FCSBM offers Free Ethics Training for School Board Members

To be fiscally prudent with precious taxpayer dollars, I co-founded and serve as President of an organization that serves school board members statewide--the Florida Coalition of School Board Members.

Soon we will be launching our nationwide platform, The American Coalition of School Board Members, so that we can assist board members nation-wide while saving them taxpayer dollars simultaneously.

With today's technologies and readily accessible open-sourced resources on the internet, we believe strongly that prudent, fiscally conservative school board members should leverage such technology to augment their professional training and development as one way to save taxpayer dollars.

A great example of such wise stewardship is this:

Every year Florida School Board Members must take a required ethics course.  We at FCSBM have put together a FREE Ethics Taining Course utilizing readily available materials, already produced at taxpayer expense.  We recently received an opinion from the state Ethics Commission that validates our training program as one that meets the state requirement.

So we have amalgamated the program and we invite any school board member in the state to take this training for FREE!  If every Florida school board member took advantage of this opportunity, state taxpayers would save $58,000.00 dollars.

How?

Because other organizations charge their members $155 dollars to take this training online, on top of and in addition to the $3,000-$4,000 in yearly membership charges these same organizations hit the

FCSBM Releases Legislative Priorities for 2016

The Florida Coalition of School Board Members  (FCSBM) Legislative Task Force (LTF) has approved the following positions and priorities for the 2016 Legislative session. After a three day comment period by the voting members, it was unanimously ratified by the executive board October 27, 2015.

The 2016 platform can be characterized under three main themes: 

1. Flexible Accountability; 2. Equality; and 3. Freedom of Choice 

Select 2016 Legislative Positions & Proposals

• Assessment and Accountability -
  • Allow flexibility for Districts to use concordance scores on nationally normed assessments, including those offered with paper and pencil, to meet the statutory requirements of FSA.
  • Progressively raise Florida’s proficiency “cut scores” to align with, and surpass, the NAEP standard over a 4-year period. This allows years 1 & 2 to provide a “soft landing” as we transition to even higher levels of expectation.
  • Continue use of standardized test scores, including growth rates, as part of a revamped multi-factor accountability system, to include a “balanced scorecard” approach with transparent metrics outlining each aspect of the school and district grading system.

• Public Charter Capital Outlay Incentive - Districts that voluntarily and equitably, on a per-student basis, share capital outlay resources with public charter schools may levy up to 1.75 millage (vs 1.5 millage currently allowed). 

• Relating to Membership Organizations that Receive Public Funds - FCSBM believes that individual School Board Members should determine the organization, if any, to which their membership dollars flow. Repeat of HB 549 (2015) - Sponsors pending.

We believe these ideas will provide the unity and focus needed to drive legislation forward this year, furthering FCSBM's mission statement "Relentlessly Dedicated to Student Success" ^SM. 

The FCSBM Board is also pleased to announce commitments from key education lawmakers to join FCSBM Members for webinars and tele-townhall events during session.  FCSBM will provide the 'face time' you need to ensure School Board members have an effective voice in Tallahassee.

If you are a sitting school board member interested in volunteering for the Legislative Task Force in the coming year, please email Shawn Frost at info@shawnfrost.com

We look forward to your participation in these exciting times! 

Jeff Bergosh, School Board Member Escambia County, President of FCSBM
http://FCSBM.org

Who Can Accompany a Parent to a Meeting With School Officials?

If a farmer's barn is on fire, yet the farmer does not see it, does not want to see it, cannot see it or is too preoccupied to attend to the fire ----should the fire department not respond if they know the fire is burning?  

If a Good Samaritan tries to tell the farmer that his barn is burning and yet the farmer smiles and does nothing or shrugs his shoulder and says "What do you think I should do?"--should the Good Samaritan call the fire service for the Farmer?  Uh, Yes.

But what if the fire service dispatcher tells the Good Samaritan "We can't respond, you are not the owner of the barn, we must wait until the farmer calls us!"  "You are not the owner of this barn!"

I ask these questions rhetorically and use an analogy to illustrate a problem--this blog entry is not about William Faulkner or Barn Burning or structure fires and emergency responses----It's about people trying to help students and bureaucrats getting annoyed by this. 

Some parents do not know how to best advocate for their own children.  Some parents want to do what is best for their children, but they often let things slip and do not make the right decision for their students--hoping and believing that the system will make sure their students are appropriately looked after.

And well-meaning staff do their best in most instances but even still sometimes mistakes are made.  The wrong class is assigned, the wrong GPA is calculated, the wrong information is given, and the list goes on.

So what happens if a parent that is not necessarily sophisticated with  the world of college eligibility requirements, GPA calculation, or academic scheduling asks another parent for help navigating the