Week 7: 1st Hillcrest Visit

Wow,  week 7. This internship is going by too quickly. While at times difficult to balance school, being a club president, and the internship, this week has shown me people not only support the current Hillcrest project but are willing to help in a variety of ways.

To elaborate, Professor Lyons and I traveled to the site on Thursday (February 24th) to meet Mrs. Spicer, the librarian, and for me to take pictures of some of the albums of photos available. When first arriving, I was introduced to Principal Ortega, who expressed gratitude and lauded me (under the rightful guidance of Dr. Lyons) for the work I had done. She also gave us some strategies moving forward and allowed me to take a photo of an image depicting the first Hillcrest building that was in black and white.

 After that 15 minute meeting, we went upstairs where I briefly met the aforementioned librarian Mrs. Spicer, and used the camera I borrowed from the History department to take photographs of a multitude of collections at hand. The first was a yearbook from 1984-1985 depicting all the classes at the time. One interesting point the madam I will be interviewing next week in my first oral history was also in that yearbook as a student at Hillcrest. Other collections photographed include two PTA scrapbooks of clipped new articles and an abundance of picture on school wide events such as Field Days and Christmas Pageants. It also keys in on a few specific stories such as an extensive collection on the International Day of Peace in the late 80's, a story on a male kindergarten teacher who won Teacher of the Year in the county, and how a extensive farewell party was held for twenty year crossing guard who retired. That last story really captivated me as a reminder of what a tight knit community an elementary school can be After about two hours, I made it through four albums, with many more still gone unread warranting a second visit in the near future.

The following day, which happens to be the same day I am writing this, saw an effort to name and organize the 120 extra jpeg now found on my laptop's hard drive. While slightly mindless, I don't want to underestimate the importance of being organized (a skill I had to learn the hard way during this internship). Just today, I had to re scan a few documents because of carelessness on my end. Either way, this internship is constantly teaching me the steps I have to take to reach professionalism.

Week 6

This week saw the plans to go to Dr. Gannon's lecture on Oral history come to fruition. The lecture, given on the 16th of February, was titled "How to Conduct an Oral History". While initially being worried it would predominantly focus on the veterans aspect of Oral history due to Gannon's work in that field, it was a great overview of the process of giving an interview. In attendance was a diverse group of people, including my former Spanish teacher Profesora Nalbone, who is planning to interview Pulse victims.

The lecture itself reinforced why Oral History is so important, giving a voice to those who, in Gannon's words, "didn't matter fifty years ago". The lecture also put an emphasis on the pre-interview, saying the preparation determines the quality of the following interview. Another key was how one acted during the interview, stressing not to interrupt the interviewee and also to allow them to weave the narrative. Another tactic to avoid is answering question simply ending yes or no responses, or questions with a clear bias (e.g. if talking to someone from Sanford "Wasn't living in a small town awful"). Also, the concept of active listening was touched upon, as an interviewer is tasked with coming up with follow-up questions on the fly if need be

Today, Friday the 17th, saw another trip to the library finding and citing additional Sentinel sources. The Clinton visit in early September of 1998 was a momentous occasion in Hillcrest history, seeing the recently scandalized president visit to push his domestic education reform. Clinton spoke about reducing class sizes and making schools safer. And he will call on Congress to build or renovate 5,000 schools beset by crowding and dilapidated conditions. The $5 billion federal tax-credit program would allow $22 billion in bonds to go toward school construction.

An article recounting the possibility of a Hillcrest merger says the following: School leaders estimate the move would save at least $7.5 million in operating costs and about $90 million in capital dollars. More money could be saved, they estimated, if the district decided later to sell the properties where the shuttered campuses remain. "We have no choice," said School Board member Christine Moore at Tuesday's meeting before the vote.The schools are Hillcrest, Kaley, Grand Avenue, Richmond Heights, Maxey and Pine Castle. Hillcrest's foreign-language program would be folded into Howard Middle, which would be converted into a K-8 school. This can be paired with the “Save Howard from Hillcrest Merger” but from a Hillcrest perspective.

Week 5

January 3rd Begins by recounting how the principal at the time (Chando O’Dell announced the new Hillcrest plans on January 2nd of that same year). It says six classes will take place Goss Memorial Methodist Church and only one class being held at Fern Creek Elementary. Also, it assures parents that the students will stay with their teachers from the semester before.  It gives assorted teachers names like how one was named Mrs. Stella Scarborough and Mabel Randolph was a second-grade teacher. The teachers themselves would be a fascinating first person account of the rebuilding processing. That period, while likely tumultuous and hard to recount all the events, is a time with a treasure trove of information (if the many Orlando Sentinel account is indicative of anything. While Also, it reveals a busing situation based on certain streets, and reveals the kids would have hot lunch provided for 30 cents.

Jan 8th article recounts how the Hillcrest PTA was asked to make a ‘vote of confidence’ during a meeting at Goss Memorial Methodist. Some people of note speaking to the PTA was city commissioner Doug Barnes and head of the Colonial Town Businessmen’s Association. Parent Don Barbour aspired to spearhead a campaign to rebuild Hillcrest, saying “If the need for a school was there December 22nd, the need is still there (today)”. He also would go on to say “The area is too big without a school” and stating it was 4 sq. miles of Orlando land. Also, a demographic check exists saying now that 388 students go to Hillcrest. Demographics have been fluctuating per accounts given, which seems to demonstrate variance in people’s account. This happened when the author of an earlier article claimed Hillcrest was built in 1925, when hard evidence exists from the “Biennial Report” that in fact it was completed in February 1924. It gives me perspective to be careful what sources I take as fact, as a reporter is likely to make a mistake when compared to superintendent (who wrote the Orange County portion of the Biennial Report).

I hope to begin the process of preparing to conducting oral history interviews, a key component of the Hillcrest project. As mentioned last week, I will be taking workshop with Professor Gannon to hopefully give me the tools but of course Professor Lyons will guide me as usual. 

Week 4

Week 4 began late for me, starting on a Thursday due to other responsibilities related to school. I met with Dr. Lyons that morning, which was an extremely informative meeting which revealed for one, Orange County had a history of the local schools. Another key fact is the existence of a oral history workshop being run by none other than Dr. Gannon, a professor I have had on multiple occasions. The hope is it will prep me for conducting the interviews related to the Hillcrest internship.

Later on, Dr. Lyons and I traveled to the library, where she taught me how to use the microfilm (specifically on this occasion for the Orlando Sentinel). The microfilm viewer was all new to me, meaning some trial and error was bound to occur.

 I began by searching through the Sentinel's Dec 1963 record, which split the month into two equal halves. The December 1st to the 15th contained mostly headlines related to JFK assassination as the mainstay of Sentinel headlines, and had no information related to Hillcrest. While going through the second half, December 16th to the 31st, I found a host of information related to Hillcrest. First, I pinpointed the exact date of the Hillcrest Fire to December 22nd, 1963 over the winter break. The headline "Hillcrest Ravaged by Fire" is the first I came across related to the inferno. The article recounts how 16 quare blocks of Orlando was shutdown, and said Fire Chief Pennington would investigate. It also gave a look into the demographics of Hillcrest, saying 360 kids went to the school and 12 teachers taught. The follow day, December 24th, has the headline "Engineer will check Hillcrest". It reveals the than the fire was intentionally started, with the Fire Chief reporting nine distinct locations such as the Principal's office and Hillcrest's Cafeteria. The December 27th headline "Hillcrest's fate Pondered" sees engineer John Tilden give an price estimate to rebuild the school, and that Orange County Superintendent Kipp thought of forgoing rebuilding Hillcrest and simply incorporating the children to neighboring schools. The final story on Hillcrest, made on the final day of December, relates to how the school carried on by using churches and extra classrooms at Fern Creek Elementary to continue Hillcrest's operation.

Some findings I found interesting was the "Hillcrest Ravaged by Fire" articles posits that Hillcrest was built between 1925 and 1927, while the Orange County Superintendent's report to Tallahasee directly contradicts that by saying a school was built in February of 1924. Another fact revealed by my studies was the existence of a "Negro" version of the Sentinel, which may be useful when research desegregation.