Hamilton County school board updates

Related Photos

Hamilton County School Board members ponder all the changes in education. -Photo: Joyce Marie Taylor

Discussion

October 25, 2012

Hamilton County school board updates

Joyce Marie Taylor Suwannee Democrat The Suwannee Democrat Thu Oct 25, 2012, 01:56 PM EDT

Jasper — SHE charter school

At the last school board meeting on Oct. 8, White Springs Mayor Helen Miller requested an extension of the submittal of application to turn South Hamilton Elementary into a charter school until Dec. 1 in order to address some issues, one of which is a clarification as to whether a municipality can legally be the proprietor of a conversion charter school. The 60 day review process will begin again once the application is submitted to the school district.

White Springs after school program

The Hamilton County School Board approved an interlocal agreement with the town of White Springs for the use of specified South Hamilton Elementary School facilities for their H.O.P.E. after school program during their Oct. 22 workshop.

Board Attorney Jay Willingham prepared the draft agreement and one provision states that SHE Site Administrator Annie Pinello and the HCSB have the joint ability to terminate the license to use the facilities.

Mission and vision statements

The school board continues to discuss a tentative change in the overall mission and vision statements for the school district. The board encourages parents, teachers and students to offer their own suggestions.

The latest suggestion by Ida Daniels for the vision statement is “Changing Lives Through Quality Education.”

The bulleted mission statement suggested by Daniels is:

Prepare students for success.

Provide an environment for ALL students to learn.

Guide students to become life-long learners.

Promote high expectations and equal opportunities for success.

Collaborate with all stakeholders to build a better future.

Instructional programs

Assistant Superintendent Rex Mitchell addressed the board on areas of instructional services that are changing as a result of Florida’s new Common Core Standards and implementation timeline, that coincides with National standards and were built upon college and career readiness standards.

Mitchell said, “Professional development is crucial to adhering to common core standards and ever-changing curriculum.”

Common core standards began adoption in 2010 for full implementation in the 2014-15 school year. Assessment requirements for students have been undergoing many changes in recent years along with graduation requirements, which the district has been trying to adapt to by taking advantage of college board partnerships and implementation of the AVID college-readiness program.

The biggest challenge for the school district will be providing the needed technology in order to meet these new standards, which will require, among other things, wireless Internet access. Mitchell said testing for students now has to be computerized and several have to be assessed online this year, such as Algebra I, Geometry, Biology, U.S. History and Civics, along with many other grade specific courses.

Additionally, traditional text books will soon be a thing of the past as education gets deeper into the digital age. By the 2015-16 school year all adopted instructional materials for students K-12 must be provided in electronic or digital format. Mitchell said that entails spending about 50 percent of their instructional dollars just on textbooks.

“Right now we don’t have the money to buy the paper book, much less buy the book and purchase the hardware that’s going to run it,” said Mitchell. “We don’t know how that’s going to work and we don’t know what we’re going to use.”

Mitchell said whatever technology hardware they buy will most likely be outdated in two years, which would require buying newer equipment. He said they would also need more IT support as they get further into digital education.

Teacher assessments by principals will also need to be done electronically so that it can be fed back to the teacher in a timely manner, Mitchell continued.

Yet another challenge is the variety of virtual schools available now and the different rules governing each, not to mention home schooling, which presents its own challenges to the district, and accelerated instruction that the district must provide for students.

Mitchell said they will still be teaching the same classes, but how those classes are taught is what is being changed.

“The whole concept of how we teach students, based on where we’re trying to get to and the way they’re going to be assessed is going to cause a major change in instruction, which means it’s going to change what we need to be offering,” said Mitchell. “We’re going to have to have professional development. We’ve got to make sure our staff members, principals, everybody knows where all of this is going.”

Text Only

Home

Search Results

Related Photos

Discussion

Hamilton County school board updates

What’s your best advice for graduates?

Site Map

Contact Us