Journal Entries

Today, it felt like summer as I walked from Haines City on Route 27 west towards Winter Haven. It felt fantastic to be back in my hometown area, Imperial Polk County! During this leg of my trip, I spent some time with a photographer from the Winter Haven News Chief and then made good time walking past orange groves and many of the beautiful lakes this part of Central Florida has become known for. After six and a half miles of highway, we grabbed some lunch and headed for a TV show taping in Tampa. Arriving back in Tallahassee after midnight, I realized it had been another long but great day on the road.

A beautiful central Florida day started with a Channel 13 TV interview and then a five mile walk through Winter Park south of downtown Orlando. After the walk, we received a warm welcome from United Way, The Orange County Healthy Start Coalition and Jewish Family Services, not to mention the kids we interacted with at Orlando Day Nursery. I couldn't have asked for a better start to the day.

After visiting Orlando Day Nursery, 50 kids joined me in a jaunt around Lake Dot. As we walked, several advocates and media professionals accompanied us.

Some of the advocates we spent time with, people like Linda Sutherland, Karen Broussard and Dick Batchelor, helped me to better understand this part of Florida as regards children's service groups. In particular, I learned that Orlando and the surrounding area is the largest part of Florida without a dedicated funding source for children.

Our time on the road this past week was significant for me in many ways. We started in Deland, at the Florida Museum of Art. Jennifer Coolidge, the Executive Director, assembled a strong group of community leaders to show the Worst To First team what a powerful educational and cultural asset the museum has become, a true statewide treasure. As I listened to the group, I came to a deeper conviction about the FCAT and what I believe to be the devastating impact the “FCAT is all” approach is having on our children, in terms of critical thinking and problem solving. The arts, physical education, history and civics have all virtually been forsaken in the stampede for memorization. Though accountability must live on as one aspect of an evaluation process, I believe it is time for the FCAT to go away.

Sometimes you get surprised. My surprise came yesterday in the form of Marions United, a progressive movement for educational change. In a fairly conservative county like Marion County, I was astonished to find a coalition of concerned teachers, parents, students and others fighting for a stronger, more effective public education system. This group, now boasting 1,000 members, organized a three mile walk for us in west Ocala with the help of Progress Florida’s Ray Seamen. Many folks joined us in our march for awareness about the true state of education in Florida.

Since starting this statewide walk, we have gotten a bit leery of crowd predictions. Today, however, was a gigantic exception! We had 1600 high school students walking with us, all who attended a rally staged for Worst to First! There was a color guard, a marching band, the whole works, and we have the Principal, Pat Reedy, the School Counselor, Beverly Ledbetter, and several high school leaders to thank for delivering such a great crowd.

We had a great wintery day in the Suwannee Valley. Our visit was highlighted by a stop over at The Happy House, a preschool for kids aged 0-9. The director, Sheryll Walker, is a great Floridian. She loves children, and she understands that you only get so many chances to get it right with kids. That the early years are so very critical, and kids must have a safe, nurturing, and loving environment to prosper.

We left Tallahassee at six a.m. bound for Daytona, home of NASCAR and made famous by its beaches. I must say, our first stop of the day, The Chiles Academy, was one of the most inspiring visits we’ve had during our walk across Florida.

Friday morning begins early. We wake up and drive back to Gainesville. Our day officially starts with a 7-mile walk from Santa Fe College to The University of Florida campus. As we walked, we were joined by UF and Santa Fe sutdents as well as dignitaries like Mayor Hanrahan, Alachua County Superintendent of Schools, the Chair of Early Learning Coalition, the Head of the Teachers Union and a host of others. When we arrived on the UF campus, a rally was staged at Reitz Union and many Worst To First pledges were signed.

After the rally, the team toured a day care center called Little Bees and another called Small World Day Care. The time we spent at these facilities was great; it's always great when children are involved. At the end of the day, Karen Bricklemyer, President of United Way of North Central Florida, organized a dinner with community leaders sponsored by Mr. James Stringfellow, a local Gainesville businessman. There were many great children's advocates attending this dinner, including Dave Lawrence, and a great discussion was had by all about children's issues and community unification. Afterward, I jumped in the Worst To First RV and headed back home to Tallahassee and a comfortable bed-- another 20 hour day on the road but well worth every minute of it!

Gainesville is like a tale of two cities; highly educated and prosperous on one hand but resource poor and uneducated on the other. To close this socio-economic gap, the United Way of North Central Florida, led by President Karen Bricklemyer, has pulled together an impressive group of business, community and even political leaders, to come up with solutions to some of the complex childrens issues that exist there. One way the United Way does this is by creating groups like their Education Community Solutions team. This particular group is an impresive cross seciton of community leaders trying to understand factors behind the dismal graduation rate plaguing Eastside High and allowing some students to leave school without a diploma.

Jackson County Sheriff Louis Roberts, Jackson County Commissioner Jeremy Branch and other community leaders joined us for a walk through historic Marianna from the County Courthouse to F.M. Golson Elementary School, a pre-kindergarten through second grade school with 850 students. During my visit there, I was warmly greeted by Mrs. Mitchell's first grade class, all budding authors who worked together to create a walking book for me. This book, rich with colorful illustrations and packed full of walking advice; drink water, eat snacks, wear sunscreen and good shoes, and make sure to rest, was moving to read and highlights the why of this walk; Florida's kids! Another moving experience was the presentation of a gift basket from this same class full of walking supplies like socks and snacks, etc.