A.A. Dixon-A Leap of Faith and the Reasons Why

The school board voted last night to allow A.A. Dixon to remain open despite the fact that Dixon's state FCAT grade may come back as an F for the second year in a row.  State school grades will be released any day.

Last Thursday during the workshop, the idea of an amendment to the previous agreement was not even on the horizon.  Three board members of five expressed an inclination to allow the charter contract "sudden death" clause to remain intact, even though the charters' finances had apparently stabilized and many community partners had stepped up to pledge support.  

Friday, superintendent Thomas sent all board members this document--clearly illustrating that this school is making progress and these students are making significant learning gains.

Then Linda Moultrie requested an amendment to the charter be added to the Board's agenda on Monday.

Adding to these developments, new state law that speaks to the appeals process for a double F charter was brought to the attention of the board in the eleventh hour on Tuesday. All of this led to a finalized draft amendment for board consideration to be presented at the table during the regular meeting.

Blend in to this commotion  a sizable crowd of supporters gathered to advocate for Dixon--and what you end up with is a temporary reprieve for this charter school;  their fate, more than likely, will be decided by the Florida State Board of Education at some point over the next 6 months.

But the school is intact for the near term, on tenuous footing.  More is certainly to come on this school......

Take Stock in Children Senior Graduation 2012

The Take Stock in Children Graduating class of 2012 was honored last night at a banquet held at the Wright Place in downtown Pensacola.

13 Students completed the 6 year mentoring program which qualified them for a four year, up to $11,000 dollar scholarship. 

As a bonus, each graduate was also presented with a brand new laptop computer.  The laptop computer presentation is a relatively new component of the ceremony.  Three years ago, brothers Nick and Nate Gupta began a laptop program for the Take Stock Graduates in Santa Rosa County.  With the assistance and encouragement of their parents, Nate and Nick Gupta solicited donations from the community to pay for the laptops.

Last year, the Gupta brothers procured enough money via community donations to extend their take-stock laptop program to both Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties.

Last night, Nick Gupta announced to the assembled crowd of roughly three hundred that he and his brothers have now this year expanded their program to Okaloosa County as well—they’ll now be donating laptops to all the Take Stock graduates in a three county area!

A fantastic initiative by great young men to help others—what an outstanding service they are providing!

A Touching Story from Yesterday's Graduation

In the intermission between the West Florida High and Pine Forest High School graduations, a young man came by the green room to meet with the school board and to say hello.  Immediately it became apparent that this young man had some disabilities that he was confronting; however,  his personality and demeanor were upbeat as he proceeded to work the room and pose for photographs with the assembled district personnel.

My colleague Gerald Boone gave me the back story on Cody—he was supposed to graduate last year with his fraternal twin in the class of 2011—however brain cancer and the treatments he had been receiving for this condition led to his graduation being postponed a year.  Cody had overcome some tough family circumstances as well, and he was a promising athlete in his freshman year.

Emotions became difficult for Mr. Boone to contain as he showed me a picture of Cody playing tennis in ninth grade—a happy and smiling ninth grader!

But then came the Brain cancer diagnosis. And athletics fell by the wayside.  And next came the doctor’s prognosis that Cody would not walk again and may not live to see his own high school graduation. 

 Cody did not give up though--  he worked through and fought back against his medical condition.  His school family at Pine Forest rallied around him—electing him homecoming king by an overwhelming majority vote!

Cody channeled this support and his own inner-strength and proved those doctors wrong yesterday and not only lived to see his graduation—he walked across the stage unassisted to a huge standing ovation!  It was an awe-inspiring moment that left me numb.

Meeting inspiring young people like Cody make me feel fortunate and thankful for the things I have and for the life I lead.  Most peoples’ lives (mine especially) are a cake walk compared to what Cody has to deal with—and yet there he is, smiling and living his life to his fullest!

Many of us could take a life lesson from Cody’s example.

Meeting this young man yesterday and hearing his story made the day one I won’t soon forget.

Revenue Estimating Conference Points to Continued Austerity

Our Tallahassee Consultant/Lobbyist, Mixon and Associates, regularly sends analysis and research papers on areas of interest to the school board. Yesterday afternoon, a point paper was sent regarding our budgets for the next year. It is an analysis of the revenue estimating conference report from last week.
While the report points to some areas of encouragement, namely that we look to be on track to have an additional $300Million in General Revenue statewide over the January forecast, there is also concern that other areas of the state budget will be clamoring for additional revenue—potentially leaving K-12 FEFP vulnerable to static funding. From the report:
“This is an austere picture. It is made more difficult because many other budget areas, such as the state university system, had significant impacts in the FY 2012-2013 budget, while $1.063 billion were used to fill FEFP budget holes. Those other budget areas will compete for new resources in FY 2013-2014. In addition, the Legislature recently has been reluctant to allow revenue increases to be realized from local school property taxes. If the FEFP received an increase of $407.3 million, it is uncertain that the cost of student growth and other increases in state required expenses would be covered by that amount.”


The report goes on to illustrate the effects of the recession on funding levels:
It may be instructive to see what has happened to General Revenue since the start of the recession. The table below shows some comparisons.

 Fiscal Year and Report Date Recurring Funds Available Non-Recurring Funds Available Total Funds Available


FY 2006-2007


July 12, 2007 $26.6549 Billion $5.3952 Billion $32.0501 Billion


FY 2007-2008


July 12, 2007 $27.5685 Billion $3.6052 Billion $31.173.7 Billion


FY 2012-2013


May 23, 2012 $24.1042 Billion $1.949.0 Billion $26.0532 Billion

 During the same time GR funds were decreasing, total local funds available in the FEFP dropped from $9,405,486,287 in the Final Conference Report of April 28, 2008 for FY 2008-2009, to $7,625,433,481 in the Final Conference Report of March 6, 2012 for FY 2012-2013.


The full report with lots of additional information is here

Holiday Weekend DOE Document Dump: Let the Gnashing of Teeth Begin Part I

Charter Schools—the Good News and the Bad News........

Today the DOE dumped a lot of information on the public, just in time for some significant commotion prior to the long Memorial Day weekend.  As was the case a few months back and even more recently with the writing test scores fiasco, the data does not look good. 

The attached spreadsheet below illustrates data from 3^rd grade reading and mathematics which I have downloaded from the DOE site and sorted.   I’ve organized third grade reading and math results, then sorted them from highest percentage of proficient sorcerers in each subject to the lowest number.

The scores for the most part are low.  Much of this is due to new, tougher scoring and more rigorous standards, which we all knew would be coming.

But some of the scoring issues have to do with parents that have not 100% fully bought in to their end of the partnership with our district and their children’s schools.  That’s right, it is a partnership. 

Teachers are not miracle workers.  Schools, teachers, volunteers, administrators, the latest technological gadgetry and educational pedagogy combined with the best of intentions and stacks of Title I money cannot overcome complacent, dispassionate, and apathetic parents.

Those who are familiar with our local communities and schools will see from the chart above that the schools that are scoring the best have parental engagement, input, and “buy-in”—this is a large part of their success! 

Many of the schools that have low scores, unfortunately, do not have the same level of parental engagement.  This is a chiefly a societal problem—not a scholastic one.
I’m not going to do the usual dissertation on Poverty in our district to explain low scores away, though;

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished---School District prevails with Summary Judgment in James Benny Washington Case

From an email sent by Board Attorney Donna Waters this morning:

SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS - DO NOT ‘REPLY ALL’ – RESPOND  ONLY  TO ME

            Good Morning:

             

            Mr. Hammons' office just advised us that a summary judgment in favor of the School Board has been granted in the Case of James (Benny) Washington v. School Board.  This means that the Court found that there were no material facts in dispute, and that based upon those undisputed facts, there was no legal basis on which the plaintiff could win at trial.

             

            I will provide a copy of the court's order to you upon receipt.

             

            Congratulations are due to Mr. Hammons and his staff for this success!

             

             

             

             

            Donna Sessions Waters

            General Counsel

            Escambia County School Board

            75 North Pace Boulevard

            Pensacola, Florida 32505

Background…..

At the regular meeting of the Escambia County School Board on December 18, 2007, Superintendent Jim Paul  recommended that the board terminate then  employee James Benny Washington.  After reviewing the entire issue, including looking into the appropriate files and speaking with numerous district administrative personnel with direct knowledge of this employee, I made the difficult decision at that time to not support the termination recommendation.  At the regular  meeting that December evening, Superintendent Jim Paul was stunned  as the board voted down his recommendation and instead allowed this employee to resign.

It became somewhat personal to me, as I made the recommendation that this employee be allowed to resign, which was voted on and passed by the board over the objection of Superintendent Paul.

This employee had some significant issues, including a legal issue in the courts, which would have provided ample support to the termination had the board decided to take that path.  My fear in terminating this employee was that an appeal might be successful—and we would then be compelled to bring this person back with back-pay and be “stuck” with him forever.   Nobody wanted that.   Also, the compassionate side of me felt that to allow him to quit might provide him the spark necessary to get back on track with his coaching/teaching career.  I harbored no personal animosity toward this employee; rather, I felt that if he voluntarily quit, as he was pleading with us to allow, then we would have the benefit of a clean break from him.  No DOAH hearings, no arbitration, no Union Grievances, nothing.  He would be gone, and that would be that.  Plus, we would not have to spend oodles of cash fighting him through these grievances, hearings, appeals, or in court because ----he wanted to quit.

To me it seemed so clear.

But I was wrong—at least initially.  After James Benny Washington quit, it became one legal fight after another---racking up huge legal bills for the taxpayers of this county to eat in the process.  In June of 2009, Washington  filed a two count complaint against the School Board in Circuit Court.  We let him quit, which he requested, then he sued us.  And this has been expensive--  I have requested and will get the exact figure, but for now the outside legal counsel expense is estimated to be between $25-30K, plus countless hours of our in-house attorney’s time, and add to that staff time in preparing documents and doing research and attending meetings on this issue.  Yes, this person quit and yet we were incurring huge costs.   I was infuriated  when the lawsuit broke in 2009 and wanted so badly to come forward and discuss this travesty earlier and in the media—but I was admonished not to do so for fear of jeopardizing the case .  So I’ve kept my mouth shut, my opinion to myself, and gritted my teeth as the legal bills mounted and the taxpayers continued to be soaked.

Eventually, this issue faded into the background with all of the other legal matters, until about six months ago when the issue again bubbled up to the surface as one of the two counts alleged by James Benny Washington vaporized via a summary judgment in our favor.  One Count down, one to go!

Fast forward to last week,  and the issue came up again, as I was subpoenaed to appear in court!  Unbelievable—I lead the charge to allow this man to quit  after he pleaded with us over and over--and I end up getting subpoenaed to appear in court as huge legal fees continue to mount for the taxpayers!!

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished. 

Thankfully, I won’t be going  to court next week after all—as it appears  that the Saga of James Benny Washington’s Case is finally over—nearly four and a half years and tens of thousands of  taxpayer dollars later, the second count of his complaint is gone as of today.   A summary judgment in favor of the School Board has been granted in the Case of James (Benny) Washington v. School Board.

Meanwhile, the moral of the story is that even when you are in the right and you try to make a good decision and do the right thing by giving somebody something they want-- you can still get socked with a costly lawsuit,  which is incredibly frustrating.

New District Video Recording of Workshops Underway

The Escambia County School Board has installed new cameras and a new software system which will enable all board workshops as well as regular meetings to be archived. The workshops and all regular meetings will be available for the public to view online, anytime. I am very impressed with the system and after watching the archived copy of our last workshop I must say I believe this is a huge step forward for transparency. The meetings can be accessed by going to the district homepage, then clicking on the board members/meetings link, which will then take the reader to a chronological list of the previously held School Board Meetings and Workshops.

See and access recorded board workshops here