further rounds in the school district wing of The State Mental, aka the Florida Keys
Friday, March 22nd, 2013
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Larry Murray replied to the school district part of yesterday’s adult ed classes – Florida Keys and beyond post:
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 08:19:54 -0700
From: citizenlarry007@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: adult ed classes/theoretical mayor platform
To: keysmyhome@hotmail.com
Sloan:
I think you know that I share your concern that the School District need do more in preparing students for something other than college. I also share Superintendent Porter’s observation that the new Director of Adult and Continuing Education, Melanie Stefanowicz, is doing a good job, given the resources that she has to work with.
Unfortunately, so long as Key West High School and Marathon High School function on a six period day, there will be virtually no student opportunity for other than state mandated academic courses. We all know that. Superintendent Porter knows that. The School Board knows that.
What disappoints me greatly is that while I have raised this issue numerous times, there has been no response from the community. There has been no expression of public indignation from the parents. No one seems to care. Phrased differently, the community, the parents, are not demanding change and apparently are satisfied with the status quo. The absence of vocational education does not appear to be a problem insofar as the community is concerned.
If and until parents begin to demand a curriculum other than college preparatory, complaining about the lack of vocational education is just so much pissing in the wind. Something about “You can take a horse to water….”
Larry
Dr. Larry Murray
Fiscal Watchdog and Citizen Advocate
I replied:
From: keysmyhome@hotmail.com
To: citizenlarry007@yahoo.com
CC: keysmyhome@hotmail.com
Subject: RE: adult ed classes/theoretical mayor platform
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 11:56:07 -0400<!–
Hi, Larry – yeah, the squeaky wheel.
Alas, the school board and district have a wee problem with their own mission of having students college and/or career ready upon graduation, so it matters not what the parents and kids say, or want. It matters that the school board/district live up to their own mission, regardless of what the parents and students want, or don’t want. Yet, without pressure from parents and teachers, and wherever, you are right, more mostly fool’s gold college prep, real gold life prep irrelevant.
That, however, was not why I asked you if you now think the state ought to take over the school district? I asked because you said it seems even the simplest things the district cannot do right. Your reply leads me to feel you do not see it is time for a state takeover.
I chatted a while this morning with Tom Milone in Key West, who gets my daily bombing runs. He had not yet received his copy of today’s, and without any prompting from me, he said the state needs to take over the school district.
Nashville J had these kind simplest things re The Citizen’s report on the kids took air guns to school case:
You know that I have questions! 
Airsoft gun offense won’t be on record
BY ADAM LINHARDT Citizen Staff
“No one was harmed, but a broken intercom system led to some confusion. Teachers were informed about the lockdown by email, and the police were actually called by the parents of a student, who had called home to say she was safe.
A full debriefing was later conducted with Schools Superintendent Mark Porter, officials with the Key West Police Department and the School District, and HOB Principal Mike Henriquez.”
Sooooo, the questions are:
1. Has the broken intercom system been repaired and currently in working order?
2. Has the calling system and notification system been reviewed and the problem with delays in sending messages been addressed and corrected?
3. Has the School Superintendent Mark Porter, Key West Police Department, HOB Principal all devised a NEW plan to handle such incidents in the future – as the handling was less than desireable in this case. Has there been any practice drills – similar to fire drills of the system since the incident happened?
I expect the answer to all the above is NO – but it would be nice to know IF anyone actually got off their ass and tried to correct the above before the next incident happens.
As to the KW Mayor’s race:
RUN – SLOAN – RUN !!
Maybe first I should get J to agree to pay me to keep him entertained in ways he cannot yet possibly imagine .
Sloan
P.S. While resetting the homepage at goodmorningkeywest.com this afternoon, I saw this older comment from a reader. I believe it came in just following my saying at Hometown! PAC’s call to candidates that the school district was terminally dysfunctionally insane and needed to be taken over by the state.
Submitted on 2012/04/16 at 1:23 pm
Good afternoon, Sloan!
I have to say that I can’t agree with one of Steve’s statements, namely, that Florida Keys residents should be the only ones who have a say in who is hired as superintendent. I’m pretty certain that has been the cause of the current woes.
I DO agree that nobody as superintendent is going to fix the problems plaguing MCSD unless they are willing and able to flush the toilet that is the nepotic administration system and start anew with fresh faces.
On another note, I thought I should report yet another incident involving KWHS Administration Gone Wild. I seriously expect to see that video advertised during one of my infrequent bouts of insomnia. I will order it if I see the ad. Anyway, our mutual teacher friend witnessed, right after the holiday break, Chris Valdez, unesteemed Assistant Principle, and Officer Bulne aka Officer Bull, KWHS apparent full-time police officer, presumably under the rather thin guise of school security, had confiscated a tazer from a student and were rambunctiously chasing each other around the office with it, the little scamps. I know, I know…boys will be boys.
From my understanding of it, there was no questioning of the student as to why he felt the need to carry a tazer to school, nor any counseling provided on the assumption that he was being bullied, as is sometimes the case (I have no knowledge or proof as to what the situation is, so the bullied theory is pure conjecture on my part), but it seems rather incompetent for either of them to even ask, and unbelievably unprofessional of them for their subsequent actions.
In summary, I have to agree that a state takeover of the school system is in order.
Demosthenes
Larry replied:
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 19:00:33 -0700
From: citizenlarry007@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: P.S. RE: adult ed classes/theoretical mayor platform
To: keysmyhome@hotmail.com
Interesting
There is an Old Town parking and city bus service ponderations – Key West post today at goodmorningkeywest.com.
Sloan Bashinsky
keysmyhome@hotmail.com