Sunshine Review:Florida school district project

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Contents

Goal: To create thorough articles about the Florida school districts.
See sample page: Alachua County Public Schools, Florida

[edit] Content additions

[edit] School board

  • First you need to create the section and you'll want to template that gives background information on Florida school boards. Copy this text in: 
==School board==
{{FL SB backgrounder}}

{|class="wikitable"
! Member
! District
! Term
|-
| [[MEMBER]] || DISTRICT || TERM
|- 
| [[MEMBER]] || DISTRICT || TERM
|}

===Teacher contracts===

Adding content

  • If the school board has a Chairman or Vice-Chair make sure to note their and the superintendent's duties as well.

[edit] Teacher contracts

  • School Board's are usually responsible for negotiating teacher contracts. Describe this process and how often it occurs. If you find results for the current contract figures include them. Contract information can be found:

[edit] School budget

Report on:

  • Mills or taxes in the district
  • Total school budget
  • How the budget is broken up
  • Increase or decrease from last year?
  • How much of the funding is local, state or federal

The most reliable place for the school budget is the school district website. If the budget is not posted on the school website you can try to search for it. Try:

  • Do a regular web search
  • Then try "advanced search" and under format select "xls". This will occasionally turn up an excel version of the budget.
  • Google News to see if any stories were posted. If the search turns up blank, try to narrow the territory being search by typing "Florida" under the region in advanced search.

[edit] Academic performance

Florida schools are graded every year based on the students performance of the state test called the FCAT. You can get all the schools in the school district's grades by visiting Florida Department of Education, School Accountability Reports. To find your districts grades do the following:

  1. Under "Type of Report" select "Grades".
  2. Under "Level of Report" select "School".
  3. Select your district
  4. Under "School type" select "All"
  5. Under "Years" select 2007-2008 & 2008-2009
  6. Under "Grade" select "All"
  7. Click Submit
  8. This will bring you to a page that lists all the schools. Click to select "All Schools" and then hit "Submit"

Next you'll want to create a chart to detail this grades. It will look something like this: 

{|class="wikitable sortable"
! style="background:#d0e5f5" | School 
! style="background:#d0e5f5" | Level
! style="background:#d0e5f5" | Grade: 2007-08
! style="background:#d0e5f5" | Grade: 2008-09
|-valign="top"
| SCHOOL || LEVEL || GRADE || GRADE
|-valign="top"
| SCHOOL || LEVEL || GRADE || GRADE
|}
It is also a good idea to check out google news for the community's reaction

[edit] Unions

It is common that the teacher's association in the county is the most active union as well. Try to search for the "DISTRICT Education Teacher's Association." This can turn up information on committees, legislative priorities, leadership, teacher contracts or even protests.

[edit] School choice

See if the school district includes any information about how many are engaging in the charter school/vouchers program in Florida. If not, try and collect information from Florida School Choice.

Look for:

  • Students
  • Academic performance
  • Cost
  • Teaching techniques (which are supposed to be varied)
  • Types of programs available

[edit] Templates

  • {{Florida schools}}
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