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New school year has even more changes than usual

By GREG HAMILTON
Published August 8, 2005

With a new school year dawning, Citrus County school district officials are dealing with the usual array of startup issues as well as a busload of new headaches as they prepare for the arrival of students on Wednesday.

Some of the new wrinkles are their own doing, brought about by Superintendent Sandra "Sam" Himmel, who is making quite an impact as she kicks off her first official school year at the district's helm.

Himmel has reshuffled the deck of administrators, with new principals in place all over the district. Change can be both exciting and frightening, and with so much churn occurring, it may take awhile for the schools to find their own footing and rhythm. The schools, however, bring back most of their long-term staffers, so the transitions should be mostly seamless.

Many schools will operate under different hours this year as part of Himmel's drive to streamline the district's disjointed transportation system. It may take some time for parents, staffers and especially students to get used to the new times.

The time changes have created a greater need for before- and after-school care for youngsters, which the district hopes to meet through extended day care programs at the elementary schools. The district has been reworking the bus schedules, which is an ordeal in the best of times.

Then there are the problems lobbed in from elsewhere, typically by Tallahassee.

This year, the district must work out the kinks of a new prekindergarten program that is relatively unknown to many parents. While the district's schools are not supposed to be the main venues for this program, officials worry that the public assumes otherwise.

Parents have to register their 4-year-olds, and only under certain conditions will the children attend school-provided sessions. Most of the children are expected to go to private providers, but officials fear that many parents have not done their homework on the program and will show up at schools on opening day with anxious children in tow.

Further complicating matters for the district is the Jessica Lunsford Act, which comes with great intentions but precious little guidance and no money for implementing its mandates.

The new law, hustled through the Legislature in reaction to the Jessica Lunsford tragedy, calls for high-level screening of virtually everyone who sets foot on a school campus. For Citrus County, that means thousands of people, from sports referees and mentors to food delivery drivers and copying machine technicians.

Who gets fingerprinted? Who pays? Who monitors these folks for any subsequent arrest? What about vendors who serve multiple districts? What about grandparents who chaperone field trips to SeaWorld?

There are countless questions, and Citrus officials, like their counterparts around the state, are begging the Legislature for practical guidance that so far has not come.

The administration intends to notify its 1,500 vendors that they will be responsible for fingerprinting and screening their employees, and for paying for those services. The district acknowledges that the companies will likely pass these costs along to the district through higher prices, so the taxpayers ultimately will get the bill.

Of greater concern is the question that School Board member Pat Deutschman and others have raised: What is the true intent of this new law, to keep away sexual predators, or is it simply a feel-good law for the politicians and the public?

Deutschman points out that there has never been, to her knowledge, an incident at a Florida school in which a vendor attacked a student. Why, then, target them with this additional screening?

The district hopes to make the required "good-faith effort" at complying with the new law by Sept. 1, but there is still a lot to be resolved by state leaders. Whether any of this makes students truly safer on campus remains to be seen.

Also looming out there is the threat of more hurricanes and floods as the heart of the storm season approaches. Last year's storms caused plenty of problems for the district, from lost days to schools' being used as community shelters, and weather experts are predicting this year will be even worse.

Hold onto your hats, folks, the school year - with all of its home-grown and natural whirlwinds spinning around - is about to begin.

[Last modified August 8, 2005, 02:45:22]