“This week I had planned on writing a blog post about the history of the .25 millage rate and begin sharing with you the direction the school board may go in requesting from voters continuing the .25 critical need millage rate. As I was preparing to write the article the Citrus County Chronicle Editorial published an excellent editorial on the issue. I ask if you would take time to please read it.” ~Thomas

Chronicle Editorial Board: Valuing students

“Vote critical to sustaining quality schools”

April 4, 2012
THE ISSUE: School tax vote.
OPINION: Maintaining 1.75 millage rate merits voter approval.

Prior to 2008, local school district millage rates were set by the state at 2 mills and restricted to capital outlays. Since 2008, the Florida Legislature, in a cost-shifting political shell game, passed the responsibly for adequately funding school construction and maintenance to local school boards by reducing the millage rate to 1.5 mills with the option for local school boards to restore it to 1.75 mills with voter approval.

Faced with the state’s slashing of $10 million for capital projects, annual facilities maintenance costs of $10 million and a $47 million renovation project for its aging primary and high schools in Crystal River, the Citrus County School Board placed students first by assuming the political risk of calling for voters to restore the millage rate to 1.75 in 2010.

Answering the board’s call, Citrus County voters affirmed their strong support for the education of our students by overwhelmingly approving the requested quarter-mill restoration by more than 60 percent of the vote.

This demonstrative show of community support for valuing the education of its students was cited by the Fitch Group as a key factor in the school board recently earning an A-plus financial rating during a period of prolonged economic decline.

Unfortunately, the state will eliminate the current quarter-mill levy for capital programs by year’s end.

Accordingly, school board members once again are placing students first by asking voters during this November’s general election to replace the expiring quarter-mill capital outlay levy with a quarter-mill levy for school operations, given that the state has cut the district’s operational funds by $18 million the past four years.

Since the requested quarter-mill levy, which equates to $25 annually for the average homeowner, would replace the current quarter-mill levy for capital outlays, the wording on the voter’s referendum cannot say that it is simply a renewal of the levy approved by voters in 2010.

Consequently, school board members and district officials are concerned that voters may mistakenly view the requested quarter-mill levy for operations as a tax increase.

Unlike the Legislature, which passed the buck in fulfilling its constitutional responsibility to make education a paramount duty, Citrus County voters accepted that duty with the overwhelming number of ballots cast for the education of our children in 2010.

Voters are urged to continue valuing students by approving the requested quarter-mill levy to maintain the current 1.75 millage rate, which is critical to sustaining the quality of education that our students receive.

www.chronicleonline.com/content/valuing-students

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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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Master Board Training Continues

“we are student centered and student focused”

This week our school board met to continue our Master Board training.  The Master Board Program is a formal school board training program through The Florida School Boards Association, Inc that is to assist in building a strong and well working school district’s leadership team (e.g. the school board and superintendent).  Monday’s training session was a public meeting workshop in a conference room upstairs from our board chambers providing a closer and more relaxed setting to “roll up our sleeves” and talk less formally.

I have appreciated my fellow board members and Superintendent Himmel. of Citrus County Schools, taking the many hours and days of training over the last several months to re-certify our board as a Master Board. They have done this training, in part, because one, we lost our standing as a Certified Board due to having a newly elected board member (me) and, two, because the training helps the board to learn how we each work and think, and how we can be more effective in working together as a team.  Why is that important you might ask?  Our district has been blessed for many years now with a very functional School Board that works together to make positive change and decisions for the students of Citrus County.  The better a school board can communicate and make decisions, the better and more positive work can be accomplished.   This has been the case for many years in our district and when I was elected I desired to continue that while bringing my personal concerns and voice to the leadership team.  This training, in my opinion, only helps to perpetuate the boards’ ongoing success.

The programs training has included; Strategic Planning, Establishing Trust, Ethical Management, Leadership Styles, Meaningful Change, Personal Styles and much more.  This week’s training was more customized to our specific group and focused, in part, on communicating with each other and learning more about what in our individual backgrounds contributes to the way we communicate and make decisions.  I believe I learned something new about each of my fellow board members that day that will help me in working and governing with them.  One of the things that make our school districts leadership team so powerful is that we have learned over and over from working with each other that we are clearly “student centered and student focused”.

We all have very different personalities and backgrounds and we all communicate in different styles.  This means that we, at times, have different ideas on how to solve problems, but we work, listen and communicate with each other until in the end we make decisions that we feel are in the best interest for our students.  I have firsthand seen this leadership team solve problems over and over again, whether in closed door hearings or at a public meeting.  Don’t misunderstand, we sometimes disagree and even, at times, have strong disagreements but it is resolved amiably in the end because we all were elected to put students first and I believe our Leadership Team is “walking the walk”.

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