School Board Meeting

I attended a Pinellas County School Board Meeting on November 9th, 2010. Pinellas is the county that I currently live in. The meeting was in Largo, which is in the middle of the county, making it easier for those who live in north county and those who live in south county to commute. The meeting was called to order, and then a Reverend delivered an invocation which I found surprising, given this was a government event. Roll was called, and those who sat at the front answered. The jobs that those in the front held was the Superintendent, Deputy Superintendent, Board members, chair members and a vice chair member.We stood for the pledge of allegiance and then the meeting really began. The first people to present were students from Countryside High School. They came before the board to speak about clubs and organizations at their high school. They currently have over twenty five clubs at their school, such as the Robotics Club. Next, a paper was read from Gov. Charlie Crist about designating a time period called " Florida Engagement in Education month". Gov. Crist believes that parents need to be involved in their child's education, and that this month would bring awareness to that fact. A Japenese exchange teacher was then introduced to the crowd and to the board. The city in Japan that the teacher is from, is the sister city of one of the cities in Pinellas, called Clearwater. The board then "approved" the minutes of previous meetings. I do not completely understand why this is done. " Requests" were then read and debated upon. The superintendent made recommendations about various issues, and then the school board voted whether or not to consent or not. Most of the time they agreed with what the superintendent had proposed. The board decided to terminate two people who worked for the schools. One was a bus driver, who did not take her designated route to pick up children. She was also talking on her cell phone, and even put tape over the camera that would film her. The other person that was fired was a janitor who was selling cocaine. After the board voted, new requests were read, and would debated at the next meeting. These requests included approval of an application from a charter school, called Plato Academy. Audience members were then asked to present any information that they wished to share with the board. No one did, so the meeting went on so that board members could introduce new information to the board. Then the meeting was officially adjourned. The meeting was very professional and no one spoke out of turn. There were more people in the audience than I expected, given it was in the morning.