The schoolboard work session begins in 1 minute. Please take your seats. Again, the schoolboard work session begins in one minute. Good morning. I now call the August 14th, 20 It's not August 14th, it's August 21st, 2025 administrative
briefing and work session of the Marian County School Board to order at 900 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 with us for a moment of silence. Please join me.
Thank you. I'll 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. Good morning, Attorney Powers. Will you please um
share the notes with us this morning? Good morning. Thank you. This work session is a public meeting as defined in Florida's Sunshine Law. The board is dedicated to transparency in its meetings and its work. In compliance with 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 the sunshine law. The board must maintain orderly conduct and proper
decorum throughout this meeting. 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. Good
morning, Miss Martinez Young. Would you please provide the proof of publication? Morning, Madam Chair. The notice for the August 14th, 2025 work session was published in the Ocala Gazette on August 1st, 2025. Proof of publication has been attached to board ducks under proof of publication.
Thank you. Good morning, Dr. Brewer. Our first item this morning on our new high school CCC. Yes, I am happy to um introduce Miss Melissa Kiner. She will come to the podium to introduce Mr. McIT.
Thank you, Dr. Brewer. Good morning, Chair Conrad and schoolboard members. I am here today with Mr. McAteir, principal at High School CCC to share with you the recommendation from the naming committee for High School CCC.
There is a beautiful picture of what will be our high school CCC. The timeline that was followed included a naming committee being developed by Mr. Mr. McAteer. The naming committee included community members, parents, and educators from the school community. The
first survey collected suggested school names. During this survey, there were 151 responses to the survey with 83 names shared. The naming committee then met to review the survey data and voted
to narrow it down to five finalists for survey 2 and voted for their top seven choices. with the five highest scoring choices advancing to the next survey. Survey two was then distributed for the community to select their top school
name choice and that had 46 responses. Both surveys were accompanied by Skyler emails to all zoned 7th through 10th grade students and a separate one to their parents and families. Both surveys were also publicized on the Marian
County Public Schools website. A special thank you to Dr. Brewer, Kevin Christian, Brendan Bass, and Steven Ays for their help with the naming process. Survey 2 for high school CCC was completed. And when duplicate categories
are combined, the breakdown of the respondents are as follows. 63.5% parents, 27% Maring County Public School employees, 7.9% community members, and 1.6% students.
The final results of survey 2 were South Marian High 35.2%, Summer Oaks High 24.9%, Sunrest High 19.2%, 2%, Victory High 17%, and Southwest High 3.7%.
Out of those 406 responses, the name naming committee then met and reviewed the survey two results and ranked their personal choices one to five. After tallying the results and the data, their recommendation was exactly the same as the data from the community
in survey 2. The naming committee's recommendation for a school name for high school CCC is South Marian High School. At this time, we welcome discussion in order to gain consensus on a school name for high
school CCC. The final choice will be placed on board agenda on September 9th for board vote of the school name. Thank you, Miss Kinard. That's quite the process to get through uh choosing a name for a high school board. I'll open up if anybody wants to comment or ask
questions. All right, Miss Thrower. So, we'll have a North Marian High and potentially a South Marian High. I can't imagine the rivalry. I'm already imagining the football games.
That's good. Okay. Yes, Dr. James. I thought for there was a moment when I was reviewing this and I thought South Mary that sounds weird and then I started going through the name of all of our high schools which is very much just based on proximity and like there's no a lot of
our elementary schools have unique names for lots of various reasons but the high schools are I mean Westport it had never occurred to me it's because the airport and it's on the west side like that had never occurred to me and so when I started really going through it I was like oh yeah South Marian makes sense so
It sounds fine to me and I think it'd kind of be cool to have south southside pride and kind of come up with some um cool things that we've been able to establish over the many years on the north end. So looking forward to it. Thank you, Dr. James. Yes, Dr. Campbell.
Thank you. So whenever the survey came out and all the names were there, the first thing I did was Google each of those names because what I personally as a board member did not want to have a name that is the same name of three or four other high schools in the state of Florida and then multiple all around the
country. So neither one of these two top options fit that bill. So that that was my first thought on it. I also, as everybody already knows, have a little bit of a connection to the Summerlenn community. So, I kind of liked the thought of giving a nod to Summer Glenn
and calling it Summer Oaks. However, that all of that being said, I I still firmly believe that South Marian is the best option. There is not another South Marian high school that I can find and certainly not in the state of Florida. Um, so I think that that would be the
best choice all the way around. Thank you, Dr. Campbell. Anything further? I guess I'll wait on me. Um, I personally, um, when I first heard South Marian High, I didn't like it because of the north side. I felt it was
just, um, a play on on North Marion. Um, but after looking at all the names, it it does make sense. It is in the south part of the county. Um, I think all the names were creative. Um, but I think if we're going to go with
one, I think the one that would be most appropriate would be the South Marian High School. So, um, I did see the rivalry issue, um, immediate rivalry issue with the Southside Pride and all. So, I can go with South Marian High School. All right. Thank you, Miss Ker. I think
you hear a consensus. Um, I'm excited um, to get moving on all the decisions that'll be made to go along with uh, the name of the school. So, thank you. Thank you so much. We appreciate each of you and we look forward to coining southside pride at South Marian High
School on the south end of our district. Thank you. M kinder question. Miss Connor, why you moving so fast? Trying to run away from Sorry. Yes, sir. Scared. So, how soon are you guys going to be working on type a mascot or whatever for that school?
I'll let Mr. McIT speak to that because he already has some things in the works, right? We have we have already started soliciting some feedback from community members, from district members. We're going to formalize our process. It will have to be a little shorter than the month and a half that we spent on the
name. Uh but we're going to what we really want for this is to get some buyin from the students. So I'm at Horizon two to three days a week spending time with them. Um making sure that I get to know them and as I get to know them better, probably in the next couple weeks, I'm going to go into classrooms and actually solicit some
feedback from them. And then we hopefully we we will have a mascot and colors by midocctober because for band uniforms for for um colors for uh different uh facilities within the facility for football uniforms for the
things that we have to buy well in advance. We have to have those. So it's a little different than the two elementary schools I think that Miss Kard just opened that in that we have to make sure some of these things are six to nine months out. So I think you should have a nickname and a mascot by mid-occtober. And that's why I was
asking because of the branding issue. Um, with it being a high school, we know when it opens next August, we want whatever brand to be there and we want already started instilling that pride in that area um for that school. So, thank you. We've got some companies that our
traditional high schools already work with, so we're working with them to try to give us some different, you know, choices and things like that to look at. And then we're doing some of our own artistic mockups which probably aren't as good but we're just trying to really start getting a feel now that South Marian has been formalized we can accelerate the process.
Thank you sir. Okay. All right. Thank you Mr. McAteerier. Thank you Miss Kiner. We appreciate you being here this morning to share this exciting news. Thank you. Okay. Is there any public comment?
Okay. Seeing none, we'll move on. Um Dr. Brewer, we're moving on to strategic plan um goal two. Yes. Um thank you. And um we are excited about the new high school. So now we will no longer well after a final board approval, we will no longer have to say
new high school CCC. So Mr. McAteer and Miss Kinder both have worked hard on that. Um that's a lengthy process that most people don't realize is involved in naming of a school. So thank you for that. Um yes, now we have Mr. White House, our deputy superintendent that will introduce our strategic plan
update, which is goal two today. And like we already said, we have plenty of members of our team here today um to that will all provide input at some point in today's presentation. So, go ahead, Mr. White House. Thank you, Dr. Brewer. Good morning, chair and board members. Uh I'm here
with the group to share some updates on our strategic plan for goal two. So, as you all know, we are entering our final year of our five-year strategic plan, achieve 2026. Uh, we presented the last u month on goal one, our student
success, which of course is the the crux point of everything that we're working towards with our schools and with our school district. Um, but goal two with safe and positive learning environments, although not the centerpiece, is absolutely critical to the work of our schools um and the success of our student outcomes.
So the key areas of focus for goal two for the last five years, building capacity of schools and leaders uh to implement strategies to create those safe and positive school environments, engaging our families and the community as partners, ensuring that school safety is a top priority at all of our schools,
and supporting our students and employees well-being. So we have our updated metrics for goal two as we have uh completed out the 24-25 school year. Again the baseline is the far left. That's where we started
with each of these outcome metrics when we began the strategic plan. That highlighted column next to it. That is our target for the end of this school year to reach for each one of those outcome metrics. And then you can see our progress over time over the years with each one of those. So, with
reducing chronic absenteeism rate, which we know has been a challenge since COVID, um we did make a little bit of progress this past year in reducing it, but we also know that we have quite a ways to go. Um and you've heard us talk a lot about attendance and the importance of attendance, and we're going to share some more um strategies
and things that we're doing today to address our chronic absenteeism. Uh improving our daily attendance rate did go up a little bit last year, but certainly we we know we want to get to that 95% mark this year. Um and we'll talk more about that as well. Um our
alternative placements and expulsions, you can see the the progress that we made last year with our alternative placements with a good number of reductions. Um we anticipate with some of the changes for the student code of conduct that we'll see some improvement again this year moving towards that target. Um and Dr. Curley will share
some updates with what we're doing to support our students with our tier one behavior. Uh for the percent of our students feeling safe at school, we survey that twice a year with our students to look for changes. Uh we do see a little bit of improvement, but certainly our target
being 100%. Uh we know that there's a lot of room there for us to grow. However, each year that we've done this survey with our students, we've tried to add more qualifying questions to get to the root cause of why students who say they don't feel safe don't feel safe. Uh we've put choices in there. This past
year, we actually added a free form comment for them to add some comments about things that they struggle with. Um, and I think the reality is we dug through that data um as a team to really look at what was causing students to not feel safe. The majority of it really is the things that we're doing to make our
students safe, which are the Alice protocol drills, the provided information, the hard corners, all those things that we're doing to make our students safer keeps it in the back of their mind that there's always the potential for something to happen. And a lot of the students that mentioned they
don't feel safe listed that as being a reason why that they just they know it's there, right? They they know that they know what to do in an emergency, but they also know the likelihood of an emergency could be on the horizon. And so that I think we're we're just going to struggle to reach that 100% because we're we're continuing to do things to
to make our students be more safe at school. Same thing with our faculty, although certainly they, you know, they feel much more safe um in in regards to their survey responses, but I think similar responses from the faculty that, you know, just the constant drilling, especially for some of our newer
teachers, that you know, that does just weigh heavy on their minds that there there could be an emergency one day. Um and then our percentage of schools that are in compliance with FLOE. So, we do get um audit each year and Mr. McFaten will share about that a little bit later. We did have, I believe, 27
schools last year that were audited. Um, and we did hit our 100% mark for all of those being in compliance. And so, we look forward to continuing that this year. So, with that, I will turn it over to Miss Dodd Doll who's going to share about some of our attendance updates. Good morning.
Good morning. Okay, so we've kicked off yet another attendance awareness campaign this year. This year's theme is here today, ready for tomorrow. Last year's theme was be present and be powerful. And that was designed to motivate everyone to focus
on ensuring students come to school even when it is not easy and to remind students that realizing their hopes and dreams begins with showing up every day. Here today, ready for tomorrow highlights the role that school plays in promoting student well-being and
achievement. And it emphasizes the link between regular attendance and a well-prepared next generation workforce. In keeping with this theme, we continue to partner with community stakeholders through our attendance council uh to support the campaign and to problem
solve barriers to attendance. Last year, we implemented district recognitions to celebrate improvements in attendance. Schools meeting criteria were recognized quarterly and presented with our traveling banner to display on their campus showing their accomplishment. We plan to continue that this year with
some new banners that are um sponsored by Healthy Kids. Um, in September, we're going to recognize three schools who have shown the greatest improvement in their chronic absenteeism rate for the 2024 2025 school year. Attendance response committees and school-based attendance
teams meet regularly to analyze school data, which guides resource allocation and intervention planning. We've seen an increase in schools intensifying their attendance teams to include district support and community stakeholders in an effort to actively problem solve ongoing
barriers on their specific campuses. Our attendance advocate and court liaison, Miss Sherry Lauria, meets with school teams to provide on-site and coaching, helping teams access information and improve their processes to increase consistency of practices. Schools also
continue to find creative ways to improve their school-based interventions and incentive programs. As we visit schools, we've seen some great examples of tier one interventions and strategies to encourage students to attend school and be on time every day. This work
requires support from parents and families as well. As such, we want to make sure that we keep families informed and reach out when students may be trending toward establishing a pattern of non-attendance. Letters are typically sent to parents following a pattern of three unexcused
absences. Child study team or CST meetings are also held to inform parents of the attendance processes and to offer an opportunity to discuss and problem solve barriers to attendance. These meetings are typically requested after the student has acrewed at least five
unexcused absences within a 30-day period or 10 unexcused absences within a 90-day period. Contact with the parent and monitoring of the attendance continues following the CST meeting to ensure that the plan that is devised is effective. MCPS
collaborates with our net house, our local children and family in need of services agency referring families for case staffing in order to maximize the opportunity for preventative services that they provide. Truency hearings are held on a monthly basis now um with a
total of 128 cases last year which included some cases that rolled over from the year prior as well as new petitions that were submitted. Truency petitions are filed for students meeting truency criteria which is defined as missing at least 15 days within a 90-day
period unexcused absences within a 90-day period. We've seen an increase of truency cases partly due to due to the increase in the frequency of our truency hearings as well. However, we've also seen an increase in the number of petitions that have been dismissed
following um at the end of last year. We had 30 cases that were dismissed to date and we've got four cases that we're currently looking at dismissing as well. This is all hard work that takes time and collaboration within the school system as well as with families and
community partners. Hard work and consistency produce results and we've seen a decrease over time in chronic absenteeism since 2021. Our chronic absenteeism rate at the end of the 2024 2025 school year was 32.9%
as seen here. This is a slight decrease from our baseline data of 35.3% in 2021. Given the negative impact in student achievement and performance, national advocates are urging states and districts to cut their 2022 chronic absenteeism rates by half by the year
2027. The national rate in 2022 peaked at 38.5%. While the state average was 34% and our district average was 35%. With one of the three main focus areas this year being attendance, we're aiming to continue practices that have proven
successful for us while implementing new tools and strategies to decrease our chronic absenteeism rate to 20%. One uh such new tool and strategy is the implementation of the attendance intervention suite. The tool referred to as AIS is designed to help teams
effectively organize and analyze data to identify students in areas where interventions are needed. Automated alerts and communication will help keep families and students engaged. Customizable and personalized interventions are available to address students and families needing additional
support. Data from New York and Connecticut indicated that they saw a 10% increase in attendance within six months and a market reduction in chronic absenteeism among specific populations. Testimonial from a school administrator in Texas we spoke to indicated that
chronic absenteeism decreased, but more excitingly uh there was an increase in parent and family engagement, teacher engagement, and overall school district climate. Data analytics allow district leaders to track and monitor attendance for all
schools in the district. While school leaders can view school level data from their school dashboard, analyze class level data from the course level page, and view student attendance data on the attendance insights page. AIS allows you to filter students by categories to send
targeted messages to select groups of students and families. The student dashboard provides early warning system indicators of possible chronic absenteeism and allows for documentation of reasons for absences for problem solving and identification of tiered
supports. AIS offers a platform for tiered attendance tracking with downloadable reports providing easy to understand visuals for staff and for parents. The included interventions focus on positive relationships with two-way communication for tier one. more
frequent and encouraging messaging, customizable attendance postcards, and automated reminders and alerts for personalized groups of students at the tier 2, and monitoring of attendance trends at the individual level. for tier three. Most exciting is the
communication tool that will provide translated messages and allow families to respond directly from a mobile or email address in their preferred language, offering equitable access to information for all parents and increasing family engagement. We're
currently providing information and training for staff and in the final stages of our roll out, which I'm very excited about. We urge parents and families to be on the lookout for information about AIS and specifically for new communication that's coming from their school teams and attendance about
attendance. Can we ask a question about attendance really quick? I'm I'm sorry, but before I don't know if we're ready to move on. No, I that's why I didn't know if we were asking questions and switching or Yeah, sure. Just just really quickly because I I know you said it early on. you had a lot of information there for like two
slides miss so I was like okay so um can you describe again specifically what the definition we're using for attendance so how we're actually saying the student is here or not so that way we can determine chronically absent like what what is the
the attendance definition that we're using in Marian County public schools so and some of the information that they're getting the communication that they're getting from AIS is going to be both daily attendance so that they were there the majority of the day. Um and period attendance as well. So some of the communications that we're going to
send to parents is might be your child has missed two courses thus far um in the past, you know, week of school. There's going to be automated messages that are going to go out. So we're providing information on not just daily attendance, but also period attendance. Okay. All right. Great. Because that's
what I was going to ask in the in the slide that you just presented with um the AIS suite. I guess it talks about the attendance intervention that they had significant rate decreases in uh New York City and Connecticut, but we know
nationwide other states have specific definitions of attendance so they can track it more easily. And we don't yet have one in Florida, but that's a part of our plan this year. So, okay, that was that was my specific question. what what are we the the metric we're using
to say you're chronically absent means you haven't set foot on that campus at all over the period of what whatever um not just if they're only coming to one class if they're coming to one class they might not classify but we have communication coming for that as well. So with those postcards part of this that personalized um
communication those postcards that for secondary that shows period attendance would have information that says your you know child has missed uh three courses thus far and it gives them information about which courses. So it might say um if they've missed several days of their first period which happens
to be algebra. It'll say they've only attended 60% of their algebra course. And at that point we can have those conversations about let's look at the grades. Let's look at the performance and how much of that instructional time you're missing. So, I'll be interested to see how
those communications then are tied to transportation and how if the child's riding the bus and they're always missing first period, that's not the parents fault. So, we'll that that'll be interesting as we start communicating that out and and learning
that. I think my my core question though is back to how we're tracking chronically absent. So to get to that metric of 32.9% chronically absent last year, trying to ultimately get to 25% by next year, which we're probably hopefully hopefully we're going to be
able to make that um but or at least through this school year, those students that are listed as chronically absent are the ones that are not setting foot on campus at all. If they attend even one period, one hour, whatever, they're not counted in that chronically absent
or they are. They are not. Okay. All right. That that helps me because that I'm just trying to figure out because, you know, if we if we have students that are um getting checked out three hours early every day or they're coming in three hours late
every day, they're not in this chronically absent category that we're tracking. But it is data that we're tracking. Oh, no. Absolutely. Absolutely. But those numbers potentially are higher than the 32.9 that we know are already chronically absent. So that that gets to the heart of why we're trying to have an
official definition of attendance so we really can all be talking apples to apples. So thank you. Sorry to interject but thank you Dr. Gamble. Yes, Miss Thrower. Thank you as always and I I love seeing the evolution of how far we have come to
bring our all of our efforts together and and march it forward and bringing in technology and and tracking to help with some of the heavy lifting because this is hard for schools. You know, they they know that they want their kids at school
every day, but the followup the followup the followup uh really takes a lot of concerted effort. So, anything we can do to help streamline that process is great. Um, to your point, uh, board member Campbell, you know, I think the
answer is never. That when does a tardy turn into an absence and but it's still a huge problem and that may need a different intervention and, you know, different uh, different angle of attack. Uh we're
working very hard with our legislators because they do recognize that this is a foundational problem. You know, all of us as taxpayers are paying a lot of money for for prek. We, you know, that's very important. Uh we're paying a lot of money to try to educate kids and then if they're not there regularly, it's just
like being in a mud bog and the mud goes everywhere. That's our money. So, it couldn't be more important to to get this right. uh trying to make the definition. You know, you look at other states and and I look a lot to our neighbors in Georgia and I know, you know, we've had
lots of conversations about this with your team and their definition is very simple. You know, truency in Georgia is defined as any child who is subject to compulsory attendance who has more than five days of unexcused absences during the school year. You know, um so those
five days can come uh very spread out, but but they're getting them. And right now uh their uh chronic uh absence rate is 19.5. So it's it's really come down and our
goal I know is is 20%. So so we're we're right there in trying to advance this forward. But I think I just wanted to share that too for the rest of the board's knowledge that if one of the stumbling blocks u to tightening up and
getting a new statute and law for attendance is how do you define attendance? I think the first thing that we have to help it legislators understand that, you know, chronic tardiness is different than chronic absences and the more simple we keep it
uh the the easier it'll be, I think, to get this through. So, thank you uh very much for your continued work. I'm very hopeful as a board that we will uh bring it forward as we begin to refine our this as a legislative priority that we
drop the lower the from 10 days of unexcused absences to five days and see if we can get that see if we can get that approved and into law. So you guys are working hard. We're with you. I'm we're with you. I'll just say it. Uh
we're with you 100% and let's get this done. We appreciate that. Anybody else? Oh, Dr. James. Um, I just wanted to, and this may not be per the perfect question for you, but I think at some point last year, we created a, um, absence code that was for
late buses. And so, um, if we're using that absence code for late buses, then there must be a way that we can also trigger them to not populate in the data set for them being absent in first period. um when we're looking at buy
period, right? It should and and some of that talk is way beyond me when they start to talk skyward and codes and everything. Um but that's what they're working on now is to make sure that all the codes that we have in Skyward are reflected in this uh database um or platform so that it the
same way we would look at it in Skyward is what we're getting there. Yes. Because I think the thing that the key here is to ensure that we are not um doing calls, sending notices for an absence that is not to blame for the parent or the student.
And some of our work with the teams is to make sure that those practices are consistent so that we're making sure we're using those codes accurately. Correct. And and I can assure the board that that's an issue we're dealing with in truency court right now as well. Um first of all, it wouldn't show up as an absence. It would show up as a tardy.
Um, but secondly, uh, there is a code specifically related to whether or not someone checks in at the kiosk or whether or not it's a late bus. Now, we do have, and I've just spoken of this recently with some of our attendance folks here, the fact that, um, teachers typically take attendance at the very
beginning of the period. Um and it may be that in the future one of the moves we make is to have uh you know knowing that we will have a certain number of late buses um that teachers not um finalize their attendance um until the end of the first period not the
beginning of the first period. However, that and that only reason for that is just it might take a day or so for the late bus to show up as the reason um in some instances. But it's supposed to be designed or it is designed to
such that a late bus never makes it into truency court. That that's not an issue. Now, we do have a number of people just like we have in any situation where if if they've heard in the community that buses are sometimes late, they will blame that on the fact that their
student had, you know, 74 absences and, you know, 85 tardies because it was the buses because but that's not what's actually occurring. We're not seeing that boots on the ground. What we're seeing is that um many times that's used
as an excuse for why someone didn't get their child to the bus and didn't get their you know they we've actually even had people strangely argue that the bus is always late and um therefore that's
why my student missed the bus. Well, if the bus is late then you got extra time. So, you know, that that's um but I I I do recognize that we do have some issues with transportation with late buses, especially at the beginning of the year. Those are never going to show up as an
absence. And for truency court, I've made quite a distinction and and so has Judge King in dealing with absences. Tardies come into effect because once you're truent, which is determined only
and solely by absences, once you're truent, at that point, tardies paint a picture. Absences are the core of that picture. So when
someone gets into court and we see that they had zero absences but they did have 12 tardies for the last you know six the last 60 days then we say okay what's the issue with the tardies are those
somebody's not you know getting up in time you know what's going on there so we address that as part of our overall attendance issue but we also say if you had zero absences, that's the measure that we're using to find out are we
going to dismiss you from truency court? Are we going to continue forward with the case longer? So, we we have the ability to use um tardies just as a as a as a tool to get somebody completely caught up on the getting your
stuff together and and and and being a good student and being there in class. It's never used as something that either gets them into truency court or keeps them there or um in some way, you know, uh uh punishes them if they have those
tardies. Thank you, Attorney Powers. Reverend Cummings, Madam Chair, so um what I'm kind of hearing is there's different designations. What I'm hearing is there's tardies and that's due to the
student or the parents fault, correct? Or our fault if they ride a bus. Hold on. They're coded different. No, stay stay well. Stay with me for a minute. Tardies that are due to the parent or the student or whatever. Then I hear late buses. That's another category,
right? Yes. Am I correct? Yes. So my question is going to be so when do and you said that late buses are never considered as absences. That's what I just heard. If the if the bus is late where they missed the whole period, correct?
Is that not an absence? It is. No, it's not. And that's because it may shows up as absent from period. It is not an that that's not an absence that's used for truency court. Okay. For truency. So what what it happens to be called by the schools
traditionally um is a completely different issue from what happens in truency court. So I'm focused on truency court. It will see if you look in Skyward it will say absent from class. Right? Absent from class is different than absent from the day. Now many of us
would like to say that okay well we want an absence from class to somehow now translate over into truency court. It does not. If the student's absent for the day if there's an absence that's a different than absent from class. Absent from
class really just means missed class because they were late or missed class because they check out early. So, how I would handle that in court is I would bring that up to Judge King and I'd say, "Hey, Judge King, zero absences." However, there were three early
checkouts during this last month and six unexcused tardies. So, they didn't bring in like a dentist note or something like that. um or and and Judge King wouldn't even hear about the late bus issues because if there was a late bus issue, it doesn't even show up on the record.
So, but even those the that would tell the judge zero absences. That's great. Good. Keep it up. Let's work on now also making sure we're not doing the early checkouts. We're not showing up late. So absent from class is what you see in Skyward, but only if it's absence from
class for the whole day does it end up being something that is a that is a truency issue. Okay. I'm moving away from the truency issue. Yes, sir. Moving away from the truency issue. I'm concerned with the the absences because if it's a late bus and they miss
the first two periods is registered in their record as a absence. Correct. Yes, it shows up on the report card, the progress report as a absence from that class. Correct. It's coded as non-punitive the way we
created the code, but it still shows as an absence and it's still miss seat time. And if we're in high school and we're talking about hours towards credits, it's an issue. Yes. Correct. And that's where I'm at um as far as this the instructional time that's being missed. Correct. Because it's still miss time. It's still
uh defeating the purpose. I don't care if we have we can put all the codes in the computer all we want to. Um it just helps us to be able to understand the data but it does not resolve the issue of it. Oh I I agree completely and for my purposes my purposes are truency court and and
dealing with that as to how we code a late bus. It's still missed instructional time and so that that's that's outside my purview for what I do. The coding is also done in the rears because the teacher takes attendance with however many heartbeats are in her
room when the bell rings because that's when the expected arrival time is for attendance. So then retroactively manually for those late buses, those students who were on the bus then have to be retroactively changed in Skyward
for the periods that they missed. That only helps us. That's only for recordkeeping for us and for for us holding students accountable for attendance. Yes. Making sure that they're not skipping first period, but they are in fact, you know, late to school because of transportation.
But as we're looking at the data and when we're looking at those course level pages and we're looking at what courses are being missed, what instructional time it gives us, the percentage of instructional time that's missed, that's the data that we're using for problem solving. So a team would sit and say, "What's going on with this class? we
have this many students that are missing this class. Is that because of late buses? Are there other, you know, reasons? Is a child just not coming to class? And then from there, they can look at the academic um performance and then start problem solving. What do we need to do to help this child be successful?
Anybody else? You want to talk again? Yep. Go ahead. And thank you, board member James, for bringing this up because I had it written down and then didn't say it. Um there are multiple schools that have customized reports just because of the longevity of their attendance response
committees and how we started all this where they asked for a code for you know bus rider and also minutes tardy uh to try to pinpoint you know what's what's really going on and I completely agree
with taking attendance when the bell rings because if you don't then there's no trigger to say, "Well, the student, you know, is not a late bus. Where's the kid?" So, we really do from a safety perspective need to take attendance at the start of every class. But then, to
your point, you use that data to begin to drill down and and and problem solve. You know, is was a kid on campus at all or are they just coming in with a Dunkin Donuts, you know, towards the end of first period because they drive now and they're powerful? You know, what are the things? And when you go to try court,
you really get a chance to personally witness those conversations as you shared um attorney powers once they're in our truency net. The net doesn't have a lot of holes, but getting getting them before they get to that point is obviously the goal. So,
thank you. Of course, I love this conversation. And I just have one question, I think. Um, are we as consistent with our tardies as we are with the our absentee process? We are. Okay. Thank you for that.
Goal is to be as consistent as possible. Okay. All right. Very good. Thank you for that. And I am looking forward to a time when we don't have to put so much energy into getting our kids to school that they come like they're supposed to and we can take all of this energy and put it towards academics. Looking
forward to that day. It is a point well taken. What Dr. James and several of you have expressed the fact that um we're kind of always in a I forget the term you use but a retroactive we're kind of always going back to getting data in um that is
something there's a lag the lag sometimes is for example with absences it can be on the part of a parent our policy says they have to get you know three days to get that that information a note in after the absence um some parents forget don't do it. So, it shows
up as an unexcused and then they later come to court and bring like here was the actual doctor's appointment. I was at the emergency room that day. Yeah. But the problem is if we don't have a standard to go by, then at that point, you've missed your window. You've got to get within that three days of your
student being absent, you've got to get that information in. So, in some cases, that lag is caused by parents. In other cases, our tendance clerks work their tails off. They do a very good job. That being said, they've got a lot to do and it does take um uh there's some lag time
involved there too when it comes to entering in the notes they get, entering in the um the the data and making sure it's uploaded to Skyward. That's why in truency court for example, we've got to give a report from about three days back
before truency court to show the best reflection of what the actual Skyward data is at that point. And then for the next three days, it can change because a parent might still bring in a note or the truency clerk is just now getting
that week's data entered in. So there's a lot of data management that goes along with this. It's not entirely automated yet and it's um so it's it's it's bean counting and it takes some time. One last thing I'm going to make it quick. Throw us one more question.
And it's just really for data um that we'd like that I'd like to see moving forward. um this whole uh idea of these mommy notes and I've been hearing from A-rated elementary schools that even they feel like the number of mommy notes
that are accepted uh is a barrier to being able to really begin to address attendance issues. So my question is uh with mommy notes as I guess they're commonly called is that a
standard across all elementary schools or does every elementary school have their own number of mommy notes before they begin to do something? And you don't have to answer it right now but I I would like more information on mommy notes. That's all I have. We can move on. Julie noted.
Yes, Dr. B. Um I just want to comment on attendance with what Mr. Mr. White House shared with all the all the teachers during district inservice through our video clip was in order for us to really improve attendance. We know that there's a three-prong approach to this. It's
high quality instruction really focused on what is happening in the classroom getting the students in class and that early identification by some of these early warning indicators. So that's also what we're doing to combat attendance is we know that the more the more exciting
and engaging activities that are happening in the classroom, the students want to be there and so we're also working on that in from our own schools. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Brewer. All right. Any more attendance questions?
Thank you. Thank you. All right, good morning. Thank you, board. Now that we have the students in school, we'll talk about them and their behavior. I appreciate the opportunity to come and share with you this morning um on behalf of our team here that's
sitting in the back also as a result of much of their hard work over the last couple of months. So, I'll go in order uh on the slide that you have in front of you. And first of all, I had a mandate from you, which is the student code of conduct uh implementation plan. And I know that was something that was very important to you and we've worked
very hard over the last month almost and a half now to get this implemented. It started with a principal institute on uh July 16th where we rolled out what the implementation plan would look like for them and allowed them the opportunity to then formulate their plans individually for the schools. We also did that the
following week on the 21st for all of our assistant principles. Um, we did it again at the student service manager meetings which we had the week that teachers returned and those were level specific, elementary, middle, and high school which was something relatively
new and I believe that all of those student service managers appreciated the opportunity to differentiate the information that they were getting. Um, I also had the opportunity to visit several schools as they began school the following week and see some of this implementation happen as they were doing
grade level meetings with their students and rolling out their expectations on campus based on the the code of conduct. And we are still working with technology for that Skyward acknowledgement that will be effective once we officially
approve it next week. that after that point, every student that logs into Skyward for the first time after that date will have an acknowledgement of the new 2526 student code of conduct and that will be across the board. I believe it will be
specific. It will be ele it will be students, parents and faculty will receive that much like we do W2s or your contract at certain times during the year. I know that was something that you all mentioned and the technology department has worked hard uh to implement that as well. We also met with
high school and middle schools specifically on their wireless their new wireless communication plan prior to the beginning of school. We've seen a lot of success around that. I've I've visited a number of middle and high schools and I can tell you that based on arrival and from class to class, specifically in
middle schools, you just don't see the phones out which is which is very different. And for those of you that hadn't been there before, rather striking and hopefully we're going to see the impact of that as we go forward. The next topic there, monthly student service manager meetings. Again, I mentioned that we began this the first
week back, the teachers return. We differentiated them between elementary, middle, and high on specific days. We talked about that implementation specifically there as well as the new wireless communication plan. Also, um we're going to continue this format
through the school year and we're working on scheduling for that to see if we're going to continue the same schedule that we have. I know that some of those meetings specific I believe to elementary are on early release days right now. We don't necessarily believe that that is the best timing for that as a lot of schools use student service
managers for trainings on those days. However, they have been set. So we will we will continue with that schedule throughout this school year, but we're looking to make a change there. We are also doing very specific individualized training for student service managers. We wanted to do this on a very individualized basis because we know
that we have many experienced student service managers across the district, but some that need are brand new and that may have very specific needs. So we are doing this as ad as needed basis. I communicated directly with the principles to share information with our department and let us know what their
needs are and then we would then bring those trainings directly to them. That may look like us going to them on schools. That may look like them leaving their campus and going as I mentioned job embedded training where they would leave their campus and go over to a more seasoned student service manager and see
how they operated through the day specific to some of the needs that they had. conflict resolution was one of the one of the items that principles mentioned um a lot. Moving on to tier one behavior training for student service managers. This was also we the
first time we did this was um at the great beginnings uh new teacher training. We rolled this out uh my team delivered this training I think six different times in that um in that training differentiated between levels as well. I think that was very well received by them and a great opportunity
to do that. We also did this in our district-wide MDT training where we rolled out some tier one expectations throughout individual schools and campuses. We will also continue this in our student service manager meetings as we did the week that they return and
continuing throughout the year. We will also next point there do some quarterly walkthroughs. These will be scheduled at schools. This is something new that we we quite often do with assistant principal meetings or principal meetings that we go to individual schools and we do school walks or classroom walks. Uh
this has not been done with student service managers going to individualized schools. And I think this is a really great um tool to be able for them to show some things off that they're doing are very positive and for other people to see how things are operating within schools outside of their own. We do this
in classrooms continually on campuses. we have a stu a teacher that may be really good at at small groupoup instruction and as administrators we take them out of their classroom and take them to those classrooms to see that in action. So we're going to try this with student service managers and their meetings and see how what impact
this has. So I'll wrap up this morning with some 2425 data disagregation based on our uh student discipline data from last school year. So last school year we saw 49,513 total referrals. Now that sounds like a
lot and it is. However, when you break it down um on a more granular level, I think we see some really exciting things. So, for instance, 40 of our 50 schools had 80% more of their students, I'm sorry, 80% of their students receive
one or zero referrals. And I believe Miss Thrower brought this up at a previous meeting. So, what repeat referrals do we have? So, think about that for a second. 40 of our 50 schools, 80% or more of their students received one or zero referrals. I'll drill it
down um even further. That's 80% of our total schools with 20% or less of their students receiving one or more referrals. Okay, that's very important. 13 of the 40 40 schools had 85% or more
of their students receiving one or fewer referrals. 17 of the 40 schools had 90% or more of their students with one or fewer referrals. So overall the district average if you look at all the referrals
all the students and divide that out 84% of our students are receiving one or less referral. So really what does this mean? And if you look at tier one behavior supports that means absolutely it's working is that 80% of those students are getting one or less
referrals. That's showing that our tier one behavior supports are already working and working very effectively. I think that was very impressive data from last school year. One last data point that I'll share this morning going back two years in the 2324 school year, in
the first two weeks of school, so basically where we are right now, we saw 578 referrals. That was in the 2324 school year. Last year 24-25 we saw 941 referrals in the first two weeks 10 days
of school. This year to this point 2526 we've seen 387. Now I will say it is Thursday and sometimes Thursdays and Fridays it's not a full moon and Thursday I don't want to manipulate the stats too much. However, at this point up through
uh as it were eight days of school, we have seen a significantly large reduction in referrals. So with that, I will ask if you have any questions in regards to this information. Yes, Dr. James. The only question I would have is if you dug into that just a little bit deeper,
how many of those in the first two weeks were tied to a device that we are now theoretically not writing a referral for? That that is a great question. I do not have that data in front of me, but it might be interesting to look at it. I mean, the number may not be that large, but um it just would be
interesting to see how many devices um how many device codes we've used in this first two weeks compared to previous years. And I can tell you with the school's individual implementation plan, specifically in Milan high schools where you see the most violations of wireless
communication devices, there there were not a large amount of wireless communication device violations themselves. Um the plan specifically addressed that so it wouldn't turn into that. And I think their plan was rolled
out very effectively to their school communities via social media, via Skyert, uh via Skyward Word, especially at least two weeks prior to students returning. And I think that shows the effectiveness of the plan. It's quite often not the information that they
receive, but how uh they they receive the information and when they receive it. Great point. Yes. Uh yes, thank you and thank you for the really encouraging uh information. Um my attention continues to focus on. I guess it's approximately
16% or so of of our high-f flyers and it would be great to get some information at another time on any patterns um that you're noticing. You know, what are the most frequently occurring behaviors that are earning these kids repeated referrals and are they for the same
issues? Uh you know, I have my own hypothesis, but I don't have any data. So, I would love to know a little more about that and then what we can put into place to try to see if we can diffuse some of that and reduce it. Absolutely. Thanks. Thank you, Dr. Campbell.
Thank you. First of all, Dr. Curley, I appreciate that you're a data wonk like on this and so coming into it with a new set of eyes and and really starting to analyze down to the individual student and I know that's what you're doing already. I mean, I just I just know that. But, um
I'm I Dr. Dr. Brewer and I had our our one-on-one meeting yesterday and it's just on the cusp of I'm so grateful that we have team members here today talking about our homeless students and talking about um trauma and and talking about
all all of those things are connected to behavior and and so super grateful that you've presented that the majority vast majority of our students are doing the right thing. We're doing all the good things. Um, but as we progress today,
we're going to be talking about the students that need the most support in various inundry ways. So, I would be interested even more so in the 10 schools that aren't in this great category and that you've already talked about and the pockets in our community
that need the most support. And I'm sure I'll talk a lot today when we get on because Dr. Brewer and I again, we we're both brainstorming on those community conversations that that we're not currently having. Um, and I'm going to make a statement right now that kind of
deals with safe schools, but just because safety is a part of it, and I'm going to make this statement publicly, I haven't really done that yet. But if the sheriff's office is posting social media posts about all the arrests he's
conducting for sex predators and solicitation of child prostitution and all these kinds of things, on the other side of that is a child victim. That child victim most likely is a Marian County Public School student and that student is acting out in a way that is
probably having all of these referrals. And I I have an anecdotal story of of someone in the community that reached out to me um because a young lady had been involved in fights in school and when they got to the heart of it, it was because she didn't fight off her abuser.
So, she was fighting in school. And so that's the heart of some of this that I'm ready for us to have very serious community conversations that what are happening outside of the walls of Marian County Public Schools that are then impacting what is happening inside. And
so um I know that's data that we're going to be able to start piecing some of that together and start getting to root issues. But I'm so grateful Don Westgate's here from Kimberly Center because that there there's just a lot of information that I want to know and talk more about because I feel like and this
is going to be another statement I'm going to make. Sorry, I'm this is I it's it's hitting me really hard lately. As long as decisions in Marian County are made in Southeast Ocala proper, people have blinders on and they don't realize what's happening. Our kindergarten data
that we just got this week shows that I think we have about 50% of our kindergarters, maybe it's 40% of our kindergarteners did not know their first and last name. And we have it broken down by region. We know where those kindergarteners are coming from, where we're having the most significant
issues. And all of this connects together, but they're in pockets of our community that our community leaders are not really having conversations about how we're driving the how we're moving the needle and driving impact to some of those areas. And so I think that all of
this is going to be connected what we're talking about today in both of the significant topics we're talking about. And I'm ready to open the door to those conversations and bring all the players at the table that we we need to really start moving the needle. And it's community conversations like this that
are going to help do that. Thank you. Yes, and and with that, we do have I believe it's in the planning stages our second I believe uh attendance summit coming up. Um I think
uh Dr. D no doll has been working on trying to secure dates and so on and and that I think will be the perfect venue to continue to problem solve and just bring the information and the hard
some of the hard truths, you know, to everyone in in the community uh so that we can really begin to make this better. So, thank you for your for your passion. It's I 100% agree.
Thank you, Miss Thrower. Great, Dr. Curley. Thank you very much. I guess you could see we're passionate about this topic, so thanks for bearing with us. Thank you very much. Good morning. Good morning. And sort of to follow up on what Dr.
Curley was saying was um and what you're expressing Dr. Campbell, when things are happening in the community, it ultimately a lot of time pours into the school community, whether it be the social media, the back and forth on the phones, coming to school fighting, as
well as some crimes that are again perpetrated on our youth. they're suffering and we may not always know who they are because of the laws that obviously protect victims. Um we have looked into or start thinking about this
program called Handle Me with Care. It's it's a program that some districts are using and basically what it is it's just again communicating with law enforcement where when a kid outside of the school in their home has went through some type of significant
crime in their home whether it be a burglary or robbery or sex crime that we're notified of it. Um and then we have the ability for that student to be um Hold on just a second Mr. McFaten. Unfortunately, we're doing strategic
drills this week. Um the the state requires us to do live testing that goes directly to the PAP op um PAP uh stations for the city and the county. And those we can't do them as in a drill mode to where you can't get them. They
have to be done on a live mode, which is the eight click push. So, we have to do all schools and then send a report to the state within 10 days. Okay. All right. I think we're good now. All right. Thank you for pausing just a second and and they'll be coming throughout the day. So hopefully we'll we'll try to get
them taken care of. Um again, handle me with care allows us to see these potential victims. And once they're at the school, there's some type of notification through the school staff that this child or student has been through some type of traumatic incident
the night before. So therefore, this student is not prepared to take a test. they're not prepared to go through that academic day possibly which caused them to fight which caused them to be absent or sleeping in the class you know different things like that. So definitely something that we're
looking into as well. So as part of our ongoing strategic plan updates we continue to prioritize student safety, mental health and resiliency by collaborating with internal and external partners. We regularly attend joint meetings to
ensure consistent co coordination and support. These efforts are emphasized even more through our Florida School Safety Specialist Association, also known as FS3. FS3 represents Florida school safety specialist working to ensure each school safety specialist,
mental health coordinator, and district threat management coordinators has the resources to support their schools within their district. FS3 support reflects our commitment to a whole child approach building protective factors for students and families.
So how are we going to meet these goals? Number one is obviously we from a this is probably the most visible um safety measure we have which is our SRO on campus with the car parked in front and obviously we have fences and door buzzers but these are our physical
security me needs that we have did this happen to anybody else while they was up here no that's me now it's perfect it's my fault horrific timing but school and as well as guardians. Again, that's our first line of defense
when it comes to school safety. Uh emergency preparedness and drills, you hearing them. We're required to do them. Statemandated, but we have these drills on a regular basis to ensure that if some type of event did happen on campus that our students, our staff are ready
to respond in a manner that's going to protect them and keep them safe. Uh campus access control. This is a big concern not only here within the district but the state because the state implements rules and laws and mandates
about access control. And just yesterday um the state compliance office, office of safe schools a couple of weeks ago um needed Marian County or they asked Marian County if they could come here and train their compliance officers and
they chose asked us to give them a school which was one of we always choose Westport because it's the biggest school and it um give us a lot of challenges as well as Liberty. So the state came down yesterday with six of their staff members and we used Westport and Liberty
as a training ground for those compliance officers within the state for the entire north region which covers Marian Citrus all the way to the panhandle and those officers once they go to every within this district each district each county will go to all of
these different schools and they have to go to these schools and do these checks. So they used us as a testing ground to make sure that their six people were consistent in how they go from school to school to school. And remember, each school is unique. It's challenging. We
went to Westport. It this testing neither went against us or for us. So, it just gave us an opportunity to see some areas that we could improve in, but it also gave them an opportunity to see how diligently we
are as a district as well as other districts are working to meet this access control mandate. With over close to 45,000 students or more, 7,000 employees, we know that ultimately somebody is going to prop open a door. Somebody's going to put a
croc in the door, a shoe or a cone or something in the gate. It's going to happen. But the idea is that we educate our staff and our students not to do this because this opens up an opportunity for un unauthorized persons to come on our campuses. Um threat
assessment teams are at every every school. We also have a district's threat management team that looks at every threat that comes across within our district. They investigated to ensure that the student making the threat does not have the means and the capability to
carry out those threats. Um last year we had well over a thousand threats that we had to investigate. Um as a district um some of them mo most of them being not serious just kids making little
statements of I'mma hurt you, I'mma fight you or something like that. But for the most part, um, the ones that were serious, there's complete followup to make sure that again that they do not have the ability or the means to carry it out. Obviously, we work with law enforcement, our internal as well as
external uh, partners, mental health and behavioral threat support. Uh, again, um, this is a big part of what we're what we're seeing with our students. A lot of it is their mental emotional state and we have to deal with that as a
whole before we can you know this is where it starts. Um although we got all the fences and the door buzzers and the SRO's a lot of it is just mental health and we we got a great team here within our district that takes care of those um
concerns for us. um going to a lot of the physical technology, security technology and surveillance. As you know, cameras, we're going through that phase now where we got a contract with Miller Electric. And although every school does have cameras, it is time for
us now to go back and add additional cameras to ensure that all of those critical areas are covered. Uh it we did hire again a third party vendor to come out and do this for us because it puts a lot of work on our technology department who is already
working back behind the scenes to do other technology needs for our students. So we're using a third party vendor to do that training and professional development. Again, that's key. Making sure that our students and our staff are well trained. Uh the state mandates us within the first 10 days of each school
year that we have to teach them about Fortify Florida. you have to teach them about safe spaces. And so within that first 10 days of school, we noticed that our Fortify Florida alerts increased drastically because we're teaching the kids about Fortify Florida, but it's
hard to get them to understand what is actual and important tip to to call in. So they call us, they send tips about vaping, which is important. this person is trying to get my phone number on the bus, you know, just all kind of tips we
see. But we have to go in the system and obviously close those out. But the ones that are um we follow up on every one of them and obviously the threats we do as well. Crisis response and recovery um with the crisis response coordinator
position being placed on safe schools. Again, this is critical for us to work with this individual, work with the district, work with our uh county emergency management and any external stakeholders to make sure that if something happens that not only are we
dealing with it in a manner to protect and save lives, but also to recover as quickly as possible so that we can get back to the academic of what we're what we're here for, and that's to teach our kids. Again, the compliance and reporting. Um, we as a district, we as a
safe schools department, we are mandated as well to go out and do compliance checks each year as we try to get to them at least twice a year, but we are required to go to every school and do a complete compliance check as though we were
getting one from the state. That's in addition to what the state is going to come down and do. So, we do them first and we provide all the the staff, the school staff with the necessary resources and knowledge they need to where when the state comes to do those inspections, they will pass the
inspection. And keep in mind again like we say with so many staff and students on campus there's going to always be some small issue but we as a district has not faced any major issues like not having an SRO on campus or having gates
just just um propped open to the point where it's it's just just egregious. We we're not at that point. our staff and around the district is doing very well with that. And so far when we've had all all of our compliance
checks, we were able to make it right or get within compliance within a 24-hour period. And this usually documentation. If you don't have any other questions, I'm here for you to Okay. If not, I think Yes, ma'am.
I do have just one question. So um and it relates to um data that was shared at the beginning but so the safety our teachers feel less safe this year according to the data here than they did last year. So it was 85% and now it's
82%. I would think with our strategic badges that that would have increased. Was there any indicator and to what is it the same as you Mr. White House shared just that we're constantly doing drills and constantly practicing? So that's con, you know, is on their mind
and I and and that's what we believe it is. It's the constant daily reminders that we have to keep our schools safe. You have to lock the door. You have to pull the door to make sure it's shut. You got the strategic bags, the constant testing. It's a constant reminder of how
important safety is. So um both students and staff, you know, we all don't have some sleepless nights about school safety. So, um, when they answer that question, it could be very well because of the
amount of activity that we put on school safety, just the amount of emphasis that we put on it. Okay. Right. Yes. Dr. James, just to add one thought, too. I think even if we're seeing a positive trend in the referrals we're writing and the
amount of discipline we see, the egregious offenses are more egregious than they've ever been um in my opinion. And so the the heightened level of awareness that students who make really
bad choices are making really bad choices. Um it's just different than it was 20 and 30 years ago. Uh students have access to more information. they have um they're playing these video games where they're literally killing people on video games. And so it just
looks and feels different than it used to. So I think it's important to remember too that there's a there is a level of awareness that students the ones who are going to make a really bad choice, they still exist and the choices those those choices are worse
than they've ever been in my opinion. and they are and and like you say, we have access to so much to where the reporting systems are right there at their fingertips and and but to our students credit and our staff when
things happen, trust me, law enforcement, myself, 99.9% of the time we're getting this information from a student or staff member. It's not like we're somewhere coming from behind a wall and we're hearing things. No, they're telling us
and that's why we implement the educational process of it, procedures as well as the technology for them to report things because that's how we're finding out who's doing what and making the threats. Dr. Kim,
thank you. So, I I I agree with Dr. James, in in the thought process that the offenses we're seeing in our campuses are more egregious than what we potentially have seen in years past. You know, the postcoid student, etc. Like we
we can talk about that. We But our student population has also grown immensely. So some of that can can be a result of that. our community issues that that the trauma that the students are seeing in the community is also becoming more
egregious than what uh Marian County potentially had seen in the past. Uh, so to part of that with the employee potentially not feeling safe, I think speaks to our employee health and employee mental health and that cortisol uptake and always being in the fight
orflight mode. And those are things that we need to work on internally about helping our employees not have that feeling. And that's a a mental health and a physical health thing that we need to work on. But while you were talking about the handle with care, I thought I'd go to the website and see what I could learn about this. it it looks like
a lot of it is kind of training that's being done and we have some of that training trauma-informed uh care and all of that that's kind of already being done. I guess my question about how we would implement something like that is there going to be an opportunity for an
interlocal agreement or something with the sheriff's office and OPD and their CAD systems and how we would be ident we would know that information because that's a little bit I I I appreciate the handle with care um model. It looks like it's a lot of training and so that seems
like we're still going to be missing the information from the law enforcement agencies if our students were involved law enforcement and fire and rescue and if students were involved in some major traumatic event overnight how we would ultimately get that information and that's that's again communication
obviously the sheriff's office OPD with their combined uh juvenile unit we're constantly communicating usually when something happens off campus That's a major incident. I get a text message on my phone. We got a group text that we get the information and that information
that we're texting the board for the updates and executive cabinet is usually coming from that law enforcement group text that we have with OP sheriff's office. So, they're sending us these text messages and these um updates on
things that's happening in in the community all time of day and night. And then that's why we're forward them to you. But again, it's a lot of it is depending on the type of crime, right? We're going to have limited information that we can share with you all because of
there's a victim involved and that victim's confidentiality has to be protected. Completely understand that. I guess just at some point because those situations where there is a victim involved, we don't need to know it. I mean, that that's totally fine. But will the school
be able to know it? and and that's when there's a child involved, when there's an arrest that happens in their home in the middle of the night, when there's some other something that's happened, um the the schools and the school community can be notified when that has happened
in the child, even if the child wasn't the victim, but if something like that has occurred in the child's home, I mean, obviously a fire, things like that, those are going to stand out. But if again, that that's just a traumatic event for for any one of us. um depending on the age of the child it's
going to impact differently. I think we're that happens already though. Okay. I that's I'm just asking that question because yeah I think as a matter of practice if something happens in a child's home whether they're in prek or they're in 12th grade we are notified the guidance
counselor somebody with safe schools is notified and we're working on that. Generally speaking that is a matter of practice and and that's great. Sorry, I'm I'm continuing to go back and forth on this for just a minute. And that's great. I did have an employee say to me, "When are we going to stop documenting?"
Because we just document, document, document. When is that child actually getting the support that they need to get out of the trauma that has been that they've experienced? So, I I'm just I'm trying to connect all the dots and make sure that we're doing everything we can on the inside of the schools based on the things that are happening outside of
our schools. And I would just I'd say that's probably a sightspecific issue then because the the child would be identified. They're talking with the guidance counselors. They're going to um a problem solving team committee if the if the child needs additional supports. They're talking
with the social worker. But I would say that's probably more so an isolated site issue than it is a district issue because my experience within the schools has been that if a child is in trauma, we're going to address the trauma however appropriate and connect to
community resources. Yeah. I mean, I can't speak directly to that. Obviously that would be mental health and wellness of somebody else. But I do know that a lot of times just for instance a a suicide when we get that information our mental health team
is already saying hey what can we do? We're going by the school. We're going here. We'll be there tomorrow morning at 7:00. They're working behind the scenes immediately when we get information to them and they're sending people to support the schools, support the students during those incidents that
they are made aware of. For sure. Okay. I I do have one question because my um my experience has been a little different um in this realm. So, are are we certain that the roll out um of informing all the way down to the
classroom teacher that they're informed when trauma is happening in the room? Because my experience has been the opposite of that. I I can't I I'll we'll get back with the team and we can give you an answer. Okay. And we can if I I would like to know that information because I believe that's the correct thing to do, but I
have previously been told because of HIPPA they could not tell me what was going on. and I will just state publicly. I don't think that's right. You know, um the teacher is the first line of defense as the child walks through the door, you know, at 7:30 in the morning or 7:15 in the morning. So,
I would like to know what what our procedures are when there's um trauma at home. Yes, ma'am. Okay, we will get that to you. All right, that'll be great. Yes. Okay, thank you very much. Mr. McFaden, Dr. Ver, did you have anything you wanted to add to this?
No, ma'am. I'm going to we're going to transition. Mr. White House is going to take my seat. Um as Mrs. Connor comes to the podium to introduce the next topic. Oh, you have to do board comments. I have to do Well, I have to do public comments. I mean public comments. Yes. Okay. But you I just wanted to make sure
you didn't have any comments on this. Okay. Do we have any public comment? Okay. Seeing none. Yes. Dr. Brew, you want that part when we don't see any public members? It is hard to remember. But we do have we do have Mr. Brent Johnson is here. So, thank you, Mr. Brent Johnson.
Yes, Brent Johnson and Dawn. Yes. Um, okay. At this time, Miss Connor will come to the podium to introduce our next topic, which is our student progression plan revisions um that needed to take place after we had already had a board approved student progression plan.
Okay. All right. Good morning, Miss Connor. Good morning. Thank you for having us here. Um, we are going to give you a few updates that we had to put in after the fact because of some legislative changes that came a little late and so we just want to be sure that we update those in
our student progression plan. Mr. Mark Ingram is going to join me to give you the specifics of this, but again, it's just that um consistent communication that we want to have everything updated. We were actually ahead of the game and got ours approved, board approved ahead of time
and then some late stuff came in. So, Mr. Ingram will go over those specifics. Thank you, Miss Connor. Thank you, Dr. Brewer. Good morning, uh, board chair, board members. So, as as as we've talked about, these were pretty late legislative changes, and we're going to
update our schedule next year to accommodate for the fact that these changes come later. We'll still do everything we can to keep the schools informed of legislative changes and what may change in the progression plan. But for this year's sake, we just want to make sure we had in our progression plan the most accurate information so that
parents, schools, everybody could be up to date with what legislators said. This was in rule making yesterday. And this this is exactly how it went. So, we're lucky we don't have to update this. Um, but this is this is a big shift. Um, the certificate of completion is no longer
an option for students. Our schools do will not award certificates of completion because the state does not allow for it. So, I'll I'll read the actual language that was removed. Um, at the time of graduation, a student who earns the 24 required credits or the 18
credits but fails to pass the assessment um formally can be awarded a certificate of completion in form prescribed by the state board of education. Um, that language is completely struck through and that's what the rulem held yesterday. Um, but that does allow that students may elect to remain in high
school as either full-time students or part-time students who are for what we call fifth year seniors for up to one additional year to receive special instruction designed to remedy his or her identified deficiencies. Um, so we are removing the certificate of completion because the state has told
us to do so. Um, and we've updated that in the progression plan. We've already uh talked this through with our with our school admins um in our July meetings and we're going to continue and follow up on that as needed. I just have a quick question on that.
So, what is our plan going to be for because those fifth those fifth year seniors are non-funded, right? Yes. I mean, they're they're not we're not going to receive any FTE weight for them. Um,
is there flexibility in how we offer that? So, we do we have the option of full-time or or part-time enrollment? We do have to offer something, but but most of these students are either missing GPA, which could require credit recovery, or they're missing a concordance score, which could look like
tutoring and support in their needed tests and opportunities to take those tests. How many students um do we have the number? If not, we can do it at a later time. How many students would be eligible for this option had
this been true in May of 2025? So the actual I have the number I have is bigger than that. I just have the number of kids we awarded the certificate of completion to. So it should be about the same but it was 70 students across the district. Okay. So you're talking about uh 10 for high school.
Okay. So it's nothing that is a grand impact. I mean for those students it will be but it is I mean from a thinner operation when you're looking at the operation of our campuses correct. Okay. Um and ultimately the student could work towards receiving a high
school diploma. Yes. That would be what they're working towards but they won't count towards our grad rate. They still count White House might have to help me with this one. They will still count towards our grad rate for that fifth year. Right. No. So it depends on the timing of the graduation. So any of our students that graduate prior to the end of summer
school. So whatever our end of summer school cutoff date is will get reported survey five as a graduate for that year. If they graduate past that I mean we still say a graduate but they don't count in the school grade or district grade component for graduation rate. Yes that's and that's what I mean is the
ones that are coming back for that fifth year. And then would we allow them to walk at the end of that fifth year? Have we had that discussion? Yes. So, we've allowed fifth year seniors to walk. It's I mean, participation in graduation ceremony is
always at the discretion of the school principal. Um, but having been a high school principal, if you meet all the requirements of graduation, I want to celebrate you no matter what time it is. Okay. Thank you. I have one question on that, Mr. Ingram. So, what do are we rolling that out to
the students? Um, like they've received this message, they know when they started school this year that this is not an option for them. So, we're rolling it out in the conversations we have with the counselors as they talk about their required concordance scores or GPA. Um, most students don't peg
themselves as recipients of the certificate of completion because they're working up until, you know, the last day of school to meet those requirements. But yeah, that is part of that conversation. And the big the big shift and the biggest reason we wanted this communication to be clear is that certificate of completion students
previously walked at graduation, but now that we don't have a certificate of completion, those students won't be able to walk at graduation. Um, and I'll just say from my point of view, from from my role, I get a ton of phone calls from parents and students years later who thought they had a diploma because they were ordered certificate of completion
and they walked to graduation and now their job won't won't award them a promotion or they won't give them certain responsibilities or they can't go take college courses because that certificate of completion is not a high school diploma. So, I think this could ultimately there's going to be bumps, but this could help that communication
and that clarity. If you're walking at graduation, it's because you're a high school graduate. You've earned a full diploma. Mr. Thank you. Yes, madam chair. And I brought this up last week at our school board meeting in particular that we need to continue to push this uh
share this information. Not just now, not just last week, but we need to constantly I don't care if we have to come up with some flyer or something to be make sure these kids are getting it all the time and the parents because we get the calls. We're going to get the calls. You guys are going to get the calls. The schools are going to get the
calls about my kid needs to walk and you know, all that kind of stuff like that. But I'm I'm we're being proactive right now. We're being very proactive. So, I wanted to make sure that that messaging, that communication gets out to the schools all the time. It stays in the forefront,
Mr. White House. Thank you. Absolutely. Yes, Miss Thrower. I have two concerns. Um, and this is something that the board may want to work together on in our legislative meetings with our legislators. It makes no sense to me to have kids
have the opportunity to come back as a fifth year senior and not generate any FTE. I mean, if they're in front of a teacher, the teacher gets a salary, we pay the teacher. It uh that's convoluted in my opinion. And so I would welcome
any board member that would join me in making sure that if we agree as a board that it's convoluted that we say so. That's number one. Uh number two, uh shifting to our students with disabilities. Um
I'm seeing in the continuing language that the Florida Department of Education says the focus will now be on alternate pathways to completing a high school diploma. And this change is needed to ensure students receive appropriate support and and recognition um for their
achievements. I'm going to be very interested to know what these alter alternate pathways are and have they been communicated out yet because schools already started. Yes. There's some promised in legislation that don't have the full criteria out
there yet. There's definitely we're waiting on some more info on those too. Okay. And it does kind of dovetail with some conversations that we've had a year or so ago with uh for students that are almost penalized for being dual enrolled because they're still having to do all
the other criteria for a standard diploma plus they're doing their dual enrollment which is very challenging. Um so there could be a light at the end of the tunnel um for this uh hopefully. Uh but we'll see. Guess that's all I'll say right now.
Thank you. Right. Okay, Mr. Ingram, I think. We have one other revision. It's it's similar in in its effect on on graduation and it's updated concordance scores. Um, and these these were changed and we just want to make sure we had the best information in the progression plan
in case this is where a student is is looking to see what scores they need. And so this is affecting this year's juniors and beyond. Um the the stakes have been raised on the SAT reading and writing by 10 points, but they're allowing PSAT to count for reading,
which hasn't been the case in the past. Um they're also allowing 10th grade versions of the PSAT and the CLT and also the preACT and then the ACT ch uh scores unchanged for ELA. Um, and then the highlighted section at the bottom,
we actually had an update this week that we're going to have to update um before we po post for um the public review uh in September because that date we thought was July 16 has been updated to August 19th, I believe it is, when they when they updated it this week. Um, our
students who are currently sitting as juniors can use the old concordance scores if they earned them before they changed um which is August 19th. Um and then similarly the algebra concordant scores
uh there there are a few more options like the preac and the CLT10 and the CLT uh traditional has has raised the score as well. But this is not affecting this year's seniors. It's affecting next year's seniors and beyond unless those students already earned a
concordance score before this deadline. And so we're working on pulling reports for the schools so they can identify exactly what students earned what when because there is a little bit of confusion here. But we're making making every effort to be clear. Dr. Thanks. Just real quick, um it'd be I'd be
interested to know overall district-wide, how large did the gap grow um in students who are now not eligible um or who are um or who are now deemed eligible because adding the PAT may have
picked up a few kids. Right. Right. And then um we have students who have yet to meet the mark. And so it would just be interesting to see the data and maybe we can pick up a few more kids with the PAT. Maybe not. I don't know. Um but generally, I mean, I was an high
school administrator when we lost the um the per score. Yep. The per score. And that was a crusher because per was I mean I know why they did it because per um and it was a really easy way to get a
kid across the finish line. And so um now the CLT is kind of which I find very interesting that they take it online at home in a recorded screen. Do you know that? Do you guys know that? So my mentee is working towards meeting a
concord coordinate which is the only reason I'm aware of this. But I I was assuming she was going to CF or going somewhere to take this test and they take it at home um on a recorded screen. Um and and some other tests are going that way too. That's just a broad trend. I just I
find it very how do they how do they regulate the honesty in that but you know whatever. So anyhow if we had a little bit more data to see if we're picking up any more kids with the adding the PAT that would be interesting. Yeah and we're and we're working to
offer all these additional tests at our at our sites and and making sure we give every kid every opportunity to run these concordance schools. Yeah because the CLT has very restricted test opportunities currently. It's like one Saturday a month or something. It's tiny windows like the ACT and SAT.
Yes. And so um I would love for there to be other opportunities for the CLT um like on day at least because I believe it is only Saturday, right? Uh right now I think so. What offer in school too? Okay. CLT just like ACT and SAT they have
Saturday testing but they also have inschool testing. So we provide CLT to large groups of students just like we do SAT and ACT and we proctor it. So the only time they're video record is if somebody's not proctoring it and then they then they have to have somebody remotely watching the room to make sure nobody's in there helping
them. Right. Yes. Okay. Then my I just have I only know the experience that my mentee has had. So thank you. Okay. So yeah, our next our next steps on these uh updates to the progression plan will be the um scheduled public hearing
and then the public hearing September 23rd. Like I said, I do have to update that July 16th date to the August 19th date that the state changed this week. Um, that's it. Okay. Thank you very much. Anything further from the board,
Mr. White House, do you have anything to add? Yes. So, thank you to Mr. Ingram for sharing these updates and and we know that a lot of this is going to be communication with our school counselors and school administrators, especially with the changes of the requirements and who is eligible for those requirements as we start to get very overlapping and
confusing maps of students based on when you entered nth grade, when you took a test. And so, we work to sort that out. Um, but I think again, you know, this is unfortunately a side effect of having a lot of our session end this year is that we had rules that came out late. Um, laws that were, you know, finally implemented after we'd already
implemented our student progression plan. So hopefully we won't run into this next year. We'll have everything squared away from the get-go. All right. Thank you very much. Is there any public comment? Okay, moving on. We'll move to item
seven. Um, Mr. White House. You want to introduce Mr. Butler? Yes, ma'am. So, we'll have uh Miss Avet Del come up and introduce our our speakers for today. So, we're going to be sharing a little bit more about how we support our students in transition. Um and Mr. Butler will share a lot of the work and then we have some friends
from the community that are going to come and talk about how they partner with us as well in this process. All right. Thank you, Mr. White House. Good morning again, board chair and schoolboard members. The mental health and wellness department is comprised of a unique group of divisions and staff that provide a variety of services for
the many needs of our students and our families. The families in transition program is tasked with supporting our students and families who are experiencing homelessness. These families have distinctive and varying needs along with specific rights afforded through the Mckin Vento Act. This morning we will be providing an
overview of the McKini Vento Act and how Marian County Public Schools ensures eligible families are protected and supported. With me this morning to provide this overview is Mr. Thomas Butler. Mr. Butler is the coordinator for the families and transition division and serves as a district McKini Vento
liaison. Mr. Butler has served in this role for the past seven years giving him indepth knowledge and familiarity with the requirements of and the services that are provided. Mr. Butler is also involved with other community groups and boards, allowing him to develop and solidify relationships and partnerships
with the many agencies who offer additional supports and services for our families. These partnerships are invaluable to our success in this vital work. Also with us this morning is a representative from the Marian County Community Development Services to share more about these crucial community
partnerships. We are also joined by a representative of Kimberly Center to spotlight one community agency that we partner with in a variety of ways. At this time, I would like to invite Mr. Butler to share additional information. I got you. Good morning.
Good morning. I'd like to thank you for giving me this opportunity to talk with you about the McKenna Vento Act and um how it affects and applies to our district. Um, as you know, at the heart of public education
is the belief that every child deserves access to learning, stability, and hope for the future. So, the McKenna Vento Homeless Assistance Act exists to protect that belief
that homeless homelessness do not lose their right to a free appropriate public education. quick too quick. Um, the McKini Vento uh homeless uh act was
enacted in 1987 and it was updated in 201 14 to 15 as part of the Every Student Succeeds Act. And actually the purpose of the law is to protect the educational rights of children and youth
experiencing homelessness. So what we do in title nine part A, our goals are to consistently identify at least five% of eligible students as homeless within the school year. Um also to sustain at least 90% of the daily
attendance rate for students identified as homeless and to consistently promote at least 90% of those students identified as homeless in the next grade at the end of the each year. So when we look at defining homelessness
in reference to McKenna Vento, those are the children who or youth who lack a fixed regular and adequate nighttime resident including those who shared housing due to loss of housing, economic hardship or crisis. They're actually
doubled up with relatives or other families or living with family, friends, or whoever. Some are living in motel, hotels, trailer parks or campgrounds due to lack of adequate accommodations. Inadequate housing. Some are living in
abandoned houses that with no running water, no electricity and the situation is not livable for that that family. And also those we count those that living in emergency and transitional shelters. We have those that are living in private
places not designated for ordinary use as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings. Campers, tents, sheds in the back of somebody's house. Um living in truck stops, living at places that are not
inhabitable for any family to be living at. And they're living in these situations. Some are living in cars. Some are living in parks, tents. We have some of them that live in what we call uh areas where homeless people
encamp in encampment areas, bus stations or train stations. Um migratory children are living in the above. We count them as homeless and those situations also. Okay. the identification, how we identify those students, because when
you come into any school, you can't tell if a child is homeless. The only difference is when they go home and where they go to live. So a lot of times some of the identification indicators would be missing the bus a lot, hungry
coming to school, tardiness or absences, hygiene, poor hygiene, sleeping in class, lack of participation, lack of school supplies or adequate uh clothing or shoes, unmet medical or dental needs, social and behavioral challenges, and
enrollment at multiple schools because they lack any type of records or gaps in learning. In 2425 school year, we had 102 homeless students living in shelters. We had a 107 that were double up with
other families, family members. We had 314 in hotels and motel. We had 133 living in cars, tents, abandoned buildings. And our total number for 24
25 that were actually identified was556. A lot of times we find that a lot of children do not get identified because of the fact that their parents kind of shield them from the identification of being homeless because there's some barriers out there
that they think that DCF will take the children away from them. But we try to closely monitor these students and try to assure the parents with information that hey we can identify you as homeless. We can provide resources and
services for you. Their student rights under McKenna Vento they have a right to immediate enrollment. That means if they come through the door and they don't have their records or they don't have their birth certificates, they don't have certain documents, it's the law that
they must be immediately enrolled in school and we get those documents and all those records later on because first we want to stabilize the situation. We want them to get them to school because we know homeless schools students will be able to eat breakfast and eat lunch
and we can provide services for them. They have a right to their school of origin. If they started at a school and they became homeless and a lot of our homeless families move around in the county and say for instance if they are on the north side and they become homeless and they get a hotel room or
someplace off of 40 then they have a right to be transported to their school of origin where they initially became homeless. Uh they have comparable services to other students. They get free school meals. uh and all the
benefits of any ordinary student in our district. So the McKenna Vento program training identification, our school district must identify district school level personnel who must participate in training provided by the McKenna Vento liaison
and that's done on a yearly basis. our IPC's, our guidance counselors. We train them into filling out the proper paperwork to identify these students. We identify and train personnel such as administrators, teachers, paraprofessionals, food service, and
transportation on McKenna Vento program. We also include a student housing questionnaire in the school enrollment packet which is our homeless enrollment form that allows us to get the proper information so that we can document that
information so that that information is given to uh state reporting. So because those uh things are reported to the state every quarter in reference to homeless population
transportation under the McKenna Vento act it's required that all districts all local agencies to meet the following criteria. We got to provide transportation to homeless students that is comparable to what is available to non-homeless students. We have to also provide or
arrange for transportation for homeless students to and from their school of origin. We have a situation in which a student is a 11th or 12th grade high school student and they were going to Denellan. Well, they moved into the next
county. Guess what? We have to provide transportation. We have to get with the other county, make arrangements to bring them to the state line to that county line and pick them up at the county line and transport them to their school of origin. We've had situations that have occurred like that
over the past few years. Also, we have to it's fine. So our families in transition program as we ind as I indicated before we've identified 155 school6 students that were identified last year. Um we
provided them with school supplies. We provided them with family resources. We provided case management. I tell you 96% graduation rate for homeless students. Out of the 68 high school seniors last year that were identified as homeless
and our most of our high school students are couch surfers. They live one week with another person, one week with a friend here and there. Out of those 68, 65 of them graduated from high school because of the case management we
provide through our title nine grant. Out of those 65 students that graduated, 30 of them attended college. They applied for college, were accepted, and they went on to college. And the thing
about it is when a student is homeless, the first two years of their college education is paid by the federal government if they're accepted at any college in United States. But we don't do this alone. through our community s
support from our faith communities, our churches, our local businesses, our agencies that supply or support our homeless uh families. We're able to achieve these goals as far as graduation rate and provide resources
for our families. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Any questions? Excuse me, Dr. James. um this is not it's more of just a statement as a way that we can try and continue to problem solve. But you know the the facts you shared about our homeless seniors and making their way to college is
exceptional uh and across the finish line for high school graduation. But a barrier that these students are facing upon enrollment into college is they are looking to prove residency and the universities are pushing back because the child doesn't have a driver's
license. they do not have a residence. And so, how can we continue, and this isn't a question for you, but rather collective group, how can we continue to problem solve at the state level so that our homeless students across the state
when they are going to university or or community junior college? How can we ensure that we are changing the necessary paperwork required to prove residency seeing as they may not have
any of those documents, they are deemed homeless. And so I just want to see us continue to problem solve that. I know that that was something Minda faced um going to University of Florida. they were pushing back and asking for all of these proofs of residency and she
she didn't drive and she didn't have um any mail coming to any address and so all of these things that they wanted from her she couldn't provide and and the take stock team was working really hard to solve that for her but not every student that you just identified has the
take stock team on fighting their fight for them I mean they all have a team but the take stock and children team is a is a real big NFL team when you're looking at getting someone to fight battles for you. And so I just want to make sure we continue to think about how we can problem solve that so that these
students who are exceptional in education are not fighting another battle just to get in the in the front door. Well, we have paperwork that the state provides for us that we fill out for those students. When they apply for the college and they're accepted, we send
this paperwork which is signed by me and indicate and verifies that they were homeless. We send that to the financial aid office of that college or university and that's how they can be identified because they may not have an address or
and we have documents to give them so that they can get their ID their and I think it's more from the legislator perspective because the university I think was not accepting that for this particular student um and so if the universities are are battling us on that front we may need to take it
up and be able to have further conversation at the legisl ative level because I feel confident we're doing what we're supposed to be doing. But if that's not enough for a student um to to be able to get in to the University of Florida and attend school and register for classes, we have to figure out then
at the legislative level what we can do differently to support these students. Do you know what school that was? University of Florida. Okay. Yeah. I can go ahead and contact them and let them know what Yeah. Yeah, I mean they were I mean the take stock team had to fight some pretty
significant battles to get her to be able to officially be an in-state student um because they didn't want to accept the documents. And I'm sure I could connect you with the take stock team and they could elaborate, but I just think and she's she's a super high achiever and has all of her ducks in a
row. So a student who doesn't have a supportive team would really struggle and maybe give up because the barrier is too large and they say, "You know what? Just kidding. this makes me a a barrier I shouldn't go past. Well, normally I get those calls. Normally I get those calls from those students that may have issues with
getting to school and then I have to call over to the college. I had a student that was going to a school in Alaska and we resolve the issue of that student enrolling in that school in Alaska. So, normally I would kind of uh
broker and talk for that student or be that student's representative. Madam Chair. Okay. Yes, Reverend Cummings. Mr. Butler, um Re Butler, thank you. Thank you. Um because I know the work that you all uh are doing over there. Um
this is a serious to me this is a very very serious uh issue within our community. Um since school has started and I think I've referred some folk to you in these past week or so where um this is becoming more and more and more
prevalent in our community. It's not going away. And um I do have some questions because um with there not really being any such thing as affordable housing in our in
our community um you you're going to get more and more people looking to you for help uh because they're looking they're looking to me and so I trying to connect them to the right people. However, um,
with this, and I know you said,56 was for last year that was identified, but we know that there's that number is much greater because of of the stigma that parents don't want. You know, some cultures just say you don't talk about what's going on here. You just do what
you got to do. And so, you're um, those kids are not really identified. We probably know, probably have an idea, but they're not identified. um with some of these seniors, these not seniors, high school kids, are we doing any type of um referrals for like job
placement, you know, kind of help them get uh after school jobs or anything of such with that? That's one question. Uh the other question is with these when you're homeless and you're transient um you're living
daytoday and so it's not you don't have file cabinets you don't have u resources to carry all of your documentation and stuff with you and keep it in a safe place have do we have any umus or uh uh relationships with with DMV
with um vital statistics on getting birth certificates um helping them get uh IDs, not necessarily a driver's license, but um just an ID. Um those things are important because even if they want to file for uh public assistance or anything like that, they're going to
need certain documentation to do those things. So, do we have any memorandums understanding? Do we have any relationships with other local agencies that help us to help them to be able to get back on their feet? I think most people want to they don't they don't want to hand out, they want to hand up.
and what what is what is our role in that? I'll stop right there for a second. Yes, we have documents that we can give that student so that they can get their ID, they can get their birth certificates because we do pay for their birth certificates if that's needed
because a lot of times I have met parents down at uh the Florida Health Department and pay for their birth certificates for their children. Um, we we work closely because uh my staff uh through Title Nine, we work closely with
those high school students that are coded homeless and we meet every need that they may have because we pay for graduation fees. We pay for field trips that they may have. We even pay for uh those sophisticated calculators that some of them in their upper math class
have to take. We pay for that out of our internal funds. And those internal funds are funded through our churches, through our businesses, and those organizations that provide money for our children. And and I pause right there because that you just said something because my
church does it. I do it. I send a check. You know, we do certain things every month to certain schools to help them have resources to do certain things. But one of the things I'm I'm looking for and I'm thinking uh board this is something that we probably do need to
approach the legislature with u when I work for department of corrections uh we didn't want to release an inmate from prison that did not have a birth certificate that did not have an ID um we were if they were a Florida resident
meaning if they were born in the state of Florida it was our job to make sure that this person when they released from prison received their ID and a birth certificate so that they had a start when they transition out. I'm thinking
that and it was to no cost of this to the inmate. There was no cost to the inmate. There was no cost to the to the Department of Corrections budget. There was no cost to anyone other than it was a uh understanding with the um the two agencies. And I'm thinking that
something we shouldn't have to pull funds out of his budget to purchase a $10 birth certificate. I think $10 or $12 or whatever they are for a birth. I think it's about $125. I say $15 or less. That should be something because we're all in this
together. That is something that we need to approach our legislators about. We're looking for things to bring to them. Um Dr. Campbell for FSBA. Those are some things that we need to have because the the homeless problem is not going away anytime soon. Um, and this helps these
kids. This helps these families. Um, and it helps us budgetwise, moneywise, where we're not trying to pay for all these birth certificates. We're not trying to pay for all these ID IDs. And um again, every inmate that came out of prison um
if we were able to get it um they got a they got a brand new ID card, real ID compliant, and they got a birth certificate. And I'm thinking that is something that we as a board as boards need to approach our our people, our legislators about because this is going to help us. It's going to help those
kids. Same thing when it goes to as Dr. Cameron was just stating when these kids get ready to go to college, they have those old those credentials in hand and not not not because to be honest with you, some of those things you can't even you can't even apply for financial aid
if you don't have the right credentials, transcripts. And so let's help them get ahead by working on trying to get these things in place and um and that not being a cost to us. I'm sure you'd rather um rather use that money to put someone in a hotel
than to buy a birth certificate. And well, we used to have uh money for hotels and motel, but we do know no longer have that because it's coming it has to come through the churches or organizations that correct that give it to the schools. Um I I've gotten several requests. We're in we're
in the um what nine days in. I've gotten five requests already this year um to my church. So, I know there's a huge issue, guys. There's a huge issue with this. Thank you, Reverend Cummings. Anything else? Yep. Dr. Campbell,
thank you for continuing this conversation. And I had the opportunity to speak with someone recently who was asking me specifically about the homeless student population because they're coming in on 40 and having to stop behind a school bus at every single or coming in on 27 every single they're
like and a dozen kids at every stop at in front of every motel and they're all and and how are we you know what what does that look like and and elaborating more on that and I I know our partners are here from uh the community services
and all and these things that we talk about some in in Governor's West and others, but to get into a permanent housing situation, the cost for first and last month's rent and security deposit and all of that is roughly
$4,000, I believe. And so families may have the funds to pay weekly in in a motel, hotel, something like that. And but the amount of money they actually have to pay that weekly is also going to depend on how nice the facility is that
they're staying in. Um but they're paying upwards of $1,500 a month if not more. So they have the money to potentially pay for per a more permanent housing situation. um but they just don't have the funds for all that
startup cost and they may not have the credit for it and they may um so I I think those are large community conversations that that our community partners are having and I I know that you know some of the next screen is going to have all of the partners that
we're working with and and there are a lot of partners that are working together on this. I I think it's something that we publicly don't talk about enough. U the fact that we had 1,500 still left that you know potentially that are still with us. I
I'm curious to know when we would have an updated number at least to know. So if we had 1556 last year that were identified and 65 of them were seniors and moved on from us. So, it's still roughly 1,500, but some of them have
potentially moved on to other locations or they have found permanent housing or u about when do we start really updating that number to know what is our real number right now and we know that's going to fluctuate because we know what a person's situation today is a point in
time count like the county does. It's a it's a point in time. Uh but about when do you think we'll know at least the status of that roughly 1500 students? Well, normally starting in the summertime, July 1, we
call all the previous uh families that were homeless to find out what their situation is. Are they still in that situation? And then they have until September the 22nd to reertify. Okay. So, that's the date that the
reertification process will end for those from the previous school year. So, if they haven't reertified, then they're taken out of the system as being homeless. But a lot of times, the majority of them will reertify by the 22nd. and with the help of our our IPC's
and our schools who do a fantastic job in reertifying them and sending those homeless enrollment forms to our office um so that we can go ahead and um look at how many we're going to get and after the first quarter we normally get close to what we normally had the year before
or a lot of them are coming in I'm recently I've gotten between 25 to 30 uh each week after July one coming into the uh office saying that they were homeless. They're in that same situation. Yes, thank you for that. Uh the the September
22nd date, it just it it feels like one of those antiquated dates now that we start school in August. We we were talking about the se, you know, a certain birthday by September 1. And so now we have a date even much later in September that is the reertification. it
that it just feels like some antiquated um legislation potentially that is dictating that or is that a federal date? Well, that's that's what the state requires. Right. So, that's state that's my point. So, whenever the state has all of these I'm curious to know when they've
re-evaluated that September 22nd date. Go ahead. It's normally counted from the first day of school 30 days into the next school year because our homeless numbers continues to be counted to the state 30 days into the next school year. And that's how our funding is is added
on to our Title 9. It determines how many homeless students you have in the district. And that's not 30 calendar days, it's 30 school days. 30. Okay. Well, then that probably is calendar days. I believe it is. Is it calendar days? I believe it is. Okay. Then again, if it's a calendar day
situation, it's an arbitrary number that's created somewhere somewhere along the way. Anyway, uh because our first day of school was the 11th. And so if it was 30 calendar days, regardless, I just um I was curious about when we would we would have a number. So knowing it'll be late September of sorts to know at least
the status of those former almost 1500 and then uh the upcoming numbers that that'll be helpful for us to know as we continue these conversations in um but I think the hotel motel conversation is an interesting one because of the numbers
of of students and just the cost it is. Um it it further speaks to a whole different topic of conversation about school readiness funding and that's available for child care. the legislature, we are potentially working
on moving that number from currently it's 150% of the state median income in order to meet the the school readiness child care fund and the state there there is legislation potentially to move that and Florida Chamber Foundation is trying to do that and if we can get
child care for individuals that are in poverty then that can get them to work that that can get them to out of a out of a transitional housing situation. So, it's just cyclical. It it it really is. And so, there's just lots of areas we can tackle to try to help our kids.
Well, we find that a lot of the parents who live in hotels, motel, they work and these children are getting off the bus and they're going to that hotel and the parent is not there because they're still at work. So, we try to work with them. We try to work with the schools to see if there's
after school activity. We try to work with the churches to see if there's an act after school activity. the these students can participate in. So if you have a child because many occasions I've seen children seven, eight years old letting himself into a hotel room. Nobody's there because the parent is
working. Sure. You know, so we try our best to try to find out what we can do and with our community resources and our community agencies, we try to work together to try to help those families. Right. So and then Mr. brother and brother um is
is the picture. Um this is a very sanitized view of this yes issue when it's really it's really a ugly picture. Um because when you look at it um
you do you're right there's a lot of parents in a situation where it's it's six or seven people in a hotel room. um uh several kids from different schools. Um transportation trying to get them to
the schools. Parent is working just trying to maintain the hotel room. Um no no stove, no nothing. Just trying to maintain the hotel room. And that could be anywhere from $500 to $600 a week. That's right. A week. And so um and that's not
counting food. That's not counting trying to um pay for a car, transportation, or anything like that. That's just just living, just trying to survive. So, um I I have to say this. I I truly appreciate our community um
partners who give who have taken it upon themselves to give to certain schools to have recognized that need. Um, I know sometimes it can be challenging trying to get the funds out to do what they need to do to cover those rooms and
stuff. Um, just to even give folk a gift card to go get something to eat. Um, it's challenging, but I truly have to thank our community partners, the many and and you got a lot on this on this on this slide, but there's a lot that give
anonymously or that give that don't want their names out there that just give just to support um this group. And oftentimes, and somebody may say, well, 1556 kids is not a lot considering you got 40 something thousand students in our
district. One is a lot in my opinion. Um when you're trying when you're saying every kid succeeds, when every kid succeeds, then that one counts and 1556 that have been identified is a lot. So you got to know that there's probably
another 1556 that are not identified out there, probably more. So I thank you. I I really thank you guys for what you do. Um, there's never been a time I called you guys and and asked for as a referral to someone or something. U someone had a
need that you guys did not step up and and get it get it to them and help them. Um, but we really need our community partners to continue to to be that support especially now that um, you know, couple years ago we had a little had a little help. We had all those er
funds. That stuff is gone. That stuff is gone. And I know towards the end of the last year's school term, you and I had some conversation. You and I, Miss Boston, had some conversations about some of this because those funds were gone and you couldn't you didn't have it to be able to put people up in those hotels and on those
motel and stuff and and and and and let me let me clear this real quick because we keep saying hotels and motel. I don't think anybody think we put them in the Hilton or anything of the such. They're not. They're not. They're not. They're not in a luxury. They're not at
a resort. They're not on vacation. These people are in in hotels where they can just survive. Just survive. Um I had a um someone call me the other day who's has housing but the housing is so bad because I know I think they called they
have pest um in the house with the pest not pets pests that um it's created the um the environment where they can't breathe in the house and the kids have asthma and so it trans over to it rolls
over into the school because now when the kids come to school they're falling asleep because they've been fighting all night just to not get bit. Am I making sense? Yes. So, so this is this is real. This is not New York City. This is not LA. This is
Marian County, Ocala, Dunelan, uh, Chatmire, uh, Buzzer, Florida. This is here. So, we have real issues in Marian County. And we, you know, we have a lot of community support because we have there's a couple times through the past
couple years we've had middle school students who could not pay for their trip to DC or wherever they were going and we were able to fund that trip for them. One time I called my wife and she had people at her school to get the
money together and we were able to fund a trip for one of the kids. So, I mean, we I normally call different people when they just reach out and try to help us because they're they're my kids, right? In a sense, we provide clothing, shoes for
them. And it's new clothing. It's new shoes. We don't give any kid no used clothing, no used shoes. It's all new clothing because I know what it is like to go to school with hand-me-downs. So my thing is I'm going to make sure
and sacrifice and get the funding so that they can have they can look like any other kid that goes to school. Right. Yes. Thank you. Yes, Mr. Thrower. Thank you. And in addition to this list of fantastic partners, I really wanted
to acknowledge um Vets Helping Vets, formerly known as Veterans Helping Veterans. Of course, anyone would think that they help veterans exclusively, but after attending um several meetings um regarding our homeless challenges with
uh Councilman Hilty and and yourself and and others around the table, it became very clear because of the location of vets helping vets being right next to the library and on the boulevard, they're having people show up to their doors um that are homeless and and they
are being welcomed and uh you know using the showers and and getting support. Um it is a tremendous issue. I've already learned a lot. You know, you think about the working poor and my vision of the working poor is is
a family that lives just in a like much smaller house and has a beat up car. But we have the working homeless and they are much more invisible than the folks that we see often panhandling. Uh there's always in a population going
to be people that just aren't ready to accept help. But but the working homeless are the ones that are trying to maintain a job, trying to do what's best for their kids, uh living in horrendous situations
and trying to keep it all together. And also after in speaking to the point about seven and eight year olds coming, you know, home to these places or to the Walmart parking lot, wherever the car happens to be. Um,
it comes back to transportation, you know, because it would be great if these kids could remain on campus, you know, for 21st century and and sports activities and those kinds of things, but who's going to pick them up and get them back home? And I had the privilege
of filling in as the board member on Governor's West this month. And it just so happened that the speaker of the month was the sun the representative from Sunran and talking about, you know, their challenges with on-time pickup or on-time delivery and and so on and their
scheduling and where the buses run. And I did ask the question, you know, if there is um thought put towards dismissal times at schools. I wasn't sure how old a kid has to be to be able to ride the bus, you know, by themselves, but if they're living in
town and and attending schools in town, wouldn't it be nice if they had the opportunity if it's right on the bus line to be able to then take the bus home uh and be dropped off somewhere near, you know, a hotel or wherever they're living? Um, so my my hat is off
to Councilman Hilty for really taking the lead on this because speaking of true affordable workforce housing, which is what working homeless really need, um, there truly had been no action. In fact, I was interested that when I
raised that question about all of the development a few years ago at our I think it was our very first joint meeting of elected officials, uh there had been no action at all on utilizing the um resources of the
affordable um the live local act or anything else um to try to help cover this base. And what I know now is that um through the good work of of Councilman Hilty, according to my understanding, that he has partnered
with at least one local developer that is bringing bring I see you nodding, Mr. Butler, starting to at least build something. And so that's that is a great start. But there is a huge difference between the
the pick count that is done, the point in time count that is done once a year to identify who who is homeless. There's that barrier of folks not wanting to identify. They're very mistrustful of people they don't know coming into their encampments and obviously you try to build the
relationships and the people that are doing this work are doing all they can. But um the way we quantify someone that is homeless through McKinventto is much more broad and and I think therefore it is much more indicative of
how many folks we're really dealing with and and probably even a lot more as we're saying. So um there is so much more work to be done and so much more I just think acknowledgement. You know, we have a great community and the community is willing to step up and they do in so
many ways, but when it comes to housing, true housing, we are really um far behind. And so hopefully by continuing to have conversations like this that are honest and raw, uh the the perception of the
homeless will begin to change a little bit too. um because it's it's just very different than the ones you maybe that are more hardcore that are just on the streets and they're just not ready. I think that we have a lot of working homeless that are ready and could be
even more um contributors to our community if they could just get some stable housing. So, thanks again to vets helping vets. Miles McConico, very dynamic young man, you know, is up to it in it, but to his elbows, you know, just
really good people that are working on this, yourself included. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Butler. I have one quick question for you. Um, first of all, thank you for the work that you do in supporting our students. Um, but on slide five, you
mentioned um, let me see the lingo you used. Um, immediate enrollment. So, do they have to have any um records of vaccinations or anything or they just enter school or do we have a process that we go through when they show up?
They enroll them, they enter school, and we get those documents they need. They have about a 30-day window to produce those documents if they're homeless. Okay. So, there's an accept that's an exception to our our regular rules. Correct. Correct. Right. Because we had seventh graders that
couldn't start school, right? So this would be an exception. Okay. Correct. Because we want to get them in school, stabilized, and find out what they need and then we work on getting those documents collected. That's right. All right. Thank you very much. I'm sorry to ask that very basic question
after such compassionate conversation. It's just a piece of the puzzle I didn't know. Thank you very much. Correct. So very quickly, as you can see here, most of these are our partners to the continuum of care, our COC. At this time, I'd like to invite Miss Robin Ford, our deputy director of community
development services, to give us some more information about those partnerships. Good morning. Good morning. I'm Robin Ford, but before I start, I'm going to let Robera speak before me because we are the joint office on homelessness and she's the other half of the joint. So,
okay. Robin, real quick before you Yes, you are. Um, real quick before you start, um, if you could speak right into the mic for me, it will help bend it. So, yes, thank you so much for short people. Yes. Thank you for having me. My name is
Roberta Sinci. I am the COC manager, community services, Marian County. Uh, as Robin said, the COC is a joint office between the city of Ocala and Marian County. Uh, we are the continuum of care.
Many people don't know what that is to be honest with you. I didn't before I started in this position. What we are working on is some rebranding that you'll see in the upcoming months, rebranding it to the homeless alliance or the Okalamarian homeless alliance. So it gives a broader understanding. We're
going to do some website up a new website and some branding so people know where to go to get some information. Um the sorry I have slides that didn't make it. The continual care continu unites local agencies and partners to
reduce homelessness through coordinated planning and support. The mission of the COC is making homelessness rare, brief, and non-recurring. The COC has a board of governors which consists of 11 people and thank you Mr.
Butler who serves on our board. It is also comprised of a general membership that's about 30 to 40 different agencies. All those agencies work together to uh focus on key areas of planning and strategy, membership engagement,
oversight and evaluation and resource alignment. The partners come together to share their resources. It's a collaborative environment. You know, we all want to row in the same direction and share services. People will bring up an issue someone will
have. someone else in the room may be able to solve it. Our meetings are the next meeting is this coming Tuesday. We have meetings monthly over at the growth services building. They are open to the public if anyone would like to attend. So the joint office, the county is not a
direct service provider. So you can equate it to ATC. So we don't fly the plane, we just organize and provide the direction. The city does provide direct services and Robin will re review that.
So through planning and strategy, the board and the general membership, they coordinate approaches. They do strategic planning. They'll monitor programs for the effect their effectiveness and ensure
compliance and leverage funding to make sure that the money is being best spent in the community based on the needs. The funding priorities for this upcoming cycle is coordinated entry to make sure everyone is documented and in the system that is homeless.
We are working new to this coming cycle is a housing navigator. As you mentioned, affordable housing is a need. So, uh, we're bringing on a housing navigator to reach out to landlords and, uh, property managers to increase affordable housing. And I'm sure as
everyone's driven down 40, you've seen the car 4 complex that's going up that'll have 59 units and have affordable housing in there as well. Case management is a priority, emergency shelter, permanent supportive housing,
and transitional housing or rapid rehousing. And the outcomes that we're looking for are the outcomes that were discussed here already. You want to support if there's a need to support treatment and recovery, increased earned income, all for the goal to re have people not return to homelessness. You
want to give people the supports and the tools to become self-sufficient, independent, and stable. I have a slide here that kind of goes a whole thing, but um some of the ways that the housing prevention, there is rental assistance out there. So to
prevent homelessness, some of these partner agencies right here have rental assistance program that are available to help people, utility assistance, there's mortgage assistance programs out there, things to prevent people from becoming homeless once once they're in a
situation where they're homeless. Um, there's emergency shelters. Robin's team of extremely talented people have street outreach and we'll go meet people where they're at to assess their situation, add them to the coordinated entry list, and refer them to the providers that can
help them get back into through rapid or transitional housing back to a stable environment. I'm going to turn this over to Robin. I don't want to take too much time, but please, if you are interested in what our agencies do and that they all work together, please come to a COC meeting.
We would love to have you. Thank you so much. Like I said, I'm Robin Ford. I'm the deputy director for um community development services over at the city of Ocala. I'm also the manager of the office of homeless prevention. So, we're
the other half of the joint office. The two main functions that we provide are coordinated entry and homeless management information systems. So something that you may not be aware of, but when someone receives services at
Interfaith or Salvation Army or any one of these different agencies that are listed on your board here, that information is put into a computer database. So we call it HMIS for short, but we have that system at the city of Ocala. Even though we work for the city,
we work through the entire county. So all of those different agencies input that information into the system. Now there's two purposes for that. The main purpose is to be able to report it in in a manner that HUD wants to see because a
lot of the funding that we get is through HUD. So that has that system has to be HUD compliant. The other reason is to avoid duplication of services. So if someone comes to interfaith and asks for utility assistance and they receive it, that's going to be put in that computer
system and if they were to go somewhere else and try to receive it for the same month, then they would be able whoever was inputting that information could look that up prior to um giving them that assistance. That's a requirement from HUD to avoid duplication of
services. So, it also gives you information about the client, fills in gaps that they may have um been assessed by another different agency and you'll be able to look at that information. There is some information that is confidential in there and can be locked down by the individual agency such as
their case plans, their goals and things like that that the individual agency can lock down. So, it's not visible to everyone, but the normal information that um would be useful to other agencies is in there. The only exclusion to this is domestic violence victims.
They have a system, but it's a separate system and it is not integrated with the other agencies and that's for safety reasons. So that's basically what our coordinated entry is the second portion of that and coordinated entry is
required by HUD for certain types of funding that comes through uh the system through the county. um is required for rapid rehousing, permanent supportive housing, whereas the most vulnerable people in your area are helped first
because agencies all over the United States tend tended to take the people that had less issues and put the money there because they were easier to help and then they were on their way. And then those people that were at the top as far as having the most issues, most
difficult to house that they never got to them. So they they ended up because the numbers are important to all of us. Numbers are important for our success. So that tended to be the problem. So it the coordinated entry system um allows us to
do an assessment. Now for the coordinated entry, we only working with the literally homeless and that is different than McKenna Vento. So we're going to be looking at the people that are living in their cars in parks, train stations, airports, abandoned buildings, cars, you know, their own vehicles. That
is where we work on coordinated entry. That doesn't mean to say our office doesn't work with others as well that are under McKini Vento, but I call I call other partners to assist them. And that's when I call Vets Helping Vets and I call Interfaith and all the different
agencies that might have rental assistance because if they if they're in an apartment, they they're not homeless. They don't meet my literally homeless criteria. They don't need my outreach team. Um the literally homeless, they they just are in a different area and
there's different money for different problems. And it's very important for us to get to the the bottom of what this individual family, whether it be a family or an individual, of what their situation is so that they we can steer them in the right way. So we don't waste anyone's time and send them down a path
that are that's not going to be able to help them just because of the parameters of the funding because all of the funding sources that we have have income limits and you know different criteria that the individual has to meet. Some of them have to have a disability in the family. Some of them have to be
chronically homeless, which would mean they'd been that literally homeless status for a year or more. So, we just that outreach team, they assess that person in person and they talk to them and they figure out where they need to place them in the system. And that's
what outreach does. Our outreach team as well goes out into the encampments. We have a great deal of success if we can pull someone out of an encampment and get them into shelter. That might be in a family situation, but most often it's
this it's a single individual. If we find someone that is a in a family situation, it's basically somebody that says they're living in their car. We do everything we can to get that those children off the street. Whatever it it whatever we can possibly do. will be
making phone calls and there's there's not hotel motel money out there in in our system right now but there are some agencies I mean talking federally but there are some agencies we can pick up the phone churches you know and say hey I really need this family just did it
this morning and um you know got uh somebody to say yes we'll go forward and do this for you so it's that discretionary money that church agencies you know different organizations have that's not tied federally.
So, as far as McKini Vento and literally homeless, yes, they're different. If they're McKini Vento, they may not be literally homeless, but if they're l literally homeless, they are McKenna Vento. So, Tom uh Thomas Butler and I work together on that list when
September 22nd runs around. He's going to compile all those lists. We do it each year. And he's going to figure out which one of those people, how what group of people are literally homeless. And then he's going to forward that based on what their answers are to the
questions. He'll forward that list to me. And then we get to work as our outreach team, going out and out, you know, outreaching to those people, finding them where they are. Our outreach team very rarely will do an interview at our office. it's almost exclusively where they are, whether it's
in a car, at a rest stop, as long as it's in the county, we go there. So, that's what they'll begin to do as soon as those results come in. And, uh, you know, last year we did that. Um, just keep in mind though that sometimes we we
run across individuals, one of the ones we ran across last year living in an abandoned house with two children, got her a shelter bed ready and wouldn't leave the house. U, so that happens and you know, we just we don't give up. We
just keep we keep going. Um, you know, if the children are in danger, obviously that's a different situation. and it's a DCF route. But if if they say no, we don't take that. We just okay, it's no today, but it's not no tomorrow. And it
and it was no today for several months. And then the house that that this individual was staying in was slated for being demolished because it was in that bad a shape. It was not her house. It got demolished. Guess what? All of a sudden, she's like,
"Hey, is that offer still good?" we got her into where she needed to be. So, the outreach team does not give up. They just keep trying and keep trying. And even if they keep saying no, we keep trying. And you know, our that that
population being in cars or uh in encampments, they're constantly being moved around because they get trespassed off property. the, you know, we had one that was in a parking lot for a long period of time and then finally the parking lot said, "No, you can't be here
anymore." And so now we got to look for them. You know, um, sometimes they'll let us know where they're at, but then we just have to to try to find them and ask other people who who know them and, you know, are familiar with them as to where they went. Um, so we just we try
to develop the relationships with people even if they're not ready to go to housing or not ready to go to shelter. Um, just to try to get them to trust us and um, and then make that final leap because going if they've been living in an encampment for a long period of time,
it's a huge jump to ask somebody, here's a lease, even if you're paying for it. Here, sign this for a year. U, yeah, a lot of them just are scared to death to do that. As far as families, we see less in the encampments. We see very few
families in the uh encampments because uh we have so many providers that are willing to do something. We have Better Together that has worked with a lot of our mothers that need to be in recovery, but they don't want a DCF case. They don't want their children taken away.
And Better Together coming up and and saying, "Yes, we will put your kids somewhere um while you get better." that's been amazing for our community and just uh you know Arnett House, Kimberly Center, all these different places that are just you know really going out of their way to help us with
people like that that are struggling with addiction and um allowing us to get them into programs that are free. It's just a matter of they they're going to be away from their children and they don't have family members still in the picture that are willing to take the children and an agency stepping forward
like that has been amazing. So, as far as the pit count, I just wanted to go over something really quickly. Our pit count is basically just a point in time. It's it's one day out of the year. And for the same, you know,
there uh Mr. Butler was talking about over around a hundred kids um at any particular time being in shelter as an average for the year. Well, our our pit count said there were 88 on the night we did it. You know, we just it's it's scheduled. HUD says we have to do it in
the last 10 days of January because they want it to be consistent all around the United States because our numbers in January are completely different than our numbers in July just because of the transient nature of the population and the weather. So our numbers in January are high whereas Michigan's number in
January unsheltered are virtually non-existent. Well, it just so happened this year our unsheltered number was much lower because I picked the date. So, it's all my fault. It happened to be the coldest day of the year, you know, so there were a lot of people not happy with me that
were out there trying to to interview all these people. But, um, you you know, it's you have to pick the date two or three months ahead of time. So, you're just guessing. You know, you got 10 days to pick out of. Um, so it unfortunately that whole week was very cold which
meant that a lot of our unsheltered normally unsheltered homeless either got together and pulled to get a room somewhere because they do that when it's cold like that if they not eligible to go to shelter maybe because they have a u felony background, violent felony
background or they've just been in the shelter and been you know taken out, they've been trespassed from the shelter or whatever. They'll a couple of them get together and afford a room that night or that week because that whole week was freezing or they go do a weather night at the Salvation Army.
They open their doors and at that particular night that we did the count there was um you know almost 30 people just laying on mats in the floor because it was so cold and you know and they weren't outside. We do count them. We just count them as sheltered. So our
numbers were not very different from previous years. They just they were less unsheltered and more sheltered. So, does anybody have any questions that I can answer? Oh, yes, Mr. Thank you. And and first of all, thank
you. The work that you do is so needed and and so commendable and and the ongoing followup that you do, I'm sure, is at times just very rewarding and also frustrating and exhausting and and because you never know when someone's finally going to say yes. And so, That's
so appreciated. Um, our little task force that's been meeting at Vets Helping Vets a few times, it's my understanding now from hearing from uh, Miles Mcconico that you guys have your COC meetings and that maybe we can blend
in. And to those I think was the suggestion I had to leave a little early from the last meeting. When do your uh, when does the COC meet? It's the third third Tuesday. There's one this Tuesday. Third Tuesday. What time?
I have fourth. Is it fourth? Fourth Tuesday of every month. Oh, that's right. We got five Tuesdays this month. That's why. Okay. I'm sorry. The fourth Tuesday of every month. There's normally there's normally a board of governors meeting first and then a general membership meeting. Board
of governor's meetings are every other month currently. So, this coming Tuesday is a general membership meeting. It will start at 12:15. it. The meetings are held over at growth services. Yeah, you said. Yeah, I'm sorry. The meetings are the fourth
Tuesday of every month. They're hold held at the growth services building. There's a board of governor's meeting first, then a general membership meeting this month. This coming Tuesday, the general membership meeting starts at 12:15. Board of governor's meetings are currently every other month.
Thank you. And those COC meetings are great for, you know, finding out what funding's available in um in our area. But, uh, like today, this afternoon is the or I think it would might have been at 10:00, but the resource and referral
committee meeting, which is just all these different agencies get together and they talk about what they can offer, and it's it's held over at Career Source. And Career Source has been a huge thing for us to work with because a lot of our people that call, they're
unemployed. So, we get them hooked up with Career Source to be able to some of them really want I I don't want just a job. I want a career. Okay. Well, they provide training for free and they even provide tuition to certain to college for free. You just have to, you know,
commit to going to class and, you know, finishing the uh the program. So, uh they do resume writing. They they will help with all kinds of uh applications. They also help with SNAP applications and all that. So, and they have a a
specific veteran person that helps. So, they're a huge help to us. But once a month, they they host this meeting where they'll have one new agency come in and just tell everybody that wants to come what their agency does. And um like one
one month they did uh ELC and they you know talked all about you know how and that was a big thing for me because I need to get our clients working and if they have non-schoolage children toddlers they can't work if they have to
pay full price for uh child care because they just can't do it. It doesn't make any sense with the amount of skill level they have and the job that they would be able to obtain. So, working with ELC, we've been able to get them reduced child care and do those forms and it helped them with those forms and the and
we would do the referral right to ELC to get them because we know they're homeless because we're working with them. We've been where they live whether it be outside or most likely in that situation with ELC in one of the shelters either in Salvation Army or in Interfaith. So, those partners, you
know, have been amazing to us. So, even if it's not housing, we're not just limited to housing. We try to work with them in employment and um if like I said if they need recovery services we can hook them up with the with a place that can meet their needs. Sometimes it is a
Salvation Army. We also have a diversion program where if they have uh family elsewhere that can help them get on their feet and they would be they would prefer going back to their family, we can send them on a greyhound to their to
their family and let them back to stable housing because sometimes being here sometimes people come here for employment and they find out that job really didn't exist or it wasn't what they thought it was and they couldn't actually do it. So they need to go back, but they don't have the finances. So
they're kind of stranded here. So we get them in the shelter so they have a a a roof over their head and then we work towards getting them back to their family as long as their family will, you know, accept them or wherever it is that they have a stable housing. But we do call ahead to make sure that that's u
that's possible. And if they need a recovery bed in another area because their recovery bed's not here, there's not one available, but they're willing to go, we'll call that recovery house and make sure that they do have a bed and then send them um through that Greyhound pro diversion program because
that, you know, that has been a big help. I think this year we have close to 70 people that we have diverted out of our shelter system and back to stable housing. We will not send them out to another place to be homeless. We We will not do
that. We don't want that done to us. So, we will not send them to another shelter in another area. Thank you very much. Anything else from the board? Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Miss Ford.
Okay, just one more. Uh, so I wish we had time to spotlight every single agency we work with because they do amazing work. Um, but we're going to have um the executive director for Kimberly Center, Miss Don Westgate, present some information about Kimberly Center. Uh, just because we partner with them in so many different ways for some
of our most vulnerable populations. Okay, good morning. Good morning. Just barely. You've been with us a long time. Thank you. You guys have a lot of important stuff to do. I understand. Um, so as IET said, I'm Don Westgate. I have the privilege of serving as the executive director at
Kimberly Center for Child Protection. We are our county's children's advocacy center and child protection team. Um what that means is we serve the children in our community after there are allegations of child abuse and child neglect. Uh this is something that as
you know is happening far too often to our children. There are far too many children that are being impacted in this way. Every year, our Department of Children and Families receives more than 4,500 allegations to their hotline. That impacts more than 9,000 children in our
community when you talk about siblings and blended families and all of that. Um, so there's a lot of abuse and neglect happening here, but we are fortunate that we do have a very collaborative response to those allegations and a lot of that is facilitated through what we do at Kimberly Center. So at Kimberly Center
um in the last year so some of our 2024 numbers um 1300 different children came to us for intervention level services. So after an allegation of abuse or neglect was made they came to us to receive a variety of services that might be investigations in nature um or might
be treatment um or advocacy uh trauma therapy in nature. Uh we do have a program where we partner with you all and are going into classrooms and uh providing children with the child safety matters and the teen safety matters curriculum. That outreach um last year was more than 32,000 children. We are
going into every first, second, and third grade classroom, every middle school and every high school. The delivery looks a little bit different depending on the school um and depending on different situations, but um the most preferred way is in the classroom face tof face by our staff that we can get
creative for some of your larger schools in how we roll that out. And then just a few other numbers. Um 117 children waited with us last year for foster care where we have a program where we take care of those kiddos while they're waiting for that foster care bed. Um more than 2,000 trauma therapy sessions
provided to children. And when you combine our medical exams and forensic interviews, our investigative services, more than a thousand different investigative services were provided by our amazing team at Kimberly's. Uh we have a team of about 25 that work on staff with us full-time to do the
services. And so what I just wanted to do in a very high level way is just highlight a couple of the programs where we do overlap a lot with the public school system. Um so our multi-disiplinary team staffing. So Kimberly Center every Friday morning at 9:00 am hosts our MDT. It's our
multi-disiplinary team staffings and essentially it's built upon the concept that child abuse investigations used to happen in silos where law enforcement didn't talk to DCF and DCF didn't talk to law enforcement and nobody was talking to the state attorney's office or telling the schools what on earth was going on. So we believe it should be
done differently and um for a long time now we've been doing these staffings on Friday mornings. So everybody that has a stake in child abuse investigations, treatment, prosecution sends a representative and we discuss cases that came in the week prior of significant
sexual abuse, physical abuse, um medical neglect, and then human trafficking is one that we've been doing more frequently as well. We staff those cases. We spend about an hour and a half, two hours going through and just making sure everybody's on the same page. It's really important with child
abuse investigations that not one agency feels like all of the responsibility falls on their shoulders. We are a team and we all have the same goal in mind, child safety. Um we might all have a little bit of a different concept on how to get there, but it's important we're sharing information so we can make good
plans, good action plans um for both the criminal investigation as well as the uh safety side of it that DCF is deciding. We touched briefly already on the child safety matters and teen safety matters curriculum. We do have four staff that full-time are going into the classrooms
and are collaborating with your guidance department, sometimes your APCs to get those scheduled. You all are so accommodating and um we get great feedback from the teachers on the importance of the information that is being conveyed. They most often stay in the classroom while our staff are
delivering the curriculum and are a support. Kids are going into active disclosure during these um sessions. Sometimes it's literally while we are presenting the information. Sometimes it's immediately following and then sometimes it's in the days and weeks
that follow. Um, sometimes those are kids that have maybe previously disclosed but are clearly still in need of maybe some trauma therapy and sometimes it is brand new information that the child has never disclosed to anybody and then we lead into a new investigation and can create some child
safety. Our children's trauma therapy program is our longest standing program at Kimberly Center. We've been around and serving children in Marian County since 1999. Trauma therapy being one of the first programs that we had. We have four M's level clinicians. All they do all day every day is help children
recover from the trauma of abuse and neglect. Um we do stay open Monday through Thursday until 7 p.m. We do our very best to not impact school schedules. We know how important it is that our kiddos are sitting in classrooms. Um, so we do have those 7 PM
up to 7 PM appointments to try and prevent kids from missing school. Sometimes we can't completely avoid it, but we do try to work with mom and dad um or whoever their caregiver is to know a better time of day for the child to miss if they are going to have to miss. I oftentimes get asked when we talk
about our trauma therapy program if it would make sense for us to be going into the schools um because we do know that school-based counseling is sometimes a great option for families especially when you think about missing school and um transportation issues. From our perspective at Kimberly Center, what we are asking our kids to process in a
trauma therapy session is sometimes really horrific child abuse. And we don't feel like it would be a fair ask of the child to step out of their English class, talk about their sexual abuse history, and then walk back into their math class. we don't feel like that would be setting them up for success during the school day, which is
why we make sure we're open later and um we make sure that we are helping them know how to continue to process their trauma when they leave that that counseling session that they've had with us. Trauma intervention and advocacy is the program that I referenced earlier where kids are waiting with us for their
foster care bed. Unfortunately, our Department of Children and Families when they make the decision that a child has to go into the foster care system or into another out ofome placement scenario, there's a long process that happens and there's a lot of weight on the shoulders of our investigators from
DCF. So, it can take four hours, 6 hours, 15 hours for a child or a sibling group to actually get their bed identified that they're going to go to. And what we realized at Kimberly Center a few years ago is that these are kids in active trauma. they've already been abused or neglected enough that they're
going to be removed and now the removal is another trauma for them. So the hospital district actually funded this program for us where now in Marian County when DCF makes that difficult decision those kids are brought to us and our trauma trained advocates provide for the emotional and physical care of
those children while they wait for their foster care bed. They do an amazing job. Um, and we make sure that we are doing our best to wrap those kids as they continue forward in their next placement. Um, to provide continuity and information to their new foster bed placement.
We attend whenever possible parent resource nights. We go to back to school events. Um, different schools that are working with our prevention team will say, "Hey, you know, we've got this planned um at the school." And they'll invite our staff to come out. We've been doing a lot more information in the world of internet crimes against
children, which as you can imagine is growing at a staggering rate. Um there's great concern for our children that are being impacted by crimes uh related to online exploitation. So we're trying to provide a lot more information to parents and caregivers related to that. So just know that we're a resource. And
then just lastly, case by case, we are here as a partner for our students and for our kids. And we know how much support our teachers and our schools are providing to them. We want to make sure that we can get all on the same page whenever possible. So my staff are always on the phones and communicating with different levels of staffing at
school. So we just appreciate the collaboration that does exist. And I will end by saying if you have never come to Kimberly Center to take a tour, I would just welcome you to do that. Sometimes it can be hard to understand exactly what on earth we do there. Um and the best way is just to come through and do a tour. So I would welcome
anybody to reach out to me and um I can have you come through and just share more about our work that we do. Any questions? Thank you so much, board. Any questions, concerns? Yes. Oh, Dr. Campbell, I didn't see you. Thank you. Um, and Don, I'm sorry I
haven't just picked up the phone and called you because I have all these things running through my head as you heard earlier. So, thank you again for being with us for three hours now already. I know that you've been sitting waiting patiently. I have two questions specifically. So, Kimberly Center is
unique to Marian County. Are there partners like you in other counties? And the reason I'm asking that is specific to those children and waiting for foster care. Friends of mine that are foster families have children coming in from all different counties. And so the
trauma those students are experiencing coming into Marian County then may not be in a situation like you guys are providing that trauma-informed care to them while they're waiting. So that's my first question. And then my second question is related to specifically to
the trauma therapy that you provide. What does your waiting list look like? How far out could we use more M's level clinicians and what does that look like? I mean there there's there's a broad concept you can see me forming here and
what's it going to take for us to really move the needle on some of these things? Yeah, absolutely. Two great questions. So there are children's advocacy centers in the surrounding counties. Every county um in our general area has a children's advocacy center, but we all look a little bit different. We're all structured differently. Kimberly Center
is the only one that has that TIA is what we call it, the TIA program where kids wait with us for foster care. It was something that our staff, we honestly, we watched we watched an investigator announce shelter to children and a mom and thought, "Okay, this is broken and it's our job to fix it." And so in 2018 is when we launched
that program. So, it is something that is unique to Marian County um and something we've been doing since 2018. And there is a lot we have a lot of kids that come through our program that get placed in Citrus or um Hernando County that don't even stay in Marian. But the kids that are getting removed in Citrus
County do not come through that program because their investigators are based elsewhere. Um so, it's definitely a program that that needs growth and needs expansion. Um and then as to the second question, unfor the first time I have to admit that we do have a waiting list and and I think there's something um to be
said for that. Yes. Um I we shouldn't have a waiting list for children that are in active trauma. We need to be able to see those children very quickly. We need additional funds to expand our trauma therapy program. We currently have four M's level clinicians, three of which are licensed in the state. One that is working on lure. The way that we
model our trauma therapy program though is uh to create consistency for our children. So we have a child that gets referred into trauma therapy. It usually takes I'm going to say about a month for them to get their first session. That's the waiting list. So it's going to take about a month unless we have a child in in significant crisis. We'll get them in
much sooner if at all possible. And what happens though is that child gets assigned Tuesdays at 4 p.m. And your appointment for to see your trauma therapist is every Tuesday at 4 p.m. until you graduate counseling. A lot of times that's 10 to 12 sessions depending. Um and then that slot opens
up and we bring another kid into that that Tuesday appointment. So that's the way it's structured. So we do need program expansion, more counselors at Kimberly Center to be able to avoid having that weight list in general. A thing on our strategic plan at Kimberly Center is also to add family therapy.
Our children heal as much as their home environment does. You can throw individual counseling all day long at a child, but if you were returning them to complete dysfunction, their healing process doesn't look as successful. So, also in the works for Kimberly Center is expansion into being able to do more family therapy. We do it on a limited
scale right now, but definitely the need to do more. Thank you so much for that. There there's so many continuing questions I have and and maybe we need to elaborate on this at at another time with a phone call or something. Um, but I was going to ask specifically about how long it
takes to get to that first session and then really do you ever graduate? And so the fact that they might get the 10 to 12 sessions, maybe that's an elementary school child, but as soon as they get into middle school, they are retraumatized for whatever reason or
there's a trigger that happens or something and then they then get to come back to you guys. And so that's another yes they do absolutely come back. So those children and parents know and that's going to happen absolutely a child that has a significant trauma and young child is going to be triggered and
the skills that we gave them at 5 years old to manage the trauma looks different when they're 13, 14, 15. So yes, we do have many kids that will come back to us not because they didn't get quality services at the front end. It's because they're at a new age and stage and they need appropriate information related to
that. So those families do absolutely come back to us. Um, and there was something else I was going to add. Um, if the child is coming through um, on investig on the investigations day, so when the child is there for their forensic interview and their medical exam and they're being removed, if a
child is exhibiting some significant behaviors that make us think they need an immediate crisis counseling session, they get those. So, we pull somebody and we will do an initial crisis counseling session with the child. We'll assess if we need a bake or act or if we need to do anything like that. Um, but we do make sure those immediate needs are
being met. Thank you. And and to just to follow up, I'm I'm trying to get my hands on it while I'm typing really quickly. I I know that the Marian County government has included the word family in their mission statement. And I was trying to get it right in front of me to see
exactly what it is. It's on the back wall. We had the uh privilege or opportunity, I guess you could say, to have our board meetings there for a month whenever this was under uh reconstruction a bit. And so I remember seeing it in the back and and and they have the word family there. So I can see
why we all need to be having these conversations. And again to your point and what I tried to say earlier, these are community issues and our kids are dealing with a lot. And to say that you have a waiting list for kids and
trauma, it is significant and I don't think it's talked about enough. And certainly I don't since I've been a board member I don't know that you've ever stood before us and had these conversations. These are public conversations that need to be happening. And if it takes behind closed doors conversations to make real change, okay,
fine. But if we're not addressing this stuff publicly with the right people in the room, then uh we're just going to continue to see the cycle. And I for one, and I'm sure fellow board members agree, uh ready to have those conversations to see what we can do. I
know you partner with our staff and all, but let's talk publicly about we can what we can do as elected officials with fellow elected officials in this community to really move the needle on on issues our our community is facing. Thank you.
Okay, anyone else? Okay, is that a yes? Okay. Thank you, Don. Thank you for the work that you do, not just for our f our families, our school families, but for our community. That was it from us. If you have no
other questions. Okay. U Mr. White House, do you have anything to add? Yes. Thank you, Chair. Um so again, just thank you to our community partners. Um we we know there's a lot more other than who we just showcased this morning that work with our teams and we want to appreciate them. Um Mr. Butler, hold
tight. Um so we want to thank them for their work and sorry, I'm going to brag on you in just a second, Amber Butler, so don't take off. Um so we want to thank them for the work. We we know our core business is teaching and learning and if that was all we had to worry about, we would find this work a lot
easier. But we know from understanding Masaw's hierarchy that there's a lot of needs that have to be met with our students uh before we can ever get to that teaching and learn learning portion and we rely on these community partnerships to make that happen. So we're we're grateful for the work that Mr. Butler does and for all of our community partnerships and and taking
care of that. But while I'm on that, I do want to brag on Mr. Butler here for just a minute because besides what we've heard this morning, he shared some great information, great data with us. Um, love the number of graduates that we had last year that were homeless, which is a huge statistic. Um, but he also wears a
lot of other hats that I just want to make sure we highlight. Um, so Mr. Butler spearheaded our bus brigade this summer and last count we had over 23,000 items donated through the bus brigade um, and rallying support from our county commission. So, we greatly appreciate
the work that he did there. He also spends every morning uh at Oakrest Elementary School helping with the arrival of students. Um and Miss Dobs was sharing how appreciative she was of him the other day that he's out there sweating with everybody else in the car line. um getting kids into class, but
he's also grabbing those parents that are showing up 10 minutes late and having a heart-to-he heart conversation with those families and letting them know the impact of even 10 minutes late um arriving to school has on our students because 10 minutes a day times 180 days adds up to thousands of minutes. Um and so we're grateful for
him stepping up in a lot of different ways and and supporting our school system. All right. Thank you, Mr. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Bradley. Thank you. Is there any public comment? Okay, seeing none, we'll move on to our
next item. Um, I think Attorney Powers, I'm going to turn it over to you for workforce housing. Just a quick update. We did have a a legal team meeting. Um myself and the
attorneys with um the uh upward housing attorneys, Mr. Blackman was present. I had to duck out for part of that meeting. Um Mr. Blackman, um Miss Usher and um Miss Brown walked through uh some line by lines on our red lines. I think
it was reported to me that most of the issues they worked on were resolved and uh there are several more that um they've scheduled for another meeting and then they'll intermittently be having a meeting with staff. Mr. Blackman, is there anything else you wanted to add about the context of that
meeting at this point? Okay. So, overall, I understand the meeting went well, but there's still plenty of work to do. So, we've got a schedule for continuing the same. Thank you. Um this chair just turned the
gav over to me for a few minutes. So we gonna continue to move on with the meeting. Um we're down to the part of um any board comments concerning Oh, and actually um I will if you reach over there actually um you don't even need to. I'll just go right into it. Uh
before we get to board comments, I had also uh an announcement to make. Board members, I'm notifying you Attorney Green or designate of the DGH legal PLLC law firm has informed me that advice is needed regarding case number 2022CA220
styled E. Evan Echenroth versus the school board of Marian County, Florida. Pursuant to 286.011 Florida statutes, the Government and Sunshine Act. On behalf of Attorney Green, I'm requesting an attorney client session with the board for the purpose of discussing the evaluation or
compromise of said matter. I have asked the board's clerk to cause reasonable public notice of the time and date of this attorney client session and the names of the persons attending to be published. It suggested the attorney client session be held be beginning at
9:02 a.m. during a recess of the August September 4th, I'm sorry, the September 4th, 2025 um administrative briefing and work session scheduled or as soon thereafter as may be heard. Thank you. As required by the statute, only the
following individuals be present. Uh each of the board members, Lori Conrad, board chair, Eric Cummings, vice chair, Dr. Dr. Alison Campbell, board member, Nancy Thrower, board member, Dr. Sarah James, board member, Dr. Danielle Brewer, the interim superintendent, Daniel Blackman, staff attorney, Jeremy
Powers, schoolboard attorney, and Miss Green, Esquire, or designate of the DGH legal law firm. I've asked a court reporter to record the session, also as required by statute. Her notes will be fully transcribed and filed with the board clerk and upon the conclusion of
any litigation or settlement of all claims arising out of the matter, the transcript will be made public record. And so, Mr. Chair, if you're uh have we passed the Gavl back passing Gavl back there. Okay. Madame Chair, uh if you would recommend that
the board hold an attorney client session pursuant to section 286.01 Florida statutes to discuss any pending matters. Okay. September 4th. What's the date? And then if there are no objections, uh the attorney client session should occur
during a recess of the September 4th, 2025 administrative briefing and work session starting at 9:02 a.m. or as soon thereafter as the matter be be heard. If that meets with your approval, Madam Chair. Okay. What was the date on that?
September 4th, 2025. I'm sorry. I thought I I tried to hop out real quick um to go to the restroom and thought you all would continue with workhorse housing workforce housing and so I've missed I just I moved through it quickly. Um okay. So we already have a meeting scheduled
for that day. Okay. Yes. All right. Thank you. So what we would do is we would start the meeting at 9 and then we immediately go into recess and call a 9:02 uh a.m. meeting uh for the attorney client session and then move into the attorney client session. When that's done, we
would continue with the remainder of our meeting. Okay, sounds good, everybody. That works for everyone. Yeah, we're here anyway. You just need consensus on that. Attorney Powers. Uh, and that's I just made the announcement. And so, u, if that meets
with your approval to make that recommendation for what I've already set up for the meeting and for the timing as well as for the court reporter, then it proceeds forward. Okay, great. A recommendation is given um for September 4th.
All right. Comments. Okay. Do we have any public comment? Okay. We're at board comments. What's that? We're at board comments. Okay. Thank you so much. I figured that
we were. Thank you, Attorney Powers. Um board. I'll open it up for comments. We'll start with you. Um Elena, Miss Martinez Young. Sorry, we've been sitting here a while. Miss Martinez Young. No, Madam Chair. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Attorney Powers. Anything else for us? Um, yes. Briefly, I just wanted to say
we had an interesting discussion regarding the um Mckin Vento Act and also homelessness among students, which is a topic that touches frequently the truency um court that we deal with because uh many of those uh despite our
best efforts, many of those students are habitually truent. Um because uh you know as we said I think that Mr. White House put it quite well. The Maslo's hierarchy there when you're look struggling for a place to stay and shelter and everything else getting to
school is often difficult. In addition though we do provide that transport at some great um expense to the Maring County schools. We provide transport that it does take a couple of days to even find out where the student is and
then to get the transport to get the route to get someone out there to take a shuttle van to go get someone bring them back. Those are all those are all things that transportation does daily in the background that it it and and it's even
if that only takes a few days once we find the student um it takes a couple of days to set up the transport by the time we get there that may have been a very temporary condition again. And so the student can't get to school until that temporary condition is is fixed. Um and
then once it's fixed it may break again within a couple of weeks or a month. So, it's an ongoing issue. Um, it at the numbers that we're talking about with student homelessness, we're approaching I um about one student who
meets the McKenna Vento um definition of homelessness for every 40 students. It's about nearly one in every one of our classes. So, that is a significant number. even though it's only around 1,600 right now. Um that's that's still
a very very high number. Um for adults I would recommend um that you might want to look into um watching. There's a there's a movie that is a sort of a semi documentary. It's not not an
actual documentary, but it's called the Florida Project and it addresses homelessness. It's uh recommended by a couple of homeless agencies. is a project on family family homelessness recommends it. I would say that um viewer discretion is certainly advised but the point is it does follow
specifically um schools and truency issues and homelessness of parents in CMI um which is a known problem. It's of course traumatized, but um it's it's
it's the hotel atmosphere, the hotel living environment. It's more common here in Marian County than we think as well. Um if you've ever driven behind buses and seen as some do um the huge number of
students that are getting off in hotels that you probably would not want to stay with your family for even a single night. You would understand that um that there's there's a there's a big um there's a big need there. Um anyway, the
the movie is called The Florida Project. I think it's on Netflix. Um it was the 2017 uh can film festivals where it was introduced. Um watched it made an impact on me and I think it it it it um I think it sets something in your
mind that keeps you thinking about the fact that it's an ongoing issue to deal with. So apart from those factors, legal department news, um I think I've probably given you everything I've gotten so far. I've been trying to make sure that I email you whenever I have new updates and if you have any
questions of course or any specific things that uh any of you board members would like to know more about, please do feel free to reach out to me. I have a quick question. When are we going to talk about policies? Um we are working we've gotten all of
the initial policies done and ready to present to the board but then about two weeks ago we got about three weeks ago we got some um additional policy updates from Neiola. Um we've already gotten with Mr. Blackman on those. He's gotten with staff. Those are mostly edited. We
do I think have a couple that are still um working on. So I don't have a firm date for you but it's coming very soon. I know that personally one of the ones I had requested us look into was transportation of student athletes in a uh 15 passenger van and we have a policy
and there's state law but other districts are doing it and so this was a conversation I think I started in the winter of last year and now we're in a new school year we have new seasons we're transporting athletes and so personally I want to ensure that's included but also it's timely
that we have this discussion so that we can try to start problem solving some of the policies because I know a lot of it is legislative change and it's a lot of um have to but some of the policies I know for me personally at least a handful I have shown desire to discuss I
think as some of the other board members have as well and so to continuing to delay having the big conversation which I understand it's probably easier to do it all at once when there are other pieces that we would impact students to be able to have transition on. So, I
just would like to see us get it done timely. Of course. Okay. All right. With that, Mr. White House. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, Chair. Um, so we're at day nine of school and we are already over projection for the school
year by quite a bit, which is incredible, and we're going to continue growing each day. Uh, right now we're averaging over 95% daily attendance. Um, and talking with several of our schools, they're seeing some of the highest early year attendance that they've seen in recent memory. Um, and I think a lot of
that has to do with being proactive on the attendance, constant communication uh, with our families and and really staying on top of these challenges. But we we want to continue that momentum and make sure we continue that progress forward. Um, been through a lot of schools in the last couple of weeks and what I can say is um, besides some of
the normal beginning of the year hiccups that we see, teachers are teaching, kids are learning. Um, and we see some great things happening in our classrooms on a daily basis and and people are really excited about this school year and and so are we. Um, I want to shed a little bit appreciation for our transportation
department. Um, we we always have struggles at the beginning of the year with transportation every year. Uh, we just know it's a matter of fact. We we have families that move over the summer and and forget to update their address with us. We have families that switch schools that went from a car ride at their last school and now they want to
be a bus rider, but they forgot to tell us that they wanted to be a bus rider. Uh we have students that show up with physical limitations that we have to address, new IPS that show up. Um and so I just want to say a big thank you to Mr. Estanic and his team for the work that they're doing to uh problem solve every day to try and smooth everything
out as fast as they can, including with our new bus app that we launched. So last week he shared with me that we started the first day of school with 42% of our buses on time. By Friday we were at 89% of our buses on time. So that's a lot of problem solving by the team and I know they're continuing to work on that
remaining 11% this week and and making sure that we can get all of our students routed properly. Um so thank you to his team. And then just again a big thank you to our community partners that have stepped up already at the beginning of the year. We've received support from the county commission, our clerk of court's office, a lot of local businesses. Um we have a lot of work to
do in education and we can't do it alone. Um and so we just thank you um to all those folks that step up and one of the things I really love about being in Marian County is that when we have a need, people step up to the plate and they're willing to help us with that need and and I think the the more that we can continue to partner and and offer
support to each other, the better off it's going to be for all of our students. So thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. White House. Um Dr. Campbell, are you ready? Sure. Okay. Thanks. I saw you turn your page. No, I know. I I wanted to make sure I I captured something from before because I I want to first um mention a a couple of
quick things and I promise I'm not going to talk long on these. Uh was grateful yesterday to have my meeting with uh Mr. Ays that I believe all of us are having about the interlocal agreement. The the uh meeting actually coincided with his conversation that he has regularly with
JB Pro. So, I actually came into his office and was able to sit there and hear some of the challenges that they're continuing to experience uh because of municipality um systems. I'll just say that. Um so, I I
know I stated it before, but I'll state it again. The school district is footing the bill to make sure that we can get what we need and how it will help our entire community with all the data to be able to speak together. So, we'll be able to have a much better product and everything in the county is going to
work really smoothly because we're footing the bill and our contract with JB Pro goes until June 30th. So, I'm convinced that we'll be able to get the information uh but completely understand why the technical working group needs to meet in the fall and we probably need to
wait on our full meeting until the spring. So, um you all will be getting that information if you haven't already from Mr. Ays. But it was just interesting walking in and him actually being on his regular call with them and hearing directly from them. So, um I
also wanted to say when I met yesterday with Dr. Brewer uh in the superintendent's conference room, we now have a really large map on the wall that shows the vastness of Marian County that has all the little pinpoints of all of where our schools are located on the
county line here and on the county line there. and none. So whenever you see it like that, I asked Dr. Brewer and if you all excuse me, if you all agree that that might be in a smaller form, not necessarily an 8 and a half by 11, but still a smaller form would be a good
leave behind for our legislators to actually have in their district offices and or in their Tallahassee offices. Uh I think specifically if we're talking transportation and 1600 square miles, it really does help to see what that really looks like. Um, and so I asked for that
and and I I think that that might be something hopefully that the team can can now that we have a new name for high school CCC it will say that you know not CCC it'll say but I I think it would be very helpful for uh them to know that. And so speaking of legislative
priorities uh I am working uh to try to schedule upcoming meetings. Thank you now to I'm seem to say thank yous after all the meetings but thank you now to Rep. Chamberlain who spent significant amount of time with us this past week talking about those priorities and his
commitment to save one of his bills for an education initiative. So, we're just trying to figure out exactly what that will be and what that language will look like. Um I will be speaking as I told you earlier uh with uh Representative Booth this week to talk about that
language on attendance and I'm so grateful that we'll be able to to be a part of that conversation again. I'm working to schedule legislative meetings with Rep. Grow, Rep. Henson, and Rep. Gentry. Um, now I got an email while I've been sitting here that Rep. Grow is
his team is asking if we would be willing to come to Inveress, which is where his district office is. I'm like, if we have plenty of notice and we know exactly when it's going to be, then we we can make that work or at least as many of us as can as possible. Um, and I'm committed to do that. And so anyway,
I think that's part of their concern or challenge is just learning where we need to have those meetings and when. Uh but I did uh make a note, Reverend Cummings, of and what I wrote here was homeless student documentation and like articulation agreements at no cost to uh
the governmental agencies that need that information. I I think that um I can certainly submit that as a priority recommendation or members of FSBA can do that. So if you wanted to submit it, that would be totally fine as well. I I
will do it for us if you would like or um the reason I present that as an option is because having sat in those legislative priority conversations with FSBA, sometimes there are things that other members submit that don't necessarily make the platform, but when
the lobbyists understand that that's an issue, then it makes it another way around. And so it the conversations start happening in Tallahassee. So, uh, I can present that or if you'd like to, Reverend Cummings, you Okay. So, I will submit that. I mean, not necessarily as one of our
priorities, but just submit it as so it can become a topic of conversation. Uh, and I I think that we I would like to have consensus if we want to change our priority that specifically right now says September 1, that we change that to
be the first day of school in a respective district. if that's consensus. We've had those conversations. Now, I think that seems like something that we can go ahead and change before I submit them to FSB. I want to make sure that we have that. I also think that that is a separate item
from the uh chronic absenteeism. So, right now they're listed as one one bullet item. I I think they are separate. Um and then I may have more information for you on gifted. I'm I'm trying I got a we got
something from Dr. Brewer um overnight about gifted. I'm I'm doing a little bit more digging into the rule making and how it's worded and maybe we'll have a specific recommendation on what we want for gifted apart from a categorical for them and pulling them out. I I'm looking at federal law and some some other
things about that and I think it is just a Florida specific thing that we can fix. Uh but I it looks like the original definition was created in 1977. So just trying to get into a little bit more of that. So maybe Tuesday evening in our board meeting during my board
comments, I'll try and have pot specific language that we might be able to other than just what we have right now. I I think the more specific we can get on what we're asking for apart from funding because I think there are some other things that we can do, rule changes and things like that that will change how
gifted education is delivered statewide and then the funding can follow. So uh I believe that's all I had. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Campbell. Miss Thrower, thank you. And while we're on the topic of legislative priorities,
I think that we should probably just continue to add it as an agenda item. Okay. Um for work sessions because chances are we're going to discuss it and then that way it'll be publicly noticed. Okay, great. Thank you for that. And
let's see. I will start with uh tomorrow is Friday and that means uh truency court which is at 9:00 am um tomorrow at the courthouse. So, it's I think pretty much all of us have have been to truency
court now. And I I like how Judge King was doing it last year. The the cases that were looked like things were going to move forward in a not so positive way started being heard first so that the parents that were there for early intervention got a chance to see, hey,
this is what you could be looking at. So, it's a good change your ways while you still can. And yeah, sad for the reason, but we're we're doing what we need to do. And I am so happy that it because of the combined efforts and and energy, as you pointed
out, Cher Conrad, you know, it'll be a happy day when we don't have to have as much conversation about this because it's just happening because it should be. And 95% average daily attendance is the highest I think that we've had um in a long time. So hopefully that'll give
us the wherewithal to to keep swinging on that. Um I would like for our next um at our next work session when we're talking about legislative priorities to continue to massage that language on five-year-olds. We got some good feedback um in our meetings with our
state reps. I love the idea of having kids start at five years old still be voluntary. I think there is some solid data that some kids have some maturing to do and since kindergarten has become so rigorous, it may not be the best fit for them. But if they're going to put
them in and register them, they will be held accountable for attendance. To me, that only makes sense. And it's not a punitive thing. To me, it's just a common sense thing. And yet the parent can always say, you know, if their son
or daughter's been in kindergarten for the first couple weeks and it's just, you know, really too much for them, then they can withdraw them and and hopefully we can have a conversation at the school level about programs that may be available that would better meet their needs, you know, to keep their learning going um during that time. So, I'm
pretty excited about this. This will be a legacy item for this board if we're able to make this happen and it'll be so far beyond that. So good for kids. So that's pretty cool. People say, "Well, what do you do on the school board?" It's it's opportunities like this that
are really great moments where and what you did with the civility code having that in every school. I think both of you when you came on the board that was something that was really important and and it was and there it is. And every time you walk into a school you can look at it and say, "Hey, tremendous hand in
that. That's pretty cool." Um all right. Uh so Trinity court tomorrow and then there is someone in this audience that has just been smiling during the whole work session. So I am going to remind everyone that tomorrow from 1 to 4 is Teresa Boston
Ellis's retirement celebration right here at MTI at the Gilded Man Cafe. And I wanted to say a couple times during the work session, Miss Bosell, stop smiling so broadly. You're making me sad. She's thinking she doesn't have to
sit through another work session. Yes, she's thinking. Yes, there's there's been a lot of them, but I know we're going to be in in great hands and looking forward to developing our our new partnership with our new CFO. So, I would have been remiss to just not acknowledge your presence and
um looking forward yes and no. Yes. To seeing you tomorrow. That's all I have. All right. Thank you, Miss Throw or Dr. James. Thank you. Um, I wanted to let the board know only because I inquired about it. The, um, the firm we chose for
the superintendent search, uh, the contract will be on the September 9th, uh, board meeting. Um, I know we had been waiting and we knew that would be coming in September. So, I just wanted you all to know that. And then I guess my question would be to Mr. White House to go to staff. When then will we have
um, we have a work session, not that week obviously, but the week after. And then on the 18th, will there be a work session agenda item about the superintendent search or will there be when will that firm if you could just maybe firm up kind of what a timeline's going to look like pending board approval on the 9th? it would just be
nice um especially because two of the board members were not privy to the conversations we had and so we did see a brief timeline when we um looked at the firm's packets but I think it would be nice now that we're moving in that direction to just have an updated timeline of kind of what this is going
to look like. Um, I enjoyed all of the conversation today and I think that it highlights the work that we're doing as a community for our students. Oftentimes, I think Marian County Public Schools
that our job is the kids and that's right, but they are the community's children and this takes a community effort because the students are in front of us for seven hours a day, 180 days a year. And so what is happening, and this is as an educator, this is what I always said. I can only do so much in the seven
hours they're in my classroom. And that's in elementary. In secondary, you maybe see them for 45 to 60 minutes. And so at an elementary school, if I only have them for seven hours a day, 180 days a year, how are we working as a community to continue to problem solve
the rest of it? And so that is what was really exciting about the conversation today because it highlights all of the different community partners working with us to ensure that we are meeting every student where they are, every family where they are and helping them problem solve how to hand up out of
their situation into better situations. So, I'm grateful for all of the community partners and the individuals that are financing those community partners because many times some of these nonprofits are supported tremendously, not by grant funding, not
by some imaginary money that comes from the federal government, but our local businesses are financially supporting the nonprofits that are working to support our students in Marian County. And a lot of them do it very silently and they are not bolsterous and they are
not um prideful. They are just quietly giving to support the work of the Kimberly Center and all of the other organizations. And so I just didn't want the meeting to go without personally vocalizing how grateful I am for the partnerships that we have and helping every student succeed in Marian County.
Thank you, Dr. James. Reverend Cummings, um very very very informative work session this morning. Um to all of our presenters, inter superintendent Brewer and to you Mr. White House, Deputy White House, thank you for those presentations. I
think we had some um great discussions, great information that was presented out to the public. Um and I I believe that we're off to a good year. And I do too also want to thank um transportation um for um what they are doing into
making sure that the kids get to school on time. I think Mr. White House gave us an 89% uh for the end of the week, but we had something I think yesterday was at 91% yesterday morning. Yesterday morning on time. So, um as we continue to improve,
it's going to get better and better and better. So, I I I I uh ask that those parents and community be patient as we are working on it. I don't want them to think that we're not. Every day it gets better and better. So, um thank you.
Thank you, Reverend Cumins. Miss Thrower has one more item to add, and I didn't write it down, which is why I forgot. I taken a screenshot, and that's the reason why I wore my Vanguard shirt this morning, so I just couldn't walk away not acknowledging it. And I want to acknowledge um congratulations to student uh Nicholas D. Pasquel for
being recognized for best paper within the University of Florida's student science training program. And because of his completion of the program, he's been invited to visit the MIT Media Lab. No slouch there as part of the augmentation
lab summit. So when we talk about gifted kids or kids that are just accelerating at high levels, you know, here's a very timely example of of the talent that we have. And if we can just tap into every kid and find out what sparks them and
have a program and a pathway for them, I'm sure attendance will be at 105% every day and we'll have no referrals. 105%. Yes. Thank you, Miss Silver. I know that math doesn't math, but it was fun to say it. It is funny. Um, I just have a few things and then I will go over our
meeting reminders. Um, I too I had quite a few thank yous. Um, the presentations this morning were very meaningful. Um, and I they all impacted students directly. So, um, I was also um, just appreciative of all the information that
was brought forward and shared with us um, this morning. Um through our pres presentation, I'm continually reminded um grateful for to the public for our referendum dollars as we reviewed things that we're doing um you know that we're able to do uh with safe schools and and
for our schools. I um it is frightening to me what it would be like without those dollars. And so every opportunity I get, I just want to say thank you very much Marian County um for supporting Marian County Public Schools with with those dollars. Um and I too I know
almost every board member or maybe every board member has said I'm also really grateful for our community partnerships. um as a lot of the um presentations were going on um this morning, I had different uh organizations in my mind thinking about how they serve um our
students and our families each day in school and outside of school. So just very grateful for that. Also, Mr. Weiss, Mr. White House, thank you for um filling in for Dr. Brewer as she had to leave this morning. Enjoyed having you with us. Um,
I too, Miss Boston Ellis. I was happy sad today with you in the audience. You were smiling and I knew she was thinking this is my last work session I have to sit through. But we're going to miss you. We look forward to celebrating you tomorrow. Um, but I am going to miss
looking out into the audience and see you smiling back at us. So, wishing you the best in these next couple of days and into retirement. Um, and with that, I just have to share a few dates with you. Um, the next school board meeting
is scheduled for August 26th at 5:30m. There's a special school board meeting scheduled for September 4th at 7 a.m. The next administrative briefing and work session is scheduled for September 4th at 9:00 a.m. There's a special school board meeting scheduled for
September 9th at 5:01 p.m. And a schoolboard meeting is scheduled for September 9th at 5:30 p.m. And if there is no further business, we will Madam Chair, just a quick clarification for the September 4th early meeting at 7 a.m. That will just be an early
re-entry. We have one early re-entry. There are no Okay. There's no disputes or anything of that nature. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. If there's no further business, we will adjourn at 12:33. Thank you, board.