Meet the teacher day...(& comment on Fl. public schools)

[ez]

was today, I am pleased because my daughter, who is going into 4th grade, has the same teacher my son had 10 years ago. She adored my son and is thrilled that my daughter is in her class. My husband took her there cause I was working, the teacher couldn't remember what I looked like and asked for a description, and according to my daughter, my DH said, well, she has a big mouth!!!Nice, huh!!!
I often hear people bad mouth Florida public schools. I have to say in my experience, the schools have been excellent, I feel my kids have gotten a better education down here than I got attending parochial school on Long Island. They have always scored in the 99th percentile on their fcat exams, and my 19 year old son is a whiz in just about every subject, he got to skip most of his freshman year of college, and got an academic scholarship. So, to those of you who would like to move to Florida, but are afraid of the schools, I would say do some research, there are good schools down here, and quite a few of Floridas high schools are among the countries top 100(my sons was)

 

[Princess_Aurora]

I had never heard that Florida had bad schools. But it's nice to know that there are good schools there just in case I can ever talk DH into moving there one day.

My DD has meet the teacher night tomorrow. Tuesday will be her first day of kindigarten. She's very excited about it

 

[suzannews]

My DD started 3rd grade today. Nice, brand new elementary school. The only problem is its 18 miles away. Before we moved, we could walk to school if we had to. There is a bus but I am not thrilled about her on the bus over 30 minutes each way. Another new school is in the talks closer that will open with next school year. Other than that, I have not had any problems with Florida schools.

 

[BibbidiBobbidiBOO]

We are thrilled with our children's elementary and middle schools here in FL. And the high school we are zoned for "was" in the top 10 in the country a couple years back. DD's elementary school here is much better than the private and public elementary school DS went to in another state a few years back. I have nothing but good things to say about our experiences here. We don't have orientation for another week though.

 

[Poohbear123]

You guys must NOT live in MIAMI! Some of the schools here are HORRIBLE!

 

[allshookup]

I am thrilled to read this thread because DH and I are planning on moving to the Sarasota area within the next 3 years and everyone always says to me "ya know your children won't get the education they can get here". Well I always assume these people know something I don't. Personally I think the education a child receives has a lot to do with parental involvement and how much a child applies him/herself and is not the sole responsibility of the teachers.

That being said, I do want to know how the schools my children may be attending compare to other Florida schools. I've looked up the FCAT scores and tried to find a comparison between the schools but I couldn't figure it out. I've seen how many graduated and go on to college and all that, but that means nothing to me. Here we have MCAS scores and you can go to the MCAS website and find the school that did number one all the way down to the school that did the worst in the state. Is there something like that on the FCAT site that I missed?

 

[RitaZ.]

allshookup, check out this web site. I'm not sure it's what you are looking for, but it's worth a look.

http://info.doe.state.fl.us/fsir/

 

[allshookup]

Originally posted by RitaZ.
allshookup, check out this web site. I'm not sure it's what you are looking for, but it's worth a look.

http://info.doe.state.fl.us/fsir/

I don't know either it looks very confusing but I bookmarked the site and I will check it out when I am more awake. Thanks for the link!

 

[JimB.]

Here in St. John's County, we have been quite pleased with the quality of education our kids have & are getting.

It's not all roses, because we honestly believe that their Middle School Principal S-U-C-K-S!!!!!

But the quality of their teachers has ranged from excellent to outstanding (with only a couple of "goods" tossed in).

Unfortunately, Duval County (Jacksonville, just north) can't say the same. They continue to struggle.