Sarah Gonzalez was the Miami-based reporter for StateImpact Florida until March 2013. Previously, she worked at NPR in D.C. where she was a national desk reporter, web and show producer as an NPR Kroc Fellow. The San Diego native has worked as a reporter and producer for KPBS in San Diego and KALW in San Francisco, covering under-reported issues like youth violence, food insecurity and immigration. Her work has been awarded an SPJ Sigma Delta Chi and regional Edward R. Murrows. She graduated from Mills College in 2009 with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and journalism.
Hialeah High teacher Julia Holden has 66 students in one class.
Schools can pack as many students as they want into classes like Calculus, Writing, Spanish and Physical Education. There are no class size limits. But there is the issue of space.
In order to accommodate 66 students at once, the girls locker room at Hialeah High is being used as a classroom.
There aren’t enough desks or chairs for the students, so they stack up blue and green exercise steps to use as chairs. Other students either stand or sit on the ground. Listen to the story to hear from a principal who says schools don’t always have the resources to follow the law.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in North Carolina were the 2011 winners of the Broad Prize for Urban Education.
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, members of Congress and Philanthropist Eli Broad will announce the winner of The Broad Prize for Urban Education tomorrow morning.
Miami-Dade County and Palm Beach County schools are among this year’s top four finalists for the prize which goes to the most improved large urban school district in the country.
The award recognizes student achievement in districts that have also reduced the achievement gaps among low-income and minority students.
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan posted this picture on Facebook today in honor of Spirit Day, when Americans wear purple to support speaking out against bullying and to show their support for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth.
Duncan wrote:
I’m wearing my purple tie to support our LGBT youth on Spirit Day. Bullying is not a rite of passage & we’ve got to take a stand.
James G. Blaine, a former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representative. His proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution failed, but Florida was one of more than 30 states which approved a similar ban on public funding of religious groups.
Alachua County school board member Eileen Roy has called a proposed constitutional amendment coming before voters in November “the very death of public schools.”
The state’s largest teacher’s union is running ads against the change and mobilizing teachers to get out and vote against it.
Amendment 8 – dubbed the Religious Freedom Amendment – is likely to be one of the most contested ballot questions this fall.
The big question: Will it take taxpayer dollars away from public schools — to fund private, religious schools?
The answer: No, not directly…at least not yet. But passing the amendment could lay the groundwork for a future voucher campaign.
Florida Rep. Michael Bileca (R-Miami)Â proposed this idea, which became known as the “parent-trigger” legislation, during the last legislative session.
But the Parent Empowerment bill failed in a dramatic way on a 20-to-20 tie vote after hours of public testimony at the last budget committee meeting.
State Sen. Anitere Flores (R-Miami) was at a screening of the film in Miami. The film is fictional. But Flores says it helps highlight why parents and students in low economic areas need more school choices.
“Its easier for us to make choices because we have economic possibilities and other things to be able to send our children to different schools,” she said. Continue Reading →
But in Orlando schools, custodians are the highest in demand.
This summer, the Orange County school district asked principals which positions they needed help filling.
The top answer across the district? School Custodians.
Orange County schools require candidates to pass a physical fitness test before they can get hired. But about 30 percent of custodial applicants who take the test don’t pass it.
The shortage has forced hiring manager Carol Kindt to get creative.
She’s recruiting parents as they register their kids for class.
“We’re doing anything we can to get more people through the application process to the interview,”she said.
Jimmy Johnson is a custodian at Dr. Phillips High School in Orange County. School custodians have one of the highest rates of work-related injuries, more than food service workers and teaching assistants who work with severely disabled students. In Orange County, there were 125 custodian injuries in 2011, which cost the district $372,645 in worker’s compensation.
Orange County schools now require candidates to pass a physical fitness test . But many applicants don’t pass it. Schools are short janitors and custodians like Sylvia Moya say they’re working overtime, scrambling to keep schools clean.
Tony Rodriguez is the head custodian at Dr. Phillips High. He says janitor equipment is more than just mops and brooms. School custodians hurt their backs lifting furniture and burn themselves with cleaning chemicals and machines. Rodriguez took the fitness test a couple months ago and thinks it’s a good requirement for the job.
The supply room at Dr. Phillips High School isn’t your stereotypical janitor’s closet. It’s filled with machines the size of small tractors used to empty the dumpsters and wax floors.
It’s becoming more and more difficult to know where Rick Scott stands on public education and teaching. Today, he says he would like to reduce paperwork requirements of educators. That’s nice, but if Rick Scott is truly listening to teachers, he would know that Florida’s education professionals deserve better pay and benefits and wholehearted support from state officials.
What public school educators don’t need is a governor who masquerades as an education advocate but proposes and signs state budgets that drastically shortchanges education like Rick Scott did last year. Florida needs an education governor, not a politician who poses as an advocate for teachers when it’s politically convenient.
Last week, the governor promised not to cut education funding next year. He cut $1.3 billion the year before, but then put  $1 billion back in this year. Continue Reading →
Three Broward County charter schools have voted to voluntarily terminate their contracts with the school board.
Today marks 20 days into the school year in Broward County.
For some students today will be the last day on their campus and with the teachers they started the year with.
Three Broward charter schools have voted to close their doors:
Touchdowns4life Charter, a middle school in Tamarac, Fla.
Eagle Charter Academy, a 6-12 grade school in Lauderdale Lakes, Fla.
SMART Charter, a middle school in Lauderdale Lakes, Fla.
According to the school district, a letter sent home to the parents of students at Eagle and SMART stated “that the closures are due to low enrollment.”
When traditional public schools are forced to close, school boards decide at the end of the school year. But charter schools can choose to close at any time. Its one of the risks parents and students take when they choose to enroll in a charter. Continue Reading →
Debra Wilhelm, Karen Aronowitz and John Tarka with the teacher unions in Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Broward counties say they're wearing red to support Chicago teachers on strike.
Teachers across the state are showing their support for Chicago teachers on strike — by wearing red.
Teachers get to negotiate their contracts and working conditions, and in turn they cannot strike — it’s against the Florida Constitution.
If they do, union leaders say teachers can be fired on the spot. And in the past, union leaders who organized any strikes or walk-outs have been fined and jailed.
The strike that started collective bargaining in Florida took place in 1968 — when teachers were asking for better school conditions and a minimum salary of $5,000 a year.
Florida’s 1968 strike is considered the first statewide teacher strike in the country.
Now, teachers and educators throughout the state are wearing red to support Chicago teachers. Continue Reading →
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