Notes from the Twin Lakes Academy Town Hall Meeting
4/9/2012
Many thanks to those of you who attended the Town Hall Meeting at Twin Lakes Academy Middle with School Board Vice Chairman Fel Lee on March 15. A few pictures below.
Here at JPEF, we wanted to provide on this site the notes taken by our staff as well as the questions - answered and those that have yet to be answered.
This post contains the notes as well as the questions that were answered at the meeting. There wasn't time to get to all of them, so we are working on answering the questions that were submitted but did not receive an answer.
Apologies in advance for the very long blog post - if you would rather just download a PDF copy of the notes by clicking here. All points are from Fel Lee unless otherwise indicated.
-- Deirdre
• Superintendent Search
Transparent process
Community to guide what we want in an education system and a superintendent
Preliminary ground work
3 dates for envisioning committee
Need community to provide potential will to make change
Consensus in committee will move superintendent search forward
• FCAT Cut Scores
Reason it's happening is to increase rigor
High school proficiency has not been college ready
# of F schools across Florida will go up
Like moving the goal post mid-game
• Paul Soares, Chief Operations Officer:
Responding to recent events at Episcopal High
70 sworn law enforcement officers
Work closely with JSO
Provided # for parents to call
• Duval County Advocacy PTA Council won DC award for advocacy
Parent trigger law- parents and advocates defeated it
ESE and SLL take alternative test
Need parents to be involved in learning and advocating on these issues
Will send legislative wrap-up
• Charters - legislators are thinking about taking capital dollars and giving them to charters
Questions
• How will FCAT affect teacher morale?
Child will have to work harder to get a 3
Teachers that are related to context of FCAT will be affected
End of course goes into effect - Algebra I
Biology/geology this year
US History next year (and Civics)
3rd graders must score above Level 1 to go to 4th grade
Cast SB 736- 50% of teacher evaluation
Succession planning - better way to build a leadership pipeline
Superintendent Evaluation System - to be similar to teacher evaluation system (30-40% data from FLDOE)
Morale - Teachers workload- task force of principal, teachers, DTU on reduction
• Is it possible to get a new Superintendent by July 1?
Not by being transparent and following a thorough process
Great opportunity for Jacksonville - encouraged by great employees, major education stakeholders getting in the game. Are we willing to have the worst high school in Florida? No. Starting to row together.
• City Year - $6 million in private sector investment, peer to peer support
• $100 million in reserves
Difference between a reserve and rollover
Required by the state to keep 3% (ie, $30 million)
Collectively we did not do a good job of transparency
Nothing done wrong, it was by purpose
Covers 2 ½ years of increases only
100% of the budget allocation- will have cash on hand for 100% of budget
DCPS is 2nd largest employer in Jax
Perfect storm
EduJobs $26 million (stimulus) moved into rollover to continue EduJobs
Board has two employees - superintendent and auditor
• Magnet vs. Neighborhood - If not in military don't have opportunities to get in. Academically talented Twin Lakes Middle not challenging enough.
Solved with putting acceleration in high schools - next is middle schools
• Cheryl Riddick, Director of Community & Family Engagement
Improved volunteer process on duvalschools.org
Opportunities through Read it Forward