Where is Gary Puckett When You Need Him

I don't know much about the gap between unions, school administration and teachers, but I sense there must be one.

For those who would like to read some perspectives from a previous "school boss", read here.

A Jimmy Buffett Song Plays In The Background

"It's those changes in latitudes,
changes in attitudes
nothing remains quite the same.
With all of our running and all of our cunning,
If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane." - Jimmy Buffett

I am not sure how many people are laughing about the situation with the HCPS. I think there are more than a few going insane. And I think that there is a lot of running and a lot of cunning in attempts to keep it together.

I was asked this question: "Is the school district too large to make the changes needed in response to the public who finance the operation and use the system?"

My short answer is "no". My long monotonous answer is "no" also. At one point in time back in the late '90's, I was involved in several different areas with the District, mostly revolving around ESE issues. I was attempting to address "systemic issues". As my knowledge and experience increased, my skills and ability to analyze different aspects of how the District operates also increased. I will admit, I was at times lacking of diplomacy when I was being fed a line of bull snot and expected to believe it. Hence, I was invited in for a conference more than once, which I talk a little about in this post: "It's Not What You Say, It's The Fact That You Said It."

I was disturbing the troops. Again, admittedly, some of the teachers and staff were "innocent victims" of the system and they were blindsided when someone came along and challenged the "propaganda". I can recount countless numbers of incidents where the information being given to parents in IEP meetings was easily demonstrated as wrong by simply asking the information giver to "let's just read this section of the procedural safeguards out loud". I was once threatened of being ejected from an IEP meeting despite the fact that I was right on two out of two challenges of how the ESE specialist was "explaining the parent's rights" incorrectly. I was later told by an administrator that I should have waited "until after the meeting" to address these issues. How many of you want to be told the truth about the contract you are negotiating "after" you have signed it?

In several settings, both in IEP meetings and out of them, I heard that "the District is too big for everyone to get the right information". I think it was in one of the Superintendent's Advisory Council on Special Education where I heard this excuse one more time and I responded with "Are we going to change the size of the District? If not, then I don't want to hear that as an excuse anymore."

I said all of that to say this - size doesn't matter. One, because it is not an option to change the size of the District and two, if the District wants to address communication issues or deal with issues succinctly, they can and will, in my opinion.

A large part of the problem is that the majority of the public has no clue about what goes on. I believe that apathy, ignorance and blind trust is why a majority of the public don't know. For the rest who see the challenges, just look how hard it is for the teachers to get attention to what is going on. Parents have the same difficulty. And "they are just parents".

Only recently has the media seemed to be more enlightening. Just look how many articles have come out in the last year. But, then read how Mr. Otto was challenged about what he writes. Considering his wife is a teacher, he surely wouldn't want to bite the hand that feeds her. And now there is blogging. I have already cited in my previous posts how blogging may accomplish change effectively, mainly because it cannot be controlled, even though "they" will try. Those who are entrenched in "how it used to be" won't be able to overcome the new technology and the information age.

So, in my humble opinion, it won't be a change in the size of the District, it will be a change in how it is administered.

Numbers and Coke Leave One Out of Touch with Reality

Listening to a school board meeting can be tasking, waiting to get to the good stuff.

Recently I have written about how the District seems to never know the numbers when asked publicly. One has to assume that they have the numbers, but it depends on who is asking.

I found it interesting that when the discussion of missing laptops came up, no numbers were given. We did hear the ever present positive spin that "it's getting better." Educators, teachers and business people should be curious how "better" is defined. Percentage better? Statistically significant better? Rumor mill finger-in-the-air better? How did someone know "it's getting better" if some numbers were not at least guessed at by someone.

When the discussion about coke machines coming up on the chopping block came up, it reminded me of the below post. It had to do with numbers, also.


Get Your Fat Ass Off The Bus -But Buy a Pepsi When You Get To School

Footballs, Business Cards, Gavels and Scientific Method

This article in today's Tampa Tribune enlightens us in to the daily struggles that face our public education system of today. These struggles probably have been going on for a while, but now that the stakes are higher, the faltering sense of control may be making the stirred muck more noticeable.

2 Districts Limit Athlete Transfers

I am becoming aware that within the public education system there are a few people who at least take education and teaching as a very serious matter. I imagine this is a reflection of how seriously they took their efforts to obtain a position within a public school system, and they are quick to defend any perceived unfair, and sometimes fair, criticism of the system.

What may be unfair to these real professionals is that there may be a belief by those who are in decision making positions that education and teaching just happens. Attention to processes and mechanisms that will ensure and promote education and teaching may not be a priority.

One who follows along various concerns about our local education system may recall that there have been concerns about teachers, nurses, school bus drivers, contracts, and athlete transfers. Each of these areas has at least two common components of numbers and money.

I will concede that education is not a business, 'cause I don't want to argue anymore. However, it is difficult to understand how education and teaching can be effective as a whole if someone isn't paying attention to how the business of the system is monitored.

Within the article, we find this paragraph:

"District coaches told The Tampa Tribune that shopping for an athletic program is common and increasing. But Hillsborough County officials said they do not know how many athletes in the district are on special assignments to schools outside their assigned boundaries or how many moved into a new boundary to play a sport."

The phrase "they do not know how many" seems to be a common denominator in all of the aforementioned issues. It brings reason to wonder just what numbers they pay attention to. I am sure it isn't Avagadro's.

Using special assignments as an example of how major decisions are made without any science of reasoning is almost laughable, if not so disconcerting. A student who is asking for a special assignment because the school they want to get into has a particular educational setting that they want or need might go far in enhancing the education and teaching purposes of the system. A student who is given a special assignment so they can hang out with "tbf" may in fact have a negative consequence on the education and teaching purposes of the system.

What I don't understand, again from a business perspective, is that there seems to be money and time spent in a decision making process that there appears to be no accountability for. If the one's with the gavel have to take time to confirm a decision made by a group that doesn't know if kids are going to the science lab or the football field, why bother.

PS or update or whatever - It should be of utmost importance to those who are serious about the serious goals of education and teaching, that the above example leans heavily towards a convincing argument that it is "who you know" instead of "how many" and other vital variables that one should know to make an educated decision, whether it be in the best interest of teaching or business. I have seen the rebuke from the dias by some when one questions "those who should know"'s knowledge of "how many", so maybe it truly is the "who".

Bad Behaving Students Bring Out Bad Behaving Decision Makers

I write often about "behavioral issues" in school settings.

I have written about how almost impossible it is to change or overturn a school administrators' decision despite how wrong it may have been.

I have written about how administrators can use a student's behavior as an easy strategy to change the placement of the student and it is almost impossible to challenge even when this "administrative convenience" is ill founded.

I have written about how children with disabilities face these difficulties, despite the responsibility of the school system to positively address behaviors that are a manifestation of the disability.

Here is an article that speaks to these issues.

Before everyone jumps in to tell all of the stories about behavioral issues, this discussion is not about whether behavior is an issue. An interesting question to ask is how much money does our local school system allocate to real, professional behavioral specialists? I say "real, professional" because I don't count the check-mark smoke-and-mirror posturing of counting someone who sits through a three hour presentation and then be designated as a school site's "behavioral specialist". This looks good on paper, but it falls short of real function.


Try getting a police report when school based issue arises that is disputable.
Try getting a school generated incident report when the police are involved.



You can discount the message if you want, but somewhere lies the truth.


- "Florida police frequently skirt state and federal laws, or violate them outright, when questioning children at school"

- "Principals, the last line of defense for kids jeopardized by police misconduct, rarely challenge resource officers or other police who enter school to interrogate students."

-"And children are saddled with criminal records that can follow them for a lifetime."

-"But courts rarely scrutinize school interrogations."

-"In both Hillsborough and Pinellas counties, an unusually high number of kids were arrested at school and referred to court, according to the Department of Juvenile Justice. Hillsborough sent students at a rate of 21 per 1,000, while Pinellas sent 24, compared to a state average of 17"

-"In a recent study, the National Juvenile Defender Center described Florida's juvenile system as dangerously dysfunctional, with courts overloaded by low-bore school referrals"

-""We saw, in courtroom after courtroom, hundreds of school-based cases that had no business being there," said Patricia Puritz, the center's executive director. "There was no place where these kids were not being dumped into the juvenile court setting.""

-"But Florida police and principals frequently exploit loopholes in the law, said Gerard Glynn, associate professor of law and director of the juvenile law clinic at Barry University in Orlando. "




Compare and contrast these two statements:

1- -"Do principals have the right to monitor student interrogations?

Absolutely, said Tom Gonzalez, general counsel for the Hillsborough County School Board.

"If they ever get uncomfortable (with an interrogation), they should speak up and say, 'You know what, I think we should wait for that person's parent,'" he said.

Hillsborough, Pasco and Hernando policies require principals to always be present in loco parentis -- legally "in the place of the parent" -- when police question students as suspects."

2 - -"In some Florida districts, principals are "completely abdicating to the police" and turning over discipline to untrained SROs, said Evans, former chairman of an advisory committee to the Department of Juvenile Justice.

**** So, if the principal abdicates to the police, what happen to the "legally in place of the parent?"

If the media accounts were correct, recently a student was suspended because the school's efforts to get the parent to contact them failed. Perhaps they should have gone to the principal if the principal is legally in the place of the parent.


Click here: When students are suspects, lines blur