Current Views and Goals
For years I have been advocating smaller, better built community schools. Rezoning is one of the topics that upset many people constantly throughout our county. We keep building giant high schools and little less gigantic middle schools. Consequently, we end up spending millions more in bussing and upsetting countless numbers of homeowners and families who have their property value changed because of rezoning, or their families upset because of a new school their children must now attend, separating them from friends and classmates of previous years. Also, on the whole these SMART smaller schools are much cheaper to build and the land cost is less per student than larger schools. There seem to be more and more groups advocating smaller schools now, which are proved to be more conducive to better education. Some of these SITES you should check are:
SMART SCHOOLS: The Community-Centered Small Schools Movement
Ocoee Middle School - "A State Demonstration School"
One of the reasons that cost is a lot less for these schools is because the state will give the school boards all the plans for the schools. At one meeting four years ago, the school board was hearing a report on the cost of our schools. I had with me a cost guide of building smart schools to put alongside the visual given to us of the cost of the schools we were building that were the same size. I was amazed to find that these same size schools were millions more to build than the SMART schools.
If you look at the rebuilding that is going on with schools and the problems with rezoning and the busing expenses, it seems that the smart schools that are smaller would benefit everyone. More students would have an opportunity to participate in school sports programs, and the arts. You have less competition. I came from a school in North Dakota that only had 70 students in my high school. That is a bit smaller than I recommend here, but I was a cheerleader, editor of the school newspaper, student council class president, lead in the class play—all these are because competition was less, and yet it helped to round me out as a person to participate in these otherwise limited activities. Let’s take a look at some of these ideas for smaller, SMART, schools that become community schools.
When you look at some of these sites you will see a trend getting some movement towards smaller schools like we used to have.
When I asked Superintendent Ron Blocker why they were tearing down West Orange High School, he told me it was because it had a lot of problems with mold and air quality for some time. That was an open and honest answer. A little more truth about that is that West Orange High School and Apopka High School both were built in 1975, for a more complete history of the schools check the article on Wikipedia about West Orange High.
Most people do not understand what a “sick school” is and how it affects education and health. “Though the most common health problems are not life threatening, illnesses such as upper respiratory illnesses, chronic headaches, stomachaches, and the exacerbation of asthma does interfere with learning and teaching.” (School Issues: Sick Schools) West Orange HS was a closed building made to be more efficient when running air conditioning. The problem was that when the school board turned off the air conditioning in the summers to save some electrical costs, it cause mold to build throughout the ventilation system in the school. The first time it happened they were threatened with closure if they did not fix it. So, the geniuses flushed chlorine bleach throughout the system to fix the mold problem. After a few students almost died because of the bleach inhalation, a friend of mine told me about her son almost dying during that fiasco, they no longer flushed bleach through the system, but they did continue to turn off the air conditioning units in the summer. West Orange High School and Apopka High School both became seriously sick schools. Many students and teachers from both of these schools have had many illnesses from the building. Both buildings are only thirty three years old! That is not old for a school building that has been properly maintained.
I listened to the Jones High School Parents talk about the illnesses their children were having as the school administration was taking so long at building their school. They had a sick building that was making many students sick. The problem with building a new building on top of a sick building is that the pathogens cross building lines and may infect the new building. I was on the board of the local American Indoor Air Quality Council and I learned a lot. Are Jones students still experiencing illnesses like they were with the old building? I don’t know.
School board members have stated in letters that the reason Evan’s High school needs to be rebuilt is because it is a sick building. Again, why are we not addressing this problem in our schools? Why are we sending students to a building known to be sick and a danger to teacher and student’s health? Why is the school system not factoring in the effect of these buildings on student performance as well?
There are cheaper ways in which schools can maintain healthy buildings other than waiting until they are sick and tearing them down. “Control temperature and humidity” (Dunne Environmental Problems Blamed for Making Kids Sick) But I am sure that turning off all schools in the summer or even for a week in the summer is not a good idea. At the April 13th work session during the school board’s discussion of budget, Superintendent Blocker announced that they would be turning off all schools for one week during the summer to save about $200,000 in costs. Kat Gordon then asked why they weren’t turning off all the schools for the whole summer like they used to. She did not receive a reply. Mr. Blocker followed his statement with the announcement that they would be taking care of books and other materials in the school that would probably get mold on them during the week shutdown, so that the items would not get ruined because of the mold. Nowhere does anyone suggest that the Air-conditioning vents and walls may become moldy and then start this contamination process of the schools.
**We have just spent billions of dollars to fix and build NEW schools; it would really be a shame if Mr. Blocker goes ahead with his plan to turn off every school in Orange county for a week just to save $200,000. The reason it is a shame is because he also said that he would protect the books and special equipment from damage by MOLD. He did not mention the school itself or its air conditioning ducts. Several of the schools we have rebuilt have been because the schools were not maintained and became sick schools—West Orange HS, Apopka HS, Jones HS, just to name a few.
Looking at the current budget, if you divide the number of students (FTE) into the total budget you come up with approximately $22,000 per student. This budget is nearly doubled from what it was four years ago. When you look at individual school budgets you can see that almost all of the middle and high schools receive between $4000 and $5000 per student; this is not really increased from four years ago. The elementary schools now receive about $9000 per student due to the class size amendment.
FAD EDUCATION—FLIP TIMES
Fad education theories have been going around for many years, at least as long as I have been in education. It occurs when someone does a study and tries out a change, often a big one, and then it spreads like wild fire throughout the nation. Then after destroying education in most places, the schools go back to what they were doing before the fad. Just like a style of clothes becomes a fad for a year or three, and then another style is pushed, and it spreads. The difference is that you have not turned people’s lives upside down to do it.
As an example of a fad education move, let’s look at the fad that had spread throughout the nation by the time I had finished my education degree. This was in the late sixties and early seventies. It was called “Individualized Instruction” done in “open classrooms.” The theory behind this was that “We are holding back individual students because we have too much control on them as we educate them; they will work much better if each person has their own plan of study and classrooms are open, so that students can move easily from one group level of students to another. All we need to do is test them and put them on a study plan based on their level and turn them loose. They naturally want to learn, and we are stifling them with the old fashioned classroom based instruction.” I was able to teach one year of this method before I graduated as an intern teacher with a class of my own. This craze was dying down by the time I graduated and moved to Florida, and here I was able to see the aftermath.
Educators throughout the nation were now seeing that, hey, maybe one percent of a student population will be self-motivated enough to just take off and learn faster and better than his/her classmates, but the rest will just sit there and pretend they are working while doing nothing. Thus, this brilliant idea probably set back the nation’s education about five years. Many schools had been built in the “open classroom” style during that time and had no walls between classrooms, so school districts had to now spend money on building walls within these buildings, and then later replace the buildings, costing millions and billions of dollars.
As I look over the internet I see this happening with flip times based on a Minnesota study. The fact that children need a decent amount of sleep is not something new. Pretending that high-school students need more sleep than middle-school students is where the idiocy comes in. High school students could use more sleep---move their start time to 8:00 a.m. Middle school students still need more sleep than high school students need--- keep their start time at 9:30 a.m. (If someone looked it up they would probably find that there was a good reason for having done this in the first place.) In 1984-85 some middle schools started at 7:30 a.m. here in Orange County. A teacher who was teaching middle school at that time told me what she observed in her class. Yes, the students came in much more docile early in the morning and with less behavioral problems…until they woke up at about 10:00 a.m. She said then they had to scramble to try and educate them in the three remaining hours of school. It failed. And they went back to a later starting time, so they could work with students who were awake.
If we want to move ahead of other schools even more in our education, then let’s sit this fad out. As other schools mess up their students education for the next seven years, we will easily pass them in our education achievement.
Pursuant to SCHOOL BOARD POLICY BG (1) (a) “The Superintendent shall give immediate and proper written notice to the public pursuant to the provisions of Section 120.54, Florida Statutes, when the school board has determined that it will give due consideration to the proposal for adoption, amendment or repeal of a rule. The notice of a public hearing shall be advertised 21 days prior to the date of the hearing. The notice shall include a brief and concise explanation of the proposed rule’s purpose and effect, the estimate of economic impact to all individuals affected by the proposed rule or rule amendment, the specific legal authority to authorize the school board’s action and the location where the text of the proposed change may be obtained.
(b) Any person who is substantially affected by a proposed rule, rule amendment or the repeal of a rule may within 21 days following notice of intent to adopt, amend or repeal such rule, file a written request with the school board seeking an administration determination as to the validity of the proposed rule action.
(c) A vote for adoption shall require a two-thirds affirmative vote (five of the total membership of the school board).”
We are individuals that are “substantially affected” by this rule to “Flip High school and Middle School time schedules.” We are filing “a written request with the school board of Orange county Florida with the school board to seek an administration determination as to the validity of the proposed rule action.” (Also pursuant to OCPS BG (1) (a) there was a breach in the OCPS rules and FL STATUTES because there was not a “notice of a public hearing advertised 21 days prior to the date of the hearing. “ Nor was there “a brief and concise explanation of the proposed rule’s purpose and effect, the estimate of economic impact to ALL individuals affected by the proposed rule. . .”)
**The latest on the school board flip times---I have been informed that in the early ‘1990’s the middle school children were waiting for busses in the dark. I was told that a rash of deaths occurred because of this. And that this was the main reason for putting the middle school start times at 9:30. I still need to prove this….If so, this would be enough evidence to show the need to flip back.
SURVIVING IN SCHOOL
As you look at my indoor plants you can see they are almost dead. They are barely surviving. This is my problem with growing plants; my in-laws say I could kill a rock garden. But I wanted to use this example to represent what we hear so often from many students and schools. They say, "I'm surviving," like it is some great accomplishment.
Surviving, like my plants, is just one step from being dead! We weren’t sent to this earth to JUST SURVIVE! We were sent here to LIVE, to GROW, TO DEVELOP, TO LEARN, and TO BLOSSOM! We don't want our students and schools to just survive! We want our schools and students to
LIVE!
I am running for school board because I want to see education thrive in Orange County. I want to see equal good education throughout the county. Principal Galadowitsch from Rolling Hills Elementary School is the example that shows what can be done with these schools. When I visited his school, I was impressed the moment I stepped on campus. The school ran like clockwork. I could tell immediately that this was an excellent school with great teachers and an excellent principal. When I went into Mr. Galadowitsch’s office and saw the walls filled with awards and pictures of Mr. Galadowitsch shaking hands with various Bushes and other dignitaries. He explained that a few years ago when he took over the school it was a failed school with 50% white and 50% black. Now it is 95% black with a top “A” ranking for the school. It is a school that anyone would be happy to send their child to. This is what we should have at all the schools in Orange County. It is time to do away with the excuses we keep getting for our many poor schools. It is time for equal good education in all of Orange County.
We need to look closely at our 3.5+ billion dollar budget and get more of the money down to the classrooms. We need to build healthy, “Smart” Schools, which the legislature has been trying to get us to build, that will be more economical, healthy, small, and neighborhood schools that keep up with the building going on in this county. This is what we as
Citizens of Orange County want to see done. We don’t want to have to search all over the county looking for the best school for our children; we want our neighborhood school to be the best it can be. Then all will grow and thrive, not just survive like my almost dead plants.
How would you improve learning conditions in the “high needs” schools?
First of all we need to place in these schools our top principals, those who have proven their leadership in running schools and hiring teachers needed for the special needs of their schools. With “walk throughs” and class visits, teachers should be evaluated as to their needs on a regular basis. Principals should have this as their top priority. Discipline has to be set and firm and supported by the school’s administrative staff.
What suggestions do you have for recruiting and training teachers and other professionals in our school district?
For one thing I would like to see us use teachers already living here. I have come across several who cannot seem to get hired. They have good credentials. As an experiment, four years ago when the need was even higher, I applied to teach. I am listed as highly qualified. I received five phone calls from schools, with my credentials clearly stated; only two had positions in my field of certification. I was not needed. Something is amiss.
How and when should the school board seek out the views of the teachers and other school district employees?
The teachers know what is going on in the schools. The school board should always be looking for input from the teachers, and employees, on a confidential basis if necessary.
The state legislature influences school board funding and policies. What extent would you like to be involved in legislative activities?
I have seen some of their good ideas that I would like to see implemented in our county--for example the “Smart Schools” design and cost saving plans. Another is the idea that we could actually cut a lot of mandated programs because we are a charter district; this could save us a lot of money.
What do you believe your relationship should be to local, city and county officials?
We should all be working together and sharing information to achieve concurrency. We need time to be able to handle building schools if property is being developed at some known future date. We should communicate regular and set up policies as to how to achieve this open communication.
What is your view on charter schools?
Charter schools are legal and give more choice to students and parents. I would look for qualified teachers and qualified administration staff and their plan as a whole as to their purpose and goals. I think that they should receive the full per student amount as mandated by the state.
What relationship should a school board member have with the Superintendent?
I think a school board member should know what is going on in the district by doing some of their own research rather than being hand fed all information. The superintendent is hired by the school board, which is elected by the public. An individual school board member can ask questions but certainly should not expect to direct the superintendent without the full board approval. The board as a whole should be directing the superintendant and holding him accountable for following through on their policies and direction.
Do you support an elected school board chair? Why or why not?
I have trouble with electing a school board chair because he would have to run county wide, an extremely large area, which is extremely difficult to cover and would cost a lot of money, which brings in more of your special interests and a name of someone who already has name recognition, but not necessarily the understanding of a school system. On top of that, he would have 2 votes instead of 1 like the rest of the board. This would lessen the authority and influence of the individual district representatives.
If the board’s beliefs were in conflict with the majority of voters in your district, how would you resolve the conflict?
We have to work with our constituents. I represent them. They have to feel like the school board responds to them, if we are going to better our view to the public. You can’t please everyone all the time, but you should try to please the majority.