The schoolboard work session begins in 2 minutes. Please take your seats. Again, the schoolboard work session begins in 2 minutes. The schoolboard work session begins in 1 minute. Please take your seats. Again, the schoolboard work session begins in 1
minute. Heat. Heat. Good morning. I now call the November 20th, 2025 administrative briefing and work session of the Marian County School Board to order at 9:00 a.m. Please silence your electronic devices to avoid disturbing others. Mirroring and
modeling how our students begin each day, I ask that you please pause for us with a moment of silence. Please join me. I will now read our board commitment statement. We are the Marian County School District Leadership Team. When we come together to work, we are efficient,
effective, and productive. Our three most important characteristics are dedicated, transparent, and individually responsible. To work well together, we must demonstrate respect, confront reality, and be accountable. We will always put students first. We will leave
a legacy of success. I would like to ask the school board attorney to explain the rules for this public workshop. Good morning, Attorney Powers. >> Good morning and thank you. This work session is a public meeting as defined in Florida's sunshine law. The board is dedicated to full transparency
in its meetings and its work. In compliance with the sunshine law, the board has adopted uniform meeting procedures, including the right for citizens to participate. The board will allow public comment regarding any work session item listed on today's agenda at
the appropriate time. Speakers must fill out a request form located in the lobby and hand it to the board clerk. After the board and superintendent have completed their discussion on a particular agenda item, the board clerk will call the speaker's name in the
order received. Each speaker will have three minutes. As required by Sunshine Law, the board must maintain orderly conduct and a quorum throughout this meeting. Speakers may criticize subject matter and decisions in a respectful manner, but not people. Finally,
speakers must be very careful not to violate the privacy rights of others, especially students and their family members by mentioning names or other identifying information. Thank you for your attention to these important rules. >> Thank you, Attorney Powers. Miss
Martinez Young, can you please provide the proof of publication for today's meeting? >> The notice for the November 20th, 2025 work session was published in the Ocala Gazette on November 7th, 2025. Proof of publication has been attached to board ducks under proof of publication. Thank you, ma'am. I want to welcome Mr.
White House, our deputy superintendent, who is here today in Dr. Brewer's absence as she's attending to some other business for the district. So, uh, welcome, Mr. White House. And we are going to start with item 4.1, which is the strategic plan update for goal five.
>> Thank you, chair. And I will ask, uh, Mr. Kevin Christian, our director of public relations, come to the podium. He is going to provide some updates on goal five along with Miss Megan Magamal. Good morning to each of you. Wow, it sounds
voluminous here. Can you hear me? Okay. >> All right. Great. It is my pleasure to be here this morning and to share this podium with Come on and introduce yourself. >> I'm Y Gonzalez, communications manager. >> Megan Mackalo, public education
foundation of Marian County. We want to share an update on our goal five of our strategic plan this morning. So hopefully you've had a chance to look over some of those materials. But goal five focuses on enhancing community
engagement and communications by increasing stakeholder dialogue, partnerships, and collaboration to meet their needs and celebrate success. The key strategies include expanding community partnerships to support student success, strengthening two-way
communications with families through improved transparency and engagement, and enhancing internal communication by improving information access and recognizing employee contributions. You will see goal five there focuses, as
I mentioned, on community engagement and communications. Our next slide is somewhat small and I apologize for that but there's a ton of information that I will highlight there. I think what is most important is our target column which is the blue shaded column and then
the the far right column which has green and some pink shading. I'll go through those. These are the outcome metrics by which we are measuring success on goal five. First off, we are hoping to increase the percentage of families
satisfied with communication. Happy to share that that this year's number is up to 78%. We're just about at our target of 80% and of course that's up from 66% last year. So, we're pleased with those
results. The next outcome metric is to increase the percentage of staff satisfied with communication. And as of today, we do not have that number because that survey has not been completed yet this year. But based on the informal feedback that we've
received and the comments that we've received from around the district, we believe that number will be significantly higher. We also want to increase the number of followers on our social media platforms. That's up nearly 21%
to a little over 27 and a half thousand and above target by 10%. We also want to increase engagement on our website. And I want to point out here that last year, you remember we switched website platforms. So last year's number was a little over four
million. When I checked last week, we had over 7 million visits to our website. So that number has jumped significantly. We're also increasing engagement on Facebook. We're up 9% over last year and
we are at 70% of the goal. You'll notice that the only pink box on the page is dealing with increasing engagement on X. That is actually down 44%. We believe that's primarily due to the brand change
from Twitter to X. Plus, we are really not posting as often on X as we are on Facebook, Instagram, on you and YouTube. And we find the same true with our school-based sites as well. They're focusing more on Facebook, which tends
to have a larger um audience. We're also increasing engagement on YouTube, and I'll share some more data later on in the presentation, but we are up 36% and just 8% shy of our target. And then the last box you'll see there also has
an asterisk in it. That is to increase the number of community partnerships. And Mrs. Magamal will share more information about that when she comes to the podium. All right, moving on to strategy 5A, which is expanding and monitoring community partnerships to
increase student learning opportunities. We've been using the Peach Jar e-flyer service now for just under 10 years. And a lot of people may say, well, what is that? It's basically an eflyier service where years ago we used to help
community organizations by distributing their paperbased flyers. As Dr. James knows, we don't do that anymore, at least pretty much across the board. We use an e-flyer service that is far more affordable than actually printing paper
and counting those papers out by classroom and having the teacher distribute it to each student. So in just the last year we are up in terms of approval over 2% over the previous year. You will see there we delivered just
under two million emails. That's insane. And 1 million impressions with a 66% open rate, which is far above the average. So we're happy about that. We avoided 35 and a half million sheets
of paper. I don't know how many reams that is. I didn't do that math, but that's a lot of paper from the from the warehouse and from local print shops. And also saved 4,200 trees in the process. And I was asked a question, well, how about how
about the labor involved? Peach Jar used to provide that figure to us, but over the last three or four years that has been phased out because most districts don't even do paperbased flyers anymore. So, we're still happy to provide that service. And as I said, it's very affordable and a great alternative to
the paperbased flyers. We also continue with our leadership MCPS program now in class 4 and I believe some of you have already met many of those class participants. They're on on pace to graduate in May.
We also have learning opportunities and engagement opportunities when it comes to various events that we are part of or that we sponsor, including our Veterans Day ceremony, which was last week, the coldest day of the year. As we recall, that's the 19th year in a row that our
school district has provided that service and that learning opportunity to our community. We also have the upcoming Ocala Christmas Parade on December 13th. This will be the 25th year that the school district has provided coverage of that event for our community. And also
the Marian County Student Media Festival also celebrates its 25th year of success next April. So we're excited about the opportunities presented there. Moving on to our next slide, we continue with Dads on Duty program in several of our schools, which offers a great
opportunity for male role models to engage with students and just have a great relationship with them. Yeah, I'm horrible at I'm going to give this because I am horrible at that. So, we're happy to have that program. Our back- tos school community give back event,
which I would say is one of the largest events of the year that involves our community and the district together. Over 6,000 backpacks filled with school supplies given out free of charge, largely due to the community foundation of Marian County and lots and lots of
volunteers. Of course, your engagement with state legislators plays a huge role in securing the success of many of the programs in our district and as well the student schoolboard members that sit beside you on the deis I think have
contributed greatly and talk about a learning opportunity for those 12 14 students that take part in that each year. It's it's really tremendous. We also have formalized partnerships with the Ocala C. We're thankful that they have been able to participate in the
last couple of years in our our groundbreings and our ribbon cutings and grand openings. Of course, we have the fitness and nutrition in schools program with our Marian County Hospital District. And then finally, Career Source CLM Citrus Levy Marian, which uh
partners with us for our career expo events both in terms of students exploring careers and our adults in our community wanting to become employees of Maring County Public Schools. So, it's a great opportunity for partnerships
there. Continuing on, I'm going to ask Megan to come forward and share on our next few slides. Thank you, Kevin. And good morning, board chair, Dr. James, school board members, Mr. White House. The Public Education Foundation is proud to serve
as your direct support organization, a 501c3 nonprofit supporting Marian County Public Schools with our actions focusing community interest on public education to initiate support underwrite projects and programs benefiting students,
teachers, administrators, and our entire school district. And our work supports the district in many different ways. I'll be speaking to strategy 5. A for goal five for expanding and monitoring partnerships to increase learning opportunities. So we'll start with our
expanded partnership into year three with our safe schools teams to share an update on what we have been working on. This is all thanks to our partnership with McKenzie's moment. At the end of last year, we completed 3M security film applications on Windows at every single
school across our district. We contributed to purchasing an additional item for our gaggle software programming. And this year, you will slowly see there are security shades being installed on every classroom door window across our schools. They have all
been outfitted and the installation is happening school by school. Uh, and more to come. That is all thanks to our partnership with McKenzie's Moment. In total, a contribution of $610,000 to make schools safer faster. We
continued our partnership with the district's mental health and wellness team, but this time we switched our efforts to support attendance initiatives, attendance banners. We will be purchasing the new district attendance absenteeism brochures, and we recently established a donor support
fund for school attendance initiatives. Now, in regards to supporting career and technical education opportunities, recently you would have seen the World Equestrian Center hosted their annual festival. And through that partnership, we were able to travel the county to eight different schools taking celebrity
chefs to meet with our students and provide relevant and realworld insight into career opportunities in culinary and hospitality. Our students were then able to go to the World Equestrian Center and work alongside those chefs during the festival. culminating in a
student cooking competition where our students cooked in front of an audience of 1,700 attendees and worked alongside celebrity chefs like Duff Goldman. At the end of the weekend, we were presented a check for $25,000. Every single dollar will go back into our
culinary programs, providing resources, student equipment, uniforms, and experience. And that partnership has now totaled $100,000 to support our schools. We entered into year two of our partnership with the HCA Foundation to support our healthc care pathways in a
total of $60,000 as an investment to increase student interest in healthcare careers, increase participation in our pathways, ultimately increasing our certification completion rates. Pictured here is the recent CPR and first aid certification training class that we
sponsored through the foundation for more than 100 students. This past year, through this funding support, 106 CNA students earned their CPR certification, 84 students participated in job shadowing at HCA and 640
students completed the stop thebleleed training thanks to this HCA partnership. Additional examples of partnerships that are new or expanded through our foundation, the Ocala Film Derby. Pictured here, we have Lori Zinc. is the
chair of the film derby initiative. And this year, we increased our student support thanks to generous donors in our community to offer more than $15,000 in scholarships for students participating in the Derby Initiative. Pictured next
is from a recent event we hosted at the Silver River Museum and Environmental Education Center, another partnership through our foundation where we announced a new opportunity. Thanks to Duke Energy, we will host a STEM summer research academy in summer of 2026 in an
extension of the Big Spring STEM program. This new investment partnership from Duke brought their partnership dollars to a total of $30,000 for this fiscal school year. We continued partnering with Florida Kidare to support attendance initiatives, continue
to support the kids tag art program as their fiscal agent, and we expanded our partnership with UF's lastinger cent's new world reading initiative. It was new for last year, but this year we are expanding into four more schools. This
partnership opportunity promotes literacy from VPK through fifth grades. We have been providing books. We've assisted with presentations for literacy skills, resources for families to establish at-ome libraries, with free
book deliveries, and in total, an additional $37,000 in funding have gone to the schools we have partnered with to increase family engagement and school-based literacy efforts. And last, I'd like to announce a new partnership. This was new as of
last month. Able Trust supports youth programs helping students with disabilities develop their employment goals and learn about post-secary and career options as they plan their future. We are proud that Able Trust is partnering with our local education
foundation to the tune of $30,000 to support Hillrest School and Bridgeway Academyy's work study program. So we will be partnering with both of those schools with this new initiative. And last, I will be talking about the foundation signature programs and how we
are working to increase learning opportunities. Our two student scholarship programs, take stock and children and the senior scholarship program totaled $380,000 to support students entering college in the fall of 2025. Pictured here are two
of our major supporters, project SOS and HUGS charity. both choose to invest in supporting post-secary educational opportunities for deserving at risk low-income youth through the foundation's tools for teaching program. Last year we provided $260,000
in classroom supplies through the hands of our teachers to equip their students to be successful in classroom. Our partnerships this year, just quarter 1 alone, have already exceeded the total amount from last fiscal school year. And
we have new donor opportunities happening all the time. In fact, Tuesday night at the education foundation, we had a new sponsor, Florida GF Coast University, come in and help host a Thanksgiving themed top teacher shopping experience. We had 109 teachers from the
district come and visit us and get over $4,000 in classroom supplies for their students. From our school business partnership program, we work to match businesses with local schools, ensuring that at least one business partner is dedicated
to each school. We will once again this year exceed the prior year's support from our business and donor community. We have a historic number of matches right now 89 totaling an investment of $380,000 in our schools. I would like to thank
our school board members. I know that each of you personally advocate for the relationships we have with our business community. Through Take Stock and Children, we not only awarded $322,000 this year to our graduating students, but we provided services to 256 students
throughout the year. Our team recruited, trained, matched 176 volunteer mentors. I'd like to say a special thank you to Chair Dr. James, Vice Chair Conrad, Dr. Campbell, and Mr. White House for being dedicated, passionate volunteer mentors
for Take Stock and Children. Collectively, our volunteers donated 3,151 mentoring sessions for students in our high schools. And our college success coaches through Take Stock conducted 516
college coaching sessions to help students be prepared for post-secary opportunities. Within our grants for great idea programs, we provide opportunities for teachers and principles to request funding for school initiatives in the key areas of STEM literacy, increasing graduation rates,
assisting low performing students, career and technical education, student resil resiliency, and supporting our students in need. To best align with the district's priorities determined at the start of this fiscal school year, we look to also align our grants for great
idea allocations to tie specifically to teacher quality and student attendance initiatives. So initiatives. So I'm very proud that many of the grants we will be awarding this year will help support attendance on campus. In fact, before we break for Thanksgiving, teachers and
principles will be receiving the news about their grant for great idea applications. We have just determined $110,000 will be funded. In comparison, last year at this time, the award amount was 61,000. So, we have almost doubled
because of donor and community partnerships. And now, I'd like to invite Mr. Kevin Christian back up. And I'll keep the clicker. Kevin, >> please do. Moving on to strategy 5B, we look at our communication efforts that use two-way
district communications and engagement with families and the community. And these include FastFax, which was revamped in March of this year for a cleaner and more mobile friendly look. That publication is emailed internally and posted on our website, including on
the schoolboard page for public viewing. And in the last year, 45,033 visits have been logged with an average read time of two minutes. And that's about how long it should take to read the entire issue. So happy with that.
Moving on to Skylert messaging. We have sent 68 district messages since our last update in January of this year. The average success rate is still around 93% which is considered very high by any
mass communication standard. When we look at our YouTube channel and the videos streamed there, including your board meetings and work sessions like today's, 7,841 views have been logged. That equates to
1,974 hours. But this is what I find most interesting. The average watch time is just over 15 minutes. Now, while you may say, "Well, that's not much for a 4-hour work session." Remember, with streaming, you have the ability to scrub and find
just the portion of the video that you want. So, we have overall 203,000 total views this year on our YouTube channel. That's 28,000 watch hours for all of our videos that we post there. 2.1 million
impressions. Moving on next to our next request platform. This is where we process public records requests. We've utilized that platform to handle 238 requests over the last 12 months, 10 of which are
still open. So that equates to a 96% closure rate. And the previous year we had 222 and two years ago 169. So the number and the complexity of public records requests continues to increase
year after year after year. Continuing with strategy 5B. Our media releases, we shared 61 of those in the last year versus 67 the previous year. Those are shared online and distributed via email and via
Skylert messaging depending on when it's appropriate based on the topic. These helped generate 2,169 media mentions. That includes print, broadcast, and online. And that also includes 3.7 million
impressions on social media alone. Now, I've never used this figure before or this component in our updates, but I I wanted to do it this year because I find the number very very interesting. Those media releases and other media events
that attracted attention to our district generated $3.5 million in coverage, earned media coverage. The return on investment when you consider the whole PR team which is seven of us the return
on investment is 860%. I'm proud of that number. That's a lot of media interactions with not many people on the team. So I'm grateful to the team for that. Moving on surveys. We continue using internal and external
surveys to gauge audience engagement. Those surveys include Skylert messaging which does have that option and we've used it on occasion. Also, Survey Monkey Tools along with Cognia which administers its own surveys based on district input and the importance of
those surveys continues as part of our district Cognia accreditation. School mares continue to be, I believe, one of our most underutilized forms of communication. And while some may argue that they are not truly two-way in
nature, uh we share information that a lot of times solicits an action of attendance or some kind of action on the parent or family or students part. So I think there's some level of two-way involvement there. I'm always looking at
school marquees and I'm the first to say your school marquees out of date. You need to put something up there. Even if you don't have an upcoming event, put a message up there because it's the one thing people look at every single time they go into a school campus. Our snippet stories, we have 9,778
YouTube views on these stories. That equates tound 140 hours of viewing or a 51 second average viewing time. And again, that may not seem like much, but those stories tend to be one to two minutes in length. So many times people
are watching virtually the entire story. We also share these stories on social media and many times we are creating our own newsroom where traditional media watch those feeds and often they will pick up the stories that we have done
and they will come and cover those stories themselves. One example most recently is the time capsule that was opened at Oyola Middle School. There was an Orlando station that actually took our story and put it on the air. So, we are our own newsroom.
Let's see. We also have a special video that we put together for you. So, if you will put your eyes on that center monitor there on stage. Um, I will apologize in advance. We noticed a couple of misspellings after this report was posted online, so
we'll get those corrected. But uh there's this kind of encapsulates many of the stories that we covered in the last year and also the power of those stories in terms of reaching our community. back up. There we go. I want to say a
special thanks to the team. We asked them to just look at some of the stories that that generated a lot of attention over the last year and put that video together and lots of data with that. So I'm grateful to to the team. They many times are behind the scenes and you don't see them, but we're grateful for
their efforts. And so before I have Yamaly come up, I want to share with you that in addition to the content in this report, the public relations team also handles lots and lots of work orders and trackit requests for audio systems in
school cafeterias, stadiums, carline sound systems, as well as video production studios. We handle all of that behind the scenes. So, um there's there's lots more that goes on than just communications in in the general term.
We we work a lot to enable those gener those communication efforts and make sure that they're successful and possible with that equipment. So, Yamaly, >> good morning. Hope you all enjoyed the video. We're fortunate to have such a talented team
behind the camera recording, producing, and editing everything you just saw. We're incredible, incredibly grateful for the work that they do, including managing the audio and visuals for every work session and board meeting, as well as ICROC and sales tax committee meetings.
Over the past year, we've made social media a priority. And as you heard earlier, we not only boosted engagement, but also surpassed our 25,000 follower goal, finishing at 27,511 across all platforms. We're active on
Facebook, YouTube, X, and now Instagram. While we've shifted some focus away from X, we still post regularly to reach as many people as possible. Please feel good. Uh, please feel free to scan the QR code. This links to our
district link tree where you'll find the district's homepage and all our platforms in one spot. The same QR code was shared through MCPS Connect, which I'll talk about shortly. From November 7th, 2024 through October
31st of this year, we had more than 3.6 million views on Facebook along with 60.2,000 interactions, which are likes, comments, and shares, and a reach of 1.8 8 million. All of this came from 322 posts
giving us an engagement rate of 3.2% which is higher than Facebook's average of 1 to 2%. While we also reactivated our instagram account and in October alone we saw 13.3,000 views, 262
interactions and a reach of 1.3,000. And as of yesterday, I've been practicing this, we have 67 followers, which we started at 505. So that is great for one month. One our
one of our goals moving forward is to grow our student audience. The content on Instagram looks very different from what we post on Facebook and X. It's more student centered and we're working on new ways to get students involved so they feel encouraged to follow along.
What I'm most excited to share is the reinvention of the learning line, now called MCPS Connect. Back in July, Dr. Brewer asked us to rethink the learning line and make it more userfriendly. From there, I had the chance to work with Dr. Campbell on new concepts and I also met
with several principles who shared the challenges they shared with the old format. Using that feedback and with strong support from our technology team, thank you to technology, we developed MCPS connect. It's a weekly memo sent to all school counselors, assistant principles,
coordinators, directors, principles, including charter, district, and school secretaries, student service managers, and supervisors. They are also encouraged to share it with anyone who they might find the information helpful. The MCPS Connect homepage is easily
accessible on the front page of the SharePoint for all internal staff. MCPS Connect was introduced during this year's leadership summit and we followed that with a meeting for all directors and secretaries to explain the new weekly submission process. When you
visit the MCPS Connect homepage, you can search for specific topics like spelling bee or social media and it will show you which memo included that information. Each topic also lists the intended audience and a clear call to action so staff can quickly see whether the
information applies to them. And in addition, MCPS Connect is published weekly as both a word document and a PDF, making it easy to print or share individual pages depending on who needs the information. This combination of
searchability and clarity has been a major improvement in overall use. In its first 90 days, the MCPS Connect homepage received 1,828 page views. The data on weekly readership is slightly skewed because I
attached the Word document to each email for convenience. The feedback we've received has been positive, especially regarding accessibility and user friendliness. To keep communication open, we have a feedback form on the homepage for any
questions, comments, or concerns. We've seen how much people respond when we share authentic moments from our campuses, especially when students and staff take the spotlight. Using fun, trending video styles, especially on Instagram, helps us reach younger
audiences in a way that feels natural to them. As we continue to grow our presence, it's important for every campus to stay active online so families can quickly find the updates that matter most. Thank you, Yamaly. You see why I hired
her, right? Moving on to strategy 5C. That is to engage families in the community as partners to support student achievement, attendance, and resiliency. And we have refocused our efforts away from family focus events this year,
which was a metric that was measured in the past because we no longer conduct those meetings. Instead, we are creating opportunities that include many of the following. Those include regular student recognitions at schoolboard meetings.
Superintendent visits to our classrooms. Stronger and intentional attendance outreach efforts particularly to reduce chronic absenteeism. Quarterly attendance celebrations that the team covers. And also our schools
regularly provide opportunities for family involvement through school advisory councils and PTA and PTO groups. Moving on to strategy 5D that challenges us to strengthen internal communications
and recognition of employee contributions. Additional methods we use to strengthen these include group texting, especially with crisis situations. And I know that Dr. Mr. Brewer and Mr. McFaden regularly text you as well in a group text with
information. So hopefully that is helping you feel more informed and more up to-date in a timely manner. Superintendent visits also are included and this is when the superintendent surprises employees for jobs well done,
especially when those suggestions come from within the community. Those are always fun because because those employees truly are totally surprised sometimes to the point of tears. Good tears though. We also have recognitions
of school district employees by media outlets themselves uh in the last month or six weeks. I would say that I've had at least three different media entities reach out wanting to honor our employees or one of our employees for something in
particular. So, it's nice to see our employees recognized by entities beyond the district because of the impact those employees are having. And of course, schoolboard recognition includes guest speakers and our annual
employee longevity recognition. That's where we have a bunch of people, more people than I can photograph on many occasions. And then also, we have our principal and assistant principal of the year, which just happened last Friday. and we're excited to share that news
each year. Move or continuing with strategy 5D, we also use the events and happenings calendar to share details on important events. And I I've heard many of you say you regularly look at that as well as
our own staff to stay informed. Our superintendent showcase video series releases a new episode every other Friday. Over the last year, this series has generated 17,710 views for a total viewing time of 447
hours with an average viewing time of a minute and 40 seconds. MCPS Highlights is a monthly internal publication emailed to departments, administrators, and others to share additional insight into MCPS things like
recent school accomplishments or work orders cleared or major technical issues solved and similar items. The PR team also delivered communications training to principles, assistant principles, and others at our
most recent leadership summit this summer. This involved training specifically on HIP communications. And I have a $20 bill in my pocket. If you can tell me what HIPP stands for, it's okay. You don't have to do that. It
stands for heartfelt, intentional, and purposeful. And we walked our school administrators through exercises that would help them communicate more clearly and more genuinely with the audiences in their respective communities. That was very wellreceived as well.
We are finally, and I say finally because this has been more than a year in the effort, putting the finishing touches on a new internal communications plan to document and reference our procedures. And that will come to you u through the superintendent. We'll be happy to share that with you. And then
finally, improving communications is a constant topic of discussion within our executive cabinet and school leadership teams. Communication is something we all can help with both in terms of receiving and sharing accurate and timely
information. And I I am 100% confident in this statement. We will never achieve 100% in communication because we can always improve. There's always new channels coming forward. There's always new methods to use and new audiences to
reach. So that's the constant challenge. But we keep moving forward, hopefully succeeding in reaching more of those audiences with each of the platforms and channels that we use. So at this time, I'll invite Megan back up to share additional information on
strategy 5D. >> Thank you, Mr. Christian, and excited to continue talking about recognition of employees contributions. uh rewarding, recognizing, and celebrating district employees is de definitely at the heart of what our education foundation does. So, I'll start with our golden apple
teacher recognition program where we identify school-based nominees for teacher of the year and rookie of the year. Those candidates then submit teacher portfolios. They are interviewed and then observed in their classrooms so that a new golden
apple class can be selected each year. We are currently in the observation stage of this process. I can tell you observations end tomorrow which will be very exciting to have that close out before Thanksgiving break. Our committee members have been traveling the county
getting sneak peeks into the classrooms of incredible teachers across our district. On January 31st, we will celebrate all school-based teachers, our district rookie of the year, name our district teacher of the year, and also hear from all of our new class of Golden
Apples at the annual Golden Apple Gayla to be hosted at the Riley Arts Center. And then our Golden get to work. They become a part of the Golden Apple Academy, contributing all year long to support their fellow teachers and our district as a whole. They host breakfast
with the superintendent of schools. They assist with our annual tools for teaching supply drive called pop and drop where we where we provide 1,000 teachers with school supplies to start the year off. Every Tuesday and Thursday at the education foundation, you can
find Golden Apple Academy members serving helping our teachers shop at Tools for Teaching. You will also see them serving on district committees, even our strategic planning committee. We continued into year two of the academyy's teacher development day
called Apple Paper Scissors, a local Marian County version we established last year as our style of an ed camp hosted by teachers for teachers. It was held on September 20th at the College of Central Florida. And then of course
through our academy and our foundation, we continued year two into our partnership with HCA Florida for their thank a teacher program to recognize our wonderful teachers through communitywide nominations where we celebrate and surprise a new teacher every single
month and recognize our teachers as well during teacher appreciation week. Next, I will talk about our school related employee of the year program. Through nominations, our non-instructional employees are recognized for the services that they provide to make school possible. Each
year, we select one district nominee to be named our school related employee of the year. Pictured here is Miss Francesca Jimenez from Liberty Middle School. She was the 2025 school related employee of the year. Nominations are currently under review by the selections
committee and will be announced soon. You may have seen last week via social media we were out on the trail surprising our new teacher tobe recipients. The teacher tobe scholarship program that the foundation hosts is investing in Marian County public school
employees who are choosing to continue their education to achieve their bachelors in education and commit to becoming full-time classroom teachers staying in our district. The scholarship can provide up to $2,500 per candidate selected into the program. We are truly
helping grow our own through teacher to be and are proud to have just accepted six more of our district team members last week. And a special thanks goes to Altreusa organization for their donation recently to support these scholarships. Both our 2025
rookie teacher of the year and our 2024 rookie teacher of the year both were graduates from our teacher to be scholarship program. We know investing in our own makes a huge impact. And then of course the foundation wants to continue recognizing employee contributions when they are ending their
career in our district and entering into retirement. And so we celebrate retirees with an annual breakfast celebration. During that gathering, it's a great time to remind them that once a part of Marian County Public Schools family, always a part of Marian County Public Schools family, and we hope that after
some muchdeserved rest, time off, and traveling, they consider coming back in their new capacity as a volunteer. Our foundation was also proud to support principal appreciation month recently. Thanks to a new partnership with HDG Legacy, we hosted lunch for our
principles who work tirelessly to support our schools and ensure our students are safe. And now, Mr. Christian will be sharing awards and honors. >> Thank you, Megan. One channel that I just realized is not included in this
update, overhead street banners. Uh we utilize 12 street banners. Uh we submit applications a full year in advance to the city of Ocala and to Marian County and we are fortunate enough occasionally we get those preferred dates and locations. I know
American Education Week that banner is hanging over Southeast 25th Avenue. I saw it this morning so it's there for this week. Uh but that's another opportunity for us to share simple messaging with thousands of people who drive those roads every day. So, one other thing that I included this
year that we have not done in the past is kudos to the team and some of the awards that they have made possible that you may or may not know about. Our Insper Awards. Insp school Public Relations Association. Uh we've been a member of that for longer than I've been
with the district. So, this year I'm proud to say that we won a Golden Achievement Award. That is the second highest award that that organization gives. And uh Dr. Campbell. It's similar to an image award and to get anything at that level, you know, is very, very
difficult. We also received two awards of excellence, two awards of merit, and three honorable mentions for our writing and video work. So, kudos to the team for making that possible. At the state level, Sunspra is the Sunshine State
School Public Relations Association. It is um it is uh the state equivalent of ENSPRA where we have about 40 to 45 school districts represented. And this year we captured the highest award possible which is the supernova award.
There were only three of those handed out. So we're happy to have one right here in Marian County. We also captured a radiant award, a silver award, a bronze award, and the lighthouse award for mentorship and icing on the cake. I'm gonna have Miss Magamal come back up
and talk about the accolades and honors that the foundation has received this year. Thank you, Mr. Christian. Just a moment to highlight a few um of the special recognitions from the foundation. I'll start with our take stock and children
program. They have received the luminary award for lighting the way across Florida and that is being a model program for serving and supporting at risk low-income students. We also received the gold level program management award that is for exceeding
all expectations in key performance indicators for our internal balance scorecard which guides all of our program metrics and accountability. Our very own taketo alumni Marissa Brown was named the state of Florida's taketo
alumni of the year. and one of our graduates of the class of 2025 take stock in children students received the prestigious leaders for life award. Only one only seven students statewide annually are selected and Mercinda
Cabrera was one of our very own selected as a leaders for life. And last I will share I was proud to receive the inaug inaugural unbridled spirit award from the consortium of Florida education foundations. This award was named after
the late Susan Copelan. She was the executive director of Pulk Education Foundation, known for demonstrating courage, compassion, and an unwavering commitment to others. I was humbled to receive the award. I can say that our team at the public education foundation,
that includes our staff, that includes our board of directors of 30, that includes the 256 volunteers who make our work possible. It includes our Golden Apple Academy members. We are blessed to serve our schools. We are all joyfully
committed to serving public education. It is one team, one mission to support Marian County Public Schools. Thank you. >> And with that one team, one mission mindset, we'll turn it back over to the deputy superintendent. >> Thank you, Kevin. Board, I just want to
publicly thank Kevin Christian and his public relations team. They work tirelessly uh to make sure that we are enhancing the communication efforts that we have both internally and externally and make sure that we're telling our own story as a school district about all the great things that take place daily in
the school district because that's important for us that we we don't let others dictate our story. We sell our own story and they do a great job of that. uh Yami has been a a breath of fresh air and infusing uh some youthful energy into that team and making sure that we are reaching our younger generations and the ways that they
communicate and and we're certainly grateful for her and I cannot say enough good things about Megan Magal and the public education foundation. Uh they engage with us in so many ways to support students and staff alike. Um and anything that we need that we ask her, she steps up to and she does not shy
away from any challenge and and we're certainly appreciative of of their work. Um, I think Dr. Brewer shared when she came in as interim superintendent that she wanted to take on communication squarely and make sure that we are improving the work that we're doing as a school district in communication not
only in what we communicate and how we communicate, but also strengthening the collaborative conversations that we're having both internally and externally and making sure that we bring all people to the table that can help us solve the challenges that we face in public education every day. Um, and I think
you're seeing the results, the fruits of that labor here before you today with this presentation. Um, and the continued work that we're doing to build that across this school district as we are all on one one team and we're all on one mission to support helping every student in this district succeed and and that's
where we have to stay squarely focused. Um, so we'll continue pushing in that direction and we certainly open this up for for conversation. >> Thank you, Mr. White House. Um, I have some comments but I will wait and I want to hear what the board has to say. So, who does anyone have comments? Who would
like to go first? >> Don't all jump out at once. >> I'll jump in. >> Okay. >> Um, I just have a lot of gratitude. Um, when I joined the board, um, coming from the teacher seat, I felt like there was a gap. There's so many great things
happening. And it's hard for the rest of the community to hear that because normally, uh, other media outlets only pick up the negative. So, you're only hearing the negative. And I just want to thank you. I know it's a huge amount of effort and time that you put into
getting those positive stories that we're seeing more and more each and every day. So, just want to thank you for your work. I do I Kevin, I have a question though. >> We were we were discussing um right before the meeting some tragic things that have happened within the district
as um this this school year. And so getting that message to everyone and when you mentioned, you know, how to reach the people we need to reach um our street banner, I wonder if we can do some something with um walker safety and
bus safety um sometime. I just feel like that would be a great opportunity to reach a a large crowd um that may not be getting the message because I know you're working on that. um and you've put out messages um but just trying to think of and actually I should just ask
you what our next step would be um in communicating safety to the students that need it the most. >> We have had conversation with the video production team about putting together student focused videos. Um, obviously, uh, community drivers need to be targeted as well, but really students
getting them to understand the importance of being aware of their surroundings, even though they may be wearing headphones or not walking on the right side of the street or whatever the case may be. Actually helping those students first and foremost to to encourage their own safety
in addition to driver safety in conjunction with our law enforcement agencies. We can certainly do the street banner. Absolutely. The only caveat there is we typically have to submit those a year in advance because there's a lot of competition. Uh but the county and city are both great in terms of if they have a week where there's not a
banner that's that's hanging, they may open that up for us. So that may be an opportunity for us. We're also looking at the idea of leasing some traffic safety videos because those are available now versus having to produce them and then distribute them. uh if we
can find something that's appropriate and pertinent to our community, we'll certainly look at that as well. >> Okay. Which leads me to another question because I don't know the answer to this. With all of our social media outlets, do we share that like at the school-based
level? Do our our teachers share that? You know, there's information online with Marian County Public Schools. I know we're we are asking for students to have their phones put away, but we also want them to be informed. So if we're pushing out information um through
our say our Facebook page, do we and do we invite students to participate? >> So we did put the QR code on MCPS connect um and hopefully I will send an email also directly to principles to hopefully print that out, have that
displayed um at each school so that we can put the word out. It not only shows our homepage but all of our platforms. >> Okay, that sounds great. I know some of that they may not be interested in what we're sharing, but if we're going to use it as an outlet to share, especially
safety concerns, it's it's our fastest way to connect with with our staff and our um our students. And it's been important to me because when I go to each individual school's like say Facebook page, there's so much interaction um that goes on on some of
those pages. they've really developed the relationship well with their family, mostly families, but um it's just a great tool that I think uh is easy for us to use. So, thank you. Let me check real quick before I hand it off to anybody else. Um Kevin, I want to thank you again for the fast facts. I I think
it's not just it's such a great tool for our staff. they may not have time to watch a four or a six hour video, but sending that out, they can get the fast quick review uh you know of what decisions were made and how how they impacted us. So, thank
you for taking time um to do that. Um again, I just want to reiterate the the portion of us telling our own story. Uh Mr. The White House explained it perfectly, but I just also feel that's
just so very important. Public education is facing a lot of challenges right now. And if we don't share all the good work that's going on every single day in our schools, people in the community don't know. So, thank you for the work that you do. I sure do appreciate you.
>> Sure. >> Yeah. >> Um, great presentation this morning. Um Kevin, I want you to go back to slide 11 if you can. Um there was a unique fact that you gave on slide 11 concerning
media releases. Could you repeat that fact again? >> Give me just a moment. >> The earned media. >> It was earned. >> The earned media. Yeah. It's it's a it's a a component that I've not included before. >> Right.
>> Um for no for no reason. Uh it's just this year I I thought it would be interesting to look at the investment that we make as a community as taxpayers in the public relations department meaning the salaries of the employees involved and the budget of that
department. Our 61 media releases helped generate and I say helped generate because sometimes we are generating those news leads other times we're responding to those news leads. But both of those combined resulted in 2,169
media mentions that I've been able to document. That's in addition to 3.7 million impressions on social media. So the return on investment of three $3.45 million is the value of the earned
media. 3.45 million in earned media. Meaning we earned that coverage. We didn't pay for that coverage. the return on investment is 860%. >> That was the number that that's that was the fact that I think that we need to
highlight that that's that's >> that is that is there's nothing scientific about that. Okay. I want to make sure everybody understands that's just Kevin taking some raw numbers. That's just uh the the salaries of the employees of the public relations
department added to the public relations budget and then divided into that 3.45 million. So the return on investment is just for the earned media coverage. It's not for everything else that's included in this report. >> But that area alone.
>> Well, I I I said that because we we talk all the time about how we never tell our own story. we let someone else write our narrative. So, I was glad to hear that you wrote that one that you pulled that out because it needs to be extrapolated and we need to hear that. Folks need to hear those things. The other thing that
on that slide that I notated particularly is one that I've been kind of I've always harped on. I've never kind of said it out in this format, but I've said it to schools is the school the underutilization of the school mares. people. I I every school I drive by, I
look at the marquee. Um, churches, whatever wherever there's a marquee, I'm look, I'm reading it because to me that is a huge form of of information, a huge way of getting that out there. And I always felt that um we have feeder schools and our feeder schools should be
should be celebrating what's happening at their schools and all the schools that's connected. And oftentimes I've said that we we don't utilize that. So, thank you for saying that publicly. Um, and I hope everybody else is hearing that too that we need to utilize those marquees a lot more. A whole lot more.
If there's a an engagement, we we don't I don't think we're doing them anymore. Those we were doing family engagements at uh at if it was going to be at Howard, Oakrest, and all the schools, Madison Street, all of them should have been having the same thing on their marquee to push those events. And we
need to still do those types of things. So, thank you for saying that. We are utilizing those marquees because some of us old folks still read. read the marquee while we >> billboard. >> Thanks. A great great presentation. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Reverend Cummings. Uh, Dr.
Campbell, thank you. >> Yes. Thank you to the team. I some of the concerns from last year's presentation have certainly been addressed and that's obvious. So, thank you. Uh, there are just a couple of of things that I wrote down specifically u
based on some other things that have also been discussed as well. grateful that you did bring up the earned media impressions. As you know, that's something that some of our dear friends have always capitalized on in the public sector or private sector and how important their roles are and how
important PR roles are because that earned media matters a lot and and that's those are dollars we're not spending for sure. Uh just a couple of thoughts that I had. But I know that we haven't been using Twitter and X very much. Similar to what we're doing with
Instagram in more student focus because that's where students are. Students are not on Facebook. So we don't do anything on Facebook that's student focused. Yamaly obviously is going to know this very well. I would request potentially that as we're doing things on X the
people who are there are our state leaders, state legislators and DOE. So as we have specific messages that are going to be more targeted into that governmental sector, that's where they are. And so those are the people we need to be following and those are the people
we need to be targeting with that particular platform. It's not it's not an echo chamber within Marian County necessarily. It's never taken off in Marian County. I've said that to people for years. It's just never been a place. So that was so ironic whenever it was required that y'all had to do that. I'm
so sorry. uh not trying to give you PTSD, Kevin, from back in the day, but uh X really just hasn't ever caught on in Marian County for whatever the reason. However, again, state state elected leaders are there and DOE is there and so that's where they're really
sharing stuff. So, just thinking from a focus and target audience perspective on how you use a channel specifically for a target audience. I also wrote down potentially targeted ads and I understand we're not spending much money out of PR, but whenever we're talking
specific messaging to Vice Chair Conrad's point, specific messaging to students, if we have that engaged, whatever it is, if if we need them to know they got to be walking on the right side of the road and they got to be paying attention when they're driving, whatever that turns out to look like,
targeted ads on Instagram will get it in their feed. And maybe there's even some contest we do next year or something. Or even at the semester break to encourage students to to start following us on Instagram. I told you I I asked my own kids like they need to be following
stuff. Traditional media, they need to be following so they can actually pay attention to what's going on. So maybe just targeted ads wouldn't cost a ton of money depending on specifically what it is. Just thinking out loud on that. And then the last thing I wanted to mention was specific to uh fast facts because I
too am grateful for what that has been looking like and and how you guys have done that. And this would just be an encouragement from how we present that on the website. So obviously whenever well I have two more things but whenever we send out the email thank you that you
send out the email to everyone so they can click on the link. I think that'll be a metric that we'll use in the upcoming strategic plan. how many views we have on the website, the web page now that it's a page instead of a PDF and all of that. But when you get to the web
page, and I have it pulled up right now, all of the current ones, all the web page generated ones are all in a column down the lefth hand side, and all of the PDF ones are all like first view. So, I don't know if there's a way we can change that so that we have like at the
top is going to be where you start with the newer ones rather than having the first thing you see the searchable because all I see is the PDF of from 2023 and then PDFs from 2022 and and I know that's not what we're doing. We're very current. It's just everything left
generated. And so, if there's a way we can update how that is on the web page, >> yeah, I'll talk with the tech team to make the default when you get to that page, the current issue shows, >> right? hopeful that can happen. >> Perfect. So, I mean something like that that will make it because right now I mean I know we're current but right now
it doesn't look current and so that just the way we can make that play out. And then the last thing I wanted to mention is is kind of just a a thought as we consider strategic plan moving forward and and how we want to do this and depending on if we put communication at the foundation or not because that
obviously has been my recommendation. If we do have a strategy like strategy 5B like we currently have potentially how we have that worded as strengthening two-way district communication. What does that really look like? And and I think if we're
defining two-way communication, obviously internally I do think we've done a lot better on that internal two-way. We are getting dialogue back from our employees. We're hearing what they're feeling and and when we send out surveys, we're getting two-way communication from families.
I I mean, I don't know how much I know we have engagements listed on social media. And so, I I I just think I want us to think about how we want that two-way engagement as opposed to really we're pushing the content out and we're not getting a ton of feedback
other than views, impressions, that kind of thing. Like, are we asking them to comment back? And maybe we are. Maybe and I I know Yamaly has a few of those that that we've done and and maybe we've been more successful with that than I realize. >> And what happens it depends on the video
or whatever is posted. Sometimes we'll have a lot of people comment. Um but we've also seen an increase on direct messages. So that's always open and so you know we have a pretty good u response rate for direct messages. Um
there is whenever we post a uh send message now button that you could add to post. So that could be a practice that we continue doing. Um but otherwise it's all open people and we don't delete comments either unless they obviously don't they need to be deleted.
>> Yeah. which thank you because that thank you for saying that because that's a huge PR thing that please don't ever delete the comment unless it's you know profane or something that's derogatory like names a child like those kinds of things but u regardless thank you for
saying that because that's definitely what we need to be doing and perhaps again a metric might be in the future again I'm thinking next steps on strategic plan for communication but maybe it is actually tracking how many direct messages you're receiving because that's not a statistic we heard today.
It's probably listed somehow in your engagement category, but it might not be because again, that is two-way communication. That's not necessarily liking or sharing or something like that. That's an engagement, but it's not two-way. So, um, anyway, I just if we
move with a a strategy that specifically says two-way district communication and strengthening that, what are those real metrics where we're seeing the feedback directly and then how are we responding back and forth because that's the real two-way dialogue more so than just
communication, I guess, is how I would say that. U, but that's just kind of looking forward and and how we might potentially be able to measure that in the future if that becomes that strategy again. Um, those are all my comments. Thank you. >> You Dr. Kimell,
thank you. As I've been listening and reflecting on the comments and so far and as well as the presentation, a couple things popped into my mind and and the first one is is that I'm entirely convinced that our accelerating success um is largely due
uh to the evolution of this spectacular community outreach and communication uh that has been demonstrated by the three of you standing up here. Um, it is so much better than it was in the distant
past, in the recent past. I just witnessing it all coming together and it's so gratifying to see and it's a tribute to the hard work that all of you put in every day and and your commitment
to the success of this district. Um, we are very fortunate too as a board. Uh, some of us were on the board at the time when we really didn't have a strategic plan. And so it kind of starts there uh
because it gives us that roadmap of what we need to be working towards and our goals. And so I'm thankful um to our previous leadership for prioritizing that. And actually, you know, a lot of times consultants get a bad name, but I think we had a good one that helped us
develop this strategic plan that will end up getting revised in the not too distant future, you know, as we continue to accelerate forward. Uh I also very much in agreement that increasing student engagement is is what it's all
about. You know, they are our endusers. And I was reminded of that recently at Vanguard Sack meeting. There were quite a few students that attended and it was just it was kind of amusing and also just interesting in the way things are
today that the attention span is so short that they don't call it Instagram, they call it Insta. So we literally have a very short amount of time to grab students attention. But they were very straightforward in
saying if if you really want to reach us, you need to do it via Insta. So for the increasing sadly number of traffic accidents we're experiencing with our students, also for very positive things like uh promoting attendance, quick snippet videos, things like that on
those two topics. Hopefully we'll see a lot of engagement from students on that. And so I think that there's a that's an opportunity there uh to have even more reach. Um I love the idea about trying to increase
the two-way communication. You know, maybe something as similar, you know, we want your feedback. I mean, we're getting feedback, which is good, but you know, some sort of statement that we really do want it and it means a lot. We read it. That's already too long in Insta World, but you know what I'm
trying to say. Um my only walkway question is is that it caught my attention 230 um requests for public records over 12 months. I'd just like a little more data on that to all of the board members when you get a chance. How many of those were
single requests? How many were done by you multiple requests by a single request or I I would like to just get a better idea of of where those um requests are coming from and and and what the concerns are. I mean obviously if someone's making a public record
request they want to know something. >> I can offer some insight into that. Most of those are individuals or individual companies. Many times the corporate world when they do not receive or they don't win the bid
or they weren't the top finisher in the RFP process. uh they request all of those files and records to see what their competition did that they need to do to win the bid. So, not all of them are that we do have others that are
individualbased that um for whatever reason are seeking email messages between this person and this person or some kind of financial record of the district. We've had a significant number
of requests for um either instructional materials or student reading materials that have been removed from school libraries or removed from the bookshelf. Uh fortunately for us, we put all of that on our website already. So, it's all there and they're really we don't
really receive a lot of complaints about that. But that's the nature of many of the requests. We have a handful of individuals who make repeated requests. Um, and that's fine. We just process each request on its own merit and we
process them all according to what's being asked for. Most of the time there is a record that meets the request. Some of the time there is no record that meets that request. So if you'd like more, I can dive deeper and pull some data. But that that's kind of from the
20,000 foot viewpoint. >> And and thank you for that information. And um it's as often as we can if we can have the information already be out there so that a request doesn't need to be made because it's readily available.
I do understand that it it can be really time consuming to comb through everything you need to comb through to get that information. So >> I will add to that Mrs. thrower that most of the requests for records are
truly public record and most of those are already on board docs, but people simply do not want to navigate board docs or find it too complex or not speedy enough >> to find the records that they want.
>> And that is an area of opportunity for us. >> Okay, great. Thank you so much. Thank you for everything that that you do. I talk about, you know, value added and return on investment. I I honestly cannot imagine not having a public
education foundation, especially one that is such a tremendous partner and and is so responsive and also proactive and so visible and just functions at such a high level of urgency and
professionalism. and the same with um your department as well. You know, Kevin, it's just all part of the evolution of professionalizing our practices and service delivery. So, thank you. >> Uh board member Conrad has >> Yeah, I I had one other thing I wanted
to say. Um Megan, I wanted to also thank you for the work that you do. When I when I think about the public edition, in my mind, it goes in the same pot come as is referendum. I think about what would Marian County look like without
the support of the public ed foundation and it would look very different and not in a good way. Um I know that you and your team work tirelessly tirelessly. Um and we very much appreciate the support that you give to
our students, our staff and their families. And so I'm just really grateful for the work that you all do. When I go to the foundation, I I call it my happy place. Um it's a space that you can step into as um a staff member or as a board member and you're just greeted
with a smile and a welcome and how can I help you? And sometimes it's just I just need to visit for a minute or you know help answer a question. So just really grateful for you and your team and the work that you do. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. So I did write down a few things um and I um will try to not
reiterate things that have already been mentioned. Um, I'll start with Yamaly. What an addition you have been to the team. Um, a year ago when we had this conversation, I guess it was in January, but we really dug into our social media and our internal communication. Um, I
feel like those were too big of the heavy hitters that we discussed on and you came onto the team right around then or a little before, right? And so, um, the I mean I got the 67 joke. Um, I think Dr. Campbell got it as well. I'm not sure anyone else got it up here, but
that's okay. Okay. My husband threatened burpees if 67 gets mentioned in my So that's how over 67 >> do that in my house. >> Burpees is the new punishment at my house. It's been work. It's been working well. So um but there has been such a
tremendous improvement on Facebook specifically um which we are not reaching our students there as well, but we are reaching the adults and the adults are the ones that are voting. they are the ones that are most active and participatory in our day-to-day
operations. And um for our elementary age students, they're the ones that are making sure that they're getting to school safely and that they're uh attending school and etc. So, I wanted to give you those kudos. I wanted to say one of the things that wasn't included as a social platform, but I feel like is is Class Dojo. Um while it's an internal
social platform for a school and not external um depending on the principal which I've had quite a unique experience going from one principal to a new principal um over the last year um the previous principal at my child's school was not very active on class dojo and
the current principal is incredibly active on class dojo and so um to highlight her success I would just like to say there is so much opportunity for um two-way communication because it does allow allow for comments and and that kind of thing. But I I wondered today as
we were having this discussion, have we um had principles share content? So for instance, um I'm thinking you have a short video you record. Is there a way that it's dispersed to principles that maybe are
the enduser or expected end user for the content to then share within a class dojo? And I know Clas dojo is probably more an elementary concept than a secondary concept, but I'm just thinking like if we made a short safety video, are we then communicating with principles either the link to the Facebook video and or the direct video
so they can share it on Class Dojo? >> The district does not contract with Class Dojo. >> We do not have a legal agreement with them. We do not have a data share agreement with them as a district. uh we do not participate as a district overall
in class dojo. Uh individual schools and individual classrooms choose to do so at their own risk. >> Absolutely. So what I'm just asking is for the schools that choose to participate for instance my child's school is very they they um prior to even this principal the CL each
individual teachers were doing a very good job of using it as a communication tool. Are we providing principles with videos that we find appropriate so that if they so chose they could submit it and show it on ClasJo? >> We provide videos that we produce that
we believe are appropriate. Beyond what we produce we don't recommend because typically those are licensed. >> Yes, absolutely. That's exactly what is that what you're talking about? >> So like if we made a video about um how to walk to school safely as an example. Are we making sure that principles who
use Dojo have access to the Facebook link etc or are encouraged to then share that video or the link on dojo so that more eyes are getting on it? >> We can certainly share those links directly either via email or via MCPS connect so that it gets into their hands too.
>> Connect would be perfect. I think that would just be a great way of like a week and a glance of videos that may be appropriate for schools and just encourage principles to potentially reference those in dojo because some principles are doing a really great job at it. Um I also wanted to know about billboards. There are do we have any
relationships with some billboards to get some billboard um spotlights? Proono potentially to discuss pedestrian safety specific. >> Well, proono is the key word there. Uh with our our traffic safety incidents lately, we may be able to do that. Uh we
are prohibited by state statute. Mr. Rios, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I've always been told by the former CFO that we are not allowed to spend budget dollars on advertising that includes billboards. >> So, so pro bono PSA c uh uh PSA
campaign. So, um and I've had some conversations with city and county officials about um potentially having discourse in our our joint workshop that's coming up about pedestrian safety. It's really impacting all of us. Agreed. Um, it's city and county accidents that are impacting not just
our pedestrians to and from school, but also pedestrians within, you know, outside of the scope of what we do. But I would love to see if there was um I know that for instance, the most recent Look Up Marian campaign. Um, they were able to get some of the county's space
for rubb the rubbish campaign. And so I don't know if there's some opportunities to have discourse about a partnership there. So we could kind of do a combined campaign for pedestrian safety. >> We do have some contacts with local billboard companies so we can reach out to them. >> Okay. Thank you. Um I have a quick
question regarding video submitt. So we have amazing things happening on all of our campuses. Is there a procedure for um someone every campus has millennial educators on it, right? And so there are educators who are a little bit more
confident and comfortable capturing short form videos than some of the more senior educators. Not to say that senior educators are not also comfortable with it, but it's generally landing in that that millennial age range. And so is there a format in which let's say I was
on Belleview High School's campus and there was something really fun happening. I I collect a short form video. Is there a submittal process for me to submit it for our staff to use it for Instagram? >> We communicate through the principles on a regular basis that we welcome content
created at the school level. So our hope is that that information is being shared with the staff. If it's not, we can certainly look at putting that into MCBS connect as well. >> But how is that how how is that? I'm not talking about what their what their
television program >> understand. Yeah. I'm talking about super short form. I honestly the videos that do best on social media are the most raw, the most real, the most authentic. Um, the more curated sometimes fall a little flat because
they feel less than authentic. And so, is there a format? What does that format look like for video submitted to social media? >> Well, I'm going to cross the legal line here, Dr. James. Um because I am not comfortable asking our staff members to
use their own personal cell phones to record students because they do not have that permission to do so through our code of student conduct. We as a school district on districts issued devices have that permission. But beyond that, I I and I can't imagine
that a millennial classroom teacher would have a districts phone, >> right? they may have an iPad that could be utilized. Okay. Um so if that is the case, if they use that kind of device to capture it, absolutely we would welcome
it. We can increase that communication through those principles and assistant principles to welcome those videos and we would love to use them especially on Instagram because I think that is the exact audience that you're talking about and short form video.
>> Right. And so um I hear you and so I what I hear is how can we start working through some of those barriers? So, if it's a district issued device that the video needs to be recorded on, then what district issued devices do we have on our campuses and what does that look like? And just kind of looking through
some of those barriers. Um, I'll pause because I think Dr. Campbell has a question. >> I do just based on some conversations that I've been hearing at the conference I was just attending and the phone free atmosphere that we have. My most significant concern about anyone doing
any of that that's not there with the sole intent to be media or PR or what have you. If it's a school-based leader, students are going to model the behavior they're seeing. And so a lot of what we heard was yes, schools have gone phone free, but and this is a national thing.
So, I'm not calling out Marian County public schools, but nationally, a lot of schools have gone phone free, but teachers are still using their phones while they're even in front of students or whatever. And just this is the conversation again. And so, my concern is whether it be the principal or
whomever, unless it's designated that the students understand what's happening at the very time that it's happening, that they have permission to do this and whatever. I I just we need to be more phone free on campuses than we currently even are. And the more we can do that,
the more we engage with everyone. So, I appreciate the interest in in having that done. I just have the concerns with the double messaging of either we're phone free or we're not. And that's that's my concern. Now, certainly, I get the the power of a phone video. Uh but
maybe they have a specific badge if they're doing it for the purpose of what we're talking about today. And if you're wearing a green badge, then you get to have your phone out today. Um, I mean, there has to be something like that that we could do. Um, and the other thing that I want to talk on real quick was about billboards. So, it's interesting
that you said the county's billboards for the rubbish campaign because those were paid for. So, I'm really interested in knowing, and that would be a Mr. Welsh question, I guess, but to find out how the county is paying for things that we're not. >> Well, the sheriff paid for it. It's the sheriff's money. >> Okay. But that's still taxpayer money.
every dollar that comes into the government is taxpayer dollars. And so if the whole thing is that we can't use taxpayer dollars for paid media, then we need to find out how people get around that. >> Good morning. Yeah, we can look in uh we can look into that. I've done a little research. There seems to be uh some
waiverss available. Most of the state law prohibiting the use of district funds has to do with uh advocacy or political issues where we're taking us aside one way or the other. Uh, so we'll pull the legal language and see what options we have and we'll get back to the board.
>> Okay, perfect. Because I know that a lot of other districts have promotional materials we've never been able to have and all those chachki things to promote us and who we are that we've never been able to have because of our interpretation. So, I'm really interested in knowing how we can get around some of that and and put our best foot forward.
>> Yeah, certainly. And and with the uh number of accidents that we've had um this week, last week, it seems uh like an unfortunate recurring bad movie. Uh I think it's something that we we really need to look at. >> Absolutely. Thank you. Those were my comments. Sergeant, >> thank you. Um so to close out that
thought, Yam I think of it as like a social media manager on our campuses. So you have someone who is a social media manager for the campus and they are responsible um at times for capturing short form video that they're able to directly submit to you for very um very
time relevant posting so that students when they leave for the day are able to consume that content um as a reflection of their day. So something to explore just a thought I have. Um, so, oh, oh, Attorney Powers. >> Um, yeah, I just wanted to point out
something that Mr. Christian had had touched on, and that is that with since we do not have a data share agreement with um with certain entities, uh, since we don't
have um we don't have the ability to um everything we post, every document, every image, every every video is a public record and there is currently no way that those public records if class dojo doesn't
have a agreement with the district and it's not tracked there there is no way for those images to be utilized as a public record if a public record request were made we're have we have a requirement to maintain those and so
that is an ongoing issue that I think Mr. Christians aware of and it is something that when class dojo is being utilized, it's being utilized outside the purview of the school system but with the
with the authorization essentially of the schools because principles, teachers, students that they're all doing it under our opaces. So that can lead to some interesting questions. When we get a public records request or when we get a subpoena for information or any
number of things, we've got to take that into account. So it may be that that we need to work with some of those platforms like Class Dojo and bring them into compliance and make sure that we for whatever district or whatever schools are going to be using them that
we have them um that we have them on contract with us. Not that It's a matter of paying money. It may not be that the services we're looking for may be completely free, but the you know what they say is that if you're if you're if you're not paying
anything for it, you are the product. And in fact in this case information that is being exchanged on those platforms that information unlike our data share agreements prohibit um any of that information from
being utilized for you know nefarious purposes or being sold or anything like that. We can't do that. >> Okay. Well I mean if this >> for us to look at >> yeah if staff needs to dig into um I'm sure Clustjo is not the only unique um >> true >> app being used. So, if we need to spend
some time exploring that a little bit more, then by all means. Um, I wanted to just make mention, I know Mr. Christian and I have talked before, he is the voice of the hold music for Marian County Public Schools and, um, he does a
very good job of timely editing the message. However, we don't always have such a direct connect with the IT changing the messaging. Is that am I saying that right, Mr. Christian? I don't want to place blame. >> No. Well, I will. So, um, what I would
just like is the message to be timely adjusted. So, if Mr. White House can work on that because I have called and been on hold. Um, we're well three, four weeks into the next month and I'm still hearing the message from the previous month. And then I will message Mr. Christian and he will provide very quick
receipts of when the messaging was updated on his end. But ultimately, it is um a multi-step process. So, if we can just very timely um because if someone is sitting on hold and they're hearing a message that is outdated, I just think that there's opportunity there for improvement and it's
definitely something that I have discussed um probably for like the last two years. So, if that's something we could address, that'd be wonderful. Um I would love to see an internal communication plan when it comes to fruition. We've had some interesting
situations recently that schools handle different things differently. Um, and one of the biggest things that I concern myself with regarding that internal communication is a um, lack of
consistency from one school to another. So, every unique school is going to have um, unique environments and parents and students, but there are some consistencies I would love to see between how we communicate things within
the school timely and then how we respond to activities as well. So, I look forward to receiving that. Um, I want to uh let the board know, Mr. Christian and I have FastFax came up and we had a little discussion about it. So,
we will start a video version of FastFax starting after the next board meeting. Um, you'll notice some other government agencies in our community have uh tried to do this in the past. And so, um, there will be a video version of FastFax. It'll be an 89 second or less
video captured. Um, and as the chair, I will record it ahead of the meeting. Obviously, if things need to change, we will change them. And it will be published after the meeting with Mr. Christian's FastFax as a way to provide a video format to FastFax that can go on social media, link his website to
hopefully drive traffic to the website for his FastFax, and then maybe capture audiences who will watch video content but won't read. So, um, I've thought that was something that would be interesting to try. So, we're going to give it a shot and see how it goes. Uh, the public ed foundation, I just want to
make mention, has just done tremendous work. I cannot thank Mackenzie Moment enough for giving us so much support. Um, there is truly there is no words that can describe how grateful I am as a parent of Marian County Public School
students to see the investment that is being made with our students and in all facets, elementary to high school, safety, beyond. And so the public edition, I'm not really sure how you all do it because if we were to do a
earned um what's the term you used? Um >> earned media. If we were to do an earned value of the work that very few foundation employees are doing for what you all are accomplishing, it is magnificent and I just want to make sure that you have that praise. It's an honor
to be a business partner and it's an honor to be a take stock mentor. I love my mentee. Uh I don't know what I will do when she graduates. Um but it's going I can get a new one and it's going to be just as amazing. So uh finally board Oh,
Dr. Campbell. Oh, if if you're I mean I just wanted to touch on the video fast. >> Oh, you can go real quick. >> Okay. Um I really appreciate the idea of having a a video engaged fastf facts. I think that that will be a terrific addition to what we do from a communication standpoint. I would
recommend that we actually rotate board members and that we each have an opportunity to do that through the period with what I don't want us to be accused of as other governmental entities who have done that is using our district resources for political gain
and that actually is what the conversation is in the community. I love the idea. I think it makes us all more engaged with the community for sure. But if there's a way that we could set up a schedule that we would rotate and that each one of us would do a fastfax from time to time and do that video, I think that would be a perfect way to continue
that engagement. >> Okay. Thanks for the recommendation. So, finally, Dr. Campbell um brought it up and I well, I think she brought it up. If not, you guys brought it up, but Dr. Campbell and I have talked about it. Uh the C partnership was mentioned. Um I know that there have
been a few board members who've made mention of this. the last time we had the discussion as a board member I believe I mentioned trying to understand um their work with our campaign for sales tax and is that something that would have traditionally been done regardless of partnership we've asked
questions about um our level of partnership what are we getting for our partnership understanding that this is not within the purview of the board but just questions that the board has asked um and it was mentioned today so I felt like it was important to at least bring it up again because I understand the renewal is in December Um, Mr. White
House. So, I don't know. Um, I don't know board where where we go, Dr. Campbell. I don't know where we go from here. I feel like we've asked questions. Um, and I haven't as a board I remember I haven't received a whole lot of information back.
>> I think my understanding is Mr. Small Ridge manages that uh for the district. So, I believe we need to invite him to the table to explain, you know, the cost. what do we, you know, what does that partnership look like? Because I I personally, I think there's more for us
as board members and as district leaders. Um, also, Dr. Brewer serves um, you know, separately. So, I do I'm interested in further conversation. I I had didn't realize we were on such a tight timeline here with the December renewal. So, um, my recommendation would
be reaching out to Mr. Smallidge and see if he can join us for conversation. >> Okay. Okay. Would it be possible to add our C partnership to the December 20th work session? Would that be too late for a renewal or I'm sure we could have a conversation with the >> invoice. Hang on one second. >> Yes, Dr. Campbell gets the invoices. So,
>> because they sent it to me in Burnley, remember? >> Yes. I think I think it's a December 31st, but let me see if I can find that. >> That would make sense. >> Yes, it does make sense. I just invoice due date. It's actually total
due by December 1. I would assume that you are potentially, you know, through December 31st, but it does say that the total is due by December 1. >> So, that's actually the conversation would need to happen today. Yeah. And I thought that I asked for that in the last work session that it actually would
be a topic today, but maybe I didn't ask it that way. I I thought I asked for November 20th, but nevertheless, it it's not an actual agenda topic. So, if we could um potentially engage with Mr. Small Ridge and see if he can check on when we can turn in that invoice, I would love for at least the board to
have a discussion about it um and and understand better what our partnership is getting us. And maybe even someone from the CP could join Mr. Smallidge in a presentation. I don't know if that would be appropriate, but all of those if that could happen on for the 20th, that'd be great. >> Yes, we'll we'll work on that. And I I would also add that the CP does have a
new leadership at this time that's coming on board. it might be a good opportunity for that new leader to engage with um the school board and and ways that they envision supporting our local schools and our local school board. >> Yes. And I can't stress enough I I think that the answer is always no if you don't ask. And maybe the partnership
package that we've been paying for has things that we would like to ask for something different and look different because we are a public school entity which is not the same as a for-profit business. And so I would love for us to engage in discourse about what our partnership could look like that is potentially different than it has looked
like. Um maybe that that means our give is still the same to the chamber, but we are asking in return for something a little bit different so that we're able to get the most bang for our buck. So I just think having that discussion at least would be helpful. Um I see Megan Mimal coming forward. >> I came back up. Um I'd like to just
speak to the public education foundation's partnership with the C if I may. Sure. >> Okay. Um they're a crucial partner in our work. I can tell you just our school business partnership relationships alone, they help advocate annually at the start of every single school year to
promote that every school has a dedicated business partner. And I would say without having the data in front of me, but I could say confidently at least 70% of our school business partners are C partners. So they're getting dual recognition because they are members of
the C. Um, I can speak to the story of public education being told by our CAP partners and they are able to advocate for us at times. We've done Tuesday talks to promote mentoring opportunities to promote CTE opportunities in our schools and those are all added value
through our partnership at the C. Um, we have mentor recruitment that's occurred through their their C members. And yesterday, I'm just going to share this. Um, it's kind of a side note, but yesterday their new CEO came and presented at the C breakfast. And at the
end of the breakfast, he actually shared with me he helped start the first education foundation in his previous town where he was at third chamber and he's a huge supporter of public education. His do daughter will be starting at Forest High School. So, I do
think there is a new leader at the C and I'm sure that he and his team would welcome some really robust conversations about how to partner with Marian County's largest employer, which is Marian County Public Schools. >> Thank you, Miss Magal. And honestly, as
a board member, that's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for a conversation about what our partnership looks like and how it is benefiting us in the community. Um, I think that's what we've I know I don't want to speak for Dr. Campbell, but I think that's what we've been asking for. And so I'd love to just get everyone to the table and have a
work session about what that partnership looks like and what are the benefits we're getting out of it and how we could improve the partnership to make sure that again we're getting the most bang for the buck. >> Uh are there Dr. Campbell, did you have anything to add? >> I mean, I I appreciate that wholeheartedly. I I think the question just comes down to does that partnership
exist if we're not paying for it? And and that's the real big question, honestly, for $10,000. Is is that what we're getting? and and I love it. I I think that the value in the fact that we are educating the workforce is going to
be here regardless of whether we're paying for it or not. And so I think that's where the conversation while we're talking budget, you know, we we understand I mean even Florida Schoolboards Association, we have members that chose not to be a part this year. So that's professional development that we're not receiving as a whole board because of budget constraints that
we've had. This is just another one of those conversations about budget constraints and do we need to be paying $10,000? Will these partnerships continue to exist if we don't? And and that's the biggest question and I think that's why we need to have it. >> So hopefully we can discuss on December 20th and maybe we can engage some of the
new C partners to come um with Mr. Small Ridge and have a have a robust conversation if that works for the board. Um any further comment about this item? >> Just one thing I I just want to add I do think it is the intent of um with the new C leadership because I I don't
remember where it was shared or how it was shared. It might have been uh before breakfast on Wednesday. I'm not sure. But there there is an intentional movement to meet um with our board. And so I've heard that said out loud. So I'd like the I'd like the board to just take
a deep breath um and remain open-minded um as we move into finding out more information. We're, you know, we're moving into a phase with potential new leadership. they have a new leader. So, there's just this transition period here. And so, um
I I'm open to the conversation. I just don't want us to hurry and make a decision before we have all the facts. >> Yeah. Same. >> Absolutely. >> Absolutely. Is there any further discussion from the board about item 4.1? >> Okay. Well, I want to thank the team for
coming forward and sharing all about the strategic goal. Uh we are grateful. Mr. White House, did you have anything you wanted to add? No, ma'am. >> Okay. Awesome. Board, if it's okay, we're going to take a fivem minute break and we're going to come back. Oh, sorry. Is there any public comment on this item?
Hearing none. We will take a fivem minute break and come back at 10:48. Thank you. >> Thank you, chair. Welcome back at 10:52. We are back to talk about gifted. So, Mr. White House, if you'll bring us into
item 5.1, our gifted program. >> Thank you, chair. So this item has been brought back at the request of the board to u re-examine a few of the topics that we shared at a previous work session. So Miss Don Doll, our director of mental health and wellness will kick us off and um Miss Hannah Williams Jones, our director of VSSE will also be a part of
the presentation. >> All right. Thank you, Mr. White House. Good morning, Chair Dr. James and board members. This morning we bring you a followup to the previous gifted presentation offered at the October 2nd work session. The focus of this presentation is to provide the
information that was requested um and to review middle school service models and recommendations. I would like to start with a brief review to provide some of the context for the conversation. Gifted is a is defined as a student who exhibits superior intellectual development and is
capable of high performance. The criteria for program eligibility are also well defined in our Florida administrative code. Once a student is identified and found eligible for program services, an educational plan or EP is developed. This plan is reviewed
at least every three years or at four-year intervals for secondary students. Services are outlined in the EP and they may include things like consultation, special classes, or pull out and pushin programs. The Florida Plan for Gifted Education
outlines seven distinct areas to guide districts in designing their own respective gifted plans. District plans offer asurances that each area is addressed within the plan to include a system for screening and identification, a continuum of service models,
development of educational plans, guidance and counseling strategies to support our students, monitoring of student progress, professional development designed to support gifted education, and a system to evaluate gifted services that are provided.
At the previous work session, we described the process for gifted screening and identification. Here we share an overview that was created to help parents understand the referral evaluation process. A hard copy of this was provided for your review. Many
parents confuse the screening process with the evaluation process and therefore sometimes believe their child is further along in the process of determining eligibility. This flowchart illustrates the multi-step process for screening, referral, evaluation, and
eligibility determination. We begin with this. We begin with the student nomination portion which is followed by securing permission for screening from the parent. The permission allows that uh the staff or the team for gathering additional information such as hearing
and vision screening results and the completion of the intellectual screening instrument. If a student obtains the required score, teachers complete the indicators of giftedness teacher observation form and parent consent for evaluation is obtained to move on to the formal
intellectual testing process. As you can see, the 90-day timeline for completion of the evaluation is initiated at step five following the submission of the referral packet with the signed consent for evaluation. The referral information, which also
includes a statement of need and the gifted characteristics observations from the students teachers, is reviewed along with the evaluation results at a scheduled meeting for determination of eligibility. Here we can see the average number of days
from the time a student is nominated to the completion of the screening instrument as well as the number of days this um a number of days from the time the student is nominated to the scheduled meeting for eligibility determination. As you can see we average
about 24 days from nomination completion to the screening instrument. Once the screening instrument is completed, the screening score is reviewed for a possible referral for additional testing. The 90-day timeline is then initiated if and when the parent
consents for further testing. School psychologists then complete testing within this 90-day timeline, which is followed by a psychological report, which is reviewed at the eligibility meeting. A review of our processes was conducted using a random sample of six
elementary schools. which yielded an average of approximately 84 days from the time the student was nominated to the scheduling of the eligibility meeting. This data indicated that we not only meet the 90-day timeline requirement for testing,
but have been able to complete the process in its entirety within the time frame. It is important to note however that this is a multi-step process with various decision points and requires participation and collaboration from multiple stakeholders including the
parent, teachers, school counselor, ESC specialist and school psychologist. Additionally, these averages may also vary depending on the time of year with respective mitigating factors that impact scheduling. To provide additional perspective and
information, this piraphph shows the types of evaluations that were completed during the 2425 school year, which include initial evaluations for determination of ESC eligibility, which have a 60-day timeline for completion, re-evaluations, preK evaluations, and
gifted evaluations. According to this, approximately 26% of completed evaluations were gifted evaluations. In addition to the evaluations and subsequent psychological reports, school psychologists are responsible for participating in problem
solving team and MDT meetings, conducting observations, consulting with teachers and staff, and conducting risk and threat assessments as needed based on school assignment and case load. Additional responsibilities may include providing counseling services,
supporting intervention implementation, participating in additional school team meetings, etc. Additionally, school psychologists support professional learning needs as deemed needed and appropriate. Specific to gifted services, school
psychologists and school counselors partnered together to provide information for teachers on the gifted process and how to identify gifted characteristics within a classroom setting. Presentations were conducted during staff meetings and/or grade level meetings at elementary schools during
the 2425 school year. Currently, we're working on updating the information provided to teachers to include sample student scenarios that would help teachers conceptualize different student profiles and information that may help in improving nominations,
especially to include students who may be identified under the underrepresented criteria. Examples of such scenarios were included in a gifted session that we attended while at the Florida Organization of Instructional Leaders Conference or FOIL. During that session, several
districts also shared challenges regarding screening and identification of underrepresented students. We discussed the reliability of teacher nominations given their knowledge of and experience working with these students over time and many agree that working to
cultivate teacher knowledge and skills was a step in the right direction. Additionally, participants share districts are currently grappling with the sustainability of implementing universal screeners given current budgetary restrictions and possible uncertainty with future federal funding
resources. As such, teacher nomination as a primary means of identification was discussed as a cost-effective practice. Our goal is to continue supporting teachers to improve this practice by increasing efficacy of identification of both
gifted and underrepresented gifted learners. And now I'll pass it on to Miss Williams. Good morning. So in part of our previous conversation, we really discussed what gifted service
models could look like and what additional supports could be provided at the secondary level for gifted students. When we look at C Palms, which is really kind of our state of Florida guidance about standardsbased instruction, there
are 39 courses lifted uh for gifted coursework. And these are core courses in grades six through eight which encompass English, math, science, and social studies. There is one course listed as a general elective that requires instruction by a gifted
endorsed teacher. This academic advanced academics course has 298 standards. So it can be um used across content in different content areas to cover a multitude of those supports that gifted students might need. It should be noted
that on sepalms all courses that meet the goals and objectives determined on the students EP are suitable including general education courses. So basically what they're saying in their guidance from the state level is that depending
on the characteristics and profile of the gifted learner, some of those needs may be met through advanced courses or courses with a a gifted designation, but other students may have those needs met in a general education classroom that is
not necessarily targeted um for advanced learners just depending on the needs of the student. But the goals of the educational plan for that student are going to drive the direction that is recommended for the student to receive educational options.
So when we look at a middle school services model, it really can focus on a variety of areas. And so what we're hoping to do in terms of meeting all of the requirements that the state says that we have to
provide for gifted learners is giving opportunities for advanced and compact curriculum for deeper exploration, interdisciplinary project-based learning, inquiry and problem based problem based learning to build critical
thinking acceleration and enrichment. Many of our students are taking high school level courses in middle school. Emphasis on creativity, leadership, organization, and self-management skills and ensuring that the frameworks that we
have are aligned with district and state standards and the individualized goals on the students actual education plan. So, in preparing for this session, we wanted to kind of just cast a wide net
and see what some of the neighboring districts, what some districts of um like size are doing as it relates to gifted supports. And so, we reached out to 10 different districts to gather some information. And I have
two of them um highlighted for you here on the slide. And so in looking at our neighbor Lake County, they only offer gifted services K through five. Um in middle school, gifted students have the advanced the option to take advanced
courses or Cambridge courses, but they aren't offering academic courses with a gifted designation. um in middle school. When we look at Bvard County, they are a little bit different in that their middle schools have advanced academic
teams. And so each grade level will have an advanced team. And on that sixth grade advanced team, there will be courses that are offered with a gifted designation for those students who choose to take that. Um coursework, they're offering high school level
coursework. um they don't have a gifted elective that they offer and there are no enrichment opportunities for exclusively gifted students. So what that means is that for them they are offering those opportunities for high performing students who may not have
been identified as gifted as well as a gifted identified gifted student. So, it's more of a blended model and I think that's really similar to what we're doing here with our um offering courses with a gifted endorsement
through regular content and so that there may be some high achieving learners in those courses as well. So um in taking the feedback um from our previous session, one of the things that um we would like to do is um add
advanced academics as an option on course scheduling to see if there is enough interest to actually add that to um some of our middle schools. And so the advanced academics is the elective
that the state offers um under a gifted education. And so it does require that a gifted endorsed teacher teaches that content. And so we want to see um offer that to principles, have them add that
um as an option for our middle school students this year and see if that is some of our schools would be um make that available um as a a an elective course for next year. Um really looking to add extension activities on
curriculum resources to support gifted instruction. So all of our test publishers have extensions of lessons that can be used with gifted learners and so that is what is talked about when they um create our learning calendars.
But we want to be more purposeful in having those activities provided identified as supports for gifted students so that um yes, our teachers can find it, but we want to present it to them so that they know for this
content, for this lesson, these are the things that you can do as a gifted extension. And so we'll be working with curriculum to be um purposeful in that. um encouraging more teachers to add gifted endorsement. Right now through our um Marian County professional
learning, we have gifted um self-paced gifted endorsement courses that are continuously available in addition to the courses that are um offered through fiddlers. I think part of this process that we don't have information on is
once the series is completed which teachers are then adding the actual endorsement to their certification because it's an additional process. And so that is the next step of following up with those teachers to see if there is a
barrier or a reason why they're then not adding the actual endorsement after they've done all of the work to complete the series. And then also looking to increase professional learning opportunities. So, we offer
monthly engagement opportunities with our gifted teachers um across the levels. We survey them prior to um a an early release day or a teacher workday for um professional learning needs that
they might have. And so all professional learning is planned in conjunction with the survey feedback that we get from the teachers. Um we are often also engaging them as presenters in um the professional learning opportunities because some of them are doing some
unique things and um we give them that opportunity to share with colleagues some things that may be beneficial for our students across the district. And then if they are asking for um a specific content or speaker, then we work to be able to bring those people,
whether we're bringing them virtually um or face to face, to be able to provide additional professional learning opportunities for our our gifted teachers. >> Mr. White House. >> Thank you, ma'am. I do want to just
thank Miss Williams Jones and Miss Del. They've both been working hard along with Miss Weber, our uh gifted resource teacher that works in the SEC department to really rethink the way that we're approaching gifted um and we appreciate the work that they've done. They've done a lot of outreach to other school districts to really talk about um what
they're doing, what's working, what's not working. Um as we heard from Miss Del, this is a state level topic as well. We saw um at the last foil meeting that they did have some state level conversations about gifted supports and so uh continue that work that we can uh
really rethink what we're doing with gifted support. Um I think the biggest thing that we've taken away from this is um you know not not knowing for sure what funding looks like in the future. We want to make sure we're investing our dollars in people and not programs. uh we know that that is the greatest asset that we have and so we want to make sure
we're focusing on developing the people that we have here, encouraging more staff to get gifted endorsement um that can be a part of that new solution of how we're supporting our students across the district. Um and and just really making sure that we are providing as many opportunities as we can for all of
our students, not just our gifted, but really to support all of our students across the district. And I know Dr. Campbell shared before, but we are starting to really just rethink what middle school look like in general and and ways that we can better support all of our learners across that transitional period um in school for Maring County
Public Schools. >> Thank you, Mr. White House, and thank you team for uh willing to come back before us and answer some of our questions and dig a little bit deeper. I know some of us had more questions than others, but I really appreciate you guys taking the time to come forward and um
dig into this a little bit more. Board Does anyone want to start with questions about this topic? I have some questions that I don't mind starting if that would be helpful. >> Okay, >> go ahead. >> Um, so I have a few questions slashc comments. We'll start with the advanced
academics which is I'm assuming what probably the course code was or something similar to the middle school elective I took as a student years ago. Have we gone to visit what an advanced academic classroom looks like? I think um I have
a couple. I'm grateful it's going to be on a course request form. However, if there is a absence of what it is, students and parents may um not select it because they don't know what they're selecting. And so, how are we communicating not only to teachers who
may be hesitant um there may be some that are really excited about the opportunity to teach a gifted elective, but there may be others that have paused because doing something new can be very challenging. And so, have we gone to districts who are doing advanced
academics? Do they have a curriculum guide? Do they have um a framework that we would be able to duplicate? Um do have we done any of that? >> So, we have not had an opportunity to visit any of them. Our outreach with them was particularly email and phone
call, but I'm sure that we could set up a visit. Um I know Simol in particular has some interesting things that they do um around gifted supports at middle school because I was there and previously worked with that team. And so
that is absolutely something that we can do so that we can one kind of shape what a Marian County version of advanced um this academic class would look like. Um, and then also gather just some data on
how many students are are signing up for it. Um, and and what focus seems to be because there are 298 standards and they're not covering all of those. So, which ones seem to be um ones that students are more interested. If we can
get some data on that, it saves us some of the leg work and trial and error of putting together something that students aren't going to be interested in. So, those are follow-up conversations that we're definitely going to have. >> And, you know, as a from my seat, I guess what I would say is I would love to see us at least pilot it in a few
places next year. So, maybe it's not something we do everywhere, but at least in a handful of schools, we're piloting this advanced academics, even if it's one section at at three schools just to see what it looks like. And that's the year where we kind of build the plane and we talk and we try to figure out what the kids enjoy and figure out what
they don't enjoy. But I think as a parent, there has got to be a way for us as those course um requests come home with our with fifth graders and going into sixth grade and then obviously once they're on your campus, the communication may be a little easier. Back to our communications conversation,
how are we creating some type of communication with parents of gifted learners specifically, but I think also advanced learners because I would love to see this course be available to advanced learners as well as gifted learners. But how are we communicating to them what this is? Because this would
be unique and new for Marian County. So is that a video content of something they're doing in another county like Simol to communicate with parents. This is what this could look like in Marian County. Um I just want to see that robust plan developed as we because we
send out course requests in March, right? And so we're just about three months out from that. And so I want I would love to see a plan developed for that launch prior to then us putting it on paper because just to put it on paper
and say well nobody selected it. Well of course not they didn't know what it was. So um that's just kind of my thought on that. I didn't board I can continue to go or if you guys have conversation about that. I I have specific questions about that as well as as a mom who has filled out that middle school form which
you'll be doing very soon. Dr. James, I I I also had very similar questions to what Dr. James was asking because the electives form is going to have band and chorus and agriculture and whatever depending on the the middle school that the student has chosen. And while I
agree that having pilot programs would be a good idea, honestly, if I, as a middle school parent, knew that there were three schools that were offering something specific for my G for my gifted learner, I might have actually chosen to have my child go to that school during a school choice window.
And so I that's my only concern about only offering it in a handful of schools because, right, we're we're kind of behind the eight-ball on that particular thing. Um, I know that that my children when they went into middle school, we chose our zoned school as opposed to
choosing another precambridge or preIB or something like that. But if I had known that a gifted elective might have been an option that I might have have chosen that. So, that was part of my question and also because it makes it really complicated if you're just
sending the same form home with every student because you're only going to have about 4% of your students that are going to even qualify for that advanced academics class. So, how are they necessarily going to know that they couldn't take advanced academics? And so, you may have families that are
wanting to opt into that and unless we're also including high achievers in addition to those who are classified as gifted. So I I appreciate the idea of how that's going to be rolled out. I think it could potentially use a little
bit more development on the roll out just because uh and then how many students is it going to take to actually make the course? So is it if you only have 25 students then you're just not going to do it or is it going to take 50 to 100 students that say they want it so then
you're going to offer it you know three or four class periods a day. I I don't I I certainly appreciate that thought. And if you'll allow me, Dr. James, I I wanted to roll into another um because also going to Simol and going to Orange or wherever all you want to go to see
the the middle school gifted options and what they're looking like and how other districts are delivering those models in middle school. I also want to say the state of Florida doesn't do this well. I mean, I'm just going to make a blanket statement. We are actively and still holding out hope. It's already in bill
drafting that we will have a bill this year whether or not it hits committee or not, but we're starting with the language in the House and the Senate to get gifted pulled out of ESSE statute and have it at its own separate statute, its own separate everything. So then we really can start talking about these
high achievers and it's not just gifted and but it's gifted and high achievers as well. And we know that that's not there yet, but we're we're actively working on that as a board to ensure that that's something that we have for the future of the way the state of Florida looks at these students because currently state of Florida doesn't
really do it as well as I think it could be done. So I also would entertain the idea of not just looking at those surrounding districts and how they're doing it, but actually look at model districts around the nation. How is this being done in ways that can really really impact these students and these high achievers? Um and then I have other
thoughts, but go ahead Dr. James. >> Sure. So, I um to that point um Dr. Campbell, I think one of the things that I think would be most helpful is similar to what we do um our middle schools do when they send home a um and high schools, they send home letters of
choice. So, we would love to have your child enrolled. when we do course requests in middle school. So for rising sixth, seventh, and eighth graders, potentially attaching a letter to the course request form um for the students who are eligible for advanced academics
that describes what advanced academics looks like may be a way to communicate it more effectively. Um and then having a separate course request form for the students who received the letter. That may just be a way to clarify that a little bit. But as a parent, you know, if you get home the course request and
the kid wants to do band and agg and then you read a letter, well, I I'm still probably going to help my sixth grader make decisions, right? They don't just get they don't have a complete autonomy. And so, as a parent, if I think advanced academics is going to be more suitable for them than when they make that family decision. So, that may
be a way to >> because the parent does have to sign the form. Correct. So, I mean, that that's a requirement, but if the parent doesn't even fully understand that the option is available, this this conversation needs to happen to parents more than anything, too. >> Yes. Absolutely. And so maybe a letter recommendation to a quick video that we could make maybe from the PR department
to have discussion about it or QR code to kind of see what it looks like. That may be a way to just get that information in front of parents as they're making that informed decision. Um I have um two questions about the timeline that you guys presented, which I love a good visual. I'm a visual learner myself and I would love um for
this to be readily available to our community. One of the things that we discussed um at regarding step two in the last meeting was changing the letter that goes home. Um so have any steps been made to make those adjustments? And
if you want me to give frame a context, I can. >> No, I I remember um not at this time. And it's kind of thinking through some of that because part of the reason um we haven't really added that kind of language to the letter is to encourage some of those conversations. Um, it's
really different when you have a student that maybe has received a letter that said they're not moving on and the parents like, "Oh, I really thought maybe they could have or I know when they took that test, it was a bad day." Something like that to bring that information so that we have that conversation and we can talk through the rest of the process. Also really talk
about what that looks like. We can give them information about when um um if they are tested once, when the next time that they can be tested. All of those things we would really want to be able to have as a conversation. So, this encourages the parents to come in and have those conversations with us.
>> Okay. Um well, I'm going to attest here today that I feel strongly that it needs the letter needs to change. Um I'm working through my emails to find the email that I sent to Dr. Curley personally because it had the attachment from my daughter's letter that she
received. Um, I feel very adamant that this letter needs to include parents next steps because and board you can weigh in on this if you'd like. Um, but to me the letter has it it the letter doesn't even have a who to call if you have
questions. So the letter concludes with although your child possesses some characteristics of a gifted learner, he she does not meet the criteria to continue with a gifted referral due to the results below. So, chair,
>> I I my concern in step two, I thought this is what you were going to address in step two. My my concern is um still making the K bit the end- all beall and having specific cut scores that be the end- all beall. That that's my biggest concern. And so, that speaks to how the
letter is written as well. Um because I if if we allow maybe a window of those students that then get to go to portfolio option again I I believe this isn't just gifted like this is in like whatever I think it's gifted and high
achieving students because especially depending on the age of the student being screened they may or may not have had a good day they may or may not you know could if we're using the naglieri versus the k bit I mean they could be a non-verbal student that can be a concert pianist
and we're not actually catering to those specific giftedness characteristics. And so there's that's that's my biggest concern about step two is continuing to consider the K bit the end- all beall like our requirements are more stringent than what the state requires for that k
bit and so and they don't even use the kbit that's anyway um so but I would agree Dr. James that uh how we're verbalizing that I guess written not verbalizing but written um communication
with families about that uh I I think can be adapted some and has room for improvement >> board member comrade >> you're muted you're muted >> you're muted >> was quiet for a long while um chair I I agree with both of those concerns I have
notes on both of those items as I reviewed um this PowerPoint. I'm concerned too about the K bit as the only screener. Um and I also am not happy with the letter that goes home. I think it leaves the parents
feeling that they have no other choice, no other options. And that's not accurate. So I think we have room for improvement in this area right at step two. And I I to me even just taking state statute and putting it in layman's
terms and saying per state statute elemento p as a parent you have the right to request a further evaluation of your child if you so see fit please contact the school guidance counselor at 1234567 for further information about your best next steps to advocate for
your child. Just leave it at that and the parents who are invested and with it are going to invest and be with it. Um, but it to me to leave it off with no next steps as a parent, unless I knew what I know, I would have no idea what to do next. I would have had no concept
of what to do next. >> I don't I think it's more than that. I think it's more than not knowing what to do next. You feel like you don't have a what what's next. You feel like it's I think you read that letter and you feel like you do not have any choices. This this is the decision. Nothing else can be done. And I think that's a dangerous
message for us to be sending. >> I would agree. And I I can I don't have to die on the hill of the cut scores right now because I feel like we have similar to the legislation that we're putting forward. We're having a multi-year plan for the work we want to do with
gifted education at the state level. So same similar to this, I'm not trying to accomplish everything today, but there are some big things that I think we I would like to accomplish today. So, for me, at least adding language in the letter is one thing that I think we could probably I mean, I want to hear
from board member Thrower and um Reverend Cummings, but I do think that's something that I would like to see at least addressed so that parents know their rights. Um do you do board member Cummings or Thrower, do you have anything you'd like to mention on the letter specifically? >> Thank you. Um I don't disagree. I think
anytime we can continue the connection, you know, with families and and help guide them along the way is is a great opportunity. I was uh I was looking at slide 10 also on uh service models in in
middle school and framework and subjectbased structure and focus areas may include and you know there's six little boxes and when I think about middle school and I think about you know two of particularly
students that are very close to my heart um the emphasis on creativity and what you just mentioned and uh board member Campbell about, you know, the concert pianist might be non-verbal leadership and organization and
self-management skills. Those all uh hit me. So, as as we continue to go down this path and looking at pilots and things, I think it's also really important to hear from the middle school principles on on what they see, you know, in the kids at their schools as
the the greatest need where we could have the most emphasis. So those are just a few thoughts I have. Thank you for your work on this so far. >> Reverend Cummings, anything? >> Thank you guys for the presentation. I do think the the letter should be clear.
Um it should uh allow those parents the opportunity to know that there are there are some next steps. Um I think um sometimes our communications, they make sense to us, but they don't make sense to everybody else. >> Absolutely. >> So um we definitely need to clear that up.
Thank you. Well, I think we Mr. White House, I think we're pretty in consensus about that if that's something that we could make happen. I it's not lost on me that the burden of the school psychologists may increase and that may mean that we need to come back and have a discussion about the units allocated for school psychologists. But um I I
think that that's something we need to dig into. um as with step two as well similar to step two what I will also mention you all is I had some um in-depth emails at the end of October with the team about the nagliier the nga
right and so um I asked some questions about a universal screener and so when we do a universal screener in second grade in theory every student who's sitting in second grade the day we do the screener is participating which would include clude
previously identified gifted learners, right? So, for instance, in second grade last year when my second grader was sitting in the classroom, presumably she sat and took the screener. Now, I I didn't actually it just occurred to me to see what she got, but that that's for a conversation for another time to
really hit home on my data here. I asked some questions and I said,"How many of the previously identified gifted learners took the screener in second grade and would not have move forward in the process board."
50% of the students who were already evaluated as gifted who took the screener would not have moved forward in the process to be evaluated. I for one find that incredibly concerning
because in the numbers specifically in the email of 113 students who were identified as gifted and should have taken the um the NGAT only 66 had scores for the NGAT. So several students previously identified
were not administered and some students only took a portion. So, of the 66 students left who took the screener that were gifted already, 34 obtained a 120 or higher. So 50% 51.5% of the already identified
students who were administered the NGAT scored higher which means 49% of them if they had not been previously identified which was probably on behalf of their parent and or teacher would not have moved forward in the process which to me
creates a very clear discrepancy in access to gifted programming and the inadequacies I believe that are in the screening. This data to me is is the ultimate serving platter of the failure of the
screener. Now, that is my testament. You guys can disagree with me, but the fact that 50% of gifted learners didn't pass the screener to get a gifted evaluated is concerning to me. And so, I don't know where we go from here, but I think collectively we have work in the
screener department. staff, maybe if you guys want to add comment to the the I mean this was read straight from Miss Del Nadell's email. So, >> I would. So, um and speaking of that particular screener, which is our universal screen, >> um there's a couple factors that we have to take into account. One of them being
it's digital. You have the student sitting on the computer and they're completing the test on their own. It's not individually administered by an adult, which is the difference between that and a Kbit. Also again, we talked about the difference with the two screeners that universal screener being
like casting a net and trying to see as many students as we can get that we're looking at possibly um being eligible to move forward for evaluation. Whereas the kit we're receiving nominations and then we're looking at a screener who's that's going to help us be more predictive of whether when we move to evaluation if we
think it's likely that they will meet eligibility. Um and so with our that was not a great hit rate and we had um shared that before the kit has a 45% hit rate um as far as screening. Um and then still moving after that we do the full
evaluation and we look at the student. So um when we were looking at the endgap we currently are not um implementing that universal screener this year because of some of this data. >> So what are we implementing >> right now? It's nomination process again. So that's why we gave that
flowchart so that you see it and that's why we're working on even providing that information again to teachers. They have the most um time with the student. They have the most familiarity with the student. Usually our nominations are the best way for us to find not just just
like you mentioned. It's not just looking at their um performance in the classroom but also some of those characteristics. We're making sure that those um observations of those characteristics are being filled out not just by the classroom teacher but also by their specialist teachers so we can get a really good picture of a
well-rounded student and all of their characteristics and all of their accomplishments throughout the you know in their school career and there we get better nominations. Usually with those nominations, we also, especially with these profiles that we want to add to that professional learning, is for them
to really see what that student might look like in the classroom. And when we're talking about our um ELLL students, when we're talking about some of our other students that might not be super high achievers, but they have some qualities that we're hoping those teachers will be able to pick out and then we'll have even better nominations.
>> So, to confirm, because I don't believe this board has received information before today that the universal screener was no longer happening. No. >> Okay. >> Did not know that. >> Nope. That's news today. So, hot off the press. So, we are no longer doing a universal screener, which I'm to be honest, I don't I'm not against not
paying for something that's not working. So, I you know, I don't want to continue to throw money at something that I don't believe is doing the job that we were looking for it to accomplish. I do see value in a universal screener for for a grade. And I want the team, my opinion,
Mr. the White House would be for the team to continue to work forward in trying to figure out a solution for what this looks like because there are students being missed most definitely and how are we how are we finding them? So, um I had one more thing. Um I I'm a
little confused why step five is step five because I believe state law says that after consent is signed, timeline starts. I looked at the Florida Department of Education website to confirm my
thought on this and it is validating my thought pattern. So why are we waiting for a gifted referral packet to be complete by a school counselor for the 90-day timeline to begin? >> So it doesn't that step three and step four usually are happening concurrently.
um when we're sending home that consent for the parent to sign, they're already collecting all those other components. Once we received that uh the consent signed by the parent, then the school counselor is just uploading all of that information into our portal so that the psychologist has access to it and from
there they begin their testing process. >> So I would make the recommendation that step five needs to move on this to step four or step four and five are the same. But this reads as if until a which by the way we have guidance counselors who
are taking an exorbitant amount of time to complete the gifted referral packet. Um I have firsthand account I think probably other board members do from schools um of the cog in the wheel being the counseling office for whatever
reason. And so the way this reads as though the timeline does not begin until the referral packet is complete when actually the timeline begins when consent is signed by the parent which I know we all know. So I would be of the
opinion that this 90-day timeline falls immediately after step three. Um I don't think that it's wise to continue it to be after the gifted referral packet because it is it it should not be. And as a parent, I want I want to make sure our parents understand that that 90-day
timeline begins after consent. >> Y >> I I do have a question, too. Um how and maybe I'm just missed it. I don't know. How are kids who are where
their um primary language is not English, how are they assessed? >> Uh so it depends. It depends on their level um of um language proficiency. Um they can be assessed either in their native language, which I did several times. Um or they can be assessed with a
non-verbal >> with a what? >> Non-verbal measure. >> Verbal measure. >> So, it's looking at their skills, but in the way that the um test is provided, it limits the amount of language that they would have to use. >> Okay.
because I I've always felt that we miss a lot of kids based on language. Um you can see certain signs with them, you can see certain traits, but because of that barrier, um I I think that
sometimes we miss some kids. I know we miss some kids. I won't say I think I know we miss some kids. >> And we have a variety of IQ tests that we use. And so the evaluator is looking at all of that. They look at strengths, they look at limitations, and that's how they select what they believe is going
to be the best measure for that student. >> Thank you. >> So, um, board, I don't I saw Dr. Campbell doing some typing over there about timeline. Did you have any comments on that, Dr. Campbell? >> So, I I was going back to see when the the timeline from step one to step two
because I also have heard some concerns about and I understand it's 24 days. I saw that in the slide. uh potentially from when the parent first requests it to when the kbit is administered. I know we only have a handful of those kbit kits. So it's not like every school
has one. So it's like if a school counselor happens to have a break in their day that they could call kids in to administer the So I mean that that's not an option right now. And I don't know how expensive those kits are, but but that the the process between step one and step two also that the whole process could take the full school year.
I mean, I Yeah, it doesn't look that way on paper, but 90 days in a school calendar is an entire semester. So, I I mean, it it could really take the whole year. I I'm sitting here just listening and processing. I know I've shared my
own personal stories multiple times. I had my I had two of my children screened independently. My third child was recommended in the second week of kindergarten by his teacher. It took the entire This was several years before either one of you were in your spots.
So, but it took the entire year before the student was ever screened and I got one of those letters that probably hasn't been rewritten in decades or whatever. And I stopped I stopped the process because I didn't know what my next So, I'm just sitting here honestly
hearing you. I'm getting angry at myself that I just said, you know what? I'm going to let the course play out. I'm gonna I'm not going to go and pay to have the screening done independently. Did I do my own child a disservice? Potentially, because I just stopped because of what the letter said. So,
that that's causing me real angst sitting over here in my own personal um mulling over, but I also want to let you know hot off the presses, I just got an email from Jessica Janice about gifted. Would you like for me to share that with you all?
So, the education chair has been speaking with our representative who is interested in filing the language and the education chair has some budget concerns about the projected downturn that they're experiencing this year and what that might look like. So, our
representative may be framing a proposal for a pilot program. So, that very well may be how the statute is shifted and it will be a pilot program. Certainly, we would be a part of that pilot. So, within the next uh couple of days, I might need some feedback from you ladies
as to what that might actually look like and how we want to pilot this in Marian County since we're leading this charge. And I'll be talking to the representative potentially even later today to find out what his ideas are. Uh we know we'll have a Senate sponsor on the other side once we figure out what
that looks like. So, uh we understand that this is going to cause budget issues. We understand that it's going to make the state look differently uh at some things that h need to have dollar signs attached to them, but what would
we actually use those dollars for? Is it for stipens or something for gifted endorsed educators? And I think that might be I know that that would have to be bargained, whatever, but I I think that that would be some kind of some incentivebased something to encourage
more gifted endorsed educators. Uh, so just pieces and parts to what that pilot potentially could look like. And without it, we don't need it to carry several million dollars. We needed to carry like reasonable dollars for a pilot program, but at least kind of putting some teeth
to that. Um, that's literally hot off the press's email 11:33. >> Um, board member Thor, >> thank you and and thanks for that bulletin. Um I was hearing about the the kbit kits and to me that's could be a
somewhat lowhanging fruit. Um there's always this sense of urgency, right? Because there's only 180 days in the school year and it goes by so quickly. So, if it's a matter of having additional Kbit kits, then that's something that could certainly be part of pilot funding because what we're
trying to do, I thought with the universal screener was capture more students and and get the ball rolling. Um, I also had written down the gifted endorsement and how much it costs and opportunities to cover, you know, that professional cost. So, those would be
two specifics that I would offer up. >> Well, and it's free with fiddlers. The endorsement is free, right? >> There's no cost to take the courses whether they do them online through us or through Fiddler's. However, it is $75
for the um educator to add that to their certificate through the Florida Department of Education, >> right? Which 75 bucks may not sound like much to some, but when it's like $21 to get something from McDonald's anymore, you know, it all adds up. Well, and typically when you're adding in in the
summer when teachers are not getting paid, you know, so if there's a way we could figure out that um that'd be wonderful, too. Um did you have anything else board member Conrad? >> I do. I just have a couple clarifying um questions. So on the chart on slide six
with the re-evaluation piece, which is 402, that means for all a reevaluation for disability, gifted or prek. Those are reevaluation for any student >> for ESSE categories. >> Okay. >> All right. Um on on slide seven as you
talk about training um on identification. So we have some schools I just wanted to know how you are prioritizing that. So we have some schools that at this point do not have a single gifted student. And so my hope would be is that school is at the top of
your priority list. Um when we look at our I I you know my area is is elementary. So as we look at elementary schools and we look at what percentage of students do they meet what it is is it Dr. Campbell 4% >> 4% >> is 4% of that campus you know have a
gifted population and if they don't I think they should have a star by their name like what can we do to support the teachers and the staff at that school to better identify our gifted students. So, I just didn't know if you guys were already doing that.
>> So, part of that work is really going to be helping teachers understand um the characteristics of gifted those classroom teachers because um to your point last year, everyone was screened. And so, even those schools that didn't
ultimately identify students um still had the screener, but the characteristics are part of the eligibility process. And so there were students who sometimes um may have had scores that would have lended themselves
in that way, but the gifted characteristics identified by the teacher were low. And you have to have a certain preponderance of characteristics across the scale. And often what we see is that for some schools, they don't rate their students as having the gifted
characteristics as opposed to what we see at other schools where they identify more. And so that is definitely training um to understand that gifted may be the kid in the back who's calling out and interrupting your lesson, not just the
kid who's showing up helpful and getting A's on everything. So, so those are training conversations that we're looking to have. And so definitely starting with those schools where the numbers are non-existent or really or
really low is definitely a way to combat the concern that you have addressed. >> I agree because that checklist, if I remember correctly, is really a collaboration. There are pieces of that um checklist that I wouldn't see as their home room teacher. So I would have to go visit with the art teacher or the
music teacher or hand that off. So, I can't just sit down and say, "Oh, I've never seen this. Um, so the student doesn't qualify." So, there really is a collaborative effort that goes into that checklist. >> And when we updated the checklist, so the one that we have now that we share has three different spots for three
different teachers to be able to complete. And then we look at it in its entirety. Um, but again, just like uh Miss Williams Jones was explaining, we're not just defining what those characteristics are, but giving them information about what does that look like, and it might look very different from one student to another.
>> Okay. And lastly, well, one, I want to thank you both. I meant to start with that. Thank you both for your work um on in this area, but I had a question just kind of open-ended. As you see, at least three board members have been approached about finding some way to improve the
gifted process. And so this research that you've done for our two work sessions, did you identify areas that you feel like, wow, we we really do need to work work on this? Is there any, you know, self-evaluation on the process that you want to share with us so we
know, you know, where we're looking to improve? Um, I'll say I think the work that we did last year on that checklist for those characteristics, um, I'm looking forward to see how that rolls out, like what kind of feedback we get from the teachers for that. Um, because I feel
that was that was a labor of love. We took a long time really looking at what we wanted to um, include, how we wanted it to be presented, um, and how we wanted to kind of roll that out. Um, the other part I'll say is this. So, the professional learning, we already had um, those presentations kind of put
together and we shared them. we got some feedback. Um being able to improve them now with some of these um profiles that we got after that session at foil, I think is going to really make that a lot more robust and I think it's going to really bring it to life for the teachers, make it something that's a lot more usable for them in their classroom
and as they kind of conceptualize some of these things that can be difficult concepts. Um so I'm looking forward to their feedback on that. >> Okay. I'm excited about that, too, because sometimes when information comes from here and by the time it makes to the classroom teacher, it's a sheet of
paper with a checklist. Here's your gifted student. Look for these 17 things. Um, you know, and it ends in a in a pile with the other million things for you to do. So, thank you for your work on that. Anything else you'd like to share? >> Um, I just think, um, having the clarity and awareness of how long the process
feels for a parent, um, has been very helpful. listening to you all articulate that. And so even though we are based on the data in those timelines because it is two separate processes for screening and then evaluation from a parent not
understanding that they think the clock starts the first time someone has a conversation with them about making the recommendation. And so I think we can definitely do a better job of the communication that we provide to our parents and also giving them some
updates along the way. So as the screening process is completed, we now say this has been completed now. This is what we're moving into so that they aren't feeling like they're just waiting forever with no communication because I understand how they could definitely see
it in that way. And so I think we can take steps to make sure that we are communicating more clearly and at different phases of the process. >> Thank you so much for that. And I agree with you because I think it's it's difficult on for the parent. It's also
difficult as the teacher because I have a similar well actually many similar experiences um as Dr. Campbell had. when you send in that referral, the screening starts and it's I have parents coming back to me the next school year saying
this is not complete. And so, uh, I really am interested to see what Dr. James' recommendation for the timeline and what our staff is able to do with that because I think that will, um, satisfy a lot of our our staff members
and our parents. So, thank you for your work on that. >> Well, and that's kind of to wrap us up. Dr. Dr. Campbell, I don't if you have something to add on that and then I want >> I did want to ask just a quick question about that just from my own personal experience. Are those evaluations being done
in the timeline of like this referral came so you're next in line, this referral came so you're next in line, or are we prioritizing underrepresented groups ahead of when referrals came in? And that's a very important question because I can assure you before you
ladies were here, it was happening the way I just asked. >> So I would say if you mean just with whatever referrals I've received for gifted testing, they would be done as they were received because we're looking at those due dates and when they have to be done. When we're looking at all
evaluations we've received, remember those other evaluations have a 60-day timeline. So again, we're really trying to balance um what is being done. Even our re-evaluations that don't have a timeline should be done in a timely manner. >> Sure. So I >> if we know there has to be conversations
about changes and services, we're prioritizing it that way. So we really try to be as um responsive to the needs of the student as we can. >> Sure. But just personally and anecdotally, I can assure you that based on when my student was originally told
that we were going to have evaluation and when his student occur, his evaluation occurred was the basically by the end of the school year and many other students were evaluated before him. And so I that's why I asked the question about underrepresented classes.
>> The state holds us to the timeline for every child. And so once the consent is signed, that 90day clock starts ticking. And so they don't make any differentiation at the state level in terms of whether it's an underrepresented student or a student
who would qualify under just the state rule. Everyone lines up by that date. And so that is no other consideration is given for that. >> Thank you. That's helpful. >> Yes. Yes. And I mean, I have heard of scenarios in the in the notsodistant
past where private school students have gotten in the hopper and gotten prioritized over our own students here in Maring County Public Schools. So, I just think it's going to be important that um as private school requests for evaluation come in, they get to join the hopper and get in line just like everybody else. Um, so to land the
plane, um, I I love the handout and I would love if permission to screen includes this because to me a parent getting this with permission to screen would be tremendous because then we are clearly identifying to the parent what the
expectation is. Now my request would be that between step one and two there is a date written above that line 20 school days, 25 school days. It looks like we were averaging 24, right? 24 school days. Yes. Um, so you know, somewhere between 20 and 25 school days, if we
were able to write that in so that parents can say, um, okay, they can look at their calendar and they'll know, you know, I probably shouldn't complain about this until five weeks from now, right? And then from pre-referral process to consent, I would love for the
line to say up to the parent, right? Because the parent has to sign the consent. Um and sometimes we all know the parents take their time signing consent and then expect immediate um move forward. So somewhere on here where
it would say you know expediency on the parent uh will yield a faster 90-day start clock something that was probably way too wordy but you know what I mean. Somewhere to identify that the parent holds the keys to that castle between step two and three. And then my request
would be that that step five moves up because I want it to be very crystal clear that as soon as consent is signed, the timeline begins. So parents can then clock those 90 days and backwards plan into when they should expect that I step six is essentially um where the 90 days
should end. So the board, do you have comments or concerns based on the things I just mentioned? >> I like all of those actually. I it it clears up >> some >> Yes. >> Yeah. Um, board member Thor. I see nodding heads. Okay. >> Just the part because it's absolutely
right. It's the same with, you know, any other exceptional student education program. Once consent is sign, the clock starts ticking and and that became a law for a reason. >> Yes. So, if there's a way we could just clean it up a little bit and then honestly as a as a gifted parent who has signed permissions to screen, I would
love if you if they got this with a very clear timeline of what to expect and when so that everyone knows what the mutually responsible timelines are and how we can try to exceed expectation. So, um are there any further board
comments about gifted? >> I I just have two other things. Um, one I and I don't know if there's consent among board members on this, but I also am am really passionate about because I also see that I IQ scores at certain levels that don't meet meet eligibility
in the seven seven category here that we create some kind of scale that would then give them opportunity to go to portfolio as opposed to just using this kit screener. And I don't know if everybody else agrees with that, but that is is or I guess kit is early on,
but I I just I'm I'm really I am concerned about not capturing every student that we could have portfolios on. And so again, maybe K bits earlier on. I'm I'm just I'm I'm trying to make sure that we're not just thinking gifted, but also
thinking high achieving and ensuring I I know that gifted is the way the law reads, but we're trying to again try and fix some of that. So that I don't know if anybody else has thoughts on portfolio versus just using an absolute end- all beall cut score and if we had
enough of us agree that we need to look a little more deeply into other students than just >> Yeah. I I mean I'm interested in that. Um I also am interested in have we researched other screeners? Like is is this all that's available? We have two that's a universal screener that we're
not happy with the results cuz >> so we did also reach out to other districts in terms of the screeners that they use and um using a gifted screener and there are two versions of the nagleary. So, the one that we used was
the general ability. Um, the one that I've used in previous districts was the the nonverbal um version of his assessment. And the results were similar. Um, so and the cost associated with only
identifying few students is why many districts no longer use that one. There are some other um paperbased measures and some other things. um as a school psychologist when I was doing evaluations um the Otis Linen screening
was a a a teacher nominated screening that was then done um time inensive on the front end but results were better um on the back end with those nominations. So there are some things that um that we can definitely research more in depthly
and then look to see what's going to be the best fit um for us because districts are kind of all over the place. Most of them are landing on teacher nomination um with then a second layer so that
they're not testing everyone that um is nominated. So I think if we can refine that second piece because we I agree that the teachers are going to be our best source of information for potential giftedness in our students. And so then
what would that next step look like for them? Um I think is where we are in terms of trying to fine-tune what that next piece is so that we can then get the right students to um full evaluation by the school psychologist. So I might ask then is there potential
to have a gifted update at some point before July? You know going in you guys spend some time um looking for new screeners talking about the um advanced academics and the choice forms. Bring us back an update of how many students have chosen that as an elective. Are we going
to implement it? And have a gifted update conversation near the end of the school year potentially leading into the summer. um so that we could maybe discuss things and talk through what if any other changes we'd want to make ahead of the next school year. >> Yes, that's fine. >> Okay.
>> Okay. And can I go ahead and make a request as part of that update? I know you mentioned that um you reached out to about 10 districts and so I don't want to make this labor intensive, but you've got you shared with us to kind of a a hot list today. You know, just what they
did in Lake County and Bvard County. And when you when you update us, can you share with us what the 10 districts you spoke with what they did um similar to what you shared with Lake and Bvard um so we have an idea what all is being done in in the counties around us. >> Absolutely.
>> All right. Thank you so much. >> Worried any further conversation? >> The middle school uh conversation was what I was the other thing I was going to bring up because I was looking just at slide nine again that you know that's a a snippet of something that's been taken from somewhere else. So I'm not sure what that um the middle school
framework subjectbased structure that's >> so we created the picture we took from somewhere else right the actual boxes is what we were looking at in terms of as we look to more clearly define what we do in Marian County for middle schools
these are areas of focus and so um you know social emotional needs and concerns is always um of our gifted learners is always an area of priority and so in looking at where we want to be that could fit into you know organizational
self-management skills. So it would be this is kind of just a framework of focus and then we would tailor that particularly through the academic class um in terms of what we feel our students need to know um in order for that elective to be really beneficial for
them. >> Okay, perfect. I just knew that that graphic had come from somewhere else because that was number 52 in the upper right hand corner and I was like okay this entire slide came from somewhere else and I was curious where the source was of of from where that had come. But um nevertheless that's what I was asking potentially that we get an update on
what the future of middle school uh gifted models look like for our district and potentially obviously session will end in March if we get all the things and acting and we also know this is a long game. We may not get what we're asking for this year, but if we could
get a pilot going, we may not get that this year, but we know that this is something that needs to be happening statewide because other schoolboard members when we start bringing this up, they all agree. They're all like, "Huh, you know what? You're absolutely right." And I talk to lawmakers and they'll be
like, "You know what? In middle school is when I kind of fell off the cliff, too." And so, we all can kind of identify if you're either the parent of a gifted student or you were a gifted student. Florida doesn't really do this well. I mean, I'm just frankly honest. We may used to have done it well, but
we're not doing it well right now. >> We did when I when I was in middle school, we had a separate gifted class. You went you were pulled and went gifted class. >> So, it anyway >> stopped, but it stopped. >> But it stopped. So, like again, we maybe used to do it well potentially even when Dr. James was still there and but I
things have changed and we got to get back to some of the good old days because we used to do things way better in some areas as we've been talking. Thank you. >> I think we have some firm next steps and we'll come back and have a conversation in the late spring about a gifted update um understanding that how we'll deliver
middle school model potentially next year from Maring County. Maybe we'll have some decisions from the legislature and we can just kind of um have a little bit of an update from staff. But we are very thankful for the work you all did and brought forward to us today. Mr. White House, did you have anything to add? >> Ma'am, I think we have some pretty clear
next steps. >> Awesome. Is there any public comment on this item? Okay. Wonderful. Well, thank you ladies for being here today. Board, we're going to just go through 6.1. Um, Attorney Powers and I have discussed that, you know, we're going to have a workforce housing discussion. We're going to get a
a brief update with a concise next steps as a board that we need to um decide on how we're going to proceed. So, um, I will hand it over to Attorney Powers to kick us off for the workforce housing discussion item 6.1. >> Thank you. And I'll try to keep a fivem
minute timer here to give you the details of what >> I like it. >> Okay. Uh, as you know, we successfully resolved nearly all the lease terms that were unclear or problematic through multiple meetings with Upward over the past few months. So, Upward's been cooperative in that respect. The point
was to narrow down the focus to those issues that are harder to resolve. We've been waiting for upward to provide a me final memorandum of laws justifying certain details of their lease ownership taxation theories of their business model in a way that we can verify like CA case law statutory sites attorney
general's opinions. We've only received n received non-final drafts of that. So we don't have it. The proposal that they submitted also did not there was a 3P PPP um structure also did not contain significant financial details. So, I've
been in conversation with um our finance department and also with our um with our uh department with Miss Usher with facilities in order to go over some of those details. Um so, in the interim, I commissioned our bond count our bond council to
review and report any potential negative impacts on our debt credit ratings because that's one of the big issues that we're going to need to deal with. um board as is the proposal they submitted. I I would recommend rejection
as well as I believe that that is an opinion shared by other staff. I'll let them speak for themselves, but in my conversations um it's not viable at the point that we're at. Not with the projections we have. It's not to say it
couldn't change, but what they submitted, what they've turned into us is not a viable way of going about things because we don't have those financial projections. Um, we also, um, I had, um, George
Smith, our bond council, review specifically as to, um, the, uh, consequences it could have to our to our bond rating.
He did review those. uh his indication was that um the debt ratings issued in connection with school terms school board's long-term debt um those obligations would increase under the master lease uh since the school board
guarantees the teachers rents rent rent payments that proposes some problems for us and it does create issues that would lead to a decision the board needs to make. One is, do we reject at this point
the project, tell them go back and get it to a structure that is going to work for us? Do you want staff, including myself, to continue to work with them to build it as opposed to just having them submit a project to us? Because as of
right now, staff, the attorney are are working with them and putting in a lot of resources to do those things. Um or the third option um would be to hire a feasibility consultant. And the
feasibility consultant is what um our bond councils recommended. If we want to go forward, if we want to go forward, we need somebody to do a deep dive into this and determine exactly what degree of risk this presents to our bond ratings. Um
it's a project which has good potential. It is also one which is currently not ripe on the vine. So it would require some additional work and at this point if we are going to consider and continue
um then we would need to make sure that we have the ability to to review that structure and that would require somebody specifically as a feasibility consultant to do so. Now the only other thing that I will add is that
beyond a feasibility consultant um the exception or rejection of the project is submitted at this stage. At this stage we don't have financial projections to be able to say this is a good enough idea to accept.
We like the idea. I think everybody the board has all has all discussed that. I've discussed that. I like the idea. I believe staff likes the idea, the practicalities and it it's simply a
matter of the fact that there are there is a considerable amount at stake when it comes to our bond and debt ratings. um that and it is a very long-term commitment and as a result it warrants very careful consideration because we
need to be sure. We need to be certain and this is a project which is so far unique under Florida law. It's not been done here. There are other um entities but governmental entities that have been approached with this same process and
they are incin deals but those deals are not also those deals aren't at the completion level that we have. It's it's they're they're dealing with those at the more rudimentary level. Yes, we want to work with you. We'll figure out the details
later in order for us to move forward. We want to give those details up front. So those are the disc discussion points for the board or decision points for the board. At this point we'll go through the process of either accepting rejecting the um it's not a decision the
board has to make today. It's something that that submitted as a PPP. Miss Usher and I and um Mr. Welsh can address that further. But I think that at this point you know which direction we're going with that.
But if it is to be considered again or considered in more detail um and we don't even know for certain yet that they are willing to do so. What we do know is that um there's been some discussion as to whether they want to continue moving forward this project
with us or whether they don't want to continue and I don't know the answer to that. So, I've reached out to their attorney in order to have them give us an answer on that. I can't communicate directly with them. I have to communicate via their attorney. So, um
we'll find out some answers as to which direction they want to go as well. >> All right, board. So, to summarize and then we'll take questions. I just want to summarize what what attorney P has asked us. Um, our options essentially what which can be decided today or not are to accept or reject the bid that the
proposal that we have in front of us to continue to massage the bid that we have in front of us and try to figure out how to get to an end zone which probably will require us to purchase um some feasibility work to be done. Um so the three options are are outlined there. um
accept and reject, continue to work it out, and then a feasibility uh feasibility study I believe was the framework you used. So um board, let's open it up to questions um comments. Oh, board member. >> Thank you. Yes. And I heard what you
said loud and clear. Um I also agree that this for us probably isn't ready for prime time. However, uh what continues to resonate in my mind is that at the beginning teacher salary in Florida, teachers
cannot afford to live on their own. So, we really need to be mindful of opportunities to attract great talent to our county. And these kinds of partnerships I I believe are probably
going to uh be part of of of the future. Um we know that workforce affordable workforce housing is a crisis in this county. Um
the first two things that jump into my mind are well there's no point in having further conversation if they don't want to continue. So we need to get that question answered. if they do want to continue, what I would want to know is what would be the cost of this feasibility consultant because I'm not
interested in compromising our bond rating without really deep expertise and and advice. Uh the other thing that's on my mind is that I believe it's Hayes County, Texas is supposed to be doing this and maybe are a little further down the road uh in their progress. Maybe,
maybe not. Haven't heard an update on that recently, but that would be something that I would be watching. you know what's happening in other states where these partnerships are being cultivated. I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater because I think it's a great concept. Um I agree
with that, but we need to really make sure we have specific questions answered and continue to proceed with caution. And thank you very much for all the due diligence so far. I know it's been a lot of work for staff that has was unanticipated.
Um, but anytime there's a new and innovative idea, it's the idea is great, you know. It's the I hate to invite the devil into the room, but that that's where the details are, you know. Um, so those are my immediate thoughts. >> Board member Conrad. >> Yes. Um, thank you, Attorney Powers, for
that update. I I agree. Um, when this was presented, it really was a a pie in the sky. We were all super excited. Um, but there has been some challenges um along the way. And I do um my thoughts align pretty closely uh to board member throwers. Um another question that I
have is have we received any input from our staff like do they feel there's a need? I know that um upwards did their own survey but I don't believe the boards received any information on how our staff um the people that are working
for us now feel about this idea. uh you know how much interest is there in our area and so I'm interested in knowing that. Um I also want to know how much a consultation how much we're looking at that would how much that would cost us.
And then also I'd like to know how much how many hours our staff has already put into this project because I know initially in the position of chair I know that Terry spent 40 hours on the initial kickoff just of this
um contract lease agreement. So I'm just interested. I know each um area is putting in a lot of work um that was not anticipated. Not that it's not a great idea, but I'd like to know as we're moving forward, how much time has
been invested by our staff to get this up and in front of us. >> Mr. White House can probably work on the staff side of it. Yeah, >> I'm sure attorney P can speak for um his staff, but I think otherwise Mr. White House, we would just need to know that number from your side of the table.
>> Just an approximation. I just every time you visit with an department, you they're sharing, you know, this is hours and hours. has been very labor intensive for our team uh because the agreement that came to us was not anywhere near being being ready for us to sign. So
anyway, those are um the comments I have. >> Okay. And I'm keeping a log of everything, so I'll recap at the end. >> All right. Thank you. Uh, Reverend Cummings, >> um, we we were presented with this um, some months ago and everyone that heard
the presentation thought it was a great presentation. Um, great idea. I've talked to other counties that are also doing some type of workforce housing or whatever. Um, it is it's an awesome awesome proposal.
However, um, at the risk of our bond rating, it's not an awesome proposal. At the risk of the things that's going is going to cost us right now, I'm not saying kick it all off the table, but I'm just saying right now, I don't think I think we need to be cautious in how we
approach this um this um this venture. And and as uh Vice Chair Conrad just said, um we don't even know if our staff want this. Um they haven't expressed overwhelming interest in this being um
brought forth through our district. And then um I just think right now there's uh there's there's red lights and there's there's yellow lights. And I think we're seeing some yellow lights right now. >> And if I may, I I believe that it's very
possible that that nearly anyone who heard the idea of a reduced cost workplace housing is going to say, "Yes, we want it." Who wouldn't? Um the only question becomes we didn't receive any financial projections, >> right? >> And whatever financial projections we
would receive would need to be based on some, you know, some formula, something that tells us why we because if it if it doesn't work out that way, then the the actual amount saved is perhaps
not much different than renting anywhere. If it works out gang busters, then wonderful. It's a big savings. Um, we don't know that and we can't other than just saying, well, you know, we hope we we don't have that information. >> The other piece to that is, as I said,
I've talked to other districts that are doing some type of workforce housing. Um, Orange County is doing some things. Oyola County is doing some things. Um, it's not necessarily that they did they use the same model that this is being presented to us. Um Miss uh Dr. Campbell
was there where we heard presentations where um as developers were building apartments, they allocated so many apartments within their complex for their school district at a reasonable discount. So there's other ways that we can look at this. There's other models
that we can still accomplish the same thing. I'm just not sure right now that this this model is going to be right for Marian County, especially with the the yellow lights and the red lights that I'm seeing. That's where I'm at with
this. Uh and definitely um you're talking about a feasibility study. How much is that going to cost us? >> He doesn't know. >> I I don't know the answer to that. I would first need to find out who we would hire for such a feasibility study and then >> and that would be a cost that we would
incur that. I would say that that the amount of time I would want them to do in order to do a deep dive would not be would not be inexpensive. >> Correct. So, >> Dr. Campbell, >> so my belief is that
we should pause and not reject. So, that's going to be because I I don't like the word reject at all because that makes it sound like we have absolutely no interest to move forward with anything with Upward Communities. What I believe to be potentially occurring
is them understanding the bond rating challenges that they did not understand in the state of Florida and understanding that not every district has certificate of participation that they're dealing with. So I I understand those two things. I
also believe that they have the potential to work with other municipalities within Marian County to then create projects that would allow us to do an interlocal agreement with those said municipalities.
So if we use the word reject, it seems to me as if we would be saying we don't even want to entertain that thought. I >> I agree completely with what you're saying. >> Right. So I am not in the rejection phase whatsoever. I that was a recommendation. >> Nobody said
>> no no no it was a recom it was a word that attorney powers used as one of the options. So I just want to ensure that we're not using that one as an option on the table. Uh because I do think that I mean they did ink a deal in Franklin County like it's already moving forward
but because Franklin has their county working directly with their school district and so they're working in a collaborative and so that's um they're going to actually be ahead of us which is is fine. It is what it is. Uh again certificate of participation is causing
challenges that they weren't anticipating is my understanding. So uh I am in a pause phase. is I don't think our district staff needs to do anything else on this right now. This is my from this seat from all that I know about this. Just sit on it and let's wait and
see if and when they get something in the works with one of our other municipalities or multiple municipalities. There's lots of conversations happening at those levels and then that would require an interlocal agreement just with that municipality or multiple municipalities
on how many of those units would be set aside for Marian County Public Schools. In the interim, to Reverend Cummings point, it doesn't hurt for our district staff as a recruitment and retention
effort to start trying to talk to local communities that are being built. What it looks like to set aside 510 units for our employees specifically. That's how Orange County is doing it. They have 21,000 employees. So if they're getting 10 here, 10 there, it's barely
scratching the surface, but they have dozens of those started and they're going to continue to work in that direction to the point of our staff wanting this or not, I believe, in the staff that I've spoken with, and I know that they've at least
spoken to our largest school staff and and we're going to be speaking to others, but they're not now. I mean, all of that's on pause, but um I believe that our staff was kind of a like a wait and see. They're not going to come out and say, "Absolutely, I want to do
that." Because they kind of thought it wasn't going to happen anyway. And so that that's where I I think staff is kind of sitting. And based on what we're talking about right now, it very well might not happen. And so why jump out and say yes, I am ready to sell my home
and move into this if that's not even something that's going to be on the table in a year to three years from now. So um that's where I sit >> and I I'll just say um I echo a lot of the sentiments that have been shared today. So and in an effort to summarize while also sharing my own opinion um I
think one of the things that was mentioned is do they want to continue working with Marian County Public Schools? So, I would love a conversation to occur where um I heard things just Saturday night at an event um I was sitting at a table um of someone who's
been to our meetings on behalf of Upward who shared testaments that were very different than the conversation we're having today. So, I'm not sure we're all on the same page, meaning us and them about where we are in this process. Um, and so I,
you know, if they want to continue, I would love even just as one board member, and maybe I'm unique, but I would love for Upward to articulate what their needs are because I I would love to figure out how to make something work for our community, but
to also validate all of the concerns that have been mentioned by the board and and by you, Attorney Powers. So, I'd like to know, do they want to continue? Um, and we've heard that from other board members. We'd like to know if we did a feasibility study uh or consultation, how much would that cost? If we can get a quote for understanding
that and the scope of what that work would cost and I've heard a couple different board members request a survey to staff. Um, maybe it's vague, Mr. Christian, maybe that could be something that gets worked on from your department about um, you know, to our staff if this
were to be an option, would you be interested? something along those lines so that we have some form of basis to understand what workforce housing what a desire for workforce housing could look like. And maybe that's more of a survey to say what are their current living
arrangements. Are you renting? Are you owning? Do you have roommates? Are you living independently? Do you live with your parents? Are you looking for a permanent housing? Are you looking for home ownership? Do you want to stay a renter? Those are the kinds of questions I would think a survey would have. not necessarily the desire for workforce
housing opportunity, but more to understand the housing situation that our employees are currently in. Um, which Mr. Christian I'm sure can hash out with staff and kind of figure out what that could look like. But, um, those were the things that I summarized from
everyone. Um, is there anything I missed? Board member Far, >> I I agree with the wholeheartedly with the survey and getting a baseline because I know having had rental properties um I've had tons of interest
through the years and including you know we have a little detached guest house. I mean there there is a sense of desperation >> in trying to find somewhere to live especially if they have a dog or a cat um that's in a safe
neighborhood and I 100% agree that we don't want to squatchch the opportunity for vibrant partnerships to blossom. This is an issue. I will go on the record to say that this is an issue and that if we can find some ways to creatively solve it with our community
partners, other elected entities and you know continue as you said I agree with you board member Campbell at this point a pause is necessary because we have questions that need to be answered before we can move forward anymore anyway. Y
>> So, so those are those are my definite thoughts and I would love to be at the forefront of providing for our employees innovative ways to not only come to work for us but stay working for us and the state of Colorado has done some really
good work in this respect. In fact, an ad that we lost to Colorado can weigh in on the nice townhouse he's living in at a very cheap price. So, so we can um I think that kind of summarizes Oh, board member Cummings. >> And and I I love the idea of the survey.
Um in that survey, I would love to see some type of numbers where our staff would feel is a comfortable or a good number as far as um >> what they can afford. >> And what they're paying now, >> right? You know, what are they paying
now for what are they getting and what they could afford? >> The type of housing. >> Type of housing. Yeah. So that the type of housing and um I think that if we were to ask them like what they could afford, I think it needs to be based on like a percentage of their current income as opposed to like a dollar
amount because again this kind of is a learning thing for everybody. But people may think that they can afford only 10% of their current salary. Well, that that's not also logical. So uh just want to make sure we don't necessarily put a dollar amount on that. But I like the
thought process of how you would conduct the survey. I don't personally want the survey to say would you be interested in >> No, I just I think it's a it's a workforce housing survey. So, I mean it's a it's a current employee housing
survey. So, what what does your housing situation look like currently as an employee of Maring County Public Schools? >> I I will be interested to see how many people actually complete the survey because it does feel like a really intrusive kind of question to be asking. Um, but it has to be framed from the
perspective of Marian County Public Schools is currently looking at how other districts are addressing workforce housing needs of their employees. With that in mind, we would like to ask the following questions. I mean something to and you can go back and
listen to how I just said that, but and and is this going to be every employee all almost 7,000? Absolutely. >> The other districts Well, you were there. >> I was talking about every employee. What else? bus driver, whatever. It was extended to
every employee in the district. But definitely um in that survey, type and size of housing, whether you're looking at apartments, duplexes, small houses, what I would like to know all those >> renting a room in a house. >> Right. Right. Right. A um like a dorm,
you know, if it's a single person. Um my daughter when she was in college, you know, they had the four things, but they all had their own back. >> God, right? The sweet Yep. So, I think we've kind of summarized Oh, board member. >> One other thing. Um, Mr. Christian, this is a question for you because I don't
know how um to word it, but in speaking with people at schools, teachers and and other um staff, the response I get first is just pay us more. Just pay us more. And so, is there a way in there to include that this really is a community
conversation? We're looking for some of the things that were shared here at the end are it may be a community partnership. So it's not it's not not just Marian County Public Schools paying more because we already know that 78% of
our budget is goes out to paying our staff and so there's not a lot of wiggle room there so much for salaries, >> right? And so, um, I just I don't want them to feel like flippantly, oh, just pay us more and that's the answer to everything because we're we really are
looking for some community partnerships and how to help um build up our community as a whole, >> right? >> And essentially then they would be getting paid more. >> Correct. >> More. But that's not what they say first off. >> Oh, I know. >> All right. Thank you for that, Dr.
James. So, I think we um we have a work session December 18th, so about a month from now. So, I would love to see this as an agenda item on December 18th and maybe we can have um had some some answers to the questions we asked. Um cost of a feasibility consultant um
potentials for a survey to go out either before Christmas or after um and does Upward want to continue working with us? Is this a mutually beneficial relationship? And do they see a desire to continue working with us as well? Um, and so we'll I would love for us to be able to get a refresh on all of that uh
at the end of December before we go on winter break and then we can kind of go from there board. Does that sound like something that works for everybody? >> Yeah, I can answer the upward community is I mean I can get answers to that. I can also try to envision what a feasibility
consultant's going to be and and get with probably our bond attorney and find somebody that might be able to give me a quote on that role. But it's gonna be >> that's fine. >> Gonna be vague. I can't, you know, it'll be difficult to say something very specific as far as the survey goes. Kind
of out of my area. So, >> yeah, but I think Mr. Christian has a good idea. He's been taking notes and I'm sure Mr. White House and Dr. Brewer can work on what some next steps for that could look like. >> All right. Um, anything to add, Mr. White House?
Now just a clarification that we are going to pause any other staff work on this particular project with the exception of obviously what's going to be required for developing the survey. >> I believe we've all agreed that we're going to take a deep breath and pause here and look at gathering some more
information so we can have a most informed next step forward if we decide to proceed. >> Okay. Is there any public comment on this item? All right. Hearing none, we will go into a board member um committee reminder uh
meeting reminders. We do have a special administrative briefing and work session scheduled for December 1st, 2025 at 9:00 a.m. Um the topic there is solely to discuss the superintendent search. So if the community is interested in participating in that discussion, we will be receiving information and
feedback from the firm we've hired on that. Uh, we will then have a school board meeting December 9th at 5:00 pm, 5:30m and a special board meeting on December 18th at 7 a.m. for expulsion matters followed by a briefing and work session
at 900 a.m. Um, we will go into board member comments. Attorney P, do you have anything? >> I do not. Thank you. >> Okay. Uh, Miss Martinez Young >> and Mr. White House. >> Yes, ma'am. Thank you. I have a few things I would like to share. Um, first of all, Miss Connor's been uh displaying
this nice t-shirt for me as a reminder that today is uh National Great American Smokeout Day, and we appreciate our partnership with fans um to make sure that we are providing education to our students on making healthy life decisions and and this is a part of that work. So, we we certainly value and
support that effort. Um we did last Friday get to recognize our principal and assistant principal of the year for this school year. So, we were able to surprise uh Miss Lori Manresa, principal at Hillrest as our principal of the year and uh Miss Aisha Pete at North Marin High School as our AP of the year. We
have some fabulous administrators in this district that work really hard to support the our schools, our teachers, our students. Um and it was great to be able to to honor two of them uh for the work that they're doing as shining examples of of all of our administrators and we look forward to them continuing on in the state process. Uh we did begin
our strategic planning this past Monday on the 17th. Um we had a a great showing of support from folks not only within our school system, but we had uh community members, parents, uh business members that attended. We had a student member um which was really great to have
Luke Lombardo as a part of that conversation. He was fantastic um throughout that. And um I felt we really had some great conversation about laying the foundation for a new strategic plan. Um, and I'm going to come at a future work session to be able to share some of those conversations with you all to engage you all in that foundational work
that we're doing with the new strategic plan. Um, and and to continue to work through that process and we will have lots more to come on that in the coming months. Uh just a reminder to families, schools are closed next week for Thanksgiving break and we certainly wish
everybody um a wonderful Thanksgiving season and time for us to be able to remember all the things we are thankful for um and to spend time with family and loved ones. Um but it's also a time for us to remember that we have a lot of people in our community that are in need. Um and and not everybody is in the
same place. And it it really warms my heart when we go to schools and we see a lot of our schools are trying to support that effort with food drives, with coat drives. Um, part of our responsibility in public education is also teaching civic responsibility and community service. And we've got a great showing
of that of of our schools that are really trying to lift each other up to support our families and community members that are in need um and really make sure that we're embracing all those around us and and showing support and love for our community. And so we certainly play our role in that part.
That's all my comments. >> Thank you, Mr. White House. We'll take it down to Dr. Campbell. >> Thank you. Uh just briefly, I was grateful for the time I just spent at the Excel and Ed National Summit flew in last night. That is a jam-packed session
of basically two days, but actually more like 36 hours. Sessions I attended included Pathways that matter, keeping up with AI, the power of data in education, an update on federal education policy, phones and focus, turnaround of New Orleans schools, which
is fascinating by the way, crisis leadership, reimagining rural education, and the state of modern discourse. Just a lot of notes I took and can't wait to come back to can't wait to sit down with Dr. through and talk through some of the
things that we might be able to do apart from just waiting on ed policy to change. I think there's a lot that can be done uh that we can just kind of reimagine how we've done some things. So, um that was a wonderful time and
just happy Thanksgiving to everyone out there and I appreciate what Mr. the White House just shared because it's an imperative time for us to be grateful for the things that we have and the blessings that we've received, but also understand that not everyone has the
same resources and opportunities that we all have. We should be blessed for the ones that we have, but also continue to be a blessing to others. That's it. >> Thank you, Reverend Cummings. >> Thank you, U Chair Chair James. Um
this is it's been a very productive meeting once again this morning a great two great presentations that we've heard. Um I do want to say as as Mr. White House said Dr. Kim, this is that time of the year where um
we should be grateful every day, but we should also realize that some of us are in different places than other people. And everybody doesn't some people look like they're doing well, but they don't not necessarily doing well. So, we have to take those things consideration and
be mindful of that. And um even some of our staff being able to look at our staff that are that show up every day that put it in every day and yet um they moments away from being homeless or hungry. So we have to remember to think
about that when we um when we do things. So, um I'm I'm praying that um if there's people out there that need resources or or or going short somewhere that they reach out to different folk because there are some helps out there
for different folk and even like I said even our staff members as well. Um, we would be surprised who we walk by every day on the campus or in the hallway who who has a legitimate need, but they're they don't they don't want they don't they they can't allow themselves to be
seen in a certain light. So, um, I I encourage our leaders in the district to to observe your people and where you can help help um where you need some help, reach out to others that may can be able to help you in those situations.
Um, looking forward to being being off next week. God knows I am looking forward to some time away. I think all of us need a little bit of a little bit of time away because we we're running when when uh Dr. Camel came in, her voice was as deep as mine this morning.
>> Yes. >> I say you sound like me today. >> I know. >> So, so, so um and and this is the time of the year where we get to celebrate family. So, it's a festive time. Um, I know we have the our our Christmas parade coming up on the 13th. Looking
forward to that. I saw the text about um the float and everything like that, but also this is the time of the year that y'all always kind of get me. So, I'm I'm going to jump out first and say this. So, let's go ahead and put on the calendar chair James about ugly ugly
sweater >> um meeting. Um we have a meeting on the 9th and we have a work session on the 18th. I want us to declare today that that's going to be ugly sweater work session and ugly sweater board board meeting Jeremy >> and the 18th
>> the 9th is the board meeting and the 18th. >> Oh, we're doing it on the board meeting night too. Okay, >> we gonna do both and everybody everybody everybody Elena you too me and you too. >> Grinch, >> but everybody I think that's I think
that's a great way for us to go into the holiday season. um even encourage those who are coming in recognitions to wear their ugly sweaters. Some sometimes we just need to sometimes the healing comes through smiling and we may need to do it
that way. So that's my ask James >> and Miss Connor will have to communicate with our student board reps. Thank you for being here Miss Connor. That's perfect timing. >> Mr. Welch don't come in here in no suit. Kevin put it out there right now. So got ample
time to go to amazon.com sweater. So Jeremy, you too. >> He gets in the spirit. >> That's my comments. >> He'll have his hat on. >> Yeah, he'll have the hat and the reindeer >> and some flashing lights. >> Yeah. >> All right. Board member Conrad.
>> All right. Thank you. Um, Chair James, I have just a few things. Um, Dr. James, I wanted to thank you and Dr. Campbell for the conversation earlier. we were winding up. So, I didn't um slide this in, but the fast fact video with our county commissioners um that's an idea
that I shared with Dr. Brewer um early on because I was, you know, they were coming across my feed and I thought this is a great tool. Um so, anyway, wanted to thank both of you for sharing that because I I do think um there's some opportunity uh there for us to share our
story and the work that we're doing um in a threem minute segment. So anyway, thank you for that. And then I'm going to steal Reverend Cummings saying, healing comes with smiling. And so I have several um things I just want
to say thank you um for. Um this last week we went to um Buddy Oswald invited us to the Braver Angels >> meeting and I just wanted to say thank you. Two other board members showed up to that meeting. Um,
and I don't know how you felt when you left, but I was really proud that there were three school board meeting, school board members there. Um, our mayor was there. We had several um, city councilmen there. And so it was great to be in that space together. Um, so I just appreciate you all taking time. Uh, we
didn't know, you never know who's going to be where, but I was happy to see you there. And so, thank you for taking um, that time. I also want to say thank you to our staff. We had a town hall meeting at North Marian was very successful. Um it went very well, but it required all
of our staff to be there uh you know all evening whole evening. So I'm just really grateful. The work never stops. Um those are the things you may not see, you know, on the other end of the television screen, but I'm just really really grateful for that. Um a dedicated
team. Um, I'm in the middle actually winding up Golden Apple observations. So, I'm excited I get to turn those in today or tomorrow. Megan, if you're listening, they're done. Um, so anyway, just really excited to move on to the next uh phase of that. It's always fun
to be able to We're on campuses as board members, but I don't get to get in classrooms, you know, like I used to. So, it's um really fills my cup to be in classrooms and seeing teachers and students um doing what they do every day. Um we had a great time at the FAFO
art show at the Appleton. Really a great opportunity for our students that are artists and you know that is their gift um to be showcased in such a nice um environment. seeing the Appleton, getting being able to see all of those
students and their administrators, their art teachers all in one space. So, that's always um a fun time and I'm just thankful for that opportunity. Um board members, I did want to ask, think a teacher is on Friday. There's two. I didn't know who was a Okay, you're able
to go to both. >> Yes, ma'am. I'll be at both. >> And you're away. Okay. >> Second one to one. >> One. The first one or second one? Do you know >> the second one? Okay, Dr. Campbell, what's your calendar like? >> I have them on my calendar. The hope is
that I'll be able to get out of my other meeting to to >> because I'm kind of in that same predicament. The first one may be hard for me to get to, but I will be at the second one. I just wanted to make sure we were represented. >> I will be at the first one for sure. >> Okay, perfect. Okay, great. Thank you all. Um, that's always a a fun and
exciting time, too. Um, and a reminder that Friday we have our attendance boundaries advisory committee meeting. It's the first one. Friday at 4 o'clock here at MTI. And >> we all submit names. >> Yes. Well, to the best of my knowledge, we've all submitted names and we're
ready to go quick. We are thankful. Thankful. So thankful to the community, those of you that said yes to serving on this committee because it was um a very quick turnaround. So, we're just really grateful um for our community for stepping in and helping us accomplish this. So, um wishing everyone a happy
and safe Thanksgiving. All right, that's all I have. >> Remember, >> thank you. And I will share my own uh hopes for a safe and and peaceful and wonderful Thanksgiving um for for everyone. And there is a lot to be
grateful for. You know, having the opportunity to make a positive impact um every single day is something that I continue to cherish. I'd like to give an extra hug to Fort King Middle School. Um it was
it just continues to be really hard on my heart. Um, and when you're in the thick of it, uh, with what kids and and staff, um, directly experience, um, during those emergencies is
hard to describe. you know, you do what you have to do in the moment, but when it's all over, and I have the opportunity to reflect, I just continue to uh pray hard for a shift in society that is greatly needed uh sooner than
later. Um, so we we we all deserve that. So, with with that, I am looking forward to ugly two opportunities for ugly sweaters. Maybe I shouldn't admit that I have a lot of ugly sweaters. I'll have a chance to show them off. Thank you. >> Thank you. Uh board, we got an update
for the committees and I was going to disperse it, but I actually realized there is a committee missing. Um probably about six months ago, I was asked to join the local technology planning team, which is called the LTPT. So, I'm going to have Miss Martinez Young add that to the list and then um we'll disperse that list just to make
sure everyone's okay with it. But, um that meets monthly on Mondays in the afternoon um talking about broadband expansion in Marian County. So, um, it's been nice because we've been able to connect them with schools and get into schools to give parents information about access to internet at home. So,
that's been great. Um, I want to, uh, shout out to the North End and Miss Pete for assistant principal of the year. That was wonderful to be able to attend. There's just so many wonderful things that are happening on our campuses. Lots of Thanksgiving lunches at our elementary schools. Um, I got to I was
grateful actually this is the first year I was able to attend my own children's because normally they're on Thursday and we have a work session and so it was yesterday and so I was able to attend and it's such a good magical time on elementary campuses. So as we go into the holidays I hope everyone has a safe
holiday and week off and remember that attendance matters and we expect you back bright and shiny on Monday when you come back from break board. in your inboxes, you would have seen some calendar invites for the Martin Luther King activities.
We received some very timely um information and emailed to us. So, I had Miss Martinez Young just send it out. Board, if you would be able to as we approach the dates um change your RSVPs accordingly so we can make sure we have representation there, that would be tremendous. I wanted because once it's
on our calendar, then we can all see it. Um but I did make sure it was all on everyone's calendar so you guys um will know when all the events are. Um the Ocala I also submitted our um request to be in the parade as well. So Miss Martinez Young will get that submitted
on our behalf. Um the tourism annual meeting is coming up. This may have landed in your inboxes. It did not I found it in my spam. So I wanted to bring it to your attention because I was contacted by um Samantha Solomon. The meeting is December 11th.
Um, it is from 8 to 10:30 and there are guest speakers. Our our presence has been requested and so I didn't know if anyone was intending to already go. Uh, Dr. Campbell, I see I had none. So, Dr. Campbell is intending to go. >> It's a Yes, it's a World Equestrian
Center and and um I I had it on my calendar for another reason. So, I didn't actually get the invite this way, but I haven't intended to be there. >> Okay. >> I cannot attend. I have an event that day. >> Okay. Um, I also had a few other things booked that day. So, it was going to be a struggle for me to go, but Dr. Campbell, would it be appropriate for
you to kind of represent from both factors since you were already planning to attend? >> That's fine. >> What time is it? >> It is um there's a breakfast and trade show at 8 and the formal program is 9:30 to 10:30 at Expo 2 of the World Equestrian Center. >> We got an invite for it.
>> Well, um I I don't know. I couldn't find the email and so um I can have um I forwarded Miss Martinez Young the invite so she can forward it to the whole board so you guys can see it. Um but I wanted to bring it to your attention because
our I did get a personal phone call about trying to have a board representation there. >> See some type of graduation on that day. >> Uh and this is in the morning. Yes. And so I do think MTC does or acceleration academy >> is at 1 >> is at 1. So theoretically we can do
both. Yes. Um but I'm attending the ELC board meeting that morning is I've been trying to attend their board meetings and so um anyhow so I was kind of tied up. So board if that's okay. Um Miss Martinez Young you could forward that out that'd be wonderful. Um day in the
legislator is in January. Miss Martinez Young what is the timeline you need for the board to provide their request to go for accommodations and registration? Okay, coming up. So board, I was trying to reflect back last year. I think Dr.
Campbell was the only one that went to Day in the Legislator. Is that was that a correct reflection? >> Yes. >> Okay. Day in the Legislator is Wednesday and Thursday, January 28th and 29th um board. And I don't know if you have
received the information yet or not, but um it is a afternoon on Wednesday and then a Thursday um legislator meeting. So I wanted to bring it to your attention. We can discuss it now or we
can discuss at a later date, but I do know in December we'll certainly need to get the information to Miss Martinez Young if you intend to stay in a hotel room and or get registered for the event. Um, it's an FSBA day in the legisle. >> Okay. So, I just would like to know, Reverend Cummings, are you going to be
able to do you want to attend that the January 28th and 29th? >> Alison, I'm sure. I'm assuming you're going. I'm already registered. Yes. >> You're unsure. >> That's the 28th. >> January 28th and 29th. >> You're going?
>> Yes. >> Okay. So, Eric's planning to go. Nancy, how does that look for you? >> Uh, I'm going to need a little time on that one. >> Okay. All right. And I'm a maybe too. So, Dr. Campbell, I I will get up with you um to ask about that.
>> Yeah. And we can we can I can bring it back up. Um Miss Martinez Young, if you'll just connect with me on the deadlines you need for us to make a decision and maybe in our first board meeting of December, I will make sure I bring it back up. Um if you can help me remember that, Miss Martinez Young, >> because the hotels are on your own. So, I mean, it's just she'll pick a hotel
and and book one. >> Yes. Yes. Um, and if I recall, I think two years ago, we were all there. I remember getting tacos. It's one thing I remember. >> Yeah, we were. >> Yes, we walked and got tacos. So, um, I don't It's a core memory, I guess. So,
anyhow, um, so I just we'll we'll bring it back up in a couple weeks. Uh, and just kind of finalize that. Um, I Oh, one last thing. Mr. McFaten sent us an email uh while we were in the work
session regarding a demo on December 16th. I know I am not available at that time. I will be uh on a first grade field trip to the zoo in Tampa. So, if the rest of the board is available, that's fine. The date that he sent was December 16th at 12 p.m.
>> I've accepted it. >> Okay, hold on. I'm looking because I don't remember. >> I'll be out of town that day. So, I am available. >> I might be available. >> Okay. So, we have two yeses and a maybe
and two nos. So, I don't know if that um will be desirable to attend or not. It certainly can happen without me there, but I wanted to make sure that we touched base on that availability. Um so, I guess Mr. White House, do with that information what you will and if he
wants to reschedule based on board availability, certainly we can do that. >> My guess is we would reschedule that. I mean, I would think the whole board would need to be there. >> Um, I mean, I would think so, too, but I I don't want to speak for Mr. McFaten. So, if he, you know, if you guys want to have conversation on your side of the
house and see what would be best, um, but I know that I will not be available that day and neither will Reverend Cummings. >> Mr. White House, will you let Miss Martinez Young know if that's going to be retracted? Okay. Thank you. >> Um, okay. And I do not have any further comments. Is there any further business
or conversation from the board? All right. Okay. Well, there being no further business, we will adjourn today's work session at 12:51. Thank you all for being here.