2014 Citrus Schools a Year in Review

This year has been another busy and challenging year for our schools and district. The attack on Florida’s public education remained under attack while our teachers and students tried their best to prepare for the new Florida State Educational Standards and Florida State Assessments.  We continued to fight for our students and schools and, as the year comes to a close, I believe there are signs that some relief may be coming from Legislators. I am proud of the successes our district, schools, and students have had among some of the most challenging times in Florida public education.

Let reflect on a few of the educational happenings in Citrus this year;

In January Governor Scott wasted no time sharing his pleasure over the news that Education Week 2014 Quality Counts report ranked Florida 7th in the country in K-12 achievement.  Governor Scott said, “Today’s news that Florida jumped to 7th nationwide in K-12 achievement is the result of great work by our teachers. Florida families depend on an education system that provides every student with a quality education.”  The press release went on to say, “I am proud of Florida’s teachers who have worked so hard to help their students be successful”. (2014 Quality Counts)

In March Citrus County Property Appraiser Les Cook announced a settlement with Duke Energy that essentially ended  the lawsuit Duke Energy brought against the Citrus County Property Appraiser’s Office over the assessment values of Duke properties in Citrus County. This ended two years of the school district having to legally having to submit a budget that included the appraisal/millage amounts Duke was disputing, while the school district had to plan for a lesser amount and submit “after the fact” funding to the state of Florida.

In April our State Legislators had strong push back from the public on their displeasure of the State moving to the Common Core Standards.  As a result the state makes slight modifications to the Common Core Standards to create the new Florida Sunshine State Standard.

In May the CCSB contracted for Silver River Mentoring and Instruction, Inc. to staff and operate the district’s behavior school, The Renaissance Center and transfer the current CCSB staff to other schools.  The school typically had approximately 80-100 students.  Contacting out the operations is expected to save approximately $800,000 annually.

Also in May the Florida School Board of Education once again awarded the Citrus County School District the designation of an Academically High Performing District; this was the district’s eighth year of receiving this honor.  Citrus became one out of only three districts in the Florida to continuously be a High Performing Districts from 2007-2014.

During the summer there was much conversation on the school board due to Florida’s School Health administrative guidelines regarding over the counter medication. Parents, staff, our Superintendent, and School Board members desired a more common sense approach than what these guideline allowed.  The Superintendent and School Board are working on a solution to balance State statute, board policy and flexibility for parents and students.

In July Citrus County School District was once again designated as an “A” district by the Florida School Board of Education. Citrus was 1 of only 10 counties in the state of Florida to receive this rating by the Florida Department of Education!

The August primary election saw only a slight change in the School Board as voters returned all the incumbent board members and chose Mr. Doug Dodd to follow retiring veteran board member Pat Deutschman.

In September Citrus County approved its first public charter school, MYcroSchools. Joy Baldree, MYcroSchools director of education services and a former Citrus County educator, explains, “We serve an older student population. Our average age is 18 years 7 months. We try to get students who have dropped out of school back engaged and productive citizens in the district again”.

In October, after  hearing the great concerns of parents, students, and teachers, the School Board agrees to draft a Resolution on Assessment & Accountability asking for a three-year delay in the use of Florida State Assessment results to determine student promotion, graduation, school grades, as well as teacher and administrator evaluation. On November 13^th, 2014 the School Board sign the Resolution on Assessment & Accountability.

In November the School Board said good-bye to school board member Pat Deutschman.  Ms. Deutschman was the senior board member having served 16 years on the board in addition to numerous years prior to that on school advisory committees and more. Ms. Deutschman will be sorely missed.  She made me a better board member and helped make us a better board.  We are a better district because of her service, and our children are better because of Pat Deutschman.

November 18^th, 2014, at the Citrus School Board’s Organizational Meeting, the Honorable Doug Dodd, Honorable Linda Powers, Honorable Sandy Balfour and I were sworn in as Citrus County School Board Members. During the Meeting Board Member Linda Powers nominated me to serve another year as the School Board’s Chairman and it was unanimously approved.

Also in November the United States Department of Education released an article highlighting Citrus County School’s one-to-one Technology initiatives, “Florida County Uses Technology to Engage Students and Innovate in the Classroom” from their web publication, Progress Teachers Leaders and Student Transforming Education (https://www.ed.gov/edblogs/progress/2014/11/florida-county-uses-technology-to-engage-students-and-innovate-in-the-classroom).

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