Good morning. I would like to call the November 8, 2011 board meeting to order. We'll begin with
the invocation by Pastor Joe Glom from Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Largo. It will be
followed by the Pledge of Allegiance and the National Anthem. Would you please stand?
Good morning.
Let us pray.
God of all grace, we praise you for all your blessings.
At this time, we especially thank you for our children.
We pray for their parents, give them wisdom and patience, renewing them a strong resolve
to be parents.
We pray for teachers as they confront a variety of challenges each day, kindle again in
them their calling to form minds and impart knowledge and to inspire.
We pray for our maintenance staff and food workers and office support staff.
We pray for counselors and principals, sustain them as they continue their hard work in maintaining a positive environment for learning.
We pray for this board that you would guide them as they establish policies that are best for educating our children.
Lead them, we pray, in making wise use of the resources you have given.
them.
We pray for our children and youth, give them strength to resist the temptations to walk
where it is unsafe, to withstand the pressure to do what is unwise, the temptations to be
someone they are not, encourage them to develop their minds and skills for the future, and
inspire in them open hearts to serve and help one another from kindergarten to high
High School and beyond.
Hear our prayers, O God, for you are indeed our Rock and our Redeemer.
Amen.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for
which it stands, ordination under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
And thank you, Pastor, for filling in so quickly and so graciously.
We do appreciate you being here.
Today our centennial moments will feature Sean King, one of our 100 points of pride nominees.
He will also be attending, and I'm going to put a little plug in.
On December 14th, we're having a centennial All-Stars football game at Clearwater High
School.
So Sean King will also be in attendance, and we will be able to hear a little bit
in the video about his experiences in Pinellas County schools.
Hi, I'm Sean King, former Tampa Bay Buccaneer quarterback and member of Superbowl 37, Superbowl
Champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but more importantly, I'm also alumni of the St. Petersburg Gibbs
High School.
I grew up in a Child's Park neighborhood and that's relatively close to Gibbs High
School.
So I got to experience high school with a lot of the kids that I grew up with
and that was a neat experience.
Our high school football coach, Al Davis, was such an inspiration to me just seeing how
he went about his job and staying focused.
So we were knuckleheads.
We had a group of knuckleheads, but we banded together and we did some great things.
I'm still very active.
He gives high school.
If I name one teacher and don't name the others, I could really reap some of the consequences
of doing that.
So I'm just going to say all of them played a great role.
I think the one thing that I was fortunate, they all showed patience.
You know, there were some times I'm sure when I did some things that probably they didn't
agree with, but they stayed patient with me and, you know, I ended up being okay because
of it.
All right.
If Andrea Zahn would come forward to introduce the professional and community organization
representatives.
Madam Chair, members of the board, Dr. Stewart and staff, it is my pleasure to
introduce the following representatives of community and professional organizations.
Representing the Pinellas Education Support Professionals Association, or PESPA,
is Nellie Henge's president.
Kim Black, on her way, is representing the Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association, or PCTA.
Representing both PCTA and PESPA is Executive Director Marshall Ogletree.
Representing the SEIU Florida Public Services Union is Rick Brandt.
Representing the Pinellas County Council of PTAs is Cindy Aaron Zeller.
Representing students' rights and responsibilities from Bogosillega High School,
accompanied by Principal Mike Vigue, O'Shane Elliott, and Jazz Deep Singh.
Representing the Pinellas Education Foundation, Terry Bame, Gus Stabros, Jerry Hogan, Jim Myers, Bob McIntyre, and Mitch Lee.
Representing the Pinellas Arts for a Complete Education Coalition is Maria Cantonis, and
the media representative this morning is Rebecca Catalinello from the St. Petersburg Times.
I have a few reminders for those attending the meeting this morning.
Please silence your cell phones to avoid interrupting the proceedings.
Members of the audience interested in speaking to a specific agenda item must
see me at the rear of the boardroom and fill out a speaker's request form prior
to the board discussing the item, or if the item is on the consent agenda and not pulled,
then prior to the adoption of the agenda.
If you wish to present an issue not on the agenda, you must also see me at the entrance
to the boardroom to fill out a speaker's request form.
These presentations from the audience will be taken after the board has concluded
all of the action items on the agenda.
The board will not take action on any matter raised by a presenter, but may address
during a future workshop or board meeting.
During the board meeting, a board member may need to leave the table temporarily.
Please be assured that when a board member leaves the table,
he or she can still listen to the proceedings by way of speakers in the back room.
We welcome you and thank you for being part of today's proceedings.
Thank you.
We not only welcome all of the representatives, but all of you that are in attendance today.
If you'll notice we have an empty seat next to Dr. Stewart.
Or Peggy O'Shea is not going to be with us today, well she will be by phone.
She is not feeling well and we asked her to keep her germs to herself actually.
So are you there Mrs. O'Shea?
Yes, you're coming through loud and clear.
See what I mean?
I rest my case.
Okay, good.
Thank you.
Should you need to add any comments or anything?
Just call out and we'll make sure we add you into the rotation.
Okay.
Okay, good.
Thank you.
All right, we'll move to the adoption of the agenda.
Do we have a motion?
We have a motion and a second.
Dr. Stewart?
Madam Chairman, I have three things that I would like to ask that we do.
First of all, I'd like to pull item number one under the non-consent.
I would like to say that Attorney Jim Robinson, myself, worked.
In fact, it was mostly Jim Robinson who was able to reach an amenable resolution
for this.
and I'd like to congratulate him and commend him for his work on getting that done.
Thank you very much, Mr. Robinson, and please pull that item.
Okay.
Also, I'd like to add a resolution that will honor the PESPA Group Educational Support
Professionals.
Okay.
And I would also like to add an item that changes the job description of LPMs.
This is necessary, Madam Chairman, to request that you declared an emergency and add
it to the agenda because, partially because of the resolution of item number one, it allows
us to have LPNs in the place of RNs and the RNs would supervise them and I think it will
help us expand the coverage of schools and serve us long term in a much better way.
Okay.
That will actually end up being item number five since we just pulled item number one.
Okay.
So changing the order of the non-consent agenda, if we could move item, what was item 5 to
item number 1, that means that we would be taking the Education Foundation, excuse me,
item 4, I'm sorry, item 4 and moving it to item 1.
Okay.
So the Ford grant will become number 1, followed by currently what's number 2, 3, the Charter
School will become number 4 and the one that we are adding, and I do find good
cause to do so will be item number five. All right. Are there any other items?
Madam Chair, we have speakers for the Consent Agenda. Item number two and item number four.
All right. And rather than pulling item number six, there was a typo in one section that
It talked about $1,900 as the down payment at the Mahathie and in another section of
it it was $2,900.
It was in fact a typo both areas should be $2,900.
So rather than pulling it and discussing it, we'll approve it as the $2,900 if it is past.
Okay.
Are there any other items to be pulled?
I'm going to share with you the key points.
Okay.
Okay, so what we have on the agenda right now is the PESPA Resolution, which I also find
good cause to add.
That will be under special order number two following the governor's resolution.
We'll then move down and have items two and four pulled for a speaker under the consent
item.
And then when we get to non-consent, number one will be the Ford Foundation
grant that we're going to be talking about,
followed by items two, three, as they are written.
Item five that is currently written will become item four.
And then the one that we added will be number five under non-consent.
Seeing no other comments, we will vote.
We have a motion and a second.
All in favor of the agenda as amended.
Say aye.
Aye.
And opposed say no.
It passes 7-0 and we will move on to special order.
Presentation of the student's rights and responsibilities from Boca Siega.
Yes, welcome.
We have O'Shaen Elliott.
Please come to the podium or to the microphone.
And Jazdeep Seaton.
Welcome.
How did I pronounce the last name?
Jazdeep?
Okay.
Fine.
Good morning,
ladies and gentlemen of the board,
Ms. Chair.
My name is Shane Elliott and I come from Bogusiega High School.
I'm a senior and I am in the medical magnet program.
I take an active part in my school in 5,000 role models,
student government, and the other clubs that help bring together the school in a
united effort for not only education, but only also a spirit of education.
What I'm going to speak to you about is our three programs that we have at Bogosiega High
School. That's Project Lead the Way, which is our pre-engineering program,
Medical Magnet, which is CWMP, Center for Wellness and Medical Profession,
and A School Within a School, which is our fundamental program.
Project Lead the Way is an engineering program in which our class enrollment has increased dramatically because of our block schedule for this year.
We not only certify, but we prepare the building blocks of engineering for our students,
and those are the areas of robotics, computer electronics, and aerospace. Our school within
a school is our fundamental program, and it's the first fundamental program in South Pinellas
offering it to students who may not be able to be as active if they were to go to Osceola,
and the curriculum is centered around a three-way involvement of students, teachers,
and parents. It is now located in our new building number one, and our Center for
Wellness and Medical Profession is our medical magnet. It is continuing to
provide a health career education to students for four years and offers such
programs as our first responders program, our student athletic trainer aid
program, and it also offers a certification in a nursing assistant. We
We were lucky enough to have two students from CWMP take part in the national HOSA competition
over the summer last year, and we're very proud of that.
Next year we're planning on adding other courses to our health section so as to offer
more options to students due to the spectrum of options in actual health careers.
Another big aspect of Boca Siga is our new block schedule that has been implemented
this year, which is four classes one day and four classes the next year throughout the whole year.
And we're thankful for the option to do this because it has increased enrollment in classes such as
art, foreign language, TV production, the pre-engineering program, and our drama department.
It has also increased our JROTC enrollment and has continued to be a prominent program
at our school. Some issues that do occur at Boga C. Aga though are the extended
time some students aren't able to concentrate for as long as the period
is and it is another problem is dealing with construction that continues to go
on at Boga C. Aga High School. We really call our students soldiers for
putting up with all the dramatic changes that occur but I think the
biggest thing is just being able to get used to the new facilities and the
new administration which we have.
One of the biggest complaints I hear at Bocasiega is the attendance policy, but I understand
that things need to be worked out and we really need to be looking forward to a better education.
Thank you.
All right.
Good morning.
My name is Jasdeep Singh.
I'm a senior at Bocasiega High School and I'm also in the CWMP program.
I also take part in clubs and activities like being an officer in Spanish Honor Society,
a national honor society and doing lots of sports like tennis and soccer.
Speaking clubs and activities, this year our school has dramatically increased the amount
of clubs and activities we have at our school.
For example, we have a new dance team, we have the new math club called Mu Alpha Theta,
we have a new robotics club.
And the most important thing is that the kids that don't they feel left out or don't participate
in these activities.
It's we have activities going on all year round.
So whenever they want to feel like just going into a club, there's several clubs they can
just jump right into if they feel left out.
The most important thing we experienced this year is the move into a new building.
The movement to the new building happened at the same time as our homecoming week, so it was kind of hectic.
But it kind of worked out fine. So this year we had an increase in school spirit.
Almost everyone in our class dressed up for days like all banged up the superheater, supervillain, the flock day.
And something unique we did this year is Oshane was probably the leader of this.
We had a CWMP assembly where we had several kids dress up and dance to Thriller by Michael Jackson.
And it turned out pretty good.
Our JROTC program is also increased this year.
It's a hundred more students than last year.
So we have 275 students in our program with all these new students.
We have several new classes with RTC, such as a new PT class specifically for the radar team that helps them prepare for more competitions.
Also a drill class. And with all these new students,
we also experience a lot more cadets taking place in extracurricular activities.
Our AP and dual enrollment has improved this year.
We have a lot of new AP classes.
Put together, we have 17 AP classes in our school total.
But most, more importantly, the dual enrollment has, we now have seven dual enrollment classes on campus.
Normally, you would have to drive all the way to the SBC campus in order to do your classes.
but now we just have it implemented in our school.
So personally I take five AP classes and I think the AP and dual enrollment programs that are school
really help you prepare for college.
The new building this year, it's pretty good.
We have a school store which we never had before that sells you school supplies like pencils, folders,
but also jackets and shirts that have our school name written on and stuff.
The New Cafeteria is a really big thing because last year we had a really small cafeteria.
We only had about two lines.
Me and my friend would always have to sprint from our classroom straight to the line in order to get our lunch.
But we would still end up only having like five, ten minutes to eat and do other things with our friends.
So we now have four lines and the seat, people can actually sit down in the
cafeteria and eat. We have more than enough seats for the students and also a
lot more students have started to buy lunch because they can actually sit on
and eat calmly. We have a brand new media center which is bigger than any other
media center I've been in. I can see now compared to other media centers that a
A lot more students have started going in and like reading and they're studying, playing chess, just being more social.
You we have new comfortable classes, I would say they're better than last year's building.
And we have a lot more places to hold meetings like, for example, today was club day.
And for club day, we would have one club in one auditorium, another club in another.
we wouldn't normally have enough space for a lot of clubs to meet.
But now we have projectors in the cafeteria.
We have the media center.
We have pretty much enough space for all of our clubs to meet whenever they need to.
Most importantly is the staff at our school.
They do a great job.
We're very well organized.
So whenever a student has to go somewhere and do something,
they know where to go, who to go to.
you with our new building. We have a brand new office which is organized enough for you
to know where each staff member's office is. We have a new program this year called Safety
Net and in Safety Net it's basically an extra teacher for you to go to basically a second
set of eyes watching you. You go to them to get your report cards so they can see
discipline, they can see your attendance, they can see your grades, and if they see
that you're slipping behind, they can take action and try to help you improve.
The teachers at our school, they had to do a really good job at making our subjects
really interesting.
Like, I know from middle school I didn't really care about school, but the teachers
at Focus Yaga helped me become really ambitious and now I'm applying to Ivy League schools
is planning on becoming a doctor. They really know how to get you motivated. They keep you
engaged in the topics and they're really resilient for when students don't know the topic. They
make sure you know the topic. They don't just keep going and just do their job and
just to get paid.
None of this would have happened if it wasn't for Mr. Viggy. Out
of all my schools I've been to, I can say that he's the best principal I had. One
one of the best, or the best principle I've had because he actually acts like he cares
about the students and cares about the teachers and he does a good job at making our school
what it is.
At B, Bogey High, B, Bogey High School.
And Mr. Vig, you didn't like that speech for you, did you?
No.
Well, that's wonderful, then.
Thank you so much.
It's wonderful to hear not only about the course offerings that are being given and the opportunities,
but also the opportunities for students to get engaged in all of the clubs and that kind of thing.
That's really good to hear. We appreciate you being here to share that with us. Thank you.
Ms. Praster, you wanted to say something?
I do. Last year was Mr. Higgie's first year, and I'm not real good about always calling schools
before I just show up and I showed up at Boga Ciega actually because one of my old
elementary school students found me and I walked into the office and I was asking
about Padre White. Mr. Viggy knew exactly who I was talking about. I wanted to
make sure he was going to be graduating on time last year and he knew that he
was and you know for being there that short of time along with your
communication skills with your emails that I get a copy of that you send
out to your families and community. You're definitely a role model, and I hope lots of
principals are out there to emulate what you're doing. Thank you.
Thank you. Okay, next we'll move down to the proclamation
from Governor Scott of Florida Parent Involvement and Education Month.
Yes, ma'am. Florida Parental Involvement and Education, whereas family involvement
in a child's learning is critical to student success from preschool through college and
and sets the foundation for preparing Florida students to be lifelong learners and meaningful
contributors to society and, whereas, creating an environment where learning takes place
not just in the classroom but as a central part of family life, requires that parents
play an active role in their children's education and, whereas, research indicates
that there is a direct correlation between the high expectations and positive contributions
of a child's parents and high student achievements and whereas the role of parents in creating
a successful preschool through college educational system for Florida's children cannot be overstated
and whereas Florida is a home to numerous organizations that stand ready to assist parents help their
children include but not limited to central Florida parent center family cafe incorporated
integrated family networks on disabilities and parents-to-parents of Miami, and whereas
Florida educational leaders are developing resources for parents who want to engage
more fully in their children's education and to strengthen the connection between parents
and schools, and whereas the Florida Department of Education staff are available to provide
information, resources, and training to support families and educators in using schools
schools and state accountability data to help make informed school choice decisions and to
establish effective homeschool collaboration for families to be actively involved in the
academic achievement and development of students and whereas is the appropriate to recognize
the critical contributions made by parents who foster a love for learning in their
children and by educators who acknowledge the importance of parental involvement and
to encourage making parental involvement an integral part of the mission of our schools.
Now therefore, I, Rick Scott of the State of Florida, do hereby extend greetings and best
wishes to all observing November as Florida Parental Involvement in Education Month and
encourage parents and schools to create strong partnerships on behalf of the future
of our children and the State of Florida and our nation.
Thank you.
We have a motion to accept.
We have a motion and a second. Thank you for reading it. All in favor of accepting the proclamation say aye and opposed say no.
It passes seven zero. We'll now move on to the proclamation from the.
It's an else education support professionals association and I'm sure it says resolution resolution already acknowledging the contributions of educational support
professionals, whereas the week of November 13th through 19th is officially recognized
as American Education Week, whereas each year the Wednesday of American Education
Week is designated by the National Education Association as the Education Support Professionals
Day in recognition of the invaluable contributions made by our supporting services employees
at all levels, and whereas the efforts of these valued employees make a significant
difference in the lives of our students, their parents and the community, staff and administration in their schools and departments throughout the Pinellas County.
And whereas educational support professionals are important members of the educational team providing high quality experiences for students.
And whereas the quality of education for all students is measured by the cooperative efforts of all employees in the district working toward a common goal of highest student achievement.
Now therefore be it resolved that the School Board of Pinellas County, the Interim Superintendent and the Community Acknowledge Wednesday, November 16th as Education Support Professional Day.
In so doing we express our sincere thanks and appreciation for the commitment and dedication of the thousands of men and women in Pinellas County who give so unselfishly.
The other time and talents so that students can be successful. Sign this 8th day of November
School Board of Pinellas County. Okay. We have a motion and a second. All in favor
say aye. Aye. And opposed say no. All righty. Having these two resolutions sort of back
to back, talking about the parents and the support professionals right along with
our teachers really just points out the partnerships that are going. And later on
we're going to see the business community in our partnerships that we have in making
sure that our students are achieving and getting the best education possible.
So we thank all of you, acknowledge it, and we're very thankful that you are partners
with us.
We'll move on down now if the board would move forward for the recognition of national
schools of character winners.
Madam Chairman, for the recognition of the national schools of character winners that
will be presented by Val Galena.
Yes.
Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the board.
Dr. Stewart, other esteemed guests.
I would like to introduce to you two very special schools who have won a national award.
And I'm an instructional staff developer, but I also coordinate the character programs in Palace County Schools.
And the two schools are Fugate Elementary School.
And here today is Mr. Michael Moss, if you would like to come up and be recognized.
Their school believes that creating civic-minded students who learn the value of helping others is a key goal to character education.
If you don't mind being recognized by the school board.
And Oakhurst Elementary School, we have a retired principal, Nancy Wilson, who worked in tandem with Kelly Kennedy, who's the current principal at Oakhurst Elementary Schools.
We're a community of caring, mentors committed to motivating students to become lifelong learners and productive citizens, promote the Mustang way.
Now presented to all the school board members this morning is a packet of information that demonstrates what these two schools had to experience to receive this award.
It's not simply an award. The character education partnership recognized schools and districts around the nation who experienced a rigorous process of reflection and self-evaluation to meet the high quality standards of excellence
through exemplary practices in character education.
Schools must demonstrate their exemplary practices
and demonstrate a positive culture that enables all students to thrive socially and academically
with their recognition. They now become a network
who serve as models and mentors to other schools in the district and the nation.
Although it's not possible to send all stakeholders from their schools,
We extend an invitation for you to visit their schools and see the national schools of character
in action.
So thank you very much for recognizing them.
I appreciate it.
We've had several nominees and several winners in the state of Florida, in Pinellas County
for the character schools, and I want to thank everybody who takes the time to incorporate
that into their curriculum and into the daily life at the schools.
I think it's very important that we do exhibit character
and the qualities that they have, and these schools have done an outstanding job,
and I want to commend them on behalf of the entire board.
Okay, we'll move down to unfinished business.
The public hearing to consider the amendment to policy 2250,
fundamental school, magnet programs and career academies. This is the second
reading and there have been some changes since the first reading. Do we have a
motion? We have a motion and a second to accept. Are there any, is there any
discussion? Mrs. Lerner?
This is on page 57 actually of the handbook that you
you can click on the agenda or you have it in your packet.
We had talked about this at the workshop, but it's just the change of one word and it's
line five and six.
It's about the iSTEM program at countryside, and it needs to be aligned with the discipline
of all our schools.
What it states is a disciplinary infraction of a serious nature, including battery
drugs, alcohol, weapon gang-related activity, and felony arrest will result in immediate
removal from the program and our reassignment to a district discipline program.
It should say may result because we know we have the wonderful FACEIT program.
We're 500 students and families.
We're not reassigned because they completed that eight-week program.
So just changing that word from will to may.
And we talked about this at the workshop.
Do I need an amendment for that or?
Yeah, just make a motion to amend.
Okay, I make a motion to amend.
Page 57, line 6, to change will to make.
Okay.
And we have a motion and a second.
And what this does is it just mirrors all of the other language for those others
so it cleans up the policy.
Right.
Mr. Robinson, you're looking questions.
If you need to find it, does she need to give you the information again?
I see that I see a reference to a change from Wilton may also and what I'm looking at.
I'm not sure whether the change has already been made, but we can.
Well, we'll just make sure it is.
Make sure it is.
Well, Mr. Robinson, I did type out the agenda sheet.
It says the first sentence, a student who continues to commit behavior and fractions while on probation may be subject to removal.
But then you go down to the second sentence, they did not replace the will with may.
That's fine. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
All right. Is there any other discussion on the amendment?
Okay, we have a motion and a second to amend the word will to shall so it mirrors the others.
May.
May, may, may, may. Yeah, will to shall. That's a big change.
I just wanted to see if y'all were listening.
Okay, so moving will to may all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say no. This I'll show you
you're still there. Yes. Okay. And you're in favor of that also. Yes. Okay. Passes seven
zero. Thank you. Can you hear me? Okay. We can now. Yes. All right. Um, Mrs. Weichel.
Well, on the policy, I'm not making an amendment or anything.
I just want the board, I guess I wanted in the record that this is the second reading
of the policy where we are continuing the feeder pattern to Jamerson and continuing
the transportation to Third Good Marshall.
And I bring them up because I haven't agreed with that, however, we are this middle
school reform that we have going and I just want to hold the middle school reform team
accountable that that's going to be part of this discussion. There are these two issues
that this is my third year as a board member that we talked about. And I think it's just
unfortunate for the parents, again, that they have an inconsistent year coming up
that they have to, you know, just not know whether the pattern is going to be continued
or it will be indefinitely.
I just think we as a board need to get this figured out
so that the principal, the parents, the staff
have a consistent plan of what their future is
at that school.
So I bring it up, I will not vote against it
because of the middle school reform
that you feel like is gonna give
the complete answer that we need.
All right, seeing no other lights indicating discussion, we will vote on the amended motion.
We have a motion and a second.
All in favor say aye.
All in favor say no.
It passes 7-0.
Thank you.
All right.
We will now vote on the consent.
We have a motion.
We have a motion and a second for the consent agenda.
All in favor say aye.
Aye.
Opposed say no.
It passes 7-0.
We'll now move to item 2 on the consent agenda.
Recommendations of the superintendent's personnel.
We have a speaker.
Do we have a motion?
Okay.
We have a motion and a second to accept that item,
and we have a speaker from the audience.
Yes, Madam Chair.
We, uh, Sammy Lee Scott and Paula Williams.
We have, um, a few speakers and we have two microphones.
If you can come to the front of the room at each microphone.
And
good morning.
Good morning. Good morning to the board, to the leader.
Go ahead.
I am Paula Williams. I am a parent of a couple of students at Gipps Senior High School where you have made an appointment,
or proposed appointment, of a new principal.
I come because I'm concerned about how you came up with your appointment.
I do not, I do not question her ability to lead, but I do know a certain assistant principal,
Ms. Robin Mobley, who has been, it gives, in the trenches since they became an F school
and I've seen progress made under the leadership of Gordon and his staff, she is on his staff.
I was sorry to hear that she wasn't appointed.
The urgency of bringing Gibbs up, which, like I said, there has been some progress.
And I hope that you will consider, when we consider your appointment in this matter, because
Because it does concern me deeply that you would appoint someone who is basically, I've
found out in the drop program, I don't know where her loyalty will be, how urgent she will
take this matter.
So that is my comment for your appointment, and I really wish that you might reconsider.
consider.
Thank you.
Good morning.
Qasarian and Ghera, how are the children?
This question is a traditional greeting from the mighty and intelligent Maasai warriors
in Africa, acknowledging the high value placed on the children's well-being.
They always give the traditional answer.
All the children are well, meaning, of course, that peace and safety prevail, that the
priorities of protecting the young, the powerless are in place, that society has not forgotten
its reason for being.
Its proper functions and responsibilities.
All the children are well.
Means that life is good.
It means that the daily struggles of existence, even among the poor people, do not preclude
proper caring for its young.
And how are the children of gifts high school?
How might it affect our consciousness of our own children?
If Pinellas County, we took to greeting each other with this same daily question, and how
are the children?
If we heard that question and passed it along to each other a dozen times a day, I wonder
if it would begin to make a difference in the reality of how children are thought of,
cared for in this district.
How are the children?
We cannot say that our children are well when African American students here perform
worse than all of the largest districts in the state.
we cannot say our children are well when the percentage of Gibbs non-magnet students
reading at grade level is at 9%.
We cannot say our children are well when students are not proficient in math,
and we cannot say our children are well when they are more likely to go to prison than to college.
Currently, Gibbs has been making progress under the watchful eyes of the state
and guidance of Kevin Gordon and Robin Mobley.
We all know that growth and change do not happen in a vacuum.
Instead, it needs an environment of consistently raised expectations and ongoing encouragement
that is demonstrated with belief and success.
Robin knows all of the GIVE students and is familiar with every aspect of the school,
administration, curriculum, and GIVE's culture, which is needed to produce successful results.
It is seldom that when a lead administrator leaves a post that there is someone knowledgeable
and trained to assume the position without missing the cadence of the march toward success.
We are fortunate to have the strength of Robin Mobley with his much knowledge, experience
and pragmatic ability to create positive changes we have come to know under the
leadership of Kevin Gordon.
Some would refer to her as a clone of Gordon, but however she brings a special uniqueness
of her own brand.
There is an administrator it gives right now that has demonstrated these qualities and has
a strong track record at the very school that could use her expertise and extensive
training the very most.
Board members, Dr. Stewart, please consider only the benefits afforded to the children and
staff of Gibbs by choosing Robin Mobley to not tap Robin at Gibbs, pushing human understanding
beyond its breaking point. Thank you.
Thank you.
Our next two speakers, if I mispronounce your name, please say it correctly when you
get to the microphone. I apologize. Kamara Cooper and Gwendolyn Rees.
Good morning.
Good morning. You did a great job with the pronunciation.
I am Kamara Cooper. I'm the department chair for the math program at Gibbs High School.
I work directly with Robin Mobley because she is the assistant principal for our math program.
I started a petition at Gibbs High School so that we can make our voices heard.
We were not asked about the principal that was going to be appointed to Gibbs.
Dr. Stewart has not been to Gibbs to talk to us as a staff for teachers or what have you.
And that's very disappointing because Gibbs is an intervened status.
This is the second year that we have been a DA school.
And I think it's important that our leaders,
board leaders, our superintendent, understand the inner workings of Gibbs High School.
Not saying that you don't know them, you know, even apart from Gibbs,
but you actually have to come to the school and understand what the teachers,
what the students have endured these two years.
This is my second year at Gibbs, so I came to Gibbs when I found out that they were in intervening status.
I am a 1989 graduate of the PCCA program at Gibbs High School and the school is extremely
important to me.
To take Dr. Gordon, Dr. Gordon, I'm so happy for him and his new appointment, but to take
both Dr. Gordon and APC Mobley out of the school at the same time when they are the
two that have been leading us in this intervene status, raising us from the F2C and possibly
even a B school this year. I think it's a grave mistake. It is not good for the
children, especially our seniors, who are going to be losing two of the
counselors. Their senior counselor is pregnant. The graduation success counselor
is also pregnant and will be on maternity leave in January. So we'll be
losing a principal. They will be losing their assistant principal and the two
counselors at the school. I think that, you know, these items are what should be weighed.
I am not saying anything against Ms. Atkinson. I do not know her. I trust that she is a great
principal. I'm talking about the timing. If this is something that you want to do, I'm
saying that at the end of the year, make the switch. But to make Ms. Mobley leave
at this point so crucial, and those of people that have been at Intervene Status, I
I have a petition from teachers who know how hard it was to figure out inner being status,
let alone start being successful at it.
There is a curve in the learning, and for her to come in and then have to learn what to do
when we have somebody already in place who knows exactly what to do to me is a mistake,
and I beg your reconsideration for the good of our kids at Gibbs High School.
Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. I'm Gwendolyn Reese and I'm here wearing several
hats. I'm speaking as co-chair of People Advocating Change Together and on behalf of the Gibbs
High School graduating class of 1966 of which I'm a proud member and we are celebrating
our 45th class reunion this year. I also serve on the psych at Gibbs and I coordinate
program, professional opportunities for students. I am the district manager for the St. Petersburg
program. I'm here today not to speak against anyone, but to speak for Gibbs High School.
And to ask you, as you consider acting superintendent Stewart's recommendation to appoint Ms. Atkinson
to Gibbs High School, I ask you rather to consider the recommendation made by Principal
Gordon, and that was to appoint AP Robin Mobley as acting principal.
I think it's very important to take that step because then it gives you the opportunity
and the time needed to make a deliberate, conscious, informed decision about replacing
the principal at Gibbs High School.
Just as the board has an acting superintendent that would allow the district the time it needs
to find the right placement, I ask you to not do anything less than that to give high school.
Robin Mobley, as has already been said, is talented, gifted, and was a part of the
administrative team put together along with AP Hepburn, who is now a principal
at Dunedin High School and AP Robinson and Principal Gordon, they've been in the trenches
since the very beginning. The community has been intimately involved in the process and
the progress of Gibbs High School. The alumni associations and many of the organizations
in St. Petersburg have a vested interest in the success of the school. Principal Gordon
and AP Mobley were very involved in that they nurtured that relationship and I believe
the community involvement had a great deal to do with the success.
I would like you to have a deliberate process, a very thoughtful process in replacing the
principal at Gibbs High School and I would hope that not only would you have input
from the teachers and staff and students but that you would also welcome input from
the community organizations that have been involved in this process. Those organizations
that support Gibbs High School and will continue to support Gibbs. Gibbs is slightly unique
in my perspective, in that it is much more of a community-involved school than many
of the other districts. So please, please I ask you again to postpone the recommendation
to appoint Stephanie Atkinson and consider and stay at appointing Robin Mobley as acting
principal.
Thank you.
That completes our speakers.
All right.
That completes the speakers.
All right.
I see no lights indicating discussion, so we will vote on – do you have anything
you want to say?
Okay.
Mrs. Krasner?
Dr. – Mr. Robinson, could you – as far as good cause why we vote for Superintendent
recommendation. Could you just tell the audience briefly about good cause?
Well, first of all, the appointment is the superintendent's to make. It does not belong
to anybody else. And the question really boils down to whether the nominee meets the minimum
qualifications for the job, and secondly, whether the person is morally square, whether
the person has any moral incapacity, but in this case, I don't think there's any question.
So it's that simple.
And if I can just add one more thing, we really do hear what the people who came to the podium
said.
Dr. Stewart and Mr. Madden have been very responsive because I have shared those same
concerns.
Mr. Madden did go to Gibbs yesterday, and I don't know if I'm out of order, am
I did go to give yesterday and speak with the staff and they have talked to many in the community
and I know that they are truly trying to make the best decision that they see fit for Gibbs
and that's why I haven't said more than I'm saying today.
You all spoke well.
I also spoke with Ms. Adkinson.
I know she has great passion for coming into the job.
It's not just something that she's coming to.
And I also know that the two, Ms. Mobley and Ms. Adkinson, are very close friends.
And I know we'll continue to work together for the sake of our children to make sure
it's a win-win all the way around.
Thank you.
Mr. Williams?
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'm very familiar with many of the speakers that spoke today, Ms. Wynne Rees.
We've had a long history of working together on community items.
Ms. Scott stays in my ear forever, all the time.
I have to admit that some of the points that you made were points that all of us have had to reckon with.
But there's always more than one side to an issue.
And when Dr. Gordon, and you can stop me when I'm out of auto, but when Dr. Gordon announced
that he was leaving, the superintendent and board members were flooded with emails on
please don't appoint, and I won't call names, a system principle from Gibbs.
And I think you know what I'm saying.
And it wasn't one.
It wasn't two.
it was many. Well, I'll take that back. There were a number because many is
relative. So, then here lies the challenge for the superintendent and the
board.
We want to make certain that we get leadership in there quickly, that we
don't want to miss a step. And one of the ways by doing this is making a
consideration of who's interested and who does the superintendent and staff feel would
do the most credible job.
Then, once the name of Ms. Atkins surfaced, didn't have again to
be opposition coming in for her, and not just one person. But most of all, I spent two hours
they give yesterday, trying to get around to teachers and staff members to hear and see
things that they were talking about.
And one of the things that I came away with that was going through the discussions with
each group I was able to catch up with was they were concerned, not so much with Ms.
Ekinson coming to Gibbs, but the process by which she's coming.
I try to, in the limited ability that I have of understanding on jobs of superintendents,
is that the superintendent does reserve the right to make appointments that he or she
feel is the most appropriate and a good match for school.
The superintendent could appoint someone as principal without putting the tag of acting
on, but usually superintendents across the country get in trouble when they take a person
without going through the interview process and just make them principal without giving
other people a chance.
And for people, I'm not trying to get you to agree with me.
Yeah, I never have worked that way.
I'm trying to get you to understand another side of it.
Not agree, but understand.
If, in my opinion, Dr. Stewart had done,
as some wish, to interview for Gibbs High School,
there may have been 10, 12 people, outstanding people,
that could have surfaced with good interviews.
And this model, it may not have.
And some people can take tests, do well on interviews.
Would that have been then the best match for Gibbs High School?
In my opinion, I say that's risky.
Again, I'm not trying to get you to agree.
I just want you to understand that this has not been an easy situation.
In talking with Ms. Marbley, she is really, really fun of the kids there.
She knows the vision that was set with Ms. Ward and the team, and she would have liked
to remain there to carry it out.
But under the circumstances, being as they are,
based on her statement to them, she
She is okay with going to Tyron.
She didn't have to tell me this.
I didn't bribe her or ask her.
She called me.
But she wanted us to know how much she loved those kids again.
It gives us a very special school.
It's a pride of South St. Pete, and it has always been.
I have friends who graduated from there who are 50, 60 years old, and they're still
involved in that school.
And for anyone to say that the district is lax in trying to do what's best to forgive,
I tell you that you are wrong.
I would not be a party to a process whereby we were slack with our concern and recommendation
for gifts.
These board members here, we have had issues with gifts and others, I'm going to call
them struggling schools, and they have come to aid and assistance.
And I know we'll do the same forgives.
So I would just urge you to do as I'm going to do, and that is keep a close eye on what's
going on there and make any recommendations to the superintendent that will help the situation.
I firmly believe in talking with that Administrative Team yesterday, whereas
They would rather not have been in a position of accepting change that they will fall in with
Ms. Eck and son, if that's the board's recommendation and make things happen it gives. And once again,
I know this is not what you want to hear, but I would be less than honest with you if
I didn't share my feelings. Thank you.
Thank you.
I've seen no other lights indicating discussions, so the recommendations of the suit.
Oh, yes, sir.
I seldom feel it's necessary to defend an appointment because, believe me, ladies that spoke,
I hear your eloquence and I appreciate the fact that you came forward to speak on behalf of a good candidate
for leadership in our district, that being Robin Mobley.
But I listened to an awful lot of people before reaching this decision.
Those who spoke for Robin Mobley and those who spoke against her.
I listened to those persons who spoke for Stephanie Atkinson.
No one spoke against her.
She is a leader of sterling qualities.
She will be an asset to Gibbs as she has been an asset to this district for many,
many years. Robin Mobley will be a leader of Sterling Quality once she is given the
opportunity to gain all those skills necessary to be a principal. I can tell
you through 44 years experience that sitting in the assistant principal seat
is remarkably different than sitting in the principal seat of any school.
Miss Mobley has distinguished herself well in the assistant principal for
Craith Rowan's post at Gibbs High School.
And I think she will distinguish herself
as leader of Tyrone Middle School.
She will gain the skills necessary at Tyrone Middle
School to stand her in good stead,
we hope, to move on and be principal of a high school.
Hopefully, maybe someday Gibbs.
But understand that it was not, this decision was not
reached without a great deal of input
from people that you trust as your district administrators and other
persons. I believe it is a firm sound decision and both schools will benefit
by the leadership of these two women. We
have a motion and a second on the floor
to accept the recommendations of the superintendent on personnel.
All in
Moving down to item four, request approval of stipulation of agreement between the School
Board of Pinellas County and the Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association relating to differentiated
pay at Maximo, Melrose, James B. Sanderlin, Sandy Lane Elementary Schools, and Maximo
and Melrose Elementary Schools, Azalea Middle School, Boca Seca, Dixie Hollins, Gibbs,
Lakewood High Schools.
We request approval of the following letter of commitment for teachers, the letter of commitment
for administrators, and approval of the differentiated pay for administrators at the above schools
as well as Meadow Lawn and Lakewood Elementary Schools.
So, I have a motion.
I have a motion and a second, and we have a speaker, I believe.
Yes, ma'am.
Mr. Jim Jackson.
Good morning.
Chair Puss and Crook, board members, Superintendent Stewart and Associate, I feel better.
Just two quick points here.
I know you've got a lot of community partners and a lot of parents waiting to speak.
A quick thank you to the district.
One of my friends came to me.
He has a Croatian immigrant worker whose two kids were told they would get busing
because the bus stop was right outside their apartment, but it was really a bus
for ESC students only. Working through district personnel, this man, Igor, and let me try
his last name, Rob. I know last names are tough. Igor's his first name, but you'll know
who he is. Bussing is now available to his two students, reaffirms his belief in the
goodness of this country, the goodness of the district. Shows that we do have a heart.
My comments, though, are on this item, just for clarification purposes here.
When I looked at it, and it's evidently not a TIF grant, but I know that we are giving $1,000, $2,000, $5,000 to teachers,
APs and principals, to 13 schools, for-run, intervene, satisfy, or high schools,
and we are not giving anything to support staff.
And, of course, I think a lot of these schools work on a team approach,
And I think support staff should have been written into this grant.
I'm just a little confused about where the money is coming from, how much it is.
Does this go from year to year?
If there's anybody who can give me clarification on any of that before you do vote.
Thank you.
Dr. Stewart, would you like to clarify that or have staff?
Madam Chairman, we'll be happy to give Mr. Jackson a copy of the material that was passed to the board.
this was a question from a board member we provided to you that the teacher
and sending grant is a federal grant from the U.S. Department of Education.
It's a five-year grant, the award of $7 million.
Pinellas County was awarded in cohort three specifically for instruction
administrative staff.
Cohort one and cohort two recipients included support staff
in the award structure.
It is not included in cohort three.
So we cannot give it to them.
That's the main reason.
Currently in year two of the grant, this year, fiscal year, October 1, 2011 to September 30, 2012.
The purpose of the TIF grant is to improve student achievement by increasing teacher and principal effectiveness.
So it was written specifically for teacher and principal effectiveness.
reforms, reforming teacher and principal compensation systems so that teachers and principals are
rewarded for increases in student achievement and increasing the number of affected teachers
teaching poor minority and disadvantaged students in hard to staff subjects and schools.
And in setting of the pay performance, you already mentioned the amounts, so I won't
go into those.
Okay, when you're talking about cohort 1, 2, and 3, are those years, are those phases
of the grant?
Can you explain that a little bit?
They were phases of the grant.
I talked to Ms. Slaughter, Portia Slaughter, who supervises this particular grant.
She said that in tip 1, they were included, and in TIF 2, they were included, but in
TIF 3, they were not included.
All right, so that's the reason why they're not receiving it at this point because they're not included in the grant
Therefore we can't spend the grant money in that fashion
All right
I see no other lights. Were there any other speakers? Okay, but you've got to preach the light on. Oh, I pushed
Okay, I'll pull my movie card. Yeah
Have the microphone light. I
was one of the ones that
wanted more information here and what I wanted to really know and I'm not sure
if Ms. Slaughter is in our audience or not but did we have the option of
including everybody in the initial grant and if we do in the near future I hope
that's something that we will make sure that we cover everybody that supports
our students. I mean we just read our proclamation today and being school based, I mean we all
know how critical our support staff is and I don't want to send a different message to
our support staff. So whatever we can do to assure our support staff that either this
was specific to the grant or whichever way it needs to go.
Madam Chairman, to respond to that, of course, Ms. Crasner, you have been a staunch advocate
for these individuals and have spoken to me on a number of occasions about their importance
and I agree completely with you.
And I would say that in future we would include them in the grants.
I have no problem with that.
But I think what we all need to be most assured of is that the federal funding of grants is
probably as in grave concern as anything that we have going on in terms of funding.
The certainty of those grants in the future are slim and numb.
Okay.
I'm seeing other lights indicating discussion.
I'm not going to read this whole thing again, but we have a motion in the second to request
the approval of stipulation agreement between the Pinellas County School Board and the Pinellas
Classroom Teachers Association for Differentiated Tag.
All in favor say aye.
All opposed say no, and it passes 7-0.
We now move
down to non-consent, and we will begin with request approval of the
Pinellas County Schools Ford next generation learning five-year plan for
the academics of Pinellas to improve student achievement in Pinellas high
schools. We have a motion? We have a motion and a second. All right Dr. Stewart
would you like to introduce this or is Dave Mr. Barnes going to come forward and
do that? I would like to call Mr. David Barnes forward because he has
been the central figure for the school district in the handling of this
grant and I'd like for him to have the honor of doing that.
Okay, so we'll have him introduce it and then we'll follow it with the speakers.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir.
Madam Chair, members of the board, Dr. Stewart and staff, thank you for the opportunity
to bring Pinellas County Schools for next generation learning five-year plan for the
academies of Pinellas to you as a formal agenda item.
And I appreciate the kind words, Dr. Stewart, but I will tell you this has truly been
a community effort both within the school district and without, and many of you
have been, in fact, all of you, have been personally involved in this over the last eight
or nine months.
While the planet itself represents nearly a year's work in development, it also represents
the culmination of a concept that was born in Pinellas in 1993 with the adoption of
an academy methodology at Pinellas Park High School and Boca Ciega High School with
the criminal justice program at Pinellas Park and the Center for Wellness and Medical
Professions at Bogey.
Since that time and with your support, we've expanded career academies and centers
of excellence both of which use the Academy methodology with an area of interest combined
with academic integration as the underpinning for high student achievement.
This plan marks the beginning of taking the Academy methodology to scale across the entire
district in our high schools.
The other very unique part of this plan is that it incorporates the involvement of
our entire corporate and civic community and the long-term sustainability.
Further as you have seen in the document, and you've all had a chance to look
at it over the past few months. There are mechanisms for reporting to you annually and mechanisms
for your approval and making changes in the plan annually, which makes it a bit unique.
The two speakers to follow me this morning have been immersed in career technical education
and career academies and centers of excellence. For some time, they are well known to both
of you. Carl Lavender of Special Note has been our outside the district champion. He
He has gone north to south, east to west.
He has spoken to everyone who will listen to him with regard to the Ford plan, the five-year
plan, and career academies.
Jerry Hogan, who is also well known to you as a longtime champion of career technical
education, will also follow me.
But we certainly appreciate your opportunity for considering this plan as we go forward.
Thank you.
That's good.
Thank you.
Do you want to move the speakers?
Yes, Madam Chair.
We have three speakers.
Mr. Carl Lavender, Mr. Jerry Hogan, are the first two.
Good morning.
Madam Chair, Superintendent Steward, School Board, Faculty and Administrators,
Leaders and Friends of Pinellas County Children, I am here in a privileged
position to announce to you Academies of Pinellas.
I even wore a tuxedo jacket
for this occasion. This process, me standing in front of you today, is the
part two of a forward required process to bring the master plan which you
have seen and read and reviewed to the school board for a a workshop which did
in August and now a formal school board meeting where your vote to adopt the
plan is now incorporated into the minutes it will be shared with Ford in
subsequent reports. I am very very pleased with the support we've received
throughout the community throughout the district particularly with the
Education Foundation and its board have been unusually supportive because they
We know in heart and in mind that career academies do make a difference.
And going forward, as Davis said earlier, you will receive a number of important, timely
and strategic reports from myself as I take off my hat today, if you will, as a forward
person and put on the hat for, yes, the first year coordinator for the academies
of Pinellas.
And thank you very much.
Mr. Jerry Hogan.
Good morning.
And as usual, Carl is a very hard act to follow, so I'm going to incorporate his greetings
to you and assume that mine, well, not as eloquent, covers the same ground.
Thank you.
It is a pleasure to be here.
We've come a long way in career education.
I was thinking how many years ago it was that I stood at this podium to first talk
about this subject, as well as up in Tallahassee.
And I want to thank you as a school board, school district, and staff for having the foresight
to actually apply for this grant.
This is your grant.
The Pinellas Education Foundation has been the facilitator, but you are the ones.
Who applied for it? We want to congratulate you and thank you for that foresight and for
the previous administration under Dr. Janssen for doing so, too.
The Pinellas Education Foundation, as I said, is the fiscal agent of the program.
One of the reasons that Ford chose Pinellas County, along with three other districts in
the state, is because of the great success we have already had with the Centers of
Excellence programs that we incorporated four years ago, or launched four years ago, I
should say, and are in the process of incorporating in every high school in the district.
The Centers of Excellence has spent a great partnership among the school district, the
students of our district, and the corporate and civic community of Pinellas County.
And I think it serves as a role model not just for other districts here, but as Ford
has shown with not only putting us in this program, but then taking our thoughts nationwide
is that we are also a role model for what other districts may accomplish.
The most exciting thing is that in career education, the best is yet to come.
Let me go through, if I can, very rapidly some thank yous, because a number of people
participated in this.
The, first in this list, the Pinellas County Urban League, the St. Petersburg Pops Program,
the Tampa Bay Power Broker, the St. Petersburg NAACP, Coquib of St. Petersburg, the Ford Pass
Team Members, Mayor Foster's Office, and particularly Laurie Mattway, Career Education
Board members Michael Lewis, Terry Bame, Dennis Jocks, Jim Myers, Dave Barnes, Mrs.
Lerner, and a number of other associates who are not with us today, but we needed their
support and their help.
The Pinellas Education Board members and committee members, including those here today, John
Leannis, Mitch Lee, Laurie Matwe, Bob McIntyre, Gary Rogoli, Janeth Ryder, Judy Owens,
and Gus Stavros.
And most importantly, the Pinellas County Council of PTA members.
We also want to thank the media partners, including the St. Petersburg Times.
I think most of you, if not all of you, saw the insert that they included in Sunday's paper.
They reached almost a quarter of a million people or families on Sunday.
The Brighthouse Networks, the Florida Public Broadcasting System, Good Living Magazine, and Clear Channel Outdoor.
All of them have been very helpful.
We appreciate the support we got from a number of other associates, including the Ford Foundation,
Workforce Florida, and the Florida Association of Career and Technical Educators.
In addition, we want to give special thanks to the number of Chambers of Commerce who
got behind this initiative and have given great support and input into the program,
including the Clearwater Chamber, the St. Petersburg Dunedin, and Largo Chambers,
as well as work that Pinellas and the Pinellas County Economic Development Office.
Also, thanks go out to the Rotary Clubs of Pinellas County including Dunedin, Belair, and St. Petersburg.
No thank you would be complete if I didn't mention both David Barnes and Carl Lavender,
the two gentlemen who drove this project on an extraordinary tight timetable with about two weeks to get the grant in,
achieve that and then from that point forward have made sure that it happened
and that we were awarded the grant. It's a proud moment for the Pinellas County
Schools. We as an education foundation are thrilled to be part of the effort and
we thank you for your leadership on behalf of the customers of your business,
the students of Pinellas County. Thank you very much. Thank you.
On the
job, sorry, Ms. Kathleen Peters is the next speaker.
Good morning. Good
Good morning. I'm just going to waste my time. I think Mr. Lavender and the previous speaker have done a great job.
On behalf of the Clearwater Regional Chamber of Commerce, we are thrilled about this project and the business community is very excited about the future
that we're going to have with our workforce as this goes forward. So thank you. Thank you.
Mrs. Lerner.
Is that all the speakers?
Okay. Mrs. Lerner.
I've really had the privilege of serving on the career education board for a number
of years, and as the history person on this board, I can tell you from the time I came
on the board in 1990, the board always talked about career technical and even vocational,
which we weren't supposed to use that word, but I always did, how important it was.
But it really wasn't until the foundation, and Jerry Hogan, Terry Bame, so many of the
people, the leaders who are sitting here, who really began to drive the district to
the career academies and centers of excellence.
And this is certainly one of the most important votes I've taken for kids and for student
achievement.
And I'm so appreciative also that it's now called the Academies of Pinellas.
Many of us had a hard time.
Well, Career Academies and Centers of Excellence.
The plan is really excellent.
And as I read through it quickly, but I did read through it like all of you did,
it's obviously very effective.
effective, it's efficient, and it's cost-effective because the only way we're doing it without
spending more money is because of the many hundreds of volunteers that we have led by
the foundation, the wonderful staff we have led by Dave Barnes and of course Carl Lavender.
The only thing that I would change, not change, I just want to be sure, we need
sustainability for initiatives like this, and it needs to be sustained beyond any of
us being on the board or beyond foundation leaders, although you're going to be there
forever.
And I'm going to be involved forever, one way or another.
That the board, this plan, this is in the agenda item, this plan includes provisions
for annual review and updating by the partners, as well as an annual review and adoption
by the Pinellas County School Board, and I fully support that, but I'm not sure unless
I missed it that it's in the plans. It's in the agenda item. So I don't think it's in
the plan that we will annually, as a board...
Yes, ma'am, it is in the plan of under strand number two.
Oh, got in the plan?
Yes.
Okay.
It is not in that exact language, but the accountability is regarding coming back
to the district board annually for a report out on the progress of the plan is included.
Oh, okay. It wasn't a while ago, but I, okay. I think that's real important.
Yes, it is.
Okay. Thanks.
Thank you very much.
Thanks for that information.
Time in with that. Are you finished? This is where I'm sorry.
Yeah, I just thank everyone who's been involved. This is for our kids, and it's
going to expand more. And this plan is really the roadmap, and it is extremely well done.
And I think everyone, it's going to be the sustaining factor with all the people involved
to keep this staying excellent and adding more academies.
Thank you.
Keeping in with your comments on the report, while I think this is an excellent opportunity
and I'm thrilled that we're moving forward with this, I don't know that the criteria
for the reports are in place at this point.
What will we be receiving in the report?
What it will be looking for to determine whether or not we have the success,
such as the completion rates and the graduation rates and those kinds of things.
So Mr. Barnes, Dr. Stewart, if Mr. Barnes could come and talk about what that criteria would be,
or if we need to make sure that we create the criteria and add that to it so that we all know what will be in that accountability report.
Yes, ma'am. That's a fair question. There are measures built into the plan at the front
of each strand that you can see, but also built into the plan is the development of
a dashboard separate and apart from the dashboard that you're currently looking at in concert
with MIS. We will develop a dashboard. That's part of the year one from January through
next December. That's part of our charge is to develop that dashboard. You and others
have an opportunity in addition to the measures that you will already find in the grant have
an opportunity to add measures or so if you've got specific items if the board does the superintendent
does or any of our community partners have specific items that they would like to see
included in that dashboard there will be an opportunity to have that included going
forward.
That's part of the first year actually once the approval once the plan is approved
the real work we really get our hands dirty beginning in January and that's part
part of this first year activity so that we've got something that is useful to you that contains
the information that you want come this time next year.
Okay, perfect. That's exactly what I needed to hear. Thank you.
Mrs. Krassner.
Just, I know how motivational this is for our students.
The one thing that I've harped on a little bit though, too, is for our eighth grade students,
you know how I like the bullets of what's in each high school as far as for our families
to really recognize what programs are where, whatever we can continue to do to really get
that word out there to our students and families so they can make sure their child's connected
to the right school for their individual family.
Thank you and that's a really important point and you will know there is mention of public
relations and moving activities down into the 8th grade and in fact it wasn't technically
partly part of the plan with I'm sorry it wasn't part of the grant requirements
that Ford put on us but we agree with you and as do all of the partners that
that eighth grade piece is key to making the 9 through 12 piece successful so
there is mention of activities in the plan that will involve us expanding
what we're currently doing in eighth grade we absolutely agree with you thank
you this is Michael yes I'd like to thank Mr. Lavender and the foundation
for the communication process of rolling out this grant that was very
important that I appreciate the involvement that with the workshop and just the individual.
Go ahead. He's coming up. No one mentioned it's five million dollars. Oh, well that's
good too. Anyway, that really it really solidifies our and our information of how this affects
children and how it affects student achievement. So I applaud the process that you went
through for this. Thank you. All right. We have a motion and a second on the
floor to approve the Pinellas County Schools for next generation learning
five-year plan for the academic, the academies of Pinellas to improve
student achievement in Pinellas High Schools. All in favor say aye. Aye.
Opposed say no. And it passes 7-0. And I believe I'd probably speak on
behalf of the entire board when I think not only those involved but all of the
partners that are with us.
We'll move on to item two and get back to the decorum of
the meeting. Thank you all for being here. Setting up public hearing and
authorizing the advertisement of public hearing to consider the
amendment to the various student progression plan policies. This is the
first reading. Do you have a motion? We have a motion by Ms. Krasner in a
second by Ms. Weichel. Dr. Stewart, would you like to introduce it?
This is the first reading and there will be a second reading to follow at the next meeting
and I would like to, before I get into that, say that the people connected to this have
done a really marvelous job and I want to commend them on the staff and also the
board for looking at this as closely and as diligently as you have.
You really, this has been, coming back into the profession after being gone, it has been
exemplary how you've approached this topic.
Thank you for being the guiding light on that.
I'd like to commend Jim Madden, who heads up the office.
He is the person to whom they report, student assignment.
He's done a marvelous job and has personally written back to dozens and dozens and dozens
of people who have written in to express their feeling in depth.
I think Jim has really done a marvelous job.
Thank you, Jim.
And to your staff, D. Burns and Marshall touched in for their work, too.
Jim, you want to take it from here?
I'm going to say, and we'll remember that when we get to the next agenda item.
It's not student assignment, it's their progression.
Let's do a progression plan.
I must have mumbled.
Not a problem.
All right.
We have no speakers on this topic.
And I don't see any lights, but there are a few things that I would like to mention.
When I received the answer, I had several questions on the policy itself and the way some of the things were written.
For example, it refers to people being able to access Moodle.
And while people within the district would understand that parents wouldn't know what
Moodle is or even how to get there.
And so there is some different wording that was suggested in the answers that were given.
And rather than making motions to move forward with that, I'm just going to ask that they
be included and we look at that at the second reading.
There was also a paragraph that some wording needed to be changed because it didn't make
any sense when you were looking at the strikeouts and the things that were added and I
I think it read, they were required to pass five courses in such courses for promotion.
And there is some different wording that has been incorporated, again, in the answers.
And so I would just like to ask that that be included in the second reading so that we
can look at it and see if it works a little bit smoothly.
Okay.
Seeing no other lights, can we give him?
I read over your corrections kind of quickly.
Were they all, they're not substantial?
No, it was...
I thought they were just...
Right.
It was just either to make it user-friendly or on that one where I said line 17 through
21, what does that mean?
That was the one where they really needed to work on the paragraph so that it read
and said what they wanted it to say.
So it was not a substance, it was more how did it read and is it understandable?
Okay.
That's what I thought.
All right.
Okay.
So we have a motion and a second to set a public hearing and authorize the advertising
of the public hearing to consider the amendment to the various student progression plan policies.
All in favor say aye.
Aye.
And opposed say no.
It passes 7-0.
All right, we'll move down to item number three,
set a public hearing and authorize the advertising
to the public hearing to consider the amendment
to policy 5-1-2-0, assignment within the district.
Thank you.
This item addresses changes
to the student assignment plan for the year 2012-2013,
including school zone changes for elementary school
and this is the first reading.
So, Dr. Stewart, would you like to introduce us?
Same thing I said a long ago.
Thank you.
Thank you for the brevity.
All right.
I believe we have, do we have a motion?
Okay, we have a motion and a second.
And we have speakers, I'm sure.
I didn't know if we were going to have the presentation.
Madam Chair, we have 23 speakers.
Okay.
Then Mr. Madden, would you like to introduce the item before we have our speakers and since there are so many?
Yes. I think what we'd like to do is in five or ten minutes or ten at the max is go through what you're actually looking at today
in terms of there's two pieces of it. It's rezoning and at the elementary level as well as some policy changes
that are being recommended that impact elementary, middle, and high school students.
But to do a real quick overview of what it is that you're looking at today
so that everybody in the audience, anybody that listens later,
can understand what we are talking about, what we aren't talking about,
who we are talking to, and who we aren't talking to. Just so we can clarify those kinds of things.
And yes, as Dr. Stewart mentioned,
as with any time you do any changes to the student assignment,
policies or zones in any way. We do hear from our families and we will continue the commitment to treat them as individuals
because many of the situations are unique to them and we will continue to work with them in whatever it takes to make sure that we answer all of their questions
and give them the information they need as we go forward. Some of them will attest that I'm keeping hours like everybody else
or others in the district that we are to the morning or sometimes the best time to write emails.
But we will stick with those intentions.
I have, as Dr. Tuja said, we have Ms. D. Burns, Director of Student Assignment,
Marshall Touchden, who is the district demographer, and Pam Casardo, who is our planning specialist,
who are tireless in their efforts to do this also, and I appreciate them wholeheartedly.
So, with that being said, we're here today to share with you and members of the audience
the reasons for elementary rezoning as well as the proposed rezoning that are before you
between now and the final vote on December 6th.
And also at the same time, or a parallel to that, talk about the significant policy
changes relative to language in our student assignment plan that go along with the zoning
proposals and because they are, you can't separate one from the other.
So that being said, Mr. Tutcher, if you'll put the entire county map on the table, knowing
that the reason for rezoning fall into a number of categories and not necessarily in
the order that I mentioned them, but all of these are interrelated, but ultimately
it does have the rezoning proposal do have an impact on student achievement in
this district for a number of reasons. Some of those are and once again not
necessarily in this order but it's it helps the district with the staffing
model that is provided at all of our schools as well as the services that
those people are able to provide to the families of the district. The one
One example that I'll give is our staffing model right now at elementary school called
for one guidance counselor at elementary school and the services are diminished if you have
a population of 500 versus a population of 900.
One person can only do so much.
That's just one example.
There are many others that I could go into.
The other thing that we're trying to do here is we're trying to make it so that
we don't have to come back to you two years from now saying it's time to rezone
again.
is trying to build in some sustainability, trying to build in provisions so that we can
provide a system that allows for zone families to attend the zone schools if that's what
they wish to do, as well as make sure that we make better use of or most effective use
of permanent facilities and start reducing our reliance on relocatable classrooms to
house children.
In addition to that, we're looking at being able to meet the requirements of the Class
Size Amendment included in all that because if we can have a situation where we've got
the right number of classroom teachers at every school, it makes it easy for us to build
a system and zones where, for example, if you have six primary classrooms, they feed
naturally into five intermediate classrooms with six times 18 feeding into five times 22.
I'm not a math person, but I know that's 108 and 110. And then families can feel comfortable
that they get to stay at that school provided they stay at the same residence.
At the same time, when you look at some of the facilities that we have out there, we do
have some facilities out there that they are very taxed in terms of the use of the facility
as we now know it, the overcrowding situations that has an impact on not just the student
assignment pieces, just in terms of just transition time, but when you look at the use of facilities
in terms of media centers, cafeterias, PE fields, bathrooms, all of it has an impact
that impacts the total population where it makes sense to do it now and get the
a number of students within all of our buildings.
And then, of course, the last thing,
and it also allows for not so much reduction
in transportation costs, but there will be some,
but it allows us to have more efficient and effective runs
with the runs of our transportation departments.
It can be shorter runs and not longer runs,
as is the case right now.
So what I'd like to do is briefly go through,
and if you look at your screen,
I'll make sure that I follow the script that I have to make sure that you see what's going
on.
Knowing that what you see first, I believe, is all of the highlighted sections reflect some
part of the county that is being proposed for rezoning.
If you take a closer look at all of those colored spots, there are really six independent
areas of each other but within any of the six areas the recommended zoning
changes are interconnected to each other where if one's changed it impacts the
others that are being proposed. So starting in the the furthest southeast
part of the county which you'll notice that because that's where most of the
schools that we're talking about in this recommendation happen to be housed
The first thing you notice, first of all, is that we are proposing that Melrose Elementary
be given a zone.
It currently does not have one, but we are proposing that Melrose has a zone, and that's
what the cursor or the little hand on the screen is pointing to.
To do or to give Melrose a zone, it impacts a number of the neighboring schools.
You have Lakewood Elementary School, which is where the hand is flashing right now.
Those students will be going from Lakewood Elementary to Campbell Park.
Moving to the, you know, that green section right there will be going from North Shore to Campbell Park.
To the left of that, those two areas in there, one will be going from Woodlawn to Melrose.
One will be going from Maximo to Melrose.
And the dark blue area that he was putting at first will be going from Campbell Park to Melrose.
Moving north, that L shape, upside down L, will be going from Sexton to Woodlawn.
The purple section will be going from Shorerakers to North Shore.
The little green section to the left of that will be going from Lynch to Sexton.
A little blue section that he's pointing to now from Sawgrass to Lynch, moving up.
That bigger section in there will be going from Sawgrass Elementary, Sawgrass Lake Elementary
to Pinella Central, and then the two smaller areas over there, the one that's put the
hands on right now.
That area will be going from Pinella Central to Skyview, and the one to the bottom
and right of that will be going that
whole area.
Okay, that's the first area.
Sliding to the west of that,
we have two schools that are interrelated.
You'll notice that there's a pinkish color triangle.
That area is being recommended to be rezoned
from Westgate Elementary School
to Northwest Elementary School.
Heading to the northwest area in the Seminole area,
you are looking at an area
area that's being recommended to go from Bouter to Oakhurst, another area that's recommended
to go from Oakhurst to Fugue to help meet all the requirements that I talked about earlier.
Going further north, the yellow area is being recommended to go from Frontier to Belcher,
the pinkish area from Belcher to Ponce de Leon Elementary, and that takes care of
some of the concerns in that area.
Moving further north, we'll start with the northeast section in the McMullan Booth Davis and Safety Harbor area.
You'll see a blue-ish type shaded area.
That's being recommended to go from Davis to Safety Harbor Elementary School.
If you look at the westernmost portion of the Davis and McMullan areas or McMullan area,
You'll see a current grid zone that's going to be separated in half.
The upper half will be going from McMullen to Dunedin Elementary.
The bottom half from McMullen to Sandy Lane.
And then that area that's being highlighted right now is from Dunedin to Sandy Lane.
And then the final area that's being, that is part of this recommendation before you today
is the area that's in pink there, and that's being recommended to go from Ozona Elementary School to San Jose Elementary School.
So that's a brief summary of the areas that are being proposed for rezoning.
In addition to the rezoning recommendations, there are some policy change language that you'll see outlined in the agenda item.
some deal with your guiding principles, you know, falsifying residents, changing addresses,
but primarily the ones that are of the most significance to families right now have to
do with the entire student assignment process that's listed there and, you know, as well
as special assignment request, what used to be known as open enrollment.
We still want to make it possible for families to request a school other than the one
they may be zoned to, so there's been some changes to that process in terms of it being
for one year only if that request is granted and they would have to reapply every year.
Issue, another change being recommended for change of residence where if a parent does
change residence we will allow them to stay at the school that they're in, but then
they would have to go to their zone school the following year.
And in the special circumstances which we continue to work through when we look at students
that are impacted by policy changes as well as the proposed rezoning, we're very sensitive
to making sure that we honor any commitment that the school board has made to families
in recent years to make sure that those students in our system that are the final
elementary class that went through the choice plan to get its current assignment, as well
as any subsequent, any lower grade levels that were either granted.
The opportunity to stay in a school is through an open enrollment process, through a school
closing, or through some other means.
And we continue to work with families along those lines.
And I assure you that as families communicate to you and to us, we are getting, putting
putting names of students onto those emails so we can carefully research them and make
sure that we do right by those families.
So that's a very quick synopsis of what you have today, hoping I kept it within my ten
minute time frame, so I'll now turn it back to Mrs. Cook for speakers.
And we have speakers from the audience. And while she's getting ready to call them,
Ms. Rameth, you'll keep track of any comments, questions. And then at the end, we will clarify anything that's necessary
and have a conversation with the board. Thank you for your patience. And if I do mispronounce your name,
please just say it correctly so we know who you are. And we do have two microphones.
So Jeff Sutliff and Robert Lasher.
Good morning.
And you did very well.
Thank you.
Back in 2008, my family relocated rather to Pinellas County.
And my son now attends Leela Davis Elementary.
He's been there for four years.
And his
life has changed immensely from this.
The teacher's there to the principal, to the assistant principal.
He's gone from a shy, timid young man to someone that tries out for plays now.
He'll be doing his first church play coming up for Christmas.
So we're very proud of him and we're real happy with his education and everything that's going on there.
We have a problem in that, back in February, our apartment flooded to the point where we had to find a new place to live.
And it wasn't an easy process to find a rental that was in the district.
We were able to find a place to live that was less than a mile away from Lila Davis,
which made it real easy to jet him to and from school.
But before we made a determined that that's where we would be,
I was very careful in going to the school and into the office and talking to them about the situation.
And I said, here we are. I'm not zoned where I'm at.
It's less than a mile from you but I'm not zoned here.
what do I do?" And this is in February. And they said, no worries. Go ahead and you
can be there. You're close enough, you're fine.
I signed a two-year lease, so it
really puts me in a real interesting predicament here. And, you know, breaking
a lease is, I don't think, a very easy thing to do. And I want to protect my
child more than anything because he's where he loves his school. He gets awarded all the
time when they have their pepper alleys and he's very proud to be there. And I would just
like any kind of help or any kind of advice from any of you that can tell me what I need
to do with this. That's it. Thank you.
Good. Thank you. Mr. Madden, would they meet with you or with Ms. Burns and give the name
and the information so they can check out and see what the reality of that situation is?
I'm glad you asked because I forgot one detail in my I steal. Ms. Burns has a lime green
form that that's a perfect instance where she wants to make sure that the family gets
that form to fill out student information and some of the things cited from the speaker.
And then we will take each one of those and work through those to see what I'm sure you're
starting to see some of the unique circumstances that different families will share with us
today.
And part of that is plugging in what these rules are to the circumstance they find it
and let them know, do you stay in that same school, do you go to this non-school
and give them actually answers.
of what the reality of their situation is.
Right.
Okay.
Thank you.
Good morning.
I appreciate Mr. Madden your presentation.
It's changed what I wanted to say.
I'm just going to say that in 2005 my wife and I bought our first home and even though
we're not college professors, we actually did our due diligence.
We called this organization.
We were told don't worry about it, you can send your daughter where you want.
She's been in safety harbor elementary doing very well and we are now, thanks to the
banks and Wall Street way underwater. I don't have the option to move because I
wouldn't have in a minute if I could to keep her in that zone. So I hope you will
consider that moving forward. Seeing as I have a little bit of time left, I'll just
say that I think Robert Kalach is one of the finest principles I've ever been around
in my life. Thank you. Thank you. And I'm sure he appreciates it as well. Thank
you. Yes, next two speakers are Arlene Andrea and Jennifer Mockreef.
on Creek. Hello
and thank you for giving me time to speak to you all this
morning. I want to tell you all that I moved here from New York City six years
ago with a two-year-old and a three-year-old and I did my due diligence.
I bought a little home close to a fabulous school with a wonderful faculty.
I went to the school way before they were even school-aged. Upon entering
kindergarten. My son started to develop involuntary eye movements and facial
ticks. He started to not want to go to school and that was unlike him. So with
my sister's encouragement, I moved and I started taking to Brooker Creek
Elementary, which has been a wonderful school for both of my children and they
both continue to thrive there. I want to congratulate all you girls because I think it's just such
a great environment for my kids. Not saying that the other school was not, but there are
different circumstances. He was a victim of bullying and I had to remove him from that
situation so that at four or five years old, he's not affected his whole life by something
negative happening in kindergarten. So that being said, and I'm also really happy that
Mr. Madden said that you can do everything you can to consider that these children stay
in the schools. But in doing research, because there is a possibility of them being removed
from their school. And we understand that changes have to be made. But what I don't understand
is why some have to be made midstream at such a critical time in the children's education
process.
Many of us, had we been aware of the possibility that a child could be kicked
out of their school, we would not have placed them there in the first place. As partners
parents in our children's education. We are supposed to be dedicated to their success,
but I believe ejecting them from their school, which is their second home, and displacing
them from where their friends and peers are, and from their comfortable and familiar learning
environment could greatly hinder that success.
These are some of the statistics that I found in my research. The National Institute
to it for trauma and loss in children,
recognizes that transferring from one school
to another negatively affects the child socially,
emotionally, and academically.
You can have a negative consequence in learning overall.
The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
claims that changing schools may be one
of the most stressful experiences a child faces.
Thank you.
Ms. Cook, time is up, I'm sorry.
Yes.
Ms. Daniel, check your e-mail from this morning.
I think you don't know if your question was answered.
If the policy goes through as it's being proposed, you're okay.
Check your e-mail from this morning.
You probably haven't looked.
Good morning.
Hi.
My name is Jenny Monkry.
I am the PTA president of Ozona Elementary.
I'm also a resident of Country Woods that is being rezoned.
And on top of that, I'm a child.
I'm a parent of two children who are going to be greatly affected by this.
I feel that my neighborhood is always targeted, and that's the one thing I can say.
My son started elementary school in 2008, and he's currently a third grader.
And I know Mr. Madness said the third graders tend to be the ones right now where the problem
is because some were grandfathered, some were there because they were zoned, and there
really weren't that many open enrollments, I don't think, in that grade.
My son went to Ozona because of a medical exception instead of San Jose, but the rest
of my neighborhood all went to San Jose.
Then the following year my daughter started kindergarten and we rezoned Ozona because
you changed us again.
In 2008, we rezoned San Jose.
In 2009, you zoned us to Ozona and my daughter started there.
We didn't have to apply for an open enrollment because you zoned us there.
So my child will not be an exception under the open enrollment plan,
because we didn't have that opportunity because we were zoned to that school.
Next, now they're saying take those kids who in third grade were at San Jose,
moved to Ozona to be with a sibling, and now let's send them back to San Jose.
It's just there is no stability for our neighborhood.
We've also changed on the middle and high school level in the last few years,
and we're always moving.
One thing I did want to say is that we are only one-and-a-half miles, if not less, for
some people in Waterford to Garrison Jones Elementary.
We are less than two miles to Ozone Elementary, and we are 3.7 to San Jose, requiring bussings.
And that is a problem.
We are going to bus people to a school when we have two schools to choose from that
are under two miles.
And on top of that, one thing that was put in the paper is that there are three portables
at San Jose, and there are seven at Ozona.
By taking their, Mr. Madden's email, it says that there are 72 students that could be affected.
Of that, registered at Ozona, there were only 42 who are currently in K-3rd who could
be affected.
And of that 72, I'm sure, are people who also fall into magnets and fundamentals
all those in private schools who could potentially come into the zone of those 42, some of those
were grandfathers because they were the own San Jose, I think there's 18, or I'm sorry,
15 third graders right now. Some of those are grandfathered children. So will they get
to stay or will they not? And for me, my children, I have one who went through a medical
exemption to get there, and the other one is zoned, so what happens to my children?
children. I can't separate them. I mean, that shouldn't have to be. I think that all children
who are currently zoned at a school should be able to stay there. Like you promised
until the end of the day reaching the top of that grade.
Next two speakers, Eric Keaton and Ken, Ken, Ken Cader. Excuse me.
Good morning.
I'm Eric Keaton and you nailed it. Good morning, members of the board. My name
Ms. Eric Keaton. My kid goes to Ozona Elementary School. I live at 11 Eagle Lane in Gulf
U.S. states. We've been there for less than a year. We were zoned Palm Harbor Elementary
and I understand that due to budget constraints, that school had to be closed. And it was
only a mile and a half from our former residence. We then moved, after we were
going to Ozona, then moved closer to Ozona Elementary School, which is less
than two miles.
We're fortunate that my son can occasionally take the trail with his bicycle.
My daughter will be attending Ozona Elementary School, and we've been very much engaged in
that process.
When I say engaged, we go to all pro-dads, we go to the holiday festival, sometimes teach
the kids for a great American teaching, we coach them for Little League.
So say that I'm an engaged parent would be above and beyond for both my life.
There's times where she's taken the forms from the teachers
and she's taken those big math books that are like this thick and this big
and she's been able to make them appropriate for the kids.
And looking back at the student assignment process, I went to your website
and I appreciate the information that you have there.
However, the one thing that I was looking for was our student assignment since 2001.
That link has not been working. And the reason I wanted to look at that
is because I felt that there's been continued tinkering with our neighborhood
and the adjacent neighborhoods affected by this rezoning or overcrowding issue
that the board and the school board says we have.
I wanted to find out if another two years down the road this was going to happen again.
As I said, we're all engaged families,
and earlier you mentioned the proclamation by the governor talking about having high expectations.
A zone elementary is an A school.
I have high expectations for my kids that they're to earn A's.
Why would I want to take them out of an A school?
It should be my choice where they go to school.
We pay the property taxes.
We elect you to make the right decision.
So I'm asking you to make the right decision
and take North Curlew and Palm Harbor off of 5120.
If you can't do that because you've already made a motion
to hear the public hearing,
Please set the public hearing to a time certain 5 p.m. or 7 p.m. on December 6 when a majority
of parents and the public can be heard.
Thank you.
Okay.
I'm going to refer back to the rules for a board meeting.
The applause is supposed to be just during the presentations where we had people come
up and we recognized them.
And it's been a little liberally enforced as we go on.
But if we can, for the efficiency of the meeting, you can give a thumbs up.
You can wave your hands in agreement.
You can give them a, you know, whatever.
No obscene gestures, but any kind of other gestures would be fine.
So if we could stick with that, I'm going to, from this point forward, enforce it.
Thank you.
I'm a little Davis father. I can go on on how my wife, the stuff she does for the school,
but we don't have enough time for that. I'm just reading a few things from where you guys
wrote designate schools for each student and the district term by consideration and weighing
of factors, including without limitation, proximity, keeping underlying neighborhood
together. We're separated from North City Park. We're at the little Bermuda Triangle up in the upper
harbor there where I've counted about approximately 38 streets that are affected. We happen to be one of
them and we are separated by North City Park with the new boundary line. We are just as close to
to Laila as we are to Safety Harbor Elementary. Again, I'm one of those
families that moved to the area just to be the zone for Laila.
As far as getting
grandfathered in, I don't know why that would not happen. The other thing is I
know the demographics are probably just set with the computer. I don't know
If there's any human factors or human common sense put together that where they actually look at it or if it's just the computer just sets it.
But just looking at that, you can see the seat balance in the schools and with our school alone.
And I feel sorry for some of these other schools. They have one one person affected.
It's all grass to lunch from first grade to second. That's ludicrous.
but with our school alone with about 49 kids being affected next year,
you're looking at less than two kids per class to be able to put into that.
I don't know if that seat balance is that sensitive or not,
but you're looking at less than two kids per class
and the effectiveness that it would take on these children to actually move
since we put them in a certain area for a reason.
I would recommend maybe an intent to remain addendum if you guys could possibly put that
into the system.
I know you're going to try to work on a one-on-one basis, but maybe just a general, you know,
intense remain clause in the system that we can try to keep our kids within, especially
with the minimal amount of children in a couple of these that I'm looking at right
here and we happen to be one of them.
So I would recommend that and I appreciate all the help you can do for us. Thank you.
Thank you.
Next two speakers, Mindy Rubio and Michelle Gallagher.
Thank you for allowing me to speak about the proposed school district rezoning area on 125th Street north of 94th Avenue in Seminole, Florida.
My name is Mindy Rogillo.
I reside in the area just inside the proposed new area
of rezoning on 125th 9605 125th Avenue for the past five years.
I'm the mother of two boys attending Seminole High School
and Bouter Elementary.
I own a real estate company in Seminole.
I'm the president of the Rotary Club of Seminole
and a member of Seminole Chamber of Commerce.
Currently, we are 7 tenths of a mile from Bouter Elementary
and my son rides his bike with a group of his friends
in the neighborhood to school each day.
With this proposed change, my seven-year-old son
would have to be bussed to a school 1.7 miles from my home
to a school in Largo, Florida.
Not even the city in which I reside.
It makes no sense to uproot his entire life
and force him to reestablish at this young age.
He has grown up with all of his friends
since attending Oakhurst Learning Center at two years old.
Additionally, you well know school zones
zones affect property values and we don't need anything affecting them in an adverse
manner at this time.
The rezone affects some of the most expensive single family residences in Seminole and speaking
of WinTree Oak subdivision and Franca States which have a taxable value of just shy of
$30 million.
My request is simple and made with great respect to the school board.
I would like to ask you consider to allow elementary students, regardless of grade,
if they started their education in kindergarten to remain at their current elementary school.
I believe that the community of Seminole is my home.
It's where I've decided to raise my children, volunteer my time, make my living,
and I feel like it only makes sense that my child go to school in Seminole.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
Hello.
My name is Nichelle Gallagher.
I have two boys that attend Leva Davis Elementary.
My oldest, Ryan, is in fourth grade and my youngest, Colin, is in second grade.
They were new to the school.
As of last year, we just transferred them from a private school, so they just adjusted
and transitioned fully.
And now the proposal will have to move my second grader.
My understanding is that my fourth grader may remain
because he would complete his last year
at his elementary school.
Therefore, my two boys would be going to different schools.
I believe that would be sibling hardship.
Both schools, St. George Elementary and Davis,
start at the exact same time.
I'm sure all of you have stepped through car lines
in the past.
It is impossible to do both of them at the same time.
I understand, obviously, there's the emotional distress
of obviously keeping families, you know, having families separated and that sort of thing,
but I would hope that the board would consider that if they allow the fourth graders to stay,
which I think is a valid, valid point, that their siblings that are currently attending
the school be able to stay and complete their elementary education as well.
Of course, my, my, my hope would be that our little area, our triangle as we call
it that has been proposed to be rezoned, the 49 children, which is one of the smaller
of the areas, what that would be taken off the rezoning at this point, because as some
of the other parents have mentioned, the two kids per grade is probably not at this
point going to be the amount of kids that are going to affect the negative transition
that these kids are going to have to go through with pulling my boys, for example, after
are only being at a school for one year and changing again.
But if that is not on the table,
then I would hope that you would be able to keep
the current siblings of the upcoming fifth graders,
allow those kids to complete
their elementary school education as well
from where they started.
Thank you.
Next two speakers, Mark Allen and Michelle Fox
and Mark, or Mark Hill,
I'm probably not pronouncing it correctly.
And Michelle Fox.
Good afternoon.
Sorry, what was that?
Algin. Mark Hill Allen or Algin?
There's Mark Algin. That would be you.
Well, it is now. Well, it is your handwriting.
Oh, it's set. Okay, mark.jil. We got it.
There we go. Yes.
Like many of the speakers before us, we share a lot of the same concerns.
Our children, we have three children, fifth grade,
Third and second, we are up in the Curlew-Ozona area, like Jenny Monkreef.
Our neighborhood, Waterford Crossing, has been on the crosshairs ever since I can remember.
Every year it's the same thing.
Our concerns are really basically uprooting our children from a place where they spend
the majority of their time during the school year and just, you know, breaking that family
that we feel that we have at the current school that we're at, Ozona.
Yes, all three kids
have started there since kindergarten. You know, I'd also like to mention my wife has
donated a tremendous amount of her time in terms of volunteer work. I've done teach-in,
We are involved parents.
We've also donated either through direct giving or supporting the PTA of the functions, fund
raisers, as well as donations like TVs, computer equipment, printer paper, ink, things like
that over the years.
And the gut feel I have from something like that is, you know, it's been taken and to transfer
our kids into another school.
Now I feel like I've left those things that we have given to the school that we've been
at and we have to leave those.
So really I would just urge the board to consider grandfathering the kids into the
schools that they're in. I understand that you're trying to cut costs. I do I do
want to address the fact that the number of students affected by this change in
our particular areas roughly 42 which you know across all the grades is not
going to make any sort of impact whatsoever other than uprooting the
kids, upsetting them, giving them adjustment periods. All the arguments
that you've heard already.
I think I also mentioned that Arizona is two miles away
versus San Jose, which is 3.6 miles.
So we're just going to upward our kids from school as two miles
and double the distance between different schools.
So we again appreciate the time to present our thoughts
and hope you consider.
Thank you.
Good morning.
Good afternoon.
My name is Michelle Fox,
and I'm actually the PTA president at O'Courst Elementary.
I have a third grader and a fifth grader,
and I understand my fifth grader will not be affected,
and I do appreciate I have been e-mailing Mr. Madden,
and I don't think he sleeps because the times of the e-mails
that I get are very bizarre.
Anyway, I'm confused.
I have an individual basis, of course,
because I'm not sure where my third grader falls under.
I don't know if he's grandfathered.
He got in under the sibling preference,
So we didn't have to apply.
I believe we just stated we would continue to give transportation.
So I am confused where he stands.
My husband and I bought a house about a year ago,
and I didn't even look at zoning for elementary
because I thought for sure, you know, we've been there four years.
I'm sure we're fine.
And then when I read in the St. Pete Times,
the article that was on the front page of my heart just sank.
I was like, are you kidding me?
For the first year I felt safe,
And now I don't know what to think.
We have spent hours and hours as active parents.
We have such a close knit school, national school character.
We have over 10 parents that came to the meeting today.
And for us to have to leave the community
that I felt like we've become a part of,
I think would just be horrible.
My kids don't know any other way than the Mustang way.
And I don't want to have to introduce them
to something else.
So, thank you so much.
Thank you.
Next two speakers, Erica Thomsberry and Rosemary Vieira.
She had to, okay, then after Rosemary would be Phillip Allard.
Good afternoon.
My name is Rosemary Vieira.
Some of the board members might actually remember me
because I stood here when you closed Palm Harbor Elementary.
And the one thing I have for the parents
to take away from this is you think
you're gonna die from it?
You're not.
My kids and 134 other kids went to Ozona.
The principal did a fabulous job.
Two of the principals who were sitting here,
I said to them, talk to Carrie Puzo
because she did the best job of making sure
that our kids were welcome.
It's not ideal when my young,
this year sixth grade or when he was in fifth grade,
he wore his Palm Harbor T-shirt on Fridays.
He never really got over it,
but he went to school.
He did well. He's in a magnet. He's a happy little kid. He was happy when he was at Ozona.
He got along with the other kids. I mean, basically, that was his tiny little grudge.
His sister is in third grade. She's perfectly happy there.
She would be happy if, I mean, we live right on the edge of a zone.
So every so often I'm waiting for Mr. Madden to move us to southern one.
If they move, just seriously, I do.
I'm sure he gets, every so often he gets an email going,
I'm not moving but the truth of the matter is she's going into fourth grade if she had to move to Sutherland
She'd go because 17 children from Palm Harbor went to Sutherland
They were not treated in the stellar way the carry of who's I've treated my children and I will tell you something
They found friends that they knew from sports. They found new kids
They found other people they get off the middle school bus and they walk down the street with the kids from their neighborhood
just like they would if they went to Palm Harbor or if they went to Ozona you
will not die from this it's worse for you I will tell you that as a parent it is
much much worse for you than it is for them because they get up and they go look
and your school and oh look I know so-and-so and even if it's only two
kids in their grade they know so-and-so and that's all they care about and you
will manage and it's very tough it's a tough decision for the board to make
and I'm glad I don't have to make it and I'm sure you get a million
in emails, but in some cases you have to make those decisions.
That said, I really feel bad for the people from Country Woods because they just keep getting bounced all over.
So if you do this, don't do it to them again because it's really, really not fair.
And that's all I have to say.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
My name is Philip Allred. My son this year just started kindergarten at O'Curt and he
got into the open enrollment and we were ecstatic because we were worried about where we would
place him and where we could find an environment that he would foster and.
And we think Oakhurst has really worked out well, not that any other school wouldn't have,
but he's already integrated into that school. He knows the teachers, he's made friends,
he's bonded with the environment, the culture, and enjoys looking forward to going to school.
On the weekends, he talks about what he plans to do the next week. My concerns if he gets
moved out of that school because of a policy change that he will no longer enjoy going to
school, he will start over. And in the first few years of school, this is a critical time
where he gets to decide whether or not he likes school or not. And we were worried he
would not like school, but he loves it. So I'm not going to go into the emotional aspects
of it because I understand everyone has the emotional story. What I would like to
know is what is the motivation behind the policy change for this?
There's only 3,000, 3,500 students that would be affected.
And you already know the exact school that they're going to.
The parents have made a commitment.
They get their student there every day.
They went through the process to make sure
their child went to the school that they felt
fostered an environment that gave them the best education.
And so I don't understand why those children should be ripped from those schools
when the parents, the families, the schools have already made a commitment to their education.
Why should we break that promise now?
And I don't see why that's even on the table.
And I also don't understand the way the policy is written in 5120,
that it is on the onus of the family to constantly come up and tell you that they
want to go to that school. I understand there's a need for it, but the way the
policy is written it almost implies that there's loopholes ready to catch those
parents, to kick them out of those schools, that if there's not space
perhaps there would not be space for their child, that if they don't enroll
their student by January, their child wouldn't be eligible to go to that school.
I just want to know why there is a push to remove those 3,000 students who have already
integrated into a school out of a spot in a community that they've grown into for the
possibility of students that haven't even come in yet.
I don't understand it.
And I don't think it's in the interest of the children, the families, or the schools
that they're a part of.
Thank you.
Madam Chair, we have nine more speakers. Michelle Allred and Tabitha Kanell.
Connell.
Good afternoon.
Hello.
That's my husband.
And my son attends O'Cristell Elementary.
And being a mother of a child going into kindergarten, I was petrified for him.
And so I researched the schools.
I was also a teacher for 12 years in planning on some of these schools.
And I came to the conclusion that Oakhurst was the best placement for him.
And so we worried and worried and worried about getting him.
And then we started the open enrollment process in February and even tried to move into that area.
And we're still trying to move into that area and we're not able to find a house that works for us.
So it's been a long process.
So anyway, July 29th we were given the great news that he was going to be allowed to attend that school.
And so I was assured by the staff and student assignment and at the school that he could remain there through fifth grade
And so I finally was able to read this out of relief and now four months later
it seems that you all are changing the rules and that assurance is no longer there and
Had I known that I may have made other arrangements so that he's not attending a school in kindergarten
I'm then taken out of that school and having to get used to another school later
He does not do well with change
or new environments, but he was immediately comfortable and confident at this school.
He's extremely happy and loves to go to school every day.
So changing him now would cause him unfair distress, and it feels like you're saying
that he's not as important as a family who may or may not later move into that zone
and that he's not as important as a family who might have wanted to attend that school,
but wasn't able to because they didn't show up until August to sign him up for that.
and then they didn't get to get in, and now they're upset.
So I feel like what you're doing is forcing us and others
to pick up and move into that zone if we can,
which we haven't been able to do,
and that this place is an undue hardship
on sending those families.
And you're still gonna end up with overcrowding
because if those families really want their kids
to go to that school, they're gonna move into that zone,
and then they're going to be in zone
but they're still not gonna be a space available
for them, so then they're gonna have
to go somewhere else.
So even if we are able to move into that
in the summer, and then he has already lost his spot,
is he going to be guaranteed?
The way that's written, it doesn't seem that he will.
So I feel like it's irresponsible for you
to cause anxiety and frustration for families
year after year, having parents worried
that their children will be not allowed
to attend their current school every year.
If you've made a commitment, you should honor it.
And if you no longer want to have open enrollment
from this point on, that's completely understandable.
But I don't think that your decision
should be retroactive, and I don't think
that it should affect the students
that have already been put into a school
that they're comfortable in.
It's not fair to move them.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
My name is Tabitha Kanell.
I am an Oakhurst parent, as well as a board member at Oakhurst
for the last eight years.
We bought a home in Seminole in 2003,
and I sit 0.9 miles from Bouter
and 0.9 miles from Oakhurst Elementary.
Bouter is my zone school, but through choice,
we choice my now sophomore into Oakhurst Elementary.
I now have a fifth grader who is about to graduate from Oakhurst as well, and a third grader.
My concern here is my third grader has no nothing else but Oakhurst Elementary.
From the time she was a baby, we have been, like I said, on the board,
spent hundreds and hundreds of hours there through functions.
And what we're kind of unsure of is the clarification of she got in through a sibling
as well as my middle child, and we've been an Oakhurst family for nine years.
And now, through the policy changes or whatever it may be, my now third-grader, next-year fourth-grader may be taken out of the only school she's known, not just for four years, but since she was a newborn growing up there, and placed into another great school, but not the school she's known.
I know that when we put her in there, we were told that they were allowed to finish out their school, their highest grade there.
And I stand here as a parent, as a PTA member, as a person involved in the community,
asking you as a board, as you make and consider your policy changes and your zoning changes,
to honor, to remember, to honor the commitments maybe that you have made to those of us
who have also abided by your rules and guidelines through choice in 2003.
And when it was taken away, we still went through the guidelines and we abided by everything you asked us to do.
As you remember that, as you're making your policy changes, if you will remember to honor
your commitments made to our families that our kids could see through the highest grade
that they are there, that we have made a family opus elementary.
We have many, many friends, and my third-grader, seniorly fourth-grader, may lose that.
And I do ask you, as you make those policy changes, do you remember the commitments
you did make to us a few years back?
Thank you.
Next two speakers are Klebeck, Passaro, and Phil Latti.
Welcome.
Good afternoon.
My name is Kleber, Pegoraro.
I'm here to speak about the proposed elementary school rezoning that would affect the neighborhoods
north of Curlew and west of Sierra One.
My son is in fourth grade, and my daughter is in kindergarten.
garden. They are both happily and successfully attending the Ozona Elementary School.
The proposed changes would rezone them to St. Jose Elementary, which as mentioned before
is located almost twice as far from our location. Three years ago our son, again now in fourth
grade was affected by a school reason. Unfortunately, the school change was not a positive experience.
One year later, while looking for a home to buy, we decided to relocate and our chosen
area, the current location, we decided to be where we are basically due to the schools
that were assigned at the time to that location.
Since we moved, we have learned that for the past years that area has been involved in proposed changes,
in which last year the high school was actually rezoned.
If the current proposed changes are approved, San Jose Elementary would be the fourth school
my son would attend during his elementary school years.
One can argue that one school may be better than another.
One can argue that there's a need of restructuring the school system, but I think no one can
argued that moving kids around is a positive thing.
According to the letter stating the proposed changes, my son in fourth grade would be allowed
to stay at a zona elementary, but my daughter in kindergarten would not.
We would have to move her.
My son would not be allowed to use the bus system, while my daughter I would assume
would.
but please don't split them.
I agree with the rest of the parents here.
Please consider keeping the students that are currently
enroute at Ozone and the other elementary schools
to stay where they are.
Please honor that.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
My name is Phil Lado.
I live at 12885 Lowest Avenue in Seminole.
And my daughter is currently zoned for Bouter, will be zoned for Oakhurst Elementary, both great schools.
I'm here today to bring to attention a safety concern with the transportation of my daughter to school.
She plans on taking herself to school along with my younger daughter in the coming years and there's no crosswalk,
no sidewalk, and no safeway for my daughter to get to Oakhurst Elementary.
Right now, Bouter Elementary is in the back of our neighborhood.
it's the closest school that closest local school located to our house you
know the elementary school and I'm asking you to review the map and possibly
move that line one block north so that our street continues to be in
better elementary which is the safest and closest school for our kids to go
to every day. Thank you. Thank you.
Melissa Stickler and Kathy Heiderling
and might
be key to me.
Good afternoon.
Melissa Stickler for Sunny Point Terrace, Oldsmar.
It's been a few years, but hello again.
I've got a few things first, just a thank you.
The second, a question, and the third, a plea
for some of the others in the audience after,
but we've been through as a family
and just hearing some of the other stories.
My daughter, Start, was the last year of choice.
She got in the kindergarten.
We took that seriously.
We were told we had to choose, so we did.
Next year came up, she was going to be moved from her school.
We went through the whole process with her as a board.
The following year it came up again, this time without blessing, which was what a lot of parents had asked for in the first place.
And then after that, I have a son that's two years younger.
He was accepted into open enrollment to the highest grade offered, was what the policy said.
I stopped listening to just the emails and the phone calls, although I do appreciate that.
that I always validate everything in writing.
So we were in this school.
I actually called the year before last
because even though it was in writing,
I still felt uncomfortable
that the commitment wasn't gonna be held to.
I called the student assignment office, was told,
he will be there to the highest grade offered,
Mrs. Stickler, don't worry.
I said, that's nice.
I said, but guess what?
You'll probably get a call from me every year
till he's out of school.
So I called again this year.
Same thing, Mrs. Stickler, don't worry.
He's there to the highest grade offered, okay?
Right now, I have a second grader and a fourth grader.
I, the way, so first thank you for all your hard work and listening to our e-mails.
I do think you're responsive and I do think you try to listen.
And Mr. Madden particularly, I actually, when this came up in the paper, someone looked at me and said,
I still have his number on myself, but I've read it a few years ago.
Oh, yes, I did.
So appreciate it.
That's the thank you.
The question is, I've read the policy a couple of times.
The first time I went, oh, yay.
I think the children of your choice and their siblings are in the exceptions here.
I'd like that clarified.
I think a lot of other parents in the office in the audience have the same question.
So that's the person.
Just please clarify this to put us out of our agony.
Lastly, if that's what it means that the siblings do get to stay, I appreciate it.
I appreciate your support.
I think it's a good policy and I appreciate the time that you spent to go back and do what we ask look at the numbers
You know who these kids are. They're not surprises. You have their names. You have the schools
So that's you know, I appreciate the exceptions that are there
So please clarify that you know what I'm reading is what I think I'm reading and that you'll continue to you know
Vote for that last is the plea
I've listened to some of the other parents and having been
Every year on this back and forth and back and forth and back and forth
I agree that kids are resilient and they can change, but not knowing where they're going
to go to school.
The rule every single year is just frustrating. So please, you know, look at, I'm
interested and you won't be able to grant all the exceptions, but please work with the parents,
whose kids are in the schools, whose siblings are in the schools, case by case. Thank you.
Thank you. And good afternoon. Hi, my name's Kathy Cardoing,
and I have two children at Brooker Creek Elementary. When
I decided that I was going to look out of zone,
I went through all of the rules and the regulations and asked
all the questions and did everything I was supposed to do.
So they got in on open enrollment.
My first one got in, I crossed my fingers and toes, prayed to God, went through all of that
for my second one to get in.
She got it.
Thought I could breathe, I can't breathe again.
It needs to stop.
They're both there, they're both happy.
Yes, kids can be resilient, and yes, families, and I can go through the emotions and some
Some children are just better than others, but it's every year, holding your breath, not
knowing what you're going to do.
It's extreme.
For parents who are involved and who love their children and who are there every day
and volunteer in their school three times a week, not to know what you're going to
do on a year-to-year basis is just, I can't even speak because of how difficult it is.
not knowing. There are so many things that you don't control in life. There are so many
things that you don't know. This should be something I know. This should be something I can
look at my children and say, no matter what else is going to change, you're here. I did
everything. I followed the rules. Mommy made sure you're here. Please, when you make the
rule, have it so that these kids can finish what we started for them. We made these.
I made choices. You make choices. They don't have choices. This is not them. Please make
sure that whatever it is that you're going to do follows these kids through so the parents
can breathe and they can be reassured that what we say we're giving them, we can give
them.
Thank you.
Next two speakers are Deborah from motto and John Oscar.
Welcome.
I'm Deborah Fomato.
Most of the parents have already said what I was here to say.
I have two children in short acres elementary, and it is their home away from home.
My daughter started there when she was three in a speech program, and my son was one.
And he's been, that's the only school he's ever known.
We went to every function, every school function, carnivals, everything that they have ever
done in the school.
We've been a part of that family.
It's our life.
It's our family.
as our friends, it's our neighborhood.
I was told my daughter who's in fourth grade may be able to stay there, thank God.
My son who's in second, I got the letter saying that he's recommended to go to North Shore.
We have always been zoned in this area, it is our school.
I've never had to go through most of what the parents have gone through with going
outside the zone or being worried about finding another school.
I just want you to keep in mind that you're ripping families apart.
This is very important to our family that my son stays in the school.
He wasn't grandfathered in because it was our own school.
He's going into third grade and he loves it.
My children have never, I tell everyone, my children out of the world, all the children
in the world, they love their school.
They love going to school.
It is their life.
This is going to be such an upset for my son to be ripped away from everything he's known since he was one.
He used to cry walking out of my daughter's school when she was four, three.
I want to go to school. I want to go to school. He couldn't wait to get there.
I paid for his pre-K, voluntary pre-K. I paid for him to go to that school to be with my daughter.
And that is the only world and the only life that we know and the only school that we know.
This is going to be so damaging to him.
He's already gotten wind of what's going on with their that he might have to leave the school
And he looked at me and said mommy. What did we do wrong now?
I'm trying to explain to him that we're not being punished
He didn't do anything wrong, but that it's overcrowded and I'm explaining the problem that we have but
Please keep in mind that if the children have been zoned for that school since they've been
able to go to school, please keep them in that school.
It's the only world they know.
It's all his friends.
I just can't imagine picking my daughter up next year
and not having my son there and his face on that bench
to get in my car during pickup time.
It's breaking my heart.
I have cried myself to sleep
and I know what it's going to do to him.
So please, please just let them somehow work it out
where the families that are in their schools
stay in their schools.
schools. This is America. We should have a right to where our children go. And by reading
that letter, it was like, you're a parent, it's your child. This is America. You have
no right to say where your child is going. And this is my school zone. We can't pick
up our house and move. It's impossible. Please, please just consider to let the children
stay in the school. Thank you.
Good afternoon.
Good afternoon members of the board. I'm sure I don't need to tell you guys why my family
relocated the Tampa Bay area. And in doing my due diligence, I chose to send my daughter
first to shoreacre. She's six right now. She's in first grade.
In 2013, we're going to have
to move. Odds are probably to Kodiak, Alaska, because there's only so many places seen
what thirties are. Now I'm supposed to move my daughter from shore acres to
North Shore Elementary in 2012, as well as, you know, the rotating again. I can,
you know, I'll take the hit for 2013, but I don't know what to tell her about
2012. Additionally, for my family situation, when we moved to shore acres,
that was a selling point. Our house is nothing special. There's a lot of great
big houses in our neighborhood but most of them are starter homes for starter families.
It's highly marketable in that area for fresh families and with elementary school children
and we're going from an A school to a C school. Now I'm not as educated as you folks but
I'm a parent. When I have the choice between an A school or a C school I'm ten out of
times going to go to an A school.
That being said, if my house was a C school, I probably
wouldn't have bought it. So I can only anticipate taking, you know, a pretty big financial hit
when I have to rotate out whether I decide to rent it out. It probably won't cover
the mortgage. Or if I decide to sell it, I'm not going to get what I bought it for.
On the back end, I'm probably going to get stationed back here, and once I get my tour done elsewhere,
I'm going to go right back to shore acres, because I have a one-year-old son
who's going to be ready for first grade, and you're not going to get rid of me that easily.
And once again, I'm going to overpopulate your school.
And that's my point, is that families are going to do what they can
to provide the best for their kids. And a lot of these schools are overcrowded strictly
because they're great schools. And whatever zone you decide to shave off or what neighborhood
you move around, that great school is going to get overpopulated again.
So I can only
speak for my family situation in my neighborhood.
So for Northeast Park, please consider letting
in a stay. Additionally, I've got some other numbers that, you know, I see that don't quite
make sense, and I'm running out of time. So I know I'll send those to you guys shortly.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Liz Beckers and Dan Green or Dana Green. We'll find out.
Good afternoon. My name is Liz Beckers. Some of you may remember me. I have written and
I have spoken to the school board over the past five years and many times about this
very subject.
And I'd like to thank Mr. Madden for all of his email responses, Ms. Weichel for her
conversations on the phone, and Mr. Touchton for his conversation with me as well.
Who knew that when we moved down here eight years ago into a house that had three elementary
schools inside a two-mile radius from it with our two-year-old, we would have
to fight for him and then his sister to be able to go to one of those three schools
almost every year and speaking about the neighborhoods just north of Curlie Road
and are currently proposed to be rezoned from Ozone Elementary to San Jose
Elementary. Yes these are these are the same neighborhoods that were rezoned
over a weekend at the beginning of 2011 from Palm Harbor University High to
Dunedin High.
These zone map changes every year or so in this area need to
stop. It needs to stabilize or pretty soon you'll be able to remove this
area from MAPS all together. Would you buy a house in a neighborhood not knowing where
your children will be going to school the next year? I wouldn't.
If you are going to
make these chronic changes, you need to guarantee to the families that their children will
be able to finish out wherever you put them in the first place. The author of There's
a Room. If there's room, you can go, but you won't know until a couple weeks before
school starts and then tell them, oh yeah, you have to do that every year from
than on.
There are 42 students enrolled at Ozona in grades K through 3 right now that
live in this area. These are the only students this policy affects. The rest of the 72 students
referred to in the chart go to another school outside of their current zone, and according
to the policy, I believe those students will be allowed to stay since they would have
gotten in through open enrollment. If there is to be a zoning change, why not make
to Garrison Jones where the area mostly was historically zoned for. Plus it's over a mile
closer to these neighborhoods than the proposed San Jose.
Another point I wanted to make is that
currently at Ozona there are approximately 16, 60 students that are not zoned. This number does
not include professional courtesy because I believe that employees should have their students
there and it does not include any other students that are there for special programs.
So we have 42 students living in the area currently zoned for Ozona, 60 students out of zone.
So I'm wondering if you would even be having this discussion at all if the school board's open enrollment policy over the past five years were different.
The school board does have a policy against bullying.
Ola's bullying prevention program defines bullying as such.
A person is bullied when he or she is exposed repeatedly and over time to negative actions
on the part of one or more other persons and he or she has difficulty in defending himself or herself.
No wonder I felt so beat up over the past five years. Thank you.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
My name is Dana Greeno and I have a daughter in first grade at Shoraker's Elementary
and I understand the overcrowding problem and that something has to be done.
But by the same token, these, in the media it talks about the promises
that have been made to families and the promises that we're implied and how we need to keep
those promises to families. And I believe that by zoning a child, my child is going
to her own, home's own school, and now all of a sudden we've decided, oh, we're going
to kick those out of the zone, but we'll keep these in the zone. We're talking
about involved families at the school. I'm involved myself. I know many of the families
and her classroom are involved, and obviously all the parents who are here are involved
in their own classrooms, in their own schools and their children's classrooms.
And it's very, very important to have that parental involvement in a classroom because
there are, for every parent that's involved, there's two parents that are not involved.
And we want our children to have the best, and in order to keep that the best, we
need to have some consistency, and we need to have the promises, the implied promises
that you guys made to us by allowing us to send our children to their own school to be
kept in place. It is a promise to us that we zone you for this school, this is where
you started. These kids should be allowed to stay in the school that they started in,
just like all these other parents. And in many of these cases, you have kids that are
being asked to move from an A school to an A school. In my case, you're asking
me to move from an A school to a C school. And I believe that many in the South
County are being asked to move down instead of move up.
Obviously, the ones that are moving up are very happy about that, and they're not here
because they're glad to be moving from their whatever grade school level to a higher grade
school level.
So I believe that the compromise here is, yes, you maybe need to change some zones.
Okay, if that's what you need to do, change the zones.
But the kids that are already there, figure out some way to keep those kids there until
so they finish the fifth grade. And then new kids coming in, maybe you can zone them
to a new school. But the kids that are already there need to be kept at the school
that they're in. And I also have a 16-year-old who is in a special needs program.
We went through the choice plan. We went through all this other stuff with her.
Now, when choice plan came about, all of her choices were basically taken away
because they spread the special needs part out so thin that we had no choice
but to send her to a center-based school.
So, you know, it's not that you affect one person
when you affect this, and even all these special circumstances
that you have, my child is just as important
as their child is to me and to our community.
It's very important that you guys.
Allow the kids that are at a school to stay at a school until they're great, until they're finished.
Thank you.
We have three more speakers, Dennis McAllister and Nick Hill.
Good afternoon. Go ahead.
Good afternoon to the board. Thank you for the effort and the work that you put into this.
I'm a father of Gina McAllister at a sexton, and she's doing very well there.
We bought her home so that she could go to sex school.
Now you've shifted the lines.
And I understand you have fiscal reasons to do this, but it seems to me the mark is missed,
especially when it concerns families.
Maybe fiscal over families isn't the right direction to make a decision about.
We have had a lot of points made and a lot of considerations.
My wife volunteers there, it's the same story, but it's a valid story.
We take our time to make our choices and our considerations,
and it seems like that our choices have been taken away from us
because you have made your choices.
And there is no way back.
I didn't see anything on the website saying,
go ahead and make your choice.
It's just simply a posting.
Maybe that wasn't right either.
fair. She does real well. She goes to a B school. She's been doing well with all of
her students, Ms. Meeks, Ms. Buff Craig, Ms. Johnson, Ms. Campbell, and now she has to
go. It doesn't seem so fair or so right.
Volunteering, we'll do that wherever we go. We'd like to continue to go where we
do. We don't want our choices made for us by others. That doesn't seem like the
right thing to do. And underneath the guidance of Miss Davies, who's excellent, we would like
to continue. It's a B school working on an A, and now she's going to have to go to a D
or an F school, and that's not quite right. Probably we'll make whatever kind of choice
we need to, to include moving, so that we can still keep that slot. But maybe you
guys can, instead of shifting the lines and breaking a promise, you can allow exceptions.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Hi.
My name is Nicholas Hill.
Sorry if I couldn't understand it.
Basically, it's going to be real short.
I gave her a petition that I got together with me and my wife and our community.
It's over 100 signatures.
It's only over 100 signatures because we didn't have very long to get it together.
What I think that says is that the community that we live in, which is frontier, is
not in agreement with this.
And I agree with everything everybody else has said, which I think is a general consensus
that keep the kids where they are until they get out of that school, anybody else coming
in or rezoning in, you know, you do your thing with them because they don't have history
there.
But anybody who's at that school should stay at that school.
And I am with Mr. Oster as well.
I'm the Coast Guard, so I serve my country and my community that way.
and I will be moving at the same time as he is, probably to Kodiak, Alaska, and I would
prefer to minimize how much impact we have on our kids. Being is that we also, I mean,
we already impact our kids every four years, and I do it more. So I hope that you read
my petition. I wrote a letter to go with it.
Thank you.
Last speaker, Benjamin Gloss.
Good afternoon.
This is where I just get on you guys so hard you're going to go home and cry.
I'm going to take a somewhat of a different approach.
It was glossy, by the way. My writing was bad on the small lines.
I'm one of the fortunate dads in the community where I volunteer for the last three years.
I've done over 250 hours a year in the school.
I have no doubt that my daughter will be resilient and be happy wherever she goes.
that's the kind of kid she is and that's the lesson I hope to teach her, life's not always easy.
But at Leela Davis, that is a family and the teachers, the principal, the assistant principal, we're so proud.
The approach I want to give you, this isn't always just about the kids, it's about the parents.
We have pride in these schools too. We volunteer our time, we live in the communities we live in.
We choose to buy the homes we buy if we don't have choice because we want to be a part of that certain educational family.
And I love to be a part of Leela G. Davis.
So much that I just started a new business this year and I moved my business in that start-up one block away from Leela Davis.
And it happens to be one-third of the income that I have is because of the Leela Davis family supporting me as well.
I think it's important to know that we make decisions in our adult lives that factor the schools as well as it factors our children.
The money we give, the business partnerships, the finances that we try to make for the school,
the lessons we try to teach our children, and, you know, moving three miles away, maybe
that's not that large of a deal, but it would affect my business tremendously, knowing that
I might lose some of the Leela G. Davis students because now I'm going four miles
away and I'm not going to have that pull from a brand new school.
My daughter is established.
She's happy.
She's resilient, yes.
Yes, but I know that she wants to stay in that school.
She knows who her fourth grade teacher should be.
She already knows who she wants for her fifth grade teacher.
But I think that what's important is I want you guys to try to consider this proposal.
Yes, rezoning needs to happen.
Yes, there needs to be a new foundation.
Perhaps in wishful thinking with everybody else, we all get to stay where we are
because of our family and our pride commitments.
Maybe incoming kindergartners next year will be the start of a rezoning process that if
any mistakes are made, we have time to fix those.
Five years from now in this five-year plan, K becomes five, or fourth grade, and everything's
in place where it should be.
And we can stay and finish out where we're proud.
And the new incoming students are re-zoned how you feel it should be done, and then
people in their homes, their businesses, and in their educational families are not
hurt or bothered by this at all any longer. I hope that makes sense. So I
appreciate your time, but I think it's important you consider the families and
the parents as well as the kids. Thank you. Thank you.
That's it. Okay. We're going
to take a few minutes now for Mr. Madden to answer any questions that came
out or that any clarification that needs to happen. But as he's getting ready
to do that. We're going to be talking as a board about the timing for the next meeting.
We did have some people ask that we move it to an evening meeting. We're going to be
discussing that during our board report. So you may want to kind of watch the website
or the remainder of the meeting to find out what we're going to be doing with that.
So I just kind of wanted to point that out for everybody. Mr. Madden?
Is it not so much direct answers to questions as it is just response or some comments
related to the collective set of parent comments that came up today.
One of the things to just reinforce our intent to work with families directly is, was experienced
today in just the way the parents presented themselves, because when the words open enrollment,
grandfathering, sibling preference are all used in the, in presentations, what has happened
since the days we were even in choice and now have come out of choice, those terms
have blended together and they take on almost a meaning, but they all mean the same thing
and they don't.
When it looked like I wasn't paying attention, I assure you I was because I'm looking through
the open enrollment for the last four years and I won't mention you by name, but some
of you are okay in terms of the proposed policy because one of our next tasks is to
take the students that are impacted because there's a group that didn't come today that
is impacted by the proposed language. And I sense they're not here today because they're
now going to be told, whereas earlier we told them you couldn't have your zone school because
of class size amendment requirements, they're now getting a letter saying you can go to
your zone school. And those people, we usually don't hear from people that are
happy with decisions or proposals before the board. It's the one that's impacted, that
are impacted, such as yourself. I do have to, just being an educator, I'm just humbled
by the passion, and I'm an former elementary principal, I'm even more humbled by the passion
that you've shared with us today in terms of your commitment to your students and
your schools, and we respect that. And that's why the commitment is still out
there to work with you almost independently as we work through the next few, you know,
from now to the second reading and thereafter to try to see if we can accommodate what you're
requesting today.
But it's, understand that, and I think it's important to, and I realize, you know,
I heard a number of comments that it's the world of zoning which many families
have not really experienced for very many years.
And for those of us that have been in this system in this county for a hundred years,
we understand what zoning used to be like and how there were times that every two years
you weren't sure.
And even sometimes even more frequently, you didn't know from one year to the next
if your residence was going to be the one chosen to be rezoned somewhere.
But those were mostly during years when we had increasing enrollment and we were adding
schools.
So, you know, if you live north of Olmerton, you usually got moved to a brand new school.
If you live south of Olmerton, you are helping the district meet its obligation to the federal
court system to meet desegregation.
And it was not uncommon for schools to change a fraction of its population in
South County every two years.
So we understand how that impacts schools and anybody that's been at a school and you did experience that, you understand that.
The other kinds of things is, you know, since they have impacted why there's a need to do some stable...
You actually supported some of the rationale why the board is doing this.
And one of the reasons why the Board is considering the zoning proposals is to help get to a point of sustainability.
Now that we know the population which has been declining for the last number of years is going to stabilize,
and the hopes would be that the zones can then be drawn to help us, you know, like I said at the beginning,
to use space the way it was intended to be used to meet the class size amendment requirement,
because just in the last few years, we've gone from, and I heard a couple of speakers
say, well, if you could just put a couple more students in every class, if we were allowed
to use the school average to meet class size, we could have that conversation.
But it has now moved to, it's a class by class average that were required to meet,
and that complicates things as we look at putting all these variables together.
That coupled with the fact that this district has experienced over a hundred million dollars loss of revenue in the last five or six years.
So when you put all those things together, it's how do you then create the system, build a system that can support what you're saying,
and do what we need to do and be good stewards of taxpayer dollars.
That being said, I heard on a number of occasions about honor your commitment, honor your promise,
you broke a promise.
The proposed language right now that's before the board, and today it's just first reading,
it's not a final vote till December 6th, the proposed language would allow students
who did in fact get into a school through open enrollment stay there.
The difference is, in fact, I'm looking at my one, this is the Brooker Creek pair and I
was going to jump out of my chair and say, you're okay, you decide to sit down.
But that's why I'm already learning your names and who you are because I was highlighting
a person from about 15 of you through email already and we'll stay with you for the
long time.
I'm not going to call you.
But let us work with you individually, let us sort through each of your individual
cases because they are unique.
There are some overlap, but there is some uniqueness to a number of your requests.
And the other thing, and I know it's not going to give you a comfort level with me sitting here today,
is that if there's two of you in here that are dying to stay at your respective schools,
and you're really holding each other's seat, then why wouldn't we let you both just stay where you are?
But it's working through that set of dynamics.
So it's like you're in school A and somebody else in school B and you're being told you got to go here
And you're being told you have to go here and you want to stay here
You want to stay here?
Then let us work through the system to try to see if we can do that and make that happen and at the same time
You know make sure we comply with class size make sure that we you know
Do make provisions where zone students or families that move into a zone actually get their zone school the other comment
They're going to make it a
was related to transportation.
And sometimes, you know, it was the Ozona San Jose group of families.
What's happening right now, and I don't know the exact numbers,
but the potential that we run because of class size and the way the rules are currently
written is because Ozona has no room to accept new students unless somebody
leaves and creates an open space, somebody that moves into Ozona
to school right now.
We have to provide them a bus to take them somewhere else, and it's at a place where there's an opening.
So you could have five different families move into Ozona's zone as we know it today, and based upon the grade level of those students,
they could end up at five different schools, and we owe all five of them a bus.
But by doing the rezoning then we run the greater likelihood that we can run one bus into that area and take all those students to the school.
So it's not, it's somewhat complicated as we move through this.
But once again I'll just reassure the families, we'll work with you, that's the nature of our department.
And you'd be surprised what we're able to do for families as we move through this.
And some of you were testing to that from previous years in that.
Yeah, and understand the class size amendment requirements.
It's a, it's, it was approved by the voters of Florida and it's a state mandate.
It's a constitutional amendment.
And it takes 60% of the voters to change it.
So we have to, yeah, we tried, but we have to follow that.
Before we start with conversation from the board members, I want to thank all of you
for the way in which you addressed us, the way in which you spoke.
I think you set an excellent example for your students.
The commitment to character, the schools that were there would be very proud to see how
you addressed the board.
And I thank you for that because this is a very difficult time.
I know that, you know, you can be upset and you can be angry, but yet you addressed us
in a very kind and polite way, and I thank you for that.
Mrs. Lerner, we're going to start with your comments.
I
just have a couple of questions.
In the agenda item, I think it said 1,900 will be moving if it's passed the way
it's written now because of rezoning.
Am I correct?
But then we have the students in elementary schools who are not having a new zone, but
they're not in their zone school.
What is the total number under this recommendation about?
There's about 1,900 kindergarten through fourth grade students that are currently not in a
fundamental school, not in a charter school, not in a full-time ESC center, not in a
full-time magnet school that live in the areas, the 21 areas we're recommending for rezoning.
If you look at the K3, because we're going to allow fourth graders to remain, if they ask us to,
it brings it down to about 1,600 students living in the areas where we think a zoning impact would affect them.
By virtue of the fact that we know they're not, they may not be at a given zone school,
but we know that their zone is going to change and because they're not in a
magnet they're not in a fundamental it will probably affect them. Some of those
may already be at that school because we may place them there because there
wasn't room at what used to be their zone and we're changing it. So that's
one group and it's either 1600 if you look at K3 or about 1900 if you look
at K4 but the fourth graders they will have the option of staying. The other
group. The other group, right. Yeah. It's about 4,400. The other group. Right. K through
4. If you take out the fourth graders that would be allowed by exception to remain for
their final year, it brings it down to, it brings it down to, I think it's about 2,900
K-3 students where we anticipate we're not, we're not rezoning them per se. We're
not saying your zone's changing, but the policy change would be likely to affect
them because they are not currently at their zone school.
Did those families get phone calls or letters, the 2,900?
Not yet.
That's why they're not here, I guess.
Probably.
Some are.
Oh, you did?
Some of them are.
OK.
And you've done a great job.
I have to compliment D. Burns and Marshall Tuckton.
They have done an excellent job.
So we're talking about 19 or 1,600,
and then about another 2,900, okay.
There are a few things I think the district needs to do in a better way.
I've been on the board a long time and I do remember before we were under a court order,
then we were under choice, then we were under control choice.
It's very complicated.
Much of it was due to the court order that we were under since 1971.
But we had rezonings, and we had rezonings in North County where schools were built,
and we had satellite zones where students went for two years to a South County school,
and other students came to a school further north.
I think we have to make it real clear to our community we want stability,
and that's what we hope, at least what gets passed in this recommendation,
will give the schools, but never buy your house based on what school it's
zoned for now. Because there are, well, I'm just saying, you may not, maybe if
you're in a smaller school district like up north, Connecticut, where I went to
school, there were two high schools, four middle schools, two middle or three
middle schools, a few elementary, what we have about how many schools?
142,000 students K through 12, populations are shifting.
We have capacities at schools, and then we have the class size amendment.
And whether you're in, I think, K through 2, it's 18, and then 22, we have to keep to that.
And what happens, what happened at North Shore Elementary, there were three or four kindergarten
classes that would have had 19 students.
They had to hire another teacher.
That teacher floated from room to room.
They had no place to put that teacher, and then I think they found part of the library.
But the schools that are overcrowded have given up libraries, they've given up computer
rooms, they have not had effective and efficient way of working.
So our capacity and the class size amendment is an issue.
Grading schools is another issue.
I have been a strong advocate who has said,
don't celebrate high grades and don't just look negatively at low grades.
It's one test, the F-CAD, at one time.
And I understand where you're saying going from an A to a C,
but let me assure you it does not really tell you what the school is like.
And I think what we find when we have these meetings, the good part of it is everyone wants to stay in their school.
That's wonderful because we have good schools.
And, you know, I do understand your concerns.
As a board member, I have to look at the whole district and I have to look at what's safe, effective, and efficient.
The other issue, and it's complicated, you know, I'm still reading over all the parts of it.
But I have faith that our student assignment and Mr. Madden will fairly look at each situation
based on whatever is passed at our December meeting.
And Mr. Madden, you've done a great job, but when you said two families switching,
that got me a little concerned, even though Mr. Madden is doing an exemplary job, but
I have to relate to that.
That isn't how it works, that each one, and this is what Mr. Madden has been doing,
each case is looked at, and then whatever is passed at our December meeting,
that's where it has to be looked at.
And whether a parent is here or not, whether they made one phone call or ten phone calls,
that that's, and that's how I have trusted the system and I have been proven right,
that's how it's done. I wish we didn't have to do any of this, but we absolutely
have to. Some of our schools are extremely overcrowded and we have the
class size amendment and capacity of schools. Having said that, I certainly
will listen to any exceptions that maybe other board members will bring up, but
we have to do something and maybe you don't understand it, but I that's my
So thank you for coming and you still have this discussion and the meeting in December,
which I hope will be an evening meeting.
Okay, good. Thank you. Mrs. Weichel.
Yes, Madam Chair, I have questions, quite a few questions for Mr. Touchden and Mr. Madden
that we've answered some of them, but I want it for transparency with the audience.
And then I have some comments.
I wanted to thank the parents.
You were cordial and and also all we feel all our schools are excellent schools
So I appreciate you saying positive things about your school and knowing that
This is I really feel that you're very involved parents
Whatever school your child ends up in it's going to be the greatest school in the world because you're going to make it like that
I have to just say that statement out
Some of the questions that were brought to oh the other thing is emails
Some of you wrote us personal emails, and I pride myself on trying to respond to personal
emails.
I'm sure we all do.
And last week, Mr. Madden, he asked us to not respond personally so he could give the
same information out, and so I just wanted you to know as board members, if we didn't
respond it wasn't, it was that we decided that was the best way to get the accurate
information out, not to respond.
I did get a few of you in before that email came out.
Question on one of the emails was feeder pattern.
And I'm only going to talk about what we might not have talked about here.
A feeder pattern that made sense.
And one of the North County, the Ozone was the feeder pattern.
And the stats that we have now are that 60% of our schools have the same feeder pattern.
And 60% in Marshall, you need to, Mr. President, 60% of the students that will be going to
Ozona, well, I mean, going to San Jose, have the same feeder pattern, it'll even increase
the desirability of the feeder pattern.
Is that correct?
And you can say it a different way.
Let me say it a different way then.
Yeah.
I've written.
Yeah, I'm struggling with a cold, so I'm going to read slowly from what I responded
to you.
so hopefully I don't get it wrong.
The feeder pattern for students will still
be Palm Harbor Middle, Dunedin High
when we're discussing the three grid zones that we're
recommending moving from Ozona zone into San Jose zone.
Students that are zoned for San Jose already,
60% of them go to Palm Harbor Middle, Dunedin High.
Then if 40% of them go to Dunedin Middle, Dunedin High.
So the area that we're recommending moving will be moving into a school
where the majority of the students at San Jose will go to Palm Harbor Middle School together
and Dunedin High School together.
Let me quickly say that feeder patterns, although we always attempt to sort of maximize
the relationship between having the most kids from a neighborhood go to elementary, middle and high school together.
It's like looking at three jigsaw puzzles stacked on top of each other.
And it almost never works out that every single student that goes to an elementary school all go to the same middle school
and then all go to the same high school because when we create our zones, we try and do it based on where the school is.
In some areas where you have an elementary school, a middle school, and a high school all very close to each other,
it's reasonable to assume that most of the people that live very close to it are going to go to all three together.
In other places, that's not the case.
When we looked at this, one of the final things that we did was take a look at,
are we increasing or decreasing the likelihood that kids going to an elementary school together will all go to the same middle school?
In some cases it improved it, in some cases it didn't.
The most noteworthy one because it's one of the ones with the largest group of children would be our recommendation for saugrass lakes
Where right now saugrass lakes is elementary zone as it's currently drawn
It's basically cut in half. We're about half the kids go to Fitzgerald half go to
Hopkins now the students. I'm sorry metal on now the students that would be going to Pinellas central if we move them
would be going to Pinell Central and Fitzgerald together.
So it significantly increases them in that recommendation.
In that example, I would say it improved the feeder pattern.
The reason I think it needs to be a discussion is because it is a legitimate point.
It's one of our guiding principles of the student assignment plan is a predictable feeder pattern.
And I thought that was a legitimate question to know whether that improved that feeder pattern
will be improved or the majority of the students are following the same theater pattern.
It will increase the number of students that go to the same elementary, middle and high school together for the neighborhood that we're proposing moving.
But the immediate impact on the families that are already at Ozona clearly is not what they prefer and I understand that.
My questions for this North County area are legitimate for me for proximity.
many. I drove it every which way over the weekend and it is they are further away from
their currently zone school. Absolutely. And a legitimate question was why in the
And I know, and you gave me the answer, and I'm going to give the answer, and I think I can do a better job.
Would we have switched these three grids in 2009 when we closed the school to Ozona?
They were all three in San Jose.
Why would we put them in Ozona just two years ago when we closed the school,
and we knew that Ozona was going to be increased in numbers with the closing school?
The answer was because there was a fear that we were going to overcrowd Dunedin from the
closing schools of North Ward and King's Highway.
So we took some kids from Dunedin, took some kids from Dunedin, put them in San Jose, took
some kids out of San Jose, and put them in Ozona in case the fear of the closings
of North Ward.
It makes sense.
And also the word Jenga, which is what you use with that Jenga game, where you put all
the pieces in, that's where I think you have that all the way from the south to the north.
It's just like you can't pull one without affecting the other.
Am I correct on the reason why you moved them only two years ago?
Yes.
And there's three grids in that area, and one out of three have been moved three
times in the last four years.
There's three grids. Two were San Jose. One was Garrison, then San Jose, then Ozona.
Prior to the choice plan.
Coming out of the choice plan, all three were initially zoned for San Jose, then changed to Ozona.
Now it's back to San Jose.
The neighborhood that I think most people are here from this weekend, or I'm sorry, today rather,
was zoned for Garrison Jones prior to the commencement of the choice plan.
We, when we closed the schools in, that we were talking about earlier, Northward Elementary
and King's Highway, Garrison Jones' zone used to be configured almost the exact opposite
of the way it is now.
If you imagine a zone that's a little bit taller than it is wide, prior to the choice
plan, the school sat at the geographic bottom of its zone and its zone came up
north of Curlew.
Then, we're coming out of the choice plan because we were closing schools to the south.
That absence of zones for North Ward Elementary and King's Highway,
in addition to physically relocating Dunnead Elementary from where it was located further south,
basically creates a vacuum that drags all zones that it touches along south with it,
where now Garrison Jones' zone is still kind of a long rectangle,
But the whole thing is moved to the south, where now the school sits at sort of the northernmost point in its own.
Thank you. And some of these we can work through at the workshop.
But a question, is North City Park, is that a subdivision that you're splitting up in Safety Harbor?
The way we're splitting it, we're taking two grids, which is what we thought we needed to take out of Davis so that its zone would be the right size.
So people that live there had a reasonable expectation to attend the school.
is separated by railroad tracks from one area to another.
I haven't gone and walked the railroad tracks.
It's not my place to tell people what neighborhood they do
or don't live in in terms of the community,
but it seemed like a reasonable natural barrier
because there's only one street that traverses the railroad tracks
and in drawing the line the way we were drawing it,
we weren't driving it down the middle of somebody's street
where people would see each other getting their mail in the morning
and be going to two different schools.
Okay, my question was, is it a subdivision?
Could we find that out, please, for the workshop?
Will we work with the families to help us define
whether the whole thing's a subdivision or not?
Yes, correct.
Could we find that out?
Okay.
And someone else, the motivation behind this
over in that section, and I think the motivation
is in the assignment plan with sustainability.
That's my main word, I want sustainability and you're all exactly right, effective and
efficient operations.
And you mentioned student impact, student achievement, Mr. Madden at the beginning,
but for these parents, I think the word positive, we want to impact positive student achievement
by doing this.
I have two more, thank you board for being patient.
Do we have kids that are less than a mile, such as the gentleman from Bouter or Lila Davis,
that are actually less than a mile and we're rezoning?
I don't know.
I thought that one of the gentlemen that lived less than a mile away from the school
wasn't in the zone, but I think we had 26 speakers.
I have to go back and review my notes.
I know that the area that we're recommending where we're moving students out of Davis
into safety harbor they're roughly equidistant depending on where you live
in that area you may live closer to Lila Davis than the other school it sort of
depends I get that but less than a mile is is trouble some and and that was
about her that was actually about our family yeah because it was and we're
changing the name to open enrollment to zoning exception rules is that the
recommendation in this? No.
We're changing that to special assignment
request and the change in the name and also that it will if we grant that one
year then we'll ask them to request that again the following year and in some
ways that can help us because you know when you make a commitment for six
years of elementary school but if you can do it for one year and sometimes
folks only need a year sometimes you know they can be there for the
the entire time, but they want me to ask each year.
We talked about this in the workshop,
the open enrollment leads to suggest that this is,
we have opportunities all over the district
and we don't, we actually have very, very full schools.
Do we currently have siblings?
And I know we did last year
because they were friends of mine.
Not anymore, no, I'm kidding.
At two different schools, or have we finished that up?
Do we currently have siblings
that choose on their own choice because they could pull their that go to two different schools. Yes, right for a variety of reasons
It could be in magnets
Different needs for different children. Okay, I think I
Guess I didn't mean for ESC or magnet. I meant for
Regular, okay, if this is difficult. I was in a
Place an establishment and I had a PE teacher and I could tell you who because I don't want you to track her down
So, Robin, thank you so much for getting these P.E. these portables off my P.E.
court. So you got to kind of look at the big picture of what we're looking at as a
board. Real estate, Ms. Lerner mentioned it. There's a code of ethics with the
real estate, Pinellas Real Estate Organ, Pinellas Realty Organization that
says when they sell you your house they have to say you are currently
zone for this school. So know that, you know, because of our policies, it's subject to change.
So don't let a realtor put you in the wrong, steer you in the wrong direction. There, some
of them are really good. Transportation. My last question I had asked the questions
on transportation on how many students were, were currently, we call them outliers
that can't go to their zone school such as those known and we're transparent all over the place. How many students are that in our hope?
And our hope was to get that to you for today, but it's more it looks more like well, it'll be for the workshop. Okay.
That's all my questions. Thank you. All right.
Miss Crestman, you said your question was the same as well. Do you have more regard?
Well, no, not really just one comment one question.
and I wanted to, I definitely identify with the school family.
I still call my Westgate family
and I was with them for 17 years, my school family.
So I know what that means to families.
We had many that were in our building for,
I even had one up to 14 years there, so I know that.
And with that, what is our rationale
for why they're having to apply each year
for open enrollment or the special assignment request as we're going to call it?
Accuracy because, as we said before, we don't always know what people want and we do need
to do our due diligence as we look at what we call the district rollover, which happens
toward the end of February, the beginning of March, when we go, who are all the students
who are going to be in our schools so that as we work with budget and staffing,
we can say for sure these parents want to be in there.
So it helps us have more stability as we look at moving forward in the spring
through staffing model, unit allocations, and looking when we do go
into, because we will continue to have a special assignment request period to say.
And would there be any other students that we could allow in or continue to
allow in through a special assignment request?
But Ms. Burns, there's another reason.
And one is to increase the likelihood that somebody who actually moves
into a school zone can have a seat in that zone school.
that may currently be taken up by somebody who's not in that zone.
See, that's where it's giving the parents the concern,
that it's not giving them a guarantee that they're going to be able to stay in their own.
And let me address that.
And once again, sometimes you have to learn from history.
But for those of us that lived in the world prior to choice,
which was a world of zoning, there was something known as a special attendance permit,
which granted families that option to attend a school
other than what their zone school was for a number of reasons, but that was only good on
an annual basis. Of course, that was before we had class size. That was before a number
of the things that we discussed earlier, but it's, remember, going back to the what we're
trying, it's the sustainability that we're trying to create, trying to reduce transportation
because we have to take students that are zoned to a school, that can't get into
of a school to other schools, there are a number of reasons why we're recommending
that for a one-year option.
Can I state what I think is the single best and easiest to understand reason for it?
If right now, today, there may be plenty of room to accommodate
a student that doesn't live in a zone as a first grader,
because it may be that that neighborhood had more first grade parent families
as the first graders move away,
it may be that there was a dip in the birth rate
within that area.
It may make perfect sense for me to accommodate a student
that doesn't live in his own
in a seat at a school for first grade.
Two years down the road,
if that school has a bad year with that cat,
may end up retaining an additional number
of third graders more than they had anticipated.
Now I have sort of the legacy of the student
that it made perfect sense of the time
to let them come in because there was room.
But as neighborhoods change,
as owner-occupied single-family dwellings become
right or occupied in some neighborhoods that didn't have as many kids today,
might have more families moving in the next couple years.
What made sense at exception at one grade level, we have to live with that
under the current rules all the way through fifth grade. If you get in
via open enrollment in kindergarten, the neighborhood,
the zone may look very different four years down the road where we think, wow,
We it made sense then it doesn't now because so many more people have moved into the zone and are part of that zone that now
We have to send somewhere else where they may be
Displacing a student from a seat at their zone school
They may be doing that, but I guess the peace of mind factor for a family to know that they're you know
They are at
Whatever school that they know that they can be there kindergarten through fifth grade.
I
any compromise in that area at all or any other thing that we can come up with?
Well, maybe we can just do one bit of clarification because we are talking about two separate processes.
One, which is the January process, what we're saying is the intent to remain,
which is our district's honoring prior commitments to say,
if you got there in one of the special circumstances, that's your opportunity to tell us.
But you do need to help tell us every year because it helps us balance the books.
And I think that's important for everyone.
And the second way that will be what we formerly called open enrollment, but that's the special
assignment request.
So right now it's our staff recommendation that if we've made that prior commitment
to intent to remain, that you ask for it every year, you will get it every year until
that child is done.
And that special attendance assignment is, which we would move on forward, that would
be where we could not necessarily be guaranteeing if we gave you a special
assignment request that you would be able to stay the following school year it
would be based on other enrollment data okay but what you just said we'll give
people peace of mind for that for that ones we say we're honoring our
special circuit our special circumstances and of the change of
My suggestion is, this is something that I believe we should more fully bet in a workshop
setting because it's not a simple answer, because there are consequences to whichever
direction you take what you're, what you're, you know, asking.
Okay.
Thank you.
Yes, sir.
I would even go so far as to say that Mrs. Burns was, might have been a bit hasty
in making that comment. So please, please, it was made with good intentions, all good
intentions, but please don't hold her to that because it was not, she wasn't given the amount
of time that she needed to make that decision without having thought it through and consulted
other persons yet.
And that leads into, this is the first reading.
We have another workshop on November 15th where we take the comments and things into consideration that have been brought to us today.
We hash it out again and come in December to the meeting where the final vote will be taken.
That's when it becomes official. There could be some speaking.
There could be
Some clarification as the kinds of questions that we're asking right now.
So don't take any piece of the process out of the whole picture because nothing is official
or final until after we hear from anybody who may be at that December meeting as well
as the final vote. So there is more discussion that will be happening on the student assignment
plan. Mrs. Lerner.
I
just want to read from the policy language on page 306.
This is special assignment request.
All such assignments are valid for one year only.
Parents wishing to remain at the assigned school must reapply each year.
But my understanding was we want the zone kids to be in the school.
And anyone going under the special assignment, it's only good for a year.
And if there's room for students who are in the zone or we want to leave some room for
other students, because one issue that bothers me a little bit is open enrollment students
can stay in the school, but students who were zoned for the school are now being re-zoned
can't.
I don't know the answer to that, and I didn't know whether I was going to bring it up
at the meeting but I have. There's something about that that doesn't sit right with me.
But definitely my understanding was from now on special assignment only good year to year.
So don't think your your child will have continuity if it's not their zone school.
So we need to discuss that more. And this other issue.
Okay. Mr. Williams.
Madam Chair, I'd just like to share with our parents that you've been very courteous
and accommodating to us, and we've done the same with you.
But I have a concern that it appeared to me that I was hearing that practically,
practically, the concerns that all of you have that we can work you through them.
and that's not true. That's not true. I don't want you to go away with that impression because
if we were able to work all of you through the concerns that you have concerning your
school, then there would have been no need for this rezoning process. I do trust that
I staff two very experienced people in working with the zoning process and working with
families and the students, we deal with the hardship cases, and we know those cases that
exceptions should be made, and they will work with you, and those kind of exceptions we would
pay.
But I want you to get the feeling, though, that all of us are in a position where we're
going to work through it with you to make sure it happens.
That's not so.
But thank you again for the way you've conducted yourselves with us.
Yes, the working through each individual situation I interpreted as they will let you know whether
you fall into the category of being able to stay in that zone school or whether you fall
into the category of, I mean, you'd be able to stay in the school in which you're not
in zone or whether you fall into the category of you must go to your zone school.
Those were the one-on-ones that we had.
I have a couple of questions that came up as a matter of the conversation that has
happened here.
but I think I'm probably going to hold those off for the workshop.
One of them was the comment about the intent to remain.
I want to know if that's actually going to end up being phased out
as we do away with students that are out of zone
that are allowed to stay in schools.
And I'm thinking that I'm understanding
that it will be phased out.
But the special attendance permits
are being recommended to go back very much to what we did before.
One of the things that's difficult in this district is the people that are in our schools now
never experienced the zoning that we had, never experienced, although we had to move people,
the consistency that most people in the district had.
And what I, as a board member, am trying to do is get back to that,
So that we're not wondering every year where we're going to school, where's my child going to go to school, unless you're asking for the, what I'm calling, special attendance permit, which is actually special assignment request.
Those are in place for a parent that possibly wants their child to go to a school close to where they work.
They may work in Largo and live in St. Pete or vice versa and would like a student.
The parent has the opportunity to make a request to get into a school that may be close to where they work.
And that flexibility may change.
It may be that a year or two years from now they don't work there anymore and they want to be back in their own schools.
So those are kind of the exception to the rule type requests
as opposed to, massively, everybody looking for a special request.
I think there are some points that were brought up.
There are some safety issues that were brought up that I think we need to look into the sidewalks
and the crossing at Bouter and Oakhurst, as well as some others that were listed.
So I think there is time for us to look into those before we have the meeting on
the 15th.
But the things that were requested, the stability, doing away with the angst that parents are
going through year after year, trying to figure out where they're going, that's our goal.
That's what we're trying to accomplish by this, and personally that's what I want to
see happen.
So I don't see any other lights that are on.
I want to remind people again that we will be having the workshop on the 15th, looking
at all of this and our meeting on the 6th.
So at this point in time, we have a motion to, and a second, to accept the policy as it is presented.
We'll take all these things into consideration at a later point.
So I don't have we, do we still have the connection going?
Mrs. O'Shea?
Yes, can you hear me?
Okay, good.
I wanted to make sure, I heard a click during them.
I was muting it because I was coughing.
Oh, okay.
I was hoping we didn't lose you at that point that you were still listening, but all righty, so we have a motion in us
Mrs. Lerner
The first reading is the first reading and it can always be changed, but in this circumstance
We are having another workshop. I am voting for this first reading. I think everyone is but there are certain
parts of this including what we talked about about special circumstance that absolutely
some of us think needs to be looked at again. And there might be. So is it appropriate, Mr.
Robinson, as part of the motion to say understanding there are still details that need to be addressed?
That's kind of understood.
That's understood, yes.
So you don't, but it just, this one seems even more so.
But it's a given.
It's a given, right?
Okay. And now that it's been said to understand it, it doesn't need to be part of the
motion. All right. So all in favor. Let me read it again so that it's all official.
For setting the public hearing and authorizing the advertisement of the
public hearing to consider the amendment to policy 5 1 2 0 assignment within the
district. All in favor say aye. I post a no. All right. It passes 7 0.
We'll now move on to item 4, which is, before we do that, I want to thank everybody for being
here and sharing your concerns and sitting through a very long portion of the meeting
so far, but we will be taking it into consideration.
Okay.
Request approval of the charter application for Pinella School of Math and Science.
Do we have a motion?
motion. And we have a second.
I'm going to ask a question. Do we have people here from
the charter school? We do. All right. Because I was going to suggest we take a break. But
since we have them, we'll take a break right after we finish this item. All right. Do
we have a motion? We did. We had a motion on a second. Okay. Dr. Stewart, would
I would call Mr. Steve Schwartzl or Clark.
Okay. Welcome, Mrs. Clark.
Thank you.
This charter school is going to be a K-12 school,
one of the first in our district.
They're going to model after the Orlando Science School
that is a high-performing charter school in Orlando.
They're going to base it on integrating math and science across all the curriculum.
Do we have any speakers?
Okay.
And no comments from the board members?
All right.
This one looks like it might be a slam dunk.
Great.
Okay.
All in favor.
We have a motion and a second.
Should request approval for the charter application for Pinellas School of Math and Science.
All in favor say aye.
Aye.
I suppose they know.
All righty, thank you, and thank you for your patience.
And we will,
okay, let's finish item five
that was added, then we'll take a brief break
and then come back and have the presentations
from the audience as well as the reports from the board.
All right, okay, we have the item is
a modification of minimum qualifications of a job classification for the licensed practical
nurse.
We have a motion?
Second.
We have a motion and a second.
Have you all had an opportunity to look at this item?
Dr. Stewart, would you like to introduce it, please?
Madam Chairman, this basically is for the purpose of changing the job description, and
the main change is that we're removing the one-year required experience and the
to hire the practical nurses.
We believe that this is a way that we can alleviate our nursing shortage that we've
been experiencing for some time, and it will help us, I think, a great deal in reducing
our costs, too.
Do you see no lights indicating discussion in
the flight calls?
You know what, anytime we take a job description and minimize it, I have to, you know,
like a little stomach going on, I think we've exhausted other possibilities of
improving the nursing shortage.
You know, we got a few emails on that a few
months ago, and I don't know if we've ever kind of discussed it as a board. I'm
just, I'm not gonna not approve it. I'm just wondering if we've done
diligence in pursuing what our expectations are in the nursing area for our schools,
that type of thing. And then I could be the only one as a board.
Dr. Stewart, can you explain to us with whom you've been working and the process behind
this, please?
I have worked with Dr. Damaraj with the Pinellas County Health Department, and she
We recommend we pursue this particular way of going after helping to fill our shortages.
I've also worked with Ms. Baskett,
who she's talked with us about this, and I've talked
with Mr. Robinson about this, and it does everything – an LPN can do everything in
our school that an RN can do for them.
And they are working under the supervision of an RN.
So we feel very comfortable with it.
What the main purpose of this is, is it says right now that they have to have a years experience in pediatric care.
Well, they could have experience in other areas, not necessarily pediatric care.
And we couldn't hire them because they haven't had the pediatric experience.
So I think that that might have been an unreasonable qualification to start with.
If I may, Madam Chair, this would enable us also to recruit directly from PTEC,
from the PTEC graduates who might not have that one year, but there's a fresh crop of LPNs
that we can hire from.
And they again, as Dr. Stewart says, would be under the supervision of an RN right from the get go.
So it opens up possibilities for us that we don't have now.
No, I just want to, Madam Chair, because this was a walk in because of time restraints,
I think it was a diligence for the board to have the discussion of where the qualifications
came from and how the discussion was, and that's why I bought it.
Mr. O'Shea, did you have a comment on this?
Mrs. Cook?
Oh, yes.
Just one question.
I'm supportive of this.
Have other school districts gone this route?
Do we know?
Yes.
Okay, great.
So it's consistent with what other districts are doing.
That's good.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you.
And am I correct in understanding that this allows us to actually get more LPNs into
our schools to work with students?
Yes, ma'am, it does.
I think that's what I thought.
Alrighty.
Any other conversation or questions?
Okay.
Seeing none.
All in favor of the modification of minimum qualifications of the job
classification for licensed practical nurses say aye. Opposed say no. And it
passes 7-0. All right at this point we are going to take a short break for
everybody. Let's just say 10 minutes just a chance to stretch our legs.
Do anything with the taping that they may need to do, and we will come back and complete presentations from the audience and then the various board member reports.
Talking to you lately.
There must be something.
It'll happen, I know.
Can
I ask you essentially an email about a settlement of that case that would have been
very far-reaching, the one that was on the agenda?
Can you stand either a little, either the settlement or just a little summary?
Because that was really very problematic.
Very problematic.
Should I send you the email or you'll just do it?
Okay.
All right.
I'm going to call the meeting back to order, and we will begin with presentations from
the audience.
Yes, ma'am. We have Ms. Laura Faulkner and Greg Pound.
Okay. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon.
Good evening, Superintendent Stewart. I am Lenore Faulkner. I was speaking at Dr. Janssen's
dismissal meeting. I got my feathers ruffled, and I was featured on Channel 10 with security.
My six-year-old granddaughter saw it stream to her computer, and she says, Grandma, just
what were you thinking? And this is what I've been thinking. This is from 2007. I turned
on C-SPAN on Memorial Day 2007. Tim Russert was on America's perspective, awarding $10,000
to the Best High School Dropout Essay. It was sponsored by the Gates Foundation. I
realized that I had the hat trick of dropouts. My 16-year-old, as you know, did not graduate
late from Seminole High, I dropped out, and Pinellas Park dropped out, and all middle
schools in Pinellas County dropped out.
I fell
through the cracks. However, in 1997,
I promised the students of Pinellas Park Middle, a world-class career and technology
school. Eight of us went to the National School Board, School to Work Convention.
We were the only middle schools in America there.
Rick Lager was on our SAC committee for years.
I just talked to Mr. Barnes about it.
When June arrived, Tim was discussing the 2008 election.
He said that it would be technology savvy event, not
an issue event.
I was waiting for a new public school system
because it was not working in Washington, D.C., Florida, or Pinellas County.
On 777, I was inspired to design a new school system for America, 777 Education Heaven.
I wrote a note to Tim Russert with a green return card on it.
He received it on July 19, 2007.
It has been on my desk ever since.
In 2008, he went to Heaven.
To design a new school system, I would need to investigate school systems in America, especially
Washington, D.C. and Florida.
I was an expert on Pinellas County Schools and the data was not good.
Chaos and confusion was the order of the day.
Superintendents became super fat cats.
The super fat cats became super vendors.
It was a great digital kid experiment.
it. Students were burnt out with technology at home and school. Now they were dropping
out. 14,000 students we lost. Johns Hopkins published dropout and graduation problems in
Florida, especially Pinellas. Thank you.
Good afternoon.
Greg Pound, Pinellas County. I'm a member of your board, the juvenile justice board
here for Pinellas County. I just wanted to bring up some of the issues that I see that's
going on in the county that's affecting our children in a negative way. One of the issues
is I was thinking of a mother by the name of Tina Tatum who brought an issue to me concerning
the fact that her daughter, she didn't want her daughter to go the last chance dance
over here at Largo Middle School right over here off of 8th Avenue. I believe that's
Largo Middle School just just down the road from here and what happened was her
daughter on the teacher asking class who's who's all going to the last chance
dance and her daughter raised up for him. I don't think that we should be
discussing personally identifiable student information. Okay. Well, you want me to
leave off the name. Yes, at least. Okay. Okay. That's. Since you've already
identified the name, however, we might need to delete the story.
Delete it
from the broadcast of the...
Well, in other words, I don't think he can really speak to it now because we now know
who it is about.
So it would be traceable to the students.
All right.
Can you make your point without talking about the dance or that portion of it?
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, my point is that what happened was that there's a situation going on where
people in our public school systems working with DCF, all the referrals that go to
the Department of Children and Family are coming through the public schools.
And what happens is the parents in Phinals County need to know that as they put their
kids in the public schools, and anything that they can get out of the children is causing
Department of Children's Family to come in and get involved in their lives for the most
craziest thing that you couldn't even imagine that's causing their children to be taken
from them, stuck in the system, causing the families a whole lot of problems in
Phinals County.
And I wanted to read a verse out of the Bible, Isaiah 54 verse 13, and it says,
And all thy children shall be taught of Yahweh, the Lord God of Israel, and great shall be
the peace of thy children.
We see the dysfunctionalism of our young people in Pinellas County in this whole country now.
We see the school system as anti-God, in the public schools, instead of teaching our
children they gave thanks to the Lord God at Thanksgiving, they teach them they gave
thanks to the Indians.
And once you have this going on, this programming, this anti-God, but you allow this, this, this
screeching evil of Halloween and the evil and all the stuff that goes along with it,
everywhere you go from the billboards driving down the road, looks like people have been
chopped up and hatched up, we become now a buddy society.
And so what I want to do is I just want to appeal to them, because I think one of
the best things for Pinellas County people to do in order to protect their children
and their families, and to build strong families, is to homeschool, to homeschool
their children.
and we have that right, and that's what people should do.
Because what's going on in the school system
is the social engineers' goal in America
is to destroy the family, turn the men into the women,
and the women into the men.
And they're doing a real good job of it.
And they're working right through the public school system.
The people who deal with their children on an everyday basis,
they are not looking out for the best interests
of their families, of their country.
Now this country is anti-God, anti-family.
When you took the 10 Commandments out,
honor your father and your mother,
thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false
witness out of our school system and teaching this to our children and out of our court system.
Now we have a rampant problem with everything that you can imagine from disobedience to
parents or our crimes and our prisons being filled.
So thank you very much.
Thank you.
Is that it?
Okay.
All right.
We will move on to items introduced by the superintendent.
Madam Chairman, I wanted to mention to you that I have been talking throughout the system
everywhere I go about the continually disruptive student and have begun talking about the formation
of a task force to address this particular issue, and I found that there is an enormous
a tremendous amount of interest in working with this and finding what are some potential
answers to this because they're concerned not only for the disruptive students themselves
but for the other students in the classroom that they are robbing them of an opportunity
to learn.
So we have a very large task on our hand and I wanted to inform you that I will
be putting together a task force and to that end I've asked you as the chairman
to name a board member who will serve on that task force and even made a
suggestion to you the person that I have found to be the most interested in it so
would you officially name that individual to the task force so that I can begin
getting that together after the first of the year yes yeah we're going to
I'm going to appoint Linda Lerner to that committee.
Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.
This I think is something that we can really look forward to and get our self-put together,
a real, real good committee and do what's best for those students and for the students
in our school district.
I've had teachers write in, principals call in and community members call in that they
want to serve on this task force, so I'm pretty excited about it.
Also I wanted to tell you about the middle school reform initiative that Mrs. Lerner,
Mrs. Krasner, and Mrs. Clark all came to the learning labs, and I'd like to thank them
for their participation.
That was an all-day session, and I'd also like to commend Mr. Bill Lawrence for his
efforts there.
Mr. Lawrence is going to take what was gathered in the way of information at those collaborative
of labs and get with his steering committee to review the recommendations and then he's
going to provide that to Donna Winchester who will give it to you in your Friday update.
If not this Friday update, certainly next Friday's update.
Ms. Weichel, it will include your concern about what we're going to do with Thurgood
Marshall as well.
Also Madam Chairman, I would like for you to please consider calling an executive session
today so we can discuss bargaining issues that are very, very important to resolution
of the collective bargaining process.
Would you please do that?
I will do that.
And we'll do it after we have finished our pluses.
I mean our evaluation of the meeting at the close of this meeting if that works for everyone.
And if we would please then have it, could we have it in the superintendent's conference
room upstairs on the third floor?
Yep.
We will do that.
That's all I have, Madam Chairman.
Okay, good.
Thank you items introduced by general counsel nothing at this time. Thank you
Items introduced by board members
This is a shea. Are you still there? Yes, I am. Okay. We're going to start with you in your report. Should you have one?
Okay, just very briefly. I know there's been some conversation about moving the December 6th meeting the 5 p.m
And I would support that to allow the public to participate
I don't know if that's come up yet or not in the meeting
I've heard most of it, but the phone connection does kind of go in and out.
And I want to thank Mr. Madden.
He has answered numerous volumes of emails and clarified many of the concerns the parents have.
I've gotten some calls and emails from parents thanking us for his efforts there.
And I think that will help alleviate some of the confusion and the concerns about the rezoning.
And I just had a question.
I know the 1900, I believe it is, got letters.
What about the others who could possibly be moved back to their own school should this go through?
Are we notifying them or not?
We can discuss that at the workshop, but I just want to know if they've been notified in time to participate in the discussion if they want to.
And the rest of it, I'll just, I'll wait and discuss that at the workshop. That would be good.
All right. Good. Thank you. All right. Mrs. Krasner.
I actually am going to pass. I feel like I said enough during our meeting today and got many of my points across. Thank you.
Okay. Ms. Weichel.
Madam Chair, I also want to point out there's a parent Miss Vera's in the room and she sat on the middle school planning.
And I appreciate a parent taking their full day to be on that planning.
It sounds like there's some exciting things coming from that.
I want to, today, on page 59 of the agenda, we approved the issuance, say it correctly,
issuance, thank you, of the request proposals for the performance auditing services.
I want to thank the board and the committee, Mrs. Cook, Ms. Lerner, Ms. Clark, Linda
Balkum and her office, general counsel, Mr. Matt's finance for seeing this come
to fruition and we're excited and proceeding forward with the district in this for more
effective and efficient operations. We also on page 69 that we approved school improvement
plans. A year ago when we did that there was a lot of talk about the board reading all
those school improvement plans and how a link should be put on each website and the link
to the agenda and all those things were put into place and it was an appreciative
board member. I want to point that out as a positive.
That's awesome.
Very good.
Thank you.
Mr. Williams.
Madam Chair, I'm going to pass on a board report, but I would just like to thank Dr.
Stewart for his prompt reaction to problems and concerns that come to him in copies of
letters that we get.
One example is, along with this learner, I have been very, very concerned about what
we do with our chronically disruptive students.
And I shared this earlier, and now Dr. Stewart is something that's beginning to happen already.
So I just want to thank him for the quick responses, not just to that problem, but any
problem that comes across his desk.
Thank you, Mrs. Lerner.
I agree with Mr. Williams' comments about Dr. Stewart and this issue of repeated misconduct
chronically disruptive students.
And Lou does remember when you were director of school operations that you and the other
three directors of school operations for a long time, it was the understanding we needed
it.
Then we had Oak Park, didn't quite work out.
But I am convinced that we can have a continuum of services that are sustainable within
our budget, maybe we can even get grants, that can be a model.
I believe we absolutely can.
As I visit schools, there are wonderful things going on.
I don't always mention all of them, but when I see a decentralized decision-making initiative,
I like to just mention it.
Pinellas Park Middle School has a couple of those initiatives.
The one I'll just briefly talk about is they have started an alternative success academy
program.
And they have put together a team of a regular teacher and an ESC teacher for 6th, 7th, and 8th
for their most challenging behavior situations.
And it has made a very big difference.
And they have a whole plan.
and it was done with Mr. Ward Kennedy providing support.
I think he's back there.
There was a little extra money for a social worker to have three
days instead of one day. I think that's correct. And they are doing home visits to parents who
cannot or are not able or, for whatever reason, can't come to the school. So I am sure we
can provide, and I think it may be different for different schools what they need to do.
So I'm really very excited about that.
It's been a long time coming where we have a plan that will have sustainability.
I support the evening meeting on December 6th.
In the past, when there was an item like student assignment, a high profile, much interest item,
We've usually had it at a time certain, like usually 7 o'clock.
I mean, the board can talk about that so we can get, do some of our other things, you know,
before that's going to be a long discussion.
And we've done that in the past, so I hope the board will agree to that.
And I just want to compliment John Just.
Another thing that many of us have been waiting for ever for the dashboard.
board, I already thanked him.
Just to tell you, somehow you have to unblock the blocking.
There's some blocking of pop-ups.
Because sometimes it doesn't let me on it,
sometimes it wouldn't.
On our own site, it was blocking the dashboard.
But I think Mr. Just is working on that.
And I was able to get it working today.
So thank you very much.
It's going to be a huge help for the board
and the community and others in the system to get really a good snapshot of what's happening,
not only for the district but for the schools. So many positive things are happening,
and I appreciate all the hard work.
All righty. Ms. Clark.
I just have a couple of things. The first thing, as Ms. Weichel said, we did our board,
our, the board performance auditor today. So I'm, if the committee doesn't eject,
And I think I spoke with Mrs. O'Shea, and I think you, Ms. Weichel, are the other person
on the committee.
I will get with Ms. Balcom to get our timeline reorganized, because the original timeline
that we had set up was Ms. Lerner.
I get so confused with these committees that talk to an advocate.
It's fine with me.
No, I think you and I talk.
It's Ms. O'Shea.
It's just about the date.
Nothing else.
Yeah.
Peggy, are you the one that's on the committee with us?
No, Robin is.
I didn't talk to you.
You didn't talk to anybody on your committee, now change that out.
I tried to.
No, I didn't.
I talked to Ms. Lerner.
Just about a date.
Yeah, just about whether there was an objection to me talking to Ms. Falcon about getting our
timeline straightened out.
Okay.
All right.
So I'll do that instead of calling another committee meeting.
That sounds great.
That was the plan.
Yeah.
So I'll get the dates, the significant dates from her.
So that's that.
The other thing I wanted to thank Dr. Stewart for the middle school thing this last week.
We had a good crowd. I think there was a lot of good work done.
And I appreciated you coming.
You said something at that meeting that is something that I have believed since the day I started teaching middle school.
The two important ages in children's lives are from birth to three in middle school.
You know, I think those are really decisive, the decisive time areas where we are setting
our kids on a path and getting our kids the way they need to be going.
I think you're absolutely right with that, and I thank you for coming and saying that.
The other thing is I went to the DMACC meeting, I filled in for somebody and went to the
DMACC meeting this last week, and they're doing a bit of struggling right now I think.
Mary Beth Chorus was there to help them organize their thoughts and she did her quality magic
with getting things going and getting some next steps going.
But I was concerned about what our board could do to help them out.
And one thing was there are some organizations that have not pointed new members and they're
missing three or four members right now.
And I suggested to them and they said, please do this if we ask the Chair to write
a letter to the organizations that, you know, stressing the importance of the committee
and the importance of having their membership represented there.
So if that would be okay, I'd really appreciate that.
Happy to do it.
There were a couple of things they said they were missing, that they weren't always getting.
One was the Super's report, which we had talked about.
And then the other thing, they said they hadn't received any charter school applications.
And I don't know if this is just stuff that's falling through the cracks, but
they're supposed to be correct, Mr. Madden.
I mean, you you you lived with them for a long time.
Right. And I would probably be the best route to take is for me to get with Mr.
Robinson because it's my understanding that the charter school applications were
only required to go to DMACC while we were under ratios.
OK. But I'll clarify. I mean, if that's if that's true.
I mean, I could have said that if I had known that.
But, you know, if you can just if you can do that and get with them.
And the other thing that we didn't know about was, is there a SAC organization, a county-wide
SAC organization anymore?
Not anymore.
No, there used to be.
Because two of their members are supposed to be from the SAC, from that organization.
And since there's not an organization anymore, what are they to do?
I mean they have two SAC members right now.
But once those terms run out, you know, are they supposed to go out and just fish
from that big pond of sacks or, you know, do we have the right organizations there?
One of the things that plaintiffs' counsel want to talk about in the ongoing Bradley discussions
is DMACC.
Okay.
So a lot of the, all of the issues that you've raised and undoubtedly more can be
taken up in those discussions, which should be coming up shortly.
Okay.
And the last thing that we mentioned was maybe getting a letter from the board to thank people
who are on their way out of their DMACC service, a letter from us thanking them for serving.
So at least a pat on the back for them.
But that was all I had from that.
And now that I've said that, I'm done.
I'm grinding.
Very good.
All right.
I'm going to start with the meeting.
One of the things we didn't realize when we moved our January evening meeting to a daytime
meeting, because some of us would be leaving and going to Tallahassee, that it was really
going to end up being from November, today's meeting, all the way until February 23rd before
we had an evening meeting.
So we have the option of doing the next meeting as an evening meeting if you would
like. That would be a five o'clock meeting or our first meeting in January. Could be a
530 meeting. With us having a daytime meeting for student assignment, it would be very logical
for us to have an evening meeting for student assignment. Understanding that there will
be several teachers that would also like to come to that meeting, so it's going to
be a very long meeting potentially. And if we do that. So what is the will of the
board at 7 p.m. time certain well we have one time certain yet until I know what
time the meeting okay yes no I just want to it is five o'clock the time that we
want to do for the December meeting okay I'm seeing yes now do we want to do it
time certain at at 7 for student assignment all
right we'll do time
certain. Seven o'clock for student assignment.
All right.
In your folder, and I also sent
in an email form, a request for a letter of recommendation. You know as much about it as
I do at this point in time because all I received was the letter itself. We have
not had the opportunity to look at what the criteria should be. There was some conversation
recommendation about not doing anything with letters of recommendation until we had a criteria.
So I'd like to just ask you what you want me to do with this because I did not believe
it was mine to say yes or no as far as writing the letter.
It is a
group that is applying to the Florida Division of Historical Resources for Funding
for past forward Florida, and they would like us to write a letter.
So I would now like to get direction from the board as to what you'd like me to do.
Mr. Krasner.
Until we do have a process in place, I feel like we need to decline.
I think all of us are very cautious about what we attach our name to, and if not
not really knowing. I just feel like we need to, so we're very sorry at this point, but
and then really work on getting a process in place for that. If we knew them, that'd
be something else.
How do other people feel? Yes, this is what I know about the organization. Yep.
And
yes, Mrs. Lerner.
I read this over quickly, and I thought the process really, I think, is to be sure all
the board members get a chance to look at it and that at a workshop or a board meeting
we have that discussion.
But this is a partnership of the St. Petersburg Times newspaper and education program, American
Institute of Architects, Florida, Tampa Bay, and the Tampa Bay Architectural Heritage
Committee.
It seems to me it's extremely credible and could provide good educational resources for
our students and teachers.
I think we have approved others that really weren't as much attuned to the education of
our students.
I think it would be wrong not to approve it.
And then we really need to talk about a process, but you're bringing it to us.
You're not deciding on your own.
Well, I haven't decided on my own on any of them.
No, you have not.
They all come forward.
But the last time we brought one, I believe it was Mrs. O'Shea that brought one forward
and we said not to approve any until we, my understanding was that we weren't supposed
to approve any until we had a process in place.
I am willing to do whatever the board wants at this point.
We have one board member saying yes and another one saying no, Mrs. Lerner has spoken.
Mrs. Weichel.
Actually, I was just reading, my question was, is there a date and there is November
11th?
I would, you know, I would hate to prohibit somebody from getting on a war, I mean a grant
because this is to support them with the grant.
I would be willing to write a letter of support, okay?
In the email that I sent there was also a copy of the letter of support and I hope
people read that.
Yes?
Yeah, but I do concur with Mrs. Lerner our partnership with the Times and the other organization
is of such that we are not taking that much of a chance recommending a letter for someone
that we don't know about, because I think we do know these. So I would vote yes.
Okay. All righty. Mrs. Krasner?
Just a question, you know, first of all, I mean, have we even verified that this is, you know, somebody from the St. Pete Times?
And second of all, I know that the funding that they're seeking is from the state as far as money.
And it's like, you know, I know all the different things that are out there that we want to
seek funding for.
And I just want to make sure, you know, that this is, I mean, do we know teachers or anybody
who really, I just, I feel like we're doing this, you know, very quickly just because
of an association that we don't even know is a total association.
We haven't heard from anybody that we know from the St. Pete Times to help us bring
this forward.
You know, this is somebody that we don't know person at all.
This is Cook.
Yes, ma'am.
I would support it.
I mean, these are all reputable groups that are working in our area, you know, our
geographic area.
And as you know, with most grants, the more letters of support that you can submit
with them, the greater the chance of getting the grant, we probably ask for support
and some of our grants from time to time.
And so it's sort of just a collaborative effort
to help get the funding for this local area.
So I would support it.
I don't see that there's any detrimental aspects to it,
to our school system,
anything that can be an enhancement.
All right.
Good, thank you.
Ms. Clark?
I think this is cool, you know.
The project that they're doing,
they're going to produce a full color tab
upload style, multimedia educational publication, exploring the diverse
architecture, history, and cultures of Tampa Bay. It'll be distributed to eighth
grade students in Citrus, Hernando, Hillsborough, Manatee, Pasco, and
Pinellas County in insert. It'll be an insert in the, in a Sunday Times.
445,000 is the estimated print circulation. And what it will be, it'll
and they'll have an electronic form for free download by students, educators, and the general public.
It's an, take a tour of Tampa Bay on your own, on your own pace.
It's a self-guided multimedia walking tour of historic and notable architecture in Tampa Bay,
which allows the users to scan QR codes affixed to the exterior.
the barrier of various systems.
I think that's a really cool thing that, you know, that students, you know, you get them
right there with that. So I'm all for this. I think it sounds like a neat project. You
know, we support other things, so I don't know why we shouldn't this.
Okay. Well, it sounds to me like the majority of the board would like you to write the
letter of recommendation, which I would be happy to do. Mrs. Weichel.
Madam Chair, would this be a good time to appoint a committee to figure out what our
process is as a board so we don't, you know, we do have a process in place.
As far as time commitments, it's not our, you know, that old saying comes back, an
emergency, you know, if there's a consistent emergency on our part, if we have a process
in place then we shouldn't have any time restraints at the board table.
Or do I need to – we need to point out at the workshop, at the workshop and have people
have an opportunity to think who might want to do it, what kinds of things might be included
in that process just to kind of brainstorm a little bit and have some conversations
during leadership discussion.
All righty.
Okay.
That was a second item.
The third item is this school district participated, and all of you know that I also serve on the
close of kids for the directors.
And this district participates not only in payroll deduction but in an activity that
they had at the end of last month, it was called drop off the drawers as they were getting
underwear for children in Pinellas County.
I just wanted to give you a little bit of update with that between the St. Pete store and
The Clearwater store where children can actually kind of come and shop for
for clothing
30,000 pairs of underwear
Were raised and and and brought brand new all-in packages
So so 30,000 pairs of underwear were dropped. So we have a lot of drawers
That's amazing.
The neat thing about this is there are so many students that are being serviced by this
organization.
Those 30,000 pairs of underwear, the last, less than six months.
How many students are coming through that aren't free or reduced lunch, that are coming
in and getting what we call a wardrobe five days worth of clothing?
And one of our biggest expenses was underwear, five pairs of underwear, five pairs of socks,
and that kind of thing.
Yeah, yeah, so they have to be, yeah, new.
and so I want to thank the whole community as well as the people in this
building and everyone else in the system that participated in that because it was
very successful for our first try out there and in Pinellas County School
districts dropped off a bunch of drawers for the students in Pinellas and
I want to thank everybody for that. Yesterday when Mr. Robinson and Dr.
Stuart and I were meeting and Mr. Madden about this board meeting and moving forward, we
looked at the statute for the organization meeting and we had some requests that we were
looking at as far as could we get a little bit of change, could we have some flexibility
and the answer was no, we don't get any flexibility, but in that process we also
realize that we've maybe been doing things a little differently with our
reorganization meeting and so I'm just kind of kind of give everybody a heads
up because I don't know who's going to be the chairman but the superintendent
will do the election of the chairman and then the chairman will take over and
we will then hold the election for the vice chairman and the legislative
chair according to their statutes. In the past we've had the superintendent
that you all love it, but once the Chairman is elected, the Chairman is the one that holds
the next.
So I'm going to get with Ms. Beatty.
We're going to write a little script out so that should you be nominated and elected as
Chairman, you don't have to walk up cold.
It will be here's the process and here are the kinds of things that you say.
Okay.
Yes, ma'am.
And that's all that's going to be done that day.
So someone's out of town.
They could call in.
Correct.
Okay.
Scheduling.
Oh, yes.
One of the other things.
Thank you.
We also are supposed to, at that meeting, vote on and announce when our board meetings will
be for the rest of the year.
We've always been kind of voting on it with our fiscal year.
Well, we're going to have the dates that we've already put in place from January through
through June, but we will also have a recommendation of our June through November meetings to be
added.
Okay?
So there are some different things that we do at this meeting.
Yes, ma'am?
Can't.
You'll be looking at Jewish holidays and things like that.
It's just our board meeting.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
The high holidays.
Yeah, we wouldn't hold the board meeting on a Jewish holiday.
Someone is going to, yeah.
Yeah, right.
It'll come to us as it normally would in an agenda item.
It'll be that same kind of thing.
And if we find, I'm going to say give you on Kipper and Rosh Hashanah, okay.
Okay.
Mr. Robinson, you had a...
I was going to say that you could, at that same time, you could change the time from
our five...
Yes.
...to 5.30 and our 10 to 10.30.
We'll get that ahead of you.
And then we'll all be done in that one agenda item.
Okay.
All righty.
Do you have any questions about it?
I'll be happy to explain it.
Yes, ma'am.
Just one question. Do the people on our board let us know if they're interested in anything?
In the past, Ms. Hicks has sent something out to every board member and you check if you're interested in...
Well, it could be interested or willing to do the chairmanship and the vice chairmanship
and we can add the legislative piece to it.
And so that you'll have a general idea of who might be going to do that.
Okay. Any other questions? All right. With that, we will have our evaluation after we
do this and then follow it up with executive session. Meeting is adjourned.