{"id":397,"date":"2008-01-18T06:29:26","date_gmt":"2008-01-18T11:29:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=397"},"modified":"2008-08-05T20:56:41","modified_gmt":"2008-08-06T00:56:41","slug":"report-from-the-field-clay-county-school-board-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=397","title":{"rendered":"Report from the field: Clay County school board meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

A report on the science standards discussion in Clay County comes to us from dc in the comments in this earlier post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

——————————-<\/p>\n

The Clay County School Board just approved a modified form of the resolution by a vote of 5-0. 22 of the 27 speakers at the meeting opposed the resolution and they covered pretty much all the bases. Some were quite eloquent, including several retired pastors and two of my former students. The five supporters said nothing we hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t heard before although the word dogma and its variants showed up a lot when referring to Darwinism. Two (Including a teacher at my own school. Sigh.) emphasized teaching all the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153facts\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and letting students decide. I was surprised that the local churches didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t try to pack the meeting room until someone pointed out that this didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t start to get publicity until after last Sunday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s services.<\/p>\n

The resolution that passed had two, maybe three significant wording changes made. In paragraph two, the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fact\u00e2\u20ac\u009d at the end of the last line was changed to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153theory.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The new line reads, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153…direct the Florida Department of Education to revise the new Sunshine State Standards for Science so that evolution is clarified as a theory.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The last paragraph was also modified so that the last phrase reads, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153…revise the new Sunshine State Standards for Science such that evolution is designated as a theory.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I think they also voted to change the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153concept\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in the standard to theory (nobody on the board was too sure of what the difference was, the lawyer for the board wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t say anything without first looking it up in a dictionary, and nobody wanted to ask the two actual standards writers in the audience what the difference might mean.) It was all reminiscent of Bacon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tale of the monks trying to figure out how many teeth a horse has with none of them willing to just look in its mouth and count. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m pretty sure they made the change. One of the board members said we wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have spent two hours discussing the resolution if evolution was a fact.<\/p>\n

I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t surprised that the resolution passed but I was dumbfounded when a board member asked about the origins of the resolution, who wrote it and who brought it to the board, and our superintendent, David Owens said he was responsible for, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153all of the above.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He said later that he worked with Paula Barton, Superintendent of Schools for Baker County, to write and distribute it. A couple of us are working to get a copy of the recording of the meeting (video and audio). Earlier in the meeting Owens said that everybody in the room was obviously passionate about their ideas and beliefs. He asked how many concepts in science changed over the years when the information changed? How did we know evolution wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do likewise. We shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be so dogmatic about this. We should pass this resolution because it reflects our beliefs. Beliefs equals experimental data. No wonder we have such low science scores down here.<\/p>\n

The attorney for the board said that the resolution came as close as possible to violating the Kitzmiller decision without actually crossing the line. The board members were, I think, voting on this as a CYA thing and at least three of them said it wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make a difference with the state BOE anyway. Maybe if we start good science education now we can have more scientifically literate adults in the future.<\/p>\n

———————–<\/p>\n

Thank you for that report, dc.<\/p>\n

Here’s a television brief on the meeting<\/a>. It’s obvious that whoever put the brief together had no idea what was going on. No idea at all!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A report on the science standards discussion in Clay County comes to us from dc in the comments in this earlier post. ——————————- The Clay County School Board just approved a modified form of the resolution by a vote of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-6p","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3184,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3184","url_meta":{"origin":397,"position":0},"title":"Clay County superintendent: “In no way, shape or form do our textbooks or will our textbooks ever reflect evolution as a fact …”","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 3, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"This year school districts across Florida are adopting new science textbooks. In many of those districts the process is pretty far along, with committees already having looked at the options and made their selections. Then the materials are offered to the public for viewing and comments. For instance, I know\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Textbooks"","block_context":{"text":"Textbooks","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=26"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":399,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=399","url_meta":{"origin":397,"position":1},"title":"Article on Clay County meeting","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 19, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's an article in the My Clay Sun section of the Times-Union about the Clay County anti-evolution resolution approval. The board members clearly made themselves out to be clueless about science, and they didn't seem to care if everyone knew it. Additionally, they whine about the resolution not really having\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the News"","block_context":{"text":"In the News","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":381,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=381","url_meta":{"origin":397,"position":2},"title":"Two more resolutions","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 11, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"[this post updated with a third county for a total of six so far] I've been doing a methodical search of school district websites for any information that might reveal more school boards issuing anti-evolution resolutions like Taylor, Baker and Holmes did. (Previous post about: possibility of 12 total counties\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alert"","block_context":{"text":"Alert","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=6"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1000,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1000","url_meta":{"origin":397,"position":3},"title":"Florida\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Greatest Menace VII: Causing the Nation to Fall!","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"April 14, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"(This is the seventh part in the Florida\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Greatest Menace series. For an introduction to the series, go here.) \u00c2\u00a0Non-scientific theories The April 22, 1980 meeting of the Hillsborough County school board was a marathon one. The meetings the previous December paled in comparison to the flood of people wanting\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1000#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":392,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=392","url_meta":{"origin":397,"position":4},"title":"Oppose the anti-evolution resolution","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 16, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"All those who can make it, please show up for the Clay County school board meeting. The board will be considering a resolution against evolution in the state science standards. [Previous post with copy of resolution here.] WHERE:\u00c2\u00a0 Fleming Island High School Teacher Inservice Center, 2233 Village Parkway (connected to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Our Science Standards"","block_context":{"text":"Our Science Standards","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":479,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=479","url_meta":{"origin":397,"position":5},"title":"Florida won!","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 19, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Florida won! Science education won! Teachers, students, Florida\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s future economy, etc. all won! No, it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a clean victory, but it was a victory nonetheless. On a vote of 4 to 3 the new state science standards passed, with modifications. Those modifications include the insertion of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153scientific theory of\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Our Science Standards"","block_context":{"text":"Our Science Standards","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}