Friday, November 13, 2009

Public School Board Meeting: Urban Teaching Academy







Susan King, the Supervisor of magnet schools and programs, talked about the Urban Teaching Academy interdisciplinary project. There are three urban teaching schools, one at Blake High School, one at Hillsborough High School, and one at Middleton High School.

King introduced Theresa Windston, the lead arts teacher at Blake High School. She received a grant for $3,000 from J.P. Morgan Grace to incorporate the arts into the curriculum to particularly improve writing skills.

“I chose 9th grade students at the Blake Urban Academy, under the direction of UTA teacher Ms. Gwen Williams. Can you believe that this photography was done by 9th grade students? It’s just amazing,” said Windston.

She talked about the grant and its purpose to promote learning.

“The project is called Tampa Bay Treasures. Students connected to the history of Tampa by taking fieldtrips to historical places,” Continues Windston. “Each student was assigned a camera and a location to take pictures. They then picked their favorite picture and wrote about it in their journal.”

Teresa Windston wanted the board to consider continuing funding the arts departments of Hillsborough magnet schools. Three students from the program came to talk at the meeting. They were intelligent and persistent. They did not know a lot about what the meeting was about, they just knew they wanted to keep their program and that they had a voice.

Their presence there made it hard for the chair members to say no to the grants. The students showed us examples of their photographs that they took at The University of Tampa, The Columbian Restaurant, and The Tampa Theatre. The work of these 10th graders was amazing. The photographic capabilities of the students took me by surprise. The project brought the students together, and it brought them closer with the community and history.

One student said, “People walk around The University of Tampa like it’s a regular school. For me, it was a place where I could take pictures.” The students were able to expand their knowledge and creativity, which proves that the program is effective. The students combine their visual creativity with their writing creativity.

An article was written by Courtney Cairns Pastor on TBO.com about the program.

The Hillsborough County School District is training future teachers through a new magnet program that introduces students to the education field in ninth grade. If the students do well, they can get college paid for and, maybe best of all, possibly jobs in Hillsborough schools when they complete their degrees,” according to Pastor.

APPLICATION FOR ADMISSION must be filled out by the students and gives them an opportunity to improve on their writing skills.

In the application is states, “Students will complete three levels of exploratory field experience electives in grades nine, ten and eleven (respectively); then, as seniors, students will participate in a culminating experience called a Clinical Internship. Students will be paired throughout the program with practicing master educators recognized as highly qualified by the No Child Left Behind guidelines. These master educators, in most cases, will be qualified to serve as adjunct professors at partner institutions which enables students to connect theory with practice.”

And finally The St. Pete Times also covered this story back in January of 2008. Just click on the link and the article gives you some insight on the wonderful program.

http://www.sptimes.com/2008/01/13/Hillsborough/Reaching_deep_for_tea.shtml

So out of the entire meeting, why did I JUST talk about this program? First, the students that were there had greatly impacted me. To come to a meeting and plea with the board members to continue to fund their program, is pretty impressive to me. Education is so important and for these kids to learn that at such a young age, it gives me some assurance that our future leaders will have a strong head on their shoulders.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Bailey doesn't Bail

On Friday October 30th, Amanda and I went to the Clerk of Court to obtain public records. We went to Charlotte County to visit our parents that weekend so decided to obtain records from there. A big news story was aired early October about a 26-year-old mother who was having sex with her 18 month old daughter. I chose to get the arrest records for the mother, Melissa Bailey.

However, if this story wasn’t bad enough, the mother’s boyfriend, Glenn Nelson, was also having sex with the baby (Amanda pulled his arrest record, so check out her blog!)


Amanda and I pulled into the Charlotte County Clerk of Court and we were really eager and interested to get the public records of these two criminals. Upon reaching the front desk, we were greeted by a nice lady named Donna. We had told her that we were there to obtain public records. She directed us to some computers that were lined up in the reception area. She asked how old the case was because if it was over a year old we would have to go to the file room. Since it wasn’t, I was able to looked up Melissa Bailey and found her case number (0910-001006).





We then took our case number back to Donna and she said it was going to be $1 per page. My total came out to $4. And in 30 minutes, Amanda and I were in the car reading our public records and we were amazed at was in the report.



In the report, it discussed some details of the sexual abuse. The report was written on October 7th, 2009 by Detective Keith DePersia. There was a search warrant executed for several child pornography images. The Detective found photographs that were taken with the baby and Nelson during the sexual crime. These photos were also uploaded to two computers and saved on flash drives. However, in the end the detectives seized six computers total.



“Melissa Bailey made statements that she and her boyfriend Glenn Nelson had been performing sex acts on her child since she was born until about one month ago. Melissa would put her mouth on the babies vagina and Glenn would put his penis into the baby’s vagina,” according to the report.



The report continues to talk about Glenn Nelson and an interview that he had given.



“During the interview Glenn Nelson advised that he had received the video, photograph and e-mails from Melissa Bailey which depicted Melissa Bailey giving oral sex to the baby and inserting the pacifier into her vagina and rubbing her vagina with her fingers. Glenn also admitted that he saw Melissa Bailey rub the baby’s vagina and stomach after he ejaculated on her,” according to the report.



My overall feeling about this is “OH MY GOD!” And “OH MY GOD!” After reading the arrest report there are more very explicit details but I just can not post them. There were twenty pornographic pictures and six computers that were seized. And the investigation is still on going. And also, I am hoping that the baby has been placed into a good home with family or in a good foster home. My overall opinion on these two sexual offenders can also NOT be posted!