Alachua County Commission pledges $250,000 to improve literacy in joint meeting with Children’s Trust

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At an April 21 joint meeting between the Alachua County Commission and the Children’s Trust of Alachua County, the County Commission voted unanimously to approve at least $250,000 to set up a central organization to coordinate the efforts of the various organizations engaging in literacy efforts.

Gun violence update

During a discussion about youth advisory councils to the Gun Violence Prevention Alliance, County Commissioner Anna Prizzia asked whether progress had been made on finding activities for young people and asked the group to think about scholarships for young people who have been arrested: “What are those things that we can do to hold regular, ongoing spaces and places and things for these kids to do after school and in addition to employment, so that they have positive things to focus on – but also that the students that are beginning to shift their lives, like the ones that have been justice-involved, or gun violence involved, and have found better paths? A lot of them, they’re doing a lot better in school, they’re really kind of making a difference in their lives, but then they get stuck at the end because their families don’t necessarily have the support to get them to college… Can we start talking to our community partners, the business leaders in our community, the Chamber of Commerce? How can we begin to develop scholarships, or, you know, funding buckets that would help to support these young people to be able to meet their academic goals and their career training goals, once they’ve… made the commitment to change their lives and move forward in a positive manner, and then they get stuck because of economic disparity?”

During public comment on the gun violence agenda item, Carla Lewis from the Greater Duval Neighborhood Association said that is why her group created a scholarship fund. She added, “I don’t know what the answer is, but I know what the answer is not, and it is not decreasing the amount of funding that we put into a program, like has been proposed for summer programming for the Children’s Trust.”

Comprehensive Literacy Needs Assessment Report

The next agenda item was the Comprehensive Literacy Needs Assessment Report, which arose from a vote in May 2023 at a joint meeting of the County Commission and the Children’s Trust; the UF Lastinger Center coordinated and developed the assessment report with numerous local partners. 

Click here for the full report.

The presentation from the Lastinger Center highlighted some data from the report, including a chart showing 3rd-grade reading levels by race for Alachua County, compared to the state as a whole.

Another chart highlighted survey results showing that Alachua County educators and administrators have high confidence that the district’s phonics program is helping students learn to read, but they have less confidence that those programs are helping students learn to write.

Recommendations

The Lastinger team recommended naming and funding a central organization to link the various organizations that are engaging in literacy efforts, requiring organizations to show targeted literacy impacts if they receive public funding, increasing public investment in organizations that provide early learning and intervention, and providing ongoing professional development training for early learning providers.

Pam Chalfant from the Lastinger Center said families want to support their children in learning to read, but parents may need to work two jobs, they may have limited access to transportation to activities that support literacy, and they may lack healthcare and dental care. She recommended getting more children into VPK programs and providing evidence-based training for healthcare organizations, such as “literacy-type things in doctors’ offices.” She recommended focusing on children with special needs, children experiencing poverty, black students, multilingual learners, and bilingual learners. 

Chalfant concluded, “Across the board, people took responsibility… [They said] they think everybody is doing the very, very best they can with their slice of the pie, but it feels like what we need to do is come together and figure out how we work across all of those slices and everybody come together and move things forward with literacy.”

The next steps are developing a comprehensive plan for literacy, securing funding, supporting high-fidelity implementation of evidence-based programming, and evaluating progress through data-informed decision-making. It will take three to five months for the first step, developing the comprehensive plan.

County Commissioner Marihelen Wheeler: “Rather than investing in the new shiny curriculum, we really need to invest in our teachers and making sure that they are getting the compensation they deserve.”

County Commissioner Marihelen Wheeler, a former teacher, said her former colleagues complain that the curriculum changes every year: “You know, we’re paying a lot of money for the next shiny object… Rather than investing in the new shiny curriculum, we really need to invest in our teachers and making sure that they are getting the compensation they deserve.” She also recommended giving new programs time to work “before we switch to the next new thing.” Regarding testing, she said, “The third grade tests are outrageous. Anybody who knows anything about teaching reading to third-graders knows that what we are seeing come down from the state, in terms of assessment, is unreasonable.” She said she would like to see how the state assessments compare to national assessments. 

Wheeler said she had visited the St. Barbara Leadership Institute, a Christian school on SE Williston Road, and she had asked them, “Do we need to go back to working on segregating our schools so that the kids can learn in an environment that’s comfortable and safe?” She said the response was, “No, Marihelen, it’s not segregating the schools; it’s community schools, it’s neighborhood schools, but the neighborhoods are segregated, and so we’re sending children out of their neighborhoods into places where they don’t feel safe to learn.” 

School Board and Children’s Trust Board Member Tina Certain interrupted, “No, we’re not. Children go to the school that’s closest to their house.”

Wheeler said, “I’m glad to hear you say that,… but I just want you to know that there are kids getting educated… from the black community in a different setting.”

County Commissioner Anna Prizzia: “Again and again I say from the dais, we have to stop creating safety nets and start creating safety harnesses. This is the start of that – providing quality education to our children so that they can attain their dreams and they can have upward economic mobility in their lives.”

Prizzia thanked the Lastinger Center for the report “that allows us… to justify putting important resources towards this issue. Again and again I say from the dais, we have to stop creating safety nets and start creating safety harnesses. This is the start of that – providing quality education to our children so that they can attain their dreams and they can have upward economic mobility in their lives… If we do nothing else as a commission, doing this is a big deal.” She said she knew people would say that is the school district’s job, but “it’s all of our jobs.”

Prizzia said she thought they could move forward with empowering the various literacy groups to develop an action plan: “I don’t think we need a big, long conversation about it. I don’t want to see it take months and months… It’s really about getting the resources to the organizations that are doing those things so that they can do them.” She asked whether the school district is using a standardized curriculum and whether that can be extended to community literacy agencies.

School Superintendent and Children’s Trust Board Member Kamela Patton said she is “a big believer in aligning arrows,… lining up those arrows so that we’re all going in the same direction.” She said it’s best to have the same curriculum in all the schools because the most fragile kids have the highest mobility rate, but she also emphasized that 96 languages are spoken in our school system. She said she was excited about new programs the School Board will see in the next month: “Sometimes new programs are the right thing, certainly a communication tool that can communicate with any of those 96 languages.” She said the district will be training their literacy coaches over the summer to make sure they’re all aligned with the district’s phonics program, and she said community agencies should not be buying software: “Use ours.”

County Commissioner and Children’s Trust Board Chair Ken Cornell: “This is not a school board problem. This is not a Children’s Trust problem. This is a community problem,… and I think I’m ready for the County to invest real resources.”

Prizzia said she was ready to “empower [the effort] with some resources to keep it moving forwards,” and County Commission Vice Chair and Children’s Trust Chair Ken Cornell agreed, saying he was “with you 100%.” Cornell added, “This is not a school board problem. This is not a Children’s Trust problem. This is a community problem,… and I think I’m ready for the County to invest real resources.”

School Board and Children’s Trust Board Member Tina Certain: “When we look at the achievement data by race,… if we were making cars and 70% of our cars were defective and not performing to engineering standards, that line of business would be out of work, right?… We have to do better.”

Certain said, “When I read about limited resources being utilized appropriately,… – the district is funded to do this, and when we look at the achievement data by race,… if we were making cars and 70% of our cars were defective and not performing to engineering standards, that line of business would be out of work, right?… We have to do better.”

Certain: “We’ve created environments, high-poverty schools, where children come to school and have a lot of needs, and then we put staff in those schools that are our newest teachers”

Certain took issue with Wheeler’s comments about neighborhood schools: “They’re already going to school in their neighborhoods, and… it’s hard to staff those schools. We’ve created environments, high-poverty schools, where children come to school and have a lot of needs, and then we put staff in those schools that are our newest teachers,… [with] less than three years’ experience, most of the time… Couple that with a lot of staff turnover, inexperienced school leaders,… [and] we have a… system… where it’s really hard for students who come out of that to do well.” 

Certain said, “What we’re seeing right now is the result of – back in 2002, of going to neighborhood schools… [That] really set back students because we created environments where it is really challenging… We do have a problem, and if we don’t solve it, it is going to be a further drain on our local community.”

Children’s Trust Board Member Lee Pinkoson said that while he appreciated Certain’s willingness to raise expectations for the school district, children also need to be prepared to enter school, and he thought a workshop might be helpful to see what has worked and what hasn’t worked in the early years of childhood. He said, “There’s so many children that aren’t able to participate in some of the programs that we have. How do we expand the participation level?”

Cornell: “The data is getting better in the last two years, which is great, but the facts are, Asian kids are reading at 77% of grade level; white kids, 74% of grade level; and African Americans, 33%. Not acceptable – one-third versus three-fourths… I can’t think of a more important thing for a County Commissioner to invest in – the entire family. Not just the kid, the actual entire family. That’s kind of our job: public health, welfare, and safety.”

Cornell said, “This has been going on for quite some time. The data is getting better in the last two years, which is great, but the facts are, Asian kids are reading at 77% of grade level; white kids, 74% of grade level; and African Americans, 33%. Not acceptable – one-third versus three-fourths… And I hope that what the County Commission does, because I know the Trust is investing in this, is that we put the resources to actually move the dial – less workshops, less data collection, more action, more ‘Let’s get going.’ And to your point, I can’t think of a more important thing for a County Commissioner to invest in – the entire family. Not just the kid, the actual entire family. That’s kind of our job: public health, welfare, and safety.”

Motion

Prizzia made a motion to budget “at least $250,000 this year from the County to partner with the Children’s Trust and the Nonprofit Center of Excellence to work with key literacy organizations and stakeholders to develop a plan for implementation and evaluation of this reform, based on the recommendations in this Needs Assessment, and to bring us back within 90 days what that plan is and a formal budget so that we can… allocate it before the end of the budget cycle,… – and we write a letter to the School Board, asking that they adopt the Needs Assessment and the recommendations in this report, as well.” Wheeler seconded the motion.

Cornell said he appreciated the motion, but “I think the amount might be a little light.” Prizzia agreed but said it was “just a placeholder” and that if the Children’s Trust allocates the same amount, it will be $500,000.

The motion passed unanimously, with Chair Chuck Chestnut absent.

Prizzia asked whether the Children’s Trust would also put up money, and Cornell said they have “this item coming back to us, and they were waiting to see what was going to happen here.”