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Article 2: Focus is on safety, attendance
By Citrus County School District © St. Petersburg Times, published March 1, 2001 This is the second article submitted by the Citrus County School Board to inform the community of advances in Strategic Planning. This article targets two Implementation Teams focusing on a safe school district (Aim 6) and improving student attendance (Aim IC). The Implementation Team for Aim 6 has come up with a number of strategies for improving safety. The team has reviewed all schools' Safe School Plans to ensure that they are effective and uniform throughout the district. The next step is to have a representative from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement review the plans to ensure their effectiveness. This Implementation Team has also reviewed the District Disaster Plan for emergencies -- hurricanes, tornadoes and nuclear incidents -- to make sure we have effective plans for these types of incidents. These plans will also be incorporated into each school's Safe School Plan to create a single source for emergency procedures. To further ensure safe schools, the team provided each local law enforcement agency with a copy of schools' Florida Inventory of School Houses Report in case of an emergency. With this report the agencies will have essential information about room use in the school for emergencies that require police intervention. Another focus of the safety team has been a review of school bus stops and paths students take getting to bus stops. At this time, the team has determined that the district procedures are working well. The next project for the safety team is investigating the possible use of standard photo identification badges for staff and students. This will further ensure the safety of our students and staff. For the past year, the Implementation Team focusing on improved attendance (Aim IC), has been active in gathering information on the average daily attendance for our schools. Next the team will study patterns of absence to find out if certain groups or grades tend to be absent more than others, or if there are times of the year when absences are more of a problem. School social workers and attendance assistants will study the reasons for non-attendance, and determine district support to reduce/eliminate problems that have arisen. Current incentives for increasing student achievement are being identified for elementary, middle and high school students. This information will be shared with schools. The team has also worked on upgrading our computer system. As a result, letters and notices are now automatically generated when students have too many absences. Finally, this team has also revised the district attendance policy, conducting meetings with schools to make sure they best addressed the needs of families and schools, while meeting state statutes.
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