- April 23, 2024
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Colleen Conklin
AGE: 43
FAMILY: Married for 15 years, two sons
QUIRKY FACT: In college was the Irish Rose of the tri-state area, traveled all over Ireland
BIO: Early in her career, Colleen Conklin was offered a job as a congressional aid and a first-grade teacher in the South Bronx on the same day. She went with teaching. She taught for almost a decade; she spoke out against the union and publicly demanded that they fight for her kids. Worked two jobs, obtained masters in Harlem. Moved back home to Florida to be close to her aging parents. With toddler in backpack and infant in stroller, she won a seat on the Flagler County School Board in 2000. She has chaired statewide committees; ran the Educator Prep Institute and taught at Daytona State; was the COO of a statewide nonprofit and currently owns a small business. She is finishing a doctorate in organizational development and brain-based leadership.
What is your attitude toward high-stakes testing?
High-stakes testing has taken on a whole new meaning. It’s not about diagnosing student strengths and weaknesses anymore, it’s really about politics and in my opinion, that really does not belong in the classroom. So I have a major issue with high-stakes testing; and they call it high-stakes testing because there’s a lot at stake for a kid in the third grade, being transitioned to the next grade, graduation, admittance into any other kinds of classes. We’ve got story after story about kids who have done really well in their coursework but when it comes time to take a standardized test they crash. So what we’re really looking at and saying is that assessments should be used to diagnose strengths and weaknesses. They should be used by educators in the classroom to help students.
Some of the ways I think a school board can do that is trying to level the playing field with some of the state mandates and hopefully that’s where the conversation will now turn. ...
One of the biggest complaints that we hear is that teachers are teaching to the test. ... So I think ... pushing the Legislature and the Florida Department of Education to look at alternative assessment measures is crucial. And I think for us here back home we have to be able to look at how we admit kids into higher placement classes or even remedial classes, and not just allow the cutoff score on an FCAT exam be the gatekeeper. ...
What can be done to reduce the School Board budget?
Over the last few years we’ve cut over $12 million from our budget. This year we were having a party because we only had to cut $1.3 million. So each and every year, we have really looked at scaling our budget back, to the point where, one of the things I’m least proud of is scaling back the time that students are in school, in middle school and high school. So to say we’re at the point where we’re down to the bone; I do believe that we’re down to the bone. There continues to be ways to look at how we save funding in regards to energy usage, in regards to purchasing textbooks, and purchasing materials. But we’ve really worked very hard at trying to hold the classroom harmless and not impact kids. ...
One of our goals should be how do we get that time back into the school day without the additional expense of the $2.4 million? There’s ways to do that possibly through going to trimesters in the high schools, looking at a variety of scheduling opportunities. But we have a districtwide committee. We take constant input, we are doing retirement incentive packages, energy cost saving measures, we’re closing for a week over the summertime to conserve energy and staff, we’ve cut down on administrators’ calendar days, and we continue to look at it all.
What is the biggest challenge facing the School Board in the next four years and how would you handle it?
I think there may be opportunities to partner with other agencies in the realm of mental health. If we have students that are in need of counseling or other social services, we could partner with those agencies, bring them inside our buildings to work with our students, and allow them, if there is the ability to charge back to either the student’s insurance company or Medicaid. We have a number of students now that are on free or reduced lunch; there’s just got to be more creative ways to handle some of the social services that our students are in need of.
Second is going to be the fast pace of changing technology in the classroom. ... We have students now that don’t know a life outside of a technology world. We have educators and teachers that grew up not having access to technology and it is not second nature to them. So there’s a challenge in bringing those two generations together. ... One of the ways, obviously, that the district can handle that right now, along with the support of the community, is the passing of the half penny. That will be absolutely critical to keeping Flagler County the forefront of technology in the classroom. ...
The third challenge is, I think, in general is for public education. ... There is an onslaught of what I believe to be negative and harmful legislation that has been coming from Tallahassee that needs to be balanced with a local perspective.
What is your vision for Flagler County schools in the next four years?
I would really like to see our schools be a leader in 21st-century learning and our classrooms to be the envy of the state and the nation, for our teachers and our students to use methods that are supported in the classroom, such as hands-on, minds-on, service learning, inquiry-based instruction that allows students in schools to be chomping at the bit to get to school every day. ... And in some form or fashion I would like to see us create additional smaller learning communities. ...
But you know, all of that doesn’t really matter if we don’t take steps to recognize, appreciate and nurture the relationship between a student and a teacher. So we have to figure out a way in the next four years to strike a balance between accountability, performance and student achievement.
