Clip File Review

During our first clip file collection the overwhelming amount of news, from the local government perspective, came from the Hillsborough County Public Schools. The hot topic was the busing situation and what Superintendent MaryEllen Elia was going to do to help correct the issues at hand. It seemed the main issue stemmed from the lack of communication to parents and principals about the changes in bus routes, bus stops and some busing availability all together. It was stated in several articles that about 90,000 students ride buses in Hillsborough County and only 1 percent called in with a complaint. This seemed to be the stance that Elia was taking then the press got a hold of the story and the apologies were fast and furious. In addition to the busing issue there were also articles about the Mealpay Plus program, which helps kids pay for their meals at school. The system went down and all this was going on at the same time as the busing situation so this did not get nearly the attention it would have received. All the children were fed and it was just a temporary issue but none the less another black-eye for the Hillsborough County School Board.

The second clip file was not much different in the fact that most of the articles on government related topics were about the school board. There was yet another article with Elia talking about how no single plan will fix all the problems and it is going to take a lot of effort and time to fix the wrongs that have been done. Another article about the schools was talking about how there is a plan in place to give kids a short day each month. This short day each month would consist of the children getting out of school two hours early and would allow the teachers more time to lay out there lessons plans for the coming weeks. Lastly there was also an article about a teacher’s aide being accused of soliciting sex which lead to an arrest and jail time at the Orient Road Jail.

In our third and final clip file of the semester there was not a lot of local news going on as most of the media was squarely focus on the election. That being said there was a follow up article on the proposal to release students early once a month. This article actually had the dates of the early releases and talked about what steps still needed to be taken to complete this change. During this same timeframe the school board named two new principals, Gloria Waite at Mabry Elementary and Lynn Roberts at USF/Patel Partnership Elementary.

In closing this was a rough time for the school board, from the busing issues all the way down to how those questions were answered. These issues will eventually clear up but this will leave a scar for quite awhile, that could raise it head at anytime.