Art Teacher Art

Teachers Do Practice What They Teach!

Citrus County Schools Art Teachers often are displaying and showing off their students works.  They don’t often have an opportunity to show their own artistic talents.  The “Art Teacher Art” exhibit at the Old Courthouse Heritage Museum will be on display from January 17th, 2012 until February 17th, 2012.

The Feature Artists include: Diane Baize, Jinny Brew, David Brown, Cecily Buck, Jack Calbeck, Laurie Canfield, Cory Collins, CJ Collins, Brenda Dalton, Sheri Decesare, Jennifer Faust, Keith Gum, Holly Herndon, Polly Hilgert, Bonnie Ignico, Karol Kusmaul, Debbie Ledsome, Jack Lester, Joy Livingston, Lee Partin, Connie Philips, Candacie Schrader, Michelle Wirt, and Jinnie Zuniga

Exhibit hours are from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00p.m. Monday through Friday, with a special evening exhibition from 5:00p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Thursday, January 26^th, 2012.

The exhibit is free; however, donations are welcome and appreciated.

Some of the art work is for sale as well. For more information call 352-341-6436

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Recap of January Regular Board Meeting

If it is the second Tuesday of the month, it must be Board Day!

At the January Regular Board meeting the 2012-2013 school year calendar, Inverness Middle School traffic flow and presentations by Food Service Director Roy Pistone were the primary items covered during the meeting.

This is not your old school lunch! A benefit to being a Board Member is that we often regularly are brought samples of foods, snacks and beverages served to students and staff.  In addition, I try to stop and have lunch at the different school cafeterias as well whenever I can.  Like the kids I have my favorites.  The samples we got at this meeting were Apple & Eve’s Fruitables made from fruits and vegetables and Smart Cookies which are small vanilla cookies with a picture and name of one of the United States Presidents on it.  The cookies will be given to all of our reimbursable lunch students near Presidents Day.  Citrus County Schools Food Service Director, Roy Pistone, presented the Wellness Policy Guidelines as revised by the State and Federal Departments that Food Services must comply with.  Mr. Pistone shared information about some of the new food programs that Citrus will be offering. One of the new guidelines is that, through a grant, Citrus Food Service will be providing a health snack and drink to all students who attend an after school program at no cost to the student or the district.  I encourage you to learn more about our Food Service Department by visiting their web site at cafe.citrus.k12.fl.us

Also, now with the Florida Department of Education moving the testing window to December for the 2012-2013 school year, the Board promptly moved to approve the new school year calendar with the first semester beginning, for students, on August 8^th, 2012 and ending on December 21^st, 2012.  For more background on this issue read my blog posted on January 9^th, 2012: DOE Reverses Decision: High School Testing Window Back to Dec.)

I want to thank the Calendar Committee who had to develop twice as many option calendars and take in to consideration the testing windows issue concerns and  other concerns not previously required or necessary.  I am so proud of the difficult work they did for our students. 

The Board also received an update on the traffic problem and concerns that occurred with autos entering and exiting out of Inverness Middle School Road and the parent pick/drop off route.  The Board formed a Task Force Committee to look for short term and long term goals to improve the situation at both IMS and parent pick up/drop off routes at the school.  The Committee will tentatively update the Board in February.

Next Board meeting is a Workshop on January 24^th, 2012 which will begin at CRHS at 9:00am and include tours of CRHS construction, CRMS and then reconvene at the Board room in the afternoon.

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2012 Begins

It is 2012!  January 1^st, for many of us, is a day of reflection and planning.  I know in our home we are thinking of starting back to school this week, planning for upcoming events, planning for spring and summer with hopes of doing something special for my wife and my 20th wedding anniversary this year.

2012 also welcomes many new challenges in education for our students, teachers, classrooms, schools and district.  One of the first things to watch and pay attention to is the Florida Legislative session which begins January 10^th, 2012.  Of the many other items to pay attention to is the Redistricting which will affect Citrus County on both a state and federal representative level.  You can learn more about the Florida redistricting by visiting www.floridaredistricting.org.  Another big issue to watch is the State Budget.  While Governor Scott has presented his proposed state budget which includes additional funding to education I have several concerns about his proposal.  The Governor’s projections have an important missing element.  The state is now projecting 300,000 new additional students coming to Florida in 2012-2013 school year. The Governor’s budget does not take that into account. This means that, potentially, whatever the final state educational budget figure is, it will be ultimately divided by the number of students in Florida, creating the new/revised Florida Education Finance Program (FEFP) Calculation.  This means that per student funding which the Governor hopes to increase by $100 plus per student could, after the new student number adjustments, be a reduction in funding instead of an increase.  In addition, the way the Governor is looking to fund the additional $100 per student funding is by cuts in Florida Medicaid.  It needs to be known that cuts in Medicaid have a direct effect on many of our students and services offered to students.  Further, the Governor is suggesting cutting 4,500 state jobs.  While many may believe this is reducing the size of government we have to be aware that cutting ANY jobs at this time only continues to have a negative economic effect on our local communities.  We are between the proverbial “rock and a hard place”.

Locally, the School Board and the Superintendent have been working continually to address the education budget challenges.  The Superintendent put together a District Budget Committee who has been meeting since the fall.  This committee was charged with developing proposed budget reduction ideas for the 2012-2013 districts’ budget that were then presented to the school board.  In addition, Assistant Superintendent Ken Blocker has visited the schools and district offices, presenting a “School Budget: 101” overview on how education is funded and what our funding and expenses have been over the last many years.  This also has been a positive way to talk with staff that are directly affected by changes about the process and answer their questions, concerns, and get their feedback and suggestions.  We all are very interested in hearing anyone’s cost savings thoughts, ideas and suggestions.  Many have been looked into already but please keep sharing with us because it has been staff that has come up with some of the best and largest cost reductions ideas.

This has been a tough time in education but we have and will continue to succeed for our students.  It is challenging for the district, the schools, and educators and staff who are working so hard for those changes to not have a negative effect on our students and their learning environment.  Everyone has been playing a part in our districts success, from our students, parents, volunteers, mentors, PTAs & PTOs, Advisory Councils, educators, administrators, staff and community members are pulling together.  This has been one of the few positive aspects of this educational dilemma, and we need to celebrate it and continue it!

Our students need for each of us, in our individual roles, to be positive and realistic about addressing these challenges.  Our students are our investment and our future.  They deserve our total commitment.

God Bless our district and us all in 2012!

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