Education Committee - Regular Meeting

Stand with me for the pledge of allegiance.

Pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all.

And now I'd like to do a roll call, and we'll just start down there. If you could just say your name. Caroline Pena.

Melissa Ranieri.

Shelly Albright. Marcella Montesinos.

Christina O'Brien.

Thank you. And do we have any opening comments this evening? Anyone?

Any opening comments? Not right now.

Not right

now? I Well, first

do have one opening comment. Just so you guys are aware, we have someone join via Zoom with related Ross. So just some if you'd be aware, if you hear something from the speaker, it's from Zoom.

That's

right. It won't startle us. And we are so glad that you all are here with us this evening. Thank you so much for attending, and we're looking forward to hearing everything everyone has to say. And the first order of business would be to approve the minutes. I'm sorry, the agenda. And all in favor of the agenda say aye.

Aye. Someone needs to make a motion.

I'm sorry, sorry, sorry.

No problem. I motion to approve the agenda.

Is there a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Any against? Okay. And then next on to, we need a motion for the approval of minutes.

I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from the December 3 meeting. I will second that.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Great, then that passes. And we'll move on to old business. Is there any old business?

Just small updates from our last meeting. We invited the public via our schools and we also put it on our Facebook events tab for our social media posts to keep everyone from the public aware of our updates. And we also updated our education committee website where it's gonna reflect my email. So if anyone has any contact, I can reflect it to you guys. And also, there's just an update of the the mission statement and all the responsibilities at

Education That's great.

Thank you. Thank Okay. So then we will move on to new business. And first up is the presentation of the Wellington Schools by Palm Beach County School District Central Region Representatives. Good

evening, Village of Wellington Education Committee. Thank you for having me again this evening. I always look forward to showcasing some of the great things happening in our schools here in the village of Wellington, all 11 of them. So I will go one by one and share with you what's happening. But before I do, I want to share some greetings from Superintendent Burke, our Deputy Chief of Schools, Mr. Tierney, and also, of course, Ms. Andrews. She is I don't I'm not sure that she's going to be able to make it this evening. I know there's a group of our upper leadership that's in Tallahassee right now. So but greetings from them all.

And so as you know, we are an A rated school district and we're working diligently to maintain that A rating as well as the straight As in the village of Wellington schools. As I mentioned each time that I do update you is that all of the work that we do is really anchored on the strategic plan that is still active and we are continuing to work on until 2027. In the next year or so, we're going to begin drafting the new strategic plan for the next five years, but we're still working on our current plan. So we're going to start our little tour of our schools, starting with Binks Forest Elementary and some of their recent highlights. They just held a community carnival fundraiser, which was held on February 15.

They now have a new working digital marquee that they're super excited about. They also participated in the Spark Ed fundraiser on March 3, which was yesterday. And the next SAC School Advisory Council meeting is scheduled for March 19. Over at Elbridge Gale Elementary School well, you know what, I'm going to go back to Banks. I don't have that information on there, but I just wanted to share with you some of the updates because, you know, as you know, Banks Forest is going to be reducing their enrollment by quite a bit by almost 500 plus students as the new school Saddle View Elementary School, which is newly named out in the Arden community is opening up in August.

Things are going really well. I know that the principal, Ms. Dwan Ross, is has been meeting with the parents and they do host over at Banks Forest for the principal for Saddleview to be there to be able to continue meeting with the parents and updating them as they transition into their new school coming up in August. So Banks is going to be feeling that much needed relief with, you know, less enrollment at the school, so that's coming up. But I just wanted to mention to you that it's going extremely smoothly.

And because Saddleview is also in Central region, I'm able to, with Ms. Green, who is here with us this evening, our instructional superintendent for elementary schools in the village of Wellington, we're able to work in partnership with both schools to be able to have a very smooth transition. So moving back over to Elbridge Gale Elementary School and some of their recent highlights. The RoboGators robotics team received four trophies, so they did an extremely amazing job as they do each year. GatorBots earned the Robot Design Finalist Award.

Their tutorials, and that's thanks to the Keeley Spinelli grants, began back in January for those students that need that additional support. Their STEM and Literacy Night with Food Trucks is being held on March 11. Their Pop fundraiser is scheduled to begin tomorrow until the nineteenth, and I know that's a big highlight over at Elbridge Gale. And it's one of their biggest fundraisers. And their next school advisory committee meeting is scheduled for March 20.

Over at Equestrian Trails Elementary School, some of their recent highlights. Their SACME student placed third in their essay contest, and that's at the Olympiad. School garden is now filled with fruits, vegetables, and flowers. They raised over $16,777 for Kids Heart Challenge. And then their tutorials, thank you to the Achilles Spinelli grant, is being offered for students in kindergarten through fifth grade for reading and math that are in need of the extra support.

And then their next school advisory committee meeting is on March 5. Over at New Horizons Elementary, as you know, the principal moved to a middle school over in Martin County. But now I am happy to share that Mrs. Diana Perez, who is a principal that recently retired, was called back to take on an intern or an interim principal position at New Horizons. A little bit about Ms.

Perez. She comes to us very, very much seasoned and especially in the dual language programming, as well as the International Spanish Academy as New Horizons is because she was the principal at Berkshire Elementary School, which is also an ESA school out in the East on the East Side of the coast. And so she comes well versed and super excited to be able to finish out the school year. We will begin what we call a run of show, meaning we will begin working on selecting a highly qualified principal. Next week actually we're going to start with the focus groups in which we're going to gather the information from our community and our parents as well as our faculty and staff to be able to hear them and listen to their voices as to what qualities, what type of experiences and skill set they're looking for in their next principal.

So that's starting as soon as next week. That way we will have someone named very, you know, soon. So but Ms. Perez will finish the end of the through the end of the school year and then the new principal will take the position for next school year. But we wanted to be able to have ample time to find the highest qualified and the best match for New Horizons as to why we did this and going this route. And so we'll see. We'll see what happens in the near future. But we're looking forward to the support and also the input from our faculty, staff, parents and community. So you're all welcome to participate in that. And it will be led by Doctor.

Green. Okay. Moving on to New Horizons. Their STEM teams won at the LEGO Explore Festival. Their eSports team was the semi finalist in the South Florida Minecraft Bill Challenge one. BLAST, which is Black Leadership and Achievement Student Team, presented their interactive black history project boards. They also had a visit by author Louis Lowry, which they were very excited about. They also hosted a motivational speaker and author, Caleb Wescoe. And their next School Advisory Council meeting is scheduled for March 17. Over at Panther Run Elementary, some of their recent highlights.

Safety patrols visited Washington, D. C. Girls on the Run participated in their five ks. The SECME team also attended the Olympiads. They had a successful Bring Your Parents to PE Week.

And four students were also awarded at Article And after school tutorial, thanks to the Keeley Spinelli grant, also began on February 24. And their next school advisory committee meeting is scheduled for April 2. Wellington Elementary School and some of their recent highlights. They actually had the winner of the K-twelve School Art Projects at the South Florida Fair, and there's a beautiful artwork there. Student is the finalist also in the Palm Beach County School Bus Alcohol Free, Vape Free Poster Contest.

Their tutorials, thank you to the Keely Spinelli grant, before and after school are also being offered for the students in need. Their spirit night at Chicken Salad Chick on March 6 is coming up. And then the mother son event is scheduled for March 7. And then their St. Augustine field trip is scheduled for March 21.

And their next school advisory council meeting is scheduled for tomorrow night. Moving on to our middle schools, which I call them the glue, the schools that are between the elementary and the high schools. Emerald Cove Middle School, congratulations to Kalia Brown. She is our CTE Student of the Year. Also congratulations to Neenad Bilal and she is advancing to the State Math Academic Games.

They participated in the Pre IT and AVID Reading Across America at Equestrian Trails, which I love their partnership. They also held a career fair, which was on February 14. Art students also won at the Equestrian Center banner art contest, and their school advisory council meeting is scheduled for March 20. And right there in those pictures see Ms. Andrews over by the basketball court.

Over at Polar Park Middle School, some of their recent highlights. They are celebrating twenty five years of excellence coming up here on March 14. I hope that you are able to be there. Congratulations to Zaina M and she is the CTE student of the year. Art department won the first place in the Great Charity Challenge Art Contest.

Students, Anviv, Massimo, and Jethin are heading to the Nationals in Washington DC in April. As I mentioned, they are celebrating the 25. Holocaust Studies and the National Junior Honor Society returned from Washington DC. Their robotics team went to state competitions and their next school advisory council meeting is scheduled for March 13. Wellington Landings Middle School, they had held coffee with a principal on March 5 or will be tomorrow.

Family STEAM night with over 70 families. It was a huge success. Students presented at the Student Voice Conference on February 24. Mrs. Nichols invited to January's Rose Bowl Parade, which is a big deal.

Math team, their math team won the sixty third Palm Beach County Mathematics Middle School Math Tournament. And their PTO hosted the GATOR Gala on February 21. And their next school Advisory Council meeting is scheduled for April 7. Moving on to our high schools. Palm Beach Central High School, there's a lot going on here, so much so that I did a, you know, like a little roundabout, right?

Lots of things going on at Palm Beach Central High School. And as you can tell, if you look on the bottom left, we want to congratulate Ayanna John. And she is a Palm Beach Central CTE Student of the Year. Over all the way to the top right, the golden horseshoe, Mr. Tash, Mr. Wilde, and Ms. Branco. They are the Golden Horseshoe. Also they held a CLT boot camp, which is a new assessment like ACT or SAT. We now offer the CLT. They had a boot camp. Their college application night was a huge success. And also, I don't know if you're able to see Mr. Myers. See Mr.

Myers? He's actually taped up to the pole over there. And this is a, as a dance marathon fundraiser, they actually raised over $54,000

That's amazing.

Yes, to benefit the students. It was wonderful. Lots going on as you can imagine in a high school. Their graduation is coming up 05/16/2025. And their time is from eight to ten a. M. As you know, it's held at the South Florida Fairgrounds. And this is a class of twenty twenty five. They recently announced the valedictorian is Jennifer Hahn, and the salutatorian is Sarita Atahortua. So very, very exciting.

The National Merit finalist is Drew Nelson. So we're very, very excited about our class of 2025 from Parmint Central High School and Wellington High School, our other high school here in the village of Wellington. Their graduation is 05/14/2025 from twelve until two. And please note that that is a time change from previously shared before. So the South Florida Fairgrounds is used is had to move their graduation day, the times for the entire day due to a last minute concert that they couldn't work around.

So our graduations had to move time. So please make sure that we take note that the new time is noon on the same day, just a little bit earlier. The class of 2025, the valedictorian is Daniel Robert and the salutatorian is Kelly Martin. Congratulations to both of them. Also Lucas Larusso is a CTE Student of the Year.

And DECA heads to state competition on March 6. Their next School Advisory Council meeting is scheduled for March 18. So one of the highlights of Wellington High School two is their ability to be so athletic. Twenty twenty five district champions this year was girls weightlifting, girls soccer, girls wrestling, boys basketball, and boys weightlifting. Awesome. So congratulations to all of our district champions. And that's the little tour. Any questions for me?

I have one question. What is a CTE student? What does that CTE stand for?

CTE is technical the one with the exam. It's the computerized technical examination.

Got it. Thank you so much.

We're good?

All right.

Excellent. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. So next on our agenda is a presentation from Related Ross for New School Wellington.

So good evening. My name is Marianne Wren, and I'm the President of Elevate Ed. But importantly, I'm here joined by the founder of The New School, Kieran Jung, who's sitting here in the audience as well as Max K, who's representative from Related Ross. But before I begin, wow, I am so impressed, and I'm so humbled by the presentation that you just provided. My goodness.

I mean talk about a community where the focus of education is so outstandingly high. It's just impressive. I've a lot of presentation from different jurisdictions, and this really tops it. Your commitment to education, to the students at all grade levels, commitment to the sports, to the arts, social consciousness is really outstanding. And that's the reason why you are A rated in Wellington.

So we feel very excited with the opportunity as a result of the vote from the council members to come here into the community and offer a private school in among educators and students and leaders in their own right. Thank you for having us here. And we would like to go through a presentation and open for some questions at the end. So as mentioned, we are here to offer a not for profit private school for the county of Wellington and West Palm Beach. And what we like to bring to an already A rated educational community is along the line of giving you an exceptional experience and I'm very much right on the same things that you echo and that you value in your public schools.

You're all aware that we received the vote for the acquisition of the land. K Park, as it's referenced, and it's adjacent and will be adjacent to mixed use by Related Ross and why they're also here this evening to offer retail as well as residential and hotel, which is much needed for the community. So while these are independent projects, they will be adjacent to each other, and we plan to develop this out together. The founders, and we have Karen with us this evening. But again, just to give a little background of who's coming into your community.

Karen and Fraser jointly developed a very high quality group of private schools globally, including in Switzerland, in The U. K, in Singapore, Korea and China, among others, overseeing the education of more than 11,500 students. And what they have managed to do, similar to what you're doing in Wellington with your A rated schools, is to be ranked first in the markets wherever they've been, with consistently very high student performance and experience rating from the parents and the teachers. They have been focusing on building high quality facilities to really inspire the students to be the best in these facilities. But very importantly, it has been for us to focus on a holistic education.

And I'm hearing that also when you present on some of the results from the public school, it's very much a holistic focus. There's obviously very impressive academic outcomes, but it goes beyond that into other areas as well. And we want to do the same, too, also when it comes to the sports. Important to us is that we secure the right educational team and faculty that also will be committed to professional development. And later in my presentation, I will talk about how we can collaborate across the public, the charter school and our private school and something that we've done in every market that we've been in.

If you allow me, I would like to share a bit of a presentation because not all of you are familiar with what is it that Karen and Fraser have built over the years. So I have two presentations. One will speak to our educational philosophy. We believe in graduating students worldwide. And the next will cover a bit about some of the spaces that our students are within, but also some of the opportunities for study abroad or visiting some of the other campuses worldwide. So there will be two videos, each of about two minutes. So I'll just commence them.

Today's world is not the world our children will inherit, for it's changing faster than ever before. We help students prepare for a future that is indefinable. We draw knowledge and inspiration from our past, and look ahead with a curriculum designed to encourage new ideas, collaborative learning, and a pioneering spirit. Because we believe an education must go beyond books, bricks and mortar. Instead it must be a bridge to the world.

With teachers who put students first. So they become doers, creative thinkers, innovators and leaders of tomorrow. We're creating the best schools in the world. A connected global family of schools. So our students graduate. Worldwide.

So thank you for your attention. So that was the first video, speaks a bit about our educational philosophy. And the next video I'd like to share with you is in the context of some of the opportunities that goes beyond the school here in Wellington. Let me just see.

You go up a little bit.

You don't have to click on the Play button.

Oh, k. So a bit of background of how do we arrive here into Wellington and a background story. And for some of you, again, you might have been part of the sessions that we had towards the vote for the land that we had back in January. So the story actually began with being contacted by Related Ross in May 2024 because they were seeking a school operator for Wellington for this particular site and have been actually working with quite a few U. S.-based schools but were not able to find interest in towards expanding on their existing campuses.

And there had been various different school operators contacted. But again, they didn't have the skill set in terms of the Board of Governors to envision how they could grow into other locations. And that's where we received a phone call in May because that's basically what the group does. They open and operate schools, and they operate to hold the schools. And what was particularly exciting about Wellington, and this is now my seventh visit to Wellington since May '4, is it's a very exciting community and blend of parents who are very, I would say the word, sophisticated about what are the expectations for the young children.

They are looking for high quality education, whether it's public, it's charter schools or private. There's a high level of social consciousness, and they want their children to receive holistic education. For the parents who are looking for a private school offering, of which there's about 400 to 500 students traveling outside of Wellington every day into other areas, outside of of Wellington, you know, they're putting them under tremendous stress in terms of the the time it takes to transport every day by by bus or or private vehicles. So we already saw that there is a need for a school in Wellington. And that's on that basis, we have continued to push on, and we're very excited to come in here.

The differentiators that we believe we offer coming with this new school in Wellington is to give exceptional opportunities for personal development in sports, also in the performing arts, but for certain in academic excellence. That's something that we're very familiar with. And like yourself, with your A rated schools, it's something that we're comfortable with, we're successful with, and we have been fortunate to have very high parent and teachers ratings. We will also be offering extensive enrichment opportunities for the students to stay in Wellington after school hours and ensure that there's rich university and college counseling available to the students. But I think uniquely, as you saw on the video, is the opportunity to travel abroad.

So it's kind of bringing the bigger world, if you will, into Wellington and vice versa. So we see students from Wellington have the opportunity to travel outside, and we also would love to see students from the other schools coming into Wellington. So that's that kind of global connection and and building on that global mindset. We know that a successful school is the experience of the founding team. We know that having founded plenty of schools globally.

So we are very conscious to bring the right leadership team into the community. We're very fortunate having a large teacher alumni from the global network of more than 10,500 teachers, many of which are Americans. And we know that they'll be very excited to come here to Wellington and take up the opportunity to work with Karen Jung again. We have heard a lot of concern from parents about secure campus, and we understand that this is different to some of the other markets that we have been, where security is of highest priority. And I'll later explain how we are tackling some of this, and we've really been listening to that concern of our parents.

In terms of the build out for this school, the whole commitment to put this together is actually $350,000,000 which is very significant, and it will definitely support the entire village of Wellington. And we look forward to collaborating, as I said, with the public and the charter schools. But in terms of the phasing, you'll see that for a total capacity of nearly 1,700 students, we'll be breaking it into two phases. The first phase is with scheduled opening in August '28, will include predominantly the middle and the high school because from our search and our research and speaking to parents, there seems to be a very significant demand for middle and high school spaces for private school in the area. And the second phase scheduled to opening in 'thirty one will then focus on the elementary school as well as expanding the facilities.

You saw on the video our commitment to facilities and spaces, and this is just another visual that shares some of these where, for instance, the performing arts theater at the bottom right side, you will actually see the one we have in Singapore, which is one of the largest spaces. And we offer that out to clubs in area as well as schools when they need it for their Christmas concert and others. This is, for instance, a seven fifty seater full performing space. And when you offer that to the students, you can see they also lift with that opportunity, and it makes for incredible performances. In terms of strategic advisory, so while this is our first school in The United States, we actually already have a lot of experience with the American curriculum.

We are NIASC and WASC accredited in our existing schools. More than 40% of our students in the existing schools actually go on to matriculate in The United States. And we are familiar with working with strategic U. S. Educational advisers. So on the chart here, you would see Doctor. Nicole Assisi. And I'm not sure if Rob Swartz is actually online. He should be dialing into the presentation, and there might be questions for him later. But these are the strategic advisory team that will help us appoint the founding leadership team here in The U.

S. And they will, of course, tap into the resources, as I mentioned, from our teacher alumni that are Americans to ensure that we will upheld the school to the highest standards in the market. And as we expect with our existing schools, we're sure that our students from Wellington will equally so be very well equipped to matriculate into the top tier schools globally. Sports is definitely and I saw that, thank you for sharing that, for your public school is definitely a very key part of your own holistic program and education, and it's something that we want to equally focus on with top tier sports accommodations. We'll be focusing on Olympic sports, so there won't be American football, but we are focusing on football as well as a host of different Olympic sports, all of which programming is being mapped out as we speak.

But as you can see here, there will be aquatic pool center. We'll have track and soccer and lacrosse fields, tennis and volleyball fields, indoor fields, house and basketball courts. We're not planning on baseball, but these are the initial insights in terms of the offering for the sports. What was very important to us is the build. We want to make sure that we design a school that blends with the natural landscape here in Wellington, the Butter Of Wellington, the green spaces, and that is completely in line with the prioritization of sustainability.

And we believe that the immersiveness of nature and greenery is so important to the learning of the students as well. And we want to build that philosophy as we design the school. And so therefore, we took the choice of architect very serious. We went through an extensive RFP period, and we decided on Perkins and Will to represent our voice and our vision with this new school. And as an exemplary, you can see some of the other schools at Perkins and Will have been involved with and designed.

In the middle section, you see the ransom, where, for instance, below you see a photo of their STEM, and I saw that as well, strong STEM emphasis with the public schools. And so they are architect that we feel excited about building out the design of the school. I mentioned earlier that security is something that is critically important. We heard it over and over from the parents. So we will ensure that the elements of safety of the school will be built in seamlessly as possible in a mindful and thoughtful approach, both from architectural perspective in terms of the technology that is being incorporated into the school and obviously with the operational procedures so that students and parents and staff importantly are safe in that school environment.

Busing is also something that's been brought up. We know that students will potentially come from West Palm Beach and from other areas as well. So the busing service is something that is at the forefront of our minds. So we have our very significant, I would say, our founding membership of the school will all be from Wellington, the one who are already leaving today, the 400 to 500 students. But for the one coming in, we want to make sure that they have a service available to them that is comfortable, that's safe and conducive, particularly for the high school students that might have to study during the bus ride.

And this is obviously also to address traffic control, to support as much busing option as possible and students not coming individually by car. So in summary, and I know that I've provided a lot of details to you today, when we look at the program, if we have to say it in kind of three key areas, we are looking to offer a world class education to Wellington, in line with what you're doing already. There will be a strong emphasis and focus on entrepreneurship in terms of building the skills for young people to innovate and bring ideas to life. We see a lot of mentorship opportunities with local businesses here in Wellington. There's a lot of exceptional entrepreneurs and business leaders, but also, you know, in in their own right, any any areas of of, you know, business, law, doctors.

There's a wide variety where, you know, students could engage and and be part of a mentoring program. So we like to see that being, a collaboration with local businesses and the school. Global connections, so looking more outwards again, is in terms of how we can build that global mindset and the opportunities for travel abroad. And then finally, for passion, we like to inspire excellence where we can, including the sports, the music and the performing arts. If we just look at sports, you have a lot of questions here in Wellington that are traveling in and out of Wellington on a weekly basis, where they still have houses here, and there's a potential for them actually who would like to stay year round if they had an opportunity for a great school, a private school here in Wellington.

So we have ways in which we how we can support students with these passionate ventures. There were questions at the PSA vote around scholarships. So we just want to reemphasize that there will be scholarships available through Karen and Fraser's Founder Scholarship Program, where they will offer the equivalent of 20 full scholarships per year for the first five years, which is a total of equivalent 100 full scholarships, which can be divided out to actually more students based on needs. And age appropriate, we'll be doing the selectivity criteria. And that can be combined with a step up program from Florida of 8,500 subsidy per student.

In terms of the tuition fee, it will be in line with the Tier one private schools in Florida. But with the scholarship opportunity, we know that we can build much more diversity into the program and have different students be accepted into the program. This program, I just referenced, is for Wellington residents only. We will also want to provide access to the facilities. We think that's really important, whether it's access to the auditorium, to the sports spaces, to the STEM as well as hosting summer camps.

That can be both for schools, but it can also be for clubs here in Wellington who would like to use our spaces. And again, I can only emphasize we're doing that in every community that we are in. It's been very, very successful because we are only as successful as the community that we are around. And we believe that we can all live together, and we can learn as much from the charter school and public school and vice versa. So we're very excited about that collaboration.

And that comes when you share the spaces. And that goes beyond into the teacher collaboration. And I think I gave the example in some of the previous presentation. But the life can be quite lonely if you're the chemistry teacher in Grade eight and trying to identify how do I incorporate AI and ChatGPT into my lesson. And you're the only or there's only two of you in that particular school.

But guess what happens when you suddenly can collaborate across four, five, six, twenty, thirty schools? And you can collaborate with the chemistry teachers in these other schools in Grade eight, and you can talk about how are you incorporating these challenges that some of this brings, and that just go across. So we have within our group more than 60 collaboration group that goes across different subjects, different age groups. And we really hope that we can bring that process, if you will, into this community as well because we generally believe there's so much we can learn from each other. So on this note, I want to really thank you for the opportunity to present.

I'm here to answer questions, but I think Karen most likely will be more qualified than myself to dive into your questions. Thank you.

Thank you.

I think it was an excellent presentation. Thank you so much for coming and and sharing all that information with us. We know a lot of parents have questions, so we just want to have another opportunity to disseminate the information. Does anybody have any questions they'd like to ask?

I do. I saw that 20 per year for scholarships for Wellington students. I was hoping that it might be a little higher for our village residents. Is that something that is in stone or the 20 per year?

So what we've committed to at this point is the 20 full equivalent. So that could actually touch more than 20 students because it's a full equivalent. So you could maybe touch 40 students based on half scholarship, not full stipend. So there's a way that it can impact and benefit more students, but it will equate to 100 over the first five years. That is what we are able to offer at this point in terms of the founders' scholarship program. But as we look at possible endowment and fundraising, there's absolutely ways to expand this further.

Okay. Thank you. Regarding the logistics, there's an elementary school and a middle school very close in that vicinity. Would the start times or pick up times be staggered for your Yes,

very good question. So we are working very closely with traffic consultants in the context of the other schools that you're referencing, but also just generally the community in around the residentials that we have, Casalina, Ogbon. I mean we have them all around us, and we're very familiar with them, and we have been presented to them. And trust me, we are very aware of how coming into this community with the right traffic solution is essential. So yes, to answer your question, there will be absolutely staggered times for the different year group to ensure that we can support the logistics as much as possible.

Okay. And then I was also curious to have more information regarding the curriculum. Is that something that will be shared with our school board or something that will be available for us to look at?

Yes. So I believe from conversations with Karen and I think Marcelo, there was a couple of conversations.

Rob's online if he wants to feed into that. He online?

I know it's available to be online. He should be tapped So

what's his name? Schwartz.

Rob, are you online?

Yeah. I am here. Hello?

Yeah. So the question, we'll just repeat the if you don't mind, if you don't mind to repeat the question.

Sure. I was just curious if we could have more information regarding the curriculum.

So I think in terms of the curriculum, we are gonna be doing standards aligned curriculum. We have not chosen what the specific curriculum is going to be. But we're are gonna ensure that the k through eight curriculum is gonna lead towards success in high school for students. And then the high school curriculum then leads to success in post secondary outcomes. Once we have begun the curriculum selection process and are further along, I can see us coming back and sharing that with this committee.

Great. Thank you. Yeah. We're believing, you know, sometime in a in a June, August timeframe, we'll have more of the blueprint of that. Thank you.

I know I just want to thank the council because I grew up here in the early '80s. And so I went to private school and I had to track about forty minutes. And this is an opportunity for parents to make a decision if they wanted to to attend a private school. I I'm very thrilled and thankful to related Ross and to elevated Karen to everyone because truly Wellington is so dear to my heart and I'm very excited to have an opportunity for parents who choose to send their kid to private school so nearby. So I'm very excited about it. Thank you for for saying yes. Thank you.

Excuse me. I did have a question about the I saw that 2028 is only gonna be for the earlier years would be kindergarten and first grade.

That's right.

What do the first graders do? Oh, I I figured. I was like this. I can't hear myself. That's funny. The what do the first graders do then from 2028 to 2031? So the way new schools are built, and

you guys would know this when I say

it,

you build the school, there are many classrooms. Right. And they won't all be full. So they will go up as as normal and you'll just have to see how the enrollment goes and but it won't be that, you know, 2028 we will build the kindergarten building, right, the the preschool and kindergarten building and the middle school and and the elementary. It it will be there, It's just how we decide the phasing of it, but you know, we've done this in so many shapes and forms that will suit the community and just to make sure that it's smooth.

So we're right in the middle with the architects and and and with Rob's online and with the team sort of playing out these scenarios of how enrollment could go, you know, what would the facilities be, what do we go online first, just to make sure that we deliver a seamless experience.

Any other comments or questions? Thank you so much. We really appreciate you coming and sharing the information with us. It's sometimes hard for us to always specific type of meaning. So the more meetings we have where people can get the information, I think that's wonderful.

Yeah. It was hard for us because we weren't sure you know, how far we would go and we thought we would just start from the beginning Mhmm. To give you the overview. We will be more curriculum based in terms of what we're gonna offer as updates because I know you you have meetings what four times a year,

three times

a year?

Yes.

So we'll we'll plug into your schedule and if we have updates, we'll make sure

that

James gets it in there and it'll be shorter, right, just so that you can keep up and it doesn't have to be a big long meeting. We appreciate

that and one thing I do really appreciate is the fact that you want to involve the schools that are in the area already. I think that's beneficial, like you said, to all of our teachers and our students and families. So thank you for including the other students who won't be attending regularly in the programs that you will be offering. We appreciate that.

Well, I think we're here together as educators to educate the village and the residences together. So I think that's really important and opening dialogue. I think that's super, super, super important to us.

Thank you. And are we going to take comments and questions from do we do So that

just to open it up for everyone. So everyone that's here, thank you so much for coming. This is actually a new thing for us to have some more public comments. So I'm just curious, can I get a raise of hands of who's interested in making a public comment today and I can give a guideline of the rules and everything? Perfect. So the only thing I'll need is there's a comment card in the back there that's what we'll need filled out for a public comment. You can go ahead and hand me that public comment sheet and we'll call you up. Just so you're aware, there's an allocated time for three minutes for public comments. It's gonna be on that clock right there on my left. And then also this little green light that I have in front of me, once you have one minute left it will turn yellow, and then it will turn red once your time is up.

But thank you so much, and once you bring up the card, I'll go ahead and announce you up.

I actually have questions for both. Just to go back to the

We're going have to step to the microphone for us. Thank you.

It was going back to the scholarships question. I think it's interesting about only 20 that maybe a 100. But we're looking at how many kids in the school? It's about 2,000. 2,000. 16 But then okay. So the first year there's about

I'm a 100

sorry, ma'am. Scholarships And presumably Can you speak in the mind please?

Students are staying at the school for the full twelve years or five years, eight years. So there won't be too many scholarships available.

No. That's not a fixed number. It's just in I mean, you can see

Mhmm. The monetary

we we can't make a commitment right this minute. So she she moved to

Actually, that's a great that's a great point.

Do

you mind answering on the on the mic just because whoever's watching online? Oh. I just realized. Yeah.

Yeah. That's why we

No. I understand that but I'm just thinking the rolling in because once kids starts the scholarship, if they go well, they stay in the school. So will there be others available. So whatever. Just a comment. I'm actually a parent at the New Horizons Elementary School and that's why I came tonight. So I know that Palm Beach County is an a rated county, but that's not an a rated school anymore. And so I, you know, when when I

On the mic. Yeah.

On the mic. Okay. And I I moved here a little less than two years ago for that school and for the bilingual, and it was a seven out of 10 on grade schools. I must admit I'm not looking to Florida State ratings. It's now down to four. So addition to us looking for a new principal, I'm just curious what other supports are we getting giving to the school to to help it get up to a rating again.

And then Heather, can restart the time.

Good evening. And it truly is a pleasure to talk about New Horizons Elementary School because New Horizons Elementary School truly is a very special place to learn. And as with other schools and as in the past at New Horizons, when we've had some challenges, we've made some changes academically, We've made some changes organizationally and structurally within the school and I'm really excited right now about some of the changes that we've made at New Horizons to address some of our instructional issues there. Last school year we had an instructional issue around the area of fourth grade math and based on all of our preliminary data from our PM two assessment and our checkpoint three data, our fourth grade math is looking much stronger. And if anyone has any specific questions about New Horizons Elementary School, they're welcome to give me a call in our Central Region office.

Thank you so much, Doctor. Green. All right. And then we have a second public comment here. We have Jennifer Mantoni. You can go ahead and come on up.

I have more of a question. I just want to say that I'm from New York. Moved here about

two You have to speak

into the microphone. I

moved here from New York about two years ago, Long Island, and it was very, in the beginning it was very hard to adjust, different, but my children are actually choicing at Wellington Landings, and we love it. Speaking of going abroad, my daughter is going to be attending EF Tours' trip to Italy with Wellington Landings, and next year, my son and my daughter will be going to Switzerland, Germany and France. But high school I'm unsure about. So my question was, do you offer an online option before you open your doors in 2028? Because I have one child that's going to be going to high school next year.

Were you in our last meeting? No. We're evaluating that. Okay. It's something that other parents have been speaking to us

about. Yes. Okay. Well, just it's fair, you know, I mean, I love the school district here. I mean, and I will say Mrs. Ingersoll, because a lot of parents did not know about this meeting, and Mrs. Ingersoll sent out, right? Yep. Mrs. Ingersoll sent out an email. So I'm really happy I came.

Good.

I was working and I left the house.

We would love to have parents at every one of our meetings, because we always get an incredible presentation by the school district as to what's going on, and that's the only way we can be effective, is if we hear parents.

I've coming from Long Island, I knew because it was a small town, this is more of like an urban small town. Right. I knew about everything, but like I said, Mrs. Ingersoll sent an email and I contacted friends in the neighborhood, are you gonna go, are you gonna go? And they're like, what are you talking about? So I don't know if maybe tell the other principals, because I think a lot of people would show up because I'm so happy I came.

Glad. And please, you know, post on your social media that you have learned a lot and other people will come. And

then do we have any more public comments for today? No? All right. Can we transition to our staff report?

Okay, please.

You got it. Everyone. Well, I just want to say thank you for all the public that showed up here today. This is actually not a usual thing and I'm glad so I sent out an email to all the principals to let everyone know about our education committees so we can stay up to date. And then just in case you're ever aware, we have that on our Wellington website and also on our Facebook we have on our events tab, it'll show every education committee in the future, okay?

So thank you so much. And then we'll go ahead and jump into the report. So I'm James Smith, I'm a program coordinator with the Community Service Department. And we have lots of updates over this since our last meeting. I think our last meeting was December 3 or something around there, but So we have a few months of updates. So we have our Civics one one program for spring. This is going on for Palm Beach Central currently. We've done one session so far. And during this session we have about a 120 plus kids come on and get a job fair with our municipal government. So they got to see every single career within the village of Wellington, and we invited non profits and other organizations such as PBSO and Fire Rescue to teach kids about potential careers within their local government.

Not only that, we had a pretty awesome presentation from mister John Bostic. So mister John Bostic is bringing up Wellington Sports Academy, which is gonna be similar to the I IGM Academy here in Wellington. It's gonna be built in our Village Park area right next to our new aquatics complex. I believe Walls just went up this week, so a huge building is now in a place that's been empty for the past twenty years, so it's been pretty cool to see that get built up. But he engaged the kids, told them about his upcoming facility. He didn't give too many details about his educational side yet. I think they're keeping that close to them right now until they get more information. But as soon as we get more information, I'll be sure to invite him to this committee and

Thank you.

So we can get some more information on

his

upcoming academy. Other than that, we have our MLK Day of Service. Let me grab my little notes here. Now this occurred on January 20. It's our Day of Service, Day of Remembrance, where we had an awesome event where we free breakfast for all our guests, and we had a special guest from our judge, Daniel Sharif, where she shared experience of her judicial system with our local youth.

And following the breakfast and presentation, had awesome community service projects that we conducted. So we had, we created 100 hygiene care package kits for kids in need in Wellington. So I contacted all our schools here in Wellington to say like, hey, if you identify any kids in need, we have hygiene care packages to give out and we provide most of them out as of today. And then we also made letters for veterans as well. So it was a very feel good event, we're very happy with how the event went and it's been a beautiful thing to see our youth engage with so many great mentors here in Wellington.

And it's a great thing overall. And then one more thing I want to mention about that is that we also partner with the Crown Pearls of Wellington during that event, and they created for their CHIP program, a bunch of snack bags for Wellington High School and Boys and Girls Club. So throughout the year, they're giving kids in need snack bags over the weekend through the CHIP program. Following that, we had our Black History Month Leaders Forum this past Monday on February 24, where we hosted a very impactful eve evening, which featured influential black leaders that shared their insights and personal stories and what they dealt with growing up and how they got to their success today. And we had some awesome people such as Bobby Powell from our Palm Beach County Commissioner District 7.

We had David Ricks, who's a County Engineer and Public Works at Palm Beach County. Alexia Cox, a State Attorney of Florida of the fifteenth Judicial Circuit. Gordon Johnson, Board Certified Pathologist from Wellington Regional. We had Nikia Phillips, who's board certified family nurse practitioner and a certified nurse midwife, who also owns her own LLC for midwives here in Wellington, also from Wellington Regional. And then we had miss Baker Barnes, who's also a lawyer and a shareholder of Basically,

she's

she works for within Florida under the judicial bracket. Other than that, this is just some small images that we saw here. And then I do wanna give a little shout out, so the image you see on the left, that that his name is Phil Gene. He's actually our Boys and Girls Club Youth of the Year. So he currently is gonna get all four years of his college paid for, and he won that, I believe this past week for Friday. This past Friday. And he's an amazing young gentleman. I've seen him grow and develop, and it's one of the great shout outs I want give to the Boys and Girls Club. His educational, post secondary educational future is financially secure. Other than that, so we have our Village Wellington Youth Council.

Now, we have a big event coming up on Friday, May 2 from 6PM to 9PM. I'm gonna make sure everyone's very well aware about this event because this is a day they named it Village Wellington Day of the Youth. This is a whole event based on youth engagement. So from elementary to high school, there's gonna be levels of entertainment for all, educational resources, school clubs on on-site, non profit mental health resources because it's Mental Health Awareness Month in May, and a youth talent show in which we're gonna have elementary winners, middle school winners, and high school winners. So by this Thursday, have a meeting with the youth council.

They're gonna be finalizing their promotional materials, and we're gonna get this information out there to get everyone out there. So mark your calendars, Friday, May 2, 6PM, 9PM. Other than that, our SWAG programs is going great as usual. We only have two months left until interviews for our summer internships and that begins in April. And I believe we have a SWAG Saturday session this Saturday, we once a month, we have SWAG meetings of mentorship and coaching for these kids involved in our program.

And those are all for high school students at Palm Beach Central and Wellington High School. We have our transportation assistance from New Horizons, the Boys and Girls Club. We currently have 27 students enrolled in that. So Monday through Thursday, we help out the Boys and Girls Club. We take our village bus to New Horizons.

We pick up these kids, get them to the Boys and Girls Club and get them there earlier so they can get their snack and begin a tutoring essentials that the Boys and Girls Club is providing. Other than that, our Super Fridays, this is just a consistent thing that we do every Friday where we go to a local Wellington neighborhood and we gauge kids at their park. We provide games, snacks, food, and we just try to keep our local families updated on any programs we got coming up. And keeping engaged with the families and making sure they're informed on all the great programs we have in the community service department. But other than that, that's a nice recap of the past few months. Does anyone have any questions for me?

Do have any questions? I do want, I have a comment. I was at the Martin Luther King event and I think it was spectacular. You guys do a great job with that every year. I am sad that more people don't attend because it is such a great showcase of our students and their arts and their words and their vision for our future and the speaker was incredible. She was amazing. I didn't know if I would enjoy it as much because the year before you had the astronaut and he was pretty super duper, too. But she was just incredible. So I just want to thank the village for continuing in this tradition. I think it's really important that we continue to educate everyone on all of our history.

And I, again, just hope that we can get more people to attend in the future. The Crown Pearls are dynamos and always do an incredible job with everything they do. So I want to thank them as well. Also, I wanted to thank you for the tour that we were allowed to attend at Palm Beach Central High School. So we were invited to attend this tour so that we could see where this Achilles Spinelli grant funds were going. And it was a great morning. I mean, I think we were there for like four hours.

Most of the morning.

Most of the morning.

What's And we the got mood,

to see, it incredible. Truly, we got to walk into the classrooms and see where the funds go and the incredible achievements that the students were making and the teachers. Just a delight to see how they were pouring into the students and the students were incredibly welcoming of us as well. So we want to thank Palm Beach Central for inviting us on that tour and educating us as to where those funds go. We're hoping that the other schools will take us on a tour as well because it was it was really great and fun to see everything that they're able to accomplish.

It's amazing what they had over there. I learned a bit about myself, like what they are able to do over there. Doing some amazing things in their art classrooms, science classrooms. We learned about the weather that day.

That's right. Really. I mean, I was like didn't wanna leave because they were doing this whole topic on weather and I was like, wait, I wanna hear the end, you know. And I wish I had been a better student and paid more attention. But learning as I go, right? And just great things happening. So thank you for always providing us, you know, with the opportunities here about the great things that the schools are doing and again, thank you to Palm Beach Central for inviting us for that.

Awesome. Thank you so much. And then one other update, the next meeting is either gonna be scheduled for the first Tuesday in May which is May 6 or the first Tuesday in June which is June 3. I'll keep you guys updated and I'll shoot you Outlook calendar.

If you have a preference, I would appreciate May.

May? Yeah, I'm June wondering if you guys are like, vacations over summer and all that. I'll try and see if

I can

push some May.

Good. Any other comments?

I don't have any comments.

No. Okay. Okay.

All right. So thank you all for coming. Thank you for educating us on your school and the opportunities that our students are going to be able to have and what you're bringing in. We really appreciate you coming and sharing that information with us. I really feel like it's important for our community to hear about all the wonderful things that are happening. Thank you to the public who came. I mean, it's so exciting to see you here. We're normally talking to empty space, so thank you. And please tell your friends and neighbors to come. We want to hear public comment.

The only way our community grows is by being in community together and hearing your voices. And we want to be able to just make Wellington as good as it can be. So thank you very much for coming and for speaking. And at that, I will adjourn the meeting.

Motion to adjourn.

Oh, thank you.

I'll second that motion.

Thank

you. So bad at that.