coming from a different county. So, we had one, but that we should be full by the time processing happens. Thank you. Commissioner, do you have a recommendation? Thank you, chair. And, this board is well aware of the history of the school and the work that has been done, including, superintendent Leonard coming on board and and kind of, taking this on. I I think that with the buy in that the community has had, the business community, the school community, the Navy, we have a lot of partnerships here. We have a lot of efforts and investment by Charter School USA as well. Superintendent Leonard's commitment. We're seeing, that progress. I think I sense it. There's definitely a sense of urgency here to get this done, and I would recommend that we, approve the top plan for Warrington Preparatory Academy. And, I know this board has high expectations for this, and everybody's aware, and, we're we're gonna get it done. Thank you, Commissioner. Members, can I get a motion to approve the commissioner's recommendation for Warrington Preparatory Academy? Motion to approve. A motion. Is there a second? Second. Motion and a second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. Show the turnaround plan for Warrants of Preparatory Academy and Escambia County approved. And thank you both for being here, and thank you, as well for the continual updates on Warranty Preparatory Academy. I hope we don't see you all here in a year, for this, but we do want updates, in in the meantime, in the interim, to continue to be provided to the board. So doctor Burns, if you can make sure that that continues to happen. To discuss our options for Greenville Elementary. Greenville Elementary has had, been a school in turnaround for quite some time, and this top plan is shows three f's for that school the last three years. Greenville and Madison's a little bit different. We are presenting closure. Back in July, our board voted to close three elementary schools due to decline in enrollment. So with that, we are now looking to close Greenville. So with that, we understand the importance. It's not that we're also kind of pushing aside everything with our students at Greenville. We are still pushing in resources. So some of the changes we've had to go ahead and make, second week on the job, I've made instructional changes, made a leadership change, and had to try to focus on our students there in Greenville. Really trying to close the gap and try to focus on those learning gains for these students. These students are just as important as the students at my largest school, so we have to try to figure out what we can do to push these kids to make every little gain. Right now, we are celebrating the gains. It doesn't matter if it's just one little point. Each week, we focus and stress the value of education for these students. So we are very aware of all the assurances that with reassigning students. It's also a concern pushing the resources into Greenville. We have added additional coaching, instructional coaching for our teachers by moving and changing instructional classes. Some of our teachers were a little, leery, and so making those instructional changes. So but we're pushing those additional resources. Our BSI team is actually available and supporting this school, but I cannot also take away these resources that are currently in place at Madison County Central School. So these students in Assurance two, that's where these students will be reassigned to. That school grade is also a C, and that school has been previously in turnaround. So I cannot take resources away and at the risk of having that school go back into turnaround status. So I'm very well aware of that. So I'm I'm kind of at a sketch 22 how to how to struggle with this. So we're putting in additional resources and focusing and really focusing on closing that gap and putting in the additional tutoring and interventions even at Central to maintain RC for this coming year for this year and then as we reassign these students to Central. So, the Board did approve our top plan in December to close the school as part of school consolidation and the with the other two schools. And under when we move our students to reassign them, we do plan to monitor our progress as we need to as our part of our reassurance for this board and part of the, requirements for the State Board of Education. So our plan is to close Greenville this upcoming year, actually in August. Any questions? Yes. I have a couple of questions for you, if you don't mind, superintendent. Thank you for those comments. Given the the small number of students at, Greenville Elementary School, was there a thought about, as far as the timing of the closure, to be the the least disruptive for the students and their parents? So as far as closing As far as mid mid school year or the So it it was discussed, and it was discussed with actually the board member that represents that school. And it was kind of discussed since we're closing all three schools this upcoming August, and we just felt it would be easier to try to focus on our children right now and not disrupt them right after the Christmas break. And then, you know, then coming into having the additional students come from the other two schools come in for school consolidation. So we would focus and just do it during school's consolidation. So it was considered. Yes. And so if I understand this correctly, in Madison, with the closure of Greenville Elementary School, there will be two how many schools will that that remain in Madison County? We would have, two public charters, and then we would have which we have a, public charter k that's pre k to eight, and then we would have our public traditional, which is a k to eight. Right. So you have And then we'd have the two high schools. Got it. Okay. And these students will be reassigned to? The the the public traditional, the pre k to eight, Madison County Central. The Madison County Central. So Yes, sir. What is, what are the steps that you and the district are gonna take to make sure that Madison County Central continues? We're only gonna put them with our satisfactory and, their students will not be placed with teachers with unsatisfactory BAM scores. We will make sure of that. And then we're going to constantly monitor those students to ensure that they are performing and we'll provide those reports to our BSI team. And what what's the total number of students that will be impacted? For Greenville, Ninety Six. I'm sorry. 9696. Okay. 96. There's 96 in Greenville. Thank you. Members of member Foganholi. Thank you very much, chair. And basic question. I know that so they're gonna be going from Greenville Elementary School, and that's going to be going to Madison Central. Madison County Central. Yes, sir. That's correct. So that school is 13 miles away? Yes, sir. Has that been discussed at least how far it is if it's gonna be affecting kids' attendance? How hard is it public transportation or, I mean, school transportation? Has that been discussed? So our our buses drive anyways because that's our pre k to eight. So the and Greenville is only up to sixth grade. Okay. So they would go from seventh to eighth grade. And then our high school is also right there. So transportation's not gonna change. It will still go right in there to the district into our centrally located town. Got it. Thank you, Jim. Any other questions? Member Berg. This sounds a little concerning, that we're taking kids from a failing school and putting them into a school that's like borderline, right now. You're obviously aware of that and I can I'm very aware of that. Yeah. I can hear that you you have that concern and that you're going to do what you can to, to make sure that that that the K-eight that they're going into isn't going to be pulled down, and into the same situation. You're obviously working with the Bureau of School Improvement. Is there any chance is there anything else that we can do to help them? Are we doing is are we doing everything that we can to, to help them? Is there what are the issues that that you still need, help with? We are going ahead we've asked for additional resources to come in to Central for the remainder of this year to work. I I can't rob all my resources from this school to give into Greenville with those 96 kids. It's not that those kids are not important, but I can't risk my other school. I can't do it at the detriment of that school. So I have to keep my shift and my focus there too. I have to to share. And so, our BSI team is gonna come in, and we'll start having those regular visits with our central school team. Commissioner, do you have a recommendation? Thank you, Chair. Before before I make my recommendation, I I do have a couple of questions. I am familiar with Madison County personally having been there, unfortunately, under the circumstance of a few hurricanes. And, I know there's facility issues that have occurred, including at Madison, Central, because of the storms and the repeated storms. They got it was hit three times over a thirteen month period. And the the other concerns I have is that there's also, I think, a low enrollment at one of the other schools. Can you clarify for me? So this this this school is being closed under the turnaround plan. But are you is there another school that's included in the consolidation? Because from what I understood, there may be another school that's also closing. There are three schools, Pineta Elementary and Lee Elementary and then Greenville. Okay. What There are three elementary schools that are being closed. Would these school so all of these schools will be consolidated into Madison Central? Correct. Yes, sir. What would the total enrollment then be at Madison Central? Approximately 1,200. Okay. And we're just over 800 students right now. So having walked that school many times, I can see that there is there is ample space. I do have, and this is not not technically part of the recommendation, but I do have, concerns, number one, with some of the facilities even at Madison with the with the damage from the storm. I I do think and I know you just are coming in, so I I do think that there's definitely a need for a sense of urgency, with this. Number one, I would I'm gonna make my recommendation to approve based on a couple of conditions. I I think this is a situation that's very delicate because of the fact that we're we're just not looking at a a facility where we're trying to turn around the students in that one building. Now they're being moved to another building. That building has had the building itself has had issues. I I think that you're you're also bringing in a couple of other schools where that could bring some issues. So what I would ask is, Doctor. Burns, I'm going to ask that under the condition of approval for this plan that we have a constant monitoring and working with the district. I would like this board, to receive regular updates on the process and where we are with this with this move, what specific monitoring is because my my concern here now becomes these individual students. And I think that's been alluded to by board members here. The the individual students that are now moving, you know, we're taking them out of one building where we can see the data and now we're pouring them into another building where there's already existing data. I have serious concerns, with making sure that we, are connected to those students and and keeping a close eye. And I do, I do think that, it warrants further conversation reference to facilities because, again, having been out there three times and the same issues recurring, I have some concerns with that. And I think that we need to take a closer look at that because we need to put those students not only in the best academic situation, but we have to figure out how we can, and and god willing, there's not another storm that comes in the next season because that really has been a situation, that that has been hard to deal with, there at that school. And so, with that said, I will I'm gonna recommend, for approval with the conditions and actually would like to have Doctor. Burns, come up with any additional conditions in that plan and maybe bring that back to the board at our next meeting to, just from from your perspective. We don't have to have the superintendent there, but from your perspective to have a report on on what you have delineated as the action plan. Because I I, you know, I think it needs to include, some sort of direct hand holding with these students that have been moved over so we can figure out what is going on, not only academically, but how it's it's it's affecting the move. I'm I'm I'm concerned not so much by the distance because having driven in the county a few times now, from school to school, I think that you can get that done. I I just, I think it's in a delicate situation. And the last thing that that we would like to see is to have that effect now, have Madison County, Madison Central be in the same situation back before this board. So, I'm going to take a tip from something the board has said. Let's be proactive now. And just because we're moving them from here is not removing the problem of the individual students. And so that would be my recommendation. Okay. So let me make sure I understand your recommendation, commissioner. The recommendation, is to approve the turnaround plan with the condition, that, the department will work to bring back additional conditions for the board's approval related to that turnaround plan. And I would ask that we have, doctor Burns' shop provide updates throughout the rest of the year of where we are. I mean, how did the transition go, all of those things and where we see the obstacles, what traps we see. Are there additional resources that can be marshaled to provide, to provide assistance to those students? Because it's difficult enough when you have them in the building where they've always been. When you're moving and having a shakeup of teachers, it becomes an even more delicate situation. Understood. And doctor Burns, is that something that you feel like you can you and your team can get, and have ready to bring back to the board at its next meeting? Absolutely, chair. So I heard it definitely. Three conditions that the commissioner mentioned, plus any other conditions is needed. And so we will work with the team and with the district to have that prepared for the next board meeting. What are the, just for clarification, what are the three conditions that we have right now? So right now, I show that the commissioner, asked with the that we include the condition of monitoring and a regular update on the consolidation process itself. K. Number two, a monitoring of the student performance. So when those students are then moving to the school to make sure that we're monitoring the The third one I heard is that the commissioner asked for monitoring and update and report on the facilities themselves, make sure the facilities are prepared and ready to receive the students. And the last thing I show the commissioner said that we were then to go back and add any other conditions as needed, including additional resources that may be needed. Understood. So, members, it looks like, the recommendation, and I'll ask for a motion for this, would be to approve the turnaround plan, tentatively with the three conditions that were laid out, and, contingent on, Doctor. Burns bringing back I guess, the board would reserve the right to add additional conditions, at a later date. Yes, Member Magar. Commissioner, on the facilities, were you concerned, about the capacity of the central school or the physical structure at all? Thank you. I'm not concerned about capacity. There's ample space, and I've walked that. Like I said, this is a unique situation in the fact that because it's such a big state, you know, I don't get to have intimate knowledge of some of these buildings. But because of the fact that we have gone back there, over the last thirteen months so many times and walked those same facilities, I I I feel a concern for the facility itself. It's not the size. I think they're number one, I'm concerned, and maybe this is something for the superintendent to tackle with the board and whoever the the providers have been, that the damage that has happened in these classrooms, being water damage and some of the repairs and I even had this conversation during some of the hurricanes, with our deputy commissioner, Suzanne Pridgen. My concern is when when that happens once, it's one thing. But when it happens repeatedly, I start to have concerns that there there may be some issues in that facility that that really may need to be taken a look at. So if there is a need for some kind of help, we wanna be aware of that, and then we we we need to try to marshal whatever resources possible, whether with your legislative delegation or how however it is. I just wanna make sure that we are if we're consolidating, then let's put all our efforts in making Madison Central a place where these students want to be and that they can thrive. And and so I'm I'm sure that the superintendent is well aware, of the issues that that that school is facing. I just wanna I wanna highlight it because I wanna make sure this is comprehensive. Vice Chair Petty. I think another question, for the commissioner. So on the monitoring of the reassigned students, just to be clear, the school will close at the end of this school year and the students would be transferred next year. Is that That's right. That's the the plan that was approved by the board. Okay. So we wouldn't get progress monitoring data until actually, first question is, is it progress monitoring data that we would be looking at for Greenville, number one. And number two, is here they suggest quarterly reports. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with quarterly reports. I'd like to see something more frequent if possible. And I don't know if progress monitoring is the best way to achieve that, but I want to keep track of these students. I would agree with your assessment. I I think when we're talking about the the the transition, right, the handover, we we we will have the progress monitoring the rest of the of the year at the current school. I guess what I'm trying to say is I I would like and I and I you know, we can work with doctor Burns. I would like to to to dig deeper into that to the individual students that are going over and not just say these are 96 students. It's a block of no. These are 96 individual students, and I want to figure out how we can do and and maybe the the the district has some, internal systems that can provide additional monitoring so that we hand that over, and that is to include what the handoff looks like, who are the receiving teachers, what is the support that's being put in place at the new facility because since you're downsizing, you should have ample I mean, there's gonna be some some savings here. There should be ample, personnel to to provide additional, safeguards and assistance to these students going in. If there's a need for professional development of the teachers that are receiving it, because this is, again, I want to highlight this is a very delicate situation in which we're moving students. You're kind of uprooting what they're used to. And though it's it's a close knit community and and and I'm sure there'll feel at home at Madison Central, I wanna make sure that we pay extra care, again, preventing from us facing the same situation in the future at Madison Central because of the influx of the students. Remember, it's not just even though the turnaround plan is Greenville, it's not just Greenville. It's it's Lee and it's three schools that are going in there to a school that that is a c. It's it's not an a. So that's something that I think I just feel like we need to pay very close attention to, and that the Madison plan as a whole is not forgotten because it's not just Greenville is what I'm trying to say. Sure. Go ahead, Vice Chair. Another follow-up. Chair, thank you. And on the note, maybe I got these out of sequence, Commissioner, and I apologize because I'm you're expressing some concerns maybe about the facility. And I'd love to know what things we can do to get that facility ready for next year. But we've got some time since we're not moving the kids now. So are there things that need to be done in that building that will make it ready so that at least we don't have facility issues that we're dealing with in addition to all the other instructional and professional development and monitoring and all the other things that we need to do. Are there things that we need to get fixed there? And this this feels like an all hands on deck kind of exercise. I agree with you. And that that would prompt me to think that, I agree with you, and that that would prompt me to think that, what we've done during the hurricanes is, deputy commissioner Pridgen's shop has we have sent personnel each one of them, each time, we've sent personnel out there. In fact, during those storms, we had former senior chancellor Miller out there parked at that district. We had about seven districts affected. I was on the road. I tried to go I I went to all of them, but I but but we decided we were gonna park him there because of the recurring issues. I think what what what I would ask is to add to doctor Burns' shop. I would ask deputy commissioner Pritjian to work with doctor Burns and the district to to send our team out there to take now that there's not a storm. Right? To take a look at what there is there, and maybe they they may have some things that they highlight that then the district can look at what what, resources they have available, both themselves and with their provider? Or is this a matter that's going to result in a request, maybe to the legislature because it's the only ones that can appropriate? What does that look like? I just I just wanna make sure that we have a comprehensive look at it. So I would say that that's a good idea. I I would add that to the recommendation, then if deputy commissioner Prejean would would, would work with doctor Burns on that. Agreed. All hands on deck is is the prescription here. We have a new superintendent coming in. We have consolidation of schools. I I think it does require all hands on deck. I I had one question, and maybe it's for the superintendent. This is obviously a big deal for the county in general. What sort of community outreach have you had, discussions in the community with parents of students who are gonna be potentially relocated? What what has happened, and what what do you plan to do, assuming this is approved? So we'll have more community assessment team members, and we'll try to meet more with the parents. It's not always the, well attended meetings with our Greenville Elementary School. They it's just it's kind of like the attendance trying to get the children to come to school. Sometimes you have to send your your calling. It's trying to then get the parents to come to a meeting. There the attendance at some of our after school meetings is not always, high attendance. So at our next meeting, we'll address it again, talk about our shift and how we're gonna, move and transition our children from Greenville. Yeah. And let me let me let me encourage you to look at perhaps some out of the box thinking on how to engage the parents, perhaps, not just have a meeting that they have to, you know, drive to and show up to, you know, create informational videos, provide obviously written information to the homes, you know, personal phone calls. I mean, we're not talking about a lot of students here. You know, I think there needs to be a little bit of, red carpet treatment here, for for these families, and to make sure that they that they're engaged too. Because if the families aren't engaged, then our chances of success go down and we need those families engaged. We need them on board with this. Is that something that we can is that something that you think that Actually, it's part of our consolidation efforts for doing that, but we'll put in more efforts for our Greenville Elementary Students too towards that. Okay. Thank you. Alright, members. Then we it sounds like if there's no other questions or comments, member Byrd? Sorry. One more. One one comment, for the superintendent. I hope you I I hope you hear all of this as, support because we, you know, I'm I'm sure it's a difficult situation coming in. You know, you're brand new. You're coming in. You're faced with all of this. Please hear all of all of us and we support you, and we will do literally everything that we can to, to make sure that you and the schools are successful. To the commissioner, we, we have a special session coming up, and I believe disaster relief is one of the the items in that special session. If we could get an assessment really quickly, maybe, maybe we could ask for some some funds for, for Madison County in that. And what I would say is, your your communication, with the county as well, what is what what has what are the communications been with that process and disaster relief? The already existing funding that may be there, funding that may come through a special session, how do you strategize with the rest of the government in Madison County to assure that, these things are highlighted is what I would suggest. So actually that's where we're working right now is we are we have weekly meetings with our teams. We are actually putting the roof on Madison County Central right now. And, some of our holdups are just the timelines. We have to follow the specific timelines. And it's for the reimbursement through FEMA, through our process with that. That's where our hold up holdups are. And it feels like we can't get anything done for those timelines. Try to repair, but we don't have the money either. Well, use I encourage you to use Doctor. Burns. Use the team at DOE. I know the commissioner, his phone is always on and he answers it. You know, use the resources that you have at your disposal, and the commitment that this board has and department has to make sure that there's a success here. That's that's the priority, that's for sure. Thank you. Alright, members. Can I get a motion? I'm gonna try to restate this. Correct me if I I got this wrong, but a motion to adopt the commissioner's recommendation to tentatively approve the turnaround plan for Greenville Elementary with the commissioner's three conditions and for the board to reserve the right to adopt additional conditions as recommended by the commissioner at a later date. Doctor. Burns is nodding his head, so I think that that is good. We got a motion. Is there a second? A motion and a second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. Show the turnaround plan with the conditions and the reservation, for Greenville Elementary approves. And now members, let's take a real five minute break. Not a central time five minute break, and we'll we'll, stand in recess. Next, I'd like to recognize Adam Emerson, the Executive Director of our Office of Independent Education and Parental Choice, for the next two items, which includes consideration of approval for scholarship funding organizations. At the outset, I just wanna say, we've done a lot from my time on the board, we've done a lot of things, but one of the things we're most proud of is the expansion of school choice. And I think that we have only just hit the tip of the iceberg when it comes to seeing really the dramatic effects that school choice is gonna have, not not only in Florida, and Florida has certainly been leading the way, but across this country. And I think you you have you have seen it with the increased enrollment, and it just it's something that, I know this board is very proud of. And, thanks to the governor's leadership on this issue and the legislature's leadership on this issue and making sure that Florida is a place where parents have the right to choose the best educational opportunity for their children. And so, this is an important this is a routine action item that we see every year. However, it's very important, and it's also, in many ways, a cause for celebration, and making sure that as we navigate what really I think members is uncharted waters here, that we're making sure that we are doing the best we can, to ensure that the vision for school choice and for giving parents the opportunity continues too in the state. So with that, mister Emerson, your the floor is yours. Thank you, mister chair, members of the board, and commissioner Diaz. You are correct. This is, technically speaking, a routine, action that we bring to the board every year is the consideration of the renewal application for our scholarship funding organizations, but the work that they do was hardly routine. They are the boots on the ground that administer this program. They are, certainly on the front lines of of the school choice movement in this state, and we are we're crossing a half million mark of scholarship participants in this state. Their their work and their partnership with the department is as important as ever right now. So, as you know, each year, we get these renewal applications from the scholarship funding organizations. We do have to annually renew their authority to do this work. And then reviewing their applications, we do consult with, as statute requires, the departments of, revenue and financial resources before we bring that to you. Each of the scholarship funding organizations is here today. We have Kim Dyson from the AAA Scholarship Foundation. We have a new president of the Step Up for Students Scholarship Foundation, and that is Gretchen Schonauer. Each of these action items is taken up separately, and each of these representatives is here to present their work individually. So first, I would like to ask up here, with the chair's permission, of course, miss Kim Dyson of the AAA Scholarship Foundation. Miss Dyson, welcome, and you are recognized. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. And thank you for considering our renewal application. We believe it does provide the evidence, to support that we are qualified and we meet all 17 requirements, to maintain our our, status as a scholarship funding organization for the twenty five-twenty six school year. We're also excited to announce that we will be relaunching our, scholarship management platform. The parents were pretty upset about that. But they were also even more upset because it wasn't working quite as well as we had hoped. So the feedback we had gotten was, let's try this again. So we did take it down, but we are relaunching it for the 2526 application cycle, which begins on February 1. It's very early this year. So, the legislators put that into statute that it was February 1. So it is right around the corner. So any parents who are interested in renewing or applying for a scholarship, we would ask them to be ready on February 1. It is a Saturday. So, it's unfortunate, but it is a Saturday. So we're hoping that, we get a lot of, demand for these scholarships. And lastly, I am happy to announce that we have once again passed our Florida Auditor General operational audit, with flying colors. We are have we received an unqualified audit, which means we have no negative Findings. We are the only scholarship funding organization to have ever done that, and this is our fifth time in a row, having met that, high mark. So we're very, very proud of that, and we're proud of our team. We're small but mighty, and, we're just delighted to, to serve the students and the parents of Florida. So thank you very much. Thank you, miss Dyson. Two two questions that I had. One was I know there's an issue, that I'm told, at least, is unresolved related to Florida Virtual School, and that Florida Virtual School claims that there are, essentially $10,000 in unpaid half credit enrollments. Is that an issue? Number one, are you aware of that that issue? We are aware that that's what they're claiming. We have requested a list of those because we do, we work with them on a, well, actually a bimonthly basis where they send us lists of the students who are enrolled, and we go through them to make sure that they're our students, number one, because there's oftentimes where they send us students who aren't ours. And for those who are on the list and are ours and have been funded, we go ahead and and make those payments. So, if there is any outstanding anything, we've just asked them to provide us with a detailed list. The the back and forth that we've been going with them is because they had increased their rate for the the scholarship students, these particular scholarship students, above any other lab students. So they're charging a higher rate for these particular scholarship students, than they are with any other lab students. So that has been that was the genesis of that discussion. And where are you all in the in the efforts to resolve the issue? We're communicating with them. That's all we can do at this point, you know, is, to keep communicating. We're still paying their bills. I mean, we're not not paying them. We are. Mhmm. But we're hoping that we can resolve this and that there can be an equitable fee across the board so that these scholarship students aren't charged more for whatever reason they're charging them more. And I I'm very familiar with Ford Virtual School because this board was the board for a while, for about I think it was a a year or so. I'm I'm glad that we're not the board anymore, and they have their own independent board and their own independent team. But what I would encourage you to do, number one, is to resolve the issue. I think the issue needs to be resolved. I think, the Florida Virtual School has, and, again, I don't wanna I mean, I don't wanna make their case for them, but I think they've made some some good points there, and I think that's that's important to resolve. The other issue that I was have been made aware of that I wanna get your thoughts on, and that is, related to a purchasing guide for, Ford empowerment scholarship for this, students with unique abilities. Yeah. And, apparently, there is a there's been some letters back and forth. There's a letter from, the department on January 6, which I have a copy of from Mr. Emerson, related to asking AAA to approve some recommendations based on some purchases that were within the purchasing guide approved by UCF, which is in statute and there's a statutory provision that provides for that. And then it looks like there was a letter. Unfortunately, what you I'm a lawyer. And so one of the first things I tell my clients is if you don't want to escalate an issue, don't have a lawyer get involved. But a lawyer representing AAA did get involved. And basically, I'll sum up the letter. It's basically told us to go pound sand. After that, there was another letter that the commissioner sent, on I guess it was just a couple of days ago, also sort of reemphasizing this purchasing policy. So I don't want to get into the there's whenever I can take off my lawyer hat, I'd like to do so. And I'm not going to put on my lawyer hat and debate the the legality of that. I think the, the department, we have we have a great legal team here that can do that because I think this issue to me is bigger than the legal issue. And what it what it's about is making sure that parents under there's there's consistency across the board for our parents. I know the the thing that I have heard and I'm sure other board members have heard too, with parents who have students who have received these scholarships is that there hasn't been clarity. There hasn't been clarity about what, for example, is an approved purchase. There hasn't been clarity on timelines and things like that. And so for our scholarship funding organizations, I think that's very important. I think the legislature has stepped in and said, in particular with this scholarship, has set up a system where UCF is involved and I believe your organization and the other organizations are involved in collaborating with UCF to make sure that the purchasing what's essentially what's an approved purchase, what is not an approved purchase, that's something that's very clear to the parents. And it's posted on your website, etcetera. What steps can you assure us that AAA is going to be taking to make sure, number one, that we have a consistent because we've got to have a consistent we cannot have you know, different scholarship organizations having different procedures or approval processes. We've got to have one, and I think that's the system the legislature has set up. So what are we doing? What is your organization doing to make sure that we have consistency and that we're following the statutory mandate? Well, as far as the consistency, what I would say is we have been consistent since starting. When this program started back in 2014, we were an SFO at that time. So we have been very consistent with our approval process and the items that, are considered, you know, authorized uses and which aren't. Now I will say, instructional materials seems to be the the the issue, at this particular point in time. Law first passed, we lobbied because what the what we the feedback we were getting from the parents was that they desperately wanted school supplies and school equipment, including furniture and things like that, to be included. So we lobbied the legislature to please add that to the authorized uses. And as you will see from the authorized use list, it was not approved. They did not add that. So we took that as a definite. That is not something that they were interested in having in that list. So our interpretation of instructional materials is basically the department's, one zero zero six point two nine definition of instructional materials, which do not include school supplies and, unless, of course, it's required by the instructional material or the curriculum. If it's required, then it's fine, then it gets approved. But if it's just, you know, a stand alone request, that is not that is something that we have, you know, made super clear in our handbooks and our prior purchasing guides because there was, a an agreed upon purchasing guide last year. The number of requests that we get that are actually denied is very, very small because we are clear in that. And we are clear as to what is gonna be approved and what isn't. When I say consistency, I'm not talking about you as an organization. I'm talking about consistency across for the state, across the board for all of our scholarship funding organizations and with the department on what for a parent who has it's very clear what's approved and what's not approved. I guess what concerns me here is that we had this UCF purchasing guide that, I believe you all consulted on. Correct? Yes. Yes. And we did we did explain to UCF about the differences in the interpretation particular well, a lot of them, but mostly the, instructional materials because it's such a huge part of that. I mean, it's it it spans pages and pages of that handbook. So we did try to make that as clear as possible, and I think that's why they decided to include, to carry over the wording from the prior purchasing guide that explained that each of these scholarship funding organizations are independent, and they do have their own policies and procedures and that the the parents should look to those SFOs for those policies and procedures. So I'm just one person on this I'm the chair, but I'm not just one person. I just have one vote. My I think that's very troubling. I think it's very troubling for a scholarship organization to have to basically have be able to come up with their own interpretation of what's an approved purchase or not. Essentially, then what we're gonna have is, you know, we're gonna have different interpretations about what's approved and what's not approved. And I think that's why, why, at least the way I read it, that's why the legislature created a process where they delegated authority to UCF. They said, we're going to have the scholarship funding organizations get together. They're going to consult on what's approved and what's not approved. So we don't have sort of ad hoc interpretations because I think that's if we have those different legal interpretations or policy interpretations of what's approved or not approved, then we don't have consistency, across the board. And that's what I think is troubling, at least to me, about saying that, you know, that we're reading the statute somehow or the framework to allow every scholarship organization to make their own decisions about what's approved or not approved without sort of the input, you know, sort of bypassing. I guess you could bypass the the the this board, the department, and the legislature, who've set out a different framework. So and I hear what you said I hear what you say. Is there are there where are we at right now in resolving this issue? Or or are we at an impasse? Oh, I don't think we're at an impasse. So where where we at right now? And maybe that's a question where I think we're in the I think I mean, I'm not a lawyer. So I'm not gonna say legally, you know, where we stand on that. So I would say Mister chair, maybe we can have our general counsel come in and shed some light. But before he does that, I wanna send I wanna shed some background light for the board. The implementation of the statute, which includes the UCF Center for Unique Abilities, which was created, around the same time in the same legislative thrust, I happened to be a member of the legislature when that happened, was it was put in place initially to work on these issues. Now, the legislature recently decided to give them the authority and the task of putting this guide together because when we're talking about the unique ability scholarship, it is very different and the name says it all. There are unique purchases that come through there. In trying to standardize, these purchases to facilitate the parents being able to get what they need, I am intimate knowledge that that's why the legislature put that in there because they wanted the experts to provide a guide, and and and the idea was that as we see more and more uses of certain reimbursements, every year UCF would go back and expand this guide to streamline the process, so it makes it easier for the scholarship funding organizations. So this guide was supposed to be developed in consultation, and objections to purchases should have been done at the consultation of the creation of the guide, not after the guide was published and put in place to be used for those reimbursements. So with that, I I would if if you're okay with that, mister chair, to to bring up our general counsel so he can kind of, give the from the department standpoint what we're looking at here with the statute. Yeah. That would that would be great, and and I appreciate that explanation, commissioner. I read, I mean, I read it the same way. It seems like a logical framework that you would have sort of delegate to the experts, but make sure that the scholarship funding organizations are collaborating. Yes. Member Burton. Thank you, mister chair. Commissioner Mister Chatwin. She's been she's been mentioned, miss Dyson mentioned, instructional material. But I believe there's a current pending issue with just a chair and a desk for a particular family that has purchased these things and requested reimbursement. Is what we're talking about broader than than that that particular situation with miss Montesino and and the reimbursement for a for a desk and a chair for a student? Mr. Chair, and I and I would, I would ask that, Executive Director Adam Emerson provide some clarity on the exact purchase, because there's multiple issues here. So I don't want to misspeak, but, maybe we can get some clarity from our General Counsel and then, Mr. Emerson can provide some light on that. Thank you. Mr. Chapo, you're recognized. I'm interim general counsel David Chapel, and I'm happy to answer any questions on this. As I understand it, the particular statutory provision here that I think sheds the most provision authorizes the creation of a center, down at the University of Central Florida who was tasked with coming up with a purchasing guide, much as, mister chairman, you were discussing earlier, that was going to stabilize and create a kind of universal purchasing guide that all parents and, scholarship funding organizations would be able to utilize. Now pursuant to that particular statutory provision, the purchasing guide that UCF creates is with contributions from SFOs, from parents, and is designed to lay out all the things that are going to be approved or prohibited or require additional documentation for approval for all of the SFOs. But on the basis of that particular statutory language, whatever is in that purchasing guide is going to be in compliance with the statutory requirements that are contained in the purchasing guide specifically is supposed to provide much more clarity on specific items that may fall into a gray area if you were just reading the statutory text in 01/2002, I believe it's point six three nine four, that sort of lays out the broad categories where funds from these particular scholarships can be used. The purchasing guide is supposed to make it much clearer for parents and for SFOs so that there's not so much back and forth that you have different entities coming up with with different conclusions. Yeah. And I think what is concerning to me is that the letter from AAA's counsel says there is no controlling legal authority that requires an SFO such as AAA to follow the UCF purchasing guide. That's troubling to me. Yes, Sharon. And, honestly, I was a little confused about that as well because the creation of the the center down at UCF and the authorization to come up with a purchasing guide and to require SFOs to participate in the creation of the purchasing guide. And then the requirement for them to publish the purchasing guide on their websites so that parents have access to that purchasing guide all seems to necessarily purchasing guide, especially because, again, the statute that authorizes the creation of the UCF purchasing guide specifically says that items contained within that purchasing guide are going to be approved items, under the relevant statutory provisions that that lay out the different areas that can be approved. Mister Emerson, do you wanna add on to that? And then we're gonna go to vice chair Petty after after you're finished. Of course. And just to add a little more context to this one, in the immediate passage of house bill one, it was responsibilities of the SFOs to kinda come up with with an agreed upon, purchasing guide. The next year since there was there was different items that each SFO said they would approve. So the next year, the legislature did change that and introduced the University of Central Florida Center for Students with Unique Abilities and tasked them with coming up with the purchase guide, which they did and published, July 1 of this past year, as a matter of fact. And in particular to this specific situation that member Byrd has been asking about, it's for a home education student who is part of the FESUA scholarship program. And it was a desk and a chair, for their home education environment that they had asked for reimbursement for in addition to a playground set, which you see at every public school playground in the state of Florida here that they had also asked for. Thank you. Vice Chair Peddie. So question, I guess, for for miss Dyson, let me let me ask the were you involved in the creation of this UCF guide? Did AAA participate in the creation of the guide? We yes. We had meetings with, UCF. And as I stated before, we did express where we had differences of opinion on the, the, instructional materials, because that's where this falls under is the instructional material section of that, purchasing guide. So you you personally or as an organization disagree with the guide that was created? We we disagree with the interpretation of instructional materials to include those items. Only because of our experience with the legislature telling us no in the, you know, from the get go of this program was that that was not to be part of, an authorized use. So we that's we're basing it on our experience. Can you point to specific language in any statute that gives you that authority to disagree with the UCF guide? Well, I don't know that I mean, our objection is what we were supposed to be providing. Right? We were supposed to be, you participating in that. So that's what we offered to them. I appreciate your participation. But once the guide is published, then it becomes the published guide. And to the Chair's point, now we've got some consistency, for lack of a better term, so parents and families know what can be approved and what won't be approved. And subsequent to that publication of that guide, you're you're now saying, well, because the legislature didn't explicitly say something a couple of years ago, we feel like that part of the guide isn't valid. Is that what you're saying? Well, again, I'm not a lawyer. So I'm not either. That's a I'm just saying question. Yes. As an organization, when we read the statute and it has, you know, one zero zero two dot three nine four subsection eleven five says it is our obligation to verify that the expenditures follow the authorized uses in four b, It's the the list that has all the authorized uses. That's what we do. We're obligated to do that, so that's what we're doing, which is slightly different than the four a section, which is for the FESEO, where that section specifically says, basically the same wording, but authorized under the purchasing guidelines that were created by the SFOs themselves. So in that in that four a section, it is very specific in the statute that we are to follow the purchasing guide. In this four b section, it does not say that. It literally says where our obligation is to verify the expenditures ourselves, under four b. It doesn't say anything about a purchasing guide. It doesn't say anything about UCF. It just literally says that it's our obligation to do that. So that's where, Follow-up. Follow-up, Jeremy. This comes from. So the legislature said, let's let UCF create a guide. They asked you to participate in the creation of this guide, yet you're confused about whether or not you should follow the guide. I'm not confused. You're not. So should you follow the guide? We do in in most cases, almost all of the things that they Why not in all cases? Well, because if our interpretation of the law, if we followed it and we felt that we were now not following the law, that would be a, you know, that would be putting us and our, you know, we have a perfect score on our, operational audit, it would be putting us into some sort of jeopardy, perhaps. So so are desks and chairs on the list? Can somebody give me a mister Emerson, can you tell me, are are desks and chairs for students with unique abilities on the list? They are explicitly on the list, correct, as is the playground equipment. So on what basis, miss Dyson, would you, equipment. So on what basis, miss Dyson, would you exclude a desk and a chair for a student and playground equipment for this student that needs that accommodation if they are in fact on a list that you participated in creating and understand at least partially in the statute as I'm hearing you. Again, I'm not a lawyer. You're not a lawyer. But I hear you saying I you recognize the legislature asked you to participate in creating this list and you created a list and you see these items on a list, under what basis then do you deny this family what they need for their student? I feel like this is a court. It is to a certain extent. You're asking us to reapprove your We are. Certification as a scholarship, funding organization in the state of Florida. Yes. And yet we're finding inconsistencies with the way you were approving reimbursements for families with students with special needs that need special accommodations. And, so it is a bit of a court, ma'am. Okay. So I would say that it's not that we we are not following the guide. It's just that the guide itself, from our reading, our interpretation of the guide itself from our reading, our interpretation of the sta. Right. It's not we rely on to make the decisions as to whether or not that particular, that programs authorize uses. Any other questions? I'm I'm finding this very troubling because it seems like you're essentially you're saying the you're essentially you're saying the legislature told us to verify this, but yet you're ignoring the process that the legislature created to have this UCF guide be the authority essentially for to create the consistency across the board for what's approved and what's not approved. I mean, I think at the end of the day, the scholarship funds are state dollars. Right? It's our job to approve organizations to basically facilitate and to dispense those state dollars. And it sounds like AAA is saying they wanna make the decisions about what's approved and what's not approved as opposed to the legislature and the framework the legislature has set up. And that is I'm very surprised at that position. But let's go to member Byrd and then member Magar. Thank you. To to to vice chair Petty's point, your letter the letter from your, your attorney kind of walks through, which which I again, I find amazing, and says that Florida law lays out this this purchasing guide, that you say that you don't have to follow it. Your the his letter says that that your, your handbook trumps Florida law. You know, that's that's what the letter says. That is your position. Is that your position standing here today that your handbook trumps Florida law? I wouldn't say that it trumps Florida law. I would say that it by us following it because it lists exactly, you know, what the parents agreed to and what we've all agreed to, and it's very consistent. It's been the same for years and years and years. It it follows a law because one zero zero two dot three nine four eleven five states that we have to verify. We, the or you know, the SFO has to verify the expenditures under those authorized uses. It doesn't say as authorized by the purchasing guide the UCF purchasing guide, which is quite different than, like I said, in that same, 01/1994, there's another scholarship, which is called the FESEO. And that one very specifically says the SFOs have to, you know, verify these expenditures as authorized by the purchasing guide. So it's very specific in that in the EO side. It does not say that at all on the UA side. I know the UCF purchasing guide exists. We're not saying it doesn't exist. We participated as required. We published it on our website as required. We did everything that was required. What we're saying is our objection that we voiced at the time it was being created was that the instructional materials that they have listed are not instructional materials. They're they're something else. They're school supplies or school furnishings or other things that we feel fine. We we think it's fine that the parents purchased that, but we don't you know, based on our experience, we feel that it they're not the legislature did not list those as an authorized use. So they're not really an authorized use. They're just being put in that section, in order to get pushed through. So what you're saying is that you believe your your handbook trumps the public, the the, the purchasing guide. I mean, I don't I don't know any any other way to summarize that any any more than that. But regardless, so if you're saying that you're following your handbook in approving or disapproving reimbursements, are you telling me that your handbook disallows the purchase of a chair and a and a desk for for a student? Yes. Unless it's required with either curriculum or the instructional materials itself. Yes. I'm not sure what else to say to that. Member Magar. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Most of my questions have been answered. But, let me ask, have you approved you said you have not approved a desk and a chair for others or prior to this. Have you approved other equipment close to that for this family? For this particular family? I don't know. I'd have to we'd have to pull out their file. I'm not sure. Member Foganholi. Thank you very much, chair. And, I think I have similar questions, just like board member Magar said, but I don't think I'm hearing the answers. I think it points back to inconsistency. So I'm gonna reiterate that same question. And I think in the history of AAA, if we look back, has their family ever been approved for a desk? If it's required by a curriculum because that's what the law says. It says if it's you know, the curriculum requires any whatever additional equipment or supplies. Okay. So I would ask the same for a chair. Yes. I'd say the same for a playground. I I would imagine so if it was required by a curriculum or an instructional attorney. So we talk about physical education or we talk about anything like that. So in situations like this, my question also is for this family in particular, are we just denying or are we saying, how can we help you qualify this or do this in the right way to make sure you get what you need for your child? Are we just denying them? Is there an appeal process? How are we helping our family do that? So I would like to ask, let's go to the appeal process first. What does that look like for for a family like this? Well, once, a denial is communicated back to the parent, we tell them that they have the the, you know, the option to appeal this, oh, and whatever it happens to be that's being denied. And that they can communicate back to us why they think that it should be approved. And, then they do that. It's generally by email. And, then we take that into consideration. But at the you know, for this particular family, even though I don't wanna talk about families in particular, because I think it's a like what was mentioned before, it's a bigger issue. There was nothing new provided to us to say that, you know, perhaps it was required under, you know, instructional material or, a curriculum. Understood. I'm having a hard time with this one, chair. Because I think that this is not maybe an argument would be there if somebody was talking about a motorcycle or a skateboard or I understand. But these are things that our schools have in place, to ensure our kids are successful. We have them in every single school, just like you said, a playground, a desk, a chair. So I, for one chair, don't feel comfortable voting on this right now, personally. Like to hear from you colleagues, because I I just think the inconsistency is not fair. That's that's not right. I think to be to be fair, the the legislators, this board doesn't create the purchasing requirements, and we don't sign off on whether the chair or the desk is appropriate. To me, it seems perfectly appropriate just using common sense. But the legislature set up a framework for how these things are approved, and it's through the UCF purchasing guide and collaboration with scholarship organizations. That occurred. And, you know, it's it's pretty clear. I think I think I'm clear on your position, at least. I think your position is clear. I have voted to approve AAA for seven years in a row since being on this board with no hesitation. As I'm sitting here today, I cannot vote to approve you because I have no assurance that you're willing to follow the the laws the legislature has set out. And again, I'm one vote, but I mean, this is I'm a little bit this caught me off guard, the the the answers. And, I mean, I I was I was anticipating different answers from you this morning, and I just I've just received different answers. And commissioner, I don't I don't know what your reaction is to this, but I'm I'm just a little taken aback. I feel the same way, but, probably worse, given given the fact that I'm confused by one point that's been repeated here that was beyond frustrating is as a teacher administrator, former chair of House Ed Appropriations Committee, Choice Innovation, chair of the Senate Education Committee, sponsor of the Family Empowerment Scholarship, creation. The question of does the curriculum match a desk and a chair? What curriculum doesn't require a student to be seated to be able to learn? And then we're dealing with students with unique abilities. The frustration is that these parents already face to have even to the I'm flabbergasted at the fact that there's even a discussion over a desk and a chair that has to be brought before the State Board of Education. Not to mention the fact that I have intimate knowledge of how that statute was created on the UCF again. The reason was where where there there have been disagreements between scholarship funding organizations on purchasing guides, and so the legislature saw fit to say, we have a center with expertise. We're gonna have them consult and then produce the guides so they can do what's best for students. This guide is for the SFOs to follow. That's why they have consultations. So to to say that you're I I mean, to say that you're not following the guide because it's not the statute, the the the legislature you you continue to mention the legislature doesn't like this, doesn't like that. The legislature, to my knowledge, having spent ten years there, only speaks in one manner, and that's in statute. And the statute to me is pretty clear on this, and I have seen board members apparently have the same view, of that. And and there's no there's no discussion of whether the guide should be used for facilitation. The whole idea behind the guide is to streamline the process so that there are less things that have to be validated. I understand that things outside that guide will come to you. You have a conversation with the parents and that you may need a further explanation. I don't understand things that are in the guide that UCF Center for Unique Abilities is telling you are approved, and you're deciding not to approve that. That's not even going into the fact that I would like to know where in statute it gives the scholarship funding organization the authority to decide that they're not gonna pay the rate of a service from another entity that the parent has decided they would like to pay with the money that is allocated to them through you, but it's not your money. It is the taxpayers' dollars allocated to the parents. And if the parent is saying, I want FLVS and their rates are now $3.75 or whatever they are, pass by their their board, which is in statute, I don't understand where you get the authority to decide. I'm not gonna pay that. The parent wants that. We don't we don't tell parents what rate they pay if they hire a tutor. In fact, the legislature clearly has stayed away from putting caps on these sort of things. And so Florida Virtual, which is an entity that exists in statute, which has a board, passed the rate, which is the rate across the board, and you're deciding that you're not okay with that rate. I wanna break the news. If the parent is okay with that rate and that's the service they choose, it is your job to pay it. It is not your job to question the board of Florida Virtual School. That is this is even this is clear. I mean, it's not as clear as the, I guess, the chair in the desk, but I I'm I I do not understand any of this. I do not understand where you think you gain the authority as an SFO when the statue is clear on these items. When when the effort was made to put together a guide by experts to decide, we're gonna make things easier for parents. And by the way, the idea with that is that next year's guide is gonna include more things because they have figured out. The first time when we passed that at the time, the Gardner scholarship, I went to a conference and I I saw I was presented what was going on in Arizona. And the first time that I the first thing I heard was equine therapy. And I thought coming from, you know, my my career in the traditional public school, equine therapy, what do you mean we're paying for equine? Well, it turns out that it's very effective with students with autism. And it turns out that I had to change my mind and say, you know what? Maybe we should listen to the experts and open my mind. Well, that fight is over. The legislature has decided that. The legislature has said, we're gonna put experts in charge of this guide. The s d the legislature has not said, SFO, you know what you need to do is you need to decide what you like on the guide after it's been published and decide not to pay it. The legislature didn't say a parent wants to avail their student of a certain service with the amount of dollars that are allocated to that student, and the SFO is gonna decide not not because it's not a valid services or because it's not because it's fraud. It's Florida Virtual School, for god's sakes, created in statute. So I am thoroughly confused by all of this, probably more than this board. So my my recommendation at this time, mister chair, and I I mean, I'd leave it to the board, is that, the board maybe not act on this today, and maybe we have the opportunity and again, this is just my recommendation. They have the opportunity for our team and this board to have further conversations to correct these issues. Vice chair Penny. Would you entertain a motion? Yes. I I move that we table this item till the next board meeting. Second. Alright. Members, there's a motion to table this, item until the next board meeting. Is there any discussion? We have a second. Is there any discussion or comments on that motion? I have a question. Yes. I think that's, member Garcia? Member Garcia? Yep. Yes. We table it. Does this have any effect on families and then, get getting support or decisions made on payments between now and our next board meeting, which I believe is scheduled for April? Mister chair, we I mean, I would I would say that doesn't affect that, but I'd like, mister Emerson to answer that just for clarity of the board. Mister Emerson, you're recognized for an answer to the question. Thank you, mister chair. The, we do have an obligation in statute to advise the Departments of Resources and Financial Services who are going to be getting tax credited donations for the twenty five, twenty six year. And that March 15 date is in statute. So by the time of the April meeting, that date will have passed. Yeah. Member I think the question though, mister chair, is the question that member Garcia believed to ask is, does this have any effect on current students in the current school year and their payments in their program, etcetera? My apologies. No. It does not. Not in the 2420 '5 year. This does not affect the current students. This is this what we are requesting here or rather what is before the board here is for the twenty five, twenty six year. The authority to administer the scholarship program for the 2520 '6 year. Yeah. And so, member Garcia, I think, your question is a good one, though. Given I think sounds like your question is given the statutory deadline, and our next meeting being after that statutory deadline. That I would say that's our next regularly scheduled meeting. You know, I listen. Again, we're gonna vote on this motion, but assuming it does is tabled, you know, your your organization like I said, I voted seven times to approve triple a. And usually, it's a no brainer. I am I am optimistic, because I'm just an optimistic person that we're gonna be able to resolve these issues, and that we won't have this and hopefully they can be resolved before the statutory deadline. And this board obviously can can meet outside of our regularly scheduled meetings if we need to. Because number one, we're not gonna we're gonna make sure that that students are not affected, number one. And we're also gonna make sure, you know, AAA has been very valuable and and has done good work. But what we've seen here today, this is just obviously, you've seen the frustration from the board here, and it we need to have some further discussions before we can move forward on this, I think. Member Bird, you had a question? Yeah. I'm following up on on the commissioner's comments, in the the letter he was referencing is dated, January 6 from from, FLVS. And they gave AAA until the thirteenth to respond. This is on the increase in the FLVS. Are you guys planning on responding? My understanding is so far the thirteenth has come and gone and you haven't responded to the Chair's point, we're hoping for some resolution. Are we going to get to resolution? Are you planning on responding to this? Can we resolve it? We reached out to them to ask them for a detailed list of the amount that they say is outstanding. We've paid every single invoice that they have sent to us at the higher rate for those students who are AAA students and were funded. So as far as we know, we have no outstanding balance with them. So that's why we asked them for a list of who those what makes up that amount. Who those what makes up that amount. We haven't heard back. Okay. So we need to we need to make sure we resolve that that issue. Our understanding is it's not resolved. So we need to make sure that we get the two sides together to resolve that, certainly. So we have And just to comment on the tariff. Yes. It's not only resolving the outstanding 10,000, it's that as the commissioner said, FLVS sets the rates, not AAA. And I would like to understand the next time we consider this, if if this motion is approved and we consider this, miss miss Dyson, I my to you, I would say, when and if you come back, this is something we want to see both of these issues resolved. We want you to follow the UCF guide. I think that's pretty clear. At least that's my view of it. If the board chooses to agree with that, but also this idea that you tell FLVS what the rates are, that that's got to you got to remove that from your DNA, from your organizational DNA. It's not your role to do that. So those are the things I'm looking for, Mr. Chair. Member Magar. Ask, to clarify the appeal process and if there's any mechanisms for you to when you're, accepting or hearing an appeal to come to the department? To come to the I'm sorry. Can you rephrase that? If someone appeals a decision that you've made, a denial, are you the judge and jury at that point then on the appeal, or do you come is there some mechanism, some way that you come to the department or someone else? You're you're the final say. Yes. Our understanding under law is that as the administrator of the scholarship that we would make that decision. Yes. And and you don't usually ask for advice or anything from the department if you have a question? Well, if if we have a question, yes. Yes. Yes. So I so I think the the the general sentiment is, you know, it's our job as a board to approve or not approve an organization, to manage these taxpayer dollars. And along with managing the taxpayer dollars means managing it in accordance with the law as the legislature has set out and the governor has signed. And so until we have confidence that AAA is able to do that, then there's no way we we can turn over and say, hey. Go go forth and manage these funds. Because it got you gotta do it in accordance with what the legislature says. I mean, that's the framework that has been set out. And those debates happen in Tallahassee and committees and bills are passed and elected representatives vote on that and and come up with that framework. And I think it's a good one, but we we can't have individual organizations making those calls. So we have a motion and a second to table this item, until further until we bring it back up. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. So show that show that agenda item, tabled. Thank you, miss Dyson. Mr. Emerson, will you please introduce the next, the representative from Step Up? Yes. Thank you, mister chair. The Step Up for Students, scholarship, is headed by miss Gretchen Schonauer. She is the new president, and this will be the first time she has appeared before this board. So with the chair's permission, I'd like to ask her to come up. Yes. Welcome, and you're recognized. Thank you. Good afternoon. It's an honor to be with you today. I want to first thank the board and the commissioner for the opportunity to serve the state of Florida by managing scholarship programs. We would also like to thank the employees of the choice office and of the DOE. They are incredibly hardworking and great problem solvers. Thank you. When I joined Step Up, I was immediately impressed by the experience, dedication and talent of the team. We have also made several additions to our management team to further strengthen the existing talent, including a Chief Information Officer, a Chief Operating Officer and a Chief Transformation Officer. We've additionally onboarded the Head of Reimbursements, the Head of Payments and a Chief Information Security Officer. All of us bring many years of experience in banking and financial technology. I'd like to use my time today to share performance metrics, which highlight our dedication to continuous improvement. Our average time to process student applications has been halved from three to four weeks in 2023 to ten days in 2024. In both years, we processed over half a million student applications on multiple programs. Last school year, we onboarded 2,575 private schools to our payments platform. We made 1,800,000 tuition payments in eight point two days on average after invoice approval. This year, we paid 99.6% of 693,993 Q1 and Q2 invoices in five point three business days on average. Families can use their education savings accounts to buy preapproved items on our e commerce platform. Last school year, we processed 2,776,126 transactions with a value of over $161,000,000 We expect significant increase this year. Florida also allows families to purchase goods and services with their personal funds then request to be reimbursed. Last school year we processed over 1,000,000 reimbursement requests and this year we anticipate processing over 2,000,000 reimbursement requests. State law requires us to process reimbursements in sixty days or less. As of January 14 yesterday, only five sixty eight of the 54,297 reimbursements that are currently in process are over sixty days. Once approved, we paid reimbursements in seven point nine days on average last year. We've halved that time this year to four business days. These reimbursements are a very manual process. We are currently launching artificial intelligence, machine learning and optical character recognition to both improve consistency and further reduce the time that it takes to process. We have onboarded 14,000 service providers to our payment platform, including nine Florida school districts and charter schools. They provide over 21,500 service offerings. Last school year, payments were made to these providers in an average of twelve days. This year, we're 75% faster processing in four business days. Our 21 regional managers address concerns for a large population of parents, school leaders and service providers. Additionally, we host informational webinars serving 37,000 participants with 192 webinars last year. We also have a YouTube channel where we feature 75 videos with over 2,000,000 views and approximately 11,000 subscribers. I'm very proud of our team on this progress, but we're not done yet. We are working on initiatives to further improve our processes and our technology to improve the performance even further. While C's performance metrics highlight the incredible work by all step up colleagues, each of these numbers also represent families, educators, and providers. We appreciate the opportunity to serve each one. I would like to thank you for the opportunity to serve Florida and the mission of educational choice. We look forward to continuously improving our performance for all of our constituents. Thank you. Thank you so much. Members, any questions or comments? I have a couple of questions, if you don't mind. First of all, welcome. When did you, when did you take the, take the reins of this organization? I became CEO on April twenty ninth of this year. So just over eight months now. Okay. Yeah. For sure. Talk a little bit, obviously, the demands on Step Up have increased significantly as we've seen an explosion of interest among parents and school choice opportunities. You you rattled off some some very good statistics. Talk about, what was done, by you and your team to get there. And then what are what what what additional steps are you going to be taking to get to make those statistics even better? Yes. Thank you for the question. We have both hired in new staff, both at the chief level and leadership team level. We've also hired additional staff across the organization. We have looked at our processes. We've looked at our, time to perform our reporting, our data, etcetera to continuously continuously to look at how we can continue to improve. What areas can we, collaborate across teams or with providers, with families, with educators to get better? We've listened to feedback. Just last week, we actually had a parent feedback session to give us feedback on Emma, our platform, how the experience and the flow of what is there so we could actually improve those real time ahead of season open this year to try and make it faster as we expect a lot of families to come into the platform starting February 1. We have looked at our customer experience metrics to see where we could improve those as well. We've also put a priority routing for items that were escalated for lawmakers, the DOE, legislature legislators, excuse me, as well to see what we could do there, both for those families, but then also what is the root cause of that? How can we, address those root causes so other families, other providers, other educators don't have that same problem. So we've looked at that across the way. As I mentioned, we're also bringing in AI. Our Chief Information Officer has actually written a book on AI, seen as one of the experts in the space. We're looking to bring that in so we can actually, automate further reimbursement work to get back this money, faster to families. And I believe the application process for the next school year opens up here pretty soon. Yes. I know that because I got an email from Step Up, informing me of that, which I appreciated. What is your what is your organization's projection going into next year of how many additional students do you expect to be taking advantage of one of Florida's school choice options? And, well, first, let me ask you, what what is your projection? Yeah. Thank you for the question. I don't have a projection by program. What I can say is what we've looked at is the growth year over year at Step Up. So as before HB1 came into play in March of twenty twenty three, we were serving around 200,000 families. The following year, we went up to 440,000. And then obviously, as you know, we're above that now. And so we're expecting growth by different programs. Also, beyond the traditional growth, we saw nine school districts on board onto our platform this year. So we're actually increasing in a different way. Beyond the six programs that we serve, we're actually increasing by also serving school districts. So we're expecting more growth and in a more organic way with them as well. So I'm I apologize that I don't have that, but I will get a number back to the to the board. Yeah. I think that Commissioner, I think that's that's important. I know the legislature is doing their own projections. I know the department is as well, but we wanna make sure that, we can absorb the interest and and meet the needs of parents that do decide to to use these use these programs. If I could address that for just a moment. Yes. What we're looking at doing is as we go into our future state, we're looking at our end to end processing. So application, enrollment or homeschool, spending, funding, spending and paying. So we look at those five, apply, enroll, fund, spend, pay. And we look at that as an end to end process. Obviously, as the Board well knows, there are different business rules or different rules around how we treat each group. So PEP has different rules than EO, etcetera. And so what we're looking at doing is really making sure that there is a standardization at every step of the way, apply, enroll with an asterisk, funds spend pay, to make sure that as they go as students and Go through this process, but it's much smoother. That's also going to allow us to take on a great deal more volume and to do so at pace without any sort of implications or performance detriment seen by the families, the providers or the educators. Alright. Members, any other questions or comments? Alright. Seeing none, can I get a motion to approve, Step Up for Students as a scholarship funding organization for 2025 and 2026? So moved. Motion from member Byrd, second from member Bogganoli. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. Congratulations. Thank you. Alright. Now I'd like to bring back, chancellor Hebda for an overview of our next action item, which is an amendment to rule six a dash 10.0401. Chancellor Hebbe, you are recognized. Thank you very much, mister chair. Members, this is also an annual item that we bring before the board. This is the action item for the gold standard art career pathways articulation agreements. And these are agreements that allow students who have earned industry certifications while in high school or any time prior to coming to college to actually be guaranteed college credit for those industry certifications, when they enroll in an associate in science or an associate in applied science degree. Oops. Let me just turn off the wrong thing. Sorry about that. There are many benefits to students for these articulation agreements. Obviously, the earned college credit is certainly one of them, so that that is college credit they will not have to pay tuition and fees for. Also speeds them along in their degree programs, for sure. And also provides those students who earn those opportunities in high school to then see themselves ready for college. So it's really important. And it's also this is the kind of thing that that helps students earn the gold seal Florida Bright Futures scholarship. So this is the gold standard agreements that that, work statewide. And then the gold seal is also something students can benefit from from Bright Futures. Also gives districts an opportunity to earn extra credit, in FTE for funding when students earn, industry certifications that are part of one of these statewide agreements. This process has been around for a long time, started in 02/2008, and we bring this list to you annually. The current process, of course, is related to the master's master credentials list that's approved by the credential review committee. And, all these industry certifications on this list, have been on the list prior to now or they're new because, staff have gone to the master credential list to see what's newly adopted. And those, part of the process is for us to send those credentials then out to the field to institutions who, actually offer the associate in the science programs, get their feedback on how many credit hours they would recommend that would be guaranteed to a student. And our our team in articulation also works very closely with chancellor O'Farrell's team in the division of career and adult education, as you would imagine, and their expertise in looking at these industry certifications as well. And that's how the list is created. So the update to this this year's list does include those new certificates from the MCL, and it also includes a rereview of those certifications that have been on the list for a certain number of years. We bring them back before the the the field just to make sure they're up to date. There was an OPOGA study, this past summer that looked at gold standard agreements and looked at, ways that could possibly get them more use out in the field. And one of their recommendations in that study was to increase the time that students are allowed between the time they leave high school and the time they actually enroll in the AS program for three years to five years. The original concern was that the industry certification might be out of date by then, But given the the length of time that the certifications have stayed on the list, five years seem to be a good opportunity to give more students more chances to come back and enroll in college and then still get that guaranteed credit. An institution can still give credit even if it's not on the list or they can award more credit than what's on the list. But what's on this agreement list is the guaranteed student credit students will get statewide for that particular industry certification. One last thing I will mention, mister chair, is just, again, some some shout outs to the division of current adult education because, we got the APAGA study back. They also challenged us to advertise or promote these certifications more. And so chancellor O'Farrell's team created a toolkit for school districts, for their guidance counselors and their folks that can be used and in colleges to help students make sure that they know that they can get credit for these industry certifications. They wanna make sure that their college knows they have them when they get there. And there is an indicator on our statewide transcript system, the FASTR system, that lets colleges know that a student has earned one of these certifications as well when that transcript comes in. So thanks to Chancellor O'Farrell and his team and also to Yolanda Singletary in the Office of Articulation. This is one of her main jobs, and she did a super job this year coordinating the whole effort. And that's my presentation, mister chair. Great. Thank you, chancellor Habda. Members, any questions or comments on the amendment? Hearing none, can I get a motion to approve the amendments of rule six a dash 10.0401? So moved. Motion. Is there a second? Second. Motion and a second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. Show the amendment approved. Thank you, chancellor Haddah. Alright. Next, I'd like to recognize president Joe Pickens, who's been waiting patiently, for an overview of our next two action items. President Pickens will give you five minutes for for each item. Well, the good news for y'all is that I'm worn out. And so after so I know I know you are. And, if I can add an addendum to the report of the Florida College system. I know it's distant memory after all the time you spent on AAA. But before you talk about Madison County, and I can't not compliment my colleague John Groeskopf for the wonderful job he does at North Florida College under less than ideal circumstances. And so, if I may, I'll addend amend in that regard. On behalf of St. Johns River State College, a six time Aspen Top 150 award winner and the home of the NJCAA Division two National Champion Softball Lady Vikings, I'm happy to present, this bachelor's degree proposal in, science Biological Sciences. It's important to note, I know you know this, that we cover Clay, Putnam, and St. John's County, and there is no other institution, public institution, of higher education in our service district. And we work hard with our partner, Flagler College, to not duplicate, anything that they do. And our partnership with them is wonderful, so much so that, we are the community's college. I served with former doctor Proctor President Doctor Proctor in the legislature. I attend church with former President Abare. And no one was more helpful to me when I was one of those suspect lawyer politicians seeking to be a college president than was President John Delaney when he was at UNF. And I follow his blueprint as much as I can. This degree will offer, opportunities in fields including biological sciences and technicians, natural science managers, food and forensic science technicians, and other careers requiring a high level of technical skill. Importantly, embedded within the program will be the biotechnician assistance credentialing exam or BACE, which leads to the industry recognized Cape Biotechnician Assistant Certification. We project and the Florida Department of Commerce projects that the average salary for these positions will be $70,000 per year, and we have an unmet need of more than 80 graduates per year throughout the college's workforce Region 8. Interestingly, we've engaged in conversations with, among others, the Whitney Laboratory, where doctor Mark Martindale, UF president, professor, and director of the Whitney Laboratory, has said this about this proposal. Environmental restoration, natural products discovery, and water quality improvements are issues relevant to the future interests of the state and require the investment of new generations of highly trained, motivated, and conscientious scientists and educators who will instill stewardship for the generations to come. This new Bachelor of Science program will be a benefit to the Whitney Laboratory and those that we serve. You also know that we are the home to St. John's River Water Management District. I did mention that we're the community's college. When I called their chief of staff, Brad Purcell, who went to high school with me and asked him about this proposal and whether they would be interested in us doing it, he said, yes, especially if you can start it yesterday. Well, we didn't start it yesterday, but we proposed to start it now, and we seek your approval. Thank you, president Pickens. Members, any questions or comments for the president? I will say what I love about, this process is that it doesn't enable you to just wake up one day and say, I want a new bachelor's of science in biological sciences and fill out the application and send it to us, it requires you to go coordinate with all of the partners that that you mentioned, including the universities, the, you mentioned, Flagler College, but also our business community to make sure that what we're providing isn't just something that sounds good, but it's something that will provide some real world benefit for the graduates, meaning open jobs, and it's going to actually, you know, give them something tangible that is in high demand. And I think that process to ensure that there's not duplication and to ensure that it's something that there's demand for in the real world is something I just love about this process. So thank you for your presentation. Members, can I get a motion to approve the St? Johns River State College Bachelor's of Science in Biological Sciences? Motion. Is there a second? Motion and a second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. Show the the Bachelor's of Science in Biological Sciences, BRUTE. And you're recognized for the next action item. President Pickens. Thank you, mister chairman, and thank you for your last comments. If I manage my time well, I'm gonna speak to those, and I had already planned to. So this bachelor of science in social and human services is proposed by Saint Johns River State College as well. The degree's curriculum will provide students for entry into a variety of fields, including human services, social work, and substance abuse counseling. Coursework will develop students critical thinking and analytical skills operating, preparing them to assist, coordinate, and supervise programs and organizations that support public well-being. Students will learn foundational skills and tech and techniques for individual and family relationships and substance abuse counseling. I learned from former state senator Rod Smith who was previously a state attorney that jail and prison is a very poor way to manage mental health issues. But sadly, especially in places like Putnam County where resources are lacking, sometimes that's all that there is. We hope that this will help especially in underserved counties with more people who are able to help those in need. The Departments of Health, Epic Behavioral, the Griffin Betty Griffin House, Lee Conley House, Quigley House, Claybe Behavioral Health Center, United Way of St. John's County, and our local school districts all support this degree. And what I wanna say, in addition is that and with all due respect to the commissioner, when a former legislator but You probably don't know my personal involvement in the evolution of the Florida College System from the community college to the state college system, but the chancellor does. Well, the late Lynn Cobb helped me draft that legislation and it's been very important to me that we be true to what it said in 02/2007 and 02/2008. And I have been remiss in not offering more bachelor's degrees to my students because I wanted to protect the mission of the original community college. But we have grown 21% in the last two years. Putnam I mean, St. John's and Clay Counties are projected to be and Those dual enrollment students want bachelor's degrees and we need to offer those bachelor's degrees to them rather than force them to go somewhere else. I think I was remiss in not doing it sooner. Fully 93% of our students are seeking an associate's degree of some kind. And so we've been before you a few times before this year and we will be, before you again in April. To remain our roots as the community's college, importantly, even though even as we try to serve those of our students who want to get bachelor's degrees close to home, more than we have in the past, and I ask for your approval. Well said, president Pickens. Members, any questions or human services? I will say there are there are many good education staffers in the legislature. Lynn Cobb was on a whole another level. What a what a wealth of of knowledge she was, and and her, her impact is still felt today. So I appreciate you mentioning her. Mister chairman, nobody benefited from her brilliance more more than I did. It covered my lack of brilliance more than you could ever imagine. That's when you know you have good staff. Alright, members. Can I get a motion to approve, the bachelor's of science in social and human services for St? John's River State College? Motion. Is there a second? Motion and a second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Mister Chairman, may I thank someone before I leave? One second. Opposed, nay. Show the Bachelor's of Science approved. Yes. You're recognized, president Pickens. Because I I saved this bit of plagiarism. I should I have no business trying to pronounce Mike, sir Robert Lisz's last name. But I can tell you during all of this process, he has been a joy to work with and is a great reflection, frankly, of Chancellor Hebda. And so I tried to describe how patient he was with us. And frankly, this is what I came up with, with all apologies to the Boy Scouts. He was indeed trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, reverent, and pleasant throughout all of these processes. And I felt the need to thank Chancellor Hebda and Mike personally, and thank you for allowing me to do so. Absolutely. And we cannot thank Chancellor Hebda enough, for all her leadership on all these issues. Nor cannot. Alright, members. Let's move. We this brings us to our consent items now, items 13 through 18. We do have a couple some public comments on one of the, consent items, number 17. But before we go that to that, are there any questions or comments from members on the consent items? Seeing none, to get us in proper posture, can I get a motion to approve the consent items? So moved. Motion. Is there a second? Second. Motion and a second. Now let's take some public comment on item number 17, which is approval of the high demand teacher needs areas report. First, we have Kathy Boehm. Welcome, and you are recognized for one minute. Thank you. Thank you, chair. Today, I'm reading from Escambia Teacher's Darzell Warren's email because she's homesick. She says, one of our middle schools has lost seven teachers since the start of the school year. Midyear vacancies mean rotating subs, combined churn is really tough on our kids and teachers, but, unfortunately, not unusual around the state. The revised statute ten twelve point o seven now requires DOE developed strategies to go with the list to keep qualified and effective teachers in our classrooms. Lower certification standards and increasing class sizes leave many teachers struggling to address content like reading and science as well as student behavior, and that makes it more them more likely to leave teaching. We must focus now on attrition with new strategies. All these vacancies are critical when we're talking about our students. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have, Jeanne Ford from the Gulf County Education Association. Good afternoon. Thank you for allowing me to speak. My name is Judy Ford. I teach fifth grade ELA and social studies at Port St. James Elementary School in Gulf County. Like many school districts, we are currently facing a significant shortage. We have 18 urgent hires who are not certified teachers that, because we are not unable to fill certified, teacher positions. These sort, shortages are placing an immense burden on our existing teachers who are already stretched thin. As a result, our class size have increased further, impacting the quality of education, for our students. By addressing these staff, staffing gaps, we can alleviate the pressure on our teachers, allowing them to focus on providing the best possible education to our students. Additionally, we do need to increase funding for current teacher salaries and offer scholarships to help future teachers enter the profession. This will not only attract new talent, but also retain our dedicated educators. Furthermore, increasing support staff is essential to help teachers manage their workload effectively. This support will enable teachers to concentrate on the primary role of educating our students. The teacher shortage has a dis has a direct impact on our kids, affecting their learning and overall educational experience. It is crucial that we take immediate action to resolve these staffing issues to ensure our students receive the quality education they deserve. We do have a wonderful superintendent in Galt County, and we also have a great working relationship with our teacher association. It is important that we try to empower our superintendent and the district leaders to have the home rule to use our 1.5 mil, funds and decision making in a flexible way. I trust them Your your time your time is up. Thank you. Oh, I'm so sorry. Thank you. Next, we have, Carol Goronskis from the, Florida Education Association. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Carol Goronskis, and I'm an eighteen year ESE paraprofessional from St. John's County, currently serving as vice president of the Florida Education Association. I've had the privilege of traveling across the state from Nassau to Miami to The Panhandle, visiting with our education staff professionals and teachers in their classrooms and worksites. I've heard the same stories across the state, staffing shortages in self contained classrooms, classrooms exceeding the small class size amendment, bus drivers having to do two and three runs at the same school, and then teachers and staff being hurt daily in self contained classrooms. Our students are suffering when we don't have adequate staff in our public schools. We continue to advocate for classrooms that our classrooms do not exceed the small class size amendment numbers. We must fully fund the positions necessary to ensure our public schools are able to hire the necessary staff to fulfill our obligation to public school students, and we must increase, funding for our teachers and staff in our ESE classrooms. And I wanted to say my son is a student at St. John's River State College getting his bachelor's degree. It's an outstanding university college. Thank you. President Pickens salutes you. Next, we have Alexis Underwood, representing the Association of Bay County Educators. Good afternoon. My name is Alexis Underwood, and I'm the president of the teachers union at Bay County right next door. Door. But I'm here today because I'm a teacher without my own classroom this year. See, I'm a language arts person by training, but I have the trifecta license. I'm ESE certified, ESOL endorsed, and reading endorsed. I'm as rare as a pink pearl. There aren't enough ESE licenses to be hired in in Bay County. We simply can't find this license. So the only way to meet the needs of our students and our federal and legislative requirements is for me to bounce from room to room all day long serving students. So I don't get my own babies this year. I service other people's students. So I have two concrete suggestions on how to fix the problem real quick. You could, as a legislature, do what some other states have done and establish a pool of money that says for the recruitment and retention of ESE teachers and come at it that way. Or my favorite answer, you could have a dedicated line item inside school funding that says ESE, recruit and retrain the very best, and let my rock star of a superintendent have a bucket of money, and our team of teams in Bay County could fix our problems ourselves. Thank you. Thank you, miss Underwood. Alright. Members, we've got a motion, on the on the table that's been seconded to approve the consent items. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. Show the consent items approved. That brings us members to member comments. I will go, if they're ready, go first to, those members on the phone. Member Christy, are are you with us? I am. You are recognized that you have a number of comments. Yes. Thank you. So much good stuff in the meeting today. Lots of hopeful, things. I wish I could have been there. And I've I was very happy to hear about the requirements for basic education in our colleges and upper level institutions. I think that having a truly educated populace is going to benefit the entire state of Florida in ways that are not we're not able to really measure, besides benefiting the actual students who are getting a great basic education, which will prepare them for to, really understand all the beauties of life and, and act beautifully in our society. So that's all. Thank you. Thank you, member Christie. Member Garcia, you're recognized. Hi. Thank you to everyone, for all of their hard work. I'm sorry I wasn't there today, and enjoyed hearing all of the all of the updates, and, I like to end on a positive. I'd like to highlight our win today of approving a list of general education courses. Of course, I think it's critical to provide students the knowledge and skills to think critically and be responsible citizens. It's our the utmost responsibility of these higher education institutions to promote and conserve the constitutional republic. And I think deeply all of the college presidents returning their focus to educating these students. And chancellor Ritchie and, senior chancellor have dubbed all the 28 presidents who committed to providing students with, this education that they need without wasting students' time or taxpayer dollars. I thank you. I think this is only going to serve our state, and our country long term. Thank you so much, member Garcia. Let's go over here to, member Foganholi. You're recognized. Much, chair. And, it is great again to be in the city of Destin. It's a beautiful city, great people, and great to be here at Destin High School. I did have the opportunity to meet those kids, the sound wave, correct, that's saying today, but great group of kids. Very happy to be here. I just wanted to highlight one thing of every speaker today, from the superintendents to our staff to the presidents, the amount of passion you feel for education in this state. And it's it's awesome to see every single board meeting, to see when you come in here. So I just wanted to say, you know, kudos to every single person. And, again, staff, such a great job making sure we're prepared. Thank you again. Thank you. Thank you, Member Foganholi. Let's go over here to Member Magar. Thank you, mister chair. And, thank you to Destin High School for having us in the Shark Tank today. Wanted to tell you over the holidays, I spoke with a lot of family and friends and people from all over the country that really were so blessed to be here in the state of Florida and having the school choice that we do. They're so frustrated by the constraints that they have in their own states. And so, you know, talking talking to them about school choice and our hybrid choice and charter schools and public schools and Catholic schools, private schools, it just amazing. And I was very proud of that. And, only to see our governor announce that we have 500,000 students now receiving school choice scholarships. And we know that's only going to grow. And I think today we were also reminded of the importance of our relationships with our SFOs and, you know, really taking a look at those relationships and how we can best work together or add on to those SFOs, if need be. Thank you, Member Mayburn. Member Bird, you're recognized. To each meeting, I try to thank someone. And today, Doctor. Burns gets the, gets the highlight. Our Bureau of School Improvement, is just so impressive to me. The the turnaround programs in excuse me, school improvement, has been one of the one of the more meaningful parts of of doing this job. And they you know, they it starts with it starts with a failing school, but I feel like through that process, through BSI's work and and your work, Doctor. Burns, we improve the the the district in addition to just a a particular failing school. I think what we see is that when there's a failing school and we send in these extra resources and the, you know, bodies, they're just people to go in and and work with them. The entire the entire, district and and every student benefits from that. And I don't think that the, Bureau of School Improvement, gets enough, praise. So, Doctor. Burns, if you would pass along, please, our our gratitude for the work that they do, that goes, unappreciated to a to a great extent because it's not noticed. But but we see it and, and we appreciate them and everything that they do and you as well. Thank you, Member Bird. Vice Chair Pettee? Thank you. Chair Gibson, I, you know, not not to make light of the very serious discussion we had, a few moments ago but the Shark Tank lived up to its billing today. I'm glad I'm up here. But member Magar made a comment that, that I'd like to echo. So as I've traveled around the country, frequently talking about school safety, I get the same question. So how are you guys doing that in Florida? And there is no one thing that I can point to, but it's been the leadership of, the governor, the dedication of the legislature in in working on this issue now, at least seven years where we've we've continued to do this. And then I'd I'd like to thank the commissioner for his leadership in continuing. One of the things we're do one of the ways I can answer that question now is to say, come to Florida's National Summit on School Safety. In February, in Orlando, we've invited legislators, educators, school administrators, anyone, school safety experts from around the country to talk about what we're doing that's very unique, in in the state of Florida, very different than is being done anywhere else. So I will put in my advertisement for for that school safety summit, and and I wanna thank the commissioner, for leading on this and for the dedication of the, the folks at the office of safe schools that are that are largely, I think and and there may be other staff that I'm not aware of, but, putting this agenda together, this is gonna be our chance to do what I would argue the federal government should have been doing the last several years, which is leading on school safety because this is a national issue, but they haven't. So the next best thing or maybe even a better thing, quite frankly, is to have the states get together and learn from each other. And I think Florida has a lot to teach the rest of the country about school safety. So I'm excited about this. Can't wait for the February in Orlando. So with that, those are my my my comments, mister chair. Thank you, vice chair Petty. Members, I'll just conclude with today, I think this is a great meeting to kick off 2025 with. I wanna thank you all for your your passion for education, your passion for students and your passion for teachers in the state. We have the commissioner talked about our rankings, which are very impressive, number one in education by U. S. News and World Report for the second consecutive year. We are number one for higher education by US News and World Report for the eighth consecutive year. And we're ranked number one in the parent power index by the Center for Education Reform. In addition, what was alluded to as well, 500,000 students participating in Florida School of Choice scholarship program. That's incredible. I mean, the one thing I I think should be at the forefront of all of our minds is number one, complacency and to just detest that, any sort of idea. These are not permanent rankings. You have to get up every day and earn those rankings. Our teachers have to earn those rankings. Our students have to earn those rankings. And, commissioner, you've been earning those rankings too. So kudos to you and the job that you and all of the staff at DOE have done, just nothing short of incredible. I'm very optimistic about 2025. Number one, I'm optimistic because we're going to have new federal partners here soon. And a lot of the stuff that we've been battling in Florida, Florida has had to lead. And I think we're going to see a much different tune from Washington, which is just going to help Florida continue to lead without having somebody working against us as well. That's exciting. I'm excited to see what the legislature and the governor have in store for this legislative session and this budget. The governor has has led in just extraordinary ways that we've seen. We talked a little bit about it through COVID and the tough decisions that were made, that Florida and our students are benefiting from those tough decisions that were made years ago when, it wasn't popular to make those decisions. So we're we're very lucky in the state to have, the governor at the helm making these courageous decisions. And we're very lucky to have you, commissioner, carrying those out on a daily basis too. So I really appreciate that, wanna highlight that. And also, I'm encouraged at least by one of our scholarship funding organizations that we heard from today and their ability to hear feedback, from parents and from this board and to respond to that feedback and to make sure that they're part of the solution. And I hope that hope the other scholarship funding organization that we heard from today will also take that to heart, and I hope we'll we'll we'll be in the same posture as well, and I'm optimistic about that. So members, with that, that brings us to the end of our agenda. Can I get a motion to adjourn? So moved. Vice Chair Peddi moves that we adjourn.