School board postpones approval of year-round calendar, removes two books from schools

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At the April 2 Alachua County School Board meeting, the board postponed a vote on a proposed calendar for two year-round schools and voted to remove two books for prohibited content. Member Sarah Rockwell requested that the district review books that were previously removed in light of a recent settlement of a lawsuit challenging the Parental Rights in Education Act.

Teachers’ union at risk of being decertified

During the update from Alachua County Education Association President Carmen Ward, Ward said that the teachers’ union will be “campaigning for that One Mill referendum to be passed in November.” She said that today, April 3, is “what I call Save the Union Day.” She said the union had just learned that they need an authorization form signed by each member; they need 60% of teachers and 60% of Education Support Professionals (ESPs) to join the union to avoid decertification, and right now they are at 65% of teachers but only 50% of ESPs, “and we are hoping to change that in the next two weeks to 60%.” She said the union was holding a district-wide event today “to get everyone to sign the authorization forms and also to sign an interest card in case we don’t have the numbers with our Education Support Professionals – that’s the first step in reorganizing the union.”

Reichert House Youth Academy Charter School presentation postponed; School Board workshop scheduled for April 10; outdoor activities canceled during eclipse

During the adoption of the agenda, Chair Diyonne McGraw announced that the agenda item for the Reichert House Youth Academy Charter School “will come to us at a later time.” McGraw also announced that the next School Board Workshop will be from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on April 10.

McGraw also said that “as we did in 2017 and other districts are doing this school year, we are canceling all outdoor activities on Monday, April 8, between 1:30 and 4:30 p.m., due to safety concerns with the eclipse.”

Calendar for new year-round schools

Chief of Teaching and Learning Jacquatte Rolle presented a proposed calendar for the two new year-round schools, Metcalfe Elementary and Rawlings Elementary. The school year would begin on July 16, 2024, with three summer Friday holidays, Fall Intersession for the week of September 23-27, holidays for the week of Thanksgiving, Winter Holidays from December 20 to January 6, Spring Holidays over March 10-21, and May 23 as the last day of school. 

Rolle said the year-round schedule is “an intervention to improve student achievement at both of these schools” and is a four-year pilot program. Students will continue to attend school for 180 days per year, and teachers will continue to work 196 days. 

Member Leanetta McNealy asked whether the calendar could be put on hold while the district provides “clarification” about the four-day weeks in July and August: “There were some concerns about the disruption.” She said the holidays on Fridays were likely scheduled because the school district runs on a four-day work week in the summer, but she wondered whether “these two schools would be able to have a straight five-day week, even though the district office may not be open.”

Rolle said the district is working to provide camps on those three Fridays in the summer so parents would not need to find childcare on those dates.

Member Kay Abbitt agreed with McNealy, saying that if the students start off with a four-day week at the beginning of the school year, “I think they kind of get in the routine of going four days a week, and I think that we need to do five days a week.” She said she had heard concerns about getting lunches to the schools on those dates, but she said other year-round charter schools get lunches from the district. 

Member Sarah Rockwell agreed, saying another concern she’d heard was from the “Specials” teachers, who said that “Specials” rotations that are scheduled on Fridays would not see students until the second month of school. 

Certain: “We would never do a change like this someplace else.”

Member Tina Certain also agreed, adding her concern that community meetings were not held to discuss the change to year-round schooling: “I think it’s disrespectful to disregard and just tell them what we’re going to do… If we approve this, we have taken away their choice.” She suggested keeping one of the two schools on a traditional schedule and letting the families in both schools select which calendar they prefer. She pointed out that while students who don’t want year-round schooling can apply for a zoning exemption, “we don’t provide transportation for zoning exemptions… The lack of community engagement with the parents – I don’t like it, especially because the parents look like me, and that was a big issue that I had before I was elected, and it’s still a concern of mine. We would never do a change like this someplace else.”

Abbitt pointed out that it’s already April but also said she didn’t like the schedule and the lack of parental input. She said she had suggested to Superintendent Shane Andrew that the district should make spots available at the schools for other parents that may be interested in year-round schooling, and families who want to opt out should be able to do that without having to submit a zoning exemption. Abbitt said she had pushed for year-round schools, “and we should be devoting all our time and energy to making sure this year-round school model works, but if we don’t do it right, we’re stuck with a model that could not be successful, and it’s going to turn people off.”

Referring to a parent who spoke during Citizen Input about the recently-announced change at Williams Elementary from an existing magnet to a Primary Years IB magnet, Rockwell said, “We have an existing magnet program at Williams that works well. I’ve said multiple times that the Primary Years program requires time and planning. It’s not that I’m against it, but it requires time and planning.” She pointed out that the district has the ability to postpone the change at Williams, but the year-round pilot is State-approved, and “we don’t have control of the timeline, so we do really need to focus our resources on getting this done right. And right now, looking at this calendar, I just don’t see it.”

Rockwell made a motion to table the year-round calendar until the next board meeting, and Certain seconded the motion.

Deputy Superintendent Cathy Atria said that in a survey of teachers at the two proposed year-round schools, 28 out of 32 responses appreciated the four-day work weeks in the summer. Andrew said the district has to collaborate with the teachers’ union on the schedule: “We thank everyone for their input. It’s been received, and we will follow up.”

McNealy made a “friendly amendment” to discuss the topic at the April 10 workshop. McGraw clarified that the motion was to discuss the calendar at the April 10 workshop and vote on it at the April 16 regular meeting, and in the meantime, “[Staff has] heard your concerns… See what you all can work to do.”

The motion passed unanimously.

Book challenges

The board then took up two book challenges: Haunted by Chuck Palahnuik and The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur. 

District Attorney Susan Seigle explained that the District Advisory Committee (DAC) had determined that Haunted “contains prohibited content that’s prohibited by Florida statute and should be removed from all school or classroom libraries in Alachua County… The Superintendent recommends that the School Board remove the book.” 

The recommendation from the DAC found that the book “describes the act of masturbation,” which is “prohibited content.”

Certain made a motion to remove the book, and Rockwell seconded it.

During public comment on the motion, six people spoke against removing books in general and Olivia Haley, who challenged the book, thanked the board for “making it easy to remove [the book] from the schools.”

The motion to remove the book passed unanimously.

District Attorney Susan Seigle explained that the District Advisory Committee (DAC) had determined that The Sun and Her Flowers “contains prohibited content and should be removed from school and classroom libraries in the district.”

The DAC found that the book contains an image that depicts masturbation and an image that depicts oral sex. 

Certain made a motion to remove the book, and Rockwell seconded it.

During public comment, one person thanked the board for removing the book, and one person objected to removing it. Another person objected to removing it and also criticized Haley for challenging books as a UF student. After that person spoke for three minutes, McGraw chided her for “calling out” names; McGraw said her reaction had been delayed because she was “trying to figure out whose name she was calling.”

Rockwell requests that previously-removed books be reviewed in light of lawsuit settlement

After public comment, Rockwell said, “I took an oath to uphold the law, and the law says that we have to remove books that contain sexual content… As so as I make this vote, which I do reluctantly, I am also requesting that, as a district, we make sure that we are reviewing the books that have already been removed to make sure that they are not exempted from removal, now that the State has settled… and I also ask that our citizens, who I believe are acting with… the best intentions of protecting children, read up on the most recent settlement from the State of Florida, because contrary to what we have heard this evening… we are not prohibited from having Media Center materials that represent LGBTQ children and families and citizens… And in the interest of saving taxpayer dollars, I would also suggest that books that are challenged based on the inclusion of those topics not be heard.”

Language in the settlement

The specific statements in the settlement are:

• Moreover, “just as no one would suggest that references to numbers in a history book constitute instruction on mathematics,” the Statute “would not prohibit[] incidental references in literature to a gay or transgender person or to a same-sex couple. Such references, without more, are not ‘instruction on’ those topics.”
• The Statute “does not prohibit stories where a prince and princess fall in love; it does not prohibit instruction against bullying people with one mom or two; and it does not prohibit mere references to moms and dads (or any combination thereof).”

Certain: “All laws aren’t good laws”

Certain said she agreed and added, “All laws aren’t good laws. And it was said that if you don’t like the laws to elect new representatives, new people, and that’s a lot easier said than done, especially in a state like Florida, where it has been shown that the folks who draw the districts where we vote have repeatedly practiced gerrymandering, packing, or cracking.” She thanked the people who had spoken against removing books “because if we just sit back and we take all of those things, nothing will ever change.”

The motion to remove the book passed unanimously.

Citizen attempts to read from a challenged book

During the second Citizen Input period, Bob Edewaard said that the settlement on the Parental Rights in Education Act has “a clear exception for Section 1006.28, which deals with selecting curriculum material, curating books, reviewing books, handling citizen and parent objections, and removing books… So all the comments of Member Rockwell are erroneous and don’t reflect the agreement.” Rockwell interjected, “Is he allowed to call my name?”

Edewaard then attempted to read two passages that explicitly described oral sex, in an attempt to get the book removed under the statute that requires a district to remove a book if the challenger is prohibited from reading it at a school board meeting. 

After he started reading the first passage, McGraw stopped him to check with Seigle; Seigle said she didn’t know whether Edewaard had challenged the book: “If you have challenged it and it’s on our website, then he is by statute entitled to read it or else we have to remove it.”

Edewaard said he had a copy of his challenge, so McGraw told him to proceed, and he read from the book for another 30 seconds before Seigle interrupted to say the challenge wasn’t listed on the district’s website. McGraw told Edewaard he couldn’t read from the book.

Edewaard handed a copy of his challenge up to the dais. Seigle said it would be “inappropriate to drop something off at the last minute and then come in and read something like this.” After she reviewed the copy of the challenge, she said it had been dropped off at 3:57 p.m. that day. 

After Citizen Input, Rockwell said, “I just want to reiterate that I would like us… to revisit our book review process and whether we have any books that were removed that should be returned.”