Tour of the Student Museum

     I went to tour The Student Museum on March 8, 2011. I had no idea of what to really expect seeing that I had never been to this museum before. I pretty much thought that I was just going to be another boring museum but it turns out that wasn’t the case at all.  From the outside you can’t really tell that the building is extremely old because people donate money to keep the grounds around the building nice and the building nice as well. This particular building is one of the few surviving examples in Florida of old century school architecture. Although this building may not look old from a distance it truly is. As you get closer to the building you can see that this particular building has endured years of weathering and tear but behind all of t he weathering and tear there lies a story

     This particular land mark in beautiful Lake Mary Florida used to be a school.  IT was built in 1902 and originally started out as Sanford High School, and after that it became Sanford Grammar in 1911. In the year 1984 the school also became a museum, teaching Florida's grand history to fourth-graders and welcoming other visitors as an interpretive center and hands-on teaching museum. This beautiful museum is the oldest school building in continuous use in Seminole County school district and is the fourth oldest school in continuous use in the state of Florida. The museum today is supported by Seminole County Public Schools as an interpretive center and teaching museum.

     Inside the facility you will find many interesting rooms such as: The Geography Lab,The Georgetown exhibit, The Pioneer room and the Turn of the Century Classroom. Those were just some of my favorite rooms that I visited. The geography room contains globes and maps of Florida and other historical artifacts. The George Town exhibit otherwise known as “History of a black neighborhood” which was one of my favorite exhibits contains photographs and items used by residents of the historic Sanford community. I found this particular room to be very interesting because of everything that was in it. I felt as though this particular room was very rich in history and in culture and I enjoyed looking at all of the pictures and reading all of the information.  Another room that was in this building was the pioneer room. This particular room is pretty much dominated by a large log cabin. The cabin was built to show people what a log cabin would look like during the colonial times in Florida. Another room that I found very interesting was the turn of the century classroom. This room was set up as if you were in a classroom during 1902. The woodwork and slate boards are original and the room contains a 45 star flag; a photograph of Theodore Roosevelt, President in 1902; and the McGuffey's Eclectic Readers. This was another one of my favorite rooms because, I thought it was very cool to see what a classroom looked like during the 1900’s.

      Overall this was a very good experience and I will probably go back and tour the facility again because I’m sure I missed something. I really enjoyed touring the facility and learning about all of the historical aspects of the building that encases the museum. I really learned a lot on this trip and to be honest I didn’t think I would. I went to this museum thinking it’s  just another museum and that  it probably doesn’t have anything different than any other museum  but as I said before after touring it I found that wasn’t true at all.

Orange County School Board Meeting

     I attended an Orange County school board meeting on March 22, 2011. The meeting lasted about 2 hours and the school board went over a lot of information. All of the board members except Mrs. Gordon were present at the meeting, however even though she was not physically at the meeting the board was able to contact her on the phone so she could still be a Part of this meeting.  To start the meeting off the president of the board took role to ensure that everyone was there and then there was moment of silence. Next the president of the board ( Mr.Bill Sublette) recognized  the Orange County Sunshine Sate Scholar  whose name was Andrew who is a senior from Dr. Phillips high school. Andrew was recognized for being an outstanding student, and for all of his achievements that he has accomplished during his years in high school. The next item on the agenda that the board went over was that they recognized all media personal in Orange County and declared that the month of April Media personal month, meaning that all media personal in Orange County be recognized.
     One of the very last items on the agenda was a discussion about charter schools. A few members of the board stated that charter schools started off in a good place but now they are not.  There is a bill being published in Tallahassee that some of the board members are opposed to. This particular bill that is being passed sates is basically saying that if the charter schools fail to reconstruction themselves and fall apart after this reconstruction again the Orange County School Board will be the ones in charge of rebuilding the system. This was a very controversial topic at this meeting and all of the board members has something to say about this topic and it was the exact same thing that  “they do not want to be the ones in charge of the charter schools, their only place on those schools is to make decisions not to run the schools.” The school board came to an unanimous decision the goal of this bill should be that the states should run the charter schools not the OCPS school board. After they discussed this issue the board made a motion to  bring their opinions and thoughts to Tallahassee and let the governor hear what they had to say and to have the bill re written.
     From observing this school board meeting I learned that the school board for Orange County deals with a lot of different issues that are all of equal importance. I had no idea what to expect when going into this meeting other than from what I was told, which was the meeting would be long and boring. Although the meeting lasted about 2hours which seemed like an eternity it was not boring at all. I found the school board meeting to be very interesting learning experience and it is something that I would attend again. I enjoyed this meeting because after it was over I had a sense of what was going on in Orange County schooling system.