Visiting our schools in the summer you always see and learn neat things. Today I saw two. One was a set of shoes pull-overs with scrubbers on the bottom the staff use when wax-stripping floors. I spent many a summer stripping and waxing floors as a teen and wished we had these to walk those slippery floors.
The other was I visited with Linda Boles, president of Find – M’ Friends, one of her youth volunteers, one of our Citrus County K9 deputies and his bloodhounds partner, as they visited Crystal River High School using the campus to train and perform search exercises.
Ms. Boles shared about the numerus successful identification exercises they had done on the CRHS campus that morning.
I am so pleased of the work Find – M’ Friends and our Citrus County Sheriff’s Office deputies are doing with the bloodhounds program, and I am pleased they our campuses offer an environment to help train these important resources.
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Get out the sunscreen… No doctor’s or parent’s note needed
HB 7069 gives parents and students right to use sunscreen as needed
For a number of years I have pushed for more common sense laws with regard to over-the-counter products use in our schools. Items like chapstick, cough drops, acetaminophen, and sunscreen should be items that students have easy access to have and use. Some relief came this year in House Bill 7069 regarding sunscreen.
HB 7069 include the following improvement to Florida law, “Sun-protective measures in school. A student may possess and use a topical sunscreen product while on school property or at a school physician’s note or prescription if the product is regulated by the United States Food and Drug Administration for over counter use to limit ultraviolet light-induced skin damage.”
This means the beginning this school year the school board will no longer be required to have students bring in a physician’s note, or require a Parent Permission for Sunscreen Authorization Form.
I am so excited about this issue and I am grateful that State Representative Ralph Massullo who is an M.D. and specialize in Dermatology, very much understood the importance of this issue.
It is my hope that more common sense improvements to over-the-counter products will be written into law in the future to further give students and parents choices on their students’ medical needs.
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I am pleased that FRS is healthy, but let us not forget that this was done on the backs of public education funding.
In 2011 the state of Florida changed in midstream retirement benefits for employees in FRS by then beginning having these employees contribute to the retirement plan. Common and expected in the private sector, where wages/salaries, pay scales and benefits are driven by profits and losses. This is not the case for those that chose noble professions in the public servant sector. Teachers, law enforcement officers, first responders, state and county workers in order to service where willing accept these lesser pay scale positions knowing that some of the offset of the retirement benefits. The public was told that FRS was in such bad financial shape that employees now had to contribute in order to keep FRS solvent.
Instead the state did not really add more to the coffers of FRS. They instead defunded areas like public education and then played a shell game with the funds and used the employee retirement contributes to supplant and fund back some of the losses.
Another better approach could have been to phase in a new contribution for new hires. This would have permitted those new employees to weight the pros and cons of public service over the private sector.
Now again this year district FRS contributes have been increased to further pad FRS. Citrus County’s FRS required contribution was increased by another $370,000. This means less to our students and schools so that the state can claim they saved taxpayers money. It is a shell game and is in the end costing taxpayers more.
Was FRS ever in the poor shape some claimed and said was necessary to make this change? Or was this further justification to reduce the value of those in these noble professions?
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I was proud today, Tuesday, June 27th, 2017 during our School Board meeting to ask our board for support in removing VAM (Value added Model) from the teachers’ evaluation process in Citrus County. VAM was put into law under SB736 in 2011 by the then Florida Legislature and tied teachers’ pay to students’ grades. While we may not have desired everything in the controversial recent HB 7069 law that Gov. Scott signed. One part of HB 7069 was it made VAM optional.
I have opposed VAM and the use to students’ grade being tied to teachers’ salaries, bonuses and steps from the beginning. I was pleased at today’s school board meeting to ask my fellow board members to support the immediate process to remove VAM from Citrus County School Board policy. There was unanimous support of the entire board.
This will not be an overnight process as policy revisions never are, but the change has now begun. Superintendent Sandra “Sam” Himmel shared during the meeting that our Research and Accountability department would be developing and presenting at an upcoming meeting alternative replacements to VAM for teacher evaluations.
This I believe is a small, but good step in the correct direction. Many more steps are still needed.
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National Merit Finalists solves Rubik’s Cube in 15 seconds
Today at our School Board meeting we recognized Citrus’s National Merit Finalists (top 1% in nation). One of these young men, Sasank Desaraju (Lecanto High School), has a unique talent that I asked him to share. He can solve a “mixed up” Rubik’s Cube in less then 15 seconds!
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Florida Senate passes education testing bill– moves back to House
Time is running out…
On Thursday, the Florida Senate passed a large educational train bill. While this bill had hoped to significantly reduce the state mandated assessments students must take, in the end the bill only eliminates one assessment, the Algebra 2 end-of-course (EOC) exam. The bill will also ask the Florida Department of Education to study by January 1st, 2018 in national exams, such as SAT or ACT, can be used as alternatives to the Florida Standards Assessments and other statewide mandated assessments.
In the end I concur with Senator Montford when he said on the floor of the Florida Senate Chambers on Thursday, May 4th, 2017, “Is this bill what I wanted? No. I wanted more, but … I know that, at least, this is a good beginning“.
One of those positive parts to this bill is Senator Mayfield and Rep. Ralph Massullo, M.D. bills which will allow students the participate in two seasons of interscholastic high school sports (varsity and Jr. varsity) to have their athletic participation count as their required physical education credit, rather than take an addition P.E. class. This will provide more equitable options for athlete students, it also provides students with addition elective options and flexibility.
Next the bill will move back to the Florida House of Representatives and House members could make further changes. Identical language must be approved by both chambers before the end of floor sessions on Friday in order for the bill to be sent to Gov. Rick Scott.
Stay tune…
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Visiting our schools in the summer you always see and learn neat things. Today I saw two. One was a set of shoes pull-overs with scrubbers on the bottom the staff use when wax-stripping floors. I spent many a summer stripping and waxing floors as a teen and wished we had these to walk those slippery floors.
The other was I visited with Linda Boles, president of Find – M’ Friends, one of her youth volunteers, one of our Citrus County K9 deputies and his bloodhounds partner, as they visited Crystal River High School using the campus to train and perform search exercises.
