School Board of Alachua County asks for more detail on Strategic Plan, hears concerns about Duval Early Learning Academy

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At their September 3 meeting, the School Board of Alachua County asked staff to bring back more detail about the Strategic Plan before they approve it, and several comments about Duval Early Learning Academy left at least one board member concerned about the school’s future.

Strategic Plan

During Superintendent Requests, Superintendent Shane Andrew thanked all the people that had worked on the Strategic Plan over the previous 12 months and said the team “will continue to work on implementation plans that, of course, will remain fluid and flexible, but that are focused on teacher recruitment and retention, student achievement, system organization and processes, as well as professional learning.”

Chief of Teaching and Learning Jacquatte Rolle presented a Strategy Map (which lays out all of the objectives, critical initiatives, and key measures through 2027) and the Annual Improvement Plan for the current academic year, which consisted of only four brief pages (shown in the next four images).

Four strategic themes and four critical initiatives

Rolle explained that the development of the plan was a year-long process with contributions from 55 stakeholders and input from the community. She said four strategic themes emerged from the process: teacher recruitment and retention, system and organizational processes, student achievement, and professional learning. 

Four critical initiatives were identified for the 2024-25 academic year:

• Implement highly effective practices for [teacher] recruitment and retention.
• Identify and define departments/positions and roles and responsibilities supporting student achievement.
• Utilize multiple sources of data more efficiently to inform instructional decisions and implementation of systems of instruction.
• Establish and document a shared vision of staff performance.

Rolle said, “Each strategic theme developed an implementation plan which outlines the steps to accomplish their year one critical initiative. This includes what activities will be implemented, who’s responsible, resources required, and activity measures.” She said the board would receive quarterly updates on the progress toward meeting these critical initiatives. 

Board discussion

Member Sarah Rockwell said she thought it would be helpful for the board and the public to see the Annual Implementation Plan – “not all of the minute details, but just the list of activities under each critical initiative.” She said she had seen that level of detail in other districts’ published strategic plans. 

Rockwell said, “I don’t have a problem approving what we have here tonight, but I think it would be a good idea, for transparency and accountability purposes, so that the community can see – because even these critical initiatives are quite broad, and a lay person reading them would say, ‘Well, what does that mean? Utilize multiple sources of data more efficiently. I don’t know what that means.’ But when you see the actual activities that are going to happen, it becomes very clear what that means and what we’re going to be doing.”

Member Kay Abbitt said she had planned to say “the exact same thing… As I look at this – we’re relying on the data, but what are the activities we’re going to do that’s going to change the data?”

Member Tina Certain agreed, saying, “I thought we would have a more comprehensive document that showed a little bit more… So my question really is – how are we going to know at the end of year one that we’ve been successful or that we’re making progress towards what the stated goal is? We don’t have any measure here. We have a time frame… What are we going to do different?”

Rolle said the Implementation Plan includes those activities and measures, and she would get that to the board after the meeting. 

Chair Diyonne McGraw said she would like the group meetings to be on Zoom and easier for the public to access. 

Member Leanetta McNealy said she appreciated all the work that went into the plan, but she wondered whether they needed to “look at where we are, and then we may have to do some redesigning.”

Rolle emphasized that the Implementation Plan is “fluid, and so it is there as a working document to ensure that we are making progress towards the priority critical initiatives for year one” and that each year, they will choose another priority initiative to work on.

Certain: “I don’t think this is ready for a board vote.”

Certain said she was “leery of voting on this” because it was not specific enough and “we don’t have anything in here where we’re going to be measuring. We’re just saying these are key measures. But we don’t have a target as to what we’re going to work on in this next upcoming year… I don’t think this is ready for a board vote.”

Rockwell said she would be comfortable voting on the Strategy Map, but “the annual piece just really is not complete without the implementation plans because… it’s just too high-level.” She said she understood that the target dates for completing the benchmarks were fluid, so staff could leave out the target dates, but she wanted to see the activities and benchmarks. 

Motions

Abbitt made a motion to approve the Strategy Map, and Rockwell seconded the motion. The motion passed 4-1, with Certain in dissent.

Abbitt then made a motion to ask staff to bring back the Annual Improvement Plan after the activities and benchmarks are added, and Rockwell seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. 

Duval Early Learning Academy

Referring to an item on the consent agenda, Certain questioned an expenditure for removal of old playground equipment and installation of new equipment at Duval Early Learning Academy for $127,996.13. She said she would vote against that “because I am averse to spending limited dollars to do that, as I said, with Duval… We’ve got a lot of needs, and I think the sustainability of that program is, in my view, a little questionable, but it’s really hard to say because the board has not received information from Finance on our budget.” She was concerned that the school was not generating enough revenue to cover its expenses and that there are now fewer students at the school than there were when the decision was made to close the school a few years ago (Certain said she thought there were 133 students when that decision was made).

Andrew said that as of September 3, there were 91 students at the school – 38 who are Pre-K ESE and 53 who are Pre-K. He added that the district as a whole (PreK-12) currently has 26,119 students.

Certain voted “no” on a motion to approve the consent agenda to register her disapproval of the Duval playground expense, but the consent agenda was approved, 4-1.

During Citizen Input at the end of the meeting, Tina Days said Duval is getting ready to close in November and parents need to find another Pre-K school for their kids; she said this is “the consequence of [people] not voting.” She did not specify why she believed the school might close in November, but incoming board member Thomas Vu will join the board in November, and Chair Diyonne McGraw’s term will end.

McNealy seemed confused by Days’ comments and said she wanted some clarification: “I thought we were straight for this year, as far as that school being open… If that is an issue, like I heard a few minutes ago, in my district, District 4, we better have a workshop where we can all talk about it, because I’m not going to go home and sleep tonight with what I just heard.”

McGraw told her she could talk to Andrew after the meeting and adjourned the meeting.