Is ninth grade too early for college prep classes? - St. Petersburg Times:
What is AP Human Geography?
The College Board course description says the purpose is to 'introduce students to the systematic study of patterns and processes that have shaped human understanding ... Students employ spatial concepts and landscape analysis to examine human social organization and its environmental consequences.'"
Thanks to The Gradebook for the above link to the above article in the St, Pete Times. I am sure that Leticia Stein and Shirl Kennedy purposely chose the above "AP Human Geography" question as a springboard for us, the intuitive public, to systematically examine the human, political, cultural, social, and economic aspects of Hillsborough County.
For lack of time, plus trying to recover from my yesterday's trip to Canada all the way around the big lake to Mexico which my feet still remember, I will draw attention to one aspect of the local human landscape.
As physical changes of the earth are dependent on the timing of the various variables that cause effective change, so does our own local events effect our own little world of Hillsborough County.
Hillsborough superintendent: 42K bonus to charity#comments#comments:
"Hillsborough Superintendent MaryEllen Elia is donating her $42,438 bonus to charity this year."
The public comments, even though they are not identifiable and cannot be held accountable for their opinions, already demonstrate there are differing views on the function of this donation.
Can also be found here:
Schools Chief Passes Bonus
I am sure it is just me because I am an isolated incident, but I just can't help thinking about some other events effecting the local human geography.
Here
:Public Education - Politics, Business and Education: Media Blitz - Truth or Propaganda
Here
:Sound Off And Be Heard: Superintendent Elia shows sensitivity during financially trying times
And then of course there is this under ground rainbow:
)Is ninth grade too early for college prep classes? - St. Petersburg Times):
"It weighs into Hillsborough Superintendent MaryEllen Elia's annual bonus."
Maybe it's just me, but could this be dialing up an old page from the same play book?:
An A+ Plan for Education:
"In the Tampa area, Hillsborough County school superintendent Earl Lennard made statewide news recently when he vowed to take a 5 percent pay cut, or a personal loss of $8,250, if any school in Hillsborough County receives an F grade. To meet this high expectation, Lennard promised his schools the support they need, including reduced class sizes for select 'D' schools and money for after-school or Saturday tutoring at all schools. This pledge prompted one Hillsborough schoolteacher to remark, 'I've seen principals eat worms. I've seen vice principals kiss pigs to get students to read a certain number of pages, but I have never seen a superintendent put his salary on the line.' At least not until the A+ Plan."
The problem with numbers is trust. And it ain't about me, babe.
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11 comments:
MaryEllen only looks like she is trying to be sensitive to the tough economic times. What is not written is that she needs the tax write-off for her over-inflated salary!!!
A tax write-off may well be a reason for the hefty donation.
I was thinking more on the quid pro quo lines. Or maybe it could be like the guy that offers a woman a bunch of money to marry him, but she puts the money in his bank account.
Speculation is the limit.
Hillsborough Education Foundation - Board of Directors
I suggest that you read the 2007 Annual Report available at the same site.
The Education Foundation reports that they raised $6,470,000 in 2007. But 15% of that money is from the Hillsborough School District itself. When the Foundation was conceieved, it was meant to make a "small" investment (a few hundred thousand dollars) in order to garner private funds for the school district. Why then did the school in one year allocate almost a million dollars of taxpayer funds to an organization that funds programs that are not or cannot be funded by taxpayer dollars? I am sure that the Foundation is designed to do good things. But I see what was once a small grass-roots effort to raise funds for our schools ballooning into a multi-million dollar organization that, per a 2007 report, holds 10 million dollars in assets and yet is still siphoning almost a million dollars from our school's annual budget. Factor in that the Foundation's President earned 2.3% of the funds raised ($147,500 in 2007) and an additional unknown amount is paid to other employees (the number of Foundation employees now stands at 20). Of course there are plenty of other operating costs. So how much of that almost 1 million dollars of taxpayer money went directly to benefit our students, teachers and classrooms?
How much of Ms. Elia's $42K bonus will benefit our students, teachers and classrooms, and how much will benefit other interests or costs associated with the Foundation?
Since the Foundation now has sizable assets, does it continue to require the annual infusion of cash from our school district? Is $970,000 an appropriate amount of annual support for our school system's education foundation?
Thanks for the "heads up" on Alafia Elementary's generous $10,000+ donation.
I can assure the public that nobody at Alafia Elementary, other than Ellen Smith, even knew of this huge donation! One of the many cited problems at Alafia was that only Mrs. Smith controlled all budgets and spending without any staff/teacher imput or knowledge.
Our school had so many needs (we were running out of copy paper,soap,paper towels,etc. when this $10,000 was donated) was she was sending the money to please/pay off someone?
The teachers were told at the beginning of the school year that there was no money in the budget for napkins or plastic utensils. All the while, Smith is making a $10,000 donation to an organization that no one knew about. Smith's car has been up at the school all day today. I wonder who else is being paid off before she leaves.
As an adage addict would say, "Follow the Money".
Another adage that has been humbly suggested is that when things don't make sense, the decision maker is not sitting at the table, but is pulling the strings.
There must be a duck if there are duck feathers everywhere.
I would suggest that you look to see how many schools made donations - there were quite a few. What's the common denominator?
At Alafia, if a teacher makes too many photocopies -- on equipment purchased and maintained with PTA funds because Ellyn Smith pays for pretty much nothing out of the school's budget -- that teacher is personally charged $34 for a case of paper. It is incredibly galling to think that our overworked, underpaid teachers are being charged for copy paper while the principal is secretly donating $10,000+ in Alafia money to this so-called charity.
For a School District to be putting nearly $1 million of taxpayer money into a foundation that is supposed to be providing financial support to that very District is beyond ludicrous. It's downright incestuous and wreaks of illicit backscratching and wrongdoing. I hope someone starts digging into this one!
To anon 3:56 pm:
I give up.
What is the common denominator?
These were in the $10,000 plus list:
Alafia
Burney
Chiaramonte
Chiles
Coleman
Limona
Pinecrest
Randall
Tinker
Walker
I noted that some school's PTA's donated.
Who makes the decision of which school pays and how much they pay?
$250.00 to $10,000 plus is a pretty good span.
My stats show that the schools listed paid $218,750 give or take a couple of errors of omissions. I keep in mind that under the rating scale, the true number is a standard deviation or two higher.
The $10,000 schools are pretty much spread throughout the county. Every area except for Area IV is represented. Your question about who decides is a good one. I have an idea, but its purely speculation.
If "concernedvoter" of 2:36 pm is not spreading misinformation, anger and ugliness, another good question would be to ask the PTA's of the other $10,000 schools if they knew about the donations.
Did the Alafia kids get extra credit for bringing in paper supplies?
Motel Special Ed: Search results for paper towel:
"It reminds me of when one of my children was given extra points on an assignment for bringing in a roll of paper towels to her teacher(not the one in SpEd, the one in middle school, gifted, advanced math)."
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