It’s a Wednesday morning and the waiting room is already starting to fill up at the North Miami Beach Senior High School clinic.
Sammy Mack / StateImpact Florida
The school-based health clinic at North Miami Beach Senior High School is a full-service clinic.
A 16-year-old girl with an enormous red bow pinned above her ear approaches the appointment window. A beveled glass pane slides open. The woman behind the desk doesn’t ask for insurance information — she asks to see a hall pass.
“Go ahead and have a seat.”
Red Bow takes her place in a waiting room chair next to classmates who, between hushed exchanges of gossip, occasionally erupt in giggles.
This school clinic at North Miami Beach is part of the Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation School Health Initiative—a network of school-based health clinics in Miami, operated by the University of Miami M Miller School of Medicine. Connected to larger teaching hospitals and an array of specialists by electronic health records and telemedicine, clinics like this are re-imagining the role of the school nurse. And there’s evidence that what’s good for students’ health is good for their grades.
They were asked to review four things: New Common Core standards which take full effect next year; Florida’s next standardized test; the state school grading formula; and teacher evaluations.
The group came up with suggested changes which were sent to Scott and others. Scott said he plans to act, but many of the suggested changes would require a vote by the legislature or the State Board of Education.
But many who attended the summit were frustrated by the scope of the task — trying to tackle more than a decade of Florida education policy in less than 72 hours.
StateImpact Florida reporter John O’Connor attended the summit. He spoke with WUSF’s Craig Kopp about what he learned.
Venice High School English teachers, from left, Larry Burke, Kathleen Jones and LaRay Biziawski write a learning goal at a recent Common Core training. Venice High School assistant principal Joshua Leinweber, in the blue shirt, joined them.
We spent a lot of time this summer watching and listening as Florida school districts trained teachers about what to expect when the state makes the full switch to new education standards next year.
1. Common Core Will Turn The Keys Over To The Students
This is probably the most important change we noticed.
Common Core emphasizes that students know the underlying concepts, and not just the formula for how to reach an answer.
Hillsborough County teaching coach Cynthia Crim put it this way for several hundred teachers at a Frost Elementary School math training: Don’t tell students area equals length times width, and then have them calculate it ten times. Ask questions that lead them to discover the formula on their own or working with classmates.
“We’re going to have students explore different patterns; And we’re going to be asking questions that really require students to think and discover patterns within numbers,” Crim said. “You are going to have to be really strategic in what problem you’re showing to your students for them to see patterns.”
After a long, humid summer, kids across the state are waking up and getting ready to go back to school this week.
One of those students, 16-year-old Keri Grigas, started her junior year at South Broward High School this morning. Listen to her bus-stop interview with us from this morning:
Keri later met up with us at the bus stop after school to tell us how the day went:
Sammy Mack / StateImpact Florida
Keri Grigas started her junior year on Monday.
For your reading pleasure, we’ve also rounded up a few more of our favorite small moments from the big day back. Feel free to share your own in the comments.
The sun had barely risen, but Gillian Pons, donning pink shoes, a golden uniform top and a blue hair ribbon to match her shoelaces, was already feeling chipper about the morning ahead.
“It’s a great day!” said the 9-year-old as she walked with her family en route to Cypress Elementary, where the first day of fourth grade awaited.
“Get loose. Get funky. Get started with your knees!” chanted Will Phillips, the leader of the team, whose members will focus on mentoring students in third-grade and above to approve attendance, academics and behavior at the D-rated, low-income school.
“If I can get the to dance with us, I can hopefully get them to improve their grades as well,” Phillips said. “It takes the whole school to keep students excited.”
In the pre-kindergarten classroom at Sanderlin Elementary School in St. Petersburg, the teacher was as nervous as the students.
“I put a lot of pressure on myself to do things perfectly,” said Ashley Cooley, 23, of her first-full-time teaching job. “Since I woke up this morning, nervous, I’ve been drinking lots of water and taking nice slow breaths.”
Florida’s system of giving schools grades from A-to-F has been in the spotlight this summer.
First, state officials made last-minute changes to the A-to-F formula, preventing more than 150 schools from dropping to F grades.
Sammy Mack / StateImpact Florida
What's in a school grade? We asked parents.
Then, Florida’s education commissioner Tony Bennett resigned over reports that he manipulated school grades in Indiana when he was in charge of schools there.
Florida pioneered the A thru F school grade system in 1999. But now, even supporters are saying it’s time to revisit the formula.
With school about to start back up, we reached out to parents through the Public Insight Network and asked: What does a school’s grade even mean to you?
Florida officials made just two major changes to the state formula which determines A-to-F school grades during the first six years of its use — adding a component to measure student test improvement from year-to-year and expanding the number of students included in the formula.
But since 2010 the state has made 16 changes to the formula, including adding new test results, increasing target test scores, factoring in high school graduation rates and accelerated coursework and adding scores for students with disabilities or those learning English.
Florida Department of Education
This timeline from the Florida Department of Education shows changes to the school grading formula since 1999.
School superintendents worry the formula has been loaded up like a Christmas tree and even supporters on the State Board of Education said they doubt the school grades.
Experts who study school grading systems say the question of whether the formula is too complicated is less important than whether school grades are an accurate measurement of education priorities.
Experts say the switch to Common Core standards won't require a total overhaul of school grading systems. However, educators may struggle to set new expectations.
The board was being asked to voted on two temporary changes which would soften the impact of several years of changes to the state formula which assign schools and districts an A-to-F rating. One change would prevent schools from dropping more than one letter grade this year, while another would change how
But the board was deeply divided. Some argued the reprieve was wise as schools adjusted to the new requirements. Other argued the state was sugarcoating bad news.
Most of the board questioned the complexity of the formula.
“I don’t think it’s a statistically relevant model,” board member Kathleen Shanahan told her colleagues.
They said Florida’s move to new education standards fully adopted by 45 states, known as Common Core, would force a rewrite of the formula.
But what will the switch to Common Core mean for Florida’s school grading system? Experts say the problems for the grading system are more political than statistical. That’s because the standards and accompanying testing will be more difficult, so fewer students — and schools — will meet expectations.
Lauren Case already knows what she’s going to say on the first day of school when her students ask what she did over summer break:
“I saw a rocket launch; it was awesome. You want to go too? Maybe you should become an engineer,” says Case, a 10th grade science teacher at South Fork High School in Stuart, Fla.
Lockheed Martin-NSTA Teacher Fellows Mary Maddox and Steve Kirsche watch the MUOS-2 satellite launch.
The fellowship is designed to take science teachers who have only been in the classroom for a couple of years and expose them to real-world applications of STEM—science, technology, engineering and math—so that, hopefully, they can bring the enthusiasm back to their students.
Sarasota County middle school students work on math problems in a "classroom of tomorrow."
Florida schools are gearing up for new education standards and accompanying online testing. Schools must also prepare to deliver half of all classroom instruction digitally by 2015.
So what will this mean for students, teachers and schools? It’s the subject of this week’s Florida Matters on WUSF radio.
Senate Education Committee chairman John Legg, Hillsborough County schools technology specialist Sharon Zulli and Gulf Coast Community Foundation consultant Chris Pfahler discuss how schools are using technology now, what the coming changes mean and what needs to be done — and spent — to get students, teachers and schools ready.
Legg also discusses why Florida lawmakers don’t like what they are hearing about PARCC, a next-generation test intended to replace the FCAT.
Click the link to listen to this week’s show, hosted by WUSF’s Carson Cooper.
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