Can you hear me now? Can we talk to your mom? Oh, he Oh. Okay. Okay. All right. We call this meeting to order. If you would please rise and do the invocation in the pledge.
Our father in heaven be name. Thy kingdom come. Th will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us our daily bread. Forgive us for those who tres. [Music]
Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all.
All right. All right. Well, glad to see we got a big crowd here this morning. Oh, yeah. Jordan, well, my mom is going to take forever. So, all right. Well, uh, we will get started here. We'll, uh, do we have any
citizen comment? We have none at this time. No citizen comment. We'll move right on to the consent agenda. Mr. Superintendent, we have a recommendation on the consent agenda. Yes, sir. This this item is to allow our HR director to continue the professional
developments. Our HR department has transformed over the last couple years and is doing a phenomenal job and this will allow further training um and a better comprehensive understanding of of how we continue to improve our employee relations. So I approve your um I recommend approval of the consent agenda
as presented. So move second motion by Miss Nelson, seconded by Reverend Brown. Do we have any discussion? Hearing no discussion. All in favor say I. I opposed. Motion carries. All right, Mr. Superintendent. We will move on to
action item 4A, approval of hire for in district principal for online school, the digital academy of Florida. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know you all are aware of our online uh provider for education for our statewide online school, Digital Academy of Florida. Um
the uh academic performance of that school has been backto-back D. So, we're in a turnaround status with the Florida Department of Education, Bureau of School Improvement, and we met last week and uh the team presented a turnaround plan and it was approved and accepted, but it had some caveats from the Commissioner of Education. One of the
caveats is that we add an in district principal to monitor the school, to monitor academic progress and growth, and to help add resources and things that the district could for that. And so we didn't want to wait all the way until October 21st meeting because that would just put another basically month, you
know, that we didn't have someone in place doing that work. So really was the crux of having the special meeting today. And thank you all for taking your time to come in this morning. And so um this will be um a dis a district employee, but it will be funded through DAOF funds. So it will be at zero. Uh
it'll be a neutral impact the Hendry County school budget, but it will be a person that's on our staff that will be monitoring the academic growth, reporting back to myself and Dr. Staley about um the needs, what's happening so that we can influence real-time decisions as needed. So unless you have any questions or comment approval of
action item 4 second motion by Miss Nelson, second by Miss P. Any discussion hearing? No discussion. All in favor say I. I opposed. Motion carries. We want to action item 4 B.
Thank you. Uh, Mr. Chairman, action item 4B is with a a company platform called Elevate K12. The biggest thing that that hurts us if you ask me today what the biggest issue we had in Henry County schools. I would tell you it was the teachers that we don't have. Um, where we have blank spots in classes, where we
don't have people um to teach the core content. Um that's really what is the biggest hairy issue facing us today, us and every other school and across the nation, right? Um and so if we're going to continue the academic drive, we have to do everything we can to get folks in front of them. We are doing things like
we have bought planning periods in some of the strategic areas. We have some teachers um that are uh in training getting their degrees. They're in the final stages of that and they're doing a phenomenal job. We have some actually we have some permanent subs that actually do a really good job that have done it long term and they are are achieving as
good as some of our teachers um but we have a handful of classes that um we could not feel in core specifically in ELA at Fison High School and it's really tough for a sub to understand um the core content of of the ELA and that is
one of the tested areas that our students really need to understand and need to have good depth of training on. I really admit today is October 2nd and we're 45 days into the school year. Uh we've been we have used Elevate K12 in the past with success. My son was
actually in the first U physics class that we did with Elevate K12 and his comment to me was it wasn't as good as having a teacher, but it was a lot better than doing it just strictly online like on an Apex platform or something like that. I did learn about physics and he made like a good high B
in the class and did well. Um Mr. Sanchez has been working really hard on K12 and and been negotiating back and forth with them for roughly 3 weeks and basically we've got the cost down to the point where it's about what it would cost us for a teacher to be in that class. So we have to have uh we still
have to have an employee there but even the cost of our employee being in the class and do the classroom management piece and the L8 K12 platform is still at the point of what a teacher would cost us. The other piece that we've been working really hard to do is we're going to keep the positions advertised because we want a teacher in front of them. So
if if someone graduates, you know, a teacher program or we find someone between now and January, we have the ability to end the class and the contract and put a human in front of the students. So that's what's taken so long to get us where we are to get it approved. But with your approval on this, by the end of October, the week
after our fall break, uh we expect to have a highly qualified person online at least teaching our babies uh content. Um and and this contract will also give us leverage to where in the event we lose a teacher in another core critical area, we'll be able to add them, you know, in
those areas if we're not able to find uh a teacher that the same rate on this. Correct. Yes. They do they do basically by what they call a section. That's basically a class period. And so, you know, so we can do three days a week and let them do homework, two days, whatever. In these particular classes,
we're going to do five days cuz we're a little bit behind and we need to get them caught up and we need to get them on pace. so that they're ready for the testing that that they're going to face here um this school year. You're not kidding. I I read an article that I read at night and I was reading
an article about student achievement and how that applied to like graduation rates. And it got me so worked up like the next morning I had to go up put numbers to it. I always like an arrow when I see the numbers. And it was shocking like I went to the
23 24 graduation rate and then went back to the 22 10th grade ELA's just for all the counties just copy and pasted and put it beside each other. Wow. Like we get out there as a state go to Florida and say we're the best in the nation. And if this is the best in the nation,
and I'm talking about like 40% like the average is like 40.7% difference between the kids who got a three on the 10th grade ELA and the graduation rate for any given district in Florida. So, I mean, anything that we can do, any
resource we can throw into uh creating more literate graduates is money well spent in my opinion. Good points. And and to take it a step further, um everything's important. There's nothing that we teach that I consider not to be important. However,
the most important term is I believe E is a determinator of human's life and how they read, how they write, how they communicate is all based upon the foundation they get there. So this is very this is a very important piece that we need to make sure happen. So thank you for your support.
So moved. Second motion by Miss by Miss Nelson. Any further discussion? Hear no discussion. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. We'll move on to uh item 4 C, permission to
advertise proposed policy revisions, sir. Yes. Yes, Mr. Chairman. As you all know, we constantly are doing um policy revisions due to state laws and statutes that are passed. These are some very important ones that we need to do also for a timely manner so we can get them advertised and on the books and uh they are presented there. Unless you have any
questions, I recommend approval of item 4 C. Second. So moved in a second. Try that. You have a coffee, sir. I'm sorry. I'm joking right now. Second by Reverend Brown. Do we have any discussion?
Hearing no discussion. All in favor say I. I oppose. Motion carries. All right. Uh Mr. Superintendent, do we have anything else? That is all I have at this time. Once again, I want to say thank you all for your time this morning. I appreciate it. I apologize for having a call, but we
had some very timely things that we felt like was impactful of student education that we needed to get taken care of. So, thank you for your time this morning. Well, we agreed upon. So, when we went most, anything? Nothing. Really
ask. You already see I have it over here in my little No, I don't have anything. Stop picking on me, Mr. Fast. I'm sensitive.