Orange County Public Schools, Florida

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Orange County School District is a school district in Florida. The school system has a total attendance of 168,193 students project for the 2009-2010 school year. The Florida Department of Education provides a list of past, current, and future school enrollment totals for each district.

[edit] Website evaluation

Main article: Evaluation of Florida school district websites

[edit] The good

  • Academic performance evaluations and information is posted.[1][2]
  • Annual financial audits are available.[3]
  • Labor contracts[4] and awarded vendor contracts are posted.[5]
  • Information on making public records requests is available.[6]
  • School board members are listed with contact information. Meeting information posted.[7]
  • Tax rate information provided.[8]
  • Administrative officials are listed under respective departments.[9]

[edit] The bad

  • Only budget summaries are available, not full budgets.[10]
  • Does not contact any detail on background checks.
Working for accountable government now


[edit] School board

The school board controls school property, establishes, organizes, and operates the schools of the district, including: establishing schools, adopting enrollment plans, providing for school elimination and consolidation, cooperating with school boards of adjoining districts in maintaining schools, maintaining the school year schedule and other more specific duties as outlined in the Florida statute. [11]

It operates, controls and supervises the district's public schools as well as determines the rate of school district taxes, with the option of two or more school districts operating and financing educational programs together.

The Orange County School board has seven members. The members are elected for four year terms by the electors in their district. [12] The Chairman and Vice Chairman are elected annually in November. [13] The chairman presides over meetings and the vice chairman takes over the chairman's duties in the chairman's absence. [13]

Below are the districts School Board Members: [14]

Member District Term
Joie Cadle, Chairman District 1 2nd
Daryl Flynn District 2 1st
Rick Roach, Vice Chairman District 3 3rd
Vicky Bell District 4 1st
Kathleen Gordon District 5 2nd
Nancy Robbinson District 6 1st
Christine Moore District 7 1st

The District's Superintendent is Ronald Blocker [14]

[edit] Teacher contracts

[edit] School Budget

In 2008 the School District's total revenue was $1,953,249,481 and it's expenses of $1,693,221,246. [15] In that school year $849,968,591 was spent on instruction.[16] For the 2009-10 school year the county is going to receive $30,239,650 from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan.

In July 2009 the Orange County School Board rejected a property tax increase in a 4-3 vote that would yield and extra $24 million a year for the school district. [17] The district's main source of revenue is the state which provided 43% of total revenues in the 2008 fiscal year. [15]

Other sources of non-property taxrevenue include: [15]

Source Estimated Revenue
Florida Education Finance Program $397,610,759
Categorical Educational Programs $248,160,176
Workforce Development $35,495,964
Gross Receipts Tax (Public Education Capital Outlay) $24,147,999
Discretionary Lottery 8,737,525
CO&DS Withheld for SBE/COBI Bonds $5,148,222
CO&DS Distributed to District $1,802,397
Food Service Supplement $1,020,024
Other State Sources $4,667,645
Total $726,790,711

In addition, there are currently enrolled 175,609 students in the district.[18]

[edit] Mill Revenue

Below are the mill rates collected by the school district: [15]

Source Millage Rate Estimated Revenue
Required Local Effort 4.942 $533,223,398
Basic Discretionary Local Effort 0.679 $73,261,572
Local Capital Improvement 1.500 $161,844,415
Total 7.121 $768,329,385

[edit] Academic Performance

[edit] 2007-2009

Below is a chart of the school's grade based on the student's performance of the statewide test called the FCAT.[19] To see results, click "show".

[edit] Unions

The Orange County Classroom Teachers Association (CTA) and the Orange Education Support Professionals Association (OESPA) are the unions for this district.[20][21] The school district uses the Collaborative Bargaining Leadership Team (CBLT) to handle all negotiations with the unions. [22] Discussions of salary and fringe benefits between the unions and school district are automatically reopened every year. [23]

On April 22nd 2009 the District asked the CBLT to accept that there are insufficient funds for step increases or raises in 2009. When the CTA members turned down the agreement and declared an impasse, requiring intervention from the Public Education Relations Commission. [24] The impasse hearing was held on June 22nd, 2009 and is currently awaiting resolution by the Special Magistrate. [20]

[edit] Lobbying

Main article: Florida taxpayer-funded lobbying

Taxpayer-funded lobbying, public entities using funds to lobby for special interests, happens in cities, counties, and other entities. These activities are hard to track. The issues lobbied for may be diverse, but school lobbying typically deals with issues close to the school district or school board.

In July 2009, Sunshine Review submitted Freedom of Information Act requests to the 27 Florida school districts with lobbyists registered for 2009 with the Florida legislature. [25] The results are included in Florida school districts lobbying totals. (For information on the project or to start your own, see the project page.)

Orange County Public Schools is active in lobbying. The school district pays membership dues to the Florida School Boards Association, a taxpayer-funded lobbying association.[26]

[edit] Representation

The school district has employed the services of lobbying firms Emergent Design and Development, Mixon and Associates,[27] and JEJ & Associates.[28]The agreements made with the three firms, and an $8000 contract with Mixon and Associates,[27] total $98,000 spent on lobbying contracts since 2004.

Payments to lobbying firms since 2004

[edit] Most recent

Orange County Public Schools has spent $18,000 on lobbying in 2009 (see Representation), which does not include membership dues to taxpayer-funded lobbying associations.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ↑ Accountability
  2. ↑ School Assessment
  3. ↑ Finance
  4. ↑ Labor Relations
  5. ↑ Awarded Projects
  6. ↑ Records
  7. ↑ School Board
  8. ↑ Mill rate
  9. ↑ Departments
  10. ↑ Budgets
  11. ↑ School board powers and duties, Florida statute
  12. ↑ Board Elections
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Board Officers
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 School Board Information
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report
  16. ↑ 2008-09 Budget
  17. ↑ "Many Florida school boards raising property taxes", The Miami Herald, 7/22/09
  18. ↑ [http://schools.nationalrelocation.com/district/1201440/
  19. ↑ Florida School Accountability Reports
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Orange County Classroom Teachers Association
  21. ↑ Orange Education Support Professionals Association
  22. ↑ Collaborative Bargaining Leadership Team
  23. ↑ CTA Contract
  24. ↑ CTA Contract Bargaining
  25. ↑ Online Sunshine - Lobbying Information
  26. ↑ Florida School Boards Association members list
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 Consulting Contracts for Orange County since 2004
  28. ↑ Invoices for Vendor Payments


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