Tavares, FL Oct. 7, 2014 - Updated twice. Updated Oct. 8 to add links to two speakers on "recess"
"Recess" for kids at K-12 schools has become a hot topic, and I think much of it will be resolved by a committee established by the Lake County School District Board.
However, it appeared many at last night's had been incited by one rogue Facebook page with half facts (Lake County Safe Schools Initiative). A pundit would almost think that this was an artificial, emotional Saul Alinsky crisis like those created by liberals to serve another purpose.
The supporters handed out 200 flyers to inflame meeting attendees; ignoring the fact a committee is already reviewing recess policies on a county wide basis.
HERE is the Lake Sentinel's article on last night's meeting
- it contains some innaccuracies by a new reporter.
No one mentioned that once the recess issue was raised by 3-4 outspoken
parents at a School Board workshop a few weeks ago, Board member Tod Howard
asked the issue be discussed at a subsequent workshop. That workshop then
resulted in an establishment of an independent committee including teachers,
Principals, parents and staff.
Here is the news release on the first committee meeting:
Download 09-18-recess committee release
The recess committee started their first meeting on Sept. 30 by attempting
to define issues, and even the simple problem of conflicting definitions of
what different members thought "recess" meant.
Here is an attached DRAFT (and rough) version of the staff minutes from that
meeting. It will be cleaned up and distributed to the committee members at
the next meeting so they can review the list of issues and prioritize them.
Download 2014-09-30 Recess Committee Meeting Minutes Draft
And ...HERE is my video of that recess committee meeting.
No decisions were made at the first meeting. The next meeting is Thursday, Oct. 23 at 2pm at the LCSD headquarters on HWY 441.
Update: Here are videos of three public input speakers at the recent Monday School District meeting. They spoke on the need for recess and presented reasonable, rational arguments:
http://youtu.be/pBIhGPQQR3k <<< Dr. Marc T. Carlson
http://youtu.be/H57HqpJqvpI <<< Dr. Kristi L. Burns
http://youtu.be/OlBKKjXCTNs <<<< Dr. E. Thomas Carlson
Another issue, student clubs, erupted at the meetings regarding a Board
decision on the agenda to reduce some stipends and rights to some student
clubs due to recent lawsuits.
Channel 6 had a report HERE about that hyped issue of student clubs - changing some student clubs to
"non-curricular" due to a series of lawsuits. There were emotional pleas,
but only 2-3 seconds with the LCSD public information officer Chris Patton
explaining they had to do it due to legal decisions. Not one speaker
mentioned that the ACLU started the lawsuits resulting in the limits on some clubs. Later, after everyone left, the Board voted to approve making two clubs "curricular" which solved the problem, except Key clubs are the next needing approval to be categorized as "Curricular".
Who are the "angry" Facebook pages or groups attacking Board members and the
Administration and generating all the emotional hype?
1. Lake County Safe Schools Initiative
HERE is a link to one of their diatribes, and their comments regarding a
recess issue at one school.
None of the authors ever identify themselves, so they hide behind anonymous
postings of insults ("Fire his A**"). They have removed numerous "crazy" statements and banned me from posting comments to correct their innuendo and half facts.
They constantly encouraged readers to attend last
night's board meeting wearing a red shirt. Their original formation was to
protest the cut of courtesy busing for Lake County students who lived less
than two miles from a school and where Florida State did not reimburse
School Districts for that expense. The cut was purely a reaction by the School Board to low
funding, and a cost saving measure. Where were the critics when the Board discussed reduced revenues and needing help to get the legislature to increase them? Since the formation of this group, the Board has resolved many issues related to safety or tried to get legislation passed to allow
reimbursement to school districts for courtesy busing if hazardous walking
conditions exist. Protesters seem to ignore the budget realities of the school board.
The group has expanded into other issues with inflammatory statements on issues, such as recess.
Another issue initiated by this group was blasting that
retirees would be hurt by Board member Tod Howard because a pending
legislative priorities list was on last night's agenda. However, the
priority was to get legislation to allow collection of some documentary tax
fees for schools as an alternate to reductions in impact fees. Howard championed that move to at least find an alternative to lost impact fee revenues. The action had no direct relation to retirees and was used to create inflammatory headlines. These methods are right out of Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" used by liberals and Barack Obama.
2. The Lake County Education Association (aka LCEA, the teacher's union)
This group is the primary organizer of the teacher protests last night. When you see speakers reading carefully crafted emotional pleas, and everyone clapping in unison for any teacher related issue and wearing red, you know it was organized. These tactics inflame well meaning individuals and are used by the Lake County Democrats & Unions to engender emotional responses. There seem to be two objectives:
1) Forcing change in teacher working conditions and pay due to no action for the last year while many new initiatives like Common Core and other programs were rolled out. I actually agree with the objective, but not the manner of inflaming people.
2) A possible underlying strategy of electing two teachers to the Board to control it. In my opinion, if you like teachers without budget, business or board experience, you would like them, but if you want better success at controlling the budget, obtaining more funding or favorable legislation, the taxpayers and teachers need to re-elect Tod Howard and elect Nancy Muenzmay (to replace outgoing Kyleen Fischer) who both have significant business and budget expertise. They also have advanced degrees and are more capable of asking tough questions of the administration, rather than just accept staff recommendations.
3. Lake County Healthy Schools - formed primarily to address the issue of recess.
This is a new Facebook GROUP with 230+ members and is focused on the recess
issues. They produced the recess flyer handed out last night and also
instructed their readers to attend the meeting in red shirts. It is not
inflammatory and provides facts, so is relevant vs the Safe Schools guys, but they did use the recess flyer to incite attendees without even mentioning the recess committee that was in progress.
The group administrators do NOT hide their names. Creator is Kristi Burns,
with Admins Mark Carlson, Chandra Young and Cheryl Smith.
4. Opt Out Lake County
- an even newer Facebook Group modeled on Opt Out Orlando - anti-Common Core
This group is brand new with only 30 members, but focuses on supporting Opt
Out movements - i.e. parents or schools opting out of using FL State tests
for kids. They have posts supporting Tod Howard, but then also Marc Dodd,
his opponent. Not inflammatory.
Observation
The rising tide of Teacher anger and overwork due to Common Core is valid, but the "Saul Alinsky
crisis" issues like recess and student clubs seem aimed mostly at raising anger levels and electing two teachers without budget or business or Board expertise to the Board.
They are Marc Dodd and Stephanie Luke. Their opponents, incumbent Tod Howard and
Nancy Muenzmay have much more budget, fiscal and policy experience.
However, the issues regarding excess workloads and demands of Common Core are relevant and
indeed overdue.
In RECESS related news, THIS article describes how Lee County, FL created a
county wide recess system and has attracted a documentary crew that covers it. Lee
County is the one that passed, then reversed a decision to opt out of FL "high stakes testing" for K-12.
Several parents and teachers blasted Lake Schools roll out of Common Core
(i.e. rebranded as Florida Standards) due to it being "developmentally
inappropriate" which means too complex for young kids to understand. I agree with that stand.
You can read this recent article on that issue
... and some people label the roll out of Common Core to K-5 as "child abuse".
You have to wonder with such an outpouring of emotion on the Common Core
caused problems what bubble the administration and three board members
(Stivender, Fischer and Brandeburg) are living in that isolates them from
addressing the Common Core caused issues. Many of the speakers should
direct their demands related to overwork to not only the Superintendant, and
the three Board members above, but also to Gov. Scott and Florida legislators.
Vance Jochim
FiscalRangers.com
