Billy Townsend is the only choice in the District 1 school board race who is committed to Polk County AND a better education system for all children across the state of Florida. Whether you are the parent of a student attending Polk County Public Schools, or an educator working within them, Billy will be a tireless champion of a better, more humane education system for all stakeholders.
As a fellow NPA who does not typically endorse political candidates, I admire Billy’s willingness to challenge the status quo rather than cave to political pressure from Tallahassee. Billy’s ability to consistently put people over politics, especially in his own county and community, also make his leadership a breath of fresh air in the stale political atmosphere of the Sunshine State.
Although there are many excellent pieces about Billy’s ideas on his website, this brief excerpt from an older piece clearly states his vision for the student and teacher experience within a classroom, believing in:
“…the radical idea of unshackling public schools from their stupid, soul-killing, industrial-era metrics of fact-retention. It advocates putting the classroom experience first. That’s exactly what I’ve campaigned on for six months. It’s what I’ve written about for years.
As I’ve said endlessly, I support a “private school” model for traditional public schools. Free teachers from meaningless standards. Emphasize depth of knowledge, not fact retention. Evaluate students by what they create and how they perform publicly. Develop citizenship through meaningful experience. I’m not saying that private schools do all of these things. I’m saying they can. They have the freedom to do it.” – Billy Townsend
Ending the era of “Test-and-Punish” Tallahassee style education should be the goal of every local school board member throughout the state of Florida. Billy Townsend is diligently working toward that aim, but he needs Polk County to put him back on the dais for the next four years.
A vote for Billy Townsend on August 18th, 2020, ensures he can continue this critical work on behalf of the students and educators of Polk County and beyond.
Thank you!
If you’d like to donate to Billy’s campaign, you can do so HERE.
Billy has also appeared on the Teacher Voice podcast on three different occasions, most recently immediately after January 15th’s “Rally in Tally,” which is the last on this list:
Teacher Voice – Episode 13 (still one of my favorite interviews). Here’s a quote: “I want people’s lives to get better. I want to grow the teaching profession. I want kids to enjoy and learn what they’re doing. That’s not happening in this corrupt model and the people who are responsible for it are owed a reckoning.”
Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican Gubenatorial Candidate
Although I already wrote a piece titled “All I Want for Midterms” that encourages others to vote for Andrew Gillum as a check against one-party rule, I read this comment on Facebook and thought it is an excellent overview of what has happened to public education during the last 20 years of GOP rule. Therefore, if you are a teacher who has already voted for Ron DeSantis or, more importantly, if you are about to vote for him on Tuesday, fellow teacher Kim Cook would like you to remember the following:
For those of you who are saying you won’t vote for Gillum, please consider the following:
The Florida legislature and governor’s office has been Republican for 20+ years. In that 20 years, we have seen nothing but bill after bill with the sole intent of destroying public education. The vast majority of those bills have been signed into law by the governor. Here is a review of the legislation:
1. The Republican legislature and Jeb Bush introduced the FCAT in order to track student “progress” ignoring the fact teachers are entirely capable of assessing their own students.
2. The Republican legislature and Jeb Bush then started using FCAT results to grade schools, falsely equating low socioeconomic schools with “bad teaching.”
3. The Republican legislature and Jeb Bush linked passing the third grade FCAT with retention and the 10th grade FCAT with high school graduation–despite research that clearly demonstrated this would be detrimental to students and communities.
4. The Republican legislature and Jeb Bush linked school grades to money–awarding “A” schools with more money and “F” schools with less.
5. The Republican legislature and Rick Scott connected student test scores to teacher evaluations, otherwise known as VAM.
6. The Republican legislature and Rick Scott imposed a tax on educators by requiring them to contribute 3% of their salary to their pensions; however, that 3% goes into the general fund, NOT the pension.
7. The Republican legislature and Rick Scott changed the pension plan by requiring new hires to choose between the defined benefit pension and the 401k plan within the first nine months of their careers. Any educator who doesn’t choose by the required date automatically goes into the 401k plan, undermining the financial health of the defined benefit pension.
8. The Republican legislature and Rick Scott passed a law that decertifies any teacher union that falls under 50% membership, making that district’s contract and salary schedule null and void. Unions for first responders were exempt from the law (they are mostly men who vote Republican after all).
9. The Republican legislature and Rick Scott passed legislation creating the “Best and Brightest” program. B&B bypasses providing the money to districts so that it can be put into salary schedules. The B&B money is considered a bonus, so it doesn’t count towards teachers’ pensions. The money also cannot go to “non-instructional personnel”–educators like media specialists (I teach ALL day every day, but nope, I’m not eligible), guidance counselors, deans, etc.
10. The Republican legislature and Rick Scott passed legislation that allows voucher schools; thus, tax dollars go to private, often religious, schools, that do not have the same accountability measures as public schools. They have expanded the program just about every legislative session.
11. The Republican legislature and Rick Scott have created laws to turn over public schools to for-profit charters. We have an entire district in Florida that is now a “charter” district.
12. Many Republican members of our legislature own or have a vested interest in charter or voucher schools and testing companies, yet they pass legislation that pads their wallets.
13. The Republican legislature and Rick Scott passed legislation that requires school districts to harden schools, yet didn’t fully fund the program. They also allow “non-teaching personnel” like me, the school librarian, to carry guns.
14. The Florida legislature fully intends to continue to destroy our pension bit by bit. My state senator, Keith Perry, admitted this. He told us that the state had no business running a pension program.
15. From Ceresta Smith: The Republican legislature and Rick Scott made Bright Futures Scholarships harder for non-whites to receive as they upped the bar on standardized tests, which provide advantage based on class and race.
16. The Florida legislature and Rick Scott took professional service contracts (sometimes referred to as “tenure”) away from teachers hired after July 1, 2008.
Most likely, our legislature will continue to be Republican dominated. If we don’t have a Democratic governor to veto the legislation that will continue to destroy public schools, destroy our salaries, and decimate our pension, we are sunk. I don’t know about you, but I’m counting on my pension in retirement. I don’t know what we’ll do if it’s not there, or if the state tries to pay us off with a lump sum, as other states have done.
If all Gillum does is veto destructive legislation, he’s still better than having DeSantis who will rubber stamp every horrible anti-public education bill the legislature sends him.
Thank you for reading. Please be sure to share with other teachers who still have not voted, and encourage them to vote for Andrew Gillum, even if only for pragmatic reasons. As noted in my own piece, although he would not have been my first choice, I still supported him because one party rule never works in the long run. We must bring some semblance of balance back to Tallahassee, and we can start doing so by electing a Democratic governor who will need to seek common ground and compromise with our GOP-led Florida Legislature.
Andy Warrener, NPA Candidate for House District 64, along with his daughter and son
The latest episode of the Teacher Voice podcast features Andy Warrener, the NPA/Independent candidate in a three way race for House District 64 that covers northwestern Hillsborough and parts of Pinellas county. I specifically wanted to chat with Andy about public education issues and the rest of his campaign platform because, like me and about 1/3 of all Floridians, he does not belong to a political party.
Beyond the issues, we also have a substantive discussion about why he is running without party affiliation, why so many people are choosing to leave their previous party, and how the growing number of independent voters are starting to coalesce around grassroots organizations such as Unite America. Please listen and be sure to share with others, especially those who live in HD64!
If you’d like to learn more about Andy and his campaign, you can visit his website FloridaForAll or Like/Follow his page on Facebook. Be sure to hurry, though; early voting is in full swing and election day is Tuesday, November 6th!
P.S. – Andy also supports the Strengthen Our Schools initiative and was even the person who suggested the term be 10 years (rather than 15 or 20) so that it might be more palatable to Hillsborough County voters. Here is a clip of his speech from the August 24th special board meeting. The referendum can be found at the very end of the ballot; please vote YES!
Fentrice Driskell, Democratic Candidate for House District 63
This edition of the Teacher Voice podcast features Fentrice Driskell, a Harvard and Georgetown Law School graduate, partner at Carton Fields law firm in Tampa, and the Democratic candidate for House District 63.
Although she always knew that running for public office would be in her future, she did not realize she would run so soon. We discuss her impressive resume, why she’s running, and what she would like to do in Tallahassee. Please listen and share with others, especially voters in HD63.
Want to learn more about Fentrice? You can check out her amazingly alliterative website, Fentrice For Florida, of find her on social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Bill Person, HCPS School Board Candidate, District 1
As the picture above states, Bill is the right person at the right time. He narrowly lost to Susan Valdes in 2016, and he is the best candidate in the race due to his wide and varied background. First he served our country in the United States Air Force, then he served Hillsborough County, intially as a teacher, then school site administrator, and finished his career at the district level as a general director. After serving Hillsborough for over 40 years, he is asking the voters of District 1 to help him help us all one more time by coming back and serving on our local school board.
First and foremost, there is an HCPS district policy that prohibits anyone employed by the district to campaign on a school site. While technically Mr. Cona does not work for the district, the same rule applies to sitting school board members as well. If elected officials are expected to be exemplars, shouldn’t the candidates also adhere to the same policies put in place by the governing body of which they are campaigning to join? It only seems logical. Bill has adhered to these policies in good faith, yet the Cona campaign persisted in sending emails at least three times.
Second, and far more problematic, is the statement issued by the Cona campaign:
The very first line in the statement is misleading at best and an outright lie at worst, and here’s why: Enjoli White, the candidate liaison for Craig Latimer’s office at the Supervisor of Elections, said that voter email addresses are primarily collected when voters register to vote by mail, and even then it is optional to provide an email address. Two of the teachers, Laurie Rodriguez and Aron Zions, have registered to vote by mail yet never provided an email address at all, let alone a school district email address.
And LoraJane Riedas? She’s never even registered to vote by mail, making it impossible for the Cona campaign to have obtained the emails in this way.
The second half of the statement is true. There were a total of 74 SDHC email addresses listed among the 212,426 voters; expressed as a percentage of all possible email addresses the Cona campaign could have sent direct solicitations to, it is 0.00000348%.*
Questions immediately come to mind:
How could these teachers and numerous others have received these emails when such a minuscule percentage of all voters even used their work email addresses?
And if his campaign did not get these email addresses from the Supervisor of Elections list, where did they come from and how did the campaign get them?
Something about this doesn’t add up at all.
Leaving aside the issue about the possible illegality of this situation and focusing on the ethical implications should leave every District 1 voter wondering about Mr. Cona:
If his campaign is willing to issue patently false statements, what else is next?
Should voters be concerned about his connections to the construction industry when we all know massive growth is coming to Hillsborough County? His candidate finance search reveals money coming from construction company CEOs all over the state of Florida, not simply here in the Tampa Bay region. Susan Valdes willingly bent the rules by breaking the cone of silence to help her political donors, so is it possible that Steve Cona might be tempted to do the same? One would hope not.
The last thing District 1 voters and all of Hillsborough County needs is another unethical elected official.
Bill Person, on the other hand, is the candidate who wants to truly do business in the sunshine. He is the one who brought many of the corruption charges against Susan Valdes to light, and every citizen in Hillsborough County should be grateful that he did. Bill is a stand-up guy who will always be honest with his constituents and fellow board members, and we need that now more than ever.
*Disclaimer: only the candidates and their campaigns have access to this data, and the Bill Person campaign manager requested the list to verify the numbers and claims.
Although the Times called Scott Hottenstein a “teacher in the district” and “first time candidate,” that is not how we should view Scott at all. Having interviewed nearly all of the District 6 candidates for the Teacher Voice podcast, what stood out were Scott’s attributes from his previous employer: The United States Navy. We shouldn’t view Scott only as a teacher; instead, we should see him through the lens of a career Navy veteran with half a lifetime of leadership who also happens to have five years of classroom experience.
“Mr. H” and family during his Navy career
Here’s why anyone who cares about Public Education here in Hillsborough County should vote for Scott Hottenstein:
24 year career as a Navy Officer, culminating as Lieutenant Commander and second in command of his entire base on Sicily when he retired. Quite simply, the man would not have advanced through the ranks without demonstrating tremendous leadership capacity.
Successfully navigated and excelled in a large bureaucratic organization (U.S. Navy) Being a school board member for the 8th largest district in the United States, then, would be an easy transition in which Scott could use his intelligence and communication skills to the benefit of all stakeholders, especially our students.
As second in command of his base, Scott also had experience managing budgets that numbered into the tens of millions, all of which filtered through multiple revenue streams, much like our own school district’s $3 billion behemoth budget that includes local, state, and federal funding. Surely his past skill set in this regard will scale up for his primary job of being a sound fiscal steward of our tax dollars.
Scott is a public servant, plain and simple. After dedicating over half his life to serving his fellow citizens as a United States Naval Officer, Scott willfully chose to become a teacher and continue his public service by educating the next generation. Scott left his post in the Navy with numerous security clearances and easily could have commanded a six figure salary working with a private company that does contractual or consulting work for our nation’s military. Instead, Scott chose to spend his days teaching 7th grade Civics at Barrington Middle School, coaching track, initiating a chess club and a school government chapter, and even manning the school when it became a shelter during Hurricane Irma. Scott is the very living embodiment of servant leadership.
In summation, Scott “Mr. H” Hottenstein is an honorable man of integrity who has always sought to give back to his fellow citizens, first in the Navy, now in our schools. He has earned my vote for the above stated reasons as well as running his campaign on small donations, and a grassroots effort powered by student volunteers so they can gain first-hand, real world experience with civic engagement. But I am only one vote, and I would encourage all of residents of Hillsborough to vote for him as well. Scott dedicated the first half of his life to our country, let’s help him dedicate the next phase of his public service to Hillsborough’s students and their future.
Charlie Kennedy, former high school teacher, District 2 Manatee County Schools Board member
All over the United States this election season, numerous teachers are running for office on the heels of the wave of teacher walkouts that happened in states such as West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Colorado, and Arizona. Long before that, however, one of Charlie’s students challenged him to run for his local school board in 2014.
To his surprise, he won.
Charlie first appeared on the Teacher Voice podcast nearly one year ago, which provided listeners with his backstory and his advocacy for public education in Manatee County and beyond. Now Charlie is up for re-election, has an opponent, and we sat down recently to discuss his accomplishments during his first term as well as what he would like to achieve over the next four years.
If you’d like to learn more about Charlie, you can read his blog/website here, Like / Follow his page on Facebook, or follow him on Twitter. And if you are a voter (or know one) who lives in Manatee County, please share the podcast with others.
This week’s episode of Teacher Voice podcast features Phil Hornback, a small business owner, former bricklayer, and former public school science teacher. Phil is a hard working guy who wants to bring a common sense approach to Tallahassee by standing for the constituents of the community rather than the special interests who dominate our state’s legislative sessions.
Although our conversation focuses mainly on public education, Phil also discusses his personal history, why he’s running, as well as the other important ideas for his campaign. Please listen and share this episode, especially with those who live in House District 58.
Thanks for listening and have a wonderful weekend, everyone!
P.S. – This is Phil speaking at the HCPS school board meeting on June 5th about for-profit managed charter schools, a topic that we discuss during the podcast itself.
One view of the Arizona #REDforED movement marching on the capitol
All across the Sunshine State, education professionals and their supporters just closed out National Teacher Appreciation Week. During this time, public education was celebrated by students and parents alike. Many people wore #REDforEDto stand in solidarity with teachers in other states that have accomplished change by banding together, as well as to highlight the similar challenges we face here in Florida.
Many people also took to social media to share their support and to say thanks to those who work with our children on a daily basis. A few even used this platform and time to illustrate important points to our elected officials about the starvation budgets that have been served up during the tenure of Governor Rick Scott. These are a few of my contributions, for instance, that I used to help spread awareness and build momentum as we move forward to this year’s election cycle:
Numbers Don’t Lie, Governor Scott
Clearly one of the most effective forms of demonstration that has helped along the situations faced by states like West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Colorado, and Arizona was marching on the capitol. What if we could do this here in Florida? Is it time for a little rally in Tally? It certainly has a nice ring to it and could easily be used as a hashtag to build further momentum during the summer and beyond. There are even two dates that would be perfect for taking this simple, effective action:
Monday, September 17th, 2018, which is U.S. Constitution Day, an idea that was originally proposed by retired educator and all-star public education advocate, Donna Yates Mace. Teachers from central to north Florida could easily drive up Sunday during the day, stay over night, march on / hold a rally in the capitol the next day, and then return home that evening. This would be a perfect time to celebrate democracy and demonstrate civic engagement to our students and communities (something the Legislature clearly thinks we don’t teach based on attempted legislation and CRC amendments). Furthermore, considering the primaries will be over by this point, it will send a strong message about voting for pro-public education candidates and hopefully all candidates will be addressing the need for increased funding for our students and schools.
And what better way to celebrate the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. himself than by marching / rallying again on Monday, January 21st, 2019, only a couple of weeks after committee work begins for the upcoming legislative session. Granted there probably won’t be any activity that day, but legislators will be there or returning for work on Tuesday. But if we can get tens of thousands of teachers to show up and get high-profile media coverage of the event, it would definitely put the Florida Legislature on notice.
We educators will no longer be silent about the damage being done by the gross lack of funding for our public education system. As MLK himself reminds us all: the time is always right to do what is right. The time is now. The fight is here. We can take action that doesn’t require us to strike yet still be “highly effective.” Just close your eyes and imagine it…a sea of red set out to #RallyInTally.
This week’s podcast is a special edition for members of Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association. After interviewing the first two presidential candidates about a month ago, two more, Felecia Johnson and Leo Haggerty, announced their intentions to run as well. In order for our membership to hear from the candidates themselves, I reached out to them both in order to ask them the same questions. Take a listen to what they had to say.
If you’re a teacher or ESP currently working in Hillsborough County who is not a member, please consider joining. Or, if you are listening elsewhere in the state, I hope you join your own local union. We need to band together now more than ever. As Polk County School Board member Billy Townsend recently wrote, the teachers’ unions are the only positive force in Florida’s education model.
Thanks for listening and for your membership in HCTA!
P.S. – And if you missed the first podcast with Rob Kriete and Val Chuchman, you can listen to it here or scroll down to Episode 14 on the main page.
Teacher Voice is seeking guests to either write short posts (500 word limit) about current education issues or to discuss them in person for the biweekly podcast. Interested? Fill in the form on the Contact page or email directly at 1teachervoice@gmail.com
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