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Sarasota News Leader October 19, 2012 Only 20 questions were posed during the Oct. 11 event, dubbed a Telephone Town Hall. Those questions ran the gamut from con- cerns about bullying, to the starting time at high schools (This writer gets up at 5:30 a.m. to get his son to school in time for a 7:20 a.m. class), to child safety, to students' use of cell- phones and other gadgets, to cameras in the classrooms. While not everybody stayed on the phone to listen to all the dialogue, the results were en- couraging enough, School Board members say, for them to plan on another such under- taking in the future. Along with the discussions on that wide array of topics, the district representatives took a short poll. The statements and results follow: • I am satisfied with the quality of instruction my students receive in the Sarasota County School District — 31 percent strongly agreed and 47 percent agreed, for a 78 percent ap- proval rating. Page 35 • The funding provided by the 1 percent voted millage is being used effectively to support classroom instruction — 21 percent strongly agreed and 25 percent agreed, for a 46 percent approval rating; 37 percent had no opinion; 12 percent disagreed; and 5 percent strong- ly disagreed. (The special 1 mill tax first was approved by voters in 2002; it won renewal in referenda in 2006 and 2010.) The last question concerned whether parents are aware of and/or watch programming on the district's Education Channel. Sixty-one percent of those polled were not aware of the channel's existence, but 21 percent had watched some of its shows. The cost of the Telephone Town Hall was about $4,000, district officials said. "It was a great way to reach the communi- ty," said Zucker. "I've been working on this for about a year. We've just got to get faster at answering so we can take more questions." 2012 Safe Sex Halloween Bash www.SafeSexHalloweenBash.com facebook.com/SarasotaNewsLeader SATURDAY • OCTOBER 27 • 9PM MICHAEL'S ON EAST