Meet Scruffy!
Serving Pasco since 1981/Serving Lutz since 1964
By B.C. Manion
The Pasco County School Board wants more information before they decide on superintendent Kurt Browning’s proposal to eliminate school media specialists and literacy coaches.
Browning’s package of proposed budget cuts calls for eliminating 56.5 media specialist positions and 33 literacy coaches in district elementary, middle and high schools to save more than $4.8 million.
But at an April 16 budget workshop, school board members made it clear that they want to discuss the issue in greater detail.
During its board meeting that night, members voted to discuss the issue on May 7 when Browning is expected to provide more detailed information about positions that would be assigned to serve more than one school.
The media specialists and literacy coaches are included in the 260.5 positions Browning has proposed to eliminate to help plug a $19 million budget hole.
School board member Joanne Hurley told Browning she’s not comfortable with his proposal regarding the media specialists and literacy coaches.
As the district faces tougher academic standards, it’s important to provide school-based support, Hurley said, in an interview after the workshop.
“They’re taking away two very valuable resources,” Hurley said. “Those people do have direct contact with students.”
Board member Alison Crumbley wants to hear more details of Browning’s planned approach.
“I want to know what the specific plan is and how it relates to the students and student success,” she said, after the workshop. She wants to know “what the exact impact will be on our students.”
Board chairwoman Cynthia Armstrong also wants more details.
“I’m looking forward to hearing the proposal that the superintendent’s office is going to bring to us,” she said in an interview after the workshop.
Board member Steve Luikart has a plan of his own. In an interview after the workshop, he said he’d like to see a slower transition than the one Browning has proposed.
At the workshop, Browning reminded board members that any reduction in his proposed cuts would require finding equivalent cuts elsewhere.
Browning also asked for direction in the approach he should use in balancing the district’s budget.
“Does the board want me to use nonrecurring revenue to balance the budget, or do you want me to find an additional $5 million in cuts?” Browning said.
Browning said he’d like to get away from using nonrecurring funds, which was a common practice in years past.
Board members concurred.
“I think the time has come where we really can’t do that again,” Hurley said.
Armstrong added, “At some point it’s just irresponsible to keep raiding the funds.”
Browning also informed the board that his proposed budget does not meet the state’s class size requirements. His proposal would save $4.033 million, but it would cost the district $213,000 in penalties for failing to meet the mandate.
Browning also said his team is “going to go back in and assess the number of APs (assistant principals) at our schools.”
Acknowledging that reducing the number of APs may not be popular, Browning said, “This is going to be shared pain-making.”
Luikart, a former AP, said he doesn’t see how the district can afford to make cuts in that area.
Browning said he hopes people whose positions are cut will be able to find new roles within the district as vacancies arise because of retirements or resignations.
By B.C. Manion
Caitlin Ruddy cannot recall any stage in her life when music didn’t matter, and at this point, the 22-year-old said her entire world revolves around it.
The soprano, a Land O’ Lakes native, will soon be showcasing her talent at three upcoming spring concerts of the Tampa Bay Symphony, under the baton of Mark Sforzini, the symphony’s new music director.
Ruddy, a coloratura soprano, will be a featured performer because she was the symphony’s Young Artist Competition winner. She will sing una voce poco fa, an aria from The Barber of Seville by Rossini.
The University of Florida senior said she found out about the young artist competition when she was searching online for opportunities.
She said five artists were invited to do a live audition, and she was thrilled when she emerged as the winner.
“It wasn’t just vocalists,” Ruddy said. She noted, “Every one was really talented.”
She was surprised and delighted when she learned that she’d won. Her family and neighbors, who were there, were also excited, Ruddy said.
The piece she will be performing is difficult, Ruddy said, but she’s eager to take it on.
The character she’s portraying is feisty, Ruddy said, “So, I have fun with it.”
The young woman began singing when she was a girl and joined her first choir while in third grade at Denham Oaks Elementary.
She performed through her adolescence and teenage years at Pine View Middle, Land O’ Lakes and Sunlake high schools. She has also taken part in productions by Arts in Motion, a youth community theater group.
Ruddy has appeared in musical theater productions, but has focused primarily on opera since entering college. She’s performed in four operas at UF.
Ruddy said her mom has been an influence in her musical life because she also sings and has always been supportive. They’ve done duets at church and at her aunt’s wedding, she said.
Ruddy appreciates singers who have expressive voices in any musical genre. Some singers she admires most include Ann Netrebko, Kathleen Battle, Audra McDonald and Julie Andrews.
Although she considers herself to be somewhat introverted, Ruddy doesn’t give that impression when she appears on stage.
“I really just love performing,” Ruddy said.
She strives to engage the audience, and her goal is to make them feel the emotion that her piece conveys: “It’s really important to make your audience feel something.”
To help her deliver a song effectively, Ruddy said she does her homework.
“It’s good to know the context of whatever piece I’m singing,” she said, explaining that helps her elicit the proper emotion.
She is typically singing in a foreign language, so Ruddy makes sure she knows the translations and the proper pronunciation of the words.
Ruddy also pays attention to the clues that the music presents, she said.
The vocal line can say one thing, while the musical line says another, she said: “It adds to the whole complexity of it. … It’s kind of like real life, where nothing is black and white. Everything has nuances.”
Ruddy has studied Italian, but is not fluent. She also has learned the rules of diction in French and German.
Ruddy, who plans to pursue her Master of Music at Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., is the daughter of Gail and Bob Ruddy.
Besides singing, she also enjoys acting and dancing. Ruddy believes all of those skills will be useful as she pursues a performing career, which she hopes lasts many years.
“In opera, your voice keeps maturing as you get older.”
If you want to go:
The concerts are 4 p.m. April 28 at the Arts Auditorium on the Clearwater campus of St. Petersburg College, 2465 Drew St.; 8 p.m. April 30 at the Palladium Theater, 253 Fifth Ave. N in St. Petersburg; and 4 p.m. May 5 at Ferguson Hall, Straz Center for the Performing Arts, 1010 N Macinnes Place in Tampa.
The tickets at the door are $20 for adults, with free tickets available for students. Students 18 and older must show student identification.
By B.C. Manion
Margarita Romo will be the first to tell you that she is a flawed woman and that some people simply do not like her.
But the path she’s traveled led her to advocating for farm workers, immigrants and the poor. Her work has been recognized by Gov. Rick Scott, who selected her to be inducted into the Florida Civil Rights Hall of Fame.
The honor goes to people who have made significant contributions to improving the lives of minorities and all Florida citizens.
Romo, 76, founded Farmworkers Self-Help in Dade City, a nonprofit organization that has focused on education, advocacy and addressing the needs of migrant farmworkers and immigrants for more than three decades.
The organization helps with immigration issues, gives bread to the poor, advocates for legislative changes and seeks to improve conditions for the impoverished. It has been particularly active in seeking improvements for Tommytown, a community northwest of downtown Dade City.
“It wasn’t anything that I purposely went out to do,” Romo said. Her involvement began when she was asked to translate church services at migrant camps.
Her commitment grew from there.
Romo said she didn’t have a strategic or systematic method for helping people. She said they came to her with a need and she explored ways to help them.
As time went on, Romo became more knowledgeable and established more relationships — making it possible for her to help more people.
“In my wildest dreams I never thought I’d be doing this, especially with the history that I had. It seemed like there was just disaster after disaster,” Romo said.
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Romo was born in Texas, and at age 3, her mother died. Her father placed her in an orphanage and sent her three brothers to another orphanage. They stayed there a couple of years until he remarried.
“I went in as Margarita and I came out as Margaret,” Romo said, and she was no longer speaking Spanish.
She joined the convent when she was 15 and left two years later with the hopes of mending a strained relationship with her stepmother, which never happened.
Romo has been divorced three times, and along the way she had six children.
She believes her personal failings and the challenges she’s faced have helped her become more compassionate.
“We all have issues, and we’ll always have issues. There’s no one who is ever going to be perfect, but I think knowing your own imperfections causes you to be more understanding about others,” Romo said.
She also understands despair.
She was so despondent after her first divorce that she attempted to take her own life, she said. She’d taken some pills and someone found her — otherwise, her life would have ended then, she said.
“I’m a real miracle, walking,” Romo said.
That experience made her realize how important it is for people to seek counseling when they need it, Romo said. “I’m a real champion about mental health.”
She also understands poverty.
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Romo needed help after one of her divorces, and a woman from a migrant camp understood that need.
“I’ll never forget — she gave me some of her food stamps,” Romo said.
While she is being honored for her work, Romo is quick to give credit to those who have helped her to help others.
“It’s not about me,” Romo said. “If it hadn’t been for those undocumented farmworkers, we wouldn’t be here. They’re the ones who walked with me. They went to Washington, D.C. They went to Tallahassee.”
She also said mentors she’s met have helped her to be more effective.
Romo views herself as an activist, but uses a different approach than many young organizers whom she sees as being more aggressive and eager to take on the world.
When she goes to Tallahassee to advocate for changes, she said she reads scripture to lawmakers and prays for God to guide them.
“We need God to go in front of us,” Romo said. “We need to do battle with the Bible in our hand. I really believe that God has to be called in, and I believe God hasn’t been called into the middle of all of the crises. God has got to be in the middle of everything we do.”
Sometimes, she feels conflicted.
“Being a pastor and being an activist organizer is just a real difficult place. You have to constantly forgive, and at the same time you’re in the middle of a battle,” said Romo, who became an ordained minister 10 years ago.
She was reaching out spiritually to children in her community even before she was ordained: “I started telling parents, if you want to bring me your children, we’re going to have children’s church on Sunday morning. You can go wash. You can go to the flea market. We’ll take care of the children.”
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Romo is being inducted into the Florida Civil Rights Hall of Fame on April 24 alongside Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore and Judge James B. Sanderlin.
They were among the nominees the Florida Commission on Human Relations recommended to Scott.
“As Florida marks its 500 year anniversary, we want to honor individuals who have stood for equality in our state’s history even in the face of adversity. These champions of freedom have paved the way for equal rights among all Floridians,” Scott said, in a Feb. 27 release.
Romo said she’s not really sure what the induction means.
“If they really want to do something, then give us (Florida) KidCare (low-cost or free health insurance) for legal immigrant children,” she said.
She’d also like to have a conversation with lawmakers about the negative impacts she believes zero tolerance has on kids. She also thinks the state should allow immigrants who arrived here before age 16 and who have no criminal record to attend Florida colleges at in-state tuition rates.
“You can pick enough oranges to pay in-state tuition, but you cannot pick enough oranges to pay out-of-state tuition,” Romo said. “That’s just the bottom line.”
Romo could go on and on about injustices that need to be addressed and opportunities that need to be offered.
She tackles what she can in Tallahassee, in the community and her office, a humble white house on Lock Street.
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Photographs on the walls of her office serve as constant reminders of the work that remains.
One photo shows a smiling girl who died before she reached age 5 because she could not get the medical care she needed quickly enough.
Another photo shows an old man standing in a dumpster. He’d rummage around wherever he could to find cans he could sell, Romo said. When he died, it cost $800 to buy his ashes so his life could be honored.
There’s also a photo of a young man who died from AIDS and another of a man who died from prostate cancer.
Romo said she remembers those people when she thinks about the work she needs to do.
She also thinks about tragic things that have happened because of dangerous working conditions. She thinks of workers who have “lost their eyesight because of pesticide” or “fallen off ladders and broke their back and got no compensation.”
Romo aims to help people help themselves.
“We need to think for ourselves,” Romo said. “If we’re really about teaching people to be free, then you’ve got to give them the tools to do that. … To help us learn to think for ourselves is where the real work comes in and the real love,” said Romo, whose organization encourages students to attain their GED, enroll in college and seek job training.
She said she feels blessed to do the work she does.
“When you’re a community organizer and you help organize your community, then that community grows and it becomes a whole different place and everybody who received the benefit of that growth takes it with them and plants it somewhere else, and it never stops growing.”
No matter how dark things can get at times, Romo hangs on.
“Thirty-three years and we’re still here.”
By B.C. Manion
The Pasco County Commission expects to select a new county administrator by the end of May to replace the retiring John Gallagher.
The details haven’t been worked out completely, but commissioners indicated at their April 10 meeting they’d like to narrow the field of candidates to eight before selecting finalists to interview.
Bob Murray & Associates, of Tallahassee, is conducting the national search for Gallagher’s replacement.
When they sought proposals from search firms, the board made it clear it wants a robust effort to come up with candidates, not a rehashed list used in similar searches.
The board called for “a far-reaching recruitment that will capture a fresh list of the best candidates from throughout the country, including high performers in other jurisdictions that may not be actively seeking new employment.”
Commissioners have asked for backgrounds on the top eight candidates, which they will narrow down to finalists for interviews. They also plan to arrange a county tour and host a social so candidates can mingle with the public.
They have set tentative dates of May 14 to shortlist the candidates, May 23 and May 24 for interviews and a social and May 28 for naming a new administrator.
Gallagher, who had planned to retire in April, has agreed to stay on until June 1.