[music] Good afternoon every Good afternoon everyone. We'll go ahead and start our meeting with the pledge of allegiance. Can everybody please rise? >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the republic
for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> [snorts] >> Welcome everyone and good afternoon. Um, I'd like to say thank you to everybody on the board for attending today. Uh,
Dr. Brewer, thank you. I see you're ready to to get it started. And, um, everyone that's getting ready to present. We appreciate your time and effort as far as that goes. And I'll go ahead and turn it over to Angie for a roll call, please. >> We'll take the role. Diana, if you want
to start us off and everyone go around the table. Floyd Magwood present. >> Maryanne Collins present. >> Melanie Lyster present. >> Angie Lester present. >> Ken Osley present. >> Jennifer Edgars present.
>> All right. Um hopefully everyone had a chance to look over the meeting minutes from last meeting. Um any changes? Anything that needs to be adopted? Nope. Okay. I will um hear a motion to accept.
>> So move >> second. >> Okay. All those in favor? >> I >> I. >> Okay. Minutes have been accepted. Um I will go ahead and turn it over to Dr. Brewer for our district overview.
>> Thank you. Thank you and good afternoon. We are so excited to provide this presentation to you. This is the 2025 2026 referendum report. Um, as you know, we provide you an update quarterly and
you um, and we're appreciative of your work as you are the oversight committee of how we spend the referendum funds that the voters approve. So, thank you so much for the time um, that you're spending with us today. We're going to provide an update for each of the areas
as we usually do. But before we begin, I would like just to provide a few highlights of how we ended the school year. For the first time since 2012, we do not have any D or F schools in our
district managed schools. So, it's a huge celebration. I'll clap for us, too. We are incredibly excited. The last two days we've spent time with our leadership teams from that the district level school teams and it's just been very exciting to celebrate all of the
school successes and um we're really looking forward to the 2627 school year and continuing that momentum moving forward. We of course are not going to be satisfied until we have 100% of our students walking across the stage with a diploma in hand and reading on grade
level. Um, but we are excited about the trends that we are seeing and the cohort growth that we are seeing between each of the bands. So, um, we're excited and thankful to all of our teachers and leadership teams that have made that happen. So, at this time, I'd like to introduce Mr. Rios Welsh. He is our
chief financial officer. He will provide an update and then we will move through um the presentation. Thank you. >> Thank you, Dr. Brewer. Good afternoon members of the committee and members of the public. So we have our fourth quarter um IROC uh
presentation today and I'm going to be walking through um some numbers and it's going to be a bit of a a tag team effort. So I will give some opening remarks and then I will ask some of my colleagues from various areas um to come up and present alongside of me. So with
that being said, we're going to jump right into it. And uh there we have our presenters. Melissa Connor, Dennis McFaten, Charity Cornelison, Bregan Hughes, Brook Hudo, and Katherine Ai. >> Yes.
>> I'm working on that. Okay. So, just as a reminder, um we did not put this in in this presentation, although it's usually uh included. It's just an overview of what the referendum funds can be used for. So, of course, it's a 1m Avalor property tax. Uh, it
was approved in November 8th of 2022 and it's effective July 1st, 2023 through June 30th of 2027 and can be used for the following allowable uses: reading, physical education, art, music, library, and media, vocational programs, class
size reduction, and also to retain certified teachers, pair professionals, and of course, school safety. And also as another reminder, we did propose some referendum language changes which will
be on the November ballot. basically including early learning into the ballot question in exchange for class size. reduction as an effort to bring the district um and the referendum dollars and the allocations uh that we have in
line with our strategic plan and efforts to really double down on early childhood education which is a key um policy area that really helps to prepare students as you guys know for kindergarten and third grade reading and math which is critical
uh for their success in order for them to walk across that stage as Dr. Brewer indicated. So, let's jump into the numbers. Um, general fund referendum summary. We have a total um revenues uh well, I'm going
to back up. Let's go. The adopted budget at 41,186444 and as of um fourth quarter um and there will be some reconciling of these numbers given that the books are not officially closed yet. Uh, so these numbers in a final report may change
slightly. So with that being said, we're at $41.2 million rounding up in budget with $41.9 million received to date, which is actually um better than expected at 101.7%. Our expense budget
um similarly uh is tracking right where it needs to be, just a little under at 89%. And that is certainly a good thing because that will help us in terms of rolling some of these dollars um into next year. And so you'll see uh a slide
on that as well. And speaking of fund balance, uh previously the carry forward balance from 2425 into 2526 was 13.3 uh million with a uh budgeted fund balance for 2526
at 10. $8 million. And just as a reminder, uh these dollars are restricted for referendum use only. Okay. Here we have a breakout of all of the various um uh program areas that are supported that my colleagues will be
speaking to in in more detail. But you can see there those total budget expenditures at $43.7 million by program which the the first one there at $10 million for physical education and then the the second
highest amount at $7.2 million uh for school safety. And then rounding us out for the third uh fourth and fifth at $6.3 million for music and kindergarten
pair of professionals at 5.7. So clearly most of the money here is being spent uh in in areas that are critically important to the district. And in your packets uh uploaded with board docs, you will see there's a list
of all of the units that are funded by program area. So you can see all of the various units that we have in case there's questions around uh how many units uh are being funded with these dollars, which the line share of referendum dollars goes towards salaries
and benefits as you'll see in a later um slide. Okay, so here we are with our total actual expenditures versus budgeted. And we can see here the class size reduction since 2021 uh school year. You can see through the
2526 school year represents 34.53% or 61 million of all of the funds that have been received and expended over this period of time. The next largest area at $29.1 million or 16.48% is
physical education and school safety at 13%, music at 9.9%, art at 9%, media and library at 7.6% and vocational and paraprofessional um programs at 7 and 1.90%
respectively for a total of 176.9 million rounding up. This is a lot of money over the period that we have been collecting it and I'm just really glad to report that uh the investment that the taxpayers in Marian County has been
providing are at work and they are working and we can see that uh through the information that Dr. Brewer uh helped to present earlier where we know that we're making gains and we don't have any DNF schools and having referendum dollars actually helps to support that by making sure that
students want to come to school and they're participating in those extracurric extracurricular activities that the referendum helps to support. Okay, here we have um the next slide which just kind of breaks out the general fund expenditures by program for
kindergarten uh pair of professionals which again the language will change uh in November with the new ballot language. So you can see here on the left side of uh the presentation you have an amount spent in blue and amount remaining in gray and so we have uh
98.3% spent and 1.62 62 uh% remaining for kindergarten prof pair of professionals. And then you'll see there that middle circle representing uh the number of field versus vacant units. And again refer to the handout if you want
to see a further detailed uh breakout of those units. >> Okay. Sure. Of course. >> I just I want to comment on the kindergarten pair professionals. we have um really paid close attention to the work in our early learning grades because we know that if the students are
coming to us, I know you've heard me share this before at the United Way, but when the students are coming to us um so low, it's incredibly challenging to get them at grade level by the by third grade. So, we have put thanks to the referendum, we have prioritized the
kindergarten pair professionals. And because of this, let me just give you some numbers. when this third grade group when they started kindergarten we are the second lowest in the state for kindergarten readiness and now these
third graders are they're still 14% below the state average but they have come that far and so when we look at the success of putting the kinderg professionals we know it's working and we continue right now we're no longer
the second lowest we have climbed up and so we continue if we and continue to prioritize early learning and continue the efforts of really focus on the kindergarteners, we will be able to reach the goal of having students on grade level um to meet the Florida
Chambers goal which is by 2030. So that's our goal and I just had to interject because this has been so important to us and we're incredibly grateful. Thank you, Mr. >> You can interject anytime. I have a quick question if I'm allowed.
>> Yes, ma'am. >> Um, I'm just puzzled. I can't remember why the the PE expenses have increased so drastically over the last couple years. Did you say that is primarily for teacher paying teacher salaries? Now,
have we kind of converted from the class size reduction, paying all the teacher salaries over to the actual programs? Is that what the transition has been? That that that is that is correct. We've made a large investment in physical education
and physical education um technician staff and you'll see that in one of the slides that I'll go over. Uh what we can do is if you'd like we can maybe provide some other detailed data on how that's uh grown over time. Um but certainly that that would be the answer.
>> I'd like to interject. Um we if you look at library art and music they've all grown because there was that exchange and all the library and all those teachers are being paid out of this and they've taken what used to be the class
size reduction and they have all been put in the schoolboard general fund. So, it it's kind of an exchange of dollars because if you look at 2021, there's a $10 million for class size and that's down to five now because of those exchanges.
>> Are we meeting class size? um >> we are we are no longer penalized by the state for class size and um and so we still know it's a it's a great practice and we are at the district level but
each particular and that's how we're measured by a school and so we do not we did not add we actually increased our ratios last year to meet to balance our general budget general fund um and so if you look it depends on which school and which class you're looking at, but there
are definitely classes that exceed the recommended um student ratio. >> Thank you. >> Yes. >> Question. >> Okay. Uh and so the last um pie chart
you see there, the benefits and salaries uh that round us out at 98% and you can see that most of that money is going towards salary and the remainder of 2 almost $2 million going towards benefits. Okay, with that I'm going to ask Miss
Charity Cornelius to come up and give her portion of the presentation. >> Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you so much for being here and giving us the opportunity to share out all of the great things that are happening and are just possible
because of the referendum. Speaking on physical education, uh that was you said it exactly correctly that transition is that all of our staff at the elementary level and some middle and high are fully funded by the referendum which just
makes this referendum even more important on this ballot coming up in November. Um while physical education is often associated with what happens in the gym or on the field each day, our teachers impact extends far beyond a school schedule. Field day is one of the
best examples of that impact. What may look like a single day of fun actually represents weeks and sometimes months of planning, coordination, and leadership. Our physical educators organize every detail from scheduling and equipment to safety plans, volunteer coordination,
and campus logistics. Many of our teachers recruited 20 or more parent volunteers this year, creating opportunities for families to become active partners in their children's school experience. These events bring entire campuses together. Students, teachers, administrators, families, and
community members all celebrate a year of growth, hard work, and achievement. Our physical educators don't simply organize field days. They build school culture. When you look at these pictures, it's easy to see students having fun, but what you're really seeing is something
much bigger. These are the memories students will carry with them for years. Throughout the school year, our physical educators intentionally teach teamwork, perseverance, resilience, sportsmanship, and respect. Field day becomes the celebration of those lessons. Students
learn to encourage one another, to overcome challenges, to win with humility, and to handle disappointment with grace. Those are life skills that extend far beyond elementary school. This is what we mean when we talk about educating the whole child. Our physical
educators help students grow physically, socially, and emotionally while creating experience that strengthen the entire school community. These are the moments that students remember long after they leave elementary school. They happen because of dedicated educators who invest in countless hours to make every
child feel included, successful, and celebrated. I'd like to end by putting the spotlight where it belongs on two educators who represent the heart of our profession. Ross Prairie Elementary opened this year as one of Marian County's newest
schools. When you open a brand new campus, you're not simply filling positions. You're building traditions, creating a culture, and establishing expectations that will shape that school for years to come. That foundation is built by exceptional educators. Today, I'd like to recognize Coach Albert
Malave and coach Joel Flores. Coach Malave's journey is one of perseverance and purpose. Nearly 10 years ago, he began his career as a physical education technician at Marian Oaks Elementary. While working full-time, coaching a competitive travel volleyball team, and
overcoming personal health challenges, he earned his teaching degree because he believed physical education was where he could make the greatest difference in the lives of children. Today, Coach Malave teaches far more than athletic skills. Every lesson is an opportunity to build determination, discipline,
confidence, teamwork, and lifelong health habits. His philosophy is simple but powerful. Every child is capable of achieving more than they think possible. Coach Flores followed a different path to elementary education. After coaching athletics at the college level, he
realized his greatest opportunity to make a lasting impact wasn't with college athletes. it was with young children. He chose elementary physical education because he wanted students to experience the same joy and passion for movement that inspired him as a child. Drawing on his coaching background,
Coach Flores creates engaging lessons that teach more than games. His students learn teamwork, sportsmanship, perseverance, and the confidence to try something new. His goal is that every student leaves his class believing that they are capable of success and excited to be physically active. Together, these
two educators helped establish the culture of physical education at Ross Prairie during the school's inaugural year. That work culminated in an incredible accomplishment. Ross Prairie Elementary became the 2026 elementary track champions. But championship
programs aren't built in a single day. They're built through daily relationships, consistent instruction, high expectations, and educators that believe in every child. For me, this is what the referendum is truly about. For me, it also allows us to recruit,
develop, and retain exceptional educators who don't simply teach education. They build school communities. They inspire confidence, and they create lifelong memories. They really educate the whole child. The greatest investment this referendum makes isn't in equipment or
facilities. It is in the people. And when we invest in outstanding educators, we invest in the success of every child that they serve. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Cornelius. And to underscore um the people that these dollars represent,
I'll get a little bit behind the numbers. And so we'll we'll talk a little bit about that. So, of the $10.4 million budget, I'll round up to 10.5. uh 91.5% of that um is has been has been spent
and we've only got 8.5% uh remaining. And you can see there in the middle um the number of those uh teachers that she's talking about, those PE teachers um at 103 um and five vacancies and also we have
uh 20 on the PE technicians and four on the uh vacant positions. So, um there are quite a quite a few folks that are are supporting this work. And then, uh that last um pie chart you see there
shows the benefits and those salaries at 6.7 and 2.8 million respectively or 92% to date with the again the lion share going towards paying for personnel services and benefits.
With that, I'm going to ask Miss Kathy OD to come up and she's going to talk about vocational programs. Good afternoon. We're fortunate to offer 35 different CTE pathways that encompass 14 career clusters and we had over
15,000 students enrolled in those programs this year. For next school year, I'm very excited to share that we're going to be opening four new pathways to students at South Marian High School. We'll be adding avionics system, digital cinema production, aggra
business, and AI foundation. Referendum has been absolutely crucial in outfitting the equipment in all eight of the CTE programs that will be opening at South Marian High. We are still finishing up our industry certification reporting for the year, but we currently have 2,104
industry certifications earned. Industry certifications are recognized credentials students can use both to obtain jobs or to further their education as they continue schooling. Many of our cir certifications also count for articulated credit at colleges.
Referendum funds help to provide the equipment necessary to provide our students with hands-on instruction in order to prepare for these certifications and for workforce skills. Although the school year has wrapped up, we still have tons of CTE activities going on this summer. Many of our career
and technical student organization students are taking place in competitions. We have students traveling all over the US this summer for these events where they'll have the opportunity to compete and show off the skills they've learned in their CTE programs. The Florida FFA state
convention recently took place in Orlando, Florida. Their national event will take place this October in Indianapolis. Our HOSA or future health professional students who qualified at state this spring just traveled to Indianapolis, Indiana to compete at the HOSA
international competition. We also had Skills USA students who qualified at the state level in areas of culinary, video production, and robotics and design travel to Atlanta, Georgia for their national competition. Once all of those um competitions wrap
up, we'll compile and share those results. Our teachers are also hard at work this summer. Every year, we offer the opportunities for teachers to participate in a teacher and industry externship program. During this program, we pay instructure instructors the
stipen rate for up to 32 hours to spend time at a local business. This gives our instructors the chance to learn new skills related to their industry and stay upto-date with what with what's happening in the f workforce. We also offered a brand new teacher training this summer in partnership with
the C calleds to careers. That training consisted of one middle school CTE teacher, one guidance counselor, and one middle school career planning teacher attending four days of industry tours and culminated in a wrap-up pitch where they shared how they plan to implement
what they learned back at their schools. Referendum funding supports all of our CTE programs, whether it be through equipment or teaching units. We're fortunate to be able to provide our students with the opportunity to work with industry level equipment in their classrooms every day. And without referendum, we wouldn't be able to
continue doing that. >> Thank you, Miss Audi. And then with that, I'll get into the numbers here. >> So, total budget for our vocational programs at $2.8 million. >> Excuse me. We do ma'am, we do have a speaker. I'm sorry. We do have a
question comment. >> Absolutely. >> I just wanted to comment quickly. I heard from a couple of the teachers that were involved in the classroom to careers program that just started. They were blown away. They said this is the best thing they've done. So, their encouragement is we wish everybody could
go through this program and I know you're planning to expand that next year, but just some feedback for you in case they didn't tell you. They loved that. >> Thank you so much. >> Love to hear it. Okay. So again, um right now we've uh
expensed uh $2.853 million, 2.264 or 79% uh to date with almost 20% or 21% our round up 588590 uh remaining. And you can see there in the middle u the number of vocational
teachers at 16 with four vacancies. This is point in time data. And then of course our spent to date at 79% broken out by object class. And you can see there that the salary and benefits make up the lion share and total at 79%
total. So certainly putting this money to good use. With that, I'll ask Miss Bregan Hughes to come up, coordinator for media related services. She's going to talk about our library and media. >> Good afternoon.
Media specialists wear many hats on each of our campuses each day, but the most important role is that they build a love for literacy through creativity and exploration of different topics and genres throughout the school year. All with the same goal of creating lifelong
learners who rely on reading to reach their goals and become successful. Throughout the year, media specialists work with one another. The job of c of being a media specialist can of often be very isolating as they're alone on each of their campuses. The support of one
another and opportunities to collaborate make our libraries a space that is always evolving to meet the needs of our students in our communities. Media specialists build spaces that promote literacy on all campuses, kindergarten through 12th grade. In this picture
here, Denellan High School shares images of their edible books event that is held annually where students in the culinary arts department create edible arrangements um using some of their favorite characters from books they've read. You can see in the image there's a
picture of Ratatouille which is pretty sweet. Pretty amazing that they can do that with something edible as well. In other pictures, Mrs. Van Blurk and at Oakrest Elementary shares an interactive readaloud with some of her youngest learners. At the end of the school year, Forest High School in Bellev Middle
School hosted their annual book bowl where students competed to show their knowledge of 15 newly released books. The referendum dollars support all of our media specialists. Our media centers at all of our schools are often referred to as the knowledge hub, where students
grow in reading and both fiction and non-fiction. Media specialists provide a space, excuse me, to read, learn about different types of resources, and gain important skills for research. While the job of media specialist
includes many roles rooted in board policy as well as Florida statute, one job that always comes to mind when discussing the media center is book checkout. one, excuse me. Our media specialists annually discuss and collaborate to set goals to increase circulation data for
their spaces. As you can see from the graphics, circulation has increased when compared to the 2425 school year. While some schools face different challenges based on student population being served, our media specialists continue to increase circulation year-over-year,
which means more and more students have books in hand throughout the school year. without media specialists in each of our spaces, student circulation, and accessibility to quality books would diminish. Thank you for the allocation the referendum provides to each of our schools and media centers.
I do have a question. I'm not sure who would be the proper person to answer this, but um with the sitebased budgets, um it what's the likelihood that media specialists might be used in a different capacity?
Well, with with sitebased budgeting, I'm not sure um how things will pan out this year. As you guys know, uh this this past year, this was the first year that we actually wrote out sitebased budgeting to the entire district after a year prior where we did a pilot program.
Um so I I think right now that question is still out there but with sitebased budgeting it does allow the schools to buy their units but increasingly uh due to budget constraints we may have to do some um recalibrating as it were um so that we can maybe centralize some
positions more than others but typically um we like to centralize u these types of positions because the referendum dollars are restricted and of course we always take input from program specialists coordinators uh and leaders leadership to make sure we have the right level of support. Um, so I think
that question is is is still on the table. Uh, but during budget development season, we'll certainly get more into that. >> Okay. Thank you. That was that was the goal of my question was be with it being a referendum funded position what that would look like, but I do understand
it's kind of a work in progress. >> Yeah. And we typically are not planning to make too many changes. Obviously, there's a there's a vote coming, you know, soon. Uh and so we're anticipating that that's uh hopefully that's affirmative uh and that this work will continue. So I'm not expecting to see
any huge shifts uh at this point. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Y um and so with that I'll jump into the next slide. Uh and so here you'll see the total budget at $4.8 8 million and we've spent 89 uh% of percent of that or
$4.331 million and that represents um a breakout there for salaries and benefits at $3 million for salaries and benefits at 1.2 with 49 filled positions and one vacant position in this particular
program area. So, we're certainly putting uh this money to very very good use. With that, we'll get to the next area. So, Miss Brook is going to come up and she's going to talk about our visual and performing arts. >> Good afternoon. Um, I always appreciate
the opportunity to be able to share a few of the things that our performing and visual arts programs are doing um during the school year. This in particular during the fourth quarter. As always, there these are just a handful of the highlights um but they really showcase the incredible work that our teachers are doing across Marian County.
So, first I want to recognize uh one of our visual arts students, Emily River Minkler from North Marian High School. She earned the best mixed media in the 2026 Congressional Art Competition. Um that is an incredible accomplishment and a reflection not only of River's talent,
but also of the instruction and mentorship provided by Mrs. Gloria Sed who is the art instructor at North Maran High School. Um and all of our art educators every day. Um, another highlight comes from Maplewood Elementary where our music teacher Emily Wesley and art teacher Jamie Rocher
partnered to create a concert and an art show featuring their exceptional education students. Um, I always enjoy seeing these types of collaborations and especially because it reminds us that our teachers are constantly looking for new ways to showcase our students and
give them opportunities to shine. Uh, this event celebrated students musical and artistic talents while giving families a chance to experience their children's success firsthand. These kinds of experiences don't happen by accident. They happen because of dedicated teachers who are willing to
invest the extra time, creativity, and energy it takes to make them possible. Our performing arts programs had a busy spring as well. Um, our high school allcount band brought together students from across Marian County under the leadership of our outstanding band
directors. While the concert itself is always impressive and brought together over a hundred students from our seven different high schools, I appreciate most seeing our directors from different schools working together with one shared goal and that's creating an incredible experience for our students. It's a
great example of the collaboration and collaborative culture that we've built in Marian County. Pictured here are our seven amazing high school band directors soon to grow by one more next year when we add South Marian High. Um, and together they have over 100 years of experience amongst them. All of whom
will start back into their band camps next week in preparation for this year's marching band season. We also hosted our spring auxiliary showcase, giving our color guard and auxiliary students in grades 6 through 12 an opportunity to perform in groups,
solo, and then they even performed one piece alto together at the very end. Um, and then they're also recognized for their hard work throughout the season. Those programs require countless hours of rehearsal, planning, and instruction, and our color guard instructors continue to provide opportunities that challenge
students while helping them grow both as performers and as leaders. This spring, audiences all across Marian County enjoyed an incredible lineup of theater productions, including The Lightning Thief at Westport High School, Fiddler on the Roof at Howard Middle School, The Adams Family at North Marion
High School, and Shrek the Musical at Forest High School, just to name a few. Anyone who's been involved in theater knows that what the audience sees on stage is only a small part of the story. These productions represent months of planning, rehearsals, set construction
and painting, costumes, lighting, sound, and countless hours invested by our theater directors, our music directors, technical staff, volunteers, and students. Our teachers consistently create experiences that challenge students to grow, not only as performers, but also as leaders, collaborators, and problem solvers. The
productions themselves are impressive, but the learning that happens behind the scenes is really what makes these programs so valuable. providing soft skills like resilience, creativity, and interpersonal communication, helping prepare our students for life beyond graduation. I'll leave you with this
thought. Every accomplishment that we highlight today from any of our departments really starts with exceptional educators. Um, our fine arts teachers, our PE teachers, our CTE teachers, our media specialists continue to create opportunities that inspire
students, build confidence, and connect our schools with the community. Thank you to the committee for and to Marian County's voters for their continued support of the sales tax referendum and for your commitment to ensuring that our students have access to these outstanding programs. Um because of that support, our teachers are able to
continue providing experiences that truly make a difference in our students lives. Thank you. >> Okay, thank you. And let's jump into some of the numbers here to support our art programs. So, our total budget at 5.270 million with
96.3 or almost a little north of $5 million spent and 192 $192,000 or 3.7% remaining. These dollars go to support a number of ARC teaching positions which you'll see in your handout as well at 51
and four vacancies at this time including coordinators at 0.5 and.5 and par profofessionals at 12 and one vacancy. We also see that we've spent again 96% of the total budget at about 5.130
million. And you can see there that the lion share is going towards salaries and benefits with small slivers to capital outlay materials and supplies and purchase services. And this is uh critically important. And I was actually blown away uh when I went to Westport High School and got a chance to tour
some of the arts programs that we have there. And I mean it's just amazing what they're what they're making in those classrooms. And um from what I understand, we have quite a few uh folks who who have come out of Marian County and gone on to do very big things out in the world. So we know that these uh
these investments do work and folks go on to do very uh big things out there in the world when they when they enter the uh the workforce. Let's talk about music, our music programming, which was mentioned in those um those band camp leaders and um
$6.2 million. I'm rounding up for their total budget and 92 uh% or 5.7 um spent or expense to date and 483,000 or 8% remaining. And you can see there where most of that money is going at 56
u fill positions for our music teachers, uh coordinators, and paraprofessionals. And again, um at 5.8 $8 million or 92% uh total spend compared to budget. We're certainly uh spending this money wisely and you can see there that most of it is
going towards our benefits and salary uh with smaller amounts for uh other areas. With that, I would like to invite Miss Melissa Connor up. >> Okay. >> That was you. You were you were saying earlier that you you guys did you did a
switcheroo. Yes. Okay. I'd like to highlight our professional leadership and learning department and how we use the referendum to support um this effort. When we look at the trainings necessary, we really are focused in our
early career um educators. And so those are some of our first years, but it also could be some of our second and third year educators. So to kick us off just um in a couple weeks, it's hard to believe, but on July the 29th and 30 30th, we'll have great beginnings and
that's when we invite our brand new teachers to an all day training. We have of course have some businesses that support the effort for as vendors, but we bring all of the teachers in and give them a full two days of everything they need to know um how to um to be
successful in Maring County. So then let me move it to the next slide. Throughout the school year we have differentmies that these early educators take place take part of and our stip these teachers are provided stipens in order to do this
because they come after the school day. And so that's how we use referendum to support our early educators. And do you have any questions? No. But I do want to add something. Miss Audi shared about our career and technical education programs. We were
able to highlight last night or Tuesday night at our schoolboard meeting. We have um again increased the number of industry certifications for Maring County. So each year we continue to increase our numbers. And this is so important to us because as we um as we
always encourage students to go on to post-secary opportunities whether it's um Marian Technical College, College of Central Florida universities, we also prioritize earning an industry certification so that student can go right into the workforce as e as either
working with some a company or owning their own business. And so it's important to us to begin just like we had the careers to classroom to careers and in the near future you're going to hear more about worlds of work which we're super excited
about. But we want to make sure our students are having the information brought to them as early as the eighth grade and sixth grade really but in a different form because we want the students to know what opportunities are out there and then we start based on their selection through a program called
Zello. We start providing them with either guest speakers or field trips or different explorations so they can see what these careers um would look like for them and if they would be a good fit. And so we continue to be proud of the students with our industry
certifications. So I wanted to add how important the CTE teachers are to us and um again how grateful we are because of the referendum were able to fund um those about 20 20 teachers out of the referendum for CTE. Yes. 20. So we're
thankful and I won't say anything else. I'll be quiet. >> You're fine. >> One quick thing on the performing arts. Um, just fun little story. Our 40th high Forest High School's 40th high school reunion for night class of 1986 is Saturday. But on this stage in
1985, one of my good friends did his first ever production, which led to being a double major at Florida State in theater and business, which led him to a 30-year career in Hollywood as an actor, which has led him back to Ocala to be an educator in the space. So, it's really
cool. Uh, what you're doing is not I think it's doing a lot of things for the kids, but it's also launching some into some really interesting careers and then they're paying it back now in our community. >> Absolutely. Love to hear stories about paying it forward, right? I mean, that's a full circle moment and u that's that's
why we want to allocate these funds and keep and keep that going. U just to highlight the professional development piece in terms of dollars that are are being invested. So, total budget at $624,000 and you'll see there uh $386,000
or 62% um expensed uh to date and 38% or $239,000 remaining. And you can see there uh where most of that money is going. So, not a lot of supplies surprises there. There's only about $3,300 in materials
and supplies. Okay. Okay, last but certainly not least, Mr. Dennis McFaten is going to come up and talk about safe schools. Good afternoon. I'm usually the last person between you and them any important events you may
have after this meeting. So, I'll be fast but efficient and in what I'm trying to do. So, good afternoon. Uh when many of us think of school safety, the first thing we think about is an SRO on the campus, seeing that visible vehicle there, knowing that they are the
first line of defense when it comes to protecting our students. While school resource officers remain the cornerstone of our school safety program, they represent only one component of a much larger comprehensive safety strategy.
During the last quarter, the referendum invested nearly $829,000 in school resource officer services to ensure a highly visible law enforcement pres presence at all of our campuses. However, effective school safety cannot
rely on a single strategy or an individual. Instead, Marian County Public Schools continues to build a layered approach to school safety where multiple systems working together to prevent, deter, detect, delay, and
respond to potential threats. This layered approach recognizes that technology, physical security, communication, trained personnel, and emergency preparedness all play an equally important role in protecting students, staff, and visitors.
One of our most um district's most significant investments this quarter has been the installation of the store room function locks at Okeella Springs CER and Sunrise elementary schools representing an investment of nearly $461,000.
Storeroom function locks provide an additional layer of security by ensuring classroom doors remain locked from the hallway at all times while still allowing occupants to exit freely from the inside the classroom in compliance with life safety codes. During an
emergency, teachers no longer need to step out into the hallway to ensure that their door is locked. What this does is just prevents that because during our trainings and our drills, we would notice that pre teachers would sometime come and check the door just to make sure it's locked. They know it's locked,
but that reassurance that it's locked. This prevents that them from doing that. With this door function lock process, they have no need to go out and try to check to make sure it's locked. Beyond physical security improvements, referendum funds have also strengthened
our district's overall safety infrastructure through targeted investments that improve prevention, preparedness, and response. One example of that and what we've done is um clear uh we purchased some open gate special
event signage which provides clear instructions to anyone attending any of our events on exactly what to do as they approach our weapons detection systems. The district also invested another $7,800
in handheld uh weapons detection ones. These portable devices provide an additional layer of security by allowing for secondary screening when needed. They can be deployed during athletic events, graduations, special events, investigations, or other situations requiring enhanced screening
capabilities. If you remember a few um meetings ago, we purchased the weapons detection systems. Uh these systems are enhanced by these small improvements that we made. We deployed these systems
for the first time at our high school graduations, which was seven graduations. And these systems during these graduation ceremonies, we screened more than 31,000 guests, resulting in the recovery of 54 knives,
three firearms, one taser, and numerous vaping de vaping devices. And that's not counting the folks who walked up to the system, realized that they were going to be screened and caught and walked back to their vehicles to secure their
weapon, knife, or whatever else. This is not a metal detector. This is a weapons detection system, which is totally two different things. So, we take pride and we're very excited for the fact that we were able to use these at our graduations, which made we feel as
though made our graduations a safer place. Okay. Recognizing that school safety also extends beyond the instruction today, we also allocated uh extra funding to make sure the law enforcement presence at these graduation ceremonies
was also increased. Um because of the large amount of people that we anticipated coming in these different venues, we put extra funds in there to make sure that they were compensated for their time at the uh events.
Uh we used we had to replace some SRO office locks throughout the district. We had to put in uh $1,300 in repair for transportation radios. These those radios that we purchased years ago that 800 megahertz radios, we replace some of those that were um but that were
failing. We also purchased Raptor printer and scanners. Raptor is our main visitor and volunteer management system. So, anybody coming on our campus, they're they're go through this raptor system and it's going to detect if they
are a sex offender and we put procedures in place to ensure that those folks are not uh left unescorted on our campuses. As we continue implementing our comprehensive school safety strategy, every project is evaluated to ensure it
supports students and staff safety by demonstrating responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars. I would like to close by thanking this committee for its continued oversight and support. The referendum has allowed Maring County Public Schools to move beyond a traditional view of school safety and
invest in a comprehensive security program that in that combines trained personnel, modern technology, physical security, and we're doing this as a proactive measure. We we try not to wait for something to happen. We want to be proactive, but like I've stood here and
told you before, I don't just want to buy stuff that's going to just spend money just to spend money. We sit down as a team. when we sit down as a district, all of these folks behind me, it makes me feel so good when they're able to do their job and us knowing that we had a small part in that, knowing
that every time they went on the PE field, every time they done anything dealing with fine arts, their professional development, that we played a small part in making sure that they felt safe as they came onto our campuses. So, thank you very much for what you do for us. Any questions? >> I do have a question. Um, when we go to
the budget slide, the next slide, there's $1.9 million that has not been spent yet. Do you anticipate that being spent or rolling over? >> It's most likely going to be rolled over. Uh, we had some projects that we were anticipating paying for in this
quarter. Uh but unfortunately when it comes to we have some vegetables that we were going to to build and unfortunately those vegetables are going to require a little bit more uh engineer engineering. So that funding is going to have to be
rolled over to help purchase and pay for those different vegetables that we've got at probably seven or eight of our schools that needs to be built. >> Okay. and a vestible basically uh if you go to some of our schools when you walk into the front door although they have the door buzzer there once they get into
the front door there's nothing to stop them from going either left or right and getting into the campus with these vegetables will create some type of uh a vestible to where they have to go and be buzzed in a second time so that
they don't immediately be allowed to go down the hallways. >> Thank you. question u which is really attaching on to what you were asking uh do you believe the decrease will happen pretty much every
year uh as far as the amount of uh spending the decrease in spending >> will you have a rollover >> I don't think it will >> or will it kind of remain the same >> I think it just the timing of it um when we started talking about doing the
vegetables it was at a time when it was coming up on the end of that budget cycle and unfortunately a lot of times around March to April a lot of things shut down and kind of stop um in prep preparation for the next budget year. But what we've aimed to do this year, we talked to my staff about it. We're going
to get a lot of these projects going early like right now so that we can make sure that we're uh providing us that level of safety so we don't have to roll over those funds because once we roll them over that means that there's more
to have to be spent for this next budget cycle. And again, I don't like just spending money just to say I spent it unless it's on something that's really critical and necessary for the district. >> Thank you. Thank you, Mr. McFaten. And uh just to underscore that, um yes, absolutely. If
if if if we're in the throws of uh getting an estimate for a particular procurement and things change or uh spec design changes, whatever the case may be, um there may be a reason that necessitates rolling funds forward so that we can continue to accumulate and
have dollars available to make said purchase. Um at that time, I will tell you that I did get a chance to um volunteer at one of the high school graduations. Uh and I can say that open gate works very well. I just kept saying come through, you know, keep keep walking, right? And then the parents just keep on keep coming and, you know,
put the umbrella to the side. I think I was an expert by the time it was uh was done. I think I got high marks from Mr. White House if I remember correctly. Uh so that that being said, just to jump into a little bit of the numbers here. Um so yeah, total budget at $6.7 million
with 72% um spent to date and or 5.3 million rounding up. And you'll see how that shakes out at 72% or $4.8 $8 million. Um, and then 28% that is still remaining to be spent. And you'll see most of that is on those purchase
services and capital outlay items as indicated by Mr. McFadden. >> I'm sorry. I do have another question. >> Yes, ma'am. >> I'm that person tonight. Um, there there's a couple different numbers that I'm looking at for the school safety. On the slide we're currently looking at on
slide 28, it says the total budget is $68 million essentially. Um, but if you look back to slide four and five, um, on slide four it says the school
safety uh was $7.1 million, $7.2 million, and then on slide five it says $5.3 million. So I was just wondering which >> so let's let's back up a little bit. So
you said slide four school safety. >> This is general fund referendum expenditures by program total budgeted expenditures. So this is 7.1. And then you said what was the other slide? Slide five. >> Slide five.
>> Okay. And that should be total actual expenditures by program and that's 5 268. Okay. And then when you go to slide 28. >> Okay. So the total budget there uh does
look like there may be a discrepancy at 7.1. I will certainly uh make a note of that and get that corrected if there's an issue there. Um but thank you for pointing that out. >> I I was just curious. Thank you.
>> No, absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. And just be mindful that we are still reconciling uh all of our payments. So the books are technically not closed yet. And so we will send out a final report with all of
these updated numbers. Okay. With that being said, I'm going to jump ahead to the next slide, which is our charter schools. Okay. Yes, our charter schools. Um so here just uh again level setting a
little bit uh we are legally required to pass these funds through to charter schools. We do not control um their budget or their budget allocations and they have separate financial statements and separate audits. Um they
are required to provide information to us that we then provide to the Florida Department of Education. um but they do not report to us. We do have to pass money through to them. Um and those dollars amount to a total budgeted
expenditures at 953,201. And then you'll see how that breaks out there at the bottom with school safety um ironically being the the biggest share in terms of where they're um choosing to spend their money at almost 42%, professional development at 25,
music at 8.4, four art at 5.6, physical education at 16.6, and a small sliver there for kindergarten class size reduction. The next slide breaks out those actual expenditures um by program. So you'll
see there two different years, 2425 and 2526. And you'll see there there was an increase [clears throat] for school safety over time. Uh same for professional development. Uh music went the other direction was higher last year than it is um at this this point this
this year. And then of course art went down uh same thing just a little bit about a $7,000 uh difference there. And then physical education um and class size reduction again rounding us out. And again these um figures as reported
uh by the charter schools as reported to us. uh physical education and we see there um they're at 102%. So uh they're actually a little over and again we expect this to be recon handled during our reconciliation process. Um and so we
probably will see a slight change there when the dust settles. U but their total budget was $158,000 and they're coming in at 161815. Next is art for charter schools and you'll see that [clears throat] at 100%. So they had a budget allocation of
53,000 and they've they've spent all that on salary and benefits. Similarly, music uh at 100% and they had a budget of 80,600 and they've spent all of that on salary and benefits as well. Starting to see a trend.
Okay. and professional development at 99% total budget of 234,776. And you'll see that all of that fun money at 231-264 is going towards salary and benefits as well. And then lastly to round us out
for charter schools, 100% of their school safety allocation of 398 372 uh has been expensed on salary and benefits. Um so that rounds out uh the the presentation in large part um with
the charter schools but yes are we absolutely of uh charter schools. >> Uh is there like a representative that that's supposed to join you know this meeting? I don't know if that's that's required or not just in case we may have
questions uh to them or that just I don't know how that's set up. I know it's a little more complicated. Yeah, it's it's actually a good question. Um I believe by statute that's that is not required. Um and so uh we do not um expect or have um the ability to um
dictate that they they come to uh this committee um as it were. >> So they they receive some of the funding, but they're not required. there's much of a but we can certainly ask >> not as much of a oversight there if they're not required you know to come to
the meeting >> and and um yeah and I I I totally get it I think um it's certainly a point of observation and and maybe even concern um but again it's uh the rules that the the legislature uh wrote in the way that uh the committee is set up uh the
oversight of these dollars is specifically related to uh Marian county public schools that we operate, not charter schools. Um, but we can certainly extend an invitation and see if they would be willing um to come or if you would like additional information
or specific questions, we can certainly get that to them and and get them and ask them to respond. >> Now, I'm I'm sure y'all have already looked into that, you know, the legislation, see if there's nothing in there that would say they would need to be here. I'm sure the your legal team
probably looked into that because you seem pretty confident. >> The problem is that's the case. >> They're not accountable to us. They're only accountable to the state. So that the state is the one that actually is looking over their spending for whatever reason. I'm on board with you. I I'm totally with you. >> And I'm for options. So
>> yeah. No, but since they don't really answer to the county, all they have to do is submit the numbers. That's all policed by the state. >> Okay. and and and and I I appreciate the question. That is certainly something that that comes up a lot uh with charter schools, uh family empowerment
scholarships and the like. Any money that is really um coming to Marian County, but is, you know, either flowing through or is required by law um that we uh provide in the case of fees, we have to provide those scholarships to a separate entity. Uh and that is not
anything that that we can control. That's a polit policy decision that has been made by the Florida legislature. >> While we're on the subject, just real quick, how many charter schools do we have in >> I believe eight. Five. Five. I'm sorry. Five. >> And I know a couple of them are
phenomenal. Um gradewise, >> sorry, Dr. Brewer. Gradewise, um did we see fabulous increase with the charter schools just like our schools? This year, >> we have five um charter schools. Three of those dropped a letter grade this
year. Um, but I will celebrate on a colon. On a colon is an A school. >> Nice. And and are there letter grades factored in with our average as well? >> Yes, ma'am. So, the district grade So,
let me explain that. That's why we were able to celebrate our schools um with a lot of cheering this week because all of our schools we had in tremendous success. We only um had one school that actually dropped a letter grade. Still
no D's or Fs, but only one school dropped a letter grade this year. All the others maintained or improved a letter grade. The only um but with the five charter schools, we did have three that dropped a letter grade. And those schools, charter schools are included in
our district school district grade calculation. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Did you have anything else? >> I think that concludes our uh presentation unless there's other questions and of course if you have um
additional questions you can feel free to send those to us in writing and we'll certainly get those answered um in short order. Thank you and thanks to all the staff for pulling all the information together and Dr. Brewer for being here and presenting. >> Uh yeah, I believe there's a uh final
annual report um that you guys will have to work on at some point. So just curious uh of course we don't need that today by close of business, but uh just putting that out there. Thank you. >> Boy, oh boy. >> Okay, I think >> let me add that on the list.
>> I will send you uh the last two last two years. um as a way for you to kind of prepare for this one. And I was pretty late in submitting those the last two years. So, you should be way ahead of me. [laughter] >> What is the technical due date?
>> Do we know? >> It'll be in the It'll be probably be in the bylaws. >> I think it's in the bylaws. Yeah. >> Okay. Okay. Um I would take like to take a moment. Um hopefully I'm speaking for the board. Um, you know, I I'm happy to celebrate that
success of our schools and I wish that it was seen more by our public and I think it's really up to us to kind of help spread that word and uh talk to people about this referendum because we do know how critical it is. Um, I don't
want to imagine what it would look like if that does not pass and I know that it probably keeps some of you up at night as well. So, I just want to say thank you for all of your hard work. And if you would pass along down the down the stream that we we appreciate we
appreciate the educators and the staff and just everyone that goes into it. Like uh Mr. McFaten said, you know, that that's everyone. It's school bus drivers. It's everybody. So, um we we are very grateful for that. Um it does
show that our next meeting is October 15th. Um, and I am supposed to open it up to public comment just in case there's anybody out there that's just completely riveted by
[laughter] referendum money. >> Oh, that's a good question. Okay. Uh, Maryanne Collins was asking if there would be something that we could help to promote like yard signs, you know, that type of thing. So we won't we won't provide you with
information to tell because we're not allowed to say what you can vote. >> It's a fine line. >> Uh yeah. So you can probably go to the C for that. So um they're not allowed to do any of the campaigning. So the
private sector and the business community is carrying the weight of that campaign. And so you could contact the C because they're they're spearheading it. I I will share with you at the beginning of the school year, just like we did last year, we scheduled town hall
gatherings. And this year, we have four town hall town hall gatherings scheduled for September and October. Those dates will be shared soon. And just like we did last year, we will continue to celebrate the achievements that are taking place. in um and we will
definitely highlight the benefits of the referendum funding and how our schools um benefit from the funds and the reality of what it would look like if we did not receive the $43 million. >> Beth McCall would be the person to
contact at the C. Yeah. >> Okay. Um if there is no public comments or questions I will go ahead. >> Motion to adjourn. >> Yes. Thank you. >> Okay. We are adjourned at 510. Thank you
everybody. See you in October. [music]