Fire Academy Presentation, State of the District Part 1 & Senator Nelson

A lot can sometimes happen in one Board Meeting day

August 23^rd was a jam packed day for our School Board Meeting.  After a quick Special Board Meeting to approve the Instructional and Support personnel recommendations from the Superintendent, we began our School Board Workshop.

First up was a presentation by Sheriff Jeff Dawsy and Lt. Philip Royal on developing a Fire Academy at the WTI Criminal Justice Academy.  Sheriff Dawsy first shared about the impending merger of the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office and Citrus County Fire Rescue. (See Chronicle article “County Approves Dawsy’s Fire Plan” June 15, 2011) Next Lt. Royal, the Director of the Criminal Justice Academy, outlined a preliminary plan of adding the Citrus County Fire Rescue School into the WTI Criminal Justice Academy to form a Fire Academy as part of the Criminal Justice Academy.  Lt. Royal explained that he would come back to the board again soon with firm figures but that if approved, the Fire Academy for no additional expense to Citrus County Schools, WTI, or the Criminal Justice Academy  may in fact provide additional revenue.  Furthermore,  Lt. Royal shared that currently approximately 97% of the Corrections Academy graduates and 90% of the Law Enforcement Academy graduates are being employed immediately with as much as 15% locally.  Lt. Royal explained that he expects as good a result with the Fire Academy.  The Board indicated that it was most interested in the adding the Fire Academy and Lt. Royal planned to come back soon with firm cost to present.

Next was a presentation on the “Citrus County School’s State of the District, Part 1” presentation.  The better part of the rest of the Workshop and day was spent on this presentation.  The presentation included Personnel Report, Personnel, Teacher Evaluation System Update, 2011 FCAT Results, 2011 Student Data, 2010-2011 Initiatives and 2011-2012 Initiatives, including Gifted, Penn Foster, Horizon, Plato and AVID.  The Human Resources Department shared that currently we have 2,380 employees which represents a 7.7% reduction in total staff.  HR also shared the new Teacher Evaluation System.  The 2011 FCAT Results were presented. Citrus placed 14^th out of 67 counties but was one of the highest districts among those with over 60% Title 1 students (a.k.a. Free and Reduced Lunch).  In addition, all elementary and middle schools earned an “A” rating (high school scores will not be released until late fall 2011) from the Florida Department of Education. The  Citrus School District earned an “A” rating for the district and earned the high distinctions of “Academically High Performing District”.

One of the most exciting and challenging presentations in the State of the District report is that regarding Technology and the Transition to Digital Curriculum, meaning digital textbooks for students.  Florida legislation F.S. 1002.321 Digital Learning Now Act states, “Each student shall have access to a high-quality digital learning environment.”  F.S. 1006.40 Instructional Materials  further requires that, “By the 2015-2016 fiscal year, each district school board shall use at least 50 percent of the annual allocation for the purchase of digital or electronic instructional materials.”  Also reported and what I was most excited about is the new wall-to-wall wireless network/internet access for students in middle and high school that Citrus Schools is installing this 2011-2012 school year.  This highly filtered wireless network will provide students an individual logon username and password.  Students could then use the network from their own laptops, netbooks, iPad and more.  A School Board Workshop on this and other emerging technologies in our schools and classrooms along with student and staff use guidelines is being scheduled for November 15^th, 2011.  If you are interested in these issues I would encourage you to come to the workshop.

The Board recessed about three-quarters through the meeting to break to attend a small Elected Officials meeting with United States Senator and former astronaut Bill Nelson.  It was a pleasure meeting and hearing from the Senator.  You can read more about this meeting by reading my blog post, “Bill Nelson comes to Citrus”.

Our next meeting is a School Board Workshop Meeting at 9:00am on Tuesday, September 13^th, 2011 at 4:00pm.

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