Week in Review for Feb 27th-Mar 5th, 2011

Posted on March 7th, 2011 by

Week in Review for Feb 27th-Mar 5th, 2011

I am beginning something new on my blog. I am going to begin doing a “Week in Review” post. It is my hope that this will better allow me to share my week ‘s activities. I will continue to post more detailed posts on specific topics, activities and information.

I want to also take this time to thank the many of you that read my posts and who often share with me how you are enjoying the blog and learning more about our schools. We are getting lots of readers. Currently, I have been getting over 26,000 total hits a month with almost 2600 individual visitors each month since the first of this year. I am excited to see it is still growing.

Tuesday I started off the day by reading my favorite Dr. Seuss book, “The Lorax” to Mrs. Tesa McClure’s first grade class at Rock Crusher Elementary to help celebrate Dr. Seuss’s birthday. I had so much fun with this wonderful first grade class. I brought my son’s “Cat in the Hat” stuffed animal to hold while I read the book. I love the message of this story and the students really seemed to grasp the story’s message.

Tuesday evening I attended the CREST Literacy Open House. What great work and learning the students and staff are achieving at CREST! I enjoyed seeing the many gifts, plants and crafts for sale by students. The staff showed me a new garden just put in by the students. The high school teachers where excited to show off the new gray-scale ‘Nooks’. The teachers shared the tremendous increase in student reading because of the student’s excitement to read using these Nooks.

Wednesday I attended a public Legislative meeting were US Congressman “Sherriff” Nugent, Senator Charlie Dean, and Florida Representative Jimmie T. Smith spent time speaking about the bills they had presented this session and then took questions. Much talk centered around the recent proposed Citrus Port (see ChronicleOnline story, ‘Commission steams toward Port Citrus’). In addition , regarding education issues , both Dean and Smith spoke about SB224/HB107 Local Government Accountability (Online Budget Transparency) and SB736 and HB7019 – Education Personnel. The Local Government Accountability bills in my opinion and , as I understand it at this time, will not likely have any big impact to Citrus County Schools as our district is already putting online the Citrus County Schools Annual Budget and budget amendments included in board agendas. The Education Personnel bill will have many major changes to Florida public schools and our Citrus schools. Much of these bills are rooted in the “Race to the Top” grant which Citrus is participating in. These bills are moving quickly through committees and will likely make it to a floor vote. I personally have many concerns about some aspects of these bills so I , along with many Florida school board members, superintendents, educators and parents , are watching these bills closely .

I visited Citrus High School on Thursday to see the process of the computer upgrades going on throughout our district (see ‘Educational Technology Council’ post for background). The process is moving along well at CHS and I was pleased with the work I saw. A stop to CHS isn’t complete without stopping by the culinary classroom to sample some of the incredible cookies Mr. Aldo Verderame and his students make and sell.

This week is Board Meeting week so plan on attending if you can. The School Board Regular Meeting is Tuesday, March 8th at 4:00pm. Click here to see the agenda.

Have a great week everyone!

Thomas Kennedy

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