BCC and Escambia School Board Hold Joint Meeting

Members of the Board of County Commission and the School Board held a joint meeting on Tuesday. L to R Malcolm Thomas, Grover Robinson, Patty Hightower, Steven Barry, Bill Slayton, Doug Underhill, Gerald Boone, Lee Hansen, Lumon May, Kevin Adams, Jeff Bergosh, Jack Brown

Tuesday evening from 5:00-7:30 the Escambia Board of County Commissioners and the Escambia County School Board held a joint meeting.

Multiple subjects of interest were discussed, including safe walking to school around the county, and the need for more sidewalks.

Much of the discussion focused on the new Beulah Middle School--and the fact that access to that school will be challenging for students who walk due to the lack of sidewalks in the area.  Access coming out of Allegheny Road directly across the street from Beulah Middle School was also a hot-button discussion--as the current FDOT plan calls for that entrance to be a "right-turn only"--which the residents do not want.

We also discussed the graduation rate and the school board gave a presentation delineating the progress made with on-time, four year graduation (currently at 79.5% for 4 year graduation with a standard diploma).  This is a large improvement from the 2008 school year when the on-time, 4-year graduation rate was about 60%.

I once again brought the concept of a SEED style public charter boarding school--but there was no appetite for that here locally-mainly due to the astronomical ongoing costs per student.  But with Triumph grants available-I did think that perhaps this would have been a good funding source for start-up of a school locally.  No support for this from the school board, though.

I had a discussion about the feasibility of bringing a Law School and a Medical School to Pensacola, so that instead of exporting our students and their spending to places like Tallahassee and Mobile--we might keep them (and their expenditures for tuition, housing, food, etc.) here in the greater Pensacola area.  Folks seemed receptive, but not overly so..

My final discussion point was on establishing an Escambia Youth Commission like ones in Fulton County, GA, Seattle Washington, and San Diego California.  Quite surprisingly--this idea was met with much support--even from the members of the school board.  I look forward to working with members of the staff, and the school district, with establishing this new group over the next few months.

The video of the entire meeting can be found here.