School Board selects Sarah Rockwell as next Chair, Tina Certain as Vice Chair
BY JENNIFER CABRERA
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At the November 19 Annual Organizational Meeting, the new Alachua County School Board selected Dr. Sarah Rockwell as its Chair and Tina Certain as its Vice Chair. New Member Thomas Vu and re-elected Member Leanetta McNealy were sworn in before the meeting.
In a meeting chaired by Acting Superintendent Cathy Atria, Vu made the motion to nominate Rockwell as the Chair, and Certain seconded the motion; the motion passed unanimously.
Rockwell made the motion to nominate Certain as the Vice Chair, and Member Kay Abbitt seconded the motion; the motion passed unanimously.
Meeting dates
In other business, the board voted to continue meeting at 6 p.m. on the first and third Tuesdays of each month (except the second meeting in December, the first meeting in January, and the first meeting in July), with a monthly workshop at 9 a.m. on the Wednesday following the first Tuesday meeting. There was a brief discussion about needing to be back for a 9 a.m. meeting after a Tuesday night meeting that can go late, but Atria said she has a conflict at 1 p.m. on the first Wednesday of the month. At Certain’s suggestion, the board added meetings at 6 p.m. on December 10 and January 14 because, Certain said, “We have a lot in addition to our regular board work and business of the district; we have noticed meetings with the [Superintendent] search and all.”
Certain also favored adding a third meeting in every month through June, but Rockwell said they could schedule those as needed; the motion stated by Atria prior to the vote did not include direction for a third meeting every month, but the motion that was typed into the agenda on the district’s website included the third meeting every month.
The motion passed unanimously.
Teacher removals at SI schools
The board allocated committee assignments and SI school assignments; during the discussion about SI schools, Certain said, “This issue with the VAM scores is very concerning to me. I’ve read in the paper, and we were told, that scores changed. And I’ve seen an email from DOE where they say that that’s not the case. So I don’t know. I asked for public records and emails, to be able to kind of confirm what I read in the paper, and I’m disappointed that I did not find that.” District officials have said that the recent removal of seven teachers from Rawlings and Alachua Elementary Schools was required because of the updated scores.
The only thing Rockwell should be chairing is the “mask up as a sign of leftist allegiance” commission.
She’s previously said that it’s due to her child’s autoimmunity disease. She blames the breath of regular people instead of the pharmaceutical cartel.
They all had her physique in the pictures she posted on her campaign website. In her weird world, fat people are just as healthy as everybody else, and anybody who says otherwise should be punished because that’s hate speech.
I couldn’t understand Rockwell through that face covering.
Think she can remove it while addressing the public or does she just not want us to know what’s going on?
Why is Rockwell called Doctor?
She has a Dr. JILL degree.
Online Doc of education. Lame.
Darth Vader lives on. How can she chair anything wearing that purple diaper and mask. She can’t communicate verbally with the mumbling under the diaper, and her appearance gives the impression of “do not speak to me or look at me.” You do not need a face diaper to protect you from parents. It doesn’t work
Total SBAC Member Sellout!
Does it matter who the (total failure) SBAC Chair is for the next 2 years? This SBAC has not decided on ONE concrete action that would positively impact AC education in 3 years now!
Now they elect Activist Certain as the Vice Chair over any other SBAC Members when McNealy made such a big deal out of it 3 plus years ago (https://alachuachronicle.com/school-board-elects-hyatt-as-chair-in-contentious-meeting/; McNealy said at the time: “McNealy stepped in, saying, “I’d like to say, because Mrs. Russell is new to the board, we’ve always had our Vice-Chair, who has been Vice-Chair all year long, moved—it’s just almost known that that would be the person who would be Chairman, and then we would look at Vice-Chair. Since I’m still Chairman, I’d like to hear from the public.”
Since Abbitt did not object to being bypassed, and newly elected member Nu, both fell in line and approved of the Activist being placed as the 2nd in command even though she as been a part of the ACPS downfall for the past 8 plus years, McNealy even longer! But, they both have no problem crying for the SBAC to follow “protocol” when it suits their purpose!
What is the point of this comment? Nothing in ACPS will change as long as McNealy, Certain, Rockwell, and Abbitt are on the board! Their priority is on DEI, no discipline, no consequences for failing grades, and on and on…………………….
Congratulations on electing the current DEI activists who could care less about what their preferred focus group will do as uncontrolled discipline and failed testing continues in Alachua County Public Schools!
Pick a private school now for next year! Do not send your students to any school associated with ANY current SBAC member!
Defund SBAC!
Send your kids anywhere else. You and they will be better off.
Now that she’s in charge (I hope I don’t have nightmares after seeing that picture), the other two schools in Newberry probably wish they had voted for charter school conversion.
So, we have a new chair of the school board STILL wearing a mask. That alone should disqualify her from holding any office.
I hope no kids see her. It will discourage them.
They met on Halloween?
What is the face diaper for????
More ‘musical chairs’ at the school board. Meanwhile….the kids aren’t getting any smarter despite all the wasteful spending.
Is it even legal in the State of Florida to wear masks in public buildings?
She likes to scare the Students and show them you don’t need a brain to become a Doctor (the “I Wrote A Paper” kind like McNealy)!
Wait. What? The mask thing is soooo 2020. Clearly out of touch.
Way to go, elect someone silly enough to still be wearing mask to head the school board.
I’ve seen 2 photographs of Sarah Rockwell out and about without her mask. One was on a political flyer for Thomas Vu and the other time was when she took her son to a music event after a board meeting (she wore the mask to the meeting). This tells me that her face mask is simply nothing more than a pathetic attempt at virtue signaling.
I am deeply concerned for the future of the state of education in our county. Rockwell and Certain are absolutely occupying their seats for their own special interests. If you don’t fit into their specific racial or special learning needs categories, then you aren’t worthy of their time or efforts.
Every other surrounding county far surpasses our school district.
I wonder if she voted for Trump..
She needs an Oxygen Brain scan — an OBS — to see if that mask has shrunken her IQ the last 5 years.
Another Year , Another giant step backwards, The they scratch their mindless heads over a County C Grade. Thanks Gville voters. Keep smoking that Biomass .
SBAC has gone so woke & left-tard loony that this nomination is basically par for the course at this point.
Complete comedy of errors…
Her first attempt at making sure all children fail equally was trying to change the permanent grading scale.
The lowest grade a student could get was 50%.
All test questions wrong? 50
Didn’t hand in the book report? 50
They actually discussed this as a possibility for ewuity in alachua county.
Hide yo kids…. she has a mask for a reason
I note such lopsided numbers in the up and down votes that it makes me think someone called on all her friends to downvote the negative comments. It’s just too lopsided to be real.
Wow! Looks like someone rallied the SBAC liberals to vote all of our comments down. LOL! Doesn’t the new Superintendent start her tenure today? Let the new circus begin!
Imagine sending your children to be taught by this degenerate rabble.