5A Identifying Local Opportunities

The following articles are from the Sarasota Herald Tribune 

1. Nurse vacancy report four years out of date | Guide used to determine nurse vacancies and recruiting was last produced in 2015

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/document-view?p=WORLDNEWS&t=pubname%3ASHTB%21Sarasota%2BHerald-Tribune%2B%2528FL%2529/year%3A2019%212019/mody%3A0907%21September%2B07&f=advanced&action=browse&format=text&docref=news/175D5A63588344C0
This article explains that a report that shows how many nurses are needed in Florida, and where they are needed, has not been updated since 2015. This report is put out by the Florida Center for Nursing (FCN). The report included information from six health care industries, detailing numbers of employees and the difficulty experienced in the recruitment process. However, four years ago, the facilities that were providing the information to the Florida Center for Nursing stopped, and now the FCN cannot estimate turnover, vacancy rates, or estimated job growth. The article explains that there is a statewide shortage of nurses, and many nursing positions are being filled with temporary employees.

The problem here is that many health care facilities stopped providing data regarding their employed nurses, their vacancies for nurses, or the difficulty they found in recruiting qualified nurses. This data collection stopped four years ago, so the latest information is very outdated because so much can change in four years. This is a problem for prospective nurses, as they are not able to see future job growth, and they are unable to find what areas are in the most need for nurses. This also is a problem for healthcare facilities, because if nurses do not know which areas need them, then some healthcare facilities will have to go without nurses who have “advanced education such as bachelor’s and doctorate degrees,” this is a major problem for everyone in the state who may need medical attention, as advanced education leads to “improved health outcomes for patients.”



2. How the Manatee school district ruined FSU football
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/document-view?p=WORLDNEWS&t=pubname%3ASHTB%21Sarasota%2BHerald-Tribune%2B%2528FL%2529/year%3A2019%212019/mody%3A0906%21September%2B06&f=advanced&action=browse&format=text&docref=news/175CB0828102AEA8

This article details a chain of events to explain FSU Football’s bad games as of recent. Last year, FSU did not play in a bowl game for the first time in 36 years. During their first game of this season, they were up by 18 points, were facing a freshman quarterback, were playing at home, and still lost to Boise State. Their coach, Willie Taggart, “is a 52-58 career coach who has never won a conference championship or a bowl game.” Under him, FSU had its first losing season in over 40 years. This article claims that FSU’s losing season can be traced back to the Manatee County School district because they fired Hall of Fame high school coach Joe Kinnan in 2014. Here’s why: FSU’s current coach (Willie Taggart) was coaching USF in 2013, and USF went 2-10. He called in his own old high school coach, Joe Kinnan, to help him. Kinnan, who had been recently fired, agreed, and lead USF to a school-record of 11 wins. The fame was given not to Kinnan, but to Taggart, who was then recruited for more money and better schools, originally going to Oregon and now to FSU. To support that it was Kinnan who lead the bulls to victory, the article explains that Kinnan had 290 career wins and five state titles as a coach at Manatee High.

The problem here is that FSU football is going downhill fast under the coaching of Willie Taggart. This is a problem for FSU football, and all their fans who pay to go to their games to see them win. If they continue playing poorly and having losing seasons, they will lose some of their fan base which means they will lose some of the revenue that football games bring in. It is also a problem, because if FSU fires Taggart, they still have to pay him 85% of his contract (aka $17 million), which they could have used to pay a coach that will actually lead their team to victory.



3. Sarasota: Playground for the privileged?

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/document-view?p=WORLDNEWS&t=pubname%3ASHTB%21Sarasota%2BHerald-Tribune%2B%2528FL%2529/year%3A2019%212019/mody%3A0905%21September%2B05&f=advanced&action=browse&format=text&docref=news/175C5C262D9E44B8

This article is a commentary by a Sarasota resident regarding something that happened in town recently that left him a little shaken up. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune ran a story recently headlined “Big Art.” The story explained the $1 billion of art and cultural projects going up around Sarasota County that is supposed to “transform” Sarasota. The unsettling part is this: the story ran on the same day as another column by this same author who told about the tragic death of a homeless street musician who had been a staple on Main Street Sarasota for the last several decades. The author writes, “Charles Canterbury died alone on a patch of grass in J.D. Hamel Park — about equidistant from … the proposed $67 million expansion of Marie Selby Botanical Gardens.” This situation highlights the socioeconomic divide in Sarasota that is only getting wider as millions of dollars are poured into the arts and more expensive tourist excursions. The author made it noted that they are a devout fan of the arts, as the arts is what drew them to Sarasota in the first place. The author poetically writes, regarding the rampant trans-generational poverty, racism, and trauma that “while everything may be beautiful at the ballet, there’s a lot that’s not so celebratory outside the theater.”

The problem emphasized in this article is that Sarasota county has citizens struggling with poverty and homelessness, but they are still contributing millions of dollars to expand tourist attractions and the fine arts. Although this is a worthy cause, there are other causes that are being totally neglected. The problem is for those 38% of Sarasota County residents that live check to check and cannot afford basic housing, childcare, food, or transportation. The problem is also that those that are not plagued with monetary struggles are ignoring the situation. The problem is that in Sarasota, where there are many who are fabulously wealthy and also many who have nothing at all, it is easy to be oblivious to the struggles of other people if those people are not in your immediate environment.



4. When a ‘joke’ isn’t funny

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/document-view?p=WORLDNEWS&t=pubname%3ASHTB%21Sarasota%2BHerald-Tribune%2B%2528FL%2529/year%3A2019%212019/mody%3A0903%21September%2B03&f=advanced&action=browse&format=text&docref=news/175BB35FDA09C968
I found this article particularly interesting because I personally know the people discussed. In this article, the author is upset about a joke that was made that she did not think was appropriate. The Sarasota County Commission had a meeting regarding a potential Mental Health Care District that would raise money to support community wide mental health services. Its a potentially good idea, and a topic that should be harmless, but it was not. The commissioners agreed there was a need, but then toward the end of the discussion, Commissioner Nancy Detert said “Anytime you create something new, you’ve created a new bureaucracy. They need a building, they need staffing…” — here she looked toward Moran and Chair Charles Hines — “and I don’t want to insult the gentleman, but you all need a secretary to send an email, you can’t send it by yourselves… .” This comment was not met well, as Charles Hines was in shock and called Detert a “snowflake” (a political insult used for sensitive people, typically aimed towards liberals according to the article). The author is upset because in 2019 there should not be these gender stereotypes being used as retaliation to a group that has been marginally more privileged.

The problem here is that a female made a joke that was not taken well, regarding how men always need a woman secretary to accomplish their job. This statement causes a few problems, one attacking men saying they are incapable of doing their work on their own, and another assuming that women are typically only secretaries and never the one in charge. Continuing this stream of thought simply perpetuates the problem. This kind of commentary ending the discussion also causes a problem because it diverted the attention from the need for mental health funding, and brought the attention to a petty argument between adults that should have been avoided in the first place.



5. White teachers, principals say they feel unprepared to serve diverse students

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/document-view?p=WORLDNEWS&t=pubname%3ASHTB%21Sarasota%2BHerald-Tribune%2B%2528FL%2529/year%3A2019%212019/mody%3A0902%21September%2B02&f=advanced&action=browse&format=text&docref=news/175B5EC36F49E560

This article contends that the majority of teachers and principles currently employed are not well prepared to lead students. This is due to a wide racial difference, being that 80% of principles and teachers are white, and more than half of the US’s students are not white. In a survey, 15,000 teachers and 3,000 principles claimed that their “program [did not] prepare [them] to work with black, Latino, or low-income students.” This means that their formal training for their positions, which in most cases is at least a bachelors degree from an accredited university, has not prepared them. Further, 39% of principals and teachers considered themselves “completely unprepared” or “mostly unprepared.”

This is a serious problem when you consider how much relationships between teachers affect students and their performance in school. If a student felt their teacher didn’t understand them or didn’t like them, it would be devastating to their attitude and grades. The article says that “racial congruence is linked to positive outcomes for students,” which shows that their needs to be more diversity among principles and teachers so that all students feel they have someone similar to them that they can talk to if need be. I think this is especially important because the students that are from low-income homes or other situations that would already have a tendency to cause struggles for the students are the ones that need to see a familiar and similar face the most at school.