Upward Bound Wraps for the school year

Today was the last Upward Bound for Elementary Awards for the 2021-2022 school year. Today’s ceremony marks over 30 years of the Citrus County Rotary Ray Darling Upward Bound Awards and Ceremonies. Nearly 20,000 students have been recognized as Upward Bound recipients for individual successes.

Today’s inspirational guest speaker for our students was James “Boe” Anderson a personal friend of the late Ray Darling founder of the Upward Bound’s Award Ceremonies and who the Award is now named for. Mr. Anderson is a fourth-generation Floridian who at age 15 attended Tampa Bay Tech High School where he learned the printing trade. He later began his commercial experience in printing and in 1980 Gemini Graphics Printing, Inc., which remains in operations today. In 1995 the company moved from Tampa to Homosassa where Mr. Anderson started the Olde Mill House Gallery and Printing Museum. Mr. Anderson inspired the students to continue to persevere.

Ray Darlings’s vision that every student is worthy and can be successful and should be acknowledged for that continues because of the support from each of the Citrus County Rotary Clubs in Citrus County. Upward Bound students have gone on to become successful and our community continues to benefit because of the work of the Citrus County Rotary Ray Darling Upward Bound Awards and Ceremony.

While this school year’s Upward Bound ceremonies are over, the work of our students, their families, our schools, our educators, our community, our Rotaries, and Rotarians continue.

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FSBIT BOD Meetings

I am at the Florida School Board Insurance Trust (FSBIT) board of directors’ meetings this week in Tampa representing both Citrus Schools and FSBA. These are critical meetings to understand the current and future risk mitigation, liabilities, financial impacts, and more facing our school district. Citrus County Schools is one of 12 Florida School Districts (trustees) that make up the not-for-profit FSBIT. Because Citrus School’s insurance needs have been covered through FSBIT for decades, it has resulted in significant cost savings and no commission insurance rates, and risk coverage has been at or better than the open market.

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Citrus School Board approves resolution supporting parents’ rights

Today at the conclusion of our Citrus County School Board meeting I offered up a ‘Resolution Supporting the Rights of Parents in Education’ for my fellow school board members to review and approve. I am grateful and honored that my fellow school board members unanimously approved this resolution.

Parent empowerment is nothing new for Citrus County School District. As a recent Citrus County Chronicle Newspaper Editorial Board column stated, “at the conclusion of the 2022 Legislative Session, Gov. Ron DeSantis declared this is the year of the parent in Florida. Here in the Citrus County school system, it has been the year of the parent for many years.”  Today’s Citrus County School Board resolution publicly affirms those beliefs and actions.

The resolution reads;

CITRUS COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD

RESOLUTION SUPPORTING THE RIGHTS OF PARENTS IN EDUCATION

WHEREAS, parents are their children’s primary teacher and are responsible for the upbringing, education, and care of their children; and

WHEREAS, providing the highest quality public education is critically important and requires meaningful collaboration between children, parents, families, educators, school board members, and communities; and

WHEREAS, the education of children comprises of a variety of activities that are used by families and communities to teach content and skills, including social, behavior and cultural; and

WHEREAS, students and families are entitled to equitable access and fairness from the public school district; and

WHEREAS, public school districts welcome and value the support of families and communities to foster effective partnerships; and

WHEREAS, Citrus County School District has a longstanding commitment of supporting and encouraging parent involvement and input in multiple areas including but not limited to school advisory councils, code of conduct adoption committees, textbook adoption committees, calendar adoption committees, Superintendent’s Parents Council, Title 1 Parents Council, personal meetings and communications with teachers, school administrators, district staff, Superintendent of Schools and school board members; and

WHEREAS, all educators and school board members should support and respect the relationship between families and their children; and

NOW THEREFORE,

BE IT RESOLVED, that the School Board of Citrus County encourages all school district staff to honor parents as the child’s primary teacher and collaborate with families to continue the longstanding commitment to provide a safe environment and ensure parents’ rights are respected when it comes to decisions about their children’s education and safety.

Given at Inverness, Florida this April 12, 2022.

THE SCHOOL BOARD OF CITRUS COUNTY, FLORIDA

Virginia “Ginger” Bryant, Chair

Douglas A. Dodd, Vice Chair

Thomas Kennedy

Sandy Counts

Linda B. Powers

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