Tag: Polk Schools
The Aramark contract and the Polk School District’s most damaging internal pathology
I’m an active and inquisitive board member. I do not believe the people of Polk County elected me to sit idly by and collect a $40,000/year salary awaiting “recommendations” from staff that I then rubberstamp as a formality when I show up for meeting once or twice per month. I believe the people of Polk County elected me to solve…
The consent of the tested and punished, part 1: Florida tells Ted Dintersmith, “Educating children is like fixing a car.”
You’ve heard me write and talk quite a bit about Ted Dintersmith, an education activist and philanthropist, whose perceptions and obsessions overlap substantially (but not completely) with mine. I have particular fondness for Ted because we are in lockstep in how we see the toxic state-level educational experience imposed by the toxic Florida state government. Ted’s new book, “What School…
Kelli Stargel’s true colors: “I do not plan to be there” on April 24 when the School Board votes on the Stargel School Kill List
Take a look at this video I took of Sen. Kelli Stargel on Tuesday. Here’s the context for it. At our April 24th meeting, your School Board will address Stargel’s legislative mandate to choose a method for punishing and harming the people who attend and work at six Polk schools. These schools have been singled out because they are not…
Sheriff Judd seems to misunderstand his own law. So let’s start over, as serious and collaborative people.
The “School Security” law your legislators and Polk Sheriff Grady Judd recently produced swallows itself in fundamental and lethal contradiction. Ideally, all stakeholders would recognize this and simply start over again. Ideally, this time, lawmakers and Judd would seek good faith collaboration with subject matter experts in school operations. But we don’t live in an ideally governed state. Thus, it’s…
End the Test and Die Era, part 5: No, Senator Stargel, this is a “comprehensive” school safety plan
What follows is a bullet list of proposals contained within Billy Townsend’s comprehensive school security plan. I think this would make a much, much better bill than the hash of bad faith political talking points that Tallahassee just bumble-panicked into existence. Context and discussion follows below and in subsequent essays. But I want to put this up front for readers…
End the Test-and-Die era, part 3: the prime operational reasons for not arming teachers
Law enforcement professionals, including Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, generally do not allow detention deputies to carry weapons as they do routine oversight of inmates in their jails. This is sound thinking and policy. A jail is a confined space full of people who live within it involuntarily. Some of them, although probably not as many as you would think,…
Remember those 1,800 lost years? It’s time to stop hugging it out with our legislators
These pictures were taken in Tallahassee on Thursday, February 8. That is literally the same day that the news story at this link about the Kelli Stargel School Kill List ran on the front page of the print edition of The Ledger. If you’ve missed the story, that same smiling Kelli Stargel and Colleen Burton and your state government are…
Stop the Kelli Stargel school closures. Vote for Judge Bob Doyel.
Here is a simple fact about Florida/Polk education politics and accountability: Sen. Kelli Stargel, Florida’s worst elected official, wants to close or destroy 14 public schools — serving roughly 10,000 or more kids — in her home county in the next two years. They are: Year 1 Bartow Middle School Garner Elementary School Griffin Elementary School Kathleen Middle School Lake…
The graduation rate conundrum, part 1: To cheer or not to cheer for Polk’s good news? Yes.
Last week, the Polk County School District received some of the best education scoreboard news we’ve had around here in a long time. Our high school graduation rate increased in 2016-17 at more than double the rate of the state — 3.6 percentage points to 1.6. This is first time I can remember a significant Polk measurement surpassing a state…
A glimpse of a new era: Why I am thankful for the impasse resolution
The 15-month impasse war began in one era; and it will end in another. I believe common sense and common purpose, against all odds, have won. And I believe that is a victory worth celebrating, while also recognizing the years of hard work we have ahead of us. I believe this negotiated deal for 16-17 and 17-18 — and the…
