Another great week for Citrus County Schools

Last Friday I was asked by someone at the district office how my week was.  “It was a great week to be part of Citrus County Schools”, I replied.  I am pretty sure my response caused the person to think about checking my temperature to make sure I was feeling okay.

In education, many weeks are difficult because of the great challenges we face.  It is easy to be positive on the days when it is announced that Citrus is again a High Performing District, when Citrus is ranked 14^th in the state for student performance or when two of our schools are ranked as the 55^th out of nearly 1,800 other elementary schools in the state of Florida.   But last week there was no major new announcement.  It was a simple average week in the Citrus County School District.  So what made it so great?  Simply put it was the Educators, Administrators, Staff and students that I spent my week with.

During my week which included a School Board Workshop, school visits and meetings with the Superintendent and members of the Executive and Educational Department Team, I found myself, over and over,  being pleased and impressed with the multitude and cross-section of issues that I was either exposed to or involved with.

During a meeting with Superintendent Himmel in which we were discussing several different items, it was again so apparent how well that Ms. Himmel works with the School Board. Never have I been in a meeting with Ms. Himmel in attendance that she isn’t always interested in our thoughts, concerns, and work with her Executive team so that she could address those issues or concerns.  I had a couple of meetings with Mike Mullen, Assistant Superintendent of School Operations involving several current and future projects that we are developing.  I would go in with my list of concerns, suggestions and findings and Mr. Mullen could not have listened and been more  responsive.  Mark Klauder , Executive Director, Educational Services, Dr. Mike Geddes, Director of Instructional Technology and Patrick Simon Director of Research & Accountability are three people that I am often working and interacting with these days because of several exciting technology initiatives we are developing that, in my opinion,  are going to provide impressive learning changes and opportunities for our students and educators. My time with these gentlemen is nearly always spent with me learning from them as they involved me as a member of the collaboration team on these projects.  At our schools I would visit with Principals as they would share with me about the strategies they are using at their schools and would show me how proud they are of their students. At one school the Principal had a “buddy” who was a student that he and his staff were working with.  You cannot imagine the love and caring this Principal reflected for this struggling student.

Each day, as I would drive home, I would be bursting inside with excitement as I reflected about the workings going on in our school system.  What is clear to me every day is that these individuals working in our school system take the work they do not as a “job” but rather as a “Calling”.  I cannot be any more honored than to be a small part of this great public school district.

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