Page 5 - Florida Sentinel 10-31-17

Editorials/Columns
FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN
(USPS 202-140)
2207 21st Avenue, Tampa Florida 33605 • (813) 248-1921 Published Every Tuesday and Friday By
FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHING Co., Member of National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA)
S. KAY ANDREWS, PUBLISHER
C. BLYTHE ANDREWS III, PRESIDENT/CONTROLLER ALLISON WELLS-CLEBERT, CFO
GWEN HAYES, EDITOR
IRIS HOLTON, CITY EDITOR
BETTY DAWKINS, ADVERTISING DIRECTOR HAROLD ADAMS, CIRCULATION MANAGER TOYNETTA COBB, PRODUCTION MANAGER LAVORA EDWARDS, CLASSIFIED MANAGER
Subscriptions-$44.00-6 Months Both Editions: $87.00-Per Year Both Editions.
Opinions expressed on editorial pages of this newspaper by Columnists or Guest Writers, do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of The Florida Sentinel Bulletin or the Publisher.
Official Talks About Failing Schools
am writing to keep
you informed about changes that may be coming to seven schools in Central and North Tampa next school year, in 2018-2019. This in- cludes six elementary schools — Foster, Mort, Oak Park, Potter, Sheehy, and Booker T. Washington — and one middle school — Memo- rial — that are working under special Turn- around Plans right now to improve their school grades.
The state informed us that they have now shortened the time we have for the schools’ grades to improve. That means we must make plans right now for what may happen next school year IF the grades do not improve.
If the school gets an A,B,orCgradeatthe end of this school year, it will finish its Turn- around Plan and con- tinue without changes next school year.
But, if the school gets aDorFgradeattheend of this school year, the state will require the dis- trict to use one of four new options for next school year.
Our district’s staff is working with commu- nity members and school leaders to look at these four new options given to us by the state and decide which may work best at each school:
Reassign – The school would close and its stu- dents would be reas- signed to other schools with an A, B, or C grade. Superintendent Jeff Eakins has already de- termined that we will not be closing any of these schools, so this is off the table.
Charter School – The school would close and an outside organization would reopen it as a charter school or more than one charter schools. It would be con- trolled by the charter
HARRISON PETERS
school’s board, not the Hillsborough County School Board.
External Operator – A consultant with experi- ence in helping schools turn around would be hired by our district to operate the school. The amount of decision-mak- ing power given to that consultant would be de- termined by a contract between the consultant and our district.
District-Managed Charter School – The school would remain open, but a board of community members would make most of the decisions about the school. Hillsborough County Public Schools would be the charter’s “management com- pany,” meaning many of the school’s services would continue to come from our public school district.
Again, if a school gets anA,B,orCgradeatthe end of this year, we would NOT need to use the new option. But, the state has told us we need to choose one of the four new options to use next year in case the school’s gradeisaDorF.
In its letter dated Oc- tober 16, 2017 the state gave us a deadline of Oc- tober 27, 2017 to choose an option for each school. We intend to meet the state’s dead- line, but we will have more discussions with our community, parents, and school staffs about
this before any actual changes are made.
Please understand that our number-one priority is improving the school’s grade by the end of this year. Our district has directed more than $2.85 million in addi- tional dollars to this group of schools each year for the past three years, and we added other changes and sup- ports as well, including:
Turnaround plans in place, developed with community guidance
Leadership changes at the school level and restructuring at the dis- trict
Strategic staffing, in- cluding ensuring a per- centage of effective teachers at these schools that is at or above the district-wide average
New pathway pro- gram to develop teachers for high-need schools
Differentiated pay scales/bonuses for teachers in high-need Renaissance schools
School leaders granted more autonomy over decisions and cur- riculum
New leaders brought to schools using Turn- around Plans can bring successful teams with them from previous schools
Substantial commu- nity involvement, includ- ing a wide range of community partnerships to bring resources to the seven schools in the spotlight
The seven schools we’re focusing on here are not where we all need them to be, and we acknowledge there is more important work to be done. We are working hard as a team to help every student succeed, and we will not stop!
Thank you for your continued support of our students and schools.
HARRISON PETERS Chief of Schools, Hillsborough County Public Schools
POSTMASTER: Send Address Change To: Florida Sentinel Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3363 Tampa, FL 33601 Periodical Postage Paid At Tampa, FL
C. Blythe Andrews 1901-1977 (1945)
C. Blythe Andrews, Jr. 1930-2010 (1977)
Fats Domino: ‘Walkin’ To New Orleans’
fter Hurricane Katrina, the thought of walking to
New Orleans would have been nothing short of a nightmare. But let’s go back in time before the bad weather, to a New Orleans in the Ninth Ward where a five-foot-five, two hundred pound singer-song writer- pianist and his buddy, Bartholomew, set to writing and recording, and came up with a piece that turned New Orleans from an urban swamp into a sanctuary for the broken-hearted and shoe-leather-resilient . . . and the song went like this: “I’m walkin’ to New Orleans. I got no time for talkin’. No use for you to cry. I’ll see you by and by. ’Cause I’m walkin’ to New Orleans.”
Strange that young men and women all over the world stopped dead in their tracks to listen to a young man named Fats Domino and almost overnight, from Berlin to Liverpool, they found themselves “walkin’ to New Orleans.”
Was it the place they craved, or was it the freedom that song seemed to symbolize that drew their souls? So, rock n’ roll became “Soul Music.” And its gospel was spread by prophets such as Chuck Berry, Bo Did- dley, Bob Dylan, Little Richard, Elvis Presley, and yes, Fats Domino, himself.
It was and remains deathless music that shall be worshipped for the next three centuries, no less . . . which is good because Fats Domino left us the other day to join Chuck, Elvis, and Bo in what we bet is an eternal rock concert.
So, here’s what we suggest. Dust off your great grandparents’ record player. Take out your 45 RPMs, your cassette tapes, CDs or your latest smartphone giz- mos; go to your quiet sanctuary, turn on the machine and begin singing with Bro. Fats, “I’m walkin’ to New Orrrrleanns!”
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2017 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY PAGE 5
I
A