New Recess Bill marches through state legislature

Please stop blaming local School Boards, legislation created the problem

For the last several legislative sessions, groups of parents around the state have asked state legislators to pass new laws to mandate “unrestricted recess time” for elementary students.  It was just a few years back that the state legislature passed laws that mandated “structured physical activity time” for every elementary student.

This 2017 Florida legislative session, elementary recess continues to be an issue with these parents. This year, Senator Anitere Flores sponsored SB 78: ‘Public School Recess’.

SB 78 would add the following language to Florida law:

“Each district school board shall provide at least 100 minutes of supervised, safe, and unstructured free-play recess each week for students in kindergarten through grade 5 so that there are at least 20 consecutive minutes of free-play recess per day.”

The Tampa Bay Times has reported that the bill’s sponsor Sen. Flores stated, “Sometimes the Legislature has to step in” when local control of schools gets out of control.

I am a supporter of “free play” recess time.  But what is frustrating about this issue is that local school boards, districts and schools did not create this problem.  It was the legislature that passed laws to tell local school boards, districts and schools that we couldn’t have the age old “free play” recess time but must have “structured physical activity time” for elementary students.

In Citrus County Schools our administrators have tried to apply common sense and balance to these laws. Our elementary schools typically provide recess “free play” time for students daily except for the one week out of four or five when students have on the “wheel” Physical Education class.  The “wheel” as it is often referred to in schools is a rotating period of the day when students have for a week music, P.E., art, media and technology. Then the next week students rotate to a different area.  This permits our students to be exposed to these essential areas of learning.

What educational leaders and teachers have struggled with is how to meet all the other educational mandates and required minutes in current law while also providing opportunities for students to have recess and/or physical activity time.  This is what prompted Senator Bill Montford the ranking democrat on the Senate’s Appropriations Subcommittee on Pre-K-12 Education and who is a former Leon County Schools Superintendent to speak out today and say that he backs the recess bill, but warns, “something has got to go” when schools add 20 minutes of recess without adding more time in the day.

Sadly, both what caused this issue, and what is being proposed is the result of state legislators overreaching into legislating our local classrooms.  These are decisions that need to be left to local teachers, principals and school districts to decide and not state governments.  Respectfully, instead of creating another new educational law, why not repeal existing ones?

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Tech Geeks’ Meeting

Educational Technology Council

Tina Hackey, the Media Technology Specialist at Citrus Springs Elementary School shared about the Ozobot, a robot for teaching students to program.

On Thursday, I attended our quarterly school district’s Educational Technology Council meeting, which brings together school base technology specialist and technicians. This is always an important opportunity for these team members to come together.  These technology experts are on the front lines of our curriculum, digital assessments, technology initiatives and state mandates.

In today’s classrooms nearly every aspect of teaching and learning uses technology. From the overhead projectors, cameras, to the teacher’s computer, to the student’s iPads, to the many many different software and apps. Our technology specialist and technicians play a critical and essential role in making everything work and helping developers curriculum solutions for the classroom.

These are such dedicated individuals that are having to manage a massive growing and challenging necessary infrastructure. They are often having to use creative means to stay ahead of issues. While they cannot continue to do so, these individuals have had to manage massive increases in hardware and have done these implementations with their existing resources saving the district thousands of dollars and making learning more engaging and relevant.

Director of Instructional Technology, Dr. Mike Geddes shared about our district’s growing network bandwidth requirements.

Director of Instructional Technology, Dr. Mike Geddes shared about our district’s growing network bandwidth requirements. Network bandwidth needs of our schools and district have increased from 100MB in 2011 to 2000MB in 2017 and we are headed to 5000MB within just a short time. What is driving this? Textbook adoption is required to be digital, along with our supplemental, enrichment and intervention curriculums is increasing bandwidth usage. The current cost of this bandwidth is approximately $40,000 a month, but thankfully 80% of that cost is paid for not out of our school’s general fund but through rebates through E-Rate. E-Rate is the Schools and Libraries Program of the Universal Service Fund, which is administered by the Universal Service Administrative Company under the direction of the Federal Communications Commission.

At the meeting ‘techs’ have the opportunity to share their knowledge, tricks and tools with one another. District Technology Specialist, Matt Biggs shared about a learning and programming tool/toy called “Sphero SPRK+” which students can program the “Sphero” ball to move as the students’ learn coding to program the ball’s paths. Tina Hackey, the Media Technology Specialist at Citrus Springs Elementary School shared about another exciting robot for students to program, the Ozobot. We are seeing these tools in our schools in MakerSpace areas. Rachel Drummond, the Technology Specialist from Inverness Middle School shared about Google Translate to communicate with now English speaking students. Google Translate app allows you to have your mobile device camera in real-time look at text on a sign or paper and translate it as they are looking at it. This tool is assisting students to learn while they are learning their new language, and it is helping teachers and students to better communicate and build relationships.

This is always an informative meeting and I walk away grateful that my own children are in a school district that have these dedicated and technology committed individuals. They are bettering students to have the knowledge and experience to be more successful in their individual future college and careers.

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Chronicle Editorial Board Give Thumbs Up to Educational Pathways Bill

Chronicle say Rep. Ralph Massullo’s “House Bill 407 is a common sense initiative”

I wanted to thank you the Citrus Chronicle for their support of Rep. Massullo’s educational bills and for their editorial in Thursday’s paper, ‘Massullo bill seeks necessary balance’.

The Editorial Board stated, “The bill’s multiple pathways importantly recognize a student’s performance and potential should not be simply defined by a single standardized test score, but by his or her individual educational aspirations, abilities and mastery.”  The Editorial Board went on to say, “Rep. Massullo’s interest in listening to the concerns of local educators about the state’s reliance on standardized tests for the awarding of a high school diploma and his willingness to challenge conventional thinking with the filing of HB 407 are applauded.”

I wanted to update that Rep. Massullo got Senator Debbie Mayfield to file identical companion bills for HB 6015 (SB 782) ‘High School Graduation Requirements’ and HB 591 (SB 808) ‘Maximum Class Size’.  In addition, Rep. Jason Fischer agreed to co-sponsor HB591.  Rep. Massullo is working with Sen. Montford and other Senators on his major educational pathways bill, HB 407 ‘Alternative High School Graduation Requirements’ and I have confidence he will be successful with that bill as well.

Follow this link to read the entire Chronicle Editorial: http://www.chronicleonline.com/content/massullo-bill-seeks-necessary-balance

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