Florida schools buy emergency toilets for extended lockdowns

TRINITY --
The Seven Spring Middle School eighth-graders warily eyed the white plastic bucket.

Is it for carrying cleaning supplies? Moving mulch?

Then they noticed the black plastic seat on top. Their eyebrows raised, their noses crinkled, as it dawned on them that this was a portable toilet, designed for use during emergency lockdowns in classrooms without restrooms.

"It's a terrible idea," Justin Anahory, 14, said, shaking his head. "No. I'm not going to use it."

"Never. Unh-uh," agreed Sydney Steele, also 14. "I would just hold it."

What if the students had no choice but to remain in their classroom for long hours for, say, extended hurricane conditions?

"I doubt a hurricane would keep us here a couple of days," Sydney said, noting she hardly will use the school bathrooms, much less a mini portable potty behind a tarp wall held up with duct tape.

"It might be a good idea," chimed in Mariah Guy, 15. "But it's still disgusting."

In recent months, the Pasco County school district has been distributing these "emergency response classroom kits" to schools that don't have restrooms adjoining the classrooms. For the most part, that means middle and high schools.

So far, they've given out 2,249, with another 552 remaining in the district warehouse. The total cost for the kits, which also include toilet paper, hand wipes, trash bags and latex gloves, was $64,876, or about $23 each. The money came from a two-year federal emergency management grant.

The Hernando, Hillsborough and Pinellas school districts have not made similar investments, and have no plans to do so.

"Along the food chain, that's probably somewhere below an amoeba," Hernando superintendent Bryan Blavatt said.

Pasco's grant also has paid for the emergency response plans revisions, and for other supplies such as bottled water and first aid kits. Student services director Lizette Alexander said it has helped the district improve its readiness.

"Try not to make it a joke," Alexander said of the bucket toilets. "When it is needed, it is needed terribly. It is not a joke. It is preparedness."

Still, it did create some laughter among Seven Springs middle schoolers as they discussed its pros and cons. Most had not seen the kits before and didn't know they were in the school.

Eighth-grader Brandan Comito, 14, sized up the bucket and wondered about its weight capacity.

He sat on it and found it held him up, but complained about the seat being too small.

"It needs to be thicker," he said, drawing chuckles from friends, who also wanted to test it out.

The kids engaged in detailed conversations about the logistics of the potty, ranging from concerns about germs to the aesthetics of such a bucket in mixed company.

"What if it gets filled to the top?" asked seventh-grader Kylie Renzetti, 12.

"It could be used as a weapon" against any intruder causing a lockdown, responded eighth-grader Dylan Johnson, 14.

Seventh-grader Devin Bird was not alone in his inability to get past the notion that kids might have to use the contraption "in front of people," never mind the tarp.

"It's a bit weird," he said.

Perhaps so, acknowledged schools superintendent Kurt Browning, who only learned Tuesday of the kits ordered by the previous administration. The buckets have been the brunt of jokes on Facebook since they arrived in schools.

But "if you've got to go," he said, "you've got to go."

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Best Practice Institute Introduces New Social Network that Promises ‘Future of 360′

A new social network, skillrater.com launched today, makes it easy for members to request work performance ratings from overseers, co-workers and direct reports across a domestic and global workforce.

West Palm Beach, Fla. (PRWEB) December 20, 2012

Skillrater.com, an online social network that launched today, makes it easy for members to request work performance ratings from overseers, co-workers and direct reports across a domestic and global workforce.

“This is the future of 360-degree assessment and social learning,” said the network’s creator, Louis Carter, CEO of Best Practice Institute.

“Get rated. Get better. Get noticed,” says Skillrater.com’s website, which describes the new social network as “the world’s first rating, networking and feedback tool on a social platform.”

Executives, employees and entrepreneurs who have already been friended, linked and tweeted can now get feedback and rating on their skill sets and work at Skillrater.com. Individuals may join the Skillrater social network at no cost; corporations may purchase a premium or enterprise membership to use Skillrater as an in-house platform for feedback, talent management and social networking.

The Next Thing in 360 Assessment and Corporate Social Networking

“I want to bring a revolution to 360 so that organizations become more open and transparent, and driven by the desire for employees to request feedback on their competencies/skills and activities they execute on a daily basis” said Carter, BPI’s founder and a social-organizational psychologist.

The world of work is becoming more open and transparent. “A new IBM study of 1709 Chief Executive Officers from 64 countries and 18 industries worldwide reveals that CEOs are changing the nature of work by adding a powerful dose of openness, transparency and employee empowerment to the command-and-control ethos that has characterized the modern corporation for more than a century.”

Employees using skillrater engage in conversations and threaded discussions around improving their activities at work. Instead of hiding feedback from employees, employees may receive immediate correction of negatively reinforcing workplace habits directly from their bosses, peers, and customers. Employees may continue the feedback process in a threaded discussion to receive deeper advice and help from executive coaches or other members of the team. Repeating this process will show measurable changes in behavior and actions over time for your organization, as well as show patterns for the changes that need to me made on an individual, team, and organization level. The employee requests feedback of others directly, so that a culture of accountability and feedback is encouraged. Instead of “big brother/sister” HR forcing feedback of competencies and workplace performance, employees take ownership for creating their own culture of transparency so they may show their progress toward growth.

One study found that as many as 90 percent of all Fortune 500 companies use 360-degree feedback with their employees. In a 360 assessment, feedback is sought from all directions of an employee’s circle: overseers, peers, direct reports, and sometimes even external sources, such as customers and suppliers.

Skillrater brings several innovations to the 360-degree process to make the technique easier to use and to increase the tool’s beneficial results. Features include:

“Skillrater is a great tool. Leaders and managers are going to fall in love with it,” said the world’s leading executive coach and bestselling author Marshall Goldsmith. “There is no better way for organizational leaders to track talent data. Skillrater gives you a simple way to request receive feedback on what you are doing, while building an in-house social network to discuss the feedback. The ability to customize Skillrater around the desired competencies of your organization is brilliant.”"

Focus on Leadership Development in Globally Dispersed Workforces

Most importantly, Carter said, Skillrater provides a social network through which members can springboard from quantitative ratings to qualitative discussions that make the feedback truly transformative. This is especially beneficial for dispersed workforces where consistent face-to-face communication is costly to accomplish.”

“Our goal is to create a social network within an organization that is focused on helping employees improve their skills and improve performance,” Carter said. “Skillrater is not primarily about promotion and pay decisions, it’s about leadership development and positive behavioral change throughout a national or global workforce.”

Studies have shown 360-degree feedback is an effective way to help workers identify their strengths and weaknesses, including blind spots in which they need further development. Skillrater’s convenient online platform, along with the addition of a social networking dimension, makes Skillrater a powerful leadership development for dispersed or collective learning environments.

After corporate clients learn their way around all the bells and whistles of Skillrater’s multi-rater feedback tool, Carter said, they will move on to appreciate the richness of the in-house social network, creating a dispersed learning environment in which ongoing leadership development and action learning is cultivated within domestic or global workforces.

Skillrater Benefits for Individual Users

Individuals may join Skillrater.com for free and choose up to five skills upon which to be rated. Top executives, mid-level rising stars and lower-level workers with an eye on advancement may all use Skillrater to request feedback and map their own course of development. Requesting a Skillrater rating is an excellent way for an individual to confirm satisfaction with a completed project or identify additional steps needed to achieve satisfaction. Using Skillrater, a worker can demonstrate to higher-ups one’s desire to perform well and also document tangible improvement.

An individual who has acquired several ratings on one’s Skillrater profile and has made those ratings public may catch the attention of employers on the search for talent. Skillrater will become a go-to destination for talent recruitment. Other social networks provide an individual’s name, personal background and employment history, but Skillrater provides rubber-meets-the-road details of how an individual has been evaluated by co-workers, clients and customers on actual projects.

Skillrater Benefits for Corporate Users

Companies may purchase an enterprise membership, giving executives an unparalleled tool for talent management and leadership development. Enterprise membership enables companies to enroll 1,000 users and place them in 20 groups or divisions.

For senior talent management executives, Skillrater provides a remarkable way to track the job performance, skill sets and leadership development of dozens, hundreds or even thousands of employees spread out across a national or global workforce. For years, connecting the right employees with the right tasks has been the elusive aim of talent management. With Skillrater, when a particular skill set is needed for a particular task, a manager can search on those specific skills, and then read fresh feedback on recent projects, including not only numerical ratings but subsequent comments and discussion. That is rich, valuable talent data, which Skillrater puts at executives’ fingertips.

Managers from different divisions may customize their own groups to have specific skills or competencies that are important for success on-the-job. Users can select these group skills when requesting ratings to get targeted feedback that meets the need of the department head or head of leadership development. The ability to customize skills is critical to an organization’s success, making this a key feature of Skillrater’s enterprise membership level.

VPs of leadership development have the ability to set up action learning groups with specific action items. Group members work together online to achieve goals and get ratings on the skills that will make them most successful on the action learning project. Changes in behavior and actual project results may be tracked over time, proving the ROI of the leadership development program.

How Does Skillrater Work?

Joining Skillrater is easy and painless. An individual can create a Skillrater profile in a few moments or import one’s profile and skill set from LinkedIn.

A Skillrater member may request a rating from anybody on anything. It really is that simple. The user simply clicks the “Request Rating” button, specifies the task or activity for which one seeks a rating and the specific skills on which feedback is desired.

Then the member sends off the rating requests. If the desired rater is already a Skillrater.com member, requesting a rating is just one additional click. If not, the user enters the desired rater’s email address, and a message is sent requesting the rating and providing the necessary link.

After feedback has been received, Skillrater notifies the user. Results include a spider chart, an easy-to-understand graphical interpretation of how the feedback lines up with one’s self-assessment. Users continue to share advice and further clarification via a discussion thread to continue the social learning and coaching experience online.

ABOUT BEST PRACTICE INSTITUTE

Best Practice Institute is an award-winning leadership development center, think tank, peer network, research institute and online learning portal with more than 10,000 corporate and individual members around the world. Corporate members include Walmart, Bank of America, Pfizer, Hilton Hotels Worldwide, Scripps and many more of the world’s top corporations. BPI is based in West Palm Beach, FL, and is on the web at http://www.bestpracticeinstitute.org. BPI is ranked as one of the top ten “Best in Leadership Development” by Leadership Excellence Magazine.

Louis Carter is the founder and CEO of Best Practice Institute. Carter is a social-organizational psychologist, concept innovator, entrepreneur and a highly regarded authority on learning, talent, leadership development and change. He is the author or co-author of 11 books and a regular contributor to Fast Company, Chief Learning Officer, Talent Management, and Training Magazine.

For More Information or to schedule an interview, please contact Louis Carter: 800-718-4274; lou(at)bestpracticeinstitute.org

Louis Carter
Best Practice Institute
800-718-4274
Email Information

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A White House Christmas: First Families Remember Clips

While the masses scramble around to pick up their last-minute gifts for Christmas, it's hard to picture the President of the United States heading to the mall and picking out presents for the First Family. However, President Obama and past presidents have joined the masses for some holiday shopping.

As we see a sneak peek of NBC's special "A White House Christmas: First Families Remember," holiday shopping for a president may not be an average trip to the store with cameras in his face and people crowding around, but presidents have still managed time to buy gifts for their loved ones over the years.

RELATED: President Obama is Time's Person of the Year

President Obama did some last-minute Christmas shopping last year with his dog, Bo, for whom he is buying a present in the footage in the clip. While the President went Christmas shopping once again this year--this time taking his daughters, Sasha and Malia, to a bookstore--his wife isn't too keen on the First Family shopping during the holidays.

"I've had my little sneak-out moments but Christmas time is not the time for me to be out in the malls with Secret Service," First Lady Michelle Obama says. "We kind of get in the way of everybody else's shopping and I don't want to be an irritant, so [we do] a lot of online stuff."

Among the holiday festivities for the First Family is the annual Congressional holiday party at the White House. With a crowd of over a thousand Congressmen and celebrities at the party, Hillary Clinton recalls being worn out greeting guests with her husband, Bill.

VIDEO: Grammys Flashback '97: Hillary Clinton...?

"Bill and I stood in the line; we shook thousands and thousands of hands. At the end of the receiving line, my hand would be practically paralyzed and I'd go thrust it into cold water," the former First Lady recalls. "It was just a great experience, although it was exhausting, I'll be honest."

Watch the video for a sneak peek of "A White House Christmas: First Families Remember," which airs in its entirety tonight (Dec. 20) at 8 p.m. on NBC.

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US economy grew at annual rate of 3.1 percent over summer

WASHINGTON — The US economy grew at an annual rate of 3.1 percent over the summer as consumers spent more and state and local governments added to growth for the first time in nearly three years. But the economy is likely slowing in the current quarter.

The Commerce Department's third and final estimate of growth for the July-September quarter was revised up from its estimate a month ago of a 2.7 percent annual rate.

The third-quarter growth was more than double the 1.3 percent growth rate in the April-June quarter. But disruptions from Superstorm Sandy and uncertainty weighing on consumers and businesses from the "fiscal cliff" are likely holding back growth in the October-December quarter. Many analysts predict an annual growth rate of just 1.5 percent for this quarter.

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Survey shows better lending climate

Most Miami-Dade businesses believe they have easier access to borrowed money amid a slowly improving economy.

That’s one result from a recent survey of executives by Miami’s Bilzin Sumberg law firm. The online survey of about 200 top executives was conducted during the second half of 2012.

Nearly 60 percent of respondents said they thought the financing environment had improved since 2011, with venture capital funds and community banks identified as the top sources of potential capital. Fifty-two percent called the economy “growing slowly,’’ compared to 7 percent describing it as “strong and growing.” Only 16 percent described the economy as weak.

DOUGLAS HANKS

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Stone-crab season suffers in the Keys

Despite rocketing prices for stone-crab claws, many Florida Keys commercial fishermen have nearly given up on the season only 2 months old.

"We may see record prices but also record pain," said Gary Graves, general manager of Keys Fisheries in Marathon. "Prices don't mean anything if you can't catch anything."

Harvests since shortly after the season opening Oct. 15 have been "as bad as I can remember during my 45 years in the business," Graves said. "It's just bleak."

Keys Fisheries, one of the state's leading wholesalers for stone crabs, has laid off half of its production staff, maybe 20 people, Graves said.

"We hate to do it to our people but we're probably not finished," he said. "Right now, a big day for us is 1,000 pounds [of claws]. It should be around 15,000 pounds. We're doing nothing."

Keys Fisheries has raised its dockside prices paid to fishermen several times to encourage fishermen to keep their traps in the water.

Graves said it costs a fisherman about $1,200 in fuel, labor and other expenses to make a day's trip. The fish house's current prices are $9 per pound for medium-size claws and $17 per pound for the coveted jumbos.

"Our wholesale sales prices are higher than that and retail is through the roof," Graves said. "But we can't fill the orders we have."

A Marathon community group recently canceled the organization's annual stone crab feast for members because no claws were to be found.

The season runs until May 15.

Last season, Monroe County produced about 1.1 million pounds of legal-size claws, accounting for a large portion of Florida's total 2.67 million-pound harvest worth an estimated $23.6 million to the commercial fleet.

About 1,000 people statewide are licensed to fish traps for stone crabs. Only the claws are kept. Historically, stone-crab harvests have topped three million pounds of claws.

"The last two years were good and the recruitment looked normal," Graves said. "The first round of trap pulling was fine but it went downhill from there — like falling off a cliff."

Fishermen and researchers are baffled.

"Blame it on global warming, blame it on BP [Deepwater Horizon oil spill], blame it on Mother Nature," Graves said. "Everybody's got an idea but nobody can say why. It's probably a combination of a bunch of things."

News reports from stone-crab fleets farther up the Florida Gulf Coast suggest an octopus population explosion. Crabs are a favorite food of octopus, which are smart enough to get into traps.

"We've seen more octopus in the 6- to 8-pound range, which is abnormal," Graves said. State experts have suggested warm winters may have triggered the octopus boom.

"Things could turn around," Graves said, "but realistically the chances of it happening this season are slim."

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg donating $500 million in stock to Silicon Valley charity

SAN FRANCISCO – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Tuesday he is donating nearly $ 500 million in stock to a Silicon Valley charity with the aim of funding health and education issues.

Zuckerberg donated 18 million Facebook shares, valued at $ 498.8 million based on their Tuesday closing price. The beneficiary is the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a non-profit that works with donors to allocate their gifts.

This is Zuckerberg’s largest donation to date. He pledged $ 100 million in Facebook stock to Newark, New Jersey, public schools in 2010, before his company went public earlier this year. Later in 2010, he joined Giving Pledge, an effort led by Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. CEO Warren Buffett to get the country’s richest people to donate most of their wealth. His wife, Priscilla Chan, joined with him.

In a Facebook post Tuesday, Zuckerberg, 28, said he’s “proud of the work” done by the foundation that his Newark donation launched, called Startup: Education, which has helped open charter schools, high schools and others.

With the latest contribution, he added, “we will look for areas in education and health to focus on next.” He did not give further details on what plans there may be for funds.

“Mark’s generous gift will change lives and inspire others in Silicon Valley and around the globe to give back and make the world a better place,” said Emmett D. Carson, CEO of the foundation.

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Barack Obama Time Magazine Person of the Year

For 2012, Time Magazine has selected President Barack Obama as their Person of the Year.

"For finding and forging a new majority, for turning weakness into opportunity and for seeking, amid great adversity, to create a more perfect union, Barack Obama is Time's 2012 Person of the Year," Time's Managing Editor Richzard Stengel explained.

RELATED - President Obama Fights Back Tears

He also cited both of the president's re-elections, snagging over 50 percent of the popular vote, as one reason he received this honor.

PHOTOS - The Best Barack & Michelle Moments

This is the second year Time has tapped Obama as their Person of the Year -- he previously was selected in 2008 for becoming the first black president of the United States.

Time previously named the eight finalists for 2012's Person of the Year. They included: Bill and Hillary Clinton, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Malala Yousafzai (the Pakistani girl who was shot by the Taliban for her crusade for better girls' education), Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi and the three scientists who discovered the Higgs Boson particle.

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Russia gives initial OK to American adoption ban

MOSCOW — Russia's parliament on Wednesday gave overwhelming preliminary approval to a measure banning Americans from adopting Russian children, a harsh retaliatory move against US human rights legislation.

Top Russian officials have expressed unease about the proposal, an apparent indication that the Kremlin opposes the move.

The lower house of parliament, the State Duma, on Wednesday approved the second reading of a bill responding to the US legislation. The proposed adoption ban was not part of the original bill, but was added as an amendment.

To become law, the measure has to pass a third reading in the Duma, then clear the upper house before going to President Vladimir Putin for his signature.

Putin has not spoken publicly about the measure, but his spokesman Dmitry Peskov indicated Wednesday the Russian leader regards it as excessive. Peskov told the Interfax news agency that, although Putin understands the emotions that prompted the move, "the executive powers are taking a more restrained line."

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russia's education minister both spoke out against the amendment and the speaker of the upper house, close Putin ally Valentina Matvienko, cautioned that the lower house was being guided by emotions rather than good sense.

But the overwhelming 388-15-1 vote in favor of the amendment Wednesday included lawmakers from the pro-Putin United Russia party. It was not clear if the opposition from top officials could bring about a reversal.

Many Russians have long resented the adoption of Russian children by Americans, sensitive to the implication that Russians are hard-hearted or economically unable to take care of their own. The resentment is fanned by cases of abuse or deaths of Russian children adopted by Americans.

Underlining the anger, the bill is named after Dima Yakovlev, a Russian-born toddler who died in the United States after his adoptive father left him in an car in the broiling heat for several hours. The father later was found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter.

The measure is in response to a new US law, signed last week by President Obama, which calls for sanctions against Russians assessed as human-rights violators.

That law stems from the case of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who was arrested by the Russian officials he accused of a $230 million tax fraud. He was repeatedly denied medical treatment and in 2009 died in jail. Russian rights groups have accused the Kremlin of failing to prosecute those responsible.

The amended passed by Duma on Wednesday also says any country that passes legislation similar to the Magnitsky Act also will be subject to an adoption ban.

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Stone-crab season suffers in the Keys

Despite rocketing prices for stone-crab claws, many Florida Keys commercial fishermen have nearly given up on the season only 2 months old.

"We may see record prices but also record pain," said Gary Graves, general manager of Keys Fisheries in Marathon. "Prices don't mean anything if you can't catch anything."

Harvests since shortly after the season opening Oct. 15 have been "as bad as I can remember during my 45 years in the business," Graves said. "It's just bleak."

Keys Fisheries, one of the state's leading wholesalers for stone crabs, has laid off half of its production staff, maybe 20 people, Graves said.

"We hate to do it to our people but we're probably not finished," he said. "Right now, a big day for us is 1,000 pounds [of claws]. It should be around 15,000 pounds. We're doing nothing."

Keys Fisheries has raised its dockside prices paid to fishermen several times to encourage fishermen to keep their traps in the water.

Graves said it costs a fisherman about $1,200 in fuel, labor and other expenses to make a day's trip. The fish house's current prices are $9 per pound for medium-size claws and $17 per pound for the coveted jumbos.

"Our wholesale sales prices are higher than that and retail is through the roof," Graves said. "But we can't fill the orders we have."

A Marathon community group recently canceled the organization's annual stone crab feast for members because no claws were to be found.

The season runs until May 15.

Last season, Monroe County produced about 1.1 million pounds of legal-size claws, accounting for a large portion of Florida's total 2.67 million-pound harvest worth an estimated $23.6 million to the commercial fleet.

About 1,000 people statewide are licensed to fish traps for stone crabs. Only the claws are kept. Historically, stone-crab harvests have topped three million pounds of claws.

"The last two years were good and the recruitment looked normal," Graves said. "The first round of trap pulling was fine but it went downhill from there — like falling off a cliff."

Fishermen and researchers are baffled.

"Blame it on global warming, blame it on BP [Deepwater Horizon oil spill], blame it on Mother Nature," Graves said. "Everybody's got an idea but nobody can say why. It's probably a combination of a bunch of things."

News reports from stone-crab fleets farther up the Florida Gulf Coast suggest an octopus population explosion. Crabs are a favorite food of octopus, which are smart enough to get into traps.

"We've seen more octopus in the 6- to 8-pound range, which is abnormal," Graves said. State experts have suggested warm winters may have triggered the octopus boom.

"Things could turn around," Graves said, "but realistically the chances of it happening this season are slim."

Read More..