Northwest Jacksonville Title I teachers sound off to Rick Scott, Pam Stewart

Rick Scott Pam Stewart

On Thursday, Florida Governor Rick Scott and Education Commissioner Pam Stewart held a “teacher roundtable” at an elementary school in Northwest Jacksonville.

Reynolds Lane Elementary, located near the industrial areas of Commonwealth Avenue, is in a neighborhood that shows up on the crime blotter and the lead stories of the news all too frequently.

Thursday saw Gov. Scott and Education Commissioner Pam Stewart listening to those primarily young, female, and enthusiastic teachers describe what it is they do and deal with on a daily basis, with all parties sitting on child-sized chairs in a mid-20th century styled library.

The governor wasn’t here in Jacksonville to talk … but to listen, to “hear your ideas,” he told the teachers.

And so it was he heard them. And promised to look at engaging deans of colleges of education into the issues related to Title I schools, as well as discussing waiving recurrent costs related to teacher certification.

****

Among the pressures: teacher certification, a recurring cost that led one teacher to say “we have to pay to stay employed,” and “it should be free.”

Licensure is also a pressure. Another teacher noted her desire of “permanent licenses,” saying “a lot of teachers actually dropped because they didn’t get that five-year removal.”

Scott explained these practices, saying that people want “accountability.”

“I’ve been able to get rid of 2,500 regulations on the state level,” Scott said, “and I’ll go back and look at this one.”

After the topic of professional credentials was exhausted, student behavior came up next.

****

Teachers feel “ill-equipped” to deal with student mental illnesses, especially those that have not been diagnosed.

“When they’re endangering the staff,” one teacher said, “there’s not much we can do.”

First-year teachers, said one instructor, could use training.

A school like this, said the instructor, has a great deal of such issues, due to a lack of parental involvement.

A “very high turnover of teachers” is the result.

“We had a field trip, and we couldn’t find chaperones,” the instructor said.

Some parents, said another teacher, “know school starts in August and ends in June.”

****

Still another teacher — a third-year teacher from the University of North Florida– learned that “I just feel a need to be here,” even though her school didn’t prepare her for a school such as this.

The governor was incredulous that deans of colleges of education don’t come to schools like this to see how things worked out.

In the post-event gaggle, the governor vowed to “talk to deans” and “make sure our universities are getting out and talking to teachers” at these schools.

Scott also vowed to “go back and look at fees to see if there’s anything I can get rid of there.”

“Nobody brought that up to me before,” Scott said.

A.G. Gancarski

A.G. Gancarski has been the Northeast Florida correspondent for Florida Politics since 2014. He writes for the New York Post and National Review also, with previous work in the American Conservative and Washington Times and a 15+ year run as a columnist in Folio Weekly. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter: @AGGancarski


4 comments

  • Natalie H.

    December 9, 2016 at 1:45 pm

    Parents are not engaged or involved unless the work in meaningful and personal. Personalize engagement for families.

  • Loraine Thompson

    December 9, 2016 at 7:11 pm

    No one told Rick about such expensive fees to stay teaching!! And I still believe in the tooth fairy at 56 yrs old!

  • Christine Tollens

    December 9, 2016 at 11:28 pm

    What about the teachers who go on vacation in the middle of the year?? Leaving students with substitutes who have no idea what the lesson is about? What about the same group of students who go around bullying others and school administrators continue ignoring the problem leading good students to be home schooled due to the bullying issue that never seems to get resolved? There are many other things that need to be changed in the school systems. Hillsborough county is one of them. There are teachers who are cursing at students and mistreating them because they are being backed up by a union or school board administration. This is also something that needs to be brought up. I have many times and it is being ignored; Hillsborough County school board refuses to acknowledge that there is in fact an issue.

  • Pamela Jordan

    December 10, 2016 at 9:57 am

    No unions or administrators should ever cover up or back up a teacher who mistreats students verbally or physically. My union certainly does not, and that is made clear to all teachers in my county. Let’s turn around the comment about teachers taking vacations in the middle of the school year. In my 22 years of teaching, it has been MUCH more common for STUDENTS to take vacations in the middle of the year, which leaves huge gaps in their education. Many families do not seem concerned that their students might miss one or two weeks of school because of a family vacation. Bullying is an ongoing issue due to not only lack of parental involvement, but refusal on the part of the parent to believe their child is the one doing the bullying.

Comments are closed.


#FlaPol

Florida Politics is a statewide, new media platform covering campaigns, elections, government, policy, and lobbying in Florida. This platform and all of its content are owned by Extensive Enterprises Media.

Publisher: Peter Schorsch @PeterSchorschFL

Contributors & reporters: Phil Ammann, Drew Dixon, Roseanne Dunkelberger, A.G. Gancarski, William March, Ryan Nicol, Jacob Ogles, Cole Pepper, Jesse Scheckner, Drew Wilson, and Mike Wright.

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @PeterSchorschFL
Phone: (727) 642-3162
Address: 204 37th Avenue North #182
St. Petersburg, Florida 33704