Recap of School Board Special Meeting & Workshop on 4/24/2012

“The digits are coming… the DIGITS ARE COMING…”

Tuesday was a Special Board Meeting and Board Workshop. At the Special Meeting the board approved the appointment of Ms. Donnie Brown as the new principal of Crystal River Primary School, effective July 1, 2012. The board also approved the appointment of Suzanne Swain to the position of Coordinator of Certification and Professional Standards, effective July 1, 2012. I am excited about both of these appointments as I know these educators personally and I look forward to them beginning their new roles.

Also, at the Special Meeting the board was presented with a presentation of the new administrative appraisal system which was required to be changed under the new “Student Success Act” law (a.k.a. 2011 SB736) like the teachers’ appraisal system was earlier in the school year. After the presentation the board approved the appraisal system

During the Workshop portion of the meeting Assistant Superintendent Ken Blocker gave a 2012-2013 budget update. As I have shared previously, at this time the school board has agreed to keep things in “status quo” for the 2012-2013 school year

One of the most exciting news items was the announcement of a special pilot project shared by Dr. Mike Geddes, the Director of Instructional Technology. A new and recent Florida statue has expedited the implementation of school district’s transition from print to digital curriculum. As a result, last year the school board set funds aside from the Race to the Top Grant to pilot one student and one digital device. This is often referred to in education as a “One-to-One” pilot initiative. Dr. Geddes formed a Technology Standards Committee (TS) who was charged with recommending a digital device. I am the Board Member Representative on this committee. After great research, and even some debate, the committee recommended the Apple iPad. Next, middle and high schools in our district were encouraged to apply for the pilot program. The objective of being the pilot was to use a digital device (ex. iPad) to impact approximately 200-300 students by transitioning them from print to digital curriculum. Additionally, the pilot would track the results of the one-to-one pilot program and compare a digital curriculum to the traditional print curriculum. The TS committee reviewed and scored the pilot applications and the school with the highest score was recommended by the TS committee to be awarded the pilot program. After the scoring was completed, all thirteen TSC members gave Citrus Springs Middle School the top highest number of points and CSMS was awarded the pilot program

For the 2012-2013 school year 7^th graders at Citrus Springs Middle School will each receive an iPad. The iPad will replace the textbook for Social Studies and will supplement the textbooks for other subjects. A great deal of curriculum planning is underway to maximize the use and effective learning using the iPads. Teachers are already scheduled for training in the use of the iPad in their classrooms. Students will be given training for the use of the iPad when they are issued their iPad in the Fall. As a school board and district we have been developing new technology policies and guidelines for the use of these emerging technologies. This year a special filter student wall-to-wall wireless network was installed in all of our middle and high schools. Many details of this initiative and pilot will be released in the coming weeks and months.

I am tremendously excited about this pilot study and initiative. I strongly believe that in order for our students to be competitive in college and in the job arena they must learn for the world of the future instead of the world we have come from. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to read my blog post “Steve Jobs on Education”, Posted on February 16th, 2012.

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Highlights of School Board Meeting for July 26^th, 2011

What an eventful day, new teacher orientation introduction, school visit, budget workshop, special board meeting and lastly a public hearing all in one day.

After spending time at our new teacher orientation meeting the Board then convened for a touring workshop of Crystal River High School Renovation/Remodeling (follow link for photos of the new CRHS), Crystal River Primary School Renovation/Remodeling and Lecanto High School Cafeteria Renovation/Remodeling projects. Each of these projects or phases is coming to a close and “should” be ready for the first day of school.  The previous Board, Ms. Himmel, and the whole Facilities and Construction team should be commended for these improvements.

We then re-convened in the afternoon for a budget workshop.  After the workshop we had a  Special meeting and Public hearing to adopt the Tentative Millage Rates, the Tentative Facilities Work

Program, and the Tentative 2011-2012 budget. We also approved the 2011-2012 Student Progression Plans.

Because of the very difficult budget decisions for 2011-2012 and the 2012-2013 school years I wanted to give you a better understanding about the school budget and funds.

The Tentative Millage Rates

Often people misunderstand millage rates. Neither the School Board, the Superintendent, the County Commissioners, the Property Appraiser nor Tax Collector sets the maximum millage rate that is collected to operate public schools.  It is the Legislators that set the millage rates.  As the Chronicle Editorial Board shared in November 1, 2010, “Since the 2007-2008 school year, the state has cut capital budget funding to the Citrus County School District nearly in half, from $35.7 million in 2007-08 to about $18.3 million for the current school year.”  “…In 2007-08, the state allowed school districts to levy 2 mills for capital budgets, then that amount was cut to 1.75 with the state retaining the remaining quarter mill to return to school districts for their operating budgets. The state has continued to cut the millage, so now school districts have 1.25 mills allocated for capital improvements and maintenance. If a school board wants to make up the difference, it must go on the ballot.”  The voters approved the Critical Capital Needs referendum at the November 2010 elections.  Then, during the 2011 legislative session, the Florida Legislators passed a law that beginning in 2012 districts could no longer put a referendum for the millage rate on a ballot for the citizens to vote on.  This means that now we can only collect the Critical Capital Needs Millage Rate  for the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 fiscal year’s budget only.

PECO Funds

Florida public school districts received PECO (Public Education Capital Outlay) funds.  PECO funds could be used by districts for acquiring land, building, altering, remodeling, improving, enlarging, furnishing, equipping, maintaining, renovating, or repairing of capital outlay projects for school purposes.  These were important funds for our schools and students.

The 2011 Florida Legislators allocated $55 million in PECO funds with a big exception.  Only the 350 Charter Schools will share $55 million, while the approximately 3,000 traditional public schools will get nothing.

It should be noted that there are more than 2,000 traditional public elementary and middle schools in Florida. Fewer than 1 percent (or 17 schools) received an “F” grade for the 2010-2011 school year. There are 270 charter elementary and middle schools in the state and more than 5 percent (15 schools) received an “F” grade for the 2010-2011 school year.

“The Budget” Tentative for the 2011-2012 School Year

The total tentative budget for the Citrus County School District for the fiscal year 2011-2012 totals $261,691,898. This reflects approximately $32 Million or 11% less than last year. The largest fund in our school budget is the General Fund, which is used for the operations of the school district. The largest funding for the General Fund is the Florida Education Finance Program (FEFP).  The FEFP funding program provides approximately $95 million, which is approximately $11 Million less than last year’s funding or 10.6% less. This is also compounded by the fact that the federal stimulus funding received two years ago of $5 Million has expired.

What is very scary is that we are expecting that we will be receiving another $5 to 6 million less for the 2012-2013 budget.  As I have said, “this budget year looks bad, but next budget year will feel bad!”  

We are going to face some very challenging financial times ahead for our schools. It is for that reason that we will not being waiting until next year to begin working on the 2012-2013 budget, but instead will begin budget work right after the 2011-2012 budget is formally passed, meaning October 2011.

The Best Part of the Day

With all the many tough budget issues during the meeting we had one agenda item that stood out as a light for me that day.

Dr. Trish Kallenbach, Education Committee Chairperson for the Rolling Thunder, Florida Chapter 7 organization, gave a presentation requesting that Citrus Schools begin flying year round the Nation’s second National Flag, the POW/MIA flag, at all our schools.  In addition, Rolling Thunder will provide our schools with the flags at no cost.

I want to thank Rolling Thunder and Florida Chapter 7 for their presentation and more importantly, for their generosity for providing the National POW/MIA flags to our schools.  I had the honor at the encouragement of fellow Board Member Ms. Pat Deutschman to make the motion to accept this gift and request.  The motion passed unanimously!

I believe this flag will be a beacon helping our students remember what has been sacrificed to allow and provide the great opportunity of learning knowledge each day.  From the words of one my heroes, retired Crystal River High School teacher and former Vietnam POW Capt. Richard Tangeman,  who spent approximately five years of imprisonment at Hoa Lo Prison (a.k.a. “Hanoi Hilton”),  “Don’t let the MIAs or their families be forgotten.  Now that we are home, please transfer the support you have shown us, the returned POWs, to the effort of aiding the MIA families in their search for knowledge concerning their heroic loved ones. These families still face the pain and problems connected with the absence of their husbands, fathers and sons. God bless your efforts in the past – and those in the future.”

I look forward to seeing these flags flying soon at our schools.

Our next meeting is a Regular School Board Meeting at 4:00pm on Tuesday, Aug 9^th, 2011.

 

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Regular School Board Meeting for June 14^th, 2011

In honor of Flag Day, Board Member Pat Deutschman gave a wonderful presentation about the history of Flag Day using  Superintendent Himmel’s flag collection that was displayed  around the board room. This collection included one sewn years ago by Mrs. Deutschman’s Cub Scout Troop.  Ms. Deutschman then had new Eagle Scout Derek Mangelsen and his scout brothers lead out in the national anthem.

The board received an update on the Lecanto cafeteria project, learning about its  color selections and serving area décor.  The cafeteria is scheduled  for completion on or about the middle of August 2011.

At the meeting we  had many wonderful presentations again this month.  (This is always my favorite part of the board meetings.)  Derek Mangelsen was honored for achieving the rank of Eagle Scout.  Derek’s Eagle Scout Leadership Service Project was a garden project at Rock Crusher Elementary school which is also Derek’s former elementary school.  Gail Grimm, Director of Professional Development & Community Services, recognized four aspiring teachers with the Aspiring Teacher Scholarships.  This program provides $ 1,000 scholarships for non-instructional personnel in Cirrus County public schools who are pursuing a degree in education.  This year’s recipients were Rachel Miller of Renaissance Center, Dawn Diaz of Citrus Springs Elementary, April Head of Rock Crusher Elementary and Marsha Wallace with the District Service Office.  Amy Mangan, Community Relations Officer with Progress Energy presented the Progress Energy K-12 Grant in the amount of $25,000.00 to the Citrus County Education Foundation.  Lastly, the Board recognized the Elementary Tropicana Speech winners and listened to their speeches.

Dr. Michael Geddes, Director of Technology and Information Services, provided an update on the computer rollout at our schools and throughout the district.  Dr. Geddes shared that his department and Dell have refreshed 7,002 new computers. Those that weren’t refreshed were traded out for newer computers.  What this means  for our students and staff is that  we now have the best of all systems available. In most cases this means that staff and students will be using Windows 7 and Office 2010.

Ken Blocker, Executive Director of Business Services, (and recently promoted Assist Superintendent of Business Services) provided budget updates and answered board questions regarding the current district budget.  The board  approved nineteen “TERM” (for 2011-2012 school year only) Supplemental Academic Instruction (SAI) Teacher Aides,  with one for each elementary, middle, and high school and Renaissance Center.  The board approved one Social Worker “TERM” (for 2011-2012 school year only) for the Renaissance Center.  This person I believe was and is important to the continual improvement of the programs at the Renaissance Center.  Lastly, the board approved  eighteen “TERM” (for 2011-2012 school year only) Teacher Aides for the elementary, middle and high schools.

This was also a bit of a bittersweet board meeting as it was Assistant Superintendent Mary Curry’s last board meeting.  Ms. Curry is retiring and her last day in June 27^th.  Ms. Curry has been critical to our school district’s success over the last many years.  My own family has directly benefited from Ms. Curry’s talents as Ms. Curry was the founding principal at Citrus Springs Middle School where my wife teaches and where  my son is a student.  Ms. Curry’s positive impact on that school is still evident today.  Many former and current principals credit Ms. Curry for CSMS’s successes then and now.  Ms. Curry will be nearly impossible to ever fully replace and we are a better district because of her love for students and their learning.

Our next meeting is a School Board Workshop on Tuesday, June 28 at 9:00am.

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