Fancy Paper to Notebook Paper to Toilet Paper

Goader writes:

Class Size:


"If we as a society continue operating out of convenience by choosing when and when not to abide by constitutional amendments the very fabricate of freedom we enjoy will weaken? After all, the fabric of freedom is based on words on fancy paper."

Among many of the critical issues that are facing us today, Goader may have drawn attention to one of the basic reasons that these issues have indeed become critical.

It would seem apparent that abiding by the words written on fancy paper would and should be held to a high standard. Constitutional amendments written on fancy paper should far and away have more clout than a 3M sticky note on your front door saying to mow your lawn.

I can think of a few sources of paper that have been the cause of concern of how the words on them are abided by. For instance, federal tax codes, banking industry regulations and business/employee contracts of Big Blue companies would be a source of concern. The words written on the letterheads of HCPS and PCS regarding teacher contracts would be one. Robert's Rules of Order would be one. Hiring and firing procedures and policies would be one. The paper that grading curves are written on would be one. And of course my favorite, true compliance with IDEA 2004 would be one.


Goader brings to light in the pulp mill of life the germane question regarding words on paper. By posing this question of proclivity to papyrus, one must wonder if the fancy paper is folded or simply wadded before it is flushed down the toilet.

Jack and The Cell Phone Tower

While I am flattered that some one might think that my opinions mean something, I have to say that I am as ignorant as a rhubarb pie when it comes to cell phone waves.

I Googled "living next to a cell phone tower" and found what I thought I would find. There are pros, cons and "not enough information".

Maybe the "Jack and The Beanstalk" story originated from a previous era. The "Beanstalk" was really a cell phone tower, and of course "the giant" was some mutant form that had emerged from living at the base of the tower, then climbed to the top. Some poor goose farmer accepted money from this ancient cell phone company and the rest was history. A goose that laid golden eggs surely must have had some type of radioactive egg-chute is my guess. I have always been suspect about those beans that Jack carried. I've heard of people being down to seeds and stems, so perhaps being down to beans might have been desperate times.

As of last media reports, it seems to me that the site Principal has the ultimate authority to erect his/her tower. That metaphorical image might frighten a few elementary children, draw hordes of curiosity for middle school children and leave high school children wandering which team the tower plays for.

If I were trying to figure out what decision making processes this tower powered Principal used, my first question would be "How long are you going to be here at this school?" A Principal that is going to stay at least six years after the decision to trade money for an erection has more invested than a drive by, build and split, one-year tower prostitute that just makes the money and then leaves before the climax of events occurs.

What is the turnover rate for Principals and higher level staff at the current cell phone tower sites? Is there an extra health insurance charge for those employees who work under the long shadow of these purveyors of text messages? Is there an unwritten District transfer plan so that no employee stays under the span of phone waves for more than a specific amount of time? Can the school system be sued if it can be proved that pornographic material is transmitted by the tower firmly planted on public school grounds? While teachers can have sex with students until there is full public exposure, cell phone sexual activities are quickly hosed down, especially when the keys get sticky.

It should not be surprising to those of us who grew up in Fort Lonesome (9 miles east of Wimauma) that the same public system that at times tries to criminalize possession of cell phones on school campuses will accept money from the same company that makes the use of those phones possible. That is the same kind of logic as providing chicken wings to students and then expelling them for using the chicken wing as a make believe gun and saying "pow". That is the same kind of logic where the system has sex education classes with explicit discussions of how a penis enters a vagina with boys who can't make it through one day without emptying their seminiferous tubules at least once and then expel them when these boys and girls expand, explore and massage the nuances of their curriculum during study hall.


Having said all of that, I don't really have an informed opinion about cell phone towers, yet.

Hope of Change On School Board Meeting

I missed the first hour of the last HCPS school board meeting, so if any thing happened during that time, I am ignorant of it. I can't get motivated yet to spend the time to listen to it, either.

I will say that for the time that I did watch, I was encouraged with the dialogues that happened, if not simply for the fact that they indeed happened.

The fact that a Board member seconded a motion "out of respect" to have the discussion even though this same member who gave the motion the second ended up voting against it shows hope of change.


The fact that a Board member apparently represented her constituents vigorously despite it not being in lock step with the other members shows hope of change.

The fact that a Board member had the courage to say that the District had made mistakes before and that these mistakes were so bad that those mistakes won't happen again shows hope of change.

The fact that a Board member challenged the lower level administration to "use common sense" shows hope of change.

I saw a little less arrogance and a little more humiltity based on reality during this meeting.

Maybe there is hope of change for me.

I Reckon All CEO's Of Real Businesses Get Bonus Money - All I Want Is Some TARP

Parents denounce teacher's behavior after the aides finally came through

(Jam 26 - More info on this post of yesterday. I am not sure the proper way to add this in, but I had reason to find this article the day after my original post of Jan 25 below. What should be of interest and concern to all is the timeline of the below articles.


Hillsborough: Principal keeps job despite upset parents)

- June, 2001

***********************************
Orignial post:

This is an old story, therefore there is no need for anyone to defend it. By now these kids and their parents have moved on and there is little liability to the District at this point. These kids and their parents are probably known as troublemakers. The employees at their new schools have probably been told to be careful with them.

Kingswood is near to my heart because that is where my troubles first started in 1990. My son had left the safe haven of Willis Peters school because he was far advanced over the other deaf/blind kids. Little did I know what I was getting into. I will always remember the Principal making sure I understood that my son would be paddled just like everyone else if he misbehaved. I will always remember the day the teacher told me that the reason the dittos were of poor visual quality was because they didn't have any ink for the copier. I left the school and went and purchased two cartridges and brought them back to her, because my son's vision was impaired and he needed every break he could get. That was way back in the day before I knew I was a malcontent and that those things were isolated events and that I had a broad brush to attack with.

That year there were countless meetings, to no avail. I was a slow learner. Actually, I trusted too much.

Hillsborough: Parents denounce teacher's behavior: May, 2001

"Sometimes the Kingswood Elementary preschool teacher would put misbehaving children in the bathroom, shut the door and keep it closed with her foot as a form of time out. Sometimes, according to two aides, teacher Heidi Clarizio would turn out the light, which would cause the children to scream and cry.

But it wasn't until she tossed a chair across the room in February, barely missing a child's head, that the aides took their concerns to administrators."



"Dalton, the aide, said Clarizio had been locking children in the bathroom, yelling at them and picking them up by their arms since August. The aides said they decided to report it in February because Clarizio's temper was escalating.
District officials said the Hillsborough Sheriff's Office investigated but decided no criminal charges should be filed."

and here:

Hillsborough: Sheriff will reopen case of teacher's classroom actions May 2001

"Maxwell said the parents could have been told in February that there were accusations, but the details would have had to remain confidential. When the case was closed and turned over to the state in April, he said, a full accounting could have been given to parents.

"I don't know where the breakdown came in there," he said."

Telling the parents in August would have been way too early. Let the kids develop some real aversions to school first so that they would be certifiably nut cases along with their parents, I say with dripping sarcasim.

Can you imagine how much influence there was on the aides to hold all of that information in from August to February. What they must have gone through being afraid to speak out until the chair was thrown. How scared or intimidated those aides must have been to go to school for fear of what they might see happen to those brave kids. How those aides must have cursed those parents for not training those kids before sending them off to be in a special education program at the local public education agency. Those aides probably don't have a job now.


I don't mean to be so hateful and ugly, but some of the public comments found below over on The Gradebook found hereA weekend interview with ... were full of misinformation, anger and ugliness and it had an effect on me:

".....Maybe your kid is psycho and that's why he was stuck in the hall. I doubt your kid became psycho because he was in the hall. Oh, yeah, I'm sure the teacher picked a kid at random and said, "Let's isolate this kid so he goes bananas."

Posted by: Cart before the horse | January 24, 2009 at 05:22 PM

Wow, this woman is a complete moron.

Posted by: | January 24, 2009 at 06:02 PM

It is clear that this mom has never been at the other end. What else are you suppose to do when a child is flipping out, throwing chairs, and endangering the safety of other students. I am sure the parents of other children who get hurt because of these type of children are grateful for this type of procedure.

Posted by: | January 24, 2009 at 06:42 PM "

and here

"....Maybe the bruises, etc. are caused by the child. You would never think of that, though, because most of you are a bunch of whiners who want to take advantage of the fact that you have a child with special needs to find a reason to sue someone. When you find that reason, you can get up on your soapbox, look like a hero, and have a fat bank account. Please, do us all a favor and get a life. I don't doubt it's difficult raising a special needs child, but to get paid barely enough to scrape by to listen to several of them scream at you all day long is SURELY no picnic. So, why don't each of you spend an entire year in charge of an autistic class of children. Then and only then can you criticize someone who cares enough to put up with your kids all day. Ever heard of catching more flies with honey than with vinegar? Your poor attitude and overly aggressive way of approaching problems with school personnel do not win you any favors. Teachers are humans too and if I want my child to be treated with respect by other adults, I should respect those adults and not treat them in a subhuman manner. To sum it up, you all look like a bunch of psychos with your crazy rants about your children. Get it together and you might have better results!

Posted by: open your eyes! | January 25, 2009 at 04:19 PM

If "Incentive Contracts In Sports Are Here to Stay", What About Professional Educator Incentive Contracts

Having just recently read a Superintendent's previous contract for service, I started thinking about incentive contracts. BTW, please send anonymous link to current contract if you have it.


I was intrigued with the discussion in the below link about whether professional football is a business or not. I will leave that for others to debate. What I was looking for was how incentive contracts effect the decision making process of how the game is played.

One thought I had was that the effectiveness of an incentive contract would be determined by the amount of control the member of the organization had. If a receiver was getting $10,000 for every catch he made, then it would stand to reason that he would want the ball thrown to him frequently. However, the receiver is not the one that calls the game plan, to my knowledge. But if the coach was paid $10,000 every time a particular receiver made a catch, the coach would have an incentive to increase the number of pass plays to that receiver. Imagine how the quarterback, who is the commander on the field, would feel if his tacit knowledge from experience told him that this game plan was not good for the team. What a conflict this would create.

Buried in the below article are two interesting statements:

The Ghosts of Wayne Fontes: Incentive Contracts In Sports Are Here to Stay:

"You can’t offer a coach or manager incentive compensation without giving it to the players."

"... there is a good alternative in incentive based compensation that can easily yield the same payouts, but make for more clearly aligned interests between teams and their players...."

Something I Can Relate To. I Don't Need Heresay. I Don't Have To Ask For Validation

In today's The Gradebook
there is this link:

A weekend interview with ...#more

For those of you who don't have a clue of how I got where I am, I will use some quotes from this article and then make comments about my personal experience while my son was in school. I noticed that my anger is not as intense towards the system that it used to be. Maybe my blogging is helping. Thanks to Goader for his part in this sequence of my life.

First let me say again that my son had several good educational settings. Despite what I have been accused of, I am not making broad brush accusations. I once used the analogy that even though 19 nurses do a great job of taking care of a patient, if one or two nurses kill the patient, the family usually doesn't celebrate the good nurses while they are pissed as hell. Nor do they care about the statistics used to demonstrate that it was an isolated incident. Add to this the angst they have when they later learn that it isn't an isolated incident.

I have as much greatfulness for the many that went far and above their professional duties as I have anger towards the liars and non-professional arrogant ones. Everytime we were in a bad spot, we tried everything we knew to bring in resources and help for the setting. That didn't set well with some.

Here are the quotes and my comments:

"Well, I went to Washington ..." - yep, have done that too. I didn't testify, but I did talk to two congressmen.

"They used to drag his desk out in the hall and leave him by himself."
- In my case, in one setting, they put my son's desk in a corner of the room with partitions around him so no one else could see him.

"My son's behaviors started changing. His personality started changing. ... He went from a happy little boy to a very unhappy, angry little boy and I didn't know what was going on. That happened over a period of time, like about one year."

- In my case, these changes started showing within months.

"and he was put on some medication to help with his anxiety, aggression, depression, which he had never had before."

"Is that when you became an advocate, or an activist?"
- Yep. The school system creates parents like us.

" He didn't want to go to school. He would cry in the morning .."
- He usually perked up when I was at his school setting. There was at least one school setting where things were not going well that when my wife and I drove him there for what turned out to be the last meeting held at that school, he absolutely fought to not get out of the van.

"He would cry all the time. He would throw tantrums."
- We learned in times of stress, Phillip would shred his clothes, chew his cuticles and pick his skin until it bled. It became evident over the years this was a good clue, because these behaviors did not exist at the school that was always his "safe-haven". To add to the flavor of my history, after I wrote my first serious letter of complaint in the fall of 1996, we recieved a formal letter that stated Phillip could not go to school because of the blood borne pathogens problem. That was just one of a few of the strategies that were thrown at us because we complained.

" I didn't know what was going on. His verbalization was not good. He has very poor expressive language. ... "
- I think I made the point before that Phillip can't talk and can't hear at all.

"Is that the case with most parents, that they don't know about this?"

"I am guessing that a lot of parents don't know about it."

- yep

"Because I decided that something needed to be done. But the district was trying to tell me that my situation was isolated. And I just thought, how can that be?"

- When the STAND advocacy started in 1997, within a couple of years we had between 600 -700 contacts.

"It's astounding. Parents come from all over. Not just Florida. So they had been working on this issue anyway. This just gave them reason to push it further."

" And I hear the same story from other parents. Usually when parents call me, I don't tell them my story. I listen to what they tell me because they want to unload their story and talk to somebody. And I am just hearing the same story over and over and over. ..."

- I have been there and done that.

"The problem is, sometimes the schools are not honest with you and don't tell you these things. And that's not right. Parents have a right to know."

- I guess I am not an isolated incident afterall.

"Sometimes, if it's not happening to you, No. 1, it's not a problem. And No. 2, who's going to believe a crazy story like that? ..."

- There was a period of time where I doubted myself. How could those professionals just flat out lie like they did?

Teachers and Parents On Ice - Who Knew

I haven't checked in on Mr. Dorn for a few days and this morning I found an interesting article Sherman Dorn: "Cooling the mark out -- an explanation".

I must admit that it took me a while to make sense of what he was talking about. But when I finally got the concept in his explanation of "The "Cooling-Out" Function in Higher Education", I started thinking about how this concept could apply to K-12 school systems with teachers and parents.

I have written about the Delphi Technique and those who were attuned to the Alafia debacle saw first hand how those dynamics played out. The combination of many teachers that were speaking out along with the strategies used by the parents changed the usual course of events in how the system controls those types of situations.

For example, see if you can see how these strategies may have been playing out with the "cooling" of students and teachers in HCPS:

"Clark argued that there were several traits of an institution with a cooling-out repertoire: alternative definitions of achievement, incremental rejection, use of a paper record to persuade the mark, the existence of "agents of consolation" (academic advisors), and the dissolution of hard-and-fast standards."

Entertainment On A Slow News Day

While I could wax or wane eloquently on other issues, I just can't seem to focus on anything long enough to make it worth any one's while.

In the meantime, there is some interesting commentary going on over on the Hills Board.

As always, the public comments make the story.


Hills Board

Will "They" Try To "Deal" With Teachers Who Speak To The School Board?

A thank you to The Gradebook for it's recognition of The PRO on HCPS.

From the same link, we see we have a new local blogger interested in our local education agency of Hillsborough County Public Schools.

Here is the link: Hills Board


To my knowledge, I have never met Mr. Schmidt just as I have never met any of the other local bloggers. The layout of the website is catchy and reminds me of what most of the people who are connected to some type of political job have, but that is just my opinion.

This statement got my attention:

Hills Board: Board Salaries:

"I will guarantee you now, if the Hillsborough district goes to salary reductions and/or layoffs, raucous board meeting will be a norm, and those less senior teachers and support staffers who make less than $40,900 yearly will looking to vent their outrage."

Sounds good to me.

What I am interested in seeing is will the Hillsborough Association Of Administrators discuss or try to devise some scheme to address those of the above who will be creating a raucous board meeting in the same fashion as they wanted to address the parents from Alafia Elementary? Will those who are venting their outrage cause a reduction in the number of applicants for administrative jobs?

These concerns can be seen here:


"D. President’s Report – Elsa TuggleItems for the Superintendent’s Roundtable for December 10th: (1) Is there anything that principals/HASA can do to help deal with parents who address the School Board in opposition to the principal of their school? Discussion determined that the School Board meeting is a public forum and nothing can be done to keep parents from speaking to the Board. Early intervention and initially directing parents to Assistant Superintendents or Area Directors works in other situations.
Recent situations, however, escalated past the point of early intervention well in advance of the School Board meeting that was attended. It was suggested that the administrator receiving the brunt of the criticism be assured of support from their
professional association and colleagues. Perhaps broaching the subject at the annual School Board Forum would be an option. Data on the lack of applicants applying for vacancies could be compared to prior years and information provided to the School Board."

A History Lesson Woven Through Hyperbole

Frequent readers of Lee's blogs know they are going to have to bring a sifter with them when they blog-on. For some odd reason, I decided to read the below post in it's entirety. Chewing through her writings is like masticating taffy quickly. For instance, be careful not to get caught up in the $340/hr vs $340/day issue. My vote is on the $340/day.


However, for those who are knowledgeable about the history of Hillsborough County Public Schools, Lee tracks various issues that should be a concern to the public, the press and the school employees.

Understanding the dynamics of these historical dots exposes the workings of the system:

Doug Erwin
Bart Birdsall
Dr. Hamilton
Connie Milito (Hamilton can be found on the
Membership list also)


The hiring and firing practices of the HCPS system is difficult to follow.



Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch: The Floozies, the Wretched Floozies

Public School Professionals At Work

I will leave it to others to debate the true motive of what Mr. Chandler's quest is. I have read all of his posts and as many links as I can find that are related to this issue. I have read many public comments that support and attack his actions. The fact that there is a question about his motives adds to the emotional energy of those who oppose his actions.

As far as I can tell from the research I have done, Mr. Chandler is operating well within the parameters of the existing law. I can understand why the law may need to be changed. As far as I can tell, the manner in which he was cavalierly and arrogantly rebuked by the public school systems has resulted in something far greater. In other words, the whole in now greater than the sum. I can vicariously relate to this mindset. I wonder if he has ever been labled an "isolated incident", "broad-brush attacker" or a "malcontent".


For those who are interested in how the public school systems operate, his blog promises to shed a lot of light. After you read this link, check out the other posts.


Oh....

What Would Wise Men Be Thinking?

Elvis sang that song that says "only fools rush in".

Another way to look at it would be like this:

"All warfare is based on deception. There is no place where espionage is not used. Offer the enemy bait to lure him.
Sun-Tzu
Chinese general & military strategist (~400 BC

Another way to look at it would be "if it's too easy, be vewhy, vewhy careful".

Another way to look at it would be to zag instead of zig.


I read the recent post over in "The Abyss". If you have been following the post's there, you would know that there has been some discussion about the rating of the great HCPS. Ziggy has been "defending" the attacks against the HCPS by using the recent "A Rating" as evidence that something must be good about the system. There is something to be said about ratings.


In today's post, Ziggy discusses his/her opinion and apparent displeasure on grading curves and the misplacement of kids into AP classes. What seems to be an area that one could easily rush in to is to say that these acts skew legitimate attempts at true ratings. In other words, rampant grading curves would give a false statistic to someone trying to rate a District.

But the very fact that it seems so easy, I am resisting the temptation to rush in.

I wonder where Ziggy got all of those numbers. Maybe that is the trap. HCPS broad brush attackers would believe those numbers without verifying them.

There is something about Ziggy that I like, but I'm not rushing in.


The Abyss: Ziggy says the unthinkable

When "individual" Meets "Statistics"

The title of the below post on The Gradebook got my attention. My attention is not about the politics or business aspects of education but rather what happens when parents clearly understand the premise that their child does not get another chance when it comes to dealing their child's individual educational setting.

When an educational setting goes wrong for an individual child, the advocating parent does not give a rodent's posterior if:

- the State, County or school site has an A rating.

- the Principal hand picked each of the teachers based on their level of competence

- how dedicated the staff is

- there is a red carpet at the front door

- the permanent teacher is out for the rest of the year

- the school does a great job and was ranked in some news magazine

- and all of the rationalizations used to bolster the system



A parent is responsible for their kid, and when things go wrong, telling them about what is great for all of the other kids is hardly reassuring.


*************************************

-
Florida students don't get another chance:

"We can't pull the rug out from under the people who depend on these services, especially those with the greatest needs. Children grow each day; their education can't wait. Illness doesn't follow economic trends; patients need help now. And our country's infrastructure must be modernized sooner than later."

Is "Power" Obtained By Keeping Outside Influences Illegitimate?

One way to not have to defend your self is to not acknowledge the entity that is trying to "gain power" over you. Depending on the circumstances and the relationship between you and the "power", simply ignoring it may work. Or, it may make matters worse.

I got to this place because the local public education system used different tactics to render me illegitimate when I wanted to "exert power" to change the course of events that I objected to. I have used the words "cavalier", "obfuscation" and "arrogance with ignorance" to describe my perception of how the District dodged the real issues.

While ignoring "the law" assuredly saves the District's money, being caught at ignoring "the law" can be costly:

Wrightslaw - Special Education Law - Whitehead v Hillsborough:

"Florida Jury Awards $600,000.00 to Parents of Handicapped Child
School District Failed to Provide FAPE; Retaliated Against Parents and Child"

NAPTA: TEACHER STORY, Doug Erwin, Florida:

"After nearly three days of deliberations, the jury awarded Erwin at least $175,000 in damages for emotional pain and mental anguish. He could get an additional $196,000 in salary for being pressured to retire 18 months before his scheduled retirement date of July 31, 2003, his attorney said."

I have said all of that to bring attention to what can happen when a school District ignores a public records request.

Polk Schools To Pay $25,000 in Legal Dispute | The Ledger | Lakeland, FL

"The $50,000 in legal fees spent during my fight with the Polk County School Board was the result of their having “acted contrary to law.” Certainly, taxpayer funds were wasted - by the PCSB (subsequently, the Duval County School Board wasted taxpayer funds doing the same thing). I find it curious that some folks think I’ve wasted the money when all I have done is to seek access to records that EVERY citizen is entitled to. Using the same logic marchers on Selma wasted taxpayer funds when the State Police beat them and used tear gas."

(Blond Moments from the Blogosphere...):



The lawsuit...:

"...Obviously, Mr. Conner [PCSB attorney*]acknowledges on the record that the PCSB knew that there was no basis in law for denying my request. Further, he admitted, on the record, that the only reason the PCSB did not produce the records was that they did not want me to have them."

"I believe this is the “smoking gun” regarding the criminality of the actions of the PCSB and Gail McKinzie. They knowingly refused to comply with a legal request for non-exempt public records. They knowingly frustrated my efforts to see these records even though they knew I was entitled to them. Their actions were conscious and deliberate. It seems clear that with the benefit of counsel and months of planning they orchestrated a series of hurtles and roadblocks to my obtaining these non-exempt records." -Joel Chandler

***************
What intrigues me with this information is that it bolsters my opinion that public exposure is the Achilles heel of the public school system. If legitimate concerns that are brought to them are obfuscated or kept illegitimate, what other recourse does anyone have? I am also curious as to who makes these decisions to obfuscate the issues.

* (my edit)

What Is the Definition of "Too Much Power"?

First, a "thank you" to each of you concerned about my son's health. He is better now.

Jumping back into blogging about the public school system, I have been thinking a lot about some recent "dots" that are connected if one examines them closely. Frequent readers will recognize that I usually pick out a word or phrase that I think provides "substance to the obvious" in articles that I read. Learning to read law requires close scrutiny of the meaning and intent of a single word, and the HCPS afforded me the need to develop that skill.

How does one wield "power"?

I chose the "power" to further my quest to examine the relationship between the public and the public school system. The first "dot" that I recently discovered came in a Tribune article that someone forwarded to me. The use of the word "power" by Mr. Hooper grabbed my attention:

2009 starts behind the 8-Ball - St. Petersburg Times:

"...you worry the rancor that helped bring about Ellyn Smith's resignation has given too much power to a vocal but small group."

The "powers that be" within Hillsborough county should feel lucky they don't have to deal with the following types of "power" that Pinellas must endure:


Mayor Baker asks district to keep schools open:

"ST. PETERSBURG -- Mayor Rick Baker has asked Pinellas superintendent Julie Janssen to keep the doors open at three local schools slated for extinction."

Pinellas middle school teachers win: arbitrator orders return to old schedule:

"....an arbitrator has ruled that the district’s new seven-period middle school schedule violates the teachers’ contract. The district must revert to the previous six-period schedule when the second semester begins"

What do Pinellas school administrators actually do? - St. Petersburg Times

Taking A Break

For those who check in often, I just wanted to share with you that my youngest son is in the hospital. He has been "sick" since December 14th, and, despite our numerous trips to his various specialists, he continued to get worse.

He seems to be better today, but we still don't know what went wrong. It may have been the drugs they gave him to make him better. We have a few more tests to run and hopefully will be home Monday.

Keep up with "The Gradebook" and I see there is some interesting verbal jousting over on Ziggy's blog.

I will get back to blogging when I can.

Bidding A Munchkin-Open To The New Year

For auditory learners:

YouTube - The Wizard of Oz Sing Along: The Optimistic Voices

For visual learners:

"You're out of the woods, you're out of the dark, you're out of the night. Step into the sun, step into the light. Keep straight ahead for the most glorious place on the face of the earth or the sky. Hold onto your breath, hold onto your heart, hold onto your hope. March up to the gate and bid it open..."

We can either celebrate a new year or bemoan the closing year of a decade.

The Christmas Holidays did not provide a winter break for the local bloggers involved in delving into the workings of the Hillsborough County Public School system. Not only is there unfinished business that is ratcheting up, there are also some new players in the sand lot which bring promise for new and invigorating commentary. Time will tell if these new bloggers will be accused of presenting misinformation, anger and ugliness or if there will be renewed efforts to have commenters show "their papers".

One can only wonder if "Uniting for Quality Education in hillsborough, fl" and "I Am Nobody's Patsy" were taken away by silent storm troopers, and will Eskay be next?

Speaking of Eskay, the ratcheting up of unfinished business is here for all to see:

Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch: Hillsborough County Administrator Is Evading the Florida Public-Records Law

My sources tell me that there are more than a few that wonder why Eskay didn't get a mentor and was provided with personalized training to improve his work performance. There may be some who believe that one must have a 30+ year of tenure in order to qualify for those specialized improvement funds, while there are others who believe it is more about the quality of relationships.

A new player in the blogger's cadre is Ziggy. Ziggy comes from the The Abyss and has tag teamed with Antigrammargrinch. Ziggy shows promise to air out any and all bits of information and opinions while defending the corner of public education. Antigrammargrinch appears to be singularly focused on grammar grappling with Lee, and may even have a breast infatuation that turned sour. Antigrammargrinch has been around for a while but may get more exposure through Ziggy. Staunch supporters of free speech can revel in the candidness of Antigrammargrinch, although some may fear that the writings may be viewed as ugliness that some politicians want to censor.

One early hint of the game within the game is that Ziggy appears to be a strong proponent of the belief that the quality of a teacher is the best predictor of a student's success. It is too early to predict how conditioning factors will effect this game plan or if there will be adjustments made later in the case of "poor raw material" effecting a teacher's performance, just as wilted lettuce and rotten tomatoes effect the quality of a salad made by a master chef.
The hope of a new year is just dawning, and there is promise as we step into the sun.

Gods Are Watching HCPS - Who Knew?

I was looking at information regarding our local public education agency. It might not be too far off that, in order to save money for the kids, information may not be available to the public.

I am sure others spent the first day of the new year snooping around the Hillsborough Association of School Administrators' website. For those who are curious, I didn't find what I was looking for.

However, I did find something that I thought was oddly recorded in some old minutes. I can just imagine the hoopla this could make for those who ardently keep God out of our schools. My country-boy logic tells me that if "administrators are viewed as children of a lesser God", then that means some employees of the HCPS are viewed as "children of a greater God".

"The problem is that somehow administrators are viewed as “children of a lesser God” because they are not in the classroom anymore."

"Indexing salaries for certificated personnel with teacher salaries would get the Board away
from having to debate publically [sic]the raises for administrators."

Good heavens. What I am wondering about is why would HASA be concerned about the Tribune "has been printing negative articles regarding the extension of the DROP" if God is watching, lesser or greater.