“Some of their stuff on there, I don’t agree with”: school board discusses Prager U videos as part of back-to-school update

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At a four-hour workshop on August 2, the Alachua County School Board heard updates from a number of departments in preparation for school starting this Thursday.

Rezoning and zoning exemptions

During an update on rezoning, Chief of Equity, Inclusion, and Community Outreach Dr. Anntwanique Edwards told the board that the number of parents contacting the zoning office about zoning exemptions is “ridiculously high” right now. She said zoning exemptions have been revoked in “Newberry and out in that area” to manage enrollment numbers and that several appeals have been scheduled.

Edwards also told the board that the new zoning maps for 2024-25 will be available on August 14, two days before the August 16 rezoning workshop.

Member Leanetta McNealy said parents are complaining to her that nobody answers the phone in the zoning office and that she, as a school board member, also can’t get an answer. Edwards said she would try to get a volunteer in the office to answer the phone. 

Strategic Plan

During an update on the strategic plan, multiple board members questioned the amount of community outreach that is being done. Stakeholder interviews are planned for August 30, in preparation for two days of meetings between Cognia (the vendor selected for the strategic planning process) and district staff. 

Jacquatte Rolle, Chief of Teaching and Learning, said the stakeholder interviews will be done in 45-minute sessions and will include students, teachers, parents, and community stakeholders. 

Member Sarah Rockwell said she was concerned that no students, parents, or community members are on the strategic planning team: “We’re missing a whole perspective here.” She said she had been told that the focus groups would be held separately and that she believed the district should spend “weeks, if not months,” doing community engagement “all over the district.” She said the effort felt like “checking a box–okay, we did these focus group meetings with some stakeholders.”

Rolle said her office asked schools for lists of students that were representative of those schools’ demographics, and they also have stakeholders from Gainesville For All, the University of Florida, Santa Fe College, and the Early Learning Coalition. She said the “faith-based leader” will be Pastor Gerard Duncan, and there will be representatives from Leadership Gainesville, the Chamber of Commerce, and Children’s Trust.

Chair Tina Certain asked Rolle to contact other pastors because she said Pastor Duncan doesn’t live in the county any more. Member Diyonne McGraw said she could offer some names for pastors: “Sometimes we continue to bring the same people to the table all the time, so we miss out on opportunities.”

Deputy Superintendent Cathy Atria said they had spent a great deal of time making sure they had student and parent representation from “all subgroups, all demographics, as well as students and caregivers from all schools… whether it was a rural school, a city school.” She said the focus group meetings will be conversational in nature, with elementary, middle, and high school groups meeting separately; participants will be offered a choice between virtual and in-person sessions. She said students would probably attend virtually “from their school site.”

Substitute teachers and school meals

During an update on reopening for the fall, Chief of Operations Maria Eunice said the district will now be using Employee Self Service (ESS) as the vendor for substitutes. Substitutes with high school diplomas, associate degrees, and bachelor’s degrees will earn $15/hour, and retired teachers will earn $17/hour. 

Meal prices increased this year for the first time since 2015 (meals are free for all students at 32 schools):

• Breakfast – $1.50
• Elementary lunch – $2.50
• Secondary lunch – $2.75
• Adult breakfast – $2
• Adult lunch – $4

Transportation

The Transportation Department has a new communications system, with a contact form that can be found here. It can also be accessed from the “We Want to Hear From You” graphic on the Transportation Department website and is currently highlighted on the district’s home page. Eunice said someone will respond within 24 hours during the work week. 

The district’s new Find My Bus app is also now live so families can find their bus route. The app does not provide the actual location of the buses.

Staffing

During a presentation from Rolle, Member Kay Abbitt said, “We don’t have teachers in the classroom. We sit here today and we spend an hour and a half talking about Diamond Sports Park, and in the whole time that I’ve been here since November, we’ve never had an in-depth discussion about how we’re going to get teachers in those SI [School Improvement] schools–24 vacancies in the SI schools.” She said there are only one or two vacancies in schools in the western part of the county. Again making a point she has repeatedly made since being elected, Abbitt advocated for reassigning TSAs [Teaching Staff Assistants] into classrooms: “And I’m not saying that you have to pull every TSA; pull enough to get more bodies in the classroom.”

During an update on ESE services, Edwards followed up on an earlier board decision to add a Career and Technical Education (CTE) focus at alternative schools and said A. Quinn Jones is “moving towards having a more CTE focus, with at least one class where they would focus on more entrepreneurial types of focus for students.”

Mental health services

Edwards said social workers providing mental health support will be assigned to schools based on the severity of the needs in the schools. The district has applied for a grant that will pay for two additional social workers to serve at A. Quinn Jones and Sidney Lanier. 

Edwards said they are increasing the number of “calm rooms” in the schools; Ft. Clarke Middle School’s calm room will open tomorrow, and they are working on adding additional calm rooms and spaces. She said some elementary schools have “calm corners,” and two or three have them school-wide. Edwards said, “Those supports exist to give students opportunities to reset and restart within the classroom setting.”

She said the school district is moving forward with providing Spanish language training and support for front office staff and school guidance counselors. 

Top goals

Edwards said the district is focusing on two core foundations this year: caring relationships and clear academic goals. A representative from the Equity office will visit all schools on a schedule to work on those foundations instead of waiting for a request, as was done in previous years.

Certain asked Superintendent Shane Andrew for his top goals for the year, which the board can use to evaluate his performance. He said the common theme is “accelerating achievement for all,” and the goals set by his staff include attendance and supports for students: “So, you know, I think all means all, as we have said, and that’s our focus, to accelerate achievement for all students, support all students, no matter what it might be, whether it’s our LGBTQ+ students, to our ESE students, to our athletes, to everybody, top to bottom, regardless of what subgroup they’re in, and regardless of their gender identity, we want to support all kids.” 

Andrew said safety is another focus: “I think we’re building a team there, in our Office of Safe Schools, that’s going to be the best in the state, quite frankly.” He added, “I appreciate the pressure, the push that [you] want [improvement] yesterday. And we do, too.”

LGBTQ Guide

Rockwell requested an update on the revised LGBTQ Guide at the next board meeting; Andrew said a new State Board of Education rule on pronouns will take effect on August 22, so they’re still working on “guidance for AKA processes for our school administrators.”

The rule implements Florida Statute 1000.071, which states, “a person’s sex is an immutable biological trait and that it is false to ascribe to a person a pronoun that does not correspond to such person’s sex.” The statute goes on to say that “an employee, contractor, or student of a public K-12 educational institution may not be required, as a condition of employment or enrollment or participation in any program, to refer to another person using that person’s preferred personal title or pronouns if such personal title or pronouns do not correspond to that person’s sex.” It also prohibits employees from providing their preferred personal pronouns to a student if those pronouns “do not correspond to his or her sex.” An employee may not ask a student for their personal pronouns. 

Prager U supplemental curriculum

Certain brought up the Prager U supplemental curriculum that was recently approved by the State Board of Education. She suggested that “principals let parents know if teachers plan to use that, because some parents may take issue with that.” Andrew said his staff is putting together information about that for principals and teachers. 

Andrew said the addition of the Prager U supplemental curriculum “occurred post-selection, and we’ve selected our instructional materials and gone through those processes… So that curriculum was not included in offerings at that time.”

Certain pointed out that the Prager U materials are free, and teachers can “pull it down and incorporate it into a lesson… If my kid was in a classroom with that, just speaking for me, and the teacher’s gonna use that, I want to know, because that’s something that they’re gonna come home, and I’ve got to clean it up… because some of their stuff on there, I don’t agree with, a good bit of it.”

Atria said the district has a process that teachers are asked to go through regarding the use of supplemental materials, and they will share that with the board in the future.