Abridging the 1st Amendment

After the last board meeting I have not been able to stop thinking about the events that took place at the end of the meeting after public comment. I have heard from several people, including the press, and want to make a brief statement.

I have a phone call into the superintendent to address Tuesday's meeting. Because of sunshine I can't speak to the board about my concerns until the next time we are in a publicly noticed meeting next week. But it is my intention to raise my concerns at the first available opportunity. I have been an advocate for the 1st amendment for a long time and do not condone abridging any one's constitutional rights. I may not agree with what people say, but will fight for their right to say it. Please stand by for more on this issue.

Springboard Info

I have received some questions, some accusations, and heard much passion from teachers in our district in regard to a new CollegeBoard curriculum called SpringBoard. I have shared your concerns and this is what I know thus far.

Each department head as well as principals and APC's have been given information about SpringBoard by Mr. Eric Bergholm, General Director, Advanced Academic Access.

SpringBoard is CollegeBoard's replacement for Pacesetter and was instituted as a pilot program in some of Hillsborough County Schools. It is my understanding that Mr. Bergholm would like to have SpringBoard in all Hillsborough County middle and high schools by next school year.

The learning schedule was written by our teachers for their colleagues to use and after they attended the training for SpringBoard they may have been overly enthusiastic about the schedule they created. Right now out of 180 teaching days about 175 days are planned. We are going to re-vamp this schedule which will give creativity and flexibility back to teachers. The schedule can be anywhere from 60 to 180 days of Springboard curriculum. What we will most likely end up with is 90 days. It is not intended for every day.

Trainings will be held in June, July and August and I have been told both privately and publicly at tonight’s school board meeting that teachers will be compensated for attending the trainings.

The short of the story is that teachers were involved in the adoption and planning phase and lessons have been learned and mistakes will be corrected.

Please continue to share your concerns. They are being heard.

Hillsborough School Board re-writes its mission

I am excited to be moving in a positive direction. I've said it before. I know this does not seem very important to some, but this process is a very important element in changing the culture of the school district as the vision and mission set the tone for the school district for the next ten years.

The Hillsborough County School District is in the process of crafting new mission, vision, and values statements. Today, the seven School Board members, Superintendent MaryEllen Elia, and her staff of chief officers and assistant superintendents held a workshop to set strategic goals for the school district.

Read the entire WMNF story here and/or listen to the entire story here here.

Coleman middle students care

...about the future of the environment. Coleman middle school students encouraged parents waiting in the pick up line not to idle while waiting for their children to be released from school.

As we restructure our transportation department and are not offering as much courtesy bussing more parents are driving their children to and from school. The unintended consequences of this is more cars in the pick up line in the afternoon.

What a great thing these kids are doing in getting people to think about the impact of sitting idling for 15 minutes to half an hour in front of the school every day.

Read the SP Times article here.