Entry #16: How can the individual student feel
valued in Orlando's immense sprawl?

Orlando, Florida -- Okay, I know what you are thinking, but we didn't come here to do Disney World. In fact, we aren't even going. Epcot, yes, but Disney, no.

A little northwest of Orlando is Oviedo, home of Jackson Heights Middle School, the 1998 state winner for Parent Involvement and a 1999 "A+" school, according to the Florida Department of Education.

My contacts at Search Institute had also clued me in about several that areas around Orlando that are working on building school/community assets. Dr. Phillips, a city to the west (named after a Dr. I guess), is trying to start a Healthy Communities Initiative and is also the location of Southwest Middle School, singled out by the county for parent involvement.

Before going further into school business, let me make some general observations on the area. As with Columbus, the economic contrast in neighborhoods can be very extreme. I can drive (or bike) through one area with houses stacked together bounded by garbage and broken down cars, then come upon a gated development with screened-in swimming pools at every home.

In some cases, this occurs a block or two apart.

The schools are intended to serve all, equally, and with the same expected success. Doesn't often happen that way, though.

An area this immense leaves a person feeling very insignificant. We drove an hour the other day in a straight line seeing nothing but sprawl. Orange County adds thousands of new students each year. How can the average student feel as valued as one in a rural school like Southwest Star in Minnesota, where there are only 36 kids in the whole 7th grade?

If students DO feel valued, it's due to the efforts of individual people who get involved in the lives of individual kids. That leads me to mention the personnel that I have found most essential for encouraging parental involvement. The principal and the receptionist. This week I met excellent examples of both.

Gene Trochinski has only been the head of Southwest for about a year, but parents took note of him from the beginning. As with some other schools I've run across, the district allowed the parents to meet and interview several principal candidates. Gene was the parent's choice, according to PTSA President Beverly Boyer, and he has continued to be very supportive, communicative and available, even at a school of over 1,200. I found that to be true as well, as I made my initial contacts and my first visit to the school. I was not surprised then to be standing outside his office as a parent went through a stack of volunteer applications. Parents are encouraged and appreciated and they volunteer in droves.

Over at Jackson Heights Middle School, I decided to drop by and get a first impression. Even though they were in the midst of registering 17 new kids and the office was busier than McDonalds at noon, I was warmly welcomed by receptionist Terri Lord (see photo). This is often the first person a parent or student comes in contact with at a school, and the receptionist's reaction to visitors has a tremendous impact. I watched as she skillfully answered calls while talking with various parents and students -- all with a great deal of warmth and efficiency. This is a school with over 2,200 students, and Terri even remembered me the next time I came in. That goes along way in reducing those feelings of insignificance.

My task now is to find out more about the Parents Helping Parents program and Families Networking Together. I want to see what all of the volunteers are doing and become one myself. I need to meet some of the other folks who have made these two middle schools exceptions-to-the-rule in this part of central Florida. If the state keeps growing like this, it will take many more "Gene's" and "Terri's" to get these kids through the middle school passage.


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Jackson Heights Middle School receptionist Terri Lord