SARASOTA COUNTY — Students in Sarasota County’s public high schools outperformed their peers in the U.S. and in other Florida districts, on average, in the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) taken in the 2008-09 academic year. Local averages were higher than national and state averages in all three sections of the SAT: mathematics, critical reading and writing skills.

Nationwide results for the class of 2009 were announced today (Aug. 25) by the College Board, the not-for-profit organization that administers the voluntary tests, which are the most widely taken standardized college admissions test in the U.S.

According to the College Board, the number of SAT takers nationwide rose to more than 1.5 million in 2009, the highest number of test takers in recent years. The Florida Department of Education reports that nearly 100,179 students across the state took the SAT this year.

In Sarasota County public high schools, 1,313 students took the SATs. The percent of SAT test-takers among the class of 2009 was 59 percent statewide and 46 percent nationally.

Other details of the SAT results include the following: 

• Sarasota County average scores are 23 and 26 points higher than state averages in critical reading and mathematics, respectively, and 21 points higher in writing.
• Compared to seniors nationwide, average scores for the district are 19 points higher than the national average in reading, nine points higher in math and eight points higher in writing.
• Average Sarasota SAT scores increased in all areas tested: there was a five-point increase in reading; a four-point increase in mathematics and an eight-point increase in writing. There were mixed results at the state and national levels. Statewide there were slight increases in reading and mathematics and a slight decrease in writing. Nationally, average scores in 2009 decreased slightly in reading and writing but remained the same in mathematics (see chart below).  

Note: SAT scores range from 200 – 800

SARASOTA – A brand new elementary school in North Port and a new facility for Riverview High in Sarasota are among the county’s public schools that will welcome an expected 40,000 students as classes being Monday, Aug. 24 for the 2009-10 school year.

“I have visited many of our schools as our administrators and teachers prepare for the new year,” said Superintendent of Schools Lori White. “Everyone is excited and ready to get started.”

The 124,000-square foot Atwater Elementary School will open its doors for the first time Monday to about 650 North Port students in grades K-5. The school, built for $24 million — $7 million less than the original budgeted estimate of $31.2 million — is located two blocks south of the intersection of East Price Boulevard and Atwater Drive, at 4701 Huntsville Ave. It is adjacent to the future Atwater Community Park, which will include youth ball fields.

The school district worked closely with Sarasota County Emergency Management to build the school as an enhanced hurricane shelter, designed to withstand wind speeds of 180 miles per hour rather than the standard 130 mph. The district installed sidewalks on campus and the city of North Port funded $900,000 in additional sidewalks in neighborhoods near the campus.

Atwater Elementary, like nearby Woodland Middle (opened in August 2008), incorporates “green” features into its construction. These include the use of regional building materials, recycled-content materials and low-VOC (volatile organic compounds) materials; energy-efficient heating and air conditioning; minimized water usage; efficient storm water management and drought-tolerant landscaping. The school district is seeking LEED for Schools Certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) from the U.S. Green Building Council.

The new Riverview High School facility — at $120 million already $14 million under the projected budget of $134 million and expected to be lower when all costs are calculated — has 532,000 square feet of new space, 72 classrooms, an 1,100-seat auditorium and a 2,200-seat gymnasium. The school has been designed to be environmentally friendly and economical to maintain, with water-efficient landscaping, waterless urinals to reduce water use by 20 percent, enhanced refrigerant management for cooling, and the use of recycled and regional (local source) building materials.

While the new facility is about 70,000 square feet larger than the old RHS, it was designed so that it can be cleaned quickly and easily. The cafeteria flooring is ceramic tile, which is easier to clean and longer-lasting than vinyl tile. Most classroom and hallways have long-lasting, durable rubber-backed carpeting. The doorways have walk-off mats to prevent dirt being tracked into rooms. The bathrooms support Kai-Vac cleaning technology; one custodian can clean a large bathroom in 10 minutes. The masonry in courtyard can easily be power-washed.

In addition to Atwater and Riverview, an expanded cafeteria at North Port High School and a renovated cafeteria at Bay Haven School of Basics Plus in Sarasota, enhanced playgrounds at Wilkinson Elementary and Oak Park South, and front office and restroom renovations at Fruitville Elementary are among the changes students and parents will notice in the new school year.

SARASOTA – When students return to Sarasota County public high schools on Monday, Aug. 24, they should plan to follow the rules. As part of a continuing effort to improve the learning environment, minimize distractions and promote academic success for all students, high school principals in the school district have committed to consistent and strict enforcement of key rules in the coming school year.

Executive Director of High Schools Steve Cantees said administrators and teachers will be paying particular attention to the rules regarding attendance, appropriate dress and the use of electronic devices such as cell phones and music players. Last year school staff successfully enforced these rules with positive results and principals have pledged continued enforcement this year. As they did last year, principals at the district's high schools will record and send phone messages to the families of students reminding them about the rules.

Attendance is a particular concern, Cantees noted. Though it may not be immediately apparent that one student’s absence affects other students, every absence causes the entire class to lose ground academically when teachers have to take additional time for review.

All high school principals are sending telephone messages to parents to remind them that school attendance should be their highest priority and, with rare exceptions, absences are only excused when students are ill. Appointments, trips and other activities should be scheduled outside school hours whenever possible.

Parents also are being asked to check that students are dressed appropriately when they leave for school. School dress codes do not allow students to wear clothes that are too revealing, suggest associations with gangs or convey inappropriate messages.

Students are permitted to carry cell phones at school as a convenience, but district policy requires that they must be turned off and kept out of sight during school hours. Parents are being asked to set the example of respecting class time by not calling students’ cell phones while they are at school.

The complete district Code of Conduct is included in the 2009-10 Student and Family Handbook that all students will be given to bring home during the first week of school. The handbook containing the Code of Conduct also is available on the district Web site at www.SarasotaCountySchools.net. Parents are being asked to read the handbook and return a form to their school verifying that they have done so. They also are being encouraged to review and discuss school rules with their students.

Cantees said he hopes parents and students understand that the increased attention to enforcing school rules is not intended to be unreasonably restrictive, but to support a learning environment that will help all students achieve greater success.

BUSSING WITH PRIDE – Twenty-eight-year veteran bus driver Edna Wingate takes a break from her training duties at the Sarasota County Schools Transportation Department to share some thoughts on her career as a driver.

SARASOTA -- Edna Wingate thought she had earned a rest. She had been working for the Sarasota County Schools for 35 years, spending seven years in food service and before becoming a bus driver in1977. She retired as a route supervisor in 2006.

It didn’t take long for her to find that retirement didn’t suit her. She returned to the Transportation Department as a trainer in 2008 and has no plans to retire again anytime soon.

Edna has found her niche as a trainer. “I really like training,” she said. “It is very pleasurable to help someone acquire a new skill.”

She marvels at the changes she has seen in the equipment and the training program since her first days on the road. “When I started, I took a test, drove around the Robarts Arena parking lot and was sent to work in Venice that afternoon,” she said. “The curriculum has changed totally since then, thank goodness.”

She said the equipment has changed just as much. “When I started, the buses were just basic stick shift trucks,” she said. “There was no radio. If I had a problem, I had to find a pay phone.

“I love these new buses. They are like Cadillacs. You don’t even know you are going down the road. They are fabulous.”

All of the electronics can sometimes be intimidating, she admits. “The new buses are very sophisticated,” she said. “You have to be trained just to start them. If you don’t do something right, you get yelled at…by the bus!”

One constant over the years has been the children, she said. “Kids have a great time on the bus. The little ones are so excited. The middle schoolers love to be with their friends. The high school kids text and sleep.

“They always are going to try you,” she said. “You have to be patient with them. You have to let them settle down. If you jump, they jump back.

“But I don’t see bad kids. You don’t know what they experience at home or at school.

“A bus driver can make or break a kid’s relationship with school. You are the first person they meet in the morning and the last one they see when they leave.

“I always remind myself and my drivers of the old saying: They don’t care what you know until they know you care.”

Edna’s best chance to show her passengers how much she cared came when she drove the same route for four years. “All the kids called me ‘Momma,’” she said. “I knew their parents and their aunts and uncles. Kids in trouble found their way to my house.

“I saw Mr. so and so walking his dog every day. I like that home-town stuff.

“I would have kids come up to me years later and say, ‘If it hadn’t been for your encouragement, I never would have stayed in school.’

“That’s what it means to me to be a bus driver. You get to be part of their lives.”

Driving does have its scary moments, too, she said. “People stop in the middle of the road for no reason. You do what you have to do. Usually the other drivers are more scared about the bus than I am. I know I have control.

“I love to drive a bus. You are up there above everybody. You can see the whole picture.”

If Edna could get one message to parents, it would be to trust their bus drivers more, she said. “Drivers are very cautious about where they drop kids off. If a kindergartner is being picked up in a car, the drivers will question the person picking them up if they don’t recognize the car. “Parents need to know that the drivers think of these children as their babies, too.”

Edna said parents should make sure young children have identification on them. They also should have clearly understood rules for older children about keeping parents informed if they are not coming home on the bus. Lots of students who are thought to be missing are found at a friend’s house.

“Don’t panic,” she tells parents. “If a child isn’t where he or she is supposed to be, someone will find out where they belong. We have occasionally misplaced some, but we haven’t lost one yet.”

She also encourages parents to have students who are eligible to ride the bus to ride the bus. Statistically, going to school on the bus is much safer than going in the family car. The greatest danger to students is the automobile traffic around schools. “The only form of public transportation safer than a school bus is an elevator,” she said.

Edna is proud to work for the Sarasota County Schools. She, her five children and several of her grandchildren went through Sarasota schools. 
 

“My children had a great time,” she said. “My son went through the Air Force Academy after he graduated from Venice High,” she said. “You don’t do that without a good education.” 
 

She said all the drivers take pride in their work. “It’s a very select group. It’s a very proud group,” she said. “The pay is good; the benefits are good; they even provide you with clothing.” 
 

Still, she was pleasantly surprised when her daughter decided to become a bus driver. “It makes you feel good when one of your kids wants to do what you do,” she said. “It can’t be too bad a life.”

SHOW AND TELL – Bus driver candidates Melinda Suggs, left, and Phyllis Bankemper, right, identify engine parts and their functions for Sarasota County Schools Transportation Department trainer Susan Schlabach.

OSPREY – The most casual observer can see that wrestling a 40-foot-long, 10-ton steel box full of rambunctious students through crowded city streets and narrow country byways is a demanding job. Still, it is surprising to learn how much knowledge, skill and diplomacy are required to do the job well.

At the Sarasota County Schools Transportation Department training facility on a recent sweltering July morning, driver candidates Phyllis Bankemper and Melinda Suggs helped trainer Susan Schlabach explain to a visitor just how thorough the bus driver training program is. Suggs is a substitute teacher and Bankemper was a licensed insurance agent for 20 years.

Bankemper summed up their early impressions of the training program. “I never realized how much bus drivers have to know,” she said.

Training begins in the classroom, with 40 hours of work based on the contents of four shelves of binders containing 31 instructional units on everything from bus mechanics to traffic laws to behavior management and discipline policy.

Driver candidates learn to how to react in critical situations such as losing brakes or traction. They are taught how to load special passengers who use wheelchairs, safety vests, or infant or toddler seats.

After completing their classroom work, drivers receive eight hours of over-the-road training and whatever behind-the-wheel practice time they need to master a long list of driving skills. They learn to parallel park, place the back of the bus within six inches of a simulated loading dock, and various other skills required to thread a bus through places where most drivers would be hard-pressed to navigate the family SUV.

On July 14 Bankemper and Suggs were studying the more than 90 parts of the bus they need to identify and inspect. They learned how to recognize the sound of a leaking air brake, to look for rust trails on wheel hubs that indicate loose lug nuts, to check power steering fluid and to verify that the drag link, pitman arm and tie rods are in good working order.

They crawled under the bus to inspect the springs, universal joints, shock absorbers, brakes, frame, floor, exhaust system, drive shaft and slack adjuster, just to name a few items on that check list.

UNDERCARRIAGE EXPERT – Sarasota County Schools bus driver candidate Melinda Suggs sits under a bus to identify and inspect the frame, exhaust system, brakes and other parts during a recent driver training class.

In addition to the periodic checks of all items, every driver must complete a 33-point, pre-trip inspection of his or her bus every day. That inspection also includes lights, safety equipment, doors, mirrors, horn and the radio.

Trainer Schlabach said the district is continuously training drivers, but the busiest time is in the summer. The district would like to build up a pool of about 25 reserve drivers if they could find enough people interested in the job, she said.

Candidates must like to drive, she said. The average driver’s work day is 7.4 hours, usually covering three schools in the morning and three in the afternoon with field trips and special runs in between. Some runs for magnet schools cover the entire county, she said.

More importantly, bus drivers have to like kids. The trainers and staff in the district Transportation Department are keenly aware that the bus driver is the school staff member who greets the students in the morning and the last person they see in the afternoon. Their interaction can set the tone for a student’s whole day, and drivers want to make sure that tone is friendly and encouraging.

“The kids are a joy, “Schlabach said. “They make you laugh. They show you their pictures on picture day. They show you their report cards or if they got an A on an exam. They let you know when they get their driver’s permit. If we didn’t enjoy being around them, we wouldn’t work on these big yellow buses.”

Suggs said the training program captures the spirit of the department. “We are having fun,” she said. She said she is taking a truck driving training program on line, but the bus driver training is much more to her liking.

“I want to talk to people with experience,” she said. “The on-line program is not as personal. The word ‘cold’ comes to mind.

“Here we talk, we do demonstrations together. We get to know each other.”

That approach helps drivers gain the confidence they need to feel comfortable with their responsibilities. Schlabach and Suggs gently chided Bankemper for her misgivings about doing the job as well as her husband, Craig, who is also in training.

“You’re not going to just do as well,” Schlabach said. “You’ll do better.”

Schlabach takes obvious pride in the progress of her charges. “Driver candidates come in here who have never parallel parked anything bigger than a Volkswagen, but they go out there and park a bus from both sides,” she said.

Bankemper had a mixed reaction to the compliment. “You mean I have to do it twice?” she asked.

Schlabach explained that bus driver training is not a one-time event. Every year, the department conducts a safety school to retrain drivers. All drivers must pass a complete physical and be tested each year to ensure that their reflexes are quick enough to handle the demands of the job.

All the care with training leads to an exemplary safety record. The current Sarasota district safety report shows 750,000 miles without a chargeable accident.

Riding a school bus the second-safest mode of transportation in the world, trainer Edna Wingate said. The only thing safer is an elevator.

If a driver does have an accident, he or she has to be retrained, Wingate said. An accident does not necessarily involve another vehicle. “If a driver hits a branch and breaks a mirror, that’s a chargeable accident,” she said.

Wingate said the driver training program is thorough because the job is far more complicated that most people realize. Still, she has great confidence in the training program.

“You can teach anyone to drive a bus,” she said. “You can’t teach them to love kids.”

Her message to anyone who thinks they might be interested in the job: “If you like kids and like to drive, come on over. We’ll teach you how.”

SARASOTA – Fifth Third Bank, in partnership with the Education Foundation of Sarasota County, has announced a project to provide local schoolchildren with free backpacks and school supplies.

According to Tim Mackay, the bank’s South Florida Senior Vice President and Retail Executive, the partners will kick off the school supply drive by hosting ice cream socials for bank customers and guests from 2-4 p.m., Friday, Aug. 14, at each Fifth Third location in Sarasota County. Bank locations are listen at www.53.com.

From Aug. 14 through Sept. 4, Fifth Third Bank will collect donations of school supplies at its Sarasota County locations. The bank will provide individual backpacks for the supplies. Supplies and backpacks will be distributed in conjunction with the education foundations to students in need of assistance. The program is part of similar partnerships in Fifth Third Bank’s Collier, Lee and Palm Beach County markets.

“Through this partnership, Fifth Third Bank hopes to equip children who might otherwise go without these essentials with all of the tools and materials they need to go confidently in the direction of their dreams,” said David Call, President and CEO, Fifth Third Bank (South Florida).

Cindy Kaiser, the Education Foundation’s Executive Director, commended the company’s efforts. “More than 40 percent of Sarasota County’s schoolchildren are now eligible for free and reduced-price meals, up from around 33 percent just a year ago. With Fifth Third’s leadership, and good people stepping up to help, we can give those students the simple things they need to succeed.”

The public is encouraged to donate supplies at any Fifth Third Bank in the area. Suggested items include number 2 pencils, eight- or 24-count boxes of crayons, highlighters, rulers, 100-page composition books, pocket folders, wide-ruled notebook paper, glue sticks, anti-bacterial wipes or hand sanitizer, facial tissues, gallon- or sandwich-size zip lock bags, etc. Donations of gift cards to office supply stores or retail school supply vendors are also welcomed; the partners will purchase supplies from the school-issued supply list and distribute the items during the drive.

Those interested in more information or who wish to help support the school supply drive may call Fifth Third at 239-591-6463 or the Education Foundation of Sarasota County at 941-927-0965.