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Quick Sip: Save Broward WGI — Petition + School Board Deadline Explained
130 Plays9 days ago
Your All-Access Pass to the Marching Arts.
- SUPER IMPORTANT QUICK SIP: Broward County winter guard + indoor percussion programs are facing an urgent “master agreement” deadline that could impact WGI participation. Trish is joined by Evan Zubkov (@evankarlis) and Dean Broadbent (@dnbroad) from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School to explain what’s happening, why the Feb 10 school board meeting matters, and what the community can do right now.
From the episode:
• “it has to be voted on by the by the entire school board”
• “it doesn’t just affect color guard, it affects percussion as well”
• “that deadline is very real.”
Schools/programs referenced:
Cooper City JV / Varsity (@cchscolorguard) • Cypress Bay Varsity (@cypressbaycolorguard) • Flanagan A / World (@flanagancolorguard) • Monarch High School (@monarchguard) • Stoneman Douglas World (@stonemandouglasguard) • Stoneman Douglas Percussion (@msdpercussion) • West Broward World (@wbcolorguard) • West Broward Percussion (@wbhspercussion)
Sponsor: Guard Closet (@guardcloset)
Find On A Water Break:
Website: https://www.onawaterbreak.com
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/onawaterbreak
Be a guest: https://forms.gle/7GcpYZLfY8Uo54pp9
Email: onawaterbreakpodcast@gmail.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi everyone, this is Trish from On A Water Break with a quick sip. Joining us today is Evan Zubkov and Dean Broadbent from Stoneman Douglas High School Winter Garden. Welcome guys!
00:00:12
Speaker
Hi! Hi there!
00:00:15
Speaker
Hey, this isn't a full water break, it's just a quick sip. Let's go!
Backgrounds of Evan and Dean
00:00:25
Speaker
So don't know if you guys know this, but we have a feature that's called the 32 count life story. um This is where you share everything about you from the very beginning to this very day in 32 counts. So we'll give you eight off the mat.
00:00:41
Speaker
Who wants to go first? yeah Sure. I'll go first. Okay. Eight off the mat and go.
00:00:52
Speaker
Hi there, I'm Evan Zipkos. I'm from Long Island, New York. um I've been doing Color Guard since 2001, March Alter Ego, March Blessed Sacrament, March the Cadets, um former instructor designer at Flanagan High School and current same job, caption head at Stoneman Douglas Color Guard.
00:01:16
Speaker
and You did it. All right, team, you ready? Yeah. Adolph the Met, and go. Hi, I'm Dean Broadbent. I'm the director of color guards at s Stoneman Douglas High School.
00:01:31
Speaker
ah Before that job, I was at Flanagan High School for about 20 years. um And then for the last seven, I've been at in Parkland at Stoneman Douglas. Anthony Russo, who played for the Yankees, went to Stoneman Douglas. I believe that's right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of there's a lot of good baseball players from Stoneman, yeah.
Contract Issues with WGI and Broward County
00:01:49
Speaker
Okay, so the social media post on Friday while we were all at our Winter Guard rehearsals that made everybody stop in their tracks and go, wait a minute, what's this? What's going on?
00:02:00
Speaker
So what's going on in Broward County right now? So there is this contract that WGI requires that the school board of Broward County ah has with them that handles financial ah situations. It handles basically just all like the legal jargon and just making sure that all the I's are dotted, T's are crossed.
00:02:26
Speaker
um And three years ago, we had to come to an agreement with them and it was rocky, but basically both both parties had come to an agreement before it was an emergency situation like this.
00:02:39
Speaker
And now that that three-year contract is up, it's gotten us into a whole lot of ah of of trouble because there's just not agreement from both sides. um From our knowledge, WGI, they they did their due diligence. They tried to work with the county.
00:02:55
Speaker
um But it just it hasn't really come to fruition yet. And we're getting down to the wire. Yeah, so um you know the master agreement started for everyone, I guess, four years now. And you know immediately, ah our master agreement for the county was flagged by legal.
00:03:12
Speaker
ah But that team was great in working through it. Our principal was actually the lead principal of the whole district. um So she you know she was speaking for West Broward and Slanigan and Cooper City and Somerset Academy and all those schools that were going.
00:03:26
Speaker
and um and And we got it to to an agreement for three years. However, since then, administration and in the school board has switched over. And so there is a new legal department. And so when this one was turned in this year,
00:03:39
Speaker
um You know, they kind of wanted to seize the day. And, ah I mean, a lot of the things that they're asking are are just completely inappropriate or just not really relevant to what we're doing. And it's it's making it hard for WGI to to agree to it.
Impact on Broward County Schools
00:03:56
Speaker
and And we are the only school district in the country that has not come to some sort of agreement, whether just signing off on it or, you know, WGI negotiating some, you know, alterations to it. We're the only school district in the entire country where they've said no. So does that include
00:04:15
Speaker
um he asking to see WGI's financials? so the big So everything, as of two weeks ago, it was about to be signed. And the the thing with this agreement is um once everyone agrees to it, it has to go to a school board meeting and they have to sign off on it. And no.
00:04:34
Speaker
Unlike where I grew up in Connecticut, where the school board was by town, there in South Florida, the school board is by county. So it is a large corporation. there's those there's are um There's over 300 schools associated with Broward County schools. so Right. Yeah. So it's not it's not as easy as we just pick up the phone and call someone or, you know, my neighbor is the superintendent's, but it's not like that.
00:04:55
Speaker
you know And now there's this new legal team in place. and um And so as of two weeks ago, we were great. And then then they made a addition to it that the school board wanted full access to WGI's financials, however, would not grant the same access in return.
Legal Complications and Public Awareness
00:05:13
Speaker
um Now, why why the school board needs that, I have no idea. The school board does not fund anything that we do. The only thing that they might fund for these kind of events is a sub for the school board employee that would be going on the trip.
00:05:27
Speaker
They don't pay registrations, they don't pay design costs, they don't pay for clinicians. So why they need to know, you know, WGI's financials is beyond me. And I understand that as being a non-starter.
00:05:40
Speaker
Especially a non-profit like WGI, you know. it's Right. And i i would I would venture to say they don't have access to our ROTC's national organization or, um you know, to your varsity or any of those. So why is this one on the radar all of a sudden?
00:06:00
Speaker
Yeah, that was the big question that even at the New Jersey guard show I was at last night that nobody could figure out why why were they asking for the financials. I mean, you just made it very clear that they don't, the the county doesn't pay for, I mean, do the kids fundraise for the trips, do?
00:06:16
Speaker
So i can't I can't speak to how every school does it, but right in in our instance, you know, it is a booster trip. So the boosters raise the money, whether that's through fundraising or trip costs and things like that. But the school itself does not fund any of this.
00:06:30
Speaker
Okay, so many nationally recognized color guards in South Florida. So what plans are in place to try to change this decision?
00:06:41
Speaker
So, well, right now, so our our school board has a very, very um good reputation for reacting to ah community backlash. Public pressure. um Just a couple of weeks ago, they wanted to change all the high school schedules from a four-by-four AB b block um to seven periods to save money.
00:07:02
Speaker
And the the feedback from... you know, the the families and the communities on social media and contacting, they reversed that decision in a couple days. Same thing with graduation, and it reversed right away. So the way this will change is if people are very vocal and they are making calls and making posts and tagging the school board in it, because, you know, one of the thoughts I had um on Friday morning, I went in to my principal and I said, I was thinking about it and i was like, what are the chances no one at the school board's even heard about this yet?
00:07:35
Speaker
Because I was like, what's the process? Like, you get a document like this as a principal, you do what? You send it off to legal. But did it go to legal through whoever, whatever area superintendent's in charge of that or supervisor or whatever?
00:07:48
Speaker
and And she said, I can't answer that. And then we found out Friday night, um one of our parents got in contact with the superintendent that he had no idea about this. lu it hasn't even been brought to his attention.
00:08:00
Speaker
And our school board member, you know, with our school board being by a county, so we have areas where they represent, and our our school board member for our area, she hadn't heard of it. So I started thinking, it sounds to me like there's a new legal team in town and they're taking their shot.
00:08:16
Speaker
And, you know, and they weren't being over, there's no oversight on them. And that's why it's really important right now that everyone
Community Activism and Social Media
00:08:24
Speaker
is on that phone and and on social media um because, know,
00:08:28
Speaker
but Nothing's going really happen for the rest of today, but tomorrow morning, that's that's where things are going to start happening, and we're going to know where we stand with it. Yeah, I mean, the community has already been so responsive. i mean, I've just seen it everywhere, you know? ah So that's been that's been really amazing to see, and be we appreciate it so much.
00:08:46
Speaker
And it's so crazy because last year was Stoneman Douglas' 30th anniversary of their first WGI performance. you know and and and And it's a legacy program, you know, long before. Absolutely. So many great shows and so many great instructors have passed through that program. And we had this big celebration last year because we realized it was their 30th anniversary, and that's a pretty great milestone. And then here we are in year 31, and you know we had to sit the kids down Friday and say, there's a good chance we we might not be finishing up the season. that was That was the next question on my list, actually. how were your So obviously you said that you sat the kids down Friday, that I was going to ask you, do they know what's going on? How dealing how are they dealing with it? So it was really important that that they weren't getting the information from social media or from...
00:09:33
Speaker
other kids texting them. And so the email from WGI, i think, dropped at about, I would say like 2.15, 2.10. And so I immediately started like calling kids out of class because our bell rings at 2.40. So we were pretty much done. And we had club pictures after school.
00:09:47
Speaker
So they'd be there anyway. So I i did everything I could to get them out and get them down there before they were looking at their phones and stuff. So they they heard it first from me. They didn't they didn't hear it you know on their phones or anything. um And they were pretty shell-shocked because we, you know, so...
00:10:02
Speaker
I've been a part of, somehow i got I got, I guess, elected to be the mediator with the school board and and and WGI. And so I had had a conversation with Ron um the day earlier about how it was finally at an impasse.
00:10:17
Speaker
And at that point, For me, it was like i I needed to not let rumors spread and everything like that. I let some key parents in our parent organization know who could really get the parents activated and get them moving. But I i i just didn't want this to be, you know, it's easy when you tell somebody, people say, don't say anything, but it always gets out. So we watched super under wraps. We had Poker Face. Like the kids literally knew nothing until I told them, until had to tell them because it was it was is out there. yeah So, I mean, what's going to happen with, you know, the regionals and stuff like that? Like you won't be able to do some of your regionals either. Our circuit down here ah is the one who sponsors the region, runs it basically.
00:11:01
Speaker
And so now, you know, they some of their their main members are going to be able to participate. So, you know, they've been really a big part of of talking with us and trying to activate everyone. And um they put out a really great thing on Instagram. that kind of summed up all the issues in the master agreement.
00:11:18
Speaker
ah A former student of ours actually put it together for them. And if you go to their Instagram, it's super great. It'll explain to you the issues. um And it also explains you know who you can contact and what you
Critical School Board Meeting
00:11:29
Speaker
can do.
00:11:29
Speaker
But it's it's if if if the onslaught of of emails and social media posts continue until the 10th, then I think there will be some kind of change. I think there will be some oh you know motivation to make it work.
00:11:44
Speaker
So sticking up to 10, tell us what's happening on the 10. So that's ah that's the the school board meeting that's that occurs, I think, monthly, yeah if I'm not mistaken. um And the thing about the master agreement is that it has to be voted on by this by the entire school board, right? So it can't just be Like the principal can't just sign off for one school board member. It has to be at the meeting.
00:12:06
Speaker
And so obviously February 10th, you know, you're getting real close to regional season. Actually, important to note is that it doesn't just affect color guard. It affects percussion as well. So our, yeah, so our percussion, they have a regional, I believe, end of February. End of February, yeah. So um if this doesn't get approved at the school board meeting, then...
00:12:26
Speaker
Whether, you know, whether March 10th comes along and they have another one and they revote, our percussion won't be able to go to that region no no matter what. As WGI said, you know, if if if there's no agreement by the 10th, then we got to be fair and it's off the table for everyone. So, you know, that
Community Support and Collective Action
00:12:43
Speaker
deadline is very real. So what we could do by sharing, you know, once this gets published, sharing this quick sip, um...
00:12:53
Speaker
hearing I know there's a change.org petition. we've We're all signing it. We're, you know, we're working the best we can for you and your students. And for us too. I mean, like we were talking, know, I've been talking to a bunch of friends and it was like, what would WGI be without Stone Douglas and Flight again? And, you know, all those guards, I'm leaving a lot out, but all those guards that, you know, what would WGI be without them? And, you know, so...
00:13:22
Speaker
Let's get the word out. let's get Let's make February 10th happen. And and just ah just a a side note, the all the petitions are great, though, but the school board will will will absolutely respond to emails and social media posts with them tagged. Just in watching how some other events have occurred, those are the things that really grab their attention. you know What do you want people to tag? School Board of Broward County.
00:13:49
Speaker
Okay.
00:13:51
Speaker
We'll make sure. would say, you know, they should they should tag the color guards, too. As many, you know, the groups of day, they know that it's going to affect, um you know, Cooper City, West Broward. other Yeah, as many as you can because then, you know, people love to just repost it and stuff like that.
00:14:07
Speaker
And I would i feel like say one other thing, the amount of people that have taken time out of their days to stop and and contact us to say, we're so sorry. And ah you know what I mean? Like, what can we do to help? Like that, that has been so incredible. Like, I guess you don't really realize You know, people in our community are are really paying attention to what's going on.
00:14:28
Speaker
And, you know, it could be very easy someone reading that and just keep scrolling. But so many people and so many people have ah that we look up to in the activity and so many groups in the activity have really, um you know, come forward to talk to the kids and us and just say, we're here, we're going help. And what do what do you need? What do you need? So, yeah. And another thing that I i think that the school board is going to be very surprised how big the community is as well.
00:14:52
Speaker
Yeah. Because if we're surprised by the by the the support, then there they have no idea what's coming. Yeah,
Social Media and Podcast Closing
00:14:59
Speaker
you're right. So, um Dean and Evan, where can we find you guys on social media? ah You know, Facebook, Instagram. I don't have a TikTok. I'm not of that generation, but. I either.
00:15:11
Speaker
Yeah, same. Facebook and Instagram, yep. Okay, awesome. Before you close out of your listening app, don't forget to subscribe to us on YouTube and all of the social media platforms at On a Water Break Podcast, or you can email us at onawaterbreakpodcast at gmail.com.
00:15:29
Speaker
Also on social media, feel free to write us a review. Well, Evan and Dean, we're getting called out from the box to get back out on the field. So thanks for joining us. Thank you so much. i appreciate Appreciate it.
00:15:45
Speaker
The On a Water Break podcast was produced by Jeremy Williams and Christine Rehm. The intro and outro music was produced by Josh Lida. To learn more, visit LidaMusic.com.
00:15:57
Speaker
And until next time, thanks for tuning