Jeff Bergosh Blog: October 2010

Guidelines

I am one member of a five person board. The opinions I express on this forum are mine only, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Escambia County Staff, Administrators, Employees, or anyone else associated with Escambia County Florida. I am interested in establishing this blog as a means of additional transparency to the public, outreach to the community, and information dissemination to all who choose to look. Feedback is welcome, but because public participation is equally encouraged, appropriate language and decorum is mandatory. Although this is not my campaign site for re-election--sometimes campaign related information will be discussed, therefore in an abundance of caution I add the following :

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Escambia County Schools IN Compliance with Class Size Count for 2010

UPDATED Friday, October15th--Escambia County Remains in full compliance with Class size at the class level!

Members of the Escambia County School Board were told on Monday that our district is in compliance with the class level, hard cap class size count for this school year.

We were told that the situation changes on a very fluid basis, and that it looked as though we would be one student over in one class--however that situation was resolved prior to Monday's count. Reassigning the one student left us in full compliance as of Monday, October 11th at 12 Noon.

The superintendent and his staff will again brief the School Board on our class size status at our regular monthly discussion workshop this Thursday, October 14th, 3PM at the Board Room of the McDaniel Building.

Being in full compliance is good for our district in that we won't be losing any of our money to the state in fines. We may also receive additional monies from the state via other districts that did not comply.

Hopefully all of this scrambling will become unnecessary if the voters pass Amendment 8 and allow us the flexibility to use schoolwide averages!

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Supreme Court Unanimously Rejects FEA Challenge to Amendment 8

Taxpayers 2 Union 0

This is another win for taxpayers, students, parents, school boards, and superintendents.

Amendment 8 will be on the ballot and the votes will count. First the union lost in circuit court, now their weak argument has been unanimously rebuked by the Florida Supreme Court.

Now we have to get 60% to say yes to 8 on November 2nd to make it

Taxpayers 3 Union 0

From the Miami Herald

“The Florida Supreme Court has rejected a teachers union's challenge to a ballot issue that would loosen the state's class size limits. The unanimous ruling came Thursday, just a day after the justices heard oral argument on Amendment 8. They ruled its ballot summary accurately describes what the Legislature's proposed state constitutional amendment would do. “

Full article here