Education Advisory Board Meeting - May 19, 2008

Even though we started out without a quorum, we finally had one & could approve the minutes from Feb., Mar., & April as well as the Agenda.  There were no guests & no rep from the School Board.
Quite a bit of time was spent on the Goals & Objectives which were discussed & voted on at the last meeting. They are as follows:
1. Mentoring by students, parents, & organizations in order to have a more cohesive program. It was also suggested we try & find what organizations in the City have mentoring programs.
2. Find Foundations or Groups interested in sponsoring Partnership programs.
3. Develop a program with the Mayor, Commissioners & City staff to mentor or read to students once a week. This idea has been raised many times before but never seems to get off the ground. There was discussion as to how to attain these goals especially since the school year is almost over. It was suggested that we invite the City Manager to attend a meeting to discuss our goals.

Dr. Hayes attended the Best Practices Showcase unfortunately she was the only one attending, last year we had quite a large delegations with pictures & nice presentations. This one was held at Stranahan High School. Each City had 5 minutes to discuss their presentations. The main interest was in Bullying. It was interesting that Stanching which is an engineering magnet has been working with the City Water Works & 5 members have received recognition.  Stranahan also has plans for a newly reorganized school. We discussed the fact if the Neighborhood had been advised. There had been problems in other years with changes to the School which the Neighborhood did not approve.
Coral Springs had a Driver safety program which they worked with the Police for student awards.
Hallendale- 5 schools work with Parks & Rec & the entire Community gets involved.
Cooper City has an Internet Safety program for students.
Hollywood- they have many goals, they help new teachers with receptions to get acquainted & have a sub committee to meet with Principals.
Sunrise- Each school has an EAB member, very interesting
Plantation- Has a tutorial program & has an exchange program with a school in Montana to learn the differences.
Arthur Ashe has been awarded to be a Magnet school & has received computers which had been awarded.
From the article in the paper about the large # of drop outs we discussed what constitutes a drop out. There needs to be a uniform criteria for all schools.

Since March 20, 2011 will be the Ft. Lauderdale Centennial, we discussed how we could get the schools involved. Maybe contests or slogans. To be discussed further.

There have been recent articles about the CCC which is Citizens Concerned about our Children and the County Diversity Committee and that these committee'goals have not been met that all schools should be equal & since there are new members on the Board who are not familiar with the CCC, it was suggested that we have Mary Fertig who was a sponsor of the suit & also a former member of this Board to speak at a future meeting.  All agreed.

The idea to have  a student member on the EAB has been left to the beginning of the next school year & it was suggested that it not be a Sr.but a Jr. who would be more interested in getting info & community Service points. This could be an advisory member since they would not meet the age requirements.

I mentioned the Candidates Forum & it was decided that the Mayor & Commission candidates should be asked what they thought of a mentoring program by the City for the City schools.

I also advised them about the CVC project on June 14th.

The next meeting will be at the Old Dillard Museum on June 19th at 6:30.
The August meeting will be School Board Members Dinnen& Williams as speakers.