tampabay.com
With hope, resolve and some social analysis, members of the Hillsborough County School Board spent much of Tuesday’s board meeting responding to this week’s disappointing school grades from the state.Released on Monday, the report made it clear that many of the district’s 200,000 students cannot demonstrate passing levels of proficiency in English and math.The 2023 numbers were sobering in much of Florida, as none of the schools got credit for the growth students achieved from year to year. That…
4 months ago
tampabay.com
The Hillsborough County school district, known a few years ago for a large group of low-performing schools, is once again saddled with an unwelcome distinction.The district has more D- and F-graded schools than any other in the state, according to data released last week by the Florida Department of Education.Even Miami-Dade and Broward counties, which are larger, do not have as many under this year’s unusual grading system. Changes to both the testing system and standards that students were req…
4 months ago
tampabay.com
The judges selecting Pinellas County’s next teacher of the year will be choosing among 10 finalists with experience in a variety of grades and disciplines.They were picked from a group of 132 nominees who were scored by a panel of judges from the district’s Teaching and Learning and Professional Development departments. The finalists then participate in interviews before a winner is announced in a ceremony on Jan. 22 at Mahaffey Theater in St. Petersburg.The school district shared the list of fi…
4 months ago
tampabay.com
Three elementary and two high school teachers are competing for Hillsborough County’s top educator award.This year’s pool includes a math teacher who provides voluminous parent information in Spanish and English and a second grade teacher who, entering the profession late in her life, embraces a philosophy that allows students to learn from their mistakes. Also among the finalists is a high school teacher who used project-based learning to help a diverse class of science students learn the basic…
4 months ago
tampabay.com
Johnny Bush, a former high school principal in Hillsborough County who runs the district’s administrators’ association, is running for school board.Bush, 60 and originally from Palm Beach County, spent 33 years as an educator before retiring as principal of Plant High School. Since leaving Plant, he has worked as executive director of the Hillsborough Association of School Administrators, a position he must resign because of his candidacy. He also took a minimum wage job as a hall monitor at Jef…
3 months ago
tampabay.com
Reports of fighting, tardiness, vaping and other common school infractions have dropped considerably from this time last year, Hillsborough County school district leaders told the school board at a work session Tuesday.Overall, disciplinary referrals dropped from 66,313 to 58,963 when two mid-year reports were compared. The number of times students were caught skipping class dropped by more than 2,400.“We’re talking about an overall 11% decrease,” said Superintendent Van Ayres. “All improvements…
3 months ago
tampabay.com
Two new principals were approved at Tuesday’s Hillsborough County School Board meeting.Ann-Marie Russo Gonzalez was named principal of Ballast Point Elementary School in South Tampa. Gonzalez, 53, previously served as assistant principal at Grady Elementary. She joined the school district in 1994.Cara von Ancken was approved as principal of Roland Park K-8 in Westshore, a promotion from an assistant principal’s position at the school. Von Ancken, 46, joined the district in 2020.Both appointments…
2 months ago
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The lesson begins with a little song and ends with a roller coaster cheer.The 30 minutes in between could be described as tedious. But 22 second graders don’t think so, and they give it their unwavering attention.Seated shoulder-to-shoulder on a multicolored rug, they learn about five ways to form a long “U” sound and four ways to form a long “I.”They learn how an “A” sometimes sounds like a short “O,” especially when it follows a “W.”On and on goes teacher Barbara Zimmer, clicking through a sli…
2 months ago
tampabay.com
Four candidates offered an early look at this year’s Hillsborough County School Board races on Friday, telling an audience at a Tampa Tiger Bay Club forum that they mostly agree on crucial issues affecting public schools.They concurred that African American history must be taught. Teachers must be paid adequately, they said. And culture war issues are detracting from the important work of teaching children how to read .But school board member Nadia Combs and challenger Julie Magill, a real estat…
2 months ago
tampabay.com
The Hillsborough County School District pledged on Wednesday to rebuild West Tampa’s closed Just Elementary along with nearby Stewart Middle School.But it is not yet clear what programs will be offered, particularly at Just, after the $70 million investment.“Over the next few months, school administrators and community leaders will work together to scope out plans for the campus and the curriculum to best serve this fast-growing area of Tampa,” the district said in a news release.The district an…
about 2 months ago
tampabay.com
A coalition of Hillsborough County civic groups on Thursday urged the public — and a divided school board — to get behind a special tax that would fund higher pay for teachers.School board members are scheduled to vote Tuesday on a November referendum that would ask Hillsborough voters if they approve of a property tax of $1 for every $1,000 of assessed taxable value. For a home assessed at $306,000, minus a $25,000 homestead exemption, that works out to about 75 cents a day.Supporters say Hills…
22 days ago
