We received the following email from Mr. Hanson regarding our article, State of Florida Does Not Mandate Tablets in Schools and the response we received from the school district.
Mr. Hanson’s email states,
“In the hope that the media will become active in the “other” politics of Hernando County, I did some research and am attaching my letter to Dr. Romano regarding “required”.”
Mr. Hanson’s Letter to Dr. Romano, Hernando County School District Superintendent:
File: Letter from Hamilton R. Hanson to Dr. Lori Romano
Text below:
“Dear Dr. Romano,
It has come to my attention that certain statements/claims have been made by your staff which are unsubstantiatable. Because of my support for your personal efforts in this District, I want no outside/unrelated issue to cloud your efforts. Eric Williams of your staff wrote a response to the HERNANDO SUN some weeks back that “The Hernando County School District emphatically denies ever making any claims that purchasing tablets was required by the Florida Dept. of Education or any other entity of government.”
I refer you and Eric to the video of the Board workshop of May 20, 2014, a segment of which was a discussion of both the tablets and the ½ cent sales tax extension. The word “required” was definitely spoken and referenced by the participants in the discussion of tablets.
I am concerned that Mr. Williams did not take the time to correlate his SUN response to the actual video. I would suggest that his reply to the SUN falls dangerously close to a falsehood.
I bring this to your attention because it is precisely this kind of obfuscation or attempted cover-up by government persons which, as it festers and leads to other issues, can bring down good governance.
I would personally anticipate that a retraction and restatement of the issue and response be forwarded to the SUN as quickly as possible. As a community, we cannot afford to have our school administration involved in any kind of skull-duggery regarding the operations of the District.
Thank you for your consideration in this matter.
Sincerely yours,
Hamilton R. Hanson
Attachments/References:
1. The original request from Julie Maglio of the Hernando Sun for a statement on the issue.
2. Mr. Williams’ reply to the Hernando Sun as he forwarded it to me.
3. The link to the May 20, 2014 Board workshop – the time on the video is 1:23:07 for “requirement”:
http://hernandocountyschool.iqm2.com/Citizens/SplitView.aspx?Mode=Video&MeetingID=1182&Format=Minutes
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Julie Maglio
‘We would like to give the school board the opportunity to comment on the tablet issue. We would be happy to publish an article in the next edition directly from the school board.’
Response from Eric Williams:
‘The Hernando County School District emphatically denies ever making any claims that purchasing tablets was required by the Florida Dept. of Education or any other entity of government. The planned purchase of tablets, as part of the failed one-cent sales surtax voter referendum, was a means to an end in that we proposed to purchase a tablet computer for every student in
the district, including charter school students, as the most cost-effective means to meet state computer-based assessment requirements and the state requirement that we use at least half of our annual instructional materials allocation to purchase digital instructional materials (i.e. e-textbooks) beginning in 2015. The tablets would have helped us meet these two significant,
largely-unfunded state mandates. Computer-based assessments and e-books could be accessed using (for example) laptops instead of tablets, but tablets are currently the most cost-effective means of access to these items and, as such, meetingstate requirements.
I refer you to FSS 1008.22 for state assessment requirements and memos published by the Florida Dept. of Education (i.e.http://info.fldoe.org/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-7126/dps-2014-122.pdf ) regarding the extent of required computer-based testing.
I refer you to FSS 1006.29 regarding state requirements for adopting digital instructional materials.
Again, in the future, the school district hereby respectfully requests the opportunity to offer comment on any stories that either explicitly or implicitly accuse us of any wrongdoing, especially willfully and/or purposefully disseminating false, misleading or otherwise inaccurate information to any of our community stakeholders.
We take great pride in our service to students and to our communities, and we would never attempt to misinform any of our stakeholders as your recent article implies.
Eric C. Williams, Public Information Officer
Hernando County School District
williams_e@hcsb.k12.fl.us
(352) 797-7070 (x452) Desk
(352) 346-7279 Cell’ ”
End of Mr. Hanson’s Letter
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Further information from Hernando Sun:
The Hernando Sun article that is referred to by Mr. Williams is State of Florida Does Not Mandate Tablets in Schools.
The Hernando Sun also published an article relating to the Digital Classroom Plan and statute 1006.40 prior to Eric William’s response: One to One Tablet Initiative v. Hernando’s Digital Classroom Plan
Statute 1006.29 referred to by Mr. Williams appears to require any textbook or instructional material adopted by the state to have a digital component provided by the publisher/manufacturer. Statute 1006.40 sets a requirement for the school district to use at least 50% of an instructional materials allocation from the state towards digital instructional materials in order to receive that allocation.