Sunday, March 6, 2016

Palm Beach County School Superintendent Robert Avossa: Setting the bar high and challenging the institution

It was a rough start to Avossa's tenure as PBC school superintendent and he's weathered the storm. He's now talking about big changes to that institution and some of those changes were noted on this blog earlier. Andrew Marra at the Post has been reporting on this and here is the latest from the ExtraCredit blog:
     Citing statistics showing deep disparities in how students fare in Palm Beach County’s public schools, Superintendent Robert Avossa unveiled a new strategic plan Friday that he said would help schools to provide a “world-class education for all students, not just some.”
     Speaking before about 800 educators and business and political leaders [emphasis added] at the Kravis Center in downtown West Palm Beach, Avossa said that schools’ money and resources would be redirected to focus on four new goals approved by the school board Wednesday.
     Those goals are: raising the portion of third-graders reading at grade level from 51 to 75 percent, raising the high school graduation rate for district-operated schools from 85 to 90 percent, and increasing high school and post-graduate readiness.
[and. . .]
     Plans for tackling the new goals are still being worked out, he said, but include concentrating more resources on teaching reading in students’ early years, identifying at-risk students before they are suspended, revamping teacher training, and expanding Pre-K programs for some of the county’s neediest students.
     The event was hosted by the Education Foundation of Palm Beach County and the Business Development Board of Palm Beach County.
One of the things recently learned at a Lake Worth City Commission meeting is how misunderstood "Lake Worth" is within the school system. Many who work in the system, those who should know better, are just as confused as the news media about "Lake Worth". Sadly, it's the news media that creates much of this confusion in the public to begin with.

I think we can all agree that a student at Barton Elementary has very different issues to deal with than a school in unincorporated Palm Beach County, like Indian Pines Elementary, for example. One of the things both schools share is a "Lake Worth" address but Indian Pines isn't in Lake Worth; it's located west of the Great Walled City of Atlantis in unincorporated PBC.

This issue of public school education is a crucial one for everyone even if you don't have children in the school system. For example, when more help comes to schools like Barton Elementary that will help improve the entire City, not just that one school. Oh, and by the way, you can follow Superintendent Avossa on Twitter to find out more about what is happening with the public schools: