Vitti welcomes charters with open arms.

For someone who says they want to bring kids back from Charter schools Vitti (and the board) seem to be doing a lot of the opposite.

He just recently brought in Charter School execs to run our middle schools and to be principal of Ed White High school. They join a former charter school lobbyist who arrived in the Fall.

Then just last month they extended the contracts of several failing charter schools as well as approved several new charter schools.  Since he has been here the proliferation of charter schools has increased and he even attended a conference with charter school proponent and confident Gary Chartrand, whose theme was how do we bring more charter schools to Florida.

So where he says he wants to bring students back from charter schools and private schools color me unconvinced.

 

In fact color me worried

Did the superintendnet reorganize the district while nobody was looking?

By Greg Sampson
 

First, Fred Heid was Chief Academic Officer and Daniela Simic was Chief of Academics: I never understood how their titles worked but Simic reported through Heid or so I thought.

But Heid has left to be a super in his own right in Illinois. Who took his place? Who knows?

Addison Davis is now Chief of Schools but what does that mean? I thought that title had been retired, but has Davis taken over Heid’s spot? I’m not really sure.

Then Anthony Anderson was hired from a Palm Beach County charter school to be a region chief and media references said he was in charge of middle schools.

Then there are vague media references that Iranetta Wright is in charge of QEA schools—basically the turnaround schools.

But DCPS was organized into four regions—groups of high schools with the feeder middle schools and their feeder elementary schools underneath them.

What’s going on? Has Dr. Vitti reorganized the district while no one was watching? Do principals know who their supervisors are?

It would help if DCPS published an organization chart on their website, but no, you won’t find that.

While we were sleeping and dreaming about the principal changes, did the superintendent pull off a reorganization? Without Board input and approval?

 

Jacksonville's elite pick their district 2 candidate, Scott Shine

Scott Shine is a businessman from the beach and is looking to replace Fel Lee, heck he even looks like Lee.

He is also the choice of the city's elite power players who are quietly trying to assemble a block of school board members to I imagine, push their privatization agenda.

Shine has taken money from John Baker, several Chartrands and Steins, Steve Halverson, Cindy Edelman, Popply Clement and Wayne Weaver. If you were to check Ashley Smith-Juarez and Darryl Willie's donor lists you would find many of the same names.

This small group of so called elites made up of non-district two residents, none of whom went to public school or sent their children to public school now seek to control our public schools and by control I mean dismantle.

Money not what's best for our children will dictate education if they are allowed to win.

To see just who is donating to Shine, click the link: https://www.voterfocus.com/ws/WScand/cand_srch.php

Duval County’s unforced errors

First there is the hiring and firing of the principal from Atlanta brought in to run the boys side of Butler Middle. Can you imagine, this guy quit his job, told all his friends and family heading to Jax and then the district pulled the plug because they said things surfaced during the vetting process? The principal disagrees saying the district knew of the accusations before they hired him. 

But say the district is being honest, hey do your vetting before you announce your hires why don’t you. Sheesh it’s like a landlord giving out the keys and taking the deposit before doing the background check. Then there is some hypocrisy here too. The principal in question was cleared of all wrong doing and I know for a fact there is at least one member of Vitti’s inner circle who had his teaching cert suspended for something pretty egregious. Vitti himself told me people should have second chances but I guess that’s only for his friends.

To read more click the link: http://news.wjct.org/post/duval-school-officials-rescind-offer-atlanta-principal

Then there is the district just throwing up it’s hands over the IPDPs teachers were required to do. IPDP stands for Individual Professional Development Plan and for years teachers were “required” to do them but for the most part did the bare minimum but then this year things got real.

The state required a third metric to go along with principal observations and tests scores to evaluate teachers and the district chose to use the IPDPs. Well the district so bungled the roll out that they have now decided to award all teachers max points (10 percent of the overall evaluation). Now yes this error was in teachers’ favor but unlike in years past I and I am sure many others spent a significant amount of time on our IPDPs.   

If we’re going to use this, and people new this day was coming for years, then what stopped the district from using it correctly? 

Then there is the colossal blunder of open enrollment. Who thought fundamentally changing the district was going to be easier and take less time than it takes for me to write an IEP? The district that’s who. It was suggested and then scheduled to be voted on in less than a month and the city lost it’s shi*.

Both sides of the argument were in an uproar about a suggestion that they had just heard of. One side said it would destroy neighborhood schools and the other side said it was the only way the district could survive, with the truth being somewhere in between.

Open enrollment might be a conversation we need to have but it is something you talk about for months or even years before making a call. You don’t have the idea while driving into work one random Tuesday. It needlessly threw the city into turmoil and quite frankly it will make big initiatives even if done the right way more difficult to pull off in the future. It is time we stopped throwing ideas like paint against a wall and hoping something to sticks.   

Three big swings and misses courtesy of the Duval County School District.

Patricia Levesque: The only parents that matter are the ones that send their kids to charter and voucher schools.

When you boil it down that is basically what she is saying. She says parents will hold choice schools accountable with their feet, the ability to walk away. Well friends what about all the overwhelming amount of parents that have complained about the proliferation of high stakes tests? Why can they be marginalized and ignored? If choice is so important why can’t they opt their children out of the tests or better yet since parents want to get rid of them, why don’t we?

The reason? Because if we got rid of high stakes testing then kids would return to public schools in droves. The choice movement cannot afford to give up their manufactured crisis if they hope to survive.

To read her piece click the link: http://www.redefinedonline.org/2014/06/future-education-choice-customization-mastery/

Breaking down the California decision to strip teachers of work protections.

Who in District 4 is donating to the Willie campaign?

To see who is donating to the Willie campaign click the link.

https://www.voterfocus.com/ws/WScand/cand_srch.php

The first thing you should notice is how little of the money is coming from within the boundaries of district 4.

Counting Gary Chartrand's daughter he has raised 6.100 from Ponte Vedra and a similar amount from both Mandarin and Riverside too.

I think it should speak volumes that the residents of district 4 are avoiding Willie while the so called elites of the city are supporting him.

Six board members of the Jacksonville Public Education Fund donate to Darryl Willie's campaign.

Cindy Edelman and her husband 2,000 dollars.
John Baker, 1,000 dollars
Gary Chardrand, his wife Nancy and daughter Meredith, 2,500 dollars
Poppy Clements and her husband 2,000 dollars
Cleve Warren, 255 dollars
Deloris Weaver's husband and son, 1,500 dollars

I hope we all see the conflict of interest here. The line between the JPEF and the School District is becoming increasingly blurred what with them running numerous activities and managing tens of millions of dollars through the Quality Education for All initiative.  

It now looks like they are trying to buy a school board member too, well another one as Ashley Smith Juarez is already in their pocket.

 

Did Chris Jackson want to go to Ribault because he had lost the Ed White staff?

The other day in the paper Vitti said Chris Jackson the principal of Ed Whit wanted to go to Ribault.

First is that how we are doing things? People just get to go where they want to go? I wonder how many other principals got to pick their assignment? My guess is not that many.

More likely he wanted to reunite with Iranetta Wright, who must know where the bodies are buried because how she has advanced through the ranks is not supported by data and who is now in charge of the QEA schools of which Ribault is one of.

Good luck to them.

Another reason he might have wanted to leave is he had lost the staff at Ed White. Below is their climate survey.

https://duvalschools.box.com/shared/static/r8o3a9z4w0qe5u04r0q6.pdf

Friends it is even worse than it seems. I am told there is so much new staff at White, teachers who don't know they shouldn't be mistreated that it is a wonder the scores are so low.

I have an idea, lets transfer around principals that lose their staffs and do a poor job, oh the district already had that idea.  

Paula Wright shoots across Superintendent Vitti’s bow

From WJCT.com

Meanwhile, school board member Paula Wright said Tuesday she would like a chance to revisit some of the other programs the board has approved. At the time the decisions were made, she was not aware that positions in the district might have to be cut, she said.

“We voted for 13 or 14 items before we really got into the budget, and I would not have done some of those things had I known we would be here,” she said, referring to the recent decision to reduce security staffing.Recently, the board agreed to cut the district's 239 security guards by 65.

Wright cited the board’s approval to open GRASP Academy for 225 dyslexic students at R.L. Brown and the three-year Teach For America contract to hire at 300 more TFA members over the next three years.

“I think it’s grossly unfair that if we’re going to be reducing all the other items that we’re reducing and leave these items over here,” she said.

However, Vitti said both GRASP Academy and TFA are largely funded through money outside of the district. GRASP is funded through federal money. The TFA contract is funded through federal and private money, however, the district is still responsible for paying $600,000 out of its general fund.

http://news.wjct.org/post/strengthening-middle-school-leadership-and-instruction-focus-school-board-workshop

First we pay that 600 grand to TFA in addition to their salaries, benefits and any additional training and the district always trains new teachers a lot more than experienced teachers. Then since the vast amount of TFA teachers leave after two years all that money is completely wasted. We spend more on brand new and not going to stick around TFAers than we do on 9^th year teachers. Furthermore just because some of the money sent to TFA nearly 1.7 million dollars a year doesn’t come directly from the district is irrelevant. What are we missing out on because we choose to waste the money there?  

Back to Wright and lets forget, why didn’t she know that some people were going to lose their jobs.

GRASP and TFA are Vitti’s two babies. These programs are closer to his heart than any others. GRASP because of his and his families struggles with dyslexia and TFA because um, err, hmm, Chartrand likes them maybe and he not Vitti is the real power here in Duval. I don’t know why Vitti has a love affair with TFA,  but his actions and defense of the group say that he does.

Wright has to know this so when she mentions these two particular programs out of all the ones that she could, it is very telling.  

Problems brewing on the river.