A.G. Gancarski
There will be a gap of time between what candidates for the Duval County School Superintendent job say and when it’s reported to the public.
That’s a message from a District advisory requiring a delay on publicizing the responses from Monday’s full Board interviews of Christopher Bernier and Daniel Smith until Wednesday.
“No livestreaming of the interviews. Also please do not publish any of the interview questions or responses until Wednesday, May 15. We are asking this so the candidates do not have an advantage or insight into how the other candidate responded. The interviews will officially be over on Wednesday (there are one-on-one interviews with individual board members on Tuesday),” said Laureen Ricks on behalf of the District.
The process to replace Diana Greene, the last appointed permanent Superintendent of the district, has taken roughly a year. Interim Superintendent Dana Kriznar has held the position in the meantime.
Bernier was previously the appointed Superintendent of Lee County, which adopted an elected leader model and drove him to resign. Smith comes from Loudoun County, Virginia, where he served for a time as acting Superintendent.
The answers will likely be driven from the news cycle by the time they are publicized, with Mayor Donna Deegan and the Jacksonville Jaguars slated to present a proposal for stadium renovations to the City Council on Tuesday, amounting to the biggest capital spend in local history if approved by the legislative branch.
11 comments
Larry Gillis, Libertarian (Cape Coral)
May 9, 2024 at 11:46 am
Sorry, but you should “let it all hang out”, as soon as it is in the hands of the Government. Embargoing governmental information, even however briefly, is a VERY bad habit to get into, especially at this level in the food chain.
Withholding the names of rape victims as might serve a proper public purpose, but anything less than that is unacceptable.
Vote Libertarian.
Nope
May 9, 2024 at 2:05 pm
The mayor of Jacksonville and her lackey City Council and the Governor of Florida all share something in common: they do not believe themselves accountable to the Sunshine Laws or taxpayers and prefer to act like autocrats of their fiefdom. Yes, it’s a bad habit to get into. It means they are not accountable to the people and free to abuse the citizens and ransack public coffers for their own gains. And there’s a lot of that going on. A lot. DCSB has always acted like they own the kingdom and can mismanage it however they wish. Whoever they choose will be in it for the pay check only and then get out, just like the last one.
MH/Duuuval
May 9, 2024 at 10:50 pm
I can wait two days — it’s being stiffed by Dee TOTALLY gets under my skin.
MH/Duuuval
May 10, 2024 at 5:03 pm
Those MAGA louts on Council are DD’s lackeys? PLEASE, COME IN OUT OF THE SUN NOW.
MH/Duuuval
May 9, 2024 at 10:48 pm
Paying your own way to hear and see DJT at your so-called convention?
Nope
May 10, 2024 at 5:50 pm
There you go again. Just because somebody criticized Jax idiocracy doesn’t mean they’re schlepping water for the donald. It’s not always about party politics. And yes, to be more accurate, any mayoral administration and all city council members are lackies to the big con. It’s as if once elected, they go into the body snatchers secret lab and are replaced with pod people versions of their formerly aspirational selves, and all their self direction sucks down to the bottom like a hair clogged drain. I don’t care which party they start out in, the results generally are the same. The zombie mantra is sell out the city, buy off developers at any cost, and ignore legacy issues and keep padding the favorite areas so it continues disparities. That’s just Jax. You seem to want to make everything about us vs them party politics and the only us vs them I can see is concerned citizens against a brain trust of boiled potatoes that never seems to change once in office. My comment about democrats in office is a larger point—Dems get in office on sweeping promises, maybe things don’t go as planned, they get sucked into the vortex, fail on promises, their fickle base abandons them, and voila, one term mayor. Look at the history. I don’t shake my Pom poms for either party. I just want good governance for the greatest good, logic, transparency, and accountability. That seems to be too heavy a lift for Jax.
I don’t care about the 2 day delay either but I stand by my point. The lack of engagement and transparency by DCSB precedes even the charter schools issue and the vacuum left room for mfl to move in and charters and magadroids to move in, and now you have a board where there are members who are fundamentally not supportive of the mission they are supposed to represent, in effect mvp’s against the school system. Why else would they be trying to dismantle and discredit the best anchor schools in the city? There’s a lot more to it and it’s been a long time coming. The charter scam will be one of if not the biggest takeover of public trust in the state’s history—transferring public tax dollars to private corporations while further denigrating classical educational standards and local control. With that losing mindset, anyone dcsb hires will be little more than a sock puppet and underqualified to deal with the unprecedented complexities facing the district. Whoever it ends up being will not stay long unless they prove sufficiently inept. If they’re any good they’ll get run out on a rail. I would love to be wrong.
MH/Duuuval
May 10, 2024 at 9:32 pm
The game in Duval is rigged in favor of right-wing white men and their Black and female converts — known today as MAGAs — due to the five at-large seats on the Council. This was the great Consolidated rip-off.
Repurpose the five seats to their original setting as district seats, and locals would have a shot at representative government: I’m talking a bona-fide purple county, to top to bottom. (I have been focused on this issue since 1986, off and on, in Jax and at the Beaches, and even today most white folks just roll their eyes when I mention the vote dilution that results — Black folks immediately get it, if they already hadn’t figured it out.)
This actual revolution won’t permanently stymie the power of the “Bigfoot avid-a-dollars” who have controlled the city since its founding, but it will keep them more honest.
As for DCSB lacking transparency, how does this differ from any bureaucratic structure. It just happens that DCSB is so large that the bureaucracy is more voluminous.
Nope
May 11, 2024 at 1:16 pm
I wholly agree about the at-large seats. I don’t even understand how it’s allowed. It is a scam and there is no accountability. One of the biggest rip offs from consolidation, which has never fulfilled its promises, and actually worked against what it promised to do, instead keeping Jax effectively a redlined town. I also agree on caveat emptor on electing the superintendent. I think it’s the right thing in theory and probably its time has come, but we also know in practice what will likely happen since apparently weaponizing children’s wellbeing, rights, and futures is one of the new favorite maga tablestakes.
rick whitaker
May 10, 2024 at 8:31 pm
LARRY, vote flushing never helps anybody. pick a team, and make it better. to sit on the sidelines and complain about how the people that matter do it, is lazy.
Margaret
May 10, 2024 at 5:27 pm
The position of Superintendent of Duval County Schools should be an elected one. Then, the candidates’ resumes could be debated by all of the Citizens and parents so that an informed decision could be made at the ballot box. That this process has not been followed for some years, we have ended up with a mixture of mediocre, with too few excellent candidates.
The current School Board does not inspire confidence in their ability to choose. Having the entire community vote would be a far better way to choose.
MH/Duuuval
May 10, 2024 at 9:37 pm
Better think twice about electing the superintendent, which is the goal of MAGA Florida. (Or, take the JSO as a study in electing sheriffs who view themselves as the top constitutional officer in the county — not the mayor.) The School Board makes the decision a bit more decentralized and credentials play a larger role in hiring someone. (Apparently MAGA doofus Manny Diaz has put in a word for one of the two DCSB finalists. My vote: the other guy.)