Academics, Innovation, Evaluation, and Technology Committee - Regular Meeting

Evaluation and Technology Committee meeting for May 6, 2026. I now call the meeting to order. The time is 12.09. Before we get started, I'd like to state the membership of this committee. We have Dr. Dorothy Bendos-Mindigal as a committee chair, who is absent today. And we also have Ms. Mary Blanco as vice chair, who is also absent today. We have Dr. Steve Gallen, Mr. Roberto Alonso, myself, Mr. Danny Espino as an alternate member, and Ms. Lisa Santos as an alternate member. Our first order of business is to approve the committee meetings of April 15th, 2026. Any questions or comments from the fellow board members?

Move it.

Do we have a second? All in favor? Okay, it is moved. We now move to our C items. Our next order of business is our C items. Can I get a motion to move it to the floor?

Move it.

All in favor?

Aye.

Okay, our first item is C1.

Through the chair, C1 is the 2025 annual report for the current strategic plan. Before I provide a brief overview, I'd like to take a point of personal privilege, if you don't mind, and thank the superintendent for his leadership and vision, all of the cabinet members that are here today or not here today, and their strategic planning liaisons for their input and their support throughout this annual process and the quarterly check-ins, and of course, my strategic planning team. While we present it to the board, the mid-year in December, what's before you today is the final annual report with the remaining four of the five pending items available. And just briefly, I know you had a chance to read it, the only pending item is Pillar 1, Priority 1, Objective 2. percentage of graduating seniors earning college or career credit, and that should be in around July, and we'll post that as soon as it's available. So in a nutshell, we're at about 50% of our objectives that are at meet or on track to meet. The challenges did go up a little bit as we get closer to the end of the plan. We're being very realistic as to whether or not we're gonna be able to achieve the targets. And we have about 20% that are still being closely monitored or watched. So in a nutshell, that's where we are. We have included in the plan our successes, Of course, our graduation rate and our AI, emphasis on our AI in all of our work. And also, we've included the weaknesses, our continued weaknesses or challenges, which of course are enrollment. enrollment and budget. I'm sorry, I'm losing my breath. Enrollment and budget. So those continue to be our biggest challenges and Ron Sager talked to you in the first committee about our budget challenges. As far as enrollment, you all are aware of the reasons and rationale for the enrollment and the things that we are doing to try to better our enrollment position, but also recognizing that we may have to kind of shift our mindset a little bit, which is what the new strategic plan is all about. So with that being said, I open the door for any questions that you may have.

Okay, any questions or comments for Ms. Pauline? Ms. Pauline, I want to tell you and your team and Alex, you guys have been great. I really appreciate the time that you guys have taken, not just in putting this together, but in answering our questions and meeting with us and being accommodating on how our meetings occur. It's really exciting to see it. I mean, there are some difficult decisions we'll have to be making, but it's important that we have that clear pathway that not just this board has, but that our superintendent and future leadership in this district will have as a guiding light as to where we need to go. So thank you so much. I do see that Board Member Santos has a question. You are recognized.

Thank you so much, and I echo the sentiment. It's really been a moment of reflection for me because one of the first few things I got to do as a school board member was participate in the creation and adoption of this strategic plan, and when it came, this is our second to last time that we get a chance to reflect and close out the 21-26 plan, and so I really sat reflecting and thought, okay, how did that go? What can be done better? What should be different? What went really well? And there were obviously clear successes. I know it's not final yet, but around some of our VPK enrollment, around even academic recovery after the pandemic, which no one saw coming, there's been tremendous success. There's also been a lot of metrics that have moved into challenge and generally rethinking the extensive metric framework as maybe not the most helpful to staying focused and staying really aligned on what we need to keep driving forward all together. So that was one reflection, which I think as we get to the next item is definitely something that has been improved upon in the setup of the plan. The second reflection I had was really around the fact that the plan didn't always have a strong accountability structure to be able to have the conversations around how we get back on track, adjust metrics, or frankly, have a hard conversation about when we're really far from meeting certain metrics that can't be accounted for in things outside of our control. And as we've had plenty of discussions, as a board, oversight is always about improvement. It's not about gotcha moments or anything like that. We certainly, we do that. We hold our students accountable for growth. We hold our teachers very accountable for growth. We hold our schools very accountable for growth. And so I thought, what I felt was constantly missing throughout the last five years was that ability to tie these metrics to the only thing that as a board we control, which is our superintendent evaluation. That's the only person overseeing all this. It's the person we hire to execute this plan. And connecting those dots more closely, I think will be a very important lesson learned for me in how we executed this plan. And so, I know some of my colleagues were here when I opened the conversation around revisiting how we evaluate our superintendent. We had already, of course, adopted a contract. We were already in a contract with our current superintendent. But I think since this is all lining up, as we think about our next superintendent's contract, I wanted to open the conversation with my colleagues around ensuring that the ongoing evaluation and oversight portion of that contract is a little more flushed out, and that it is very tied to our strategic plan, since that is the one thing that we get to adopt as a North Star. So that's for conversations to come, but I wanted to put it on the record because I think at the end of the day if we can all stay focused on the things that drive outcomes most for our students, for our teachers in the classroom, it will help everyone work better as a team and will help us be one team, not just separate departments seeking to meet their own objectives. So I'm open to hearing colleagues' reflections on that, but certainly we'll be bringing that up in the conversation around our next superintendent search.

Any questions or comments? Yes, your merchandise, Ms. Ross.

Yes, through the chair. On that particular issue, I'll have plenty to say when the appropriate time does come in reference to that arena that has just been addressed. I spoke... very much about that issue last time around and I will follow up with whatever new comments I may have at that point in time. As far as this document is concerned, first of all, I want to thank everyone involved in the process. This doesn't just happen by clicking your fingers. It's a lot of time-consuming moments that have to take place so that you can get the input from all stakeholders. internal and external, and that was very important to me, to make sure that we had the input from all those that are affected by this, and especially, this is our North Star, and this is with one priority. The main one should be this is all about the students. Again, our main focus has to be about doing everything in our power so that we can provide them with the future that they deserve. And one area that I did look at, and you spoke about it a few moments ago, was the fact that we had concerns, obviously, in reference to the enrollment and in reference to the budget. But I also have concerns about one more, I think, in my opinion, in my humble opinion, a very important arena, and that has to deal with our teachers, the personnel. and the lack thereof of interest in the teaching profession right now. Because if we don't have teachers, none of this is gonna matter. And I am deeply concerned about that. And that is one area that I think we need to, I know we've done a lot and I wanna thank HR and all of that group. for the initiatives that they have implemented. I want to thank our colleges, our universities. We work collaboratively with all of them as well. But still to this moment, you know, we don't have a teacher in every classroom as we hope to, you know, to achieve. And we don't have the interest in going into the teaching profession, period. And so that is one area that I think has to be a major focus. for us here as well. Because again, without those teachers, we're not gonna have the outcomes that we're all looking for. We're not gonna be able to reach any of this. So that is something I just wanted to put on the record as something that to me, I continue to look at very, very, very carefully. And on graduation day, which is fast approaching, I'm gonna do what I do every year and ask the students what profession they're gonna choose. And I hope that this year, And Dr. Lewis, you've been next to me, you have witnessed how I ask the students, and if we get a handful, And I am not exaggerating. A handful of students that say they're going to go into education, that's too many. There has to be a paradigm shift there. So this is something that I would definitely like to see focused. But as a whole, I'm very pleased with the outcome of what we have here. And I look forward again to the final when we see the issue of the enrollment and the budget and all that finalized. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you so much. Any further questions or comments? I do want to recognize that Board Member Geller has joined us. Thank you for being here, sir. Okay, our next board item that we'll take up is C2.

Through the chair, C2 is our new strategic plan, our 26 through 2031 strategic plan. And as you can see, the superintendent's name is on this item. So I'd like to just bring some greetings from him based on the discussion that I had. I would like to relate to you. He acts at our relay that he is genuinely optimistic about what this plan represents and that he believes that it will position MDCPS to prioritize what matters most in a moment of shifting demographics, expanding educational choices, and rising expectations. And finally, he would like to thank the board, his leadership team, and our community for being co-creators for this important work that will embark upon the next five years. So I know you guys have had, so that's from our superintendent. I know you guys have had the opportunity to go through the strategic plan. We prepared a flip book for you to follow along with us, and I will be brief. We'll hit every page, but every page at a high level. I'm looking at the chair because of the conversation we had. I will go through it quickly, but just to cover everything so that if there are questions or concerns that we can address them. So as you know, joining me today in my presentation is Alex Ramirez, our administrative director. We also have over here. Eric Gonzalez, our executive director, and Rachel O'Malley over here, our analyst. And watching, I'm sure, is Mahathir Tonk, our consultant. So I just wanted to acknowledge him today. We'll start with page three, who we are. so basically this page is is an effort to kind of ground us on the foundation of where we are and in this uh section of the book we're just really establishing a very high level overview of our district for those that we we realize that this this plan is going to be public facing and our hope is to spread the word and make sure all of our stakeholders and all the members of our ecosystem actually get a hold of this, as well as our families. So we wanted to start with helping them understand who we are. And you'll see that we've just highlighted a few of our wonderful moments and accolades, which speaks to our ranking, our wonderful programs, and the fact that we've been an A for six consecutive years. So next is our why. So we've had many conversations in many of our retreats about what is our why. And after all of that conversation in focus groups, we come back to you with something that is very simple, something that resonated with all of our focus group participants, something that's easy to remember. And it simply says, when every student reaches their full potential, our entire community thrives. And I think that captures a lot of the sentiments that we heard from the board. Every student, full potential, community, no matter how you described it, we believe that this captures or why, every objective and every commitment that follows in service of, should be in service of this purpose. So it's where we point to in all the work that we do. Next, we had in our old plan another set of values, and not that we tossed them. We really wanted to lean into something that was already existing. These Values Matter Miami values have been utilized in our schools for over 10 years, and they stick. They resonate at the school level, and they fit the district-wide concept of values. So we're simply adopting those embedded values here and instead of the old values that we had. It aligns very well and we're very happy to can expand this district wide. Now the blueprint, which is pages nine to 12, really explain how the plan was developed. It's important because the process itself is integral to the strategy. As discussed in all of our prior workshops, the plan was built on those four connected stages. As you know, the first phase was really centered around community. This is where we were listening and reflecting before we started setting direction. This included paying very close attention to perceptions. We recognize, I think, through all of our conversations that perception is reality, and they should be included into the plan and how we move through the plan and make our decisions. Secondly, we conducted a rigorous organizational diagnostic where we really focused on the strengths and weaknesses, so that was our version of the SWOT. Then third, we made a deliberate line between strategy and business as usual, and I usually all do this in our briefings with you. We really bifurcated the process to really keep the strategic stuff on the strategic side and the performance stuff on the performance side. So while essential day-to-day work such as school safety, academics, and student services will remain core on our operational side, It will be measured on the business as usual, so I don't want anyone to walk away thinking that we're not measuring that stuff. It's just not included in the plan. It will be on its own report in the dashboard and really utilized by the superintendent and the cabinet leaders and the department heads. And fourth, we use organizational diagnostic to inform our guiding policy, which in turn then formed our objectives. which then led us to key results, which translates priorities into specific time-bound measurable commitments. Simply put, I think the intent of this approach is really about focus. What we did with this plan was we're doing, we ensure that we're doing fewer things with greater focus and with clearer goals. Okay, starting on page 13, this is a little more detail about the community. You guys have heard this, but I would love to reiterate it. It really goes into the scale of engagement. We've said time and time again, based on our research, historically, this has probably been the largest community engagement this district has ever undertaken. With over 190 survey responses, we've conducted over 65 focus groups more than 500 focus group participants which included students parents employees community organizations and partners many many stakeholder groups that have never been surveyed before which was very interesting it's been determined that this has been again the biggest community engagement we conducted all of the engagements in english history and haitian creole to and I'm sorry, English, Spanish, thank you, English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole to ensure that we touched everyone and everyone's voice was heard. The input gathered through this process ensured that we met every corner of our district, and again, every voice was heard, and it really shaped the portrait of a graduate. It helped us with the organizational diagnostic, and it helped us to really flush out the priorities So that they can be properly reflected in the plan. And this slide you've seen many times. This is the portrait of a graduate. Our superintendent is super, super excited about this entire concept. And for him, this is how we connect the plan to the school site to the students. And this is a new community defined vision that serves as the north star for the plan. Our community articulated five attributes, as you can see on this page, that every graduate should embody. This bold vision affirms our collective commitment to ensuring every student has the opportunity to fulfill their potential and graduate ready to achieve their personal, academic, and professional goals. The work ahead is to move the portrait off of this page, off of posters and into daily practice and in every classroom and for every adult who shapes the student experience. At this point, I will turn it over to the very, very hard stuff, the objectives, the challenges, the guiding policy and the objectives. I'll turn it over to Alex Ramirez.

Thank you, Tiffany. Good afternoon through the chair. These pages address the central challenges that the district is confronting. Fewer school-aged children reside in Miami-Dade County today than a generation ago, demographic shift occurring in communities across the country. Each year, fewer students enter our system than graduate from it. At the same time, families today have more educational options available to them than at any other point in our prior history. The cumulative effect is that the district is currently operating more facilities space, infrastructure, and staffing capacity than today's enrollment requires. The path forward on the right hand page has two components. The first is a leaner footprint, aligning the organization to the community we serve today and freeing up resources for reinvestment in classrooms. The second is a school experience that families seek, using those reinvested resources to earn the trust of every family every day by enhancing the processes and systems that support stakeholders across touch points and towards goals. These pages contain the strategic core of the plan. The guiding policy commits Miami-Dade County Public Schools to building a stronger, leaner education enterprise by optimizing facilities and workforce in order to reinvest in three areas. High quality educational programs, better experiences for students, families, employees, and community and industry partners, and the systems and processes that support them. The commitment stated plainly is that the district will deliver better outcomes for all students and greater value for communities for every public dollar spent than any other option in Miami-Dade County, making us the best choice. The decision matrix on the right hand page operationalizes this guiding policy. Going forward, new initiatives will be evaluated against two questions. Does it increase school quality outcomes or improve systems? And does it reduce surplus seat capacity? Initiatives that do both constitute strategic priorities. Initiatives that meet only one are secondary priorities. And initiatives that meet neither would not be strategic priorities. This framework is how the organization will hold itself accountable and focused over the life of the plan.

And if I just might interject, if we can go back really quickly, I just want to emphasize that this is for new initiatives and programs. It wouldn't be for day-to-day decisions on how to make operations, but specifically for new initiatives and programs.

These pages describe the plan's measurement architecture. The plan is organized around four objectives, each supported by key results, which are specific, measurable, time bound targets. Several key results are assigned to target dates earlier than 2031. This reflects a deliberate decision to move with greater urgency in those areas. As noted earlier, strategic work and business as usual work are measured separately. Progress on this plan will be presented to the school board twice per year, will be made publicly available on the district strategic plan website, and will be monitored quarterly through internal review. The plan is organized around four objectives. The first objective is to improve student outcomes in the core areas that matter most for lifelong learning. The second objective is to elevate student, family, and community experiences to ensure that we are the best choice. The third objective is to create a positive and supportive workplace culture. And the fourth objective is to adjust the organization's facilities footprint and prioritize school investment.

And if I can just emphasize here that as in the last item, which was the current plan, we are currently at 35 objectives and this shifts us down to four, only four objectives.

Objective one is supported by five key results focused on outcomes closely associated with long-term student success. Third grade English language arts proficiency, eighth grade mathematics proficiency, a reduction of the achievement gap, diploma plus graduation rates, and the establishment of a portrait of a graduate measurement framework. The diploma plus measure ensures that students graduate not only with a credential, but with a post-secondary credit or documented real-world experience. Objective two is supported by four key results focused on the experience the district delivers to students and families. reducing student withdrawals to competitors, establishing district-wide family experience scores for students and parents, launching a partner satisfaction survey, and improving five high-impact stakeholder-facing systems with measurable reductions in processing time. In a landscape of expanding choice, the experience we deliver is itself one of our strongest strategic levers. Objective 3 is supported by three key results focused on our 27,000 employees. Establishing an employee net promoter score for instructional and non-instructional personnel, an employee well-being indicator, and improvements to five high-impact employee-facing systems and processes. The premise is straightforward. The experience that our families receive is shaped by the experiences our employees receive and the culture that we set up as an organization to make that possible. Objective four is supported by three key results that translate the plan's central diagnosis into concrete commitments. Increasing utilization of student stations at active schools to 80% district-wide, reducing district-wide deferred maintenance by $1.5 billion, and publishing an annual re-envisioning impact report so that the community can clearly see how the facility's decisions translate into reinvestment in students and schools. As a footnote on this final objective, there are seven core principles to the educational enterprise development framework that serve as guardrails for this work. Two of which include ensuring number one, that education is first and foremost in decision making. And number two, that Miami Dade County Public Schools retains ownership of our underlying assets. I'll transfer it back over to Tiffany.

Okay, so the plan ends on what we've now termed the Miami-Dade County Public Schools Learning Ecosystem. And this is really a way to say that no school district educates a child alone. Our post-secondary education partners, our community organizations, our private industry partners, our government agencies, our philanthropic partners each contribute to the development of all of our graduates. The plan represents both the commitment by the district to ensure that all of our graduates are ready, but it also represents, or it also provides an invitation to our broader ecosystem to lead alongside us. So we're making it very deliberate that we need the help. It's the village concept. It's a village, it takes a whole village and our village is the ecosystem to raise a child. In summary, the new strategic plan names what matters most, it tells what we're going to do about it, and shows exactly how we will measure our progress. This plan is dynamic and it establishes an honest diagnosis, a clear guiding policy, four focus objectives, measurable key results, and a transparent commitment to public accountability throughout the life of the plan. That concludes our presentation on C2, and we welcome your comments and questions.

Thank you again to you and your team for all the hard work on this plan. I know that you've met individually probably with every board member, but does any board member have any questions or comments on the plan that's been proposed? Board Member Spino, you're recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Tiffany. Thank you, Alex. This has certainly been a great experience. think this this plan is really a roadmap to make us a stronger market participant which at the end of the day is what we have to do is compete we welcome the competition and without the competition we may have done things a certain way now in light of the competition we got to shift and do things a little bit differently and there's a resonating provision on there that says smarter footprint stronger schools which is at the core of at least what i'm trying to do in the district with the closure that we've got going on this this year and actually it's the message we've been having to the public it's it's, yes, it's a transition, it's difficult, but as a result of the transition, it will result in stronger outcomes, stronger offerings for our community, and the communities responded, at least in the microcosm that is Miami Springs, Virginia Gardens, Medellin, and Hialeah, saying, you know, where do we sign up for magnet programs that go all the way down to sixth, seventh, and eighth grade that continue into high school, be able to participate in high school classes and get credit for those classes in middle school and the sports and all the activities, so, and I think you realize that through Objective Two, I do want to expand upon one thing in objective four, which is, especially in light of some of the difficult conversations we're having on the board, I think there needs to be, and I said this, so this is not new to Tiffany, to Alex, I think that there has to be a key result related to transparency of how we transact our properties, the process and the use of the funds deployed from that, because know an annual report is is important but at the end of the day if we're making these closures the community has to see where the funds are being deployed right away and how they're being deployed or how the facilities are being used um there's a lot of fear of course that our facilities are being closed specifically to make room for schools of hope i've i've completely thwarted that at least in miami springs by saying no we're we're going to have additional school offerings where actually Miami Springs Police Department may end up having a headquarters in part of our facilities for generating revenue from that. But having that forward facing public and transparent conversation I think is a critical component. And again, not a one size fits all process for how these things happen in our districts, but just an overriding objective that says when we do these things, we will do them this way. I think that's incredibly important in light of the issues that we had last month. Just food for thought. Other than that, I really enjoyed your plan, thank you.

Thank you so much, Board Member Spino. And just as a follow-up to that, I think you make a very good point. And I actually have a question for staff, now that you brought that up. I consolidated one school campus, which, by the way, did it in the same fashion that you're doing, and it's been very successful with Country Club Middle that was shut down, and all the resources were consolidated at Lawton Childs. Our students have access to more magnet programs now. They have all the incredible teachers in one building versus we had part-timers bouncing from one school to the other. and we immediately turned it around and leased out a large portion of that building to a district managed charter school that's now paying us rent. Is there anybody on staff that can explain where those revenues are going from South Florida Autism for the rental? And I know Mr. Steiger's not here. If Mr. Steiger, if you need his answer, if we can just have a report. Oh, he is here, he's in the back.

Yes, he's sitting back there. Quietly. Very quietly.

And by the way, if you don't have the answer right now, we can have a report. I think it's important to the public, because this is something that's going to be discussed a lot, and to Board Members Espino's point, we need to know exactly where those dollars are going and how they're being reinvested into the education of our students.

Um, yeah, so, um, Mr. Chair, I think that. So for the specific question on S facts, the parsed part of the funds are going to support the district facilities that are in that building. Just, uh, the ongoing maintenance of it, the, um, custodial supplies, um, extra security that's there for them. And then the rest, as in all the other district-managed expenses, they come to the general fund. That's the way the district-managed charters was set up from the first place. But that's not every item. So we're taking, in this board meeting, we are taking Yeshiva University renting Biscayne Gardens. And that item, it's spelled out that 10% of the money is going to be going to the facility, the local school itself. So each individual rental is different. We've been handling it differently. District managed charter schools from the beginning was meant as a self-supporting structure, right? So we have an infrastructure in place for district managed charter schools. The revenue goes to fund that office and then any extra revenue just goes to general revenue.

Let me just finish wrapping up. I mean, I appreciate your explanation. still doesn't answer my question on exactly where the funds are going. Um, and I'll follow up on a separate meeting, but I think it's important and something I think the entire board should think about, right. As we're doing these, cause, um, my view is the dollars, um, should be getting directly reinvested into that area and supporting the schools in that area. Um, going into a general fund and not knowing where it's ending up at. And, um, honestly, you know, When a district managed charter comes in, I'm actually going through that process now, and Danny Mateos in the back has been very helpful in explaining to me how we break it down and the fee structure. These district managed charters have separate line items to pay for security, to pay for custodial. So the rent that they pay is separate from the actual cost of the services that we provide, I would understand. Or maybe I'm not understanding that correctly.

Yeah, so what I was talking about was we have, in that particular case, we have district facilities that are there, right? We have the teacher training center, right? So they have to have supplies for them. But not to interrupt you, but this program should not be funding

that program.

Well, who's to fund that program then? It's general revenue. So that's my, so in every individual circumstance, right, each case is different. In this case, there is a, there needs to be a revenue attached to fund the programs that are still in the building. In terms of the district managed charter schools, yes, like the The idea of district managed from the beginning was to be a self-supporting structure, and if possible, even turn a profit for the district. I would argue that the funds should, while we're doing in Biscayne Gardens, some of the funds should go to the surrounding neighborhoods and schools. I think that a portion of every lease we do should come to general revenue to support the overall district and not just that one particular neighborhood. In the end, The entity that is going through the, the entity that's struggling financially is the district itself, right? So there needs to be two benefits to every time we do these transactions. There needs to be one, getting the maintenance of those buildings off of our books, because frankly, the 1.5 mills, now that we share with charter schools, will never be enough. There's too many seats in this district that we need to go down, because we do not have enough money in the 1.5 mills to support the maintenance of all of our facilities. That's number one, but second, all additional revenue, right, is going to support the overall administrative function, right, of running the district. The revenue streams, when we get any revenue stream in, whether it's the FEFP or parking or any lease or district managed, I think that there needs to be a split between supporting that local area where that rent is coming from and the, and also support to the district overall. And that's kind of the way we've set everything up. In district managed, since I was there in the beginning, we didn't make it very specific, right? In district managed, it was, hey, we're gonna use this money to support the overall district managed function and the rest would go to the district. In this case, it's slightly different because we have offices in that building. But in a lot of the other rentals, we've been much more specific in that item about where exactly that money's gonna go.

Okay, I agree and disagree. we'll have further discussion on this because in this scenario there's no dollars going to the local school. From what I'm hearing is it's going to general fund and it's funding professional development at the building and who knows where it's going. This community, that school belongs to this community. So any revenue that we're generating from that school, at least a portion of it at the very minimum should be going to that community, especially to an aging building down the street, which is Lawton Childs that needs a lot of work that we moved all these students to that building. And the district immediately went into the fix many things. And Mr. Bueno joined me in meetings at Lawton Childs to make sure that those students were receiving the adequate services and that the facilities were up to par. And I know there's still a lot of pending issues there that these dollars should be going towards to be able to maintain that building and other buildings in that area. So I think it's something that we need to explore as a board as to how these dollars are being allocated because it does impact the community. And if we're inconveniencing a group of individuals and students, there should be a benefit to them in that these revenues are gonna help in improving their academic outcomes and the services being provided to them in their community. Any other, I see that Board Member Geller and I think Board Member Spino after.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, Mr. Steiger. I want to say that, you know, whatever comments I make, I do want to acknowledge that you're standing on your head trying to get us someplace that we need to get, and I know it's a very difficult task and, you know, the ballast is being tossed and I get that and you know so nothing about this discussion doesn't acknowledge that you're very concerned about general revenue and the overall health of this school district and preserving the independence of this school district and thank you for your and the entire administration's extraordinary efforts to make sure that the district is financially healthy and no one can bigfoot in on us and tell us what we need to do. That's why we're here. So thank you for that. Having said that, I do want to say that I agree with both what Mr. Espino Board Member Espino and Board Member Alonso said to some degree. I was not involved in the previous five-year plan, so this one's new to me. I thank Ms. Pauline and staff for having tried to bring me up to speed on it. I appreciate those efforts. One of the things that interested me here is the talk about vision and vision for the future, and that's pretty essential. I mean, that's, if we don't have a vision, we can't head in any direction, because you can't get to your destination without knowing the destination. You have to establish the destination to get there. I think that we're talking about, to me, it's two different things, and we should look at them separately I did hear the comment right kind of at the end about preserving district assets I mean we have a list somewhere I haven't looked at it but there's a list of all of the district assets that's not to say that we can't and shouldn't be flexible I mean a lot of people have approached this board with unsolicited proposals and all kinds of things Some of them are focused on affordable housing, and God knows we need that. If we're going to maintain a public school system, people have to be able to live here and not have to move away because they can't afford to live in Dade County. So I'm very open to those partnerships, but they have to work for us, for the district, for the students, as well as working for the developers who are going to build these projects. I mean, I admire people who do affordable housing. It's a great thing. I've been involved a little bit in the past in that industry, but it has to work across the board. So I would submit that we have two different things we're talking about. Take the one that in your district that you're talking about, Board Member Alonso, or the new one that was just discussed that We're about to do up at Biscayne Gardens, a facility I know very well. One of my old friends used to live a block from there. And now we're modernizing, and there's a new building, and we're consolidating. It's going to be a K-8. And it leaves us with a building that we're able to lease out and generate some revenue. And to the extent that that's what you're focusing on, Board Member Alonso, money that we receive basically in the form of lease payments or rents where we still have the asset. It's still ours, although, you know, if it's a 30-year lease or more and not so clear how much control we really maintain. But for those kinds of existing assets, infrastructure where we retain ownership and there's some income from it, I tend to agree with you some of that should go to the community in question. But I think we also need to look at the larger question here. And the larger question is, what are we doing that involves essentially disposition of our assets? selling them as opposed to leasing them out and getting an income stream. And I'm very concerned that we have an actual long-range plan that says, where are we going to be down the road? We don't want to be in a position where we're disposing of assets that And using the money that we get, with all deference to the importance of what Mr. Steiger is talking about, yes, we need to maintain the district. Yes, we need to keep it operating. Yes, we're this fiscal year in a crisis about having enough money. But if we start selling our seed corn to fund ongoing operations, We're going to find ourselves down the road with no assets and no ability to fund ongoing operations if we're relying on selling off assets and no plan for the future. You know, they say, oh, there's no land, and where are we going to go? Well, I mean, maybe we need to be thinking about going more vertical. I could point to Southside in my district. Madam Chair came out for their opening as well. We appreciated that, Madam Chair. And that's maybe a kind of model for the future. I really think we need to separate the lease and maintenance and what's going on in the district and have a separate long-term plan that says we will not dispose of assets without some strategy, where is that money going to go?

Sir, I don't mean to interrupt you, but just to clarify the record, and this board, I think, has been pretty united on this. We are not selling properties. We are only leasing properties. I have not heard of any properties being sold, and at least me, I'll speak for myself, I've always been committed to that policy. 100 years from now, forget 50 years from now, I don't want anybody to say that this board gave away all of its properties and that we had an influx of individuals and we now need that property and this board is the one that disposes those properties. So in none of my conversations that I've had ever on any of the schools in my area or properties or land have I ever discussed the selling of it. What we're looking at is how do we repurpose them and generate some revenue in them in the meantime because we don't know what's going to happen 20 years from now and our forefathers here at this district did a really good job of acquiring properties throughout the entire community that has set us up to this point now where we do have some options to be able to generate revenue. So I at least have never discussed the possibility of selling any of our properties. It's always been short-term and medium to long-term leases. So I just wanted to put that for the record.

I appreciate that information very much, Board Member Alonso, and thank you for, you know, Making the point, you know, I'm still the newbie here frankly, so I appreciate getting that perspective But let me say I don't think the idea of disposing of properties is Necessarily a bad thing It just can't be done willy-nilly. It cannot be done to fund ongoing general operations because then we're making it go away. But if there was a strategy to it, if we established some kind of a separate fund that was not going to be shared for ongoing operations, such as what you and Mr. Steiger were talking about, I recognize that point, and it's a valid point. I think we should begin to look at what would happen, but my idea would be not to dispose of properties to enable us to move forward with funding our operations. Is there some way that we can exchange an asset for some other asset if we have a clear plan that we're going to dispose of a particular property but use it as part of our strategy to move into the future. I'd be willing to see us do what's essentially an exchange that doesn't leave us without assets. It would just be assets purposed, you know, liquidity, something that we could move if there's the proper goal of it. So I think that that's something we can and should look at. And in saying that, I still recognize the validity of your point that some portion, when we're talking about one of these leases, some portion needs to go to the community that's affected by it. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Board Member Gellerin. And I apologize. I probably took this off task. And to Ms. Pauline, I know this is about a strategic plan that we're on here. So if we can bring it back to that. But I do want to give Board Members. Let me just say this, Mr.

Chair. To me, this is a strategic point. I love the document, but I think that we need something more forward thinking for the future. And we'll follow up.

And I think in further conversations, you could probably meet with legal counsel and they can explain some. Because there are laws, and you've been in Tallahassee and had that experience. there are some state laws and policies in place that guide us in that process. Board Member Espino, you're recognized.

Thank you so much, and Board Member Alonso, Mr. Chair, thank you for your comments, because we all have our perspective through which we view it, and I don't always know, I most of the time don't know what you guys are doing in your districts. But the question, the conversation is indicative of the fact that I think we do need a key result that crystallizes this. Because I certainly can understand Mr. Steiger's point, but I also resonate very highly with yours because the fact remains, and I'm looking at this as a developer, where if I'm going through the pain and suffering of going through this effort in my district, This is part of the conversation that I continue to have here, like a resonating gong. Maybe we take these lease payments, bond them out, and this is how you fund your Hialeah. This is how you fund your Homestead High. But if all of a sudden we're taking this revenue and it's getting dispersed into what I call the mothership of Miami-Dade County public schools, it becomes increasingly difficult. And so all I'm saying is that there needs to be a key result of our strategy is that there is a transparent process through which we obtain the funds and how we deploy it. And I'll take a stab at preparing something because there's one more point I'd like to make, which is unrelated to this. So I do plan on pulling this item and bringing that thing forward. So in addition to this item, this KR on Objective 4, I have been pretty steadfast at saying that I have a hard time approving this with finality in light of the process that we're engaging with the superintendent. And so what I would like to do is propose that the board tentatively adopt it, with the requirement that it come back to us within 60 days of the assumption of office of the new superintendent and gaining his or her input on it so that at least we can say that we didn't give the new superintendent a sheet of music that he or she may not know or want to play it the way that it's written. And that'll give an opportunity to say, I reviewed it, and here is my thumbprint. We can take it. We can leave it. and that's what I intend to propose, just because the idea of this comes back a year later, and the superintendent, he or she is somewhere in this process, but just saying, hey, 60 days from when you take office, whenever this is this year, you come in and you give us your feedback on a report, and we're taking it up as an item. All right, thank you.

Thank you so much, Board Member Spino. I think that's a great idea, and in speaking with staff, I think they had shared with me that this is a living document that can always be updated and changed, but I think having it in writing will be important so that that way the person coming in, be it he or she, knows that this is something that they can meet with staff at that point and come back with suggestions to the board Board Member Colucci, you're next.

Thank you. And I do want to echo the sentiments of my colleagues. First of all, Board Member Geller, and I've been saying this for years, we need to have a plan of what we're going to do with our assets, because right now I don't see a strategic plan, and that worries me. The second thing that worries Board Member Espino and Board Member Alonso said, you know, if I'm going to go out into my community and ask, let's consolidate. Let's make our schools better. We owe them that transparency of where those funds are going to go. That's my take. Thirdly, I do agree and I'm going to chime in with what Board Member Santos said about the superintendent being held accountable to some extent with the strategic plan. And if we're in conversations right now, I do think that Board Member Espino's point should be something we consider. I don't think we should go back to the drawing board by any stretch of the imagination. because this was a tremendous task and I think we're in a good place and it is a living document. So I do want to put that all on the record. So that is, just those are my comments for now. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Board Member Santos.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. And I'll echo all the thanks and gratitude, certainly. And Ms. Pauline, you said 190. You meant 190,000 input points into this plan because it's really impressive. So I have to put on the record, it's 190,000. Thank you. No worries. And so I'll keep it as high level as I can at this point. it is important to me that in the document that we vote on on wednesday that we um for these metrics and i was adamant about this in the previous plan and think it's important to include in here for the metrics for which we do have a baseline that we include it and name it in this document uh because it's very different you know to say you're going to improve to 70 percent if you're at 20% today or if you're at 60% today. And so for the metrics for which we have baselines, making sure that they're included, I think helps anyone who has a fresh set of eyes on this plan, which includes all of our public, that they are able to understand the rigor of some of these metrics. Secondly, I do also want to request that we have some sort of small index or footnote that explains methodology or definitions. So, for example, we have an objective around Diploma Plus, and there's an asterisk that tells us a little bit more about what Diploma Plus means. to me it's very important to understand, okay, exactly what are we measuring and what's going to count and not count? And so I'm asking that those things be included before Wednesday's presentation just to make it a more robust document that I feel really good voting on and sharing with the public. Secondly, I love that we are down to four objectives and I think they align very well with all the input we've given and the community input that's been shared on the subject that just got a lot of discussion related to reinvestment of where our dollars, our innovation is going. Key result three right now reads publishing an annual re-envisioning impact report documenting how school re-envisioning efforts optimize resources to better support students in schools. I think it's important, maybe we revisit the wording here, but the metric is embedded in here, because I know it wasn't in one of the drafts that I received, and I certainly was adamant about making sure that it got included, because it is important that we don't just take these actions that are hard actions, but that we're able to say, and as a result of it, here are the better services, outcomes, experiences, facilities that we're able to provide. And so maybe considering how we've worded this objective, so it's a little more... meaty, weighty, would be the way that we can address some of the concerns that we're having. And certainly during our enterprise workshop, we had deep discussion, and I know Board Member Geller, you said you're a newbie, but we agree on this idea that ownership is power. The assets in this district are owned by the public, and we, like people who have come before us, want to do right by those assets in the long term. Couldn't agree more, which is why I did ask, and I know it was verbally stated, that we do have seven core principles in our enterprise framework, two of which are very important, which were named. Number one, that every decision be a driver of educational outcomes. and two, that we retain ownership. That is one of the core principles in that enterprise framework that we have all discussed, get updates on, have voted on at committee. maybe it's worthwhile in that index or some sort of addition to this document before we would on Wednesday, as they stand today, that those core principles just be included as an addendum or something, because they do influence how these objectives, they are the guardrails, let's say, for how these objectives will be implemented. And we've already agreed on them. We've discussed them. So I think including them might help move us forward. under objective four, I was very surprised to see the district-wide facilities deferred maintenance goal to be reduced by 1.5 billion by 2031. I know that Mr. Niccolo and Mr. Perez know how deeply I went into our comprehensive facilities and maintenance reporting on the facilities dashboard, and that, dashboard finally shows us in one place what our total deferred maintenance is. And currently we're looking from my latest review of that report at a five year closer to 3.7 billion deferred maintenance amount. Is that correct through the chair?

Mr. Perez, you're recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ms. Santos, yes, the five-year deferred maintenance is $3.7 billion, and the additional 10-year deferred maintenance is another $4.5 billion on top of that.

Right, so we get pretty close to $10 billion if we look at our 10-year outlook. So when I look at that 10-year outlook and then I see an objective that's pushing for getting rid of $1.5 billion in the next five years, knowing that every year this changes, and unless we take drastic action, it continues to increase because if we hold on to assets the way they are, that deferred maintenance goes up and up and up. Is that correct through the chair?

Through the chair, yes.

Okay, so maybe staff can share, enlighten us on maybe some of the conversations around why this felt like a rigorous but attainable metric, and I'd really like to consider increasing the dollar amount on this, just objectively looking at the data. It seems like it just objectively won't be enough.

Well, through the chair, Ms. Santos, so the five-year capital plan roughly sits at $1 billion in capital improvements. Of that $1 billion, probably 75% to 80% of that would be deferred maintenance. Others would be new construction, new replacement of a school, which would reduce some of that deferred maintenance, but the new school would be a lot more costlier. So in a five-year plan, you have $1 billion to address presently $3.7 billion. Along with that, there is conversations that the school district will have to be right-sized. So additional facilities or schools, some schools will be right-sized by buildings, other schools would be repurposed. That projection that we show would probably roughly gain us another five to $700 million. So that's why we settled in within the five-year plan of 1.5 billion in deferred maintenance that would be addressed.

Through the Chair, to make sure I understood correctly, you are saying that through the plans you have for the right-sizing of facilities, either by building or by repurposing, you can, you project that you'll reduce deferred maintenance by about $500,000 a year?

$500 million within the length of the five-year plan, yes, through the Chair.

$500 million a year for the next five years through the Chair?

No, no, $500 million throughout the life of the, through the five years.

Okay, so through the chair. So I think this ties to the discussion that I've had through our ABC items that we are taking the right steps and we are methodically doing this, but we have to accelerate pace because if we don't, we still hit that sort of limit where we didn't do it fast enough and so we didn't release enough of our fixed costs to reinvest into the experiences of our students and families. And so I think this is a metric that's also highlighting that from a different angle that with your current projections, we only feel like we can get to 1.5 billion of getting rid of 1.5 billion of deferred maintenance. But in reality, as you just very clearly outlined, that's not sufficient to get us to where we want to go. And so I'm curious to hear from my colleagues on this. I do think that... It may mean we have to go back to the drawing board and in those plans that led us to 1.5 billion, understand what else we need to do or how else we accelerate to get to a higher number. But to me, it really, the goal should be to get rid of what our understood deferred maintenance, five-year deferred maintenance is today, which is 3.7. But I'll stop there. I have two more comments after that in case my colleagues want to touch on that.

I'll just add on that, and I'll recognize you, Mr. Ross. I completely agree with you, and we need to move at a faster pace because $1.5 billion is not even scratching the surface. And that's just talking numbers. We're then talking about the facilities in which our students have to go into every day, our teachers have to teach in, our principals have to manage buildings that are in serious decay. When we look at this, Mr. Perez, are you factoring in here? We've had discussions, and this can be anywhere, and I don't want to say numbers, but there will be a number of schools that will be consolidated because it will become a news flash over the next three to five years. I assume some of those could be demolished, right? And that would then save us a large amount of dollars in that. And even going to my earlier conversation with Mr. Steiger, I mean, we're paying for fire alarm services and upgrades and buildings that might be demolished anyways. Has that been factored into this $1.5 billion?

Absolutely. And that is the key factor here. These facilities, when they are repurposed, they have to come offline. So they have to be demolished. Because if not, we will continue to expend dollars. to maintain certain areas of them. We would still have utility costs affected. Those costs would be affecting as well. So this calculation incorporates bringing them completely offline.

So to Board Member Colucci's question earlier on a plan, I think we have a lot of plans going on and we have a lot of things working. And by the way, thank you to you and your team and Dr. Cabrera, who I see back there. She's running around with a million different plans and ideas that we throw at her weekly. But is there a list? Because I think we need to be strategic on this, right? And it's part of our strategic plan on what schools or what properties are costing us the most money right now that are in the list of possibly being repurposed at some point. And those should be our number one priorities. And we should be proactive on those rather than just sitting back and reacting to when we receive requests or when a board member says, hey, I'm ready to, I mean, I think we need to be transparent and say, look, these are our most expensive buildings to maintain. These are our buildings where we have the lowest enrollment, and this is where we should be focusing on immediately. Because, you know, Country Club was a great option that I did in my community, but that school wasn't in huge decay. I mean, it needed some repairs, but it probably wasn't one of our more expensive buildings. And the same thing in Miami Springs with board member Spino, and I'm sure in Dr. Gallin's district, in some of the areas, and I know that Dr. Dorothy Benzos-Mendigos also has some schools that are being consolidated. Is there a list of those schools that we can build a plan off of?

So through the chair, Mr. Chair, yes, we do have all the information on our facilities as it relates to deferred maintenance and other expenses. There has been a, I think it was shared with this board, there has been a dashboard that has been put together. and that can generate that particular type of information you're requesting. You can sort it by FCI condition for the facility, the amount of dollars in deferred maintenance per school, by enrollment, by a whole different sorts of data points that you can generate the ranking on.

I have a lot of data in my head, and this is not my full time. Mr. Steiger, I'll go to you right next. If you can send the top 10 list and maybe provide it, at least to me, but maybe to the rest of the board of those facilities, just so that we all have an understanding, maybe top 10, top 20. I don't know if other members of the board would like to see that data, because I would love to get on your dashboard, but I have a lot of dashboards and a lot of different information I'm looking at. So if you can consolidate that and provide it to the board, that'd be helpful. Mr. Steiger.

Yeah, so Mr. Chair, I think when the board adopts this strategic plan tentatively or fully, an objective for key result one, the board is putting in its plan for facilities. That is the plan, is key result one. When we say, it sounds inane enough, it's get to 80% of usage, but to do that, right, the board is basically telling the administration, you have to take drastic action right, to get up to 80%. Our current number sits closer to 62%, right? So the board is giving us guidance from the highest level saying, we expect you to make substantial action over the next however long this plan exists to get to that number. And yes, we will use that dashboard as the main driver in the decisions. It's not going to be, hey, here's the top 10 and these are the 10 we're going to do because they might be next door to each other, right? We have to Everything requires a lot of conversations and figuring out what's best, but that is the conversation that's been happening on a very regular basis. And those conversations will drive what the board has to approve for the start of the 2027, 2028 school years. But all the guidance we really need is in that key result one, because you're telling us you expect drastic action.

Do we have any other further comments from board members? Ms. Rojas, you're recognized, and then I think board member Gutter will close it up.

Thank you very much, sir. I'm going to be very, very brief. first and foremost again I want to give kudos to everyone involved in this process I alluded to earlier and I'm going to repeat it again you've listened carefully to the stakeholders including us we're just part of a team here teamwork is what makes that dream work like I always say but we've listened to external stakeholders as well as those critical players in our schools our principals our and members of our workforce. Most important to me is the fact that this is the North Star that we're going to be following. And I said it many times in the past on a plethora of different issues. The why, the why, the why, is what needs to lead us to where we want to be. And I love the fact that our why here was clearly articulated by when every student reaches their full potential, our entire community thrives. And that is, again, our driving force. As I looked at the plan, the only other thing, there's two areas that I just wanted to address very quickly. Everything to me needs to be data-driven outcomes. I'll repeat again, data-driven outcomes. So if we're going to improve by whatever percentage you're putting on whatever area it is that we're addressing, where's the data, okay, to reach those outcomes? That's critically important. And the other area has to do with the fact, Board Member Espino, you brought it up in Several of my colleagues also addressed it. I fully concur that our new superintendent obviously when that happens needs to be a massive part, major part of the strategic plan. We have a good plan right now. It is a living document at this moment in time, but the fact that that individual, whomever that individual may be, needs to be very cognizant of what is in this plan and provide input at the right time is something that we do need to address. And so as I close to Board Member Geller, sir, it might give you a little bit of relief knowing that we do have right now currently a policy and there's also state law. currently on how we dispose of property. But to Board Member Alonso's point, at least I have never talked about disposing of property, but rather repurposing whenever it is necessary due to enrollment numbers that are extremely low. So I hope that that brings you a little bit of peace of mind, I guess. So the last thing I will close with saying, I always say, if you don't include us on the takeoff, we can't be with you on the landing, but you have certainly included us in the takeoff. We're gonna be with you in the landing, but we do need that pilot who's going to be maneuvering the plane to be involved, and that's where I bring the new superintendent in whenever it comes. But for right now, the current superintendent I know has been very involved with this preparation of this development of this document, and I am sure that until the right time comes when there is a change, the current superintendent will be our pilot as well, who will get us to hopefully a close landing. Thank you very much, sir.

Board Member Geller, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I will also try to be brief. Let me just say first that I find the whole discussion from the Board very enlightening, frankly. So I want to thank all my colleagues for the points that they've made, and particularly I want to point out, Board Member Santos, I think we all agree with you about accountability, and we appreciate your boring in on some of the details, because without the details, there is no picture. I also want to mention that i completely agree with vice chair koluchi about the fact that we just need a long-term plan let me say i understand there's state laws i'm not for a moment suggesting we not comply my point is i think we should be open to what i'd rather characterize as exchanging existing assets for other long-term assets i don't think we should be looking at all and i understand that Nobody's been talking about it. But going down the road, I want to be sure we're not squandering assets. But if we have a building that we don't have a need for, we should try to do something with it and just be careful if there's proper disposal. I mean, rather than seeing something demolished, I think that's kind of a waste just because we don't want to carry it. Maybe somebody else wants it, and they don't mind bringing the deferred maintenance up to speed. But if we're going to look at doing that, we need to be sure that whatever we get for it will lead to some future assets, segregate those funds, and use them to acquire the assets we need. So I agree with the vice chair. We should be talking about a long-term plan for that. In the meantime, you know, if there is something that's just unnecessary for us, I'd still rather see us try to lease it out. I don't see why we should be in a rush to demolish something that may have some value just because we don't want to be stuck with the maintenance cost. I should add in my district, by the way, you know, we have older schools. And some of them are historic. They have real historic value. So we may have a property that's expensive in a part of the county that used to not be very developed. But, you know, Miami Beach High is in its 100th year. And I know in your district, Board Member Alonso says Hialeah High. So these may be more expensive to maintain, but... The buildings are historic, but more important, their role in the community is historic. You know, North Miami has a whole new North Miami High that's unrelated to the old one. Sometimes maybe we need to do that, but I think that needs to be a more individualized decision. I heard Mr. Perez talking about the 1.5, but he said $500 million to $700 million. in other savings that could be realized, that takes us maybe to 2.2. No, it's all one.

Mr. Price, can you clarify? Is that right?

Yeah, so through the chair, Mr. Chair, Dr. Geller, the capital plan has $1 billion for capital projects. you can extract maybe 75% to 80% of it addressing deferred maintenance. So that's like $750 to $800 million. Additional to that, the repurposing of these facilities that we were talking about, the savings there could be another between $500 and $750 million. So you get to that $1.5 million.

Oh, that's not on top. That's how the $1.5 million is constructed.

Correct.

Okay, thank you through the chair. I was not clear on that. Um, and I appreciate your clarifying. I do think it's correct that we need to, to look at, um, at some way to increase how much we're, we're going after that. But anyway, the only other thing I want to mention is I liked what board members Spino said about the new superintendent weighing in. Uh, there's an old saying, which I will not quote, uh, verbatim, uh, in the interest of decorum and the sensibilities of our chair. but it has to do with alligators in a swamp obscuring your efforts to drain the swamp because there are too many alligators. As I said, I'll skip the verbatim part, but we have a new superintendent who will come in surrounded by alligators. I mean, that's one of the reasons I favor an adequate transition period And I think it might be just a bit ambitious board member Espino to say he's got 60 days. I'd rather see 90 and give him or her a little chance to, you know, figure out everything else they have to do first, like helping Mr. Steiger make sure we don't sink before we set out on our voyage. And I don't think it needs to be a tentative adoption. I would suggest, I think your idea is a very good idea. I think we just adopt it, but we say that we will expect the new superintendent to furnish us with a comprehensive review of his or her view of this long-term plan 90 days in with recommendations for where the new superintendent thinks We need amendments. And that way we have a plan. It's not a tentative plan. We expect staff to be moving forward. But we'll make sure, as I think what your goal is, that we get that input from the new superintendent comprehensively. And then, you know, whatever amendments we need to make, we can make. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much, Board Member Geller and I think we do have some UF grads sitting in front of us, so we gotta be careful with the gators out there. All right, we have a final comment from Board Member Colucci, and then I think Ms. Santos still had another follow-up.

Thank you, and I'll be very, very brief. I just would be remiss if I didn't thank the team. This was a tremendous undertaking. I really enjoyed our conversations. uh they were good ones I think we are definitely headed in the right direction we know the challenges that face us what lies ahead and um you know I I'm confident that we will get there as a district together so thank you for your work I commend you and I know that we have to make some some fine tuning along the way but we will do so so thank you thank you so much Miss Santos

Thank you. The comment that I mentioned, I would close with this. On page 20, I think the matrix for new initiatives and programs is actually probably the most important tool that we're going to get out of the strategic plan. As Mr. Steiger said, once you adopt these objectives, it's really up to the administration to meet them. And this decision matrix, I will use it on myself when I have these what I think are brilliant ideas. But sometimes once you run it through the matrix, they don't really add up to be a strategic priority. And I promise to Cabinet to hold myself accountable to this decision. framework. And I think if we can stay disciplined in using this matrix, as hard as that may feel in the day to day, we will actually get very incredible results that will allow us to reinvest all those dollars into the experiences and the outcomes, and not just survive, but really thrive for the next 50, 100 years of educating every child at MDCPS. So I'm very glad slide 20 is there, and look forward to applying it on a day-to-day basis to every decision.

Thank you so much, Board Member Santos, and thank you again to the team. And I thought this was a very good conversation. It's important that we have it. This is the guiding light for our district, so I'm glad that every board member has been so engaged. and involved in this process. With that, we now move over to C3.

Through the Chair, C3 is requesting authorization for the Superintendent to finalize negotiations and execute a private school management and service agreement between the School Board of Miami-Dade County and Yeshiva Elementary, Inc. Any questions or comments?

Yes, Board Member Rojas, and then Board Member Geller after.

Thank you very much, sir. And I was reading through this, and I did have a few questions that I wanted to have a little bit clarity on. I did see where it stated that this management agreement is one that we've never done before, ever. So keeping that in mind, I did have a couple of questions. The first one I have is, I'M ASSUMING THAT THIS IS A PRIVATE SCHOOL OPERATING IN ONE OF OUR FACILITIES, CORRECT, THROUGH THE CHAIR? THROUGH THE CHAIR, THAT IS CORRECT. OKAY. THE NEXT ONE IS IN SECTION 3, UNDER PERSONNEL AND SUPERVISION, BASED ON WHAT I HAVE READ, ARE ANY MDCPS EMPLOYEES GOING TO BE HIRED BY THE PROVIDER OF THIS PARTICULAR SCHOOL, THROUGH THE CHAIR?

THROUGH THE CHAIR. SO SERVICES, AND I'LL ASK DANNY AND MATEO, worked with the general counsel's office to write the agreement. But they would contract through us. We are the exclusive management services provider for this school. So any services that they require, they have to go through us. Any materials, any head of school support, anything like that would go through us. Any supervision, anything of that sort. And if they need to add, if there's something that we deem that we cannot provide for whatever reason, or there is a particular reason why they need to use an outside vendor, they must have written approval from us. They cannot just seek some sort of support from elsewhere.

So through the chair, and I don't know if Mr. Mateo wants to add anything to that or not? Okay, great. So the bottom line is MDCPS employees ultimately will. Exactly, through the chair. Through the chair, they may. All right, mm-hm. All right, if this is a private school, do we do the same type of, or will we? Because we haven't done it before, obviously, with anyone else. But do we do any of this with private schools in the county outside of us doing it here? Has anything like this been done before?

Through the chair, no. That's why we indicated it's the first of its kind because it's the first time that we are.

With us, but are you cognizant of anything like this happening anywhere? Not with us directly, but with other entities or not? No? Through the chair?

No. All right.

Are these students going to be MDCPS students or not?

Through the chair, no, they will not be.

Okay. The district liaison, are we going to have to hire someone and assign someone to assume this particular role or not? Through the chair. No, we have a person on staff. Thank you. And I did look at the a la carte menu that was listed, and this provided us a... It was provided to us as part of the agenda that I read. And so this menu included practically just about everything that we do for our schools. So can you elaborate on how this is going to work? Again, I know that we do provide some services to charter schools, but in this one, it seems like we're providing everything. So if you could go ahead and elaborate on that, I'd appreciate it through the chair.

Absolutely, through the chair. So this is an a la carte menu. They will annually decide what services they choose to pay for. And then we would provide the scope, the quote. And if they decide to engage in that particular contract, then we would start to provide those services. So they can pick and choose from the menu. Obviously, all of these services generate some form of revenue for the district. But there is a very great business model, right? Honestly, because we do things at scale here. And most providers that are private out there don't. So it is a very nice model to start to engage in, particularly when we bring in other entities that operate within our schools.

Thank you. And lastly, through the chair, who are the students that are going to be served?

So elementary school, elementary age students, but they're their students, right? They're private school students. They have no relationship to the district.

Okay. That's what I wanted to know. Thank you. That's all I have, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Mr. Rojas. And Board Member Gutter, this school is actually in your district, so I'm sure you've met with them and understand what's coming. Or maybe you can give us a little enlightenment as to this provider.

Well, I can tell you that when you call it yeshiva, that is a little bit of a clue as to who the student body is going to be mostly composed of. That's a very long traditional name for educational institutions in the Jewish community. Yeshiva, there's, you know, they're all over the place. They're in New York, they're in Israel, there's some here. I had a lot of questions about this because I'm, as I've made clear in other comments, I'm pretty leery of private schools horning in on our mission, and I have a lot of different thoughts about the degree to which our state policy, supports them, although there are always exceptions to that, and in particular, when it comes to security, we have to be sure that we're supporting every student in this community and helping keep every student and every staff member safe. There are so many terrible threats out there today that my principle about concern of public money going to private schools must give way to safety and security for all students. So I had a lot of questions about this, and I asked them. And frankly, I really liked the answers I got. I think this is a really great idea, and I want to agree. This is a very good model. We just finished talking about the need to repurpose buildings. I mean, we could come in. This is an old building. It's been here, like I said, in high school, my friend lived next door to this building. That wasn't lately, as they say in Tallahassee. That's a long time ago. But what they've done here, they have what was a middle school next to it. They've built a new building. They've repurposed this into a K-8. And now we're left with this building. And I'm glad we're not demolishing that old building. Instead, it's now a revenue source. I don't have a problem with the idea that we're getting some money back from some of these private schools. Great. We have a building we don't need. They want to pay us to use it. What's not to like? We're, as you heard, we're an exclusive provider of all kinds of services that we can get money for in addition to the lease payments. Even better. We're putting it to use. We don't have, listen, demolition's not cheap either. We don't have to pay a nickel for demolition. We're taking the building that's there. They're the ones I assume, and please jump in and correct me through the chair if I'm wrong, We're not the ones responsible for fixing it up. We're giving it to them and they got to make it work. And please correct me if that's not. So I love this. I mean, you know, at first blush, I was very cautious. I think this is a model. This is exactly what we ought to be doing. And I'm glad to see the administration showing some creativity to bring us some money by using our assets. And I hope, per your point, Mr. Chair, that some of the money that we're going to get will go to help maintain the public school K-8 facility that's right next door. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Board Member Geller. And for the record, the provider is in your district, but the school is in District 1 that's being occupied. So it's a mix of two board members coming together to provide a great product and some revenue for our district. So thank you. All right, so that concludes all of our C items. Can I get a motion to move our C items to the board meeting?

Move it.

All in favor?

Aye.

Okay, our next order of business, the H items. Can I get a motion to move our H items to the floor? Move it. We have a second? Second. All in favor?

Aye.

All right, our first item is H3, and I believe that is my item. So it's actually a timely item that I bring as I just arrived back this morning from Washington, D.C., from the Ed Safe Policy Conference where we were talking about innovation and artificial intelligence through all of our schools and the impact that it's having and the changes that it's bringing, right? And it's no secret to us as a board that our district is a leader and innovator. Miami-Dade County and the Florida Task Force actually won an award yesterday for being the trailblazers across this country in innovation inside of our schools, which is something we should all be very proud of. And kudos to our staff, Danny Mateo, Lourdes Diaz, and all the other folks in our academic team that have really embraced innovation within there. And this board item, as it reads out, is an analysis of students' screen time and review of digital instruction tools. And I bring it not because obviously everybody knows here I'm not against technology. And I'm not against innovation, but there has been a lot of discussions in the public, both locally and a national level, on the concerns around technology and screen time specifically for our students. So technology has created incredible opportunities to personalize instruction, as we talk about all the time. IT'S PROVIDED ACCESS TO RESOURCES, ESPECIALLY IN COMMUNITIES THAT SOMETIMES DIDN'T HAVE ACCESS TO CERTAIN MATERIALS AND CONTENT, AND THROUGH OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCIES AND IN THE EXPANDING LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES FOR OUR STUDENTS IN THAT THESE TOOLS HAVE BROADENED. But technology continues to grow in all of our classrooms and more than our classrooms, in our homes. I typically go to restaurants and look around and see almost every child on a device while they're having dinner with their parents. So we know that according to many of the medical professionals out there that there are some risks to this and some risks that I believe are fair questions for this board to take on as we have that responsibility. So this item is simply asking us to better understand the current landscape across our district through data and analysis. And our board chair said it earlier, everything that we do here, we must do based on data. and the true data that is out there. It's also asked around what are our students actually experiencing day to day? And when I talk about that, I talk about what's the exposure to screen time by grade level, by subject area, and by instructional use. And then what are this being used from a screen time perspective in the school building but also at home? What is being required of the students when they go home regarding screen time and the different applications that they use? And importantly, that I think is critically important as we look at so many emerging technologies is, are the tools that we are investing in being utilized effectively and producing measurable instructional outcome? Because any tool that's coming into our schools, and there was actually a presentation on procurement and how it needs to be outcome-based procurement. So any dollar that we invest in this district, whether it be in technology or anything else, needs to be following that student and really needs to provide outcomes that are provable through data as impacting their growth. The conversation is one that I think needs to happen, especially right now as we continue to look at artificial intelligence, as we look at adaptive learning systems, and as we look at digital instructional platforms that are properly evolving and entering our K through 12 market and honestly the K through 20 market. So the goal in this item is not to be less innovative, but the goal is to be a smarter innovator. That we should embrace technology for instruction, for support of our teachers, to personalize learning, and to improve outcomes, and not simply to expose our students to additional screen time for the sake of convenience or for the sake of wanting to use tools versus teaching within the classroom. And I know our teachers are adamant about that. There were several teachers in the conference that we were talking to, and we're expressing how they want to continue to be a part of this. And that's why I always stress the importance of this is teacher-led, innovation, not technology company-led innovation instead of our schools. So I want to emphasize that this board item specifically calls for data so that we can do research-based and developmentally appropriate recommendations as a district. And we're asking our district experts to work with agencies out there, if need be, to be able to acquire this information. And what may be appropriate, based on high school students as well as our middle schools, our K-8s, and our elementary, because what's appropriate for a high school student, we know that with our recent deployment of Gemini might not be appropriate for our K through eights or for our elementary school students. And I think parents deserve this transparency as well. They deserve clarity around these conversations and they should have the ability to see this because there is a big notion out there that our district continues to increase screen time on our students and that teaching time is being taken away And this is not just a narrative here locally, it's one across the country and across the world. And another important component is ensuring that we are evaluating these technology products, as I said earlier, and that we're evaluating their instructional impact and the student outcomes, not just the rates or the contract values that are in there. And if something's working well, we should expand it, we should scale it. But if something is redundant, underutilized, or not producing value for our students, we should know that too. and we should make changes in those areas. So ultimately this is about responsible governance as a board, about continuous improvement in our schools, and making sure that we remain thoughtful leaders as education continues to evolve around us every single day. So I look forward to the findings of the administration on this and sharing this data not just amongst the board but amongst our community through our parent academy and making sure that our parents are aware of how it is that we use technology in our schools what type of exposure our students are having specifically to screen time, and what the impacts are of these technologies inside of our schools. I now open up to any board members that may have questions or comments. Actually, because it is my item. Board Member Kalushi, if you don't mind, you can call in.

Chair Rojas. Thank you so much. Board Member Alonso, thank you so very much for bringing this agenda item forth. It's so critically important. As a matter of fact, I had a very, very similar concern, and this goes back to June 21st of 2017. At that point, I proffered a board item, and I titled it Digital Addiction. because of the very same reasons that you have stated even way back then and I said we're culprits look around the room right now stop and everybody's on the phone and that includes us all of us we're all part of this and so going to restaurants as you alluded to seeing that there's no communication really within the families or anyone because everybody's on their phone that's what's happening so that's why I brought digital addiction for it because it's kind of like we're addicted to it. And the research available that we had at the time that also raised concerns regarding the amount of time that children particularly were overusing at that point, the technology as well as screen time that they were spending. This was tied at that point to obesity. And that was based on data. Children spending less time involved in sports. They were not exercising as they used to in the old days. And they were just simply not participating in other activities. So it's not even just really the time that children spend in school, but also the time after school. that they're still on video games and YouTube and whatever other avenues exist nowadays. So some school districts also are raising the alarm and they're also admitting that screens in classrooms are making students again worse off and reversing years of their Tech First policies. In fact, just recently, the Los Angeles Unified School District voted on April 21, 2026, to restrict students' use of laptops as well as tablets in class and encourage pen and paper assignments instead. This was making it the first of its kind major American school district in the nation to do that. The resolution requires staff to develop screen time policies based on grade levels, and it also bans first grade and younger students from using devices. So everybody's moving on this, but I have to thank Board Member Alonso again for bringing it forth. The timing could not be better. And it's really going to impact the students, as I alluded to, not just during school hours, but after school hours as well. And so at the proper time, I would like to serve as a co-sponsor to the item. That's all I have. Thank you, sir. Board Member Geller.

Thank you, Madam Vice Chair. I just want to co-sponsor, and while I'm speaking for the record, I'd like to co-sponsor all the other H items as well.

Thank you. And do I have anyone else? Yes, Board Member Santos.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to say that I really appreciate the approach that's being taken here. I think we all see every day the challenges of screen time and what it's doing, especially in children's brains that are still developing. And so I'm very curious to see the results of learning about, you know, where our students, like you said, what's working, what's not, what we should shift into, what we shouldn't should shift away from. And I'm very glad that that we're taking this on. So thank you, board member Alonzo, and I'll gladly co-sponsor.

Anyone else at this time? I love the item. I've been a strong proponent of really, really monitoring screen time, especially the younger the child. Cognitively, it is There was just, and I brought this forward in an article not too long ago, just a couple months before you brought the item, we had a discussion about it, about how this generation they're showing that is less cognitively developed than the previous generation and there's links to show that it is because of all of the screen time. So now I'm sure that there are people that can argue against that or for it but I think it's time for us as a society to pause and really analyze what we're doing because we're seeing severe consequences of all of this screen time. It has its place. We can't shy away from it because this is the direction that our society is moving toward. But we need to make sure that our students have the fundamental abilities, skills, critical thinking skills that they need to move forward and solve problems and not just be passive learners to a screen. They need to interact. They need to engage. you know, discussion, Socratic circles, all of these things that are so critical. I have some questions for staff about our use of screen time, if I may. And I'm just wondering, do we have a list of all of, and I know, when I was in the classroom, you know, we have iReady, we have all of the progress monitoring, we have the the students that are ESOL that they use, I forgot the name of it. Yes, if you can.

So through the chair, yes, we have a wide variety of digital resources that we use, and we're very grateful for the item and for the support of the board in bringing this, supporting your item, because it will allow us that opportunity, I think, where we have, perhaps, not been as successful as sharing with parents the exact amount of time and the implementation plan. And that not all students utilize all platforms. As you all know, because again, you have supported us in these endeavors, we've been very thoughtful in how we've rolled out things. Like Mr. Alonso said, for Gemini, we said only for high school. And, you know, we're very careful to do things that are age appropriate, that are timely, that we think about and that we inform. But I still think there's room for us to communicate better with the parents to let them know, you know, yes, it's I ready, for example, is 45 minutes for the whole week. It shouldn't be 45 minutes for the day. It shouldn't be, you know, and just having that clarity, the things that should be done at the school during D.I. time. versus what should be done at home, and all of these things. So I'm looking forward to adding that in the item to make sure that we have that clarity and that parents understand students who are perhaps in an intervention group, they need additional minutes, additional supports, but they're also getting additional paper, pencil, and teacher support, teacher directed. So I think we need to communicate those details better to our families, so that they understand, because I do also kind of hear those comments, oh, there's so much, but there really isn't, and I'm looking forward to sharing that information with the board in the follow-up, because the minutes are very specific, and very specific by subject and by grade, but it's all the other minutes, I think, that students spend that together make a lot of screen time.

Right. So and a follow up question. If you were to say required, I know it's 45 minutes for I ready in math and reading. So that's a total of 90 minutes. Additionally, so that's. they could do that in class or on their own through the chair.

It should be done in class during DI, particularly in ELA. In mathematics, it's a little harder because the block is so much shorter. So then a lot of times it's assigned for homework or to complete it at home.

So my concern is this, and it always was as a teacher, when you have the students on the computer during class time, it becomes almost like a substitute for the teacher. I'm not saying that it can't be an assistant, it can't be, not a substitute, but I understand for DI, but I value every single moment that the teacher has with that child. So I'm very hesitant to put a child in front of a screen when they have a limited amount of time with a teacher, where they can interact, where they can have conversation, where they can engage. Also, I really like when they, even if it's DI with a consumable workbook, where they are actually handwriting, where they're taking notes, where they're... So I personally, I know not every parent has access to, you know, internet at home or the computer, but I don't want this conception to be that, you know, more... of this is better, and we have that conception in, I'm not saying in our district, I think as a society that more is better, and that's not necessarily the case. I think we need to measure, we need to communicate with the parents, like you said, that you don't need to do, parents say, oh, my kid is doing great now, I'm gonna do even more iReady. That's not the point. I'd rather them read a book, I'd rather them engage in the love of reading, and discussing the theme, the character development and all of that, but that's another topic. Do we have a matrix that we use when we are going to adopt

new piece of technology through the chair so that that was we we had shared that in a previous request that that you had actually brought to us when you talk about the resources and so we utilize um we look at things that are age appropriate developmentally appropriate we bring in focus groups sometimes with teachers before we introduce something new but the software does not go through the formal adoption process like a textbook does right so we utilize The same elements, but it's not as formal because it's a supplemental, not like we do when we do the full scale. Correct.

But do we have, like, if we're going to adopt, for example, XYZ program, do we sit and really analyze with the matrix and with the committee to say this is beneficial or we already have something like this so that we're not replicating and adding more screen time and more dollars?

Through the Chair, so yes, correct. As a matter of fact, we've been doing that the last couple of years even more so to the part about replication to ensure that we do not have replication because during the time of ESSER, When money was plentiful, we purchased many, many different items with the intent of helping all different types of learners bridge that gap. There had been a lot of learning loss or loss of opportunity to learn, and we had the funding, so we purchased many different products to try to meet the needs of all our different learners. But we have since pared down and looked really carefully at what we offer and making sure that there isn't replication that we're not spending monies that we don't need to spend looking also at our textbooks our new textbook adoptions have a lot of different embedded elements so utilizing those as well so we're not like double paying so we have We've definitely done that, particularly in the last two years, and reduced our software consumption by millions.

And I think that's critical, twofold. First, because of the screen time, and secondly, because it's our fiduciary responsibility to look out for the taxpayer dollars and not be replicating things that cost millions of dollars that we don't need to. So the younger, again, I will say this again and again for the record, the younger the child, the less time they need on the screen. So Board Member Alonso, I fully support the item. I'd like to be a co-sponsor. Does anyone else want to speak at this time?

Just in closing?

Yes, Board Member Alonso.

No, thank you to fellow board members for your support. And look, I love innovation, but as a parent, I have concerns all the time. which is why I strictly try to always focus on teacher-supporting tools rather than actually student-facing tools. And I think it's something that we always talk about on innovation. And because people do listen to this meeting, and I want to put it out there because yesterday I learned of something. I'm not somebody who chats with my phone or uses any tools, but parents, and I'll say this even next week at our Wednesday meeting, parents need to be aware of what their children are doing in their personal devices. These are not district-issued devices. there was a student panel that I was sitting on yesterday, and what these students were sharing that they're doing with their phones, and who they feel comfortable speaking to, which is not even a human, is concerning. And these are not districts, this is actually researchers talking about the concern that they have with these technologies that are being out there, and that parents don't even know, because it's no longer an AI, and I wanna put that out there, Everybody looks at AI, but it's not AI. It's the current apps that they're currently using that we felt comfortable with. Little games, little chat tools. And I'm not saying any names because I don't want any companies suing me. But they are embedding bots into there and other mechanisms to be able to create addiction. to be able to create a need for the game and the application. That's the whole gamification world of it. Um, and then they're stealing your data. They're stealing our precious child's mind and their data. So as a district, I hope that this board continues to expand on that conversation on supporting our parents through our parent Academy, which has done an amazing job. Um, and being able to bring light to what it is that we do as a district and then what they're being exposed to at home too. So thank you all for your support on this board.

So may I have a motion for co-sponsors? Second, all in favor? May I have a motion to move the item as amended? Move it. All in favor? Aye. And I'll turn it back over to you.

Thank you so much, Vice Chair Colucci, for your help on that. Our next item is going to be H4. This item is... Your item, Board Chair Rojas, H4.

Thank you very much, sir. And I would like to, at this time, bring H4 to the floor, which is school board endorsement commemorating the 124th anniversary of the independence of Cuba, May 20th, 2026. And this is an agenda item which I'm very, very proud of. And it follows a historical endorsement of the school board commemorating, again, the 124th anniversary of the independence of Cuba, which we observe May 20th, 2026. And by the way, to our previous chair, who's no longer with us, this was something that she was so proud of as well, and I would love to go to different events that she held, and we all did, but I went to some of her events at her schools, and I'm sure that she's smiling from above on this particular item. Thank you. This occasion marks a very significant moment in history. Again, Cuba first emerged as a sovereign nation, reflecting the enduring values of self-determination, cultural identity, and national pride. In acknowledging this tremendous milestone, the board also recognizes the deep historical and cultural ties shared by many members of our Cuban American community in Miami-Dade County. We're also mindful of the continuing aspirations of our Cuban people. We honor not only the history of independence, but also the enduring hope that is held right now by many in Cuba and hopefully one day again they will be able to fully realize the ideals of freedom, of democracy, and of self-governance. This hope is rooted in resilience and also a profound love of country remains a powerful reminder of the universal desire for liberty and also for human dignity. Through this recognition, the school board reaffirms its commitment to fostering awareness, inclusivity, and respect for the diverse histories and perspectives that shape our community. That's the item, sir.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair. Do we have any comments? So we'll start with Board Member Geller.

I just want to thank the Chair for bringing this, and I want to just, I've already indicated I want to co-sponsor. I just want to say that I hope that this is the last Cuban Independence Day to be celebrated before Cuba is free as well as independent. Thank you.

From your lips to God ears. Yes, thank you. Any other board members? Board Member Colucci. Oh, you're, okay. All right, so can we have co-sponsors on the board? Second. Second. All in favor? Aye. Okay, move the board item as amended to the board meeting. Second. All in favor? Okay, our next board item is H5. That is your item as well, vote member Ross.

Yes, thank you. And this is the recognition of the Florida Seal of Biliteracy Program in Miami-Dade County Public Schools. This agenda item before us now recognizes the very successful implementation and continued success of the Florida Seal of Biliteracy Programs within Miami-Dade County Public Schools. This distinction established by the state of Florida honors high school graduates, again, who have demonstrated tremendous proficiency in two or more languages, underscoring the academic, cultural, and economic value of multilingualism. As one of the most linguistically and culturally diverse school districts in our entire nation, Miami-Dade County Public Schools has truly embraced the seal of biliteracy as a meaningful way to celebrate students' language skills while preparing them for success in a very global society. Through this agenda item, the board continues to commend the students, the educators, as well as the families whose dedication and commitment and contributions to the growth of biliteracy across our district has occurred throughout the years and will continue to do so hopefully for many more years to come. The board further affirms its support for initiatives that expand access to high quality language programs ensuring that all students have the opportunity to be developed and to also recognized for the multilingual abilities that they have gained in Miami-Dade County Public Schools. I will be revising the agenda item specifically to the numbers that are on the eligible students for the diploma designation that has changed. So I will be making an updated document that will be disseminated later prior to the board meeting just on those numbers. Thank you very much, sir. Again, in this country, and especially in the state of Florida and in Miami, particularly, we have so many students coming in from different countries, so many languages that are spoken here in Miami-Dade County and outside. Honestly, the students, having been the principal of a school where this was offered, and that's Sunset Elementary School, Spanish, French, German, these children are exposed to so many wonderful opportunities. And in most countries, you speak more than one language. So the more languages you speak, the more opportunities that may come your way. So thank you very much. That's the item, sir.

Thank you so much for bringing this meaningful item. Do we have any questions or comments from any board members? All right, co-sponsors? Move it. Second. All in favor? Aye. Move the item as amended to the board meeting? So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Okay, our next board item is H6, and this is your board item. Board member Spino.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As you all recall, the state of Florida adopted a Victims of Communism Day, which we furthered by doing a Victims of Communism Week, and after its first year, I'm proud to say that there were activities throughout the county with speakers and activities, videos. I can tell you that the level of engagement with Armando Ayalares and Miami Springs Senior High or the roundtable conversation we had at SAS West was, it was better than I thought. I really had, you know, I have kids and I know how much they care about stuff or don't care about stuff, especially the older boys, don't really care about anything. And so to see a room of 40 teenagers engaged at the edge of, how old is Armando Valle that is now? Yeah, yeah, to hinge on every word was extremely compelling. The state of Florida through the Department of Education developed and the State Board of Education approved new social studies guidelines in November 25. And frankly, it's completely applicable to our region because so much of it incorporates Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and we have families that now generationally have fled that or have experienced it in different ways. So this item directs the superintendent of schools to conduct a comprehensive review of the newly adopted social studies standards from FDEP, sorry, FDEO, and incorporate the history of communism and integrate the existing middle and high school courses, evaluate the district's curriculum, pacing guidelines to ensure that we're keeping pace and that our children can continue to understand the horrors of communism. So that philosophy, it's not really to say that again. Thank you, that's the item.

Thank you so much, Board Member Espino, on this great item. I will call upon the previous board member who just brought another item, which is very connected to this, Venta de Mayo, right? So, Board Chair Rojas, you're recognized.

We're coordinating.

Right, exactly, absolutely not. Number one, I'm thrilled to see this item in front of us, extremely important. And it truly has been an interesting journey I remember way back when you were not on the board yet, I proffered item H3 at that time. And that was at the meeting of May 8, 2022. And that's when, for the first time, the official endorsement and support for the implementation of the newly adopted Florida House Bill 395, which was Victims of Communism Day. It was the beginning of a journey, truly, that has brought us to this point in time now. where we are today. And learning about the evils of communism, as stated by Board Member Espino, is critically important for children as they're growing up to really truly understand what it means to live in a country. And I'll give the example, such as Cuba, which is only 90 miles away from Miami, where I came from. and the difference of life in that country as opposed to how we live right here in a land full of freedom and opportunity. I just have a question for staff, and again, Board Member Espino, thank you for bringing it forth. 2025-2026, the student progression plan, the chart for the elementary school requirements on that, that I always refer to it, states that in the beginning of the 2026-2027 school year, the history of communism will be implemented in grades K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, five and they're all listed on that document similar language is included for the middle grades and those are the requirements for grades six and seven as well as eight and then my my question is regarding what is listed for senior high schools because the section about the victims of communism day in grades nine ten eleven and twelve are listed as follows. In the narrative, it also states that high school students enrolled in the United States government class must receive 45 minutes of instruction on Victims of Communism Day. However, in the section that states that beginning in the 2026-2027 school year The history of communism is to be taught at the high school level, but there are no grades that are listed on there. If you look at the progression plan, there's no grade. So could you help me with this? Because I didn't see anything on our pupil progression plan there, the student progression plan.

Thank you. So I don't have the student progression plan in front of me, and it may have been an oversight. So there's a difference between... I brought it. Thank you. The required topics and the standards, right? So the required topic has to be taught in all grades. However, it's not included in, there's no instruction of the actual standards in K through five, right? So there's the topic of instruction versus the standards. But if there's an error and it's not reflected there, but it is, there are in the different, in ninth grade world history, In 11th grade US history, there are different, it's studied in a different way in each grade level.

Thank you, and through the chair, I did, I went through every one. I went through the elementary, and then through the middle school, and highlighted each one of the areas, and senior high. When you go to the senior high school, You see there is nothing listed at all. So maybe that's something that we may want to then take a look at.

Yes, through the chair. Thank you. We'll definitely go back. But if indeed it looks that way, it was an oversight. There are standards and different things for the second.

Thank you. So back to Board Member Espino's item. I fully support it 100%. And at the appropriate time, I would like to be a co-sponsor. And once again, thank you for bringing this very important item up.

I think. Okay, any further comments from board members? These board items always bring up great conversations, right? And allow us to make sure that we're doing what we gotta be doing. So thank you. Co-sponsors?

Move it.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Move the board item as amended.

Move it. Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Okay, our next board item is H8. This is board member Santos' item.

She's right there.

Board Member Santos, you're recognized to present your item.

Thank you so much. Right in time. Colleagues, I really appreciate your support in adopting the post-secondary success framework years ago. As we know, post-secondary includes college, career, military, basically all of the pathways that our students can take to lead them to success beyond the high school graduation and diploma. Since the adoption of this student post-secondary success framework, there are so many great things that have happened. I want to just call out one that really stands out, and I don't know if everybody knows this, but we lead the state, thanks to the work of our academics department, student services, and our college advisors, we are number one in the state now for FAFSA completion. That is just one example of the ways that this district is opening doors of access and opportunity. And so the item before you today is essentially to receive the last five years' worth of data and trends as a result of this framework and all of the efforts that our academics department has been implementing. So I ask for your support to review where we've done outstanding work, where gaps remain, and where we can strengthen alignment across advising, data, partnerships, and student support.

Thank you so much for your board item. Any questions or comments on the board?

Cosponsorship.

Cosponsors?

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Move board item as amended.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Okay, we now move over to new business. Do we have any new business from any board members?

No.

No? Okay. Board Member Santos, you're recognized.

Thank you so much. One friendly reminder to my colleagues that at our next week's meeting, we'll be celebrating Academic and Career Signing Day, so please wear your college gear or display it on your part of the dais, please, so we can celebrate our students all together. It's across our entire county. And secondly, a quick follow-up. We did receive transmission of the follow-up to the follow-up on board member Colucci's January item on advanced pathways. And I had two quick follow-up questions on that for Ms. Diaz. Through the chair, one, there's a program that's outlined as one of our offerings in the elementary grade levels called TEAM. Can you kindly share what that is?

Sure. Through the chair. Sure. TEAM is an acronym for Teaching Enrichment Activities Mindfully. And it's basically a placement that doesn't require any testing or anything, but it's for students that are able to perform at a rigorous level or do more advanced learning and maybe didn't qualify for gifted or have not yet been tested for gifted. so they can be grouped together and we provide some additional resources, some additional materials to try to elevate them in, again, if they have not yet qualified for gifted or in the process, it's ensuring that they're receiving learning in the style that would best meet their needs and otherwise just continuing to enrich and have more higher order thinking and more problem solving in addition to the regular curriculum that they're accessing. It's an elementary only.

Thank you so much, yes, and through the chair, appreciate the thorough follow up on what we offer and the timeline for moving forward, how we're gonna identify and then notify parents as well over the summer. So can you tell us how you plan to notify those parents of eligibility and program options? I know in the plan it says during June, July.

Through the chair, yes, I was going to the timeline. So it varies by grade level, of course, because for the secondary students, high school students, subject selection is a much more robust process than it is at the elementary level. At the elementary level, they basically move as cohorts, and the notification is much simpler. And fortunately or unfortunately, there seems to be a lot more parent frequency of visits to the school and communication with the counselor, homeroom teacher, et cetera. So for the secondary students, the notification would begin as early as January when they're doing subject selection. So making parents aware of the the different courses that are available, the different strands, the different pathways. For the elementary students, the notification of placement would be in the summer because they don't really place them until after we have PM3 results. But communication is ongoing and it should be happening at the schools all along. So after PM1, there should be communication with the parents. After PM2, there should be communication. And then formally after PM3 is when we say, hey, your child has been placed in this or that. Or at the time of when they're staffed. So if it's a gifted child, who gets staffed at the time of staffing the offer is made, and sometimes they get changed right at that moment if it's early in the school year, sometimes later. And likewise, even when there's maybe a student with special needs, some sort of ESE staffing or a re-eval, and the student's placement can be changed. So it's pretty fluid in the elementary, but basically, After each assessment period, it should be communicated with parents and the final placement in June, July, more likely.

Thank you. And through the chair, I know many of our schools have been doing this, will continue to do it. Is there anything different as a result of this plan that we're going to be doing? I think maybe the universal identification, basically, of students seems like a new thing. It kind of was more hodgepodge before. Is that an accurate read through the chair?

So, yes, through the chair and thanks to the item, I think it's definitely more spelled out for the schools. There are still guidelines because there's always flexibility and, of course, parent choice. Because even if a child scores in the highest level, the parent still ultimately has the decision-making power to say, I want my child in this or in this type of course. But I think we added the decision trees and gave very clear-cut pathways for where expert staff believes that students should go. And of course, there's variability school to school. Some schools will have more offerings of one kind or another. Again, particularly in the middle grades and high school grades, there's so much variability in terms of honors and advanced placement. And students, I mean, not AP, but advanced placement options, including AP. But even in the middle grades, there's a lot of variation from school to school, and I think, as I said just a minute ago, the most important thing is increasing our communication with the parents and ensuring that they know the options that are available and also what it takes to get there, right? Because sometimes there are things that maybe a student needs a little bit more enrichment, maybe a student needs a little bit more tutoring, maybe if they want to enter a certain pathway, particularly in secondary, so making parents aware of that, and students, because in the secondary, And that's not reflected in the timeline, but now that I said it, I'm going to ask staff to go back and make sure it's there. Advising students more frequently and clearly about if you want to attain this, this is the pathway that you need to take. And I think we can always do that better.

Thank you so much, yeah, through the chair, I had a student who told me, because in ninth grade, my counselor did walk me through the pathway, I was able to start and be on track to get my associates before my high school graduation. And thank you again to Board Member Colucci for bringing that item.

All right, thank you so much, Board Member Santos. We now have Board Member Colucci.

Thank you, and I do want to thank the team for going back and addressing all of the concerns that I have. I really appreciate it. It's much more comprehensive now. I do, you know, I really like on page 204 how it shows the data reveal a clear correlation between proficiency levels and advanced course placement. So when we analyzed our data, when we have these advanced pathways, when we have this advanced placement, we're seeing our proficiency levels rise. And I'm glad to see that there is a plan in place now to try to move our students. Because when we challenge our students with accelerated pathways, that's when the expectations rise, and that's when they meet the challenges. I see here on page two or four after that first chart, an identified area for growth exists at the elementary level where only 12% of level three students are formally enrolled in advanced coursework. So I think that's key there, especially since we know that level three, we can get them up to the fours and those fours up to the fives. So I think that that is where we're missing a very, very big key. And I'm glad it was identified here because I think that that's a strategy that we can hone in on to look at those level threes and say, let's give them this opportunity. Let's give them the supports that they need to get into those courses and move forward. And obviously, they may not qualify for gifted, obviously, because there are certain stringent requirements for that. But team, enrichment classes. extended foreign language, and I saw all of those in the report as well. So those are some of the things. And just to piggyback off of Board Member Santos' point, I wish I would have had more time to really go through this. It was a very comprehensive report, but we did get it on May 4th, and it was very long. So I will look at it, and I'll look at it further, but if I have any other questions, I will be very sure to talk to you about it and have another discussion about it. But thank you so much for the time and effort. I know that this was a lot of work, but I think that if we have a clear goal and a clear plan in mind, then we can move this district forward to the next level. So thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. And I'll move to Board Member Rojas.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mine is very brief. It's we're fast approaching graduations, and right after that, summer school. Could you please tell us about what is happening with summer school for this particular year?

Yes, ma'am, through the chair. So for summer, we will, of course, be offering our – required programs for lack of a better word. So of course our ESY for all grade levels, students with disabilities who qualify for ESY will have that. We also for the second year have a new program that is called Summer Bridge, and it is for students who are in pre-K, the bridge to kindergarten, so we prioritize the students. Last year, it was the state-identified students below the 10th percentile. This year, it's up to students below the 25th percentile, but those are the ones that we prioritize, but any pre-K student, that is has not or is rising into kindergarten is welcome to attend we will have it at all of our open sites we are opening this year primarily k-8 centers to allow for having um it eases the transportation and we can have the students that are k through three is who we will primarily have there and then we also have those in the middle grades who need credit recovery through mr mantilla shop and adult ed they will be offering course recovery opportunities for the high school students as well so we will have in the elementaries k through three and of course the third grade reading camps for any of those who have not yet met the promotion requirement and we will be testing in july we will also be testing in july for retakers that need for algebra one will also be able to test and then a lot of our schools and this is a in my partner, Dr. Lewis's shop, but a lot of our schools are offering principle operated camps, or they also have community organizations that are using their facilities for summer camps. So we have a really broad array of things that parents can have their students engage in. And then we also have keep thinking of things as I talk, summer youth internship program, which is moving right along. We're hoping to have close to 3,600, hopefully a little more students involved in that for this year. And then there are a number of little small different specialty camps that we do in partnership with the different universities and colleges in the area and different things. So that's all on our website. So we have a good array.

Through the chair, thank you so much. That's very comprehensive. I'm sure you probably already have identified the schools where they're going to hold the summer schools and the summer camps. Are we going to get a document related to that soon? Through the chair?

Yes, we normally transmit to the board, but we are just finalizing the schools because we were trying to really be thoughtful in not duplicating. So if there was a school that had a camp, then we tried to use a different so that we would have the most spread this community is really large and obviously we can't open every school so we were trying to be deliberate in the planning the regions we met many many times and I think we're at a good place now where we finalize and other things like a lot of construction and GOB projects and things happen at the school so where we thought we were going to have it we have to move it but that's a good thing because there's progress so once the list is complete as we always do we'll transmit the programs and the locations to the board

So through the chair, thank you so much. And I'm sure that you're going to have all nine board member districts with representation, of course. So my last question has to deal with the fact that because of the arena that we find ourselves in fiscally, is synergy still going to take place? And if so, how is that being funded through the chair?

Through the chair, so Synergy is, Dr. Baglo's here, but I'll take it.

She's here, Dr. Baglo's is back there.

I'll answer it, through the chair, I'll answer it. It's going to be a little different this year. It will be for principals. Synergy will be for principals. We're going to be doing a lot of work with feeder pattern alignment and principals working with each other. So it will be particularly around building up their skill set and their collaborative skill set. And since we have changes, as we said earlier, to feeder patterns and to school configurations and so on, we felt that having the principals together and working through the different topics in a more cohesive group rather than kind of like scattered would be a good model.

Thank you.

So no, I didn't get an answer to my second part of the question. If so, how is it going to be funded? Again, fiscally, we're trying to be very conservative right now. So I just would like to know that answer.

So through the chair, fiscally, there's almost no impact. The principal will be hosting it at The country club, professional development, professional learning house. And principals are 12 months. They don't require stipends or fees. And we are the presenters. Our staff, senior staff and cabinet, will be sharing presentations. So there's almost no cost associated.

So through the chair, no longer at the college as we had in the past or anything like that, and the food is being donated, all of that is, there's no cost. Through the chair. Brown bag lunches. Thank you.

It's BYOL. But it will not, no, it will be at Country Club, it will not be at the college, and we are working through the details, but very minimal, very minimal cost.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Board Member Colucci.

This is just very, very brief. Thank you, Mr. Chair. To just go off of what Chair Rojas said, these camps, summer camps, those are at a cost to the parents, correct? Through the chair?

Through the chair, yes. Minimal cost. Minimal cost. They run usually through our community-based organizations, Dr. Linda Amiga-Robertshop, but we have a lot of different organizations that work with us, and students on free or reduced lunch receive a reduced price, and so they're very... They're affordable and some are free because some are funded through the Children's Trust so those that have a fee associated It's usually the same company that does the aftercare at the school and oftentimes sometimes it's another provider But the Children's Trust ones are free and there are a few others I don't want to leave anybody out, but there are other community-based organizations that also offer them for free Oh, and municipalities, that's right.

Thank you, Mr. White. Okay, and then through the chair, just a follow-up question, and I don't know if we have this or not. Are any of those camps, do we have opportunities to maybe hone in on those third graders that are, or those elementary schools that are the 12% level three to offer them perhaps an enrichment? Because you know sometimes, not sometimes, all the time, Summer comes and kids get back in the fall and they've forgotten. Just, oh, I don't remember that. And then you have to, you spend quite a bit of time. So maybe we can offer through the camps, maybe just a small portion of the day to, by invitation, if parents are interested, an acceleration camp, you know, something of that. It's just a thought. So that was my comment.

Thank you so much, Borna Colucci. And, you know, just on the summer school side, I was made aware and asking during spring and during the winter break we did open up some schools and there was very little if not minimal if not maybe no attendance at them so if we open up summer school in some schools let's make sure students are attending and that there's a plan if students don't show up that staff can go back home and we don't have to pay teachers because there were schools in my area that had very minimal students and a time that we're now trying to find cost savings to pay staffers just to sit around in the building i think it's not smart of us to do so in closing i just want to thank staff for the incredible work that you all did around armed services signing day i was able to attend highly a high this monday night and what an experience to see over 54 students being pinned and receiving their their regardless and the dedication that they're making towards our country. And to celebrate those students I think was so important. So thank you and I hope it's a longstanding tradition of our district now where we take that little moment just to recognize them for such an important role that they're gonna take in our country. So thank you all so much. Our last update here was an ETO update which I believe everybody received. Does anybody have any questions on the ETO update from Dr. Diggs who's here? Seeing none, there's no additional new business, and there's nothing else to discuss, I make a motion to adjourn today's committee meeting.

All in favor? Aye.