Consent agenda with C5 school ballot question

50:18Now time for a consent agenda. Um we have a few polls. Uh withdraw on C fifteen, withdraw C eight, withdraw C eighteen, and I polled C five. Um are there any other polls for the consent agenda?

50:37Okay. Move my money.

50:39I'll move approval of all the other items on the consent agenda.

50:42Second.

50:43All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. And C five. Um I know Superintendent Lake's here with this team. Uh there's a resolution for a question to be placed in the ballot November third, 2026. General election is directed by the school board. I thought it'd be great if Superintendent Lake would just speak to it so that everyone would be better informed about it. So thank you for coming, Superintendent.

51:07Thank you, County Commissioners, and thank you for having us here today and bringing this resolution up to put on the ballot. Just to kind of refresh your memory, I know many of you know it quite well. Uh I can't believe it's been uh almost four years already, but approximately three three years ago, uh this board uh uh ratified a resolution from our school board to put on the ballot uh a resolution in order to use local millage money to Enhance our teachers' salary. Uh state statutes require it to be re to come up to if it's to

51:37be renewed, it must be renewed every four years. So we are here in 2026 to place it back on the ballot with uh with uh your approval here today. Um just to give you a little overview of where we are and where we've come from, uh if this uh if this referendum were not to go into effect. act were not to be passed, uh, it would result into a net cut of our teacher salary and support personnel across the board of approximately 12%. So approximately

52:0712% of our teachers, bus drivers, food nutrition services, maintenance, custodial individuals are are based upon this resolution that's before the voters. Where how effective was it? You know, we are now on year three. How effective was it? And if you you if you look in the slide in front of you and I'll get really to the heart of the matter Uh the year before this resolution before this was in effect, uh uh approximately

52:38uh a week into the school, we had 314 teacher vacancies. That's 314 classrooms that started the year without a teacher. Because of this resolution and the ability to pay our teachers more, we were able to reduce that down all the way down to this year at the start of the school year of 55 classrooms. Of those 55 classrooms, most of those are a significant number of those are really the targeted hard-to-fill

53:09classrooms, such as children with special needs. instructional classrooms we're seeing a significant uh ability to fill those classrooms as well. But it's not just our teachers. If you look one slide further, just our custodial vacancies, the individuals that clean our schools and keep them clean and safe, sanitary for our students, prior to school starting, uh, prior to this resolution uh going into effect three years ago, we had 80

53:39vacancies. You will see that's down to 15. And of those 15, that's just normal. turnover of any given time where we're fill uh you know filling up the slop. So it had a dramatic, dramatic decrease on it. What is different now than uh three years ago is that our our friends and neighbors to the south of us have passed resolutions as well. We were able to begin to, and I don't want to say steal teachers from Hillsborough and Pinellas County,

54:10um, but we were. We were able to attract teachers from Hillsborough and Pinellas and our our principals are telling us that they were recruiting and we were being successful and having individuals that we're perhaps were living in Pasco but were teaching across the county line. They were coming home. coming home to where they belong here in Pasco, But since that time, Hillsboro last year and Hillsboro and Penales both have uh uh added uh a a millage and have increased

54:40their teachers' salaries. We are concerned that if this resolution were not to be adopted by you and the voters come November, it would put us at a real competitive disadvantage where our neighbors to the South would be once again poaching our teachers. But this is not just about putting teachers or bodies in a classroom. Because we are able to make gains, we are now able to increase the quality of our teachers. We're

55:11able to basically go in and not just we need a body into the classroom. We are able to increase that quality. We're able to do professional coaching and ensure that those teachers that are in front of our students are the best and that our teachers Our students deserve, and those students here in Pasco do deserve the best. And that is the direction that we're going. So without taking up too much of your time, that is an overview of where we are with this resolution. Um, we are making great gains. We are seeing huge academic

55:41improvements this year as a result of that teacher quality increasing. We're excited about the opportunity of what this year. Here's results will will come out. And we do not want to lose momentum. Uh we know that the number one factor or a one of the number one factors of when people move to Pasco or businesses move to Pasco, one of the first questions they always ask is what is the quality of the schools that we're moving into? With this, we're able to say our quality is is high quality

56:11and improving. So

56:13And uh Superintendent Lake, I greatly appreciate you coming forward. Uh this was a consent so that everybody agreed with it, wanted to support it, but I just thought it was good if the public could see that. And I think your words today uh really resonate, I would think will resonate well with with everyone else. Um It's just so important to have good teachers and to have that supply. We've gone through we've had the same struggle with between firefighters, deputies as well. So we we know we understand what your battle is and uh seeing the great success you've had, I think just like Penny for Pasco is gonna say, okay, it worked,

56:43let's go do it again. So thank you. Commissioner Yeager.

56:46Yeah, I just I have a comment. I was gonna ask you a question and then I saw it no joke, but you had a slide for that. Show just to show the public, you know, show them your slide that shows really how how much these these instructional assistants and and the um all these the sports staff make. It's m it's not a whole lot. So if you took that that money away, they'd really be hurting. So right now for a custodial in Pasco, 1671,

57:18right? But some of them without that raise they were down to like thirteen, fourteen dollars an hour.

57:25Yeah.

57:25Yeah. I mean it it would be detrimental to their household.

57:29Yeah, and and uh be remiss to say that you know the school district, we are the largest employer here in Pasco County. So this is money that's going back into the wallets of the individuals here. The and I'll you know clarify so you know you know this already, but just there, it does not go to administrators, it does not go to the so-called district office, it goes to our our individuals that are in front of our students, helping our students. our bus drivers, food nutrition services, our classroom teachers, our custodians, those that are, you

57:59know, in in in the daily operations working with our students.

58:03Thank you.

58:05Mr. Shark.

58:06Um good morning, John. Um I am um very happy to be able to vote to put this back on the ballot and let our um residents decide and I have no doubt that they will support the school system as they did before. I think you had pretty good numbers four years ago.

58:21Close to sixty percent, yes.

58:23So um is that what is do you need just fifty one

58:27plus

58:27one?

58:28To be specific, we need 50% plus one.

58:31Right.

58:32Don't forget the plus one.

58:34And it's unfortunate that you have to go back every four years, whereas the penny, you know, we got to go to fifteen years. But uh you're right. Uh the community is only is, you know, having a quality school school district is so important for a community, and you guys are doing a great job. So good luck with that.

58:53Mr.

58:53Willie.

58:54Yeah. I also am very much in support of uh putting this back on the ballot for you and we'll be voting for it because it is very important that we keep education as high as we can for our citizens and our our students of those citizens that that live here in the county. So And I know they've done a great job all this time, but I don't want to see go backwards, we need to go forward. So very, very important to have this out there. Thank you. Okay, Commissioner Weightman.

59:21Thank you. Slightly different off topic. I don't think you have to worry about this, but while you're here, uh you want to share about the America two fifty scholarships?

59:30Oh, a anytime I can talk about civics, I I love that opportunity.

59:34Seniors since we had a bunch of a bunch of kids here today, but uh for it would be a good time to give you some air time.

59:39Well that I think well, thank you for that uh softball across the plate. I appreciate that. No, uh uh uh America 250. Uh as you know, we're celebrating our 250 year as a country, but it it's just real important to me as as a history and government teacher that we pause and recognize uh the importance of civics education and the school district. is really doing a a kind of a I think a one-of-a-kind thing here in the cam in the state. Uh we we have a multi-prong approach to promote civics. Uh the first thing that we do, every student, which

1:00:09is a little odd that the legislature would do this, but every high school student is required to take a civics test. But they're not required to pass a civics test. So the passing rate state of Florida for high school civics is about 44%. Pasco County, we're at 51%. So we're doing better than the state average. But I'm sure you're like me, 51% is not good enough in a day and age of civics. So we're looking at ways to incentivize

1:00:39uh civics, promote civics in our schools. So we have an approach. One of the first things that we're doing, we're the first state, uh first county in the state that any student that passes the uh the civics exam this year in graduation, they'll be getting a red, white, and blue tassel to signal. Visually, that they have passed civics there. In addition to what all of our schools are going to be kind of uniformly doing in terms of promoting civics this next school year when it starts after the fourth. But we also have a scholarship that we've started,

1:01:10a Florida Civics scholarship, where an individual that is we will be giving them paid for by Florida Prepaid Scholarship and individual. Individual that is going into the world of civics, and I use the word use the word world of civics meaning public service. Oftentimes, public service is denigrated. I think we need more young people to go in public service. I think it's noble for young people to want to get engaged in government, to make our country better. And so we want to recognize those young people that are wanting

1:01:40to make a difference in this world. And we are you're going to be selecting a an individual who is going into civics and giving them a two-year scholarship paid for by the Florida Prepaid Scholarship Program. In addition, because uh Civics is a passion of mine, I'm a teacher, we're starting a really the first of a kind of uh a Florida Civics leadership program here where we will be teaching American federal government. And state and local government through USF at a high school level where

1:02:10we will have you, many of you have already spoken to me. Ms. Commissioner Weightman said he is wanting to come to be part of the class where we'll be teaching about federal and state local government over a year, getting them engaged in government both at a state and local level. And because it's committed, that's my area and passion. I'm a certified teacher in high school. School and state and state and university college. I'm going to be teaching that class for the inaugural year, uh, all year because why? Because our young people need to get engaged

1:02:41in civics. So thank you for that that softball and promoting civics in our in our schools.

1:02:47You want to touch on the parameters of what the kids need to do?

1:02:49Yeah, they one they need to they basically need to uh write a 200 five 250-word essay, submit it to us, and then they have to pass show us that they've passed the Florida Civics Literacy exam. We're trying to incentivize students to take this high school civics course seriously and to pass it. Um and we're looking at ways to uh incentivize that. Okay. Commissioner Starkey.

1:03:12Um I'm not sure if you're We've taken what actually I've brought over from the school district, the Citizens Academy. I don't know if we're still doing it over there because w where where do people learn how local government works? Um and where how many classes are we up to now, Mike?

1:03:29In terms of citizens we're doing we do one thing. We do one per year, but we're we're starting to have a backlog, which might mean we might move to two or three a year.

1:03:37No, but how many sec uh you know, how many times do we have to do that?

1:03:40Oh I think I'm sorry, it's it's eight I believe.

1:03:44Yeah, there's uh it's eleven eleven weeks and we do two classes a year.

1:03:48Yeah. And we do we do do it two times a year. Um and um and they're full. Yeah. Uh and so we're trying to educate our community on how their government works. So so important what you're doing. I remember when I was in high school we had American what was it? America versus communism. Communism, is that what it was called? Um I don't think they do that anymore. No, but uh I love what you're doing. So if I can be involved I'd be Yeah.

1:04:12Thomas Jack.

1:04:13And um my offer stands if you have any of your kids in cities that would like to learn about local government, I would love to have them shadow me for a day.

1:04:23Well absolutely I and just say I know a a great former House speaker who actually co teaches me with one of those classes by the name of uh Chris Sprouse who's actually been helping me teach some.

1:04:34I want to say um you know having you with the helm for education is uh is a great asset for Pasco County. I think you're gonna do a phenomenal job. I know you're doing a phenomenal job and it's gonna get better and better. Uh my two children benefited greatly under your leadership and uh they're doing fantastic. So thank you for all you're doing for everybody. Well thank you guys. Thank you. All right, move a motion.

1:04:55Uh moved to approve. Second. Second.

1:04:56All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. All right. Thank you again for coming out. All right, now we're gonna go to a presentation for Rajeland.

1:05:09Uh they're all withdrawn. Oh they're all withdrawn. Okay. Sorry.