Watch Obama Speech To Students Online Here
September 8, 2009
President Barack Obama addressed students across the nation live Monday morning.
In Escambia and Santa Rosa counties, very few students watched the speech because both districts elected to not show the speech live.
The speech is in two parts below.
If you do not see videos above, it is because your employer, school or firewall is blocking external videos.
Property Tax Increase Could Be On The Way
September 8, 2009
A week from today, the Escambia County School Board is looking at a millage rate increase that would be the second highest in Florida.
The school board is looking at a millage rate of 7.86, an increase of 0.14. That means a 14 cent increase per $1,000 taxable value — $14 on a $100,000 home.
The millage rate increase will generate an extra $2.1 million toward a $595,778,138.30 budget for fiscal year 2009-2010 for the county’s school system. The board has until September 15 to finalize the budget and can make adjustments until that time.
The board has acknowledged that with declining property values, most people will actually see a decrease in their school taxes even if the millage rate were increased. In fact, the district expects the higher millage will generate $1.5 million less than the lower millage rate on higher property values last year. But those that have seen increase in their property values will face a higher tax burden.
An unofficial vote on the proposal was taken July 30, with board member Jeff Bergosh voting against the increase.
“With historic levels of unemployment, business failures, home foreclosures, personal bankruptcies, and general overall economic malaise in the local area, I just feel strongly that we should do everything in our power to keep the tax rate steady for our struggling local taxpayers,” Bergosh wrote on his blog Monday. “If the value of the tax roll shrinks, then the taxpayers ought to be able to see a corresponding reduction in the tax bill.”
The Escambia County School Board will hold their final vote on the tax increase on September 15.
Hundreds Take Part In Event To Benefit Molino Cancer Patient
September 8, 2009
Dozens of motorcyclists took part in a 75-mile Labor Day ride from Atmore Monday.
The ride was to benefit cancer patient Sonja Luker of Molino. Organizers said 48 bikers took part in the event, which also featured live music and several family-fun activities.
For a complete photo gallery, click here.
Pictured top: Chris and Sonja Luker at a benefit motorcycle ride Monday morning at the Alabama Wing House in Atmore. Pictured inset and below: Dozen of bikers took part in the benefit ride for Sonja Luker. NorthEscambia.com photoss, click to enlarge.
Northview Football: Watch Video, Listen To Game, See All The Photos
September 8, 2009
NorthEscambia.com is the official media of Northview High School football, and we had complete coverage over the long holiday weekend.
- To listen to the entire game, click here.
- To watch high definition video highlights, click here.
- For complete game coverage, click here.
- For a photo gallery from Friday night, click here.
Read Obama’s Speech To Students
September 7, 2009
Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama
Back to School Event
Arlington, Virginia
September 8, 2009
The President: Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today.
I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.
I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning. Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, “This is no picnic for me either, buster.”
So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year.
Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.
I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn. I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.
I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.
But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.
And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.
Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.
Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.
And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.
And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.
You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.
We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.
Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.
I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in.
So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.
But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.
Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.
But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.
Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future. That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.
Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.
I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours – to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall.
And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.
Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.
That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book.
Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn.
And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.
Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.
I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work — that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.
But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.
That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, “I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.
No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.
And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.
The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.
It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.
So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country? Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too.
So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.
Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.
Did Your Child Hear Obama’s Message In School?
September 7, 2009
When President Obama addressed the nation’s schoolchildren Tuesday, most students in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties were not listening — at least not yet.
Obama’s back to school address encouraged students to study hard and do their best in school. The U.S. Department of Education released teacher lesson plans to go along with the speech. That lesson plan originally called for students to write a paper about how they can “help the president”, but that part was removed after considerable public outcry — especially from Republicans — that the White House was trying to indoctrinate students into supporting his policies.
“It will not been shown in real time,” Escambia County Superintendent Malcolm Thomas said of the speech. “Teachers can view it and determine if they want to use it later as part of their curriculum.”
The biggest reason the president’s speech was not viewed live in Escambia Schools, Thomas said, was not politics but logistics and timing. Streaming the live video to all the county’s schools over the Internet at the same time would have been a technical problem. At at 11 a.m Tuesday when the speech aired, thousands of students in the county were at lunch or in classes like P.E. and math where the speech was not a relevant part of the curriculum.
“We are not going to let this external event come in and interrupt our schools,” he said.
School district officials in Santa Rosa County have cited the same reasons for not showing the speech live.
“I don’t think the president ever intended that we stop everything we are doing to show it,” Thomas said. “But teachers can decide to use it as a resource depending on student age and abilities and the content of the speech.”
“The content of the speech is not time sensitive,” he said, “so does it really matter if we show it live or at a later date?”
Some parents threatened to keep their children home from school Tuesday so they will not see the speech, a step that Thomas said was not necessary. In fact, parents that do not want their children to see the speech at a future date can send a note to school, he said. “Parents can express their concerns to their child’s principal or teachers.”
Click here for the Department of Education’s K-6 lesson plan, and click here for the 7-12 grade lesson plan. Click here to read the entire speech.
To view the entire speech, click here.
Read Emails To Superintendent About Obama Speech
September 7, 2009
President Barack Obama’s planned speech to American schoolchildren has generated numerous phone calls and emails to Escambia County School Superintendent Malcolm Thomas and school board members. Excerpts of some of those emails are below, released under Florida’s public records laws:
- “I am very disheartened to learn that President Obama’s address will not be shown in our public schools. Whether one agrees politically with President Obama or not he is still the democratically elected President of the United States of America. Both Presidents Bush addressed school children and I am sure that their addresses were watched by our school children. I am embarrassed by the districts partisan views and lack of respect for the office of the Presidency. I voted for you, Mr. Thomas, I will not make that mistake again.”
- “It is my opinion that I should have sole discretion as to whether my children hear this closed circuit speech from President Obama. I did not vote for him and am leery of anything he may say…. If parents are NOT given the choice, I feel this is an infringement upon my rights and my children’s rights.”
- “We are concerned that his speech is going to be geared more toward his political agenda rather than a “Pep Talk” to encourage our children. We are very involved in our children’s education and do not feel that it is his place to dictate what our children listen to or study when it is mainly for his benefit.”
- “I am a registered Republican, and as such, certainly don’t agree with most of what passes as leadership from the current administration, but we should respect the office of the Presidency. The example that you are setting for the children is short sighted. I’m beginning to think we are in a district where students struggle because the leadership is less than adequate. To think that a 20 minute speech would take away from my children’s education is absurd. You are a little too full of yourself!”
- “Many children greatly admire President Obama and hearing him speak directly to them could literally change the course of their lives.”
- “The disrespect that the supperintendent is showing you is terrible. Do you have the title, but not the power? If a 20 minute speech is going to derail the school year, we need to pull the plug on public education in Escambia County.”
- “I would like to be notified by my child’s education system of any political brainwashing … I would like to know what Mr. Obama will deliver prior to allowing the message to be broadcast to my children.”
Paul Fetsko, associate superintendent for curriculum, sent the following email to all principals in the county:
Principals, we have had a number of telephone calls regarding the forthcoming television address scheduled for September 8th by President Obama. Specifically asking if we are going to cancel instructional activities to require viewing by our students. The answer is no. The districts’ recommendation to you is to permit the viewing by students who are in classes that have a direct academic connection to this event such as Civics, American Government, possibly SGA. Please remember that teachers must submit the media form to you prior the airing of this event. That form is available from media services and it documents the link between the program and the class objective(s). If teachers are unable to do this in advance the IT department will record the program so teachers may preview the content to determine if there are instructional ties to classroom objectives. Then teachers can play the program in it’s entirety or segments which correlate to the topic for that class. Again, you should not interrupt the instructional momentum at your site to view the speech if it is not directly aligned with the instructional calendars currently in place at your school. If you should have questions please contact this office or your level director for clarification.
Paul Fetsko
Comments on this article are closed. All comments about Obama’s speech should be made on the story here.
School Board Member’s Response To Obama Speech
September 7, 2009
Escambia County School Board member Jeff Bergosh, has released the following response about President Barack Obama’s Tuesday speech to American’s public schools:
I do not speak for the superintendent, but since you sent this email to me I’ll respond as the constitutionally elected Board Member that I am.
I did not know about this event until Late Tuesday, and since then events have unfolded quickly. After I researched the plan for the speech Wednesday, I put an entry on my Blog about the event–as it is unprecedented, unique, and historic.
As I began to read the associated study materials on the Dept. of Education Website, I began to feel uneasy with it. Not only as a school board member–but as a parent of an elementary, middle, and high schooler in this district. What is the point of asking my 4th grade son to “write a letter to himself explaining how he can support Barack Obama”?? Seemed a little bit odd. I respect Barack Obama, I respect his office, and he is exceptionally articulate and intelligent. That said, I do not agree with many of his policies. His office is not releasing the speech in advance, and as a parent I ought to have the option of filtering what is fed to my fourth grader by a politician.
So yesterday I called Paul Fetsko, Superintendent of Curriculum, at 8AM, to express my concern and suggest that district Parents be able to, without penalty, “opt out” of the event if they so chose. Mr. Fetsko said to me that only certain classes would be watching the speech, and only if the particular course was directly alligned (curriculum wise) with what the President was going to be talking about. I subsequently attempted to arrange a special board meeting to address the issue, but as one board member and not the chairman I was advised by the board attorney that I could not call for a special meeting on my own.
I spoke to the Superintendent about this issue and he repeated what Mr. Fetsko had stated–that viewing would be very limited and that teachers that do show this to their classes will have to justify this to their site principals.
When I suggested to the superintendent that we send home permission slips and/or allow parents to send notes in with their children requesting that their children not watch the speech–that idea was met with resistance. When I suggested that we announce that no schools in the district would be showing the event live–rather the district would tape it and review for later use (with parent permission), that idea also met with resistance by the superintendent. So instead, we are giving nebulous guidance to our community about precisely the policy is–and frankly I’m disappointed by that.
The bottom line as I see it is that for the most part the district will not be showing this speech live, but that some teachers will have the lattitude to show the video. I’m certain that this video will be airing live in some schools, probably in more schools than district administrators realize, because it is an historic event.
But, on this particular issue, I believe that as a district we have done a poor job of clearly communicating exactly what the policy will be. I have fielded numerous calls and emails from parents, and I am trying to convey to them that the video would not be shown to a vast majority of students, but I cannot say that with 100 percent certainty based upon what I’ve heard the last 24 hours.
For this event, in my opinion, we should have put the parents more “in the loop” and let them decide— but we’re not doing that.
Thanks for the email.
Sincerely,
Jeff Bergosh
Comments on this article are closed. All comments about Obama’s speech should be made on the story here.
23,000 In The Area Out Of Work
September 7, 2009
On Labor Day, the latest unemployment data showed that 23,069 people are out of work in our three county area.
In Escambia County (Fla.), the latest employment data for July shows 9.9 percent of the workforce unemployed, a slight decrease from the month before at 10.0 percent. That translates to 14,056 unemployed in the county.
In Santa Rosa County, county, the unemployment rate was at 10 percent, up from 9.7 percent the month prior. That equals 7,077 unemployed persons.
In Escambia County (Ala.), 13.1 percent of workers were out of a job, up from 12.7 the month before. There were 1,936 unemployed in the county.
Back On The Chopping Block: Century Courthouse Slated For Closure Again
September 6, 2009
The Century Courthouse is back on the chopping block due to low utilization, with the clerk of the courts office set to be closed by the end of this month unless the funds are found to keep it open
Escambia County Clerk of the Courts Ernie Lee Magaha needs $65,000 to keep the office open. At best, Magaha’s office has told commissioners, the office conducts an average of one transaction per hour, in Century.
The commission expects an estimated $450,000 to be generated by increasing a surcharge on traffic tickets from $15 to $30. District 5 Commissioner Kevin White wants to see some of that money go toward keeping Century’s Billy G. Ward Courthouse open.
“I want part of that money to keep the Century Courthouse open, because under state statute, that money can be used for that,” White said, pointing out that the increased fines would be new revenue, not dipping into the county’s reserve funds.
“I understand that, and I agree with you on that,” Commissioner Wilson Robertson said.
But county finance officials say the $450,000 is already spoken for, and already written into the current proposed budget. They say keeping the courthouse open would mean cutting funds from some other department.
Commissioner Grover Robinson said he is opposed to keeping the office open due to the low transaction volume.
“It seems like an awful expensive thing to do,” Robinson said. “I understand and absolutely empathize with what is happening in the north end.”
Robinson said he believes the answer in North Escambia lies in the renovation of the old Molino School and the placement of county offices in Molino.
“People think that Molino is the north end of the county; you’ve got to go a long ways to get on to the other end of the county,” Robertson said, citing a high number of people in Century without transportation. “You are talking about a lot of people up there that absolutely have no transportation.”
“I believe that the Molino location will be the right location when we can have this, and we can have a better economy of scale and have people in a newer facility,” he said. “I do want to support that…I just don’t know that I can support the Century Courthouse.”
“It’s in Century where it is located now, right?” Commissioner Marie Young asked. “How far is Molino from Century?”
“Twenty-one miles,” White replied.
“You are not really serving Century in Cantonment,” Robertson added. “Have you stopped to think about what services that end of the county receives?
Escambia County Tax Collector Janet Holley pulled her office out of Century back at the end of May to save an estimated $200,000. She cited low utilization as her reason, and she consolidated the Century office with her office in Cantonment.
The clerk of the courts currently keeps two employees in the office in Century at all times, according to Deputy Clerk Lisa Bernau. One is a full time person and one is a part time Northview High School student.
“There is a security issue,” she said. “It is imperative for public service that you have more than one person available for safety reasons that probably are best not to do into in a public meeting.”
“One transaction per hour, I’m wondering how we can afford to keep that open,” Robinson said. “You are really offering absolutely nothing to that very end of the county. And I know a lot of taxes don’t come from there…I guarantee you if it’s all about who pays, there are a lot of these things be eliminating.”
White suggested that perhaps the clerk of the courts could keep the office open just a few hours per day a few days per week.
But Bernau said changing a courthouse hours requires Florida Supreme Court involvement.
The commission will revisit the courthouse closure at a public hearing at 7 p.m. on September 17.