Hillsborough schools welcome back students and staff

Posted Aug 23, 2010 by Sherri Ackerman

Updated Aug 23, 2010 at 12:57 PM

What will parents notice about school this year in Hillsborough County?

Maybe more teachers as the Hillsborough school district works to comply with the class size mandate that goes into effect tomorrow. Unless voters change the constitutional amendment that puts a hard cap on the sizes of certain core classes, school administrators are going to have to get creative. Starting Tuesday, there can be no more than 18 students in pre-K through third grade, 22 in fourth through eighth grades, and 25 in high school core classes such as English and math.

Elia vowed this morning that the district on Day 1 will comply with the mandate, though that may mean some shuffling of students and teachers after the first five days, she said.

Parents and students might also see video cameras in their classrooms as the district continues work with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in an effort known as Measuring Effective Teaching. The project, funded by a smaller grant from the organization that also gave Hillsborough $100 million last year to overhaul the way teachers are hired, trained and retained. By videotaping 700 teachers in the classroom, researchers hope to observe the strategies that teachers use to hook students.

In addition, most teachers will have a mentor or peer this year who might drop in during class time to monitor lesson plans, teacher-student interaction and other issues as part of that larger project, called Empowering Effective Teachers. The district will spend the next seven years on this initiative with the ultimate goal making students more successful academically.

Other changes include new identification tags for kindergartners who ride the school bus home in the afternoons. Each student should receive one of the green tags when they enroll. The tags, which include a child’s name, school, bus stop number and other information, should be attached to book bags or backpacks and worn for the whole year. Another change - parents better meet their kindergartner at the bus stop or arrange for another adult or older sibling to be there.

Otherwise, bus drivers will return kindergartners to school, where administrators will call parents for pick-up. If this happens frequently, the child could be suspended from riding the bus and parents could be charged for afterschool care.

If the district, the teachers union and school board members approve of these changes - parents and students can look forward to a full week off during Thanksgiving, a four-day weekend in March to help offset a late spring break, and 181 instructional days, Elia says, though the state only requires 180. And that’s with the proposed 14 early-release days (the 15th day is a true half day on the last day of school; the others call students to be released two hours early).

That’s all spelled out in a contract that may come up for vote Aug. 31 at the next school board meeting.