The Big Clip ~ Box Tops For Education

Box Tops for Education is giving away one million Box Tops to America's schools. You can enter your school here. In addtion head on over to Ann Crabs and enter to win a free day pass to Sam's Club and a $25.00 gift card.

Support your local schools!

Back To School

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy


School starts in just under two weeks. Here is some information that may be helpful.


Volusia County School Calendar (2009-2010)

VC Back to School Guide

Volusia County Schools no longer send home community information flyers such as Parks and Rec events, PAL sports sign ups etc. You can get those flyers here, it will be updated shortly after school begins.

Volusia County has implemented Pay to Play for athletics in the county. So if your child plays a sport it will be $75.00, $25.00 for more than one sport, for a total of $100.00 no matter how many sports your child plays.


Coronado Elementary Open House is Friday, August 21, 2009 from 9am-12pm. Meet the teachers get bus stop assignments and school supply lists.

Information on assisting those in need with school supplies or receiving help with clothes or supplies can be found here.

Enjoy!!

'A' Report

I nearly choked on my coffee this morning when I opened the News Journal and found this article on our Volusia County School Superintendent. Margaret Smith earned the highest possible rating by "her bosses" the school board. WOW, that is a shocker. Too bad Volusia County has not gone the way of most companies and conducts 360 degree evaluations. If they did then the school superintendent would be evaluated by the teachers, the parents and the students, not just the school board. Bet it would be a vastly different rating if that was the case. What do you think...

In case you were wondering Mrs. Smith makes a yearly salary of $171,665, this is after her 2% pay cut last year. She also receives $25,750 that goes into a tax sheltered annuity on her behalf (starting teachers salary is $26,080). She receives $650.00 a month in car allowance (do the math that is another $7,800). She is eligible for a bonus of up to $17,166 per year but has not put in for it and does not plan to this year. (well I would think not) That being said her total compensation is a whopping $205, 215. The average teachers salary is $34,251.

There is a school board meeting today at 4pm if you want to be entertained, you can listen live.

Here is some interesting numbers on teachers, schools, number of students etc. if you are interested.

Hellloooo...Is Anyone In There?

Anyone home at Volusia County Schools? Are they all on a cruise? If not they could take a cruise down A1A in New Smyrna, or paddle a canoe around the Middle School. Let's revisit TS Fay, they closed schools for 4 days. That was light showers compared to this mess. But let's not close the schools, lets drag these kids into schools with water lapping at the classroom doors at Coronado, power outages at Read-Patillo and little access to the Middle School due to high water. Roads in Daytona are flooded and impassable, but you better get your kid to school.

One must ask themselves....WHY?

Support Volusia County Sports

The team continues to work hard to raise $100,000 for Volusia County Schools to support our spring JV Sports, Academic Fairs, and Performing Arts Events. To date, $75,000 has been raised.

Come out this Saturday, April 18th to Daytona Toyota (451 N. Nova Rd, Daytona Beach) or DeLand Dodge/Kia (2322 S. Woodland Blvd, DeLand) have generously offered to give our cause $20 for each person that takes a test drive on Saturday at their dealerships. The event will run from 10 am - 6 pm so you can go anytime during those hours.

In addition, NASCAR driver, Mike Skinner, will be at Daytona Toyota from 1-4 pm for a "meet & greet." This is a free event and will benefit our kids here in Volusia County.

Please come out and support our schools. Bring your friends. Student drivers can test drive too if they have an accompanying parent.

Many thanks to Deland Dodge and Daytona Toyota for their support!

Manic Monday

Do you Freecycle? If you don't you should look into it. Easy and Free way to get rid of your "stuff", the idea is not to get a bunch of free stuff but to keep things out of the landfills by sharing with others. We have a great group here in New Smyrna Beach. I think we have over 1,000 members in the area. There are over 6.5 million members worldwide. Check it out.

Took my daughter and our dogs to Smyrna Dunes Park today. It was a beautiful day and the park is very nice. If you have a dog that likes to play in the water it is especially nice.

Had my annual mammogram today at Port Orange Imaging Center on Dunlawton. This is my second year going there and it is a very pleasant experience. You don't wait, they are all very nice and it is pretty painless. Well, as painless as having a Ford F250 driven over your boob is.(just kidding, really, I am kidding)

Not sure if I have mentioned this but I love my son's teachers at Warner Christian Academy. He was dreading middle school and he loves Warner. Speaking of schools, I heard a rumor that Coronado Elementary was going to be closed. The announcement was supposed to be made after FCAT, never heard it so I guess it is just a rumor. Not a good one either I might add. I heard it from a teacher at another school, so we shall see.

In closing, a very good friend of mines husband died after a long illness this past week. They have two son's who are heartbroken. Please consider donating your organs upon your death. Did you know that each day an average of 63 people receive donated organs and another 16 people die on the waiting list?

You can find out more about Organ Donation in Florida here. You can find out about National Organ Donation here.

FCAT Week

Well, it is that time again in Florida, FCAT time, my daughter is already planning her breakfasts for the week and stressing out about this ridiculous test. Luckily she is an excellent tester and I refuse to entertain her insecurities about this test. Here is the official FCAT site if you are interested in reading the drivel and propaganda surrounding this test. Here is the FCAT Explorer which is designed to provide resources for parents and students to achieve better results on this test. The schools hold workshops for the parents, send home packets of information and put so much emphasis on this test. So why in the world do they schedule it the week of Daylight Savings Time?

Friday Follies~This & That

Due to illness of just about everyone in the house this will be a fairly lame Friday Follies. With that disclaimer out of the way here is what I have.

Interesting and Informative Blog on local real estate conditions-New Smyrna Real Estate.

Halifax Urban Ministries has opened a new office in New Smyrna Beach. They relocated from the First United Methodist Church to a larger site at 715 Canal St. This office, which is the agency's fifth in Volusia County, is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and serves 800 to 1,000 people a month with food and financial assistance.

The Atlantis Bistro on Flagler Ave will be reviewed quite favorably in the Orlando Sentinel this weekend. You can read it now here. My brother and I have had lunch there several times and it has always been excellent with great service.

Finally, I received a quite nasty email from a local reader who feels I should not talk about our school system. I am not sure why he/she is not outraged by the budget cuts and nonsense that is going on but apparently he/she is not. It states:

"you should shut up about Volusia County Schools, we do not want higher taxes and we don't care about program cuts" (I am guessing they have no children and don't care about the future of our state or country) They go on to say "Your kid does not even attend Volusia County so why do you care?"

Let me tell you why I care, first let me correct you, my daughter attends Coronado Elementary School. My son also went to Coronado, I made the personal decision to send my son to Warner Christian Academy for 6th grade. Mainly because of the quality of education, class size and budget cuts. This was before the additional millions was taken from our children and teachers this year. They are looking at losing music, art, sports, academic programs and in some schools are being forced to sit in a gymnasium when teachers call in sick with no academic instruction. The public education system is in a shambles and no one in our government seems willing to be accountable for the disaster and take steps to fix it. This is why I care. My parents pay for my son to attend private school or he would not be able to attend. This is why I care. His educational experience this year has been excellent and he loves school, even though he gets up 90 minutes earlier than his friends to catch a bus to Daytona at 7am and does not have early release every Wednesday, no teacher work days off of school and it is a fairly strict atmosphere. No complaints from him. Because of all those extra educational hours they have built in they did not have to make up the Tropical Storm Fay days and had the whole week of Thanksgiving off. It is not perfect but it has been an overall positive experience.

So in conclusion to my anonymous reader. I will continue to harp on the school system when appropriate and share information as I come across it. I chose not to publish your entire email in the event that you might be embarrased by some of your grammar and spelling. There is a tool called spellcheck that will help you with that. My children know how to use it...they learned it in school. This is why I care.

This & That on The Florida School Mess

Interesting Take Two segment with Charlie Crist on yesterday's Meet The Press. If you have a few minutes it is interesting. I am not sure he is saying much but then he never does.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Orange County parents and teachers collected 4500 signatures protesting the school budget cuts. Great effort I hope it helps. The Sentinel Education Blog has good coverage of this.

Here is an interesting read from the West Volusia Beacon on just how much these layoffs cost Volusia County. Eye opening numbers on unemployment claims. In the last two quartes over 1 million spent on unemployment, the entire budget is only 1 million with half the year left. Scary.

If you were not aware our illustrious Volusia County School Board gave themselves a paycut. This amounts to $763.00 per year per member, that breaks down to $14.67 per week per board member. One school board member is quoted as saying this cut is "symbolic". Symbolic would be one of them steps up and works for FREE, that would send a message. I know the school board is a thankless job, but they asked for it when they were elected.

More on the schools to come....

Coach

Every morning I drop my daughter off at Coronado Elementary. Every morning the PE teacher, known to me as "Coach" greets the kids as they are dropped off. I have never seen this man without a smile on his face. He high fives, smiles and speaks to every child that passes him every morning. For two years I have dropped my kids off and for two years I have seen him welcome every single child, every single morning.

Coronado is a small community school on the beachside, it has no gym, it has no real athletic facilities, nothing fancy, a sand lot on the side of the school is where "Coach" teaches PE to the 300 or so students that attend this school. I know that on Monday, Wednesday and Friday when my daughter gets in the car at the end of the day I will hear about the kickball game, the basketball game or whatever great thing they did that day in PE. My son who is now in middle school still talks about his 5th grade year with "Coach" and "Mr T"(his 5th grade teacher, who was cut because of the budget).

I am pretty sure that "Coach" is not out there every morning smiling and greeting the kids because he is getting rich. He is doing it because he loves kids, he loves his job and he is happy doing it. You cannot fake that kind of commitment to children that he shows EVERY SINGLE DAY. This is an example of the teacher's that are being affected by the mess that is our education system. This is the teacher that has to wonder is his school the next one to close? Is his job the next one to go? But no matter what, he is out there every day, smiling and welcoming our kids to school. For some of these kids, he may be one of the only positive things in their day.

Take a minute and shoot an email to these people. They are the ones who can make a difference. Tell them what you think about the budget cuts. The teachers and the children need you to do it.

FCAT Craziness

If you have a fourth grader you know what happens this week. The writing portion of the FCAT, the utterly useless way to measure what our children have learned in elementary school about writing. I have heard about nothing but this portion of the test for the last 2 weeks. My daughter has told me how much time she has, which writing styles she may have to use, how much paper she will have, that she needs a good nights sleep and that she has to have a good breakfast. Over and over and over I have heard it. "what if I have to write a fictional narrative", that is apparently the hardest one as opposed to some sort of expository....I would like to put the whole thing in the nearest repository.

What does it really tell us, it tells us that their teachers have been forced to make them write these styles over and over and over so they have memorized how to take the test. The stress level is ridiculous, my daughter stresses out over a regular test but the amount of pressure they have for this is like taking a college entrance exam. There is a parent meeting one night this week so we can learn how to help them take the test, they sent home a booklet on what we should be doing at home. Blah, blah, blah.....

I am trying to downplay it and just keep telling her, you will be fine, don't worry. I am not worried, she will be fine, now if I can just convince her of that!

Volusia County School-Budget Mess

The budget mess continues to affect our schools. Here is some more information on what who you need to write too along with other ways to help.


Volusia Legislative Delegation and State Policy Makers - these people MUST hear from us, and realize that these cuts to our children's education are not acceptable.

Mid Year Cuts - this is what has been cut RIGHT now from your schools. Pay particular attention to page 3 - textbooks, sports and substitutes. These are ridiculous.

Next Years Potential Cuts - educational programs, athletics, ridiculous, ridiculous!

Be informed! Take action!

Here is some information if you want to donate to keep JV Sports for this year.


Academic Competitions and Junior Varsity Sports were eliminated from the budget mid-year due to the funding crisis. Many community members indicated they would be willing to donate money in order to save the programs for the 2008-09 school year.

An Ad Hoc Community Cadre, coordinated by Nancy Holman, was formed to spearhead the effort to raise $100,000.

Checks should be made payable to Volusia County Schools with a notation for Academic/JV Sports Support Fund.

Send checks to:

Bertie Trawick, Director of Finance
Volusia County Schools
200 North Clara Avenue
DeLand, FL 32720

New Smyrna Beach School Meeting

The meeting was held last night at the high school, lots of people attended and expressed their dismay and concern over the cuts. Here is the coverage from the News Journal. The general consensus is inundate your elected officials with calls, letter etc. Here is the info on our local representatives. There is also a couple of interesting opinion letters in the Journal this morning on this subject. Check it all out and write, write, write.

Once you do that head on over to the Spirits of 44 liquor store on State Road 44, in the K-Mart plaza. You may have seen the ladies out by the road waving customers in for their going out of business sale. They will be closing soon and everything must go.

School Budget Cuts

If you have not seen the depth of the cuts that Volusia County Schools are facing then you need to take a look at this article from the News Journal this morning. It outlines what is being cut immediately, as well as proposed for next year. Sports will be gone. Electives will be gone. Most all programs will be gone.

Take a look at the potential additional revenue sources. Help me understand why they are not looking at the cigarette tax which would raise 1 billion dollars.

We are being led by a bunch of idiots in Tallahassee.

Here is the info on who to write to.

Volusia County Schools Financial Crisis

It is no big secret that our school system is out of money and about to lose more. Volusia County Schools is on this list of schools that is losing more funding, over 13 million. That is outrageous, totally outrageous.

Our brilliant leaders in Tallahassee have once again failed our children. The school board is holding a series of meetings around the county to give you the bad news and ask you to bombard your representatives for help. Here is the information on the meetings. The New Smyrna Beach meeting will be held on Thursday, January 15th at 6:30pm in the NSB High School.

If you are interested in who you need to be contacting here you go:

Florida House of Representatives:

District 28 which covers New Smyrna Beach and Edgewater is Dorothy Hukill

District 27 which covers Daytona, Ormond and Holly Hill, South Daytona and Daytona Beach Shores is Dwayne Taylor

District 26 which is Deland, Deltona and Lake Helen is Pat Patterson

And the Senate, we are primarily District 7 which is Evelyn Lynn

Let's not leave out our brilliant Governor Charlie Crist, by all means include him on any and all emails you send.

If you click on their name you can not only get information about them but in the right hand corner is a handy little email your rep button, one click and you can tell them what you think.

In order to make finding your rep easy, I will include a link to this post in the left sidebar for future reference. If you are unable to attend the meeting check back here next week and I will post the important points so you can contact your representative even if you are not at a meeting.

Whether or not you have children in the school system currently does not matter. These decisions and budget cuts effect every single person in our community. Our future leaders are not getting the education that it is our responsibility to provide and it is not acceptable.

Please do not think that someone else will take care of it, someone else will send that email, someone else will write that letter. Everyone needs to act!

Volusia County Community Flyers

Volusia County Schools is in the process of discontinuing sending home flyers with students. This includes Parks & Rec Flyers, PAL Sports Flyers, Community Events etc. You can find this page here at Community Flyers and also in the sidebar under News & Stuff.

School Stuff

The make-up days for Volusia County have been announced, September 26th, November 10th and Nov 24th and 25th. Get an amended calendar here. It is interesting to note that a couple of the private schools, Warner Christian Academy being one of them, do not have to make up the days. They have enough education hours built into the year to cover the time. They do not have early release every Wednesday so that is a big chunk of hours right there. Should cause some drama around my house when one kid has to go to school and one doesn't!

Open house is tonight at Coronado and the Book Fair is going on all week.

It is so quiet around town there is nothing going on! Enjoy it while it lasts!

Make Me Shut Up

There are days I need duct tape, for my mouth. The reasons why are many. Today, it was once again Volusia County Schools. My daughter is in a local elementary school, she is in 4th grade, first of all they have a ton of homework, ok, that is fine but the teacher needs to explain it before she sends it home.

SO today I pick up my baby girl, she tells me she forgot her planner, so I say, I will park, run and get it. If she does not have it and a parent (ME) does not sign it, there is HELL to pay the next day.

So she gets out to go get it, her teacher will not let her back in the room. Once you leave the room, you can't come back, this is part of her "teaching organization as a life skill". So she comes back to the car crying, I am all for teaching organization, I need some classes on it. BUT COME ON SHE IS 9 and we were still in the parking lot. She very rarely forgets anything.

So I did what any caffeine deprived, perpetually late, crazed mother would do. I got out of the car and went in the office.

I used my best customer service voice and said to the secretary, I am not upset with you, nor am I upset with the teacher for attempting to teach some organization, but she made her CRY! The kid is stressed out all the time about homework, schoolwork, her desk being clean blah, blah, blah. Yes, I got on a roll. Did I mention I was not wearing shoes??

Thankfully, this particular secretary and I are friends. She is used to my ranting and raving. She actually enjoys it. On this particular occasion she reached into her desk and handed me a roll of silver duct tape.

Enjoy the day!

School Starts August 18th

And not a moment too soon for many parents! I don't know about you but my kids are bored and ready to go back to school.

The Volusia County 2008-2009 Calendar is available here.

Coronado Elementary will have a meet the teacher event on Friday morning from 10am-12pm.

Enjoy the last few days of sleeping in!

Volusia Administrators Take Pay Cut?

Well some of them anyway.....check it out here and please scroll down to read the comments at the end of the News Journal Article.

It is a little too little and a little too late for our schools. Where is the school board and the Staff?

Here again is The Superintendents ORG CHART if that does not make you say...WHAT? Check out the STAFF. Our stellar Superintendent has 17, yes count them 17 people on her "staff". That does NOT include the admin people. Did not see any of them on the paycut list. But look closely, the COPY CENTER LEADER with her whopping 30,000 something salary is taking a cut.

The whole thing is pretty insulting to children, parents, taxpayers, the 220+ educators that lost their jobs.

COME on Margaret, you can surely do better than that.....if you are waiting for a gold star forget it. How many of your pay cuts are "double dipping" - see the comments on the article for more info on that!!!!!