Lee County School Board meeting Tuesday, October 7, 2014 @6pm. Included in our meeting is the vote on the Ratification of the proposed 2015 Legislative Program of the Greater Florida Consortium of School Boards. I have included my letter to the BOE on this subject. If you have not read the agenda yet, please read through it at leeschools.net/board/board_agenda/14-15/100714_regular_agenda.pdf and call or email your BOE members to add your input. Dear Board Members, I have concerns regarding your review and vote of the Ratification of the proposed 2015 Legislative Program of the Greater Florida Consortium of School Boards. As stated, “Each participating school board reviews and approves or rejects each issue contained within the proposed program. The final Legislative Program includes only those issues on which all of the member boards agree.” EACH ISSUE - I see several that our District should discuss and address. ‘FUNDING’ •Base the class size requirement on the school-wide average for all public schools.” I do not believe that any voter wants to see this happen. This year, alone, we are seeing the damaging results of Lee County doing this. The voters chose to mandate class size for the benefit of the children and the teachers. We need the funding to provide the mandate as it stands. We do not need loopholes to avoid providing our students and teachers with the tools they need to succeed. ‘ACCOUNTABILITY AND STATE TESTING PROGRAM’ •‘Suspend high stakes testing’. I believe the wording should be changed to, ‘Eliminate high stakes testing.’ •Allow school districts to choose nationally Normed tests as an alternative to state mandated tests.” Our Public Schools already have a statute that allows students to receive concordant scores on the SAT/ACT to fulfill graduation requirements. We only need to establish funding for the students to take those tests. • Oppose any further expansion of the Florida Tax Credit and John McKay Scholarship Programs and require the same accountability for students attending these programs as is required for students attending traditional public schools. DO we really want to require the same accountability when we are trying to get rid of that accountability in public schools? These are the only safe places for our children to hide right now! ADDITIONAL ISSUES Accountability and State Testing Program, under this heading, takes a wide back step from ‘suspending’ or eliminating high stakes testing. •The writing test is not used for student benefit or for diagnostic purposes. Why do we care if it is reinstated to a ‘3.5 as the passing grade’? •‘Develop and fund the teacher/administrator evaluation and performance pay system …’ is again going along with the status quo. We do not want our professional educators evaluated by a flawed system – we want them to be evaluated as the professionals that they are. That should be stated. •‘Develop an alternative assessment model for measuring progress of students enrolled in ESE centers that appropriately measures student achievement and teacher performance, and establish statewide criteria for student placement.’ ESE students are currently the most over tested population in our school system. We do NOT need another alternative assessment for ESE students. Eliminate high stakes testing. Please work to remove the link between teacher performance and student high stakes test scores. Thank you for taking the time to consider my review of the Ratification of the proposed 2015 Legislative Program of the Greater Florida Consortium of School Boards. I believe that we need to send a clear message to our Legislators and I see this message diluted in many areas. I trust that you can rectify these inconsistencies and give your support to our children and teachers in every area.
Posted on: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 04:40:42 +0000
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