Governor Rick Scott Appoints Superintendent Sam Himmel to Children and Youth Cabinet

Superintendent of Citrus County Schools, Sandra “Sam” Himmel is a child and student advocate.  Throughout her career as a teacher, school board member and superintendent, it is always apparent that kids are at the center of Sam’s focus. It is no surprise that on Friday Florida Governor Rick Scott announced the appointment of Sam Himmel to the Children and Youth Cabinet.

The Governor’s web site shares that the Cabinets mission is, “to ensure that the public policy of Florida relating to children and youth promotes interdepartmental collaboration and program implementation in order for services designed for children and youth to be planned, managed and delivered in a holistic and integrated manner to improve the self-sufficiency, safety, economic stability, health and quality of life of all children and youth in Florida.”

The Cabinet is charged with promoting and implementing collaboration, creativity, increased efficiency, information sharing and improved service delivery between and within state agencies and organizations.

Himmel will join and impressive group of Cabinet members including: Florida Department of Education, Commissioner Pam Stewart; Florida Senator, Sen. Eleanor Sobel; Surgeon General & Secretary Department of Health, Dr. Celeste Philip, MD, MPH; Florida Supreme Court, Justice Barbara Pariente, Esquire; Florida House of Representative, Rep. Gayle Harrell; Department of Juvenile Justice, Secretary Christina K. Daly; Department of Children and Families, Secretary Mike Carroll; and Agency for Health Care Administration, Secretary Elizabeth Dudek. (a full list of Cabinet members can be seen at: http://www.flgov.com/cyc-members/)

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WTC Nursing Program is Top Ranked

Congratulations to WTC on being one of the TOP LPN Programs in Florida!

On Tuesday Withlacoochee Technical College received news from Bryce Hall, president of PracticalNursing.org WTC was ranked 3^rd in the state for their LPN nursing training program.  Hall said, “On behalf of our team, I am pleased to inform you that Withlacoochee Technical College’s nursing program has been ranked as one of the top 30 LPN programs in the state of Florida!”

Miami & Dade County’s Jersey College was ranked 1^st and Winter Parks Herzing University was ranked 2^nd.  Hall went on to share about how programs are selected, “LPN programs were assessed on several factors which represent how well a program supports students towards licensure and beyond. For example, we analyzed past and present NCLEX-PN “pass-rates” – weighted by year. You can learn more about the methodology used here: http://www.practicalnursing.org/lvn-lpn-ranking-methodology”

Let’s congratulations to the entire LPN and WTC teams on this exciting accomplishment!

Follow this link for a full list of programs: http://www.practicalnursing.org/lvn-programs/florida

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Tech Geeks’ Meeting

Educational Technology Council

Tina Hackey, the Media Technology Specialist at Citrus Springs Elementary School shared about the Ozobot, a robot for teaching students to program.

On Thursday, I attended our quarterly school district’s Educational Technology Council meeting, which brings together school base technology specialist and technicians. This is always an important opportunity for these team members to come together.  These technology experts are on the front lines of our curriculum, digital assessments, technology initiatives and state mandates.

In today’s classrooms nearly every aspect of teaching and learning uses technology. From the overhead projectors, cameras, to the teacher’s computer, to the student’s iPads, to the many many different software and apps. Our technology specialist and technicians play a critical and essential role in making everything work and helping developers curriculum solutions for the classroom.

These are such dedicated individuals that are having to manage a massive growing and challenging necessary infrastructure. They are often having to use creative means to stay ahead of issues. While they cannot continue to do so, these individuals have had to manage massive increases in hardware and have done these implementations with their existing resources saving the district thousands of dollars and making learning more engaging and relevant.

Director of Instructional Technology, Dr. Mike Geddes shared about our district’s growing network bandwidth requirements.

Director of Instructional Technology, Dr. Mike Geddes shared about our district’s growing network bandwidth requirements. Network bandwidth needs of our schools and district have increased from 100MB in 2011 to 2000MB in 2017 and we are headed to 5000MB within just a short time. What is driving this? Textbook adoption is required to be digital, along with our supplemental, enrichment and intervention curriculums is increasing bandwidth usage. The current cost of this bandwidth is approximately $40,000 a month, but thankfully 80% of that cost is paid for not out of our school’s general fund but through rebates through E-Rate. E-Rate is the Schools and Libraries Program of the Universal Service Fund, which is administered by the Universal Service Administrative Company under the direction of the Federal Communications Commission.

At the meeting ‘techs’ have the opportunity to share their knowledge, tricks and tools with one another. District Technology Specialist, Matt Biggs shared about a learning and programming tool/toy called “Sphero SPRK+” which students can program the “Sphero” ball to move as the students’ learn coding to program the ball’s paths. Tina Hackey, the Media Technology Specialist at Citrus Springs Elementary School shared about another exciting robot for students to program, the Ozobot. We are seeing these tools in our schools in MakerSpace areas. Rachel Drummond, the Technology Specialist from Inverness Middle School shared about Google Translate to communicate with now English speaking students. Google Translate app allows you to have your mobile device camera in real-time look at text on a sign or paper and translate it as they are looking at it. This tool is assisting students to learn while they are learning their new language, and it is helping teachers and students to better communicate and build relationships.

This is always an informative meeting and I walk away grateful that my own children are in a school district that have these dedicated and technology committed individuals. They are bettering students to have the knowledge and experience to be more successful in their individual future college and careers.

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