Guidelines

I am one member of a five person board. The opinions I express on this forum are mine only, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Escambia County Staff, Administrators, Employees, or anyone else associated with Escambia County Florida. I am interested in establishing this blog as a means of additional transparency to the public, outreach to the community, and information dissemination to all who choose to look. Feedback is welcome, but because public participation is equally encouraged, appropriate language and decorum is mandatory. Although this is not my campaign site for re-election--sometimes campaign related information will be discussed, therefore in an abundance of caution I add the following : Political Advertisement Paid for and Approved by Jeff Bergosh, Republican, for Escambia County Commissioner District 1








Friday, August 15, 2014

Board Discussion on Warrington Middle School Contract--Stay the Course Is the Message

As I said I would do, I brought the contract for professional development, coaching, and support that was approved last month for Warrington Middle School back to the board this month for a discussion among the full board.

The contract was approved last month with two board members not present for the discussion.

I laid out the argument for pulling back the contract and taking a different approach, however all of my fellow board members and the Superintendent support going ahead with the contract as written, convinced it is the right support for Warrington Middle School.  They all voiced this strongly at the meeting.

The board based their decision to support this strategy on the strong recommendation of the incoming principal, who has stated she feels this support is essential to making the school successful.  Additionally, some of the board members have met with the personnel from this vendor and feel they will be successful.

So after hearing from the board members and realizing I was the only one with continuing reservations about this tactic at Warrington, I ended the discussion on the topic.

I can count to three and there are no shortages of other issues to move on to....

1 comment:

Lorraine said...

Jeff, I can understand your perspective on the issue. My position is that if this was a truly viable option before, why wasn't it implemented already? This school has a fairly long history of lagging progress.

I also think it is unfair that the great changes underway are only happening at WMS; this should be a district wide effort to move forward struggling schools. But this is at least a start.

I know $375,000 is a lot of money, but if that is what it takes, I say the future of these children is worth it. We can talk about high stakes testing and preventing a school being closed. But in the end, education is for the sake of each student, and education is their only way out of perpetual poverty and other struggles. This $375,000 after 10 years may very well alleviate the burden of safety net programs.

Political Advertisement Paid For and Approved by Jeff Bergosh, Republican for Escambia Commission D1