Education officials in Charlotte County are considering making a move to single sex classes in one middle school.

Depending on feed-back from the community, math and science classes at Murdock Middle School may be segregated next year according to gender. Charlotte school’s spokesman Mike Riley says school superintendent Dr. Dave Gayler is considering the move based on the results of new research.

"he had a lot of research data. it was good data. it showed improvements in test scores for both boys and girls and the thing that was appealing somewhat was the discipline problems really dramatically dropped."

Riley says data shows some middle school students learn better in single gender settings. He says before any changes are made – parents, students and student advocates will have ample opportunity to talk about it with school officials.

-----

If the School Board gives its approval, students at Murdock Middle in Charlotte County may find themselves in single gender math and science classes next year. The classes would teach the same material but would use gender-based teaching methods. School Spokesman Mike Riley says research indicates it’s an effective approach to teaching middle school students.

"socially, especially in middle school, their hormones are just spiraling off on every piston and they are a unique group of individuals and sometimes girls don’t want to show how smart they are and they want the boy to like them – you get individual situations like that."

Other school districts, including Manatee County’s have already decided to separate the sexes in some schools – and more have been considering it since a federal law was loosened in October.

You’ve probably heard of so-called Killer Bees ... basically honeybees with an attitude. Hives of these aggressive cousins to the more docile ‘European Bees’ are turning up in unexpected places across Southwest Florida. And that worries state agriculture officials. As WGCU’s Mike Kiniry reports, one local man is on his own mission to stave off these buzzing pests.

Parents who want to learn more about keeping their kids safe ONLINE are invited to a Cyber-Safety workshop tonight in south Fort Myers.

An FBI Special Agent will outline what parents are up against – and give examples of scary or inappropriate things kids might find on the Internet.

Prevention Specialist for Safe & Drug Free Schools – Jan Klein – says one of the biggest challenges? Many kids simply know more about computers than their parents!

“their kids can run circles around them in terms of what they can do on the computer. So a lot of those parents think nothing about…you know, why shouldn’t there be a computer in my kid’s room? It’s almost now like computers and computer games are the baby sitters like TV’s used to be when these parents were young.”

Klein says the workshop is for parents only…because of the adult nature of some of the examples they’ll be presenting.

She says it will also deal with possible online threats like MySpace-dot-com…and blogs. And give examples of some safe places for kids to go online.

The workshop is from 6:30 to 8:30 at South Fort Myers High School in Fort Myers.

(337-8606 for info – Jan Klein)

Catholic Charities Housing is spearheading a project to provide decent homes for farm-workers in Desoto County, and also a step-up to achieving the American Dream.

In 2004, Hurricane Charley destroyed 60 percent of migrant farm-worker housing in DeSoto. Much of it was ramshackle trailers. Some replacement trailers have been moved in, some workers are doubling up – others are commuting. And labor shortages are not uncommon. But things are looking up as a new community for the workers takes shape. WGCU’s Valerie Alker prepared this report.

Florida Division of Elections officials plan to announce today the results of Friday’s 2nd round of electronic voting machine testing in Sarasota County.

They ran limited, mock elections last week on two batches of the touch screen voting machines as part of a state audit.

It comes after 18-thousand digital ballots showed no vote in the highly contested congressional race there between Republican Vern Buchanan and Democrat Christine Jennings.

The first of 2 tests last Tuesday failed to match up with expected results. Elections Division spokesman Sterling Ivey says that’s because staffers failed to execute the test correctly.

“No matter how well designed a test like this is it cannot go back and re-create conditions and it’s highly unlikely to turn up the actual cause that led to 18-thousand undervotes”

Ivey says they’d used scripts to recreate what Sarasota voters did on Election Day. Lowell Finley with the advocacy group Voter Action calls the state’s testing process ‘flawed’.

“It was simply voter input error. The person casting the ballot hit the wrong button or did not go back and unselect the race as required by the script.”

Vern Buchanan has already been declared the winner in the 13th Congressional District. But Jennings is contesting those results.

Election officials say they’ll release the results of last week’s audit tomorrow.

Today is World AIDS Day. December 1st is dedicated to raising awareness of the global pandemic caused by the HIV infection. World-wide AIDS has killed 25 million people. And despite recent improved access to care and treatment the virus claimed an estimated 3.1 million lives last year. In Florida thousands of people are infected with HIV. Scott Tims is the HIV/ AIDS Coordinator for the Collier County Health Department – he says outreach is the key to fighting the epidemic.

“I think in Collier County we have a huge racial and ethnic disparity. We have one in fifty-five Blacks, one in 366 Hispanics and 1 in 1140 Whites who are infected with the disease. So of course because we know we have higher infection rates in Black and Hispanic Communities we tend to go to those communities more often.”

Kim says there are 12 hundred reported cases of HIV in Collier
This year’s theme for World AIDS Day – is Stop Aids/Keep the Promise. A remembrance – featuring art-work by Collier County teens will be held tonight from 6:00 to 8:30 at the River Park Community Center in Naples.

Former state Representative Dudley Goodlette of Naples starts working for a lobbying firm today. Republican Dudley Goodlette served 8 years in the legislature. He left office this fall due to term limits. He’s a real estate lawyer in Naples and will continue to practice there. But he’s also been hired by the lobbyist organization Southern Strategy Group.

Goodlette was, ironically, one of the key architects of Florida’s sweeping ban on gifts from lobbyists. And he says, he has every intention of complying with a state law that bans former lawmakers from lobbying the legislature for two years after they leave office.

“There is no prohibition in the law that would preclude me from lobbying the executive branch of government – the governor and the state agencies. So I would expect that I would be a registered executive branch lobbyist initially and once the two year time period for me lobbying the legislature, that prohibition expires – I may or may not lobby the legislature thereafter. It remains to be seen.”

Goodlette had considered running for the state Senate before incumbent Senator Burt Saunders of Naples dropped out of the GOP primary for state attorney general and stayed in his seat. Goodlette says he will decide when Saunders leaves office if he wants to run for legislative office again.

----

Former Naples State Representative Dudley Goodlette begins working for one of the largest lobbying firms in the state capital today.

He was term limited out of office this fall. Now Goodlette says he’ll continue his real estate law practice and work as an Executive branch lobbyist and advisor for Southern Strategy Group, out of a new office the firm is opening in Naples.

Goodlette says Florida’s lobbying corps operates with impeccable integrity.

“They don’t cut corners. They give you the straight information. I would envision seeking to emulate some of those really top quality people if and when I do get into the legislative lobbying arena.”

Former lawmakers are banned from lobbying the legislative branch for two years.

Southern Strategy Group has more than 100 clients including Brevard County, AT&T, Chevron, the cities of Orlando and Jacksonville and Walt Disney World.