An exciting day at schools around the county! Enjoy these walk-throughs.
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Today was one of those days as a school board member that I so enjoy. I attended the School Advisory Council (SAC) School Improvement Planning days at Central Ridge Elementary and Citrus Springs Middle School.
At these vital planning meetings, they bring together stakeholders including the school administrators, teachers, parents and school board members to review performance data, current strategies, curriculum and much more. During these meetings, critical, frank and open conversations lead to the development of a school improvement plan to positively impact our students and their classrooms. I have the pleasure to be a part of these meetings for nearly 15 years, first as a parent, then the SAC chairman, and now as a school board member. I am always impressed with the process and the bring together of these stakeholders.
During the afternoon each schools’ teams from every school in the district came back together at Citrus High School, with district education leaders to further collaborate and finalize their respective School Improvement Plans.
I look forward to reading through the adopted plans when they are complete. Thank you to all the many staff, parents, community members, district personnel and school administrators for your productive and important work.
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This past year I had the honor of working with Florida School Board Association leaders and its members on FSBA’s 2019 Legislative priorities on the FSBA Legislative Committee and as FSBA’s Advocacy sub-committee Chairman. As you can see from this report FSBA saw many of its priorities make notable progress by the passage of several bills and Governor DeSantis’s executive orders. Thank you to the Legislature and Governor DeSantis for their work in supporting these important needs for our students and schools.
We look forward to continuing to work together in the upcoming 2020 Florida legislative session.
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Yesterday as both a Citrus County Blessings Board of Directors member and a representative of the Citrus County School Board, I joined many of our Blessings Board members on a tour of our county’s neighborhoods to see where many of our Blessing’s students live to have a better understanding of how we can continue to help our students and families.
The morning began in Lecanto at the County Community Center where Blessings rents their office and storage. We boarded a standard issue Citrus School Bus and traveled through Homosassa and Crystal River neighborhoods. We stopped at one of Blessings major partners, Citrus County’s Community Food Bank. The Food Bank (as it is often referred too) is home to their 7,200 sq. ft. food warehouse. The Food Bank is the largest food supplier to Blessings and over 50 other food pantries throughout Citrus County and surrounding counties. Blessings purchases food each year from the Food Bank at significate savings then if we purchased the food direct. It is the savings that allows Blessings to better serve the near 1,400 students that are food-insecure in Citrus County.
Next, the bus traveled through the neighborhoods of Floral City and Inverness stopping at Withlacoochee Technical College, where another major partner of Blessings is based, the Citrus County Education Foundation. Executive Director Shaunda Burdette and Associate Director Susan Frampton tour us through the CCEF “teacher store”. At this ALL FREE store, teachers may “shop” for supplies for their students and classrooms. Blessings operates a section of the store, Blessings supplies snacks for teachers to provide to students in their classroom. Last school year CCEF provides approximately $50,000 in supplies from the CCEF Teacher’s Store. While at CCEF Ms. Burdette and Ms. Frampton provided a lovely lunch for Blessings. This gave both CCEF and Blessings an opportunity to share about the work we are doing individually and collectively. During lunch Blessing’s Grace Hengesbach shared the connection between CCEF and Blessings, as we are the only two organizations whose sole purpose is to meet the needs of our Citrus County students.
Next, the bus headed to the neighborhoods in Hernando, Dunnellon and Beverly Hills. Our school bus driver was so valuable to the knowledge and better understanding we learned this day. Throughout our journey, our bus driver would point out the areas our students lived and help us better understand about our student’s lives.
I want to thank Blessings outgoing Executive Director, Grace Hengesbach and incoming Executive Director, Connie Storms for all their work putting together this incredibly informative day.
To learn more about Blessings and for those wishing to volunteer or donate to Citrus County Blessings please visit the website at: www.citruseducation.org
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On this the 75th anniversary of ‘Operation Neptune’ and often referred to as D-Day, that began on June 6, 1944. The Normandy landings was the largest seaborne invasion in history. We cannot begin to thank enough the ‘Greatest Generation’ in all of history for their sacrifice for our freedoms and opportunities.
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Citrus School Board 2019 Summer CommunicationFollow this link below to the Citrus County School Board’s 2019 Summer Communication. Learn about the many sucesses and accolades of your Citrus County Schools. Read about; Parent Tips for Summer Reading, Recommended Books for Summer Reading, Summer Feeding Program, Meet Your Teacher dates for the 2019-2020 School Year and more.
Read and download CCSB 2019 Summer Communication – https://thomastalks.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/CCSB-Summer-Communication-2019.pdf
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