School board discusses magnet programs as part of comprehensive rezoning effort

BY AMBER THIBODAUX

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The Alachua County School Board met on Tuesday to continue the process of implementing comprehensive district-wide K-12 rezoning, resulting from a motion last week by Board Member Diyonne McGraw to rescind its spot-rezoning plan. The meeting centered around a presentation on the district’s magnet programs and student capacity for each school. The presenters were Kevin Berry, Curriculum Director for Alachua County Public Schools (ACPS), and Taylor Gilfillan, Director of Data Analytics, Accountability and Evaluation. The graphic below was taken from the presentation and defines the purpose of academic magnet and academy programs in Alachua County:

The two-hour meeting included a discussion on equity and diversity within the magnet programs; some board members questioned whether the district should continue to have magnet schools, and, if so, how the various magnet programs across the district could be revised and diversified. 

Gilfillan showed a series of slides with charts, graphs, and tables, breaking down each magnet school in the district, how many students are enrolled in those programs, and the number of students attending each school who are zoned vs. out-of-zone. According to the data presented, there are a total of 17 schools throughout the district that offer magnet programs and academies, with a total of 1,280 students enrolled district-wide in these programs. 

The board discussed ways it could diversify each magnet program to avoid segregation within schools, sometimes referred to as “a school within a school.” Board Member Kay Abbitt said she doesn’t think the district should get rid of magnets, recognizing that there are children who are “super bright” who need to be pushed and challenged. She emphasized that every child in the district can thrive if they have the right environment and instruction. 

“You put a kid in an environment, and they’re with a teacher who has high expectations for them and who actually gets in there and teaches them, any kid in this district can thrive,” Abbitt said. She worried, however, that the school board isn’t providing all children with that opportunity and used Boulware Charter School, which she founded, as an example of how to improve diversity. 

“We were a real high Title I school, and our school does really good work; we move those kids along, we move them way ahead, and when they go into Howard Bishop they’re going into advanced classes. Do they end up staying in there? No. Because it’s a whole different environment, and that’s unfortunate,” Abbitt said.

Abbitt reiterated that any child can learn when people “build them up and give them confidence to learn” and pointed out that children come from all over to attend Boulware because it’s a “good education.”

“I want to do something to make people want to go to those schools, and you’ve got to have good programs there – and I just want those kids to have an opportunity,” Abbitt concluded.

Abbitt was referencing certain schools in the district that are under-enrolled or lack quality magnet programs to attract students.

Board Chair Tina Certain agreed with Abbitt, saying that beyond the magnet programs, “good instruction” is the key to success for every student: “Any student can learn with good instruction and high expectations.” 

Certain mentioned “the soft bigotry of low expectations” that has plagued school environments but said that the board must move past that and make decisions that “are not going to be popular with everyone.”

“Some people like the exclusivity [of magnets]… they like having a program that just their child, or their group of students, are involved in, and they want to leave certain people out – that’s America; I mean, nobody wants to say that, OK, so I’m just putting that out there,” Certain said.

She continued, “I don’t like the magnets because I think that they are schools within schools, and they do hurt the minority students.”

“As an organization, and as a leadership team and the administrative leaders of our organization… we’re going to have to be the decision-makers that are going to make the decisions to create the environments that we want, and those ain’t going to be popular decisions, they’re not,” Certain admitted.

Board Member Sarah Rockwell pointed out that certain magnets will be exclusive to a specific group of students because “those are the students who want that program.” She then clarified, “But when we’re talking about academic programs in our elementary and middle schools, we need to stop gatekeeping them.”

“We are preventing opportunities from students, and when we talk about having high expectations, every student will rise to high expectations so long as they’re in that zone of proximal development and we’re not going way beyond what they can handle,” Rockwell said. 

Board Member Leanetta McNealy addressed the topic of replicating certain magnet programs in other schools and advised the board to be aware of the importance of knowing the “culture” of every school: “If you want to have diversity, then some things are going to certainly have to change.” 

She referenced the current Center for Fine Arts magnet program at Rawlings Elementary and recalled the former Fine Arts magnet she was involved in during her tenure at Duval Elementary: “When we started that program, everyone thought that students would want to come. Well, Duval was in a certain section in town, you have to figure that out. How safe is it, blah blah blah. We had three white students that applied for the program… and no one wanted to come,” McNealy said.  

She again emphasized culture in terms of replicating magnet programs at other schools: “I’m here to tell you that replication would be great, but you have to have the culture within the staff, wanting to do that, the support, the resources. You cannot just name a program and not have the viable resources that you’re going to need.”

Gilfillan and Berry continued their presentation with several graphs and charts showing a breakdown of school enrollment numbers and capacity and provided interactive “flow diagrams,” which enable any user to hover over any school and see how many students are zoned for that school vs. how many attend that school. The diagrams can be accessed here:

• Elementary
• Middle
• High

The presentation concluded with an update on specific changes recently made to the way the district selects students for magnet programs. 

“Before 2021, there were requirements related to state assessment scores; those have been removed and are no longer part of the process. We’ve also provided some professional development to look at new ways of having schools seek more diverse applicants through recruitment processes to continue that diversification that we talked about earlier,” Berry explained. These changes are shown in the slide below.

Superintendent Shane Andrew addressed the board at the conclusion of the workshop and acknowledged that he, too, wants to prioritize “equitable opportunities for all.” 

“I’ve heard that clearly from community members, parents, board members, students, staff, everyone – and so we want equitable opportunities for our students,” Andrew emphasized. 

Andrew named the staff members who would be leading various aspects of the comprehensive rezoning process: Jacquatte Rolle, Principal of K-12 Improvement in the Department of Curriculum/Teaching and Learning, will be the lead on the “strategic planning” effort; and Anntwanique Edwards, Chief of Equity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement, will be the lead on the “comprehensive rezoning” effort.

The first Community Input Session on rezoning will be held on April 19 at 5:30 p.m. at Oak View Middle School in Newberry. 

The meeting can be viewed in its entirety here.