From Greg Sampson

Recent email received. I offer it without comment for your pondering of charter schools.

Subject:

Message: Substitute Teachers Needed in Orlando & Jacksonville, FL

Teach a variety of subjects!! Substitute teaching can be FUN!

Charter Schools USA (CSUSA) is one of the oldest, largest, and fastest-growing education management companies in the United States: http://charterschoolsusa.com

Charter Schools USA is actively seeking Substitute Teachers for our schools that are located in Orlando and Jacksonville, FL. Pay range from $10.00/hr. - $12.00/hr.

Immediate Needs!!

If you are interested in a potential future employment opportunity with CSUSA in the Orlando and Jacksonville, FL area, please answer the following questions and email your resume to Lynda Aransevia at: laransevia@charterschoolsusa.com

1) Which above noted locations most interest you?

2) What is the highest level degree you have achieved?

3) Have you interviewed with Charter Schools USA previously? If so, when and at which of our schools?

4) What is your most recent salary and salary need?

============================================

Thanks for exploring and considering our instructional employment opportunities with Charter Schools USA! I look forward to receiving your emailed personal resume along with your answers to the questions noted above.

4:05 PM

From a reader

Engage Duval is ridiculous at best. No regard to developmental readiness, learning modalities, age appropriateness, UBD, infusing the arts into learning and much more that those of us who've been teaching a while have known to be best practices are pretty much void from most teachers plans.

Learning "guide"? Um, guide means just that, a guide not a dictated document. Yet, teachers are interrogated about what page their on at any particular time. That's not guiding, it's dictating.

Low teacher morale - that's an understatement. Rip away our autonomy and micromanage us to death with more paperwork and over testing than ever and then be amazed that teachers are unhappy, stressed, worn out, and wanting to leave their chosen careers? Really? How is it possible that those of us who began our careers 2 and 3 decades ago were able to help students learn and grow without any curriculum or with true, not micromanaged, guides and objectives along with the autonomy to do what we knew worked with our group of kids?

When I started my career as a brand new teacher recruited to teach from rural Indiana and thrown into inner city Jacksonville I had no curriculum yet was expected to get 33 third graders with no para - professional to be proficient (70%) at a battery of IMS objectives for math and communication - i.e. Language Arts - while promoting an understanding of grammar, spelling, cursive handwriting, basic math facts, 2 areas of S.S., and health. Students were to be ready for the E.S.T. assessment in the spring, but it wasn't as "high stakes", or didn't feel that way then, as the stresses teachers, students, and parents exhibit now.

How was I successful at moving students in a low socio-economic/Title I (and I detest those and other labels) many with poor home conditions, poor conduct, poor hygiene, and emotional issues a long with no curriculum back then? Just a side note, two of those little North Shore Elementary third graders graduated college to become a district TOY candidate several years ago and one is currently an AP. Not to forget that one of those little boys is a successful business owner. How did we make it then? What's different now? I'm thinking many of you know those answers.

2:02 PM

Scott Shine, SB district 2 left this comment on the blog Education Matters

Chris, 

Just an fYI on the social media policy, this was proposed as a policy addition from Dr. Vitti and was taken up by your liberal friends on the board in the policy review subcommittee (against my wishes)a month ago. They were unanimous in moving it to next years employee professional standards. So, you only have a few months to add to your resume of false and reckless statements. Sadly, I did not even get a chance to vote on it. So, give your thanks to Hall, Wright and Couch for the "anti-Guerrieri" code of conduct addition next fall. While I am highly disappointed I did not get in on the action, and still want to bring it forward as a policy addition as originally submitted by the superintendent, so it can take affect in before the end of this school year.

http://jaxkidsmatter.blogspot.com/2016/02/scott-shine-proposes-anti-blogging.html

First I would like to acknowledge that above shows real growth from Scott, usually he just leaves mean and nasty comments posted anonymously.

Let’s dissect what he wrote.

The first thing that stands out is “your liberal friends”. The school board positions are supposed to be non-partisan, it shouldn’t matter if you are liberal or conservative or whatever, because what’s best for our schools should trump all political leanings. The fact that Scott sees fit to call Hall, Wright and Couch “liberal” is telling.

Furthermore was he name calling there? I get it calling somebody “liberal” isn’t like calling somebody retarded but I get the distinct impression he was trying to belittle and marginalize when he wrote that, as if liberals are somehow less worthy of respect.

Then Holy Hostile work environment Batman. He writes, “So, you only have a few months to add to your resume of false and reckless statements.” Is he telling me to get my resume ready? Is he saying that the district is going to put an end to the blog? Both are threatening. He’s a school board member and here he is threatening a teacher he disagrees with, he’s not giving an alternate point of view, he’s not defending his decisions or positions or asking readers to explore alternate points of view. He’s saying get your resume ready because next school year you are on your way out.  

Connie Hall’s text was sent to a third person and seemed off the cuff and superintendent Vitti said he felt like it created a hostile work environment. Shine on the other hand addressed me and sent me a 141 word note. Should I follow the supers lead and look into legal counsel?   

Then think about this. Connie Hall sent her text to one person, where Shine left his comment on a blog that on good days gets thousands and thousand of hits. He wanted to make sure his comment was widely read, and do you know who most of the readers of the blogs are? Teachers, that is who. His threat wasn't just to me, it was to teachers as well. He just said look at me, the district can silence whoever it doesn't like. That's a chilling message for a district that already has a reputation for quashing dissent and punishing teachers who speak out.  

Then he accuses me of being false and reckless, couldn’t I consider that to be libel or if he has said it to people slander? I have opinions about how things are being run, I do but last I checked it was still legal to have opinions. Furthermore, if I get something wrong, I own up to it on the blog because I understand it does my argument no good to get things wrong. I once wrote a blog saying Scott was a lifelong member of the government dole and after he pointed out I got it wrong I not only retracted it but I apologized.

http://jaxkidsmatter.blogspot.com/2014/08/just-who-gives-bleep-who-has-endorsed.html

Then he wrote “affect” when he should have written effect, but have you read one of my blogs because if you have, you know I can really forgive that.

This just just reaffirms my thoughts about Mr. Shine and that is he is in way over his head, and that he is driven by his ideology not by what’s best for children, schools and teachers.  The question I would like you to ask is how isn’t what he did today just as bad if not worse than what Connie Hall did? 
   

1:22 PM

I had the following conversation with an attendee of today's afternoon school board meeting. I had left before it started as I had an important date with my couch and Netflix.

Shine has completely lost it... He called for the board to fire Michelle Begley

He also introduced a social media policy against bloggers, and etc

hahaha did he?

that should be interesting

shoot me some details and I will blog about it

All he said is you accused Gary Chartrand of using his influence to break the story and he is not okay with you as a district employee being able to get away with it. He says he is calling for a social media policy against it and the firing of Michelle Begley the board auditor

Here is the thing that Scott Shine and WJCT should know. If WJCT doesn't want me questioning their integrity they should stop taking money form Gary Chartrand. Now some people agree with him but lets not pretend for a second that he is not agenda driven and I don't know about you but I like my news sources to be above reproach.

It is also unrealistic to think that his agenda doesn't seep into the organizations he finances, JPEF anyone?

As for Shine and other board members, if they don't want me pointing out the crazy things they say, their positions that are the antithesis to supporting public education, or the money they take from special interests, then they should stop saying crazy things, stop taking money from charter school operators and start supporting our schools, children and teachers.

If I was Shine I wouldn't like the blog either, but the truth is he gives me plenty of material to write about.

2:17 PM

When I heard the district was having a press conference to discuss improved school culture, I was hot. I don’t want to say I have talked to every teacher or even all the ones that I have agree with me but most of the ones I have and know feel we are heading in the wrong direction as a district.

Then to be honest my Mel Gibson conspiracy theory inner nut took over for a minute and I thought it might have been a set up to talk about the texts that came out last weekend. I believe they were released to distract us from the real issues facing the district and to hurt a political foe of charter school interests.

I was ready to go in guns blazing and now I have to say I am a little embarrassed, I took off my pajamas early and got dressed for no reason as none of above really occurred.

Now the district did talk about improvement in several areas but they were all very vanilla.

Are your standards based on common core, does your principal care about safety, are you getting more professional development. All legitimate and fairly important topics to which most people said yes. Just like I imagine most people would say puppies are cute, and ice cream is tasty. Not exactly ground breaking topics.  

I and Denise Amos of the Times Union asked if there were any questions about how the staff felt about the curriculum, i.e. a teacher may say they like their school, but they also do not like the curriculum they are required to teach and they feel it is appropriate, was there any questions like that addressed in the survey.  The super admitted there were no such questions on the survey.

See that’s the thing, like many of us, we may like or love our schools but at the same time we find what we are required to teach inappropriate for a variety of reasons.

Professional development has increased (that doesn’t mean it is good) and I believe every principal cares about safety (that doesn’t mean discipline has improved) but answering those questions in the affirmative doesn’t address our issues.

So sure the survey may have some peripheral value but time and time again the district has shown they aren’t all that interested in really hearing what the staff has to say. Where are our survey monkeys about discipline, Duval reads, common core math, a lack of recess and admins in our classrooms not looking to improve instruction but for gotcha moments. If they really are interested in knowing what staff thinks then those are the questions they need to be asking about.

So to sum up, on my day off where I planned to pajama and Netflix all day long I dragged myself down to the school board building to attend a press conference where I learned exactly what I already knew. Don’t be concerned, I have my pajamas back on.

Now that I think back there was one bit of note. I asked about why only 14% of Duval’s teachers are considered highly effective where 40 percent of the states are. The super said, our distribution was more realistic than other districts. I am not so sure about that, I get it too, evaluations are on a bell curve where we should have fewer highly effective and needs improvement on the ends, but I think we have a lot of highly effective teachers not graded that way for a variety of reasons most of which have nothing to do with their teaching.

1:58 PM

At today’s special school board meeting called to discuss dysfunction on the board, Jason Fischer called for Connie Hall to resign over texts revealed last week.  Admittedly enough one, where she referred to Vitti as, special ed in action, was in poor taste, though I don’t think it anywhere near approaches something to resign over. Also I don’t want to come off as an expert on board relationships but I am pretty sure calling on a colleague to resign isn’t going to help the dysfunction.

You know what somebody should resign over? How about announcing just barely past the half way mark of your term that you had done all you can do and you were seeking a spot in the Florida House of Representatives? Or how about taking thousands of dollars from special interests and then voting to enrich those special interests at the expense of your constituents? How about voting for ideological and partisan causes rather than what’s best for our schools, students and teachers.

How about those things, or you know things that Jason Fischer has routinely done.

I don’t want to defend Connie Hall but I find it rich that Jason Fischer who has done more damage to the district in his first term than even I thought possible is calling or her to resign.

Yes our board is dysfunctional but culprit one is Jason Fischer and he should look in the mirror and follow his own advice. At the very least he’ll have more time to campaign for his house run. 

To learn more, click the link: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2016-02-15/story/duval-school-board-acrimony-and-dissent-builds-one-members-calls-another

1:21 PM