School Zone
Points of Pride
Florida Education Commissioner Picks Top DCPS Administrator
A veteran Duval County education leader has been tapped by Florida’s Education Commissioner to become one of five new Regional Executive Directors who are charged with providing focused support that will help districts meet student proficiency goals.
Leila Mousa, who began as a classroom teacher and rose to serve as Assistant to the Superintendent during her 38 years with Duval County Public Schools (DCPS), begins her new role immediately, said Commissioner Eric J. Smith. Mousa will assist education reform efforts in 18 northeast Florida counties including Duval, Clay, Baker, St. Johns and Nassau.
Mousa, a former DCPS principal and regional superintendent, most recently led the district’s EXCELerator program which opens Advancement Placement (AP) classes to all students, then supports them for success in the more rigorous classes. For three years, Mousa had guided this College Board program to increased enrollment and student achievement.
Enrollment in AP courses and successful AP test-taking has soared dramatically in Duval County schools since 2005. In particular, African American and Hispanic AP test-takers are outpacing their peers in Florida and the nation. EXCELerator is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Duval County program is being expanded to become a national model for opening AP opportunities to all students.
“We are sorry to lose Leila but know that school administrators, teachers and students in all of Northeast Florida will soon benefit from her expertise and leadership,” said DCPS Superintendent Ed Pratt-Dannals. “She has been a proven leader in our educational reform, and Commissioner Smith knows the value that she will bring to his new regional office.”
“The establishment of our regional offices will ensure that each school receives the support it needs to be successful,” said Smith. “We’ve pulled together an outstanding team of individuals to lead our targeted reform efforts, and I am confident their expertise will foster improved student academic performance.”
Each regional director will provide guidance and assistance for teams of school improvement facilitators to aid in the development and review of district and school improvement plans, and monitor the implementation of interventions. The state’s top education official said Mousa and the others were selected for their proven management and teamwork abilities in effecting change throughout their careers.
Florida is one of six states selected to participate in the U.S. Department of Education’s differentiated accountability pilot program. This allows Florida to create a tiered approach to address required interventions for schools that do not make “adequate yearly progress” under the federal No Child Left Behind Act for two or more years.
DCPS Hispanic Students Outperform State and Nation on SAT
Duval County Public Schools (DCPS) Hispanic students have outperformed their Hispanic counterparts both state and nationwide on the SAT, according to results recently released by the College Board.
The mean critical reading scores for the district’s Hispanic students is 19 points higher than the state level and 42 points higher nationwide, while the mean writing score is 20 points higher than the state level and 33 points higher nationwide. In mathematics, the district’s score is 24 points higher than the state and 36 points higher than the nation’s mean.
Additionally, the district had an increase in the number of Hispanic students taking the SAT (23.8%) that was higher than both the state (20.7%) and nation (14.8%).
“I am extremely proud of the results on the SAT performance of our Hispanic students,” said Brenda Trimble, DCPS supervisor of English for Speakers of Other Languages. “These results indicate that our efforts in the classroom are paying off and that our Hispanic student population is receiving the necessary preparation to successfully take this important college entrance exam.”
For the past three years, the district’s ESOL department has significantly increased its efforts in providing college-related information to its students and families regarding standardized tests, like the SAT. The district’s ESOL students have also had the opportunity to participate in field trips to FCCJ, and attend college and parent nights where interpreters were on hand to assist them.
The SAT is the nation’s most widely taken standardized college admissions test, and is administered by the College Board. Combined with high school grades, the SAT is also the best predictor of college success.
DCPS' Teachers Selected to Present at National Conference
Two Duval County Public Schools' American Sign Language (ASL) teachers have been selected from a large pool of nationwide applicants to present their work at the American Council on Teaching Foreign Languages/Florida Foreign Language Association's (ACTFL/FFLA) national convention being held November 20-24, in Orlando, Florida.
Craig Leavitt, an ASL teacher at Ed White High School and the 2007 FFLA Most Valuable Teacher and Lesley Silvestris, an ASL teacher at Sandalwood High School who was the Florida American Sign Language Teachers Association's Teacher of the Year in 2007, will present a workshop entitled "Implementing Cross-Discipline Activities and Technology in the ASL Classroom."
The presenters have incorporated reading and writing strategies into activities which they have used in their classes to teach major milestones in the evolution and development of the language, including principal historical events and controversies relating to deaf education and their impact on the language; key aspects of deaf culture including its value as a language; and the use of the language as an art form.
Duval County Public Schools currently employs more than 200 world language instructors.
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