Dear Mrs.

Stewart,
The intent of this letter is to educate you of my experience with some of your staff with regards
to curriculum changes which I have attempted to implement, and which your staff has systematically
refused to address. I respectfully request that you intervene and resolve the problem, and in so doing,
serve the educational enrichment of the students and educators who have thus far been denied by the
bureaucracy in your Department.

To that end, and to give you a sense of the chronological sequence of events of my efforts to add
a Philosophy Honors Ethics 0.5 credit course into the curriculum, I am sending an attachment to this letter.
It offers a detailed picture, thoroughly summarizing the events and persons concerned. It is a letter I was
compelled to send to both the Attorney General and the Governor.

I received a lengthy phone call from a representative in the Attorney General’s office who
provided me with very helpful information to pursue this matter. The Governor’s office asked the
Bureau of Curriculum and Instruction to respond to my letter. That response, by Ann Whitney, is the
second attachment for you to read.

It was Ms. Whitney’s letter that prompted me to suspect that you may be unaware of this ongoing
situation. Her letter avoids answering the many questions I raised in my letter, and callously disregards
the needs and desires of the students who want a course on this subject on campus. Additionally, her
letter falsely assumes that students can pursue dual enrollment and travel off campus to a college,
erroneously assuming that they all qualify to do so, that they all have the transportation capabilities to do
so, and that they all have parental consent to do so. Ms. Whitney offers no viable explanation for
summarily dismissing the efforts and time spent by everyone involved in this lengthy process. That
includes the ten course authors (of which mine was one) who initially proposed the courses, the many
personnel in various departments at the District level in the multistep process of approving forward the
ten courses for final approval by the School Board of Broward County, and of course the Broward County
School Board members who evaluated and approved the courses (which they then forwarded to the
state). Is it the policy of your Department or that of Ms. Whitney to universally reject all course proposals,
especially without having extended the professional courtesy of prior official notice that no courses would
be considered, even though all current criteria for rigor were met? It would have saved everyone
considerable time and energy to have been officially forewarned, and the absence of such a notice
inferred and led everyone to believe that course submissions would in fact be considered; but also it
would have denied our students educational opportunities which would enrich their high school
experience. Her letter singularly attacked me in particular, by suggesting that I should go teach in college
rather than in high school, basically telling me to get another job. Further, none of her suggestions or the
courses she mentioned solve our problem.

Our problem is simple. It concerns one of the three philosophy courses taught at Cypress Bay High
School. Two of them, 21053550 Philosophy Honors: Ethics and 21209150 Philosophy Honors 2 (both of
which I created de novo) are each 1.0 credit full year courses and as such are no problem. But the third,
21209100 Philosophy Honors, is a 0.5 credit semester course, and we have had to link it with a 0.5 credit
non-philosophy honors course to complete a full year. The students and administration much prefer the
rigor and reasoning and critical thinking nature of a philosophy course in its stead, completing three full
years of philosophy, instead of two and a half. Furthermore, and of great concern, the pool of available
0.5 credit honors courses has been drying up, such that there may one day be no course available to link
with, effectively rendering the 2105340 Philosophy Honors 0.5 credit course defunct and unteachable, for
what would the students do the other half year?

The solution is simple: create a new 0.5 credit honors philosophy course with which to link. That
is what my proposed (and Broward County School Board approved) Philosophy Honors Ethics 0.5 credit
course accomplishes, satisfying the wants and needs of our students and administration. Virtually none
of the courses Ms. Whitney mentions in her letter solves this simple problem. Mine does.

In summary, I ask that you personally review the circumstances that have resulted in my
significant frustration and intervene in this matter to address the issues which I have raised. I am
certain that my frustrations are evident through this letter, and look forward to your help in
satisfactorily resolving this matter, so that together we can all help to enrich the students’ educational
experience. After all, your bio begins, “Mrs. Stewart has dedicated her life to ensuring Florida’s students
have access to a high quality education that enables them to reach their full potential and achieve their
academic and career goals.” You and I are on the same page, are of the same philosophy. Unfortunately,
it appears members of your staff are not of the same philosophy, as evidenced by the attached letters.
Thank you.
Sincerely yours,

Ralph Cannizzaro
Philosophy Educator
Cypress Bay High School
Cellular phone: 954-494-0809
ralphcannizzaro@bellsouth.net