A.G. Gancarski
A Duval County School Board workshop on proposed district boundary changes, affecting urban core high schools Raines, Ribault, and Jackson, as well as their feeder programs, proved to be controversial, in no small part because Representative Corrine Brown stopped by on her way back to Washington DC.
An unexpected move, at least according to a few school board members and Duval Schools Superintendent Nikolai Vitti.
Going into Tuesday’s almost five hour session, the expectation was that the process, including feedback from working groups, community discussion, and a final vote on the boundary changes, would be wrapped by February, expediting changes in time for the 2016-17 school year.
That timeframe is in doubt.
The proposed changes impact a panoply of elementary and middle schools. Andrew Jackson high school would be changed, via the proposal, to a dedicated computer science and robotics magnet, with its neighborhood population reallocated to Ribault and Raines.
“The reality is that more children are opting out of Jackson than in,” Vitti said, adding that investment in new programs instead of a more comprehensive revamp is simply “robbing Peter to pay Paul.”
Likewise, Wolfson and White High Schools would be changed into magnets.
The common thread? Declining rates of neighborhood utilization of these schools, due to a combination of lowering population density in the districts and increased consumer preference for charter schools.
This is part of a larger revamp of the feeder patterns, which includes a renewed focus on early learning programs to conquer the constant challenge of literacy education.
The geographical revamp is necessary, says Dr. Vitti.
“Even if you create dynamic programs,” Vitti said early in the meeting, there are “not enough children to fill the seats” with residency rates in the urban core “flat or declining.”
The schools in the urban core are intended to accommodate 150,000 people, but best estimates are that 115,000 to 120,000 students are actually enrolled.
“As a district,” Vitti continued, “we are not expanding; we are constricting.”
“We are functioning already in a two-tier system,” Vitti added, and to that end “long-term and short-term” remedies are required.
Charter schools present their own challenges in myriad ways, including their taking of students who are more likely to be at grade level.
The problem is one of sustainability. The average building in DCPS is forty years old, which is the oldest average in the state.
The equation is further complicated by Jacksonville having the lowest local rate of funding of the Big 7 school districts in the state, coupled with a shifting of significant capital funds to the general fund in recent years.
Reimagining the model, says Vitti, would help with a larger reallocation of resources, including Ribault getting a much needed new building, an investment contingent on buy in from the business community.
Of course, not every elected official in Northeast Florida shares that philosophical orientation.
“I’m not happy with what I’m hearing,” said Congresswoman Corrine Brown. “Education is not a business.”
Brown, who lives “right around the corner” from Jackson, spoke of her recent visit to the principal’s office, which had a “bucket… catching water” from a roof leak.
Citing that as the “disparity we face,” Brown urged that “you wouldn’t have these problems if you had more innovative programming in schools.
“Community schools are important to our community. Our community needs intensive care, and you’re not providing it.”
“I’m your partner, but we’re not on the same team right now. The people I represent aren’t happy with these” proposed changes, Brown said.
“I’m not happy with any of you… we’re headed to court,” Brown said, if this goes through. “This is serious; no one is playing with you.”
Congresswoman Brown, soon thereafter, took leave of the School Board building, leaving Dr. Vitti to address her remarks.
“No superintendent wants to go through this process,” Vitti said. “As Superintendent, I don’t need to do this.”
The path of least resistance, he said, would be for things to “stay exactly the same way we’ve been.”
But for Vitti, stasis is not an option.
“We are dying on the vine,” the Superintendent said bluntly.
“We are not creating seats in high growth areas,” Vitti continued.
“I want to do this with the board, and it only happens if we work together.”
Board member Scott Shine, who referred to Vitti’s performance under pressure on Tuesday as his “shining moment,” noted that the board approved this plan 6-0 a week ago, including an amendment to accelerate the timeline.
What changed? One variable was introduced to the equation.
Whether one agrees with Shine that “what we saw today was inappropriate” or with board member Paula Wright, who concurred that allowing Congresswoman Brown to speak and, arguably, to shift policy was just a matter of “extending courtesy” to another elected official is a matter of perspective.
However, Superintendent Vitti, when asked after the meeting, asserted that “I don’t think that the congresswoman attending the meeting doesn’t lead to the politicization of the process.”
“Inevitably,” Vitti added, “the process and the conversation does become a political one.”
Vitti’s concern is that the necessary momentum for reform is stalled through the interjection of retail politics into the discourse. He contends that “real work” has been put into “improving the student experience.”
And for Vitti, that’s what it’s all about. He said during the meeting, and reiterated during our conversation Tuesday afternoon, that “I don’t believe that every single one of these changes has to happen as suggested.”
However, the academic and the financial elements must be discussed in his reckoning.
“Historically,” says Vitti, “what hurts public education is that we don’t talk about these realities.”
Vitti reemphasized being “committed long term” to Jacksonville in our conversation, as well as his dedication to “sustainable, long lasting reform and change.”
The challenges, he cautions, “aren’t going away,” though he recognizes having become the face for a lot of reforms which proponents claim are overdue and to which opponents ascribe malign motivations.
“Because I’ve initiated so much reform,” Vitti says, “it’s easy for the focus to be on me.”
“The reality is that I don’t need to put forth these changes. The status quo is much easier,” Vitti says, but changes are “essential to the survival of Duval County Public Schools.”
He cited examples of school districts in Memphis and Detroit that struggled with similar existential issues.
In Jacksonville, one possible outcome of failure to reform, said Vitti, could be a balkanization of the entire school system itself.
If larger issues are left unaddressed, districts like the Beaches and Mandarin could “eventually secede” from the larger school district.
This would leave serious questions about the viability of the district going forward.
No one expected the Vitti/Brown contretemps going into the workshop meeting. It illustrated serious issues that are not new to Jacksonville, yet are still unresolved. These issues, some would say, predate Consolidation itself.
