{"id":23949,"date":"2015-09-14T12:24:01","date_gmt":"2015-09-14T16:24:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=23949"},"modified":"2015-09-14T12:31:01","modified_gmt":"2015-09-14T16:31:01","slug":"new-palm-beach-county-school-chief-wants-to-shake-up-florida-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2015\/09\/14\/new-palm-beach-county-school-chief-wants-to-shake-up-florida-education\/","title":{"rendered":"New Palm Beach County Schools Chief Wants To Shake Up Florida Education"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_23950\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"New Palm Beach County schools superintendent Robert Avossa.\" href=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2015\/09\/9-14-AvossaPortrait.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-23950\" alt=\"New Palm Beach County schools superintendent Robert Avossa.\" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2015\/09\/9-14-AvossaPortrait-300x273.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"273\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2015\/09\/9-14-AvossaPortrait-300x273.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2015\/09\/9-14-AvossaPortrait-620x564.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2015\/09\/9-14-AvossaPortrait.jpg 1865w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">John O&#39;Connor \/ StateImpact Florida<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">New Palm Beach County schools superintendent Robert Avossa.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>For weeks now, Palm Beach County schools <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sun-sentinel.com\/local\/palm-beach\/fl-palm-slosberg-bus-investigation-20150909-story.html\" data-cke-saved-href=\"http:\/\/www.sun-sentinel.com\/local\/palm-beach\/fl-palm-slosberg-bus-investigation-20150909-story.html\">have struggled to get students to classes on time<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Bus routes have been redrawn. And the district sent up flares, looking to hire anyone who wants to drive a bus.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the first crisis new superintendent Robert Avossa has had to face since taking over the job in June. And he says it could have been avoided if district leaders had listened.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe lesson to be learned is that our bus drivers, right? Sort of the low man on the totem pole,\u201d Avossa told a gathering of business leaders last week, \u201cwere waving the big red flag to the management over in transportation saying \u2018We have a problem.\u2019 And the management decided not to listen\u2026That\u2019s problematic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Avossa has traveled all over Palm Beach County to find others with similar advice about how to run the district.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/223795811&amp;color=ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false\" height=\"166\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>In July, <a href=\"http:\/\/wlrn.org\/post\/palm-beach-county-lowers-bullying-rate\" data-cke-saved-href=\"http:\/\/wlrn.org\/post\/palm-beach-county-lowers-bullying-rate\">he met with teachers, principals and social workers to figure out what to do about bullying.<\/a> People worked together in small groups, and at the end of the afternoon, sent Avossa a list of ideas. He\u2019s met with charter schools leaders and held events for parents and students across Palm Beach County.<\/p>\n<p>But while he\u2019s listening, the 43-year-old Avossa is also bringing plenty of big ideas with him from his previous job in Fulton County, Georgia.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIncremental steps are not going to help Palm Beach County schools become the best in the state,\u201d Avossa says.<\/p>\n<p>Avossa says a priority is making sure students aren\u2019t struggling just because their family makes less money or the student doesn\u2019t speak English.<\/p>\n<p>Born in Italy, Avossa had to learn English when he arrived in Florida. So he understands the added challenge students learning English face. Like many Florida districts, Palm Beach County schools have seen a surge in immigrant students \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2014\/08\/18\/florida-school-districts-preparing-for-central-american-immigrants\/\" data-cke-saved-href=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2014\/08\/18\/florida-school-districts-preparing-for-central-american-immigrants\/\">particularly from Central America<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>More than 100 languages are spoken in the homes of Palm Beach County students.<\/p>\n<p>Avossa tackled graduation rates and SAT scores in Georgia. By the time he left &#8212; both improved.<\/p>\n<p>And big ideas sometimes means being disruptive. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ajc.com\/weblogs\/get-schooled\/2014\/feb\/28\/principals-hot-seat-theyve-become-more-critical-th\/\" data-cke-saved-href=\"http:\/\/www.ajc.com\/weblogs\/get-schooled\/2014\/feb\/28\/principals-hot-seat-theyve-become-more-critical-th\/\">He fired, forced out or reassigned dozens of principals at low-performing schools in his old district.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In Palm Beach, Avossa is already talking about principals as a way to improve schools.<\/p>\n<p>And like in Georgia, Avossa will ask lawmakers for a new state law to allow his district to ignore some state education laws. Imagine taking five hundred pages of rules and throwing half away.<\/p>\n<p>Schools would probably still have testing and state grades, but each Palm Beach County school could pick and choose what works best for them.<\/p>\n<p>Both of his kids go to Palm Beach public schools, and Avossa wants students to have classes as unique as the personalized Nikes his son orders online.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn five minutes he designs his own shoe. It\u2019s at my house from China in two days,\u201d Avossa says. \u201cThat same child who has that customized world at home then comes to the school house and sits in perfect little rows. Asked to open up a book\u2026and read what everybody else is reading.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Avossa also thinks some students need more time in class.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve got kids who instead of 180 days a school year \u2013 which is, on average, what the national child goes to school \u2013 need to be `190, 200, 220,\u201d he says. \u201cThere are kids who should never leave our schools.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In other words, no summer vacation. But he thinks students who have the lessons down cold should be able to move faster. Let Florida\u2019s brightest students move as fast as they can. Maybe graduate early.<\/p>\n<p>And as if all those issues aren\u2019t enough, Avossa says Palm Beach County has another problem: affordable housing. It\u2019s one reason why the district is having trouble finding enough bus drivers. And thousands of school district employees can\u2019t afford to buy a home.<\/p>\n<p>At the business group lunch, Avossa earns praise for plain speaking.<\/p>\n<p>Carey O\u2019Donnell owns a Palm Beach County advertising agency and advises the school district on its image.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot of people say that they\u2019re going to reach out,\u201d she says. \u2018My first hundred days I\u2019m going to talk to a hundred people and find out what the real problems were.\u2019 He counts the people that he\u2019s spoken to in the thousands\u2026I mean his capacity is huge. I\u2019m amazed at what he\u2019s done in his first three months here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Avossa says &#8212; there\u2019s more coming.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For weeks now, Palm Beach County schools have struggled to get students to classes on time. Bus routes have been redrawn. And the district sent up flares, looking to hire anyone who wants to drive a bus. It\u2019s the first crisis new superintendent Robert Avossa has had to face since taking over the job in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":23950,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[616,993,1115],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23949"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23949"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23953,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23949\/revisions\/23953"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}