Superintendent Dr. Rendell has made a pledge to be out in the community and part of that includes visiting each school. He recently spent time at Sea Park Elementary meeting with students and staff, reading to a 1^st grade class, and seeing the improvements taking place in the media center. Dr. Rendell will have a busy year as he spends time on each campus.

Each Summer there are many additions to our schools that enhance campus culture and aesthetics. Nothing speaks to that more than the new murals at Surfside Elementary School. Principal Kassie Erenstoft collaborated with her school PTO, curator Christopher Maslow, and six local artists to bring the mural project to fruition. 

The murals were developed to showcase aspects of the Satellite Beach community (space, animals, surfing, beach, etc.) while inspiring students through art. From brightening up the corridors to helping calm a student in need, the murals have positively impacted all aspects of the Surfside campus. According to Ms. Erenstoft, “the murals capture the essence of the community. The project demonstrates the love and support that makes Satellite Beach such an amazing place.” The project was funded through the PTO, local organizations, parents, teachers, staff, former students, and the City of Satellite Beach. Ms. Erenstoft would like to recognize her fantastic PTO board and the mural team who brought the vision to life. In the future, Ms. Erenstoft would like to add three more murals which will complete the project. 

Artists: Christopher Maslow (curator and artist of two murals), Nikki Cole, Victoria Bellucci-Kellam, Ian Sodden, Jesse Travis, Kole Trent, Erin Woody.

We are in the home stretch for completing the resurfacing and rubberization for the traditional high school tracks. The last two schools to be completed are Titusville High and Palm Bay Magnet High. Both of those projects will be started later this year or early next year and will be completed by next summer.

The school district has used two different products for the rubberization. Most of the tracks are using a product from a company called Beynon, but the tracks at Viera High School and Space Coast are using a product from a company called Rekortan.

The standard color for the tracks is red or black, but a few schools have raised money to purchase an upgraded surface color. Please see the attached photos that show the completed projects at Cocoa Beach (blue track), Merritt Island (black track) and Cocoa (red track).

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This year’s Open Enrollment period for 2024 benefits begins October 16 and runs through October 31. Even if you’ll not be making changes to your benefits, there are still several important actions you must take to avoid automatic surcharges and loss of coverage. These required actions are:

• For medical coverage, you must complete the Medical Plan Affidavit

• If you have an Over-age dependent (age 26 – 30, non-disabled) on coverage, you must complete the Over-age Dependent Affidavit

• Per IRS regulations, if you want to have a 2024 Flexible Spending Account, you must enroll for one during Open Enrollment

If you’ll be adding dependent(s) to your coverage for 2024, you’ll need to provide eligibility documentation to the Benefits Office by October 31. Otherwise, that dependent(s) will not be added to your coverage. Documentation is a marriage certificate for a spouse; birth certificate/adoption paperwork for children.



All benefit-eligible employees will soon be receiving an Open Enrollment handout with more detailed information related to this two-week event. Also, please be sure to read all Open Enrollment emails as they’ll have valuable information that can help you get the “biggest bang for your benefit buck.”

October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month. Officially declared in 2004, cybersecurity month is a time when government, industry, and education come together to raise awareness of the risks inherent in our evolving digital world. While the Educational Technology department works tirelessly to prevent and stop these threats from making it to you, it has proven impossible to stop them all without enlisting your help. Teachers, administrators, and staff are the most important piece to our cybersecurity strategy.

The most common type of risk we see in our day to day operations is called a “phishing attack.” When executing a phishing campaign, an attacker sends an email to a large group of people that contains some type of bait. If an end user (you!) takes the bait, the bad people will typically gain access to your resources. Work accounts, bank accounts, email or social media accounts, etc. are all popular targets for the attackers.  

Phishing attacks have evolved to become very effective over time. Their bait message may use high-pressure tactics similar to the ‘act now’ we have all become so familiar with in sales. Threats of time running out, losing access to your bank accounts, or fake errors with your email or social media accounts are very common. Some example phishing bait scenarios include:

• Your Bank of America password is expiring. Click here to keep access to your money.
• Your emails have been delayed, click here to make sure they were sent.
• Your Facebook account needs to be updated! Log in here before your access is revoked.

A more advanced phishing attack is known as a spear phishing campaign. In this scenario, the attacker knows something about you and leverages that to make better bait. It may be more personalized or relevant to your life. The most common example of this type of attack is the fake email from a school principal asking you to purchase them gift cards with a false promise of reimbursement. Remember, your principal will NEVER ask you to buy them gift cards, especially via email!

Phishing attacks have even spread beyond email. We see phishing attacks happen over social media messaging and text messaging. Sometimes these are referred to a ‘smishing’ attacks. Ultimately, the attackers’ goals are the same: Trick you into giving them something valuable. It may be money, information, or access.

So how do we escape the attacks? We have to be that fish that doesn’t bite the hook. When it comes to electronic communication asking you to do anything, be suspicious. Your suspicion should grow with the levity of the request. For example, a request to respond to a survey about your favorite hobby preferences is a low-risk request. If a bad person uncovered the fact that you enjoy walks on the beach, there really isn’t much they could leverage with that to cause you harm. If they’re asking for a username and password, be more cautious. With your credentials, a bad person can impersonate you, steal information to which you have access, and try to use those same credentials across other systems to see if they can get in. If the request is money, gift cards, or banking information, be extremely cautious. The potential benefits to the attacker and the harm to you is obvious and oftentimes irreversible. Once your money is spent, because it happens over international borders, it is rare to recover anything.

BPS also has some tools to help. On emails, if the email came from someone outside our district, it will have a yellow banner stating this. The banner doesn’t automatically mean it’s a bad email, but it is a clue you can use to differentiate between the real and the fake emails. If you get an email appearing to be from your principal, but it has the yellow banner, for example, you know this is fake because your principal does in fact work for Brevard schools. A legitimate email from your administration would not have the yellow banner. 

We also have our technology associates and our help desk who can help you discern between a legitimate email and a malicious one. Our Educational Technology staff deals with these attacks daily and have become quite experienced at sorting the good from the bad. Also, within Outlook, there is a button you can use to report the message. This sends a copy to our email provider and to our network operations team for analysis. 

While we may never completely eliminate the threats from phishing and smishing, together we can make the attacks less profitable for the bad people. If you ever have questions about this or any other cybersecurity or tech related topics, please always feel free to reach out through your technology associates or our help desk.